Oxidative stress and inflammation go hand in hand. Aging has rising levels of both. Mitochondrially targeted antioxidants such as SkQ1 were first approved for

Oxidative stress and inflammation go hand in hand. Aging has rising levels of both. Mitochondrially targeted antioxidants such as SkQ1 were first approved for use against inflammatory eye conditions. They act to dampen the consequences / amount of inflammation, and do this by cutting down on oxidizing molecules produced within mitochondria. They were first developed out of an interest to slow aging through this sort of modulation of mitochondrial oxidative stress and damage. They do slow aging to some degree, but don't do anywhere near as well as calorie restriction - say 10% in flies, something less than that in mice, which isn't impressive. The first earnest human trials for mitochondrially targeted antioxidants such as MitoQ (which from the studies is actually less effective than SkQ1) suggest it can reduce the impact of oxidative stress or inflammation on the smooth muscle cells in blood vessel walls. Their dysfunction produces some fraction of the stiffening of blood vessels with age. That stiffening causes raised blood pressure, which in turn causes too many bad things to list here. So these are not massive effects. You can probably do as well as MitoQ by bumping up your exercise level to the next tier. But then you can always both exercise and take a mitochondrially targeted antioxidant. The costs are not high, so it may be worth it based on the preliminary data. Not a cure for aging, and thus not worth spilling immense amounts of ink and effort over it. Just something to think about doing and then get on with better development projects with better expected outcomes.