Senior health reporter Alexa Mikhail shares key takeaways from the Longevity Investors Conference in Gstaad, Switzerland. Experts discuss current research, potential future developments, and practical advice for living a longer, healthier life.
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00:00Now, for every drug, we will save 100 people and kill three.
00:04So we have to choose the right 100 people and not to include the three, right?
00:10So this is the challenge.
00:11Hello, my name is Alexa McHale and I'm a senior health and wellness reporter at Fortune magazine.
00:16And I'm here in Gstaad, Switzerland for three days for the Longevity Investors Conference.
00:21It's been really fascinating to talk to different people at the forefront of the business of
00:26living longer, as well as researchers who are at the cutting edge of new biotechnology
00:31to potentially extend life.
00:33Here's what they say about how to live a longer life.
00:36So sleep is the most important thing.
00:38And it's very hard, especially to come to this when you're socializing 14 hours a day
00:42and networking, getting to know people because every single conversation here is fascinating.
00:46But you need to prioritize sleep.
00:48And most of us are absolutely terrible at that.
00:50So a lot of my biohacks and I introduce my patients, the things I do myself is we optimize
00:55over my sleep.
00:56If you go back 10 years ago when I was a plastic surgery consultant, I was running a number
01:00of plastic surgery clinics, you actually would look at my sleep and think, oh my goodness,
01:05this guy is going to die in his 50s.
01:08And now I can sleep really easily, really comfortably for eight hours.
01:12And this is this is through a combination of winding down even having evening routines,
01:17the things you sort of teach to your children as they're growing up, the things that we
01:20can really do with as adults.
01:22So avoiding that sort of blue light in the evening, trying to really have that sort of
01:26routine we wind down and potentially using supplements as well to help optimize that.
01:31Experts recommend sleeping eight hours per night for optimal health and longevity and
01:35spending at least one hour without screen time before bed if you can.
01:45I really think that we should not treat our body as a snapshot, but a story and the story
01:49can only be rewritten if you have more words, which means that you should test the body
01:53continuously.
01:54And now we have, for example, digital devices.
01:57So we have smart watches, we have smart rings, and these devices help to monitor the physiology.
02:03So we can already measure and monitor the temperature, the heart rate variability.
02:07We can measure the glucose levels with a continuous glucose monitoring device.
02:11So we can we have the capability already.
02:14So there are four drugs that are FDA approved, which means they went through clinical trials.
02:26Not only that, they had through multiple clinical trials and all of them have showed that they
02:34target the process of aging, that if you give them to animals, they live longer.
02:39But more important that if you give them to humans and those are drugs that were not approved
02:44for aging, they were approved for something else.
02:49And you give them for something else and they prevent a bunch of diseases and also prevent
02:56overall mortality.
02:59The most known one is the Ozempi kind of drug, right, the GLP-1, that was developed for diabetes.
03:07And I'm a diabetologist, so I've been using it for more than seven years, right?
03:10So I know a lot about this drug or this kind of drug, Ozempi is relatively new, but we
03:16were using these drugs before.
03:19So it was developed for diabetes and it was shown to actually decrease obesity.
03:25And it was shown in obese people to prevent heart disease, to prevent kidney disease,
03:31to prevent Parkinson's, to prevent Alzheimer's, to prevent liver disease, because it actually
03:37targets the mechanisms of aging.
03:40So in my mind, you should, any elderly patient that you have that is obese or even overweight,
03:52you should consider giving him this drug.
03:54There is a new field developing, which is AI-based drug discovery.
03:59So these are compounds, these are molecules, like pieces that will be then created into
04:05medication.
04:06And they can be very precisely designed and then synthesized with help of AI into something
04:13that will be working on one of a specific process of aging, fibrosis, like our organ
04:20structure is changing, or ovarian aging, or some other hormonal receptors.
04:31One big question I had at this longevity conference was, how will this all be paid for?
04:36And who will have access to these life-extending innovations?
04:40I believe I'm most excited about the fact that it will permeate the public sector.
04:46So coming from really a public sector medicine, I really want this to be accessible and affordable
04:51for all.
04:52And I think as the diagnostic is getting more abundant, the cheaper it is, right?
04:57Just like whole genome sequence, it cost, before it costed like thousands of dollars.
05:01Now it can be done for even $500 or less.
05:05So that will make a big difference in order for us to be able to apply it to a broader
05:13amount of patients.
05:14And through that, we will generate more data.
05:17And with this broader amount of data, we can be even more precise and scale even further.
05:23That is something I'm very excited about.
05:25And second, again, going back to the AI, I'm really excited about AI-based drug discovery
05:29because I believe that this is the only way for us to really scale and be more targeted
05:35and rather than using something that is already existing, repurposing and adjusting, we can
05:40just create something that will target specifically one of our problems in aging.
05:44I think for immediately, some of the things are very basic.
05:49So they are really affordable because to measure hearing and vision and smell and taste, that
05:54doesn't require too much, of course.
05:56And a lot of that can be covered by the healthcare system.
06:00The other things are, of course, not as easily available, but still, for a good middle class,
06:07probably accessible right now in some of the countries.
06:10So to get a brain MRI and then to fuel it into some of the companies who do the brain
06:15algorithms, that's quite inexpensive at the moment.
06:19So that's already available.
06:22And even just talking to a family doctor and asking, hey, could I get an assessment with
06:27a neuropsychologist?
06:30In many cases, probably the answer would be yes, if the people will request.
06:33And I guess that's also one of the things, when there will be more requests coming from
06:37patients, the healthcare system will respond better and faster than if only us doctors
06:42will push for that.
06:44This event highlighted a lot of promising innovations around aging and longevity.
06:49But the experts I talked to noted that the main pillars of healthy aging are lifestyle
06:53changes, especially for healthy young people.
06:56Not every drug that's good for old people is good for young people.
07:01But the things that are good for young and old are exercise, diet, sleep and social connectivity.
07:08So you can always maximize that.