Longevity at HLTH Why Healthy Ageing Is Finally Going Mainstream

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Foreign. Welcome to Beyond Longevity, the podcast that explores not just how we age, but how we can build a longer, healthier future for ourselves.

Over the past few years, longevity has gone from being a niche topic to becoming one of the fastest growing conversations in healthcare. That shift is perhaps best illustrated by Health.

With major annual conferences in both the United States and Europe, health has become one of the world's most influential healthcare events.

It is one of the few places where every part of healthcare comes together, from science and medicine to investment, policy and industry, in order to discuss the future of medicine and healthcare. Many of healthcare's biggest emerging ideas are debated at health long before they become part of everyday clinical practice.

Longevity is now one of those ideas.

So when a conference like Health gives longevity a major platform, it is worth asking, why has longevity finally become part of mainstream healthcare, which approaches deserve serious attention? And what role should longevity play in the future of medicine?

To discuss those questions, I'm joined by two of the people helping to shape that conversation.

Jody Tropeano Greene is head of Content at Health, and Alexa Mikhail leads the conference's programming for Longevity, Healthy Aging, Women's health, and Consumer Wellness. Welcome Jodi and Alexa, thank you for joining me today on Beyond Longevity. Why don't you introduce yourselves? Let's start with Jodi.

Speaker B: 00:01:54

Thanks, Daphna. I'm Jody Tropeano Greene. I'm the head of Content for Hlth.

of health, our first event in: 2018

I always like to be a little ahead of the curve too, so you know, longevity is a very popular topic right now, but it's something we've been covering for many years on the US program and we'll bring it to Europe. Thanks for your suggestion, Daphna.

Speaker C: 00:02:37

And I'm Alexa Mikhail. I am new to health, so not here for eight years.

Like Jody, I'm our content lead for the US conference and particularly focused on our programming around longevity, aging well, women's health, consumer wellness, and oncology, and have had the pleasure of going to health over the years as a journalist and reporter. So now getting to work on it from the inside, which will be exciting.

Speaker A: 00:03:02

Jody, as head of Content at Hlth, what does your role involve and how do you decide which topics deserve a place on one of healthcare's biggest stages?

Speaker B: 00:03:15

tting harder. Like I said, In: 2018

So I guess capturing the audience's attention span was a little bit easier back then, but now our event has grown really significantly.

There's a lot going on at the event, from meetings, programs, to all of the wonderful sponsor activations, you know, more bespoke stuff, side events going on. So for our main agenda content, like, we really need to grab people's attention.

And the way to do that is to pick the most trending topics and cover them in a way that is unique. There's a lot of webinars and, you know, hot takes out there, but what's something that people really aren't saying out loud?

And can we approach the topic in that way and try to push our speakers a little more outside of their comfort zone and hopefully stir some healthy debate on stage? Especially a topic like longevity, There's a lot of different schools of thought.

So we want to capture all of those schools of thought within each of the sessions and leave people maybe with a different perspective than they thought coming into the session. Longevity is an easy topic to do that. Some of the other topics we cover are a little bit harder. But for longevity, there's a lot to debate.

So this year we have a whole circuit, a whole day dedicated to longevity that Alexa is leading on our team.

Speaker A: 00:04:41

Alexa, tell us a little bit more about this whole longevity field that you're covering.

Speaker C: 00:04:46

Yeah, I've had the pleasure of covering it as a journalist and now kind of programming it on the stage. And it's been really interesting to Jodi's point around healthy debate.

I think I've learned through reporting on the sector that there really is a fairly clear difference between healthy aging and longevity. And I feel like longevity has been in the ethera.

It's had this buzzword, but really there's a difference between sort of public healthy aging measures what we think of as how do we collectively age. Well, whether that's how we think about designing a city for walkability and public, healthy exercise opportunities. And then longevity.

I think what really is sort of there's a lot of noise in that space and what we tend to see, especially online or with health influencers, is sort of the consumer longevity marketplace, where there's a lot of ways to biohack your health, you're paying for thousands of dollars of subscription services or full body MRIs. And that really is kind of an area of individualistic measures to optimize your health. Some are untested, some are right.

But I think that the healthy aging conversation is really around the most well researched cornerstones of aging well, which really are still eating well, sleeping, minimizing your stress, having good relationships with others. Those will always sort of be the tried and true.

And then this longevity market, on the other hand, is kind of those who have oftentimes the means and time to think about leveling up in the next way. So we're really excited to program a conversation that really looks at how are we even describing healthy aging versus longevity?

And really having someone from a public health perspective and then someone from really this longevity movement really trying to think about reverse aging, if you've heard of that. And yeah, have that kind of debate around what are we really getting at?

Because in many ways, the longevity conversation is not something that feels accessible to the masses.

Speaker B: 00:06:39

And we always want to be careful about putting things on our program that are medically untested, not clinically validated. And longevity is a tough area for that because so much of it is really unproven. But we felt like it's important to put those voices on stage.

We vet them ahead of time. We don't want anyone giving really horrible advice on our stage.

But I think what Alexa said that's so important is we're really focusing on those lifestyle factors like the eat, sleep, move, have good friends, be mindful, minimize stress. Like that is proven, that can really move the needle.

So I think we, we are putting a bigger emphasis on that side of the house, but we also want to dip our toe in the more experimental world.

Speaker C: 00:07:25

Yeah, and I'll also say what's interesting is that there's just a lot of appetite for it, even from just a consumer perspective.

There's a recent McKinsey study that found, I believe, like up to 60% of consumers are, you know, see healthy aging as a very important priority or somewhat important priority.

So people are out there getting the information and they want to know what's going to work to move the needle and live healthier, especially just given that we are an aging population. So it's definitely something that we see worth covering in the space.

Speaker A: 00:07:51

Jody, you mentioned that health is not a biohacking conference. It is a serious platform for healthcare leaders, researchers, insurers and entrepreneurs.

How do you decide who deserves a place on the stage while Balancing and challenging ideas with the need for credible evidence.

Speaker B: 00:08:12

Yeah, I mean, there's not a perfect science to it. We'll likely make mistakes every year. But I think all in all, we're doing a ton of research on our side on these individuals.

We're looking at their social profiles, what they're posting. We're looking to see if they've been a guest on any podcasts out there.

And we're listening to those and getting kind of a deeper sense of their point of view. And we like people with strong point of views that have the evidence to back it up.

So not someone who's just going to lob up a crazy statement and then have nothing in the background to prove it. We're spoiled. We have our choice of a lot of really, really, really amazing executives that throw their hat in the ring to come speak at our event.

So, honestly, we have too many good choices. That's. That's our biggest problem.

Alexa, through this conversation, can share some of the leaders that, that she has booked for the longevity track in particular, but a lot more to come. We're really just getting started with our programming.

Speaker A: 00:09:05

You have watched countless healthcare trends emerge over the years.

Speaker B: 00:09:09

Yes.

Speaker A: 00:09:09

What do you think has to happen before a niche idea becomes part of the mainstream healthcare conversation?

Speaker B: 00:09:17

Yeah, Alexa and I may have differing opinions on this, but I think just from seeing even topics beyond longevity over the years and what becomes mainstream, I feel like you can really follow the money. And, you know, what's getting funding, what companies are getting backed by major investors. Like if a Oak or General Catalyst is.

Is backing a longevity company, like, that's a good signal that this is something we should be paying attention to.

And also when the health system start talking about it, I think that's another kind of light bulb for us that this is something that's a lot more mainstream. Now.

Speaker C: 00:09:53

I would also add, you know, something that I have seen and thought about, too. Yes, definitely. To Jody's point, it's following the money. And particularly, I'm also working a lot on our women's health circuit.

And, you know, we've seen so, so much noise in women's health and a lot of investment.

You know, whether it's from Melinda Gates or also unicorn companies like MIDI Health kind of coming to the forefront earlier this year, a lot of reports coming out about the exits of women's health and how we've just poorly defined the category in general. So I think to your point of how does something really come to be a topic? I think it's the Noise in the space.

It's the investment and it's also kind of the potential and innovation because these conversations are really trying to be solutions based.

And so having someone from a startup, but also from a health system from a payer perspective all weigh in on something that we're all seeing and talking about and being ahead of the curve I think is really important.

Speaker B: 00:10:44

And there's a few bloggers that we follow and we send the articles to each other when it's a topic we were planning to put on the program and then we see a Chrissy Farr, Nikhil Krishnan or Neal Shah wrote an article on that same topic. We're like, okay, I know we're on the right track now if they're picking up on this too. So that's another good signal for us.

Like we're, we're really reading everything, watching everything and trying to absorb kind of the pulse of the industry. That weird analogy, but you get what I mean.

Speaker C: 00:11:15

Yeah, I mean another example too is when it comes to longevity, we think a lot about the fact that we're just tracking our health so much more and that we're given the option to get a lot more data on our health.

And so, you know, we've seen more reports in the industry and also it's something that we've already thought about programming on the stage around, okay, what do we do with all of this data? And there's this insight action gap into, okay, Now I have 100 plus biomarkers, do I need them all?

And I think that's kind of the next level conversation to have that is that sort of forward looking approach. As Jodi said, many of my previous.

Speaker A: 00:11:50

Guests have argued that preventative health care saves money in the long term, but insurers still largely rather pay for treating disease after it develops or rather than preventing it. From where you sit, do you see this changing anytime soon?

Speaker B: 00:12:08

If we as consumers show that we are going to use this technology, we believe it's valuable for our own health, we can kind of force the hand of the insurance companies and maybe some of the regulators too. Like we just saw the FDA roll back their, I don't know what the technical word for it against Whoop about the blood pressure monitoring.

They rolled that back because whoop is an excellent product and why would they hold that back from the consumers using it? That's an amazing biomarker for people to be able to have at their disposal.

So I think consumer demands and also, I mean the data that all of these companies are collecting, I think they can kind of prove their worth in the data over time.

Speaker A: 00:12:52

Let me push you a bit on that. Even relatively basic preventative tests are still not routinely funded despite broad agreement that prevention matters.

What would actually convince insurers to start paying for them?

Speaker B: 00:13:08

Yeah, loaded question.

I don't have a lot of hope personally that some of these more advanced tests that are currently direct to consumer that they will be reimbursed for in the near future. I think the wearables, I have more hope around them than I do for maybe the Fulbartian MRI scans.

But how amazing would it be if all women reaching the age of menopause would get a DEXA scan to check their, their muscle mass and bone density? Like that would be incredible. And that's not super high cost to do, like even that.

It'll take time before the traditional payment industry catches up to the consumer side. Alexa, what do you think?

Speaker C: 00:13:47

Yeah, I mean, I feel like a lot of obviously founders that I've spoken to are really excited and believe it's, you know, on the horizon. But I will say I'm always skeptical of that.

And I do think that the overarching question is how we ensure that a lot of these new advancements, especially the direct to consumer testing and just kind of telling everyone to go get more biomarkers doesn't just exacerbate existing inequities in our healthcare system, especially for people who aren't able to even get to their routine screenings that are recommended.

So I do think it's important to be excited about some of the advancements, particularly on, you know, the biomedical side and what's coming up in the pipeline a little bit slower than just these consumer longevity tools and really at the end of the day, relying on the healthy aging, low to no cost ways to age.

Speaker B: 00:14:34

Well, I think that's going to be where we see progress first. Like obviously we've seen a lot of progress in food as medicine initiatives.

I think there's a lot of fitness companies like Bold for the Medicare population that, you know, they are actively talking to insurers. Like I think those lifestyle pillars is where the insurance companies will focus their energy. And I don't think that's a bad thing at all.

I think if we get that right first, that's going to make a huge dent in ensuring people could live at a longer health span, not just lifespan.

Speaker A: 00:15:07

So you think that's the pathway for health insurance and health providers to sort of invest in preventative medicine in the future?

Speaker B: 00:15:16

Yeah, I think that's where they should be investing for now before they start thinking about all of this other stuff.

Speaker C: 00:15:22

Yeah, we also have a session where we're thinking about the importance of social health as really the road to longevity.

And you know, I've heard it said this one way by a provider where we should be also prescribing social health and should be measuring it as this vital sign.

So I think the way people are talking about really prioritizing social health in the same way that they would your blood pressure, I think that's really innovative and that's something that I'm seeing more, which I think is a, you know, an advancement that we could be seeing in the, in the near future versus these longevity offerings being more affordable, which I don't think is happening anytime fully soon.

Speaker A: 00:15:58

Have you seen an idea or company that was initially underestimated but later proved to be far more important than people expected?

Speaker B: 00:16:06

startup pitch competition in: 2018

And it's kind of a simple concept, I guess, but they're, they're matching younger individuals, mostly college age individuals I believe, with older adults as papa pals, they call them. And they'll bring them to their doctor appointment, they'll take them grocery shopping, they'll play chess with them if, if that's the case.

And it's really combating loneliness and isolation that a lot of older adults feel, which we know really impacts their longevity and quality of life. So I think that company, maybe they did get some pushback in early days, but they're doing very well now.

And I think it's just such a beautiful concept that I wish there was more of.

Speaker A: 00:16:57

That really is a good example of longevity going back to fundamentals, movements, social connections and maintaining independence. Health also gives a major platform to startups and entrepreneurs.

Every year we hear about exciting scientific breakthroughs, yet relatively few become part of routine clinical practice. Why do you think that is?

Speaker B: 00:17:20

Money? I would say access to those therapies. That's the biggest hurdle.

If the majority can access them and benefit from them, then it's not going to really move the needle. With population health, what do the innovations.

Speaker A: 00:17:34

That successfully break through tend to have in common?

Speaker B: 00:17:38

I mean, I'm thinking of the Oura ring. Alexa and I both have one, we love it. That company has blown up. I think it's proven that the cost to it hasn't been a barrier for people.

I'm not going to misquote their data, but I know that they have a really wide range of people from different socioeconomic backgrounds as their users. So I think that company's really broken through with such a sleek model, sleek interface, great marketing, and just a really great product.

Yeah, where, where Big Aura stands at. At health.

Speaker C: 00:18:11

Yeah. I mean, I would also say about sort of your question around what's the secret sauce to an innovation?

And I think that they particularly also focused on women's health. In the last, I would say year or so, they've told me that the majority of their users are women.

And now they've, you know, innovated to think about how to help women both on a fertility journey and through perimenopause and menopause.

And as we're seeing a lot more noise in menopause, that's an example of a company that's sort of, okay, this is where the consumer is at and this is what they're looking for. And women are really the, the ones who have been wanting these tools for their health.

And so I think that's an example of kind of how they've been able to grow and really keep their stake in this now very growing marketplace.

Speaker B: 00:18:54

I think for any startup, actually keeping women in mind is a smart move.

Speaker C: 00:18:58

It sounds simple, but somehow it's hard. And there were 51% of the population and women are, they're the decision makers and the CEO of their family's health.

And yeah, we need to really be innovating and building with them in mind, especially just given the historic lack of data that we have on women's health.

Speaker B: 00:19:19

Yeah, I'm so sick of listening to other longevity podcasts, not this one. And you know, question will be asked about how, what is the difference with this drug that they're talking about?

Or even cold plunges and asking like, what is the difference between men and women? And the answer is often like, we don't have that data. We don't know we don't have that data. Like that's not good enough anymore.

Let's, let's do the research, let's get the data. Because these one size fits all longevity solutions often leave women out of the equation.

Speaker C: 00:19:50

Yeah, it's especially important just they won't respond to saunas, cold plunges, intermittent fasting, a lot of these quote unquote biohacking tools in the same way. And we don't wanna be giving misinformation out for women just because we don't have the data.

So I think it's really important to also be critical of any company that is marketing a solution or product and their data at the back end is not built on women's biology.

Speaker B: 00:20:13

Effy, you've been fasting.

Yeah, that's actually been a newer thing that I've discovered because you hear about intermittent fasting all the time in longevity conversations as like the gold standard for the way that you should eat. And it's actually very untrue for women, I've learned that we need to eat first thing when we wake up.

We need to eat high protein first thing we wake up. We can't wait as long as men after we work out to eat. We need to eat within 30 minutes of working out.

So all of that information is really false for us. So I hope there is more of a movement in women's longevity in the next five years. I hope we learn a lot more.

Speaker C: 00:20:50

Yeah.

And it'll be interesting to see all the data coming out of a lot of these consumer tools and how that might be used to inform approaches for women down the road. So it'll be interesting to follow the data.

Speaker A: 00:21:01

And just to add to that, it's quite crazy how little thought is even giving to that topic.

I spoke to, I don't want to name the name, but one of the wearable companies about a year ago, and I said, oh, this is so great, because now you can collect data about women that you've never had before. For example, how a woman's biomarkers change during pregnancy.

And can I tell you, they looked at me like, I've just, I don't know, discovered a new planet or something. And they were like, oh, we never thought of that. We didn't realize that. Yes, you're right, you're right, you're right.

I mean, they needed me to tell them that.

sane thinking, you know, when: 2026

Speaker B: 00:21:57

Good for you.

Speaker A: 00:21:58

Good for them, Good for them.

But it's quite crazy how even within the longevity field, I think that women are still being disadvantaged and not considered important enough to collect data on women.

Speaker C: 00:22:14

Yeah, I mean, I think that Jodi and I were actually just talking about this, but I think too that what I've heard, and it's something I reported on at Fortune several years ago, which is that I think it's the language around longevity doesn't resonate with a lot of the women I spoke with. That's because these might be women in the sandwich generation. They're caring for an aging parent, they're caring for a child.

They want to live a good, healthy life so that they can be playing with their grandkids one day, hopefully, or just really focusing on strength and vitality as they get older.

And I think that the original biohacker kind of gamifying longevity conversation was really male dominated because I just don't think women felt like seen in that space. And so it's also the language around when we talk about healthy aging, especially because women spend 25% longer in poor health.

So there's all these conditions that women disproportionately or differently face as they age. And that should really be the target.

And so I think it's, it's not that women aren't in this longevity conversation, it's that they've been kind of left out by, I think, the larger voices, but that they want to be, they just want to be represented in a different way.

I think the word health span seems to resonate more with women because we would just want a longer health span, not necessarily a longer life, if we're going to age poorly at the end. So I think language matters and I'd be curious to see in the coming years how we think about language in this industry.

Whether or not it's preventative health, it's health span. I think we might move away from longevity. I'm not sure, don't quote me on that.

Speaker B: 00:23:42

But yeah, yeah.

And I think too, like, not to get even, you know, more out with my own strong opinions on this, but just the way we've been marketed to as well, I think plays a role in this conversation. Like, we are targets of all anti aging diet culture. We are told our bodies should be smaller than, than men.

s, the early: 2000

And I'm almost 40 and it's still, still something that I battle with every day. And now with GLP1s becoming so prevalent, I feel like I fear that we're getting back to that a little bit. Yeah.

I hope that we change the narrative to teach younger generations of women that strong is healthy, strong is beautiful. And that's what we really should be focused on so that you can pick your kids up and pick your grandkids up, volunteer your 70s.

My grandmother, she's near 90 and she at the Last family party was on the floor playing with her great granddaughters and great grandson like it was nothing. She. Yeah, she's incredible. And my whole life I always admired her because she was so strong. And that's.

That's something that I think, you know, I hope that we put more of an emphasis on in the coming years.

Speaker C: 00:25:11

I hope we do too. It's so important. And we're actually having Dr. Vonda right on our stage. She's an orthopedic surgeon and she wrote this book, Unbreakable.

And she has talked so much about strength over smallness and really reframing it, because strength in our lives can help us with that health span, especially as women, especially during midlife. And how do we really change the conversation to amplify the importance of strength training and protein and fiber and. And that.

That's actually gonna really help us battle things like osteoporosis, heart disease, even dementia. There's just so much research on the importance of our muscle health, and it's even been called muscle span. Like, how can we get to test that?

And so even to Jodi's earlier point of how do we also scale and make DEXA scans more portable across the board, I think that's something really important for women's longevity and hopefully that doesn't get clouded in the conversation and kind of the aesthetic anti aging community.

Speaker B: 00:26:11

And also, just to reiterate something, Alexa said that I think it's so important with health span resonating more with women. I think that's so important because I feel like most women, we don't want to live till we're a hundred.

We want to close that 25% more years in poorer health gap. Like, that's what's important to us. So, like, bother someone else with your cellular reprogramming.

Like, just how do you help me live a healthier life into old age? Like, that's what I care about. And I think a lot of women feel safe. Same.

Speaker C: 00:26:40

Yeah. And what are the practical steps to get there? What can I do that's low cost every morning?

Speaker B: 00:26:45

Right.

Speaker C: 00:26:46

You know, you're going to work, you have kids again. Like, I think about the sandwich generation.

It's just this growing cohort of women that are often at the pinnacle of their careers and their caregiving on both ends of the spectrum. And so we have to think about those people as the consumers of a lot of this rhetoric around aging.

They don't have time to think about cellular reprogramming. They.

They want to figure out, maybe I'll wear a wearable to get better sleep at night so I have more energy, so I feel more vital, so I feel more strong. I think that kind of the message.

Speaker B: 00:27:13

Sorry. You could tell we're really passionate about this topic. But even on Amy podcast. I love Amy Poehler's podcast.

She mentioned the other day and she talks about this a lot.

Speaker C: 00:27:23

Actually.

Speaker B: 00:27:23

We should invite her to come speak at health. Just even foot health and how important that is for women into old age and something you overlook.

Being able to walk comfortably into old age, that is so basic but so important. And it got me thinking like, damn, do I need to go see a particular diatrist?

Because I've been walking the streets of New York City for most of my adult life. I'm sure it's done some damage.

But yeah, I think for women, getting back to the basics is kind of what we're focused on rather than some of this experimental stuff, which is cool, but maybe not as relevant.

Speaker A: 00:27:56

Oh, I think this is extremely relevant. Health gives a platform to thousands of highly influential people across healthcare.

How are you using that platform to move women's health further up the agenda?

Speaker B: 00:28:09

We're careful about who we invite to our stages. I make sure there's good representation on our main stage, which gets the most eyeballs and attention and tweets and retweets.

I don't think people are tweeting anymore LinkedIn posts anyway, so. So making sure that women's health is represented on the biggest stage, that's really important for us.

And then doing enough across the rest of the program.

So Alexa is is programming a whole day worth of content on one of our main agenda stages on the show floor on Monday, which is the prime day of the event.

And then that evening we'll have a women's health startup pitch competition that we did last year and that was actually one of the most well attended pitch competitions other than the. The finals, the big one.

And then also we do networking events that are geared towards women leaders in healthcare and women's health leaders and just really try to kind of build up that community. And we know we have such a passionate group of individuals that come to our event that speak at our event.

So just making sure that they have the place to share what they're working on and be able to connect with investors, health systems, like people that can really actually further what they're doing.

Speaker A: 00:29:19

Where do you draw the line between healthcare and wellness or has that distinction become too blurred to be useful?

Speaker B: 00:29:26

Yeah, we call it consumer health and wellness. That's another stage, Alexa's programming, we try not to go too far in the wellness direction.

Like you're not going to see a crystals session at our event, but maybe Alexa can share some of the topics she's planning for that stage.

Speaker C: 00:29:42

Yeah, I mean, I would say to your point is that I believe there is this blurring between health and wellness.

The line isn't so clear anymore, which is why I think it's important that we have a circuit and a day really dedicated to consumer health and wellness. And one of the panels really is going to be around that question of how do health systems lean into the consumer wellness space?

Because again, more people, like we talked about before, are getting data on their health from a lot of different sources. And then what does that mean when they're going to see a primary care doctor? Are these tools replacing primary care?

So I think we are having the conversations that also bring health systems providers, payers to the table while we're talking about consumer health and wellness. And so there is this gap that I think I'm interested in really delving into with that.

And yeah, and just like the biomarkers conversation, it's like, how much blood do we need for preventative health? How much testing do I need to do? And again, it's that insight action gap, like what do I do with all this data?

And we're starting to see, you know, interesting partnerships happening too that are looking to explore how do I actually get personalized insights from this data.

So I think it's important to not necessarily think of them as two different camps, but really that if people are getting their data from these tools, we need to take it seriously and we need to have conversations about what that means for a health system and for a provider.

Speaker B: 00:31:01

Yeah, I mean, the cat's out of the bag. So health systems payers, they need to pay attention to what's going on on the consumer side.

Because us as health consumers, we're really loving it and we're putting a lot of trust in into these companies. There's a huge trust issue in healthcare in general.

So if people are trusting their roots and their auras, then I think health systems could maybe learn something from what they're doing. Right.

Speaker A: 00:31:24

Do you think longevity has become part of mainstream healthcare or is it still sitting on the periphery?

Speaker C: 00:31:30

I don't think I would say longevity itself because again, I think that that word comes with this idea of you need to have the, you know, means and time to pay extra for the next level up on your health, whether that's full Body MRI or a concierge, you know, membership.

I will say that I do think to our earlier points, that lifestyle and preventative health are really entering the larger ecosystem and the mainstream health conversation. I think how that's scalable and how everyone has access to that is, is the question mark.

But I do think that prevention and lifestyle and again, those basic, well researched cornerstones of healthy aging are in the mainstream. We just have to continue to focus on it because they're less sexy than, you know, the supplements Jackie would take.

And so I think that's kind of the goal, I would say.

Speaker A: 00:32:21

But more than that, they're less sexy.

They also don't really bring any money to the industry because the most important ones, as we discussed, are sleep, which is for free movement, which, okay, you might want to join a gym, but can be for free as well, and socializing. So it's quite difficult for your audience. Just make money on the basics.

And your audience is in the business of making money from health, healthcare system, people being sick.

Speaker B: 00:32:54

I think there's companies making money from the basics. Like I look at like nourish in the food is medicine world, even Hyrox in the fitness world. That's hitting too.

That's hitting movement and a sense of community. They're building really powerful communities around the world. Maven just launched a direct to consumer product that hits a few of these verticals.

I think there is money to be made in the basics, if you will.

Speaker C: 00:33:16

And the places where people are tracking those basics, that's also making money. That is objectively what the aura and whoop are doing is that they're making money off of prioritizing the basics.

So then you can see your baseline and almost see yourself as n of 1 and improve upon that. So I think there are innovative approaches to think about lifestyle in that way.

Speaker B: 00:33:35

Calm headspace, even in the mindfulness space. And then I'll even point out too, like what will maybe wake up.

Traditional healthcare is just the booming aging population, 11,000 people turning 65 every single day. And then also couple that with the statistic that 60% of all Americans have at least one chronic disease that's expensive for our health system.

That's scary to think about how we will pay to keep all of those people healthy. So the only solution really is to stop them from getting multiple chronic conditions before they turn 65.

And the only way to do that is to look at prevention and some of these, you know, lifestyle levers more, more carefully.

Speaker A: 00:34:17

What I hear from what you're saying is that Longevity really has a marketing problem. Is that fair to say?

Speaker B: 00:34:24

Yeah, I would say that.

Speaker C: 00:34:26

Yeah, I would say there's a marketing language problem, definitely.

And that's why I think we're having a conversation on the difference between healthy aging and the longevity movement or industry or what we want to call it. I think we definitely just need to be more open about what we mean by healthy aging and who it's for so people feel included and that it's.

Speaker B: 00:34:44

Accessible, not just the rich tech rose. I think that's the marketing problem that longevity has. I like to think of it more as health optimization.

I think that has a better connotation to it.

Speaker C: 00:34:55

So, yeah. And that we're also thinking about programming to Jodi's point around paying for the longer life.

It's not just what next gadget do I need potentially to optimize my health like we're seeing, you know, on our for you page on Instagram or TikTok.

It's how do we actually think practically about what it might mean if we do live to a hundred and we are not set up for success in that way as a population. So that's really an important conversation to the healthy aging longevity, however you want to define it. Conversation.

Speaker B: 00:35:23

Yeah. Alexa, the panel you moderated last year, that kind of touched on that a bit.

Speaker C: 00:35:27

Yeah, it talked about longevity preparedness, which was really fascinating. And from a John Hancock index report on just the fact that, you know, we largely are unprepared and we're particularly unprepared even socially.

We don't have necessarily the emergency contact in place to call us when we are in crisis. And that's a part of healthy aging.

Do we have someone to take us to our doctor's appointments or someone who's checking in on us if we didn't take our meds? There's a lot of places that are going to help us age well that we don't always think about. A lot of domains is what they called it, actually.

And I think that's really important to talk about around healthy aging that might be missed in the longevity, so to speak, sphere.

Speaker A: 00:36:07

I've just come back from Health Europe and I was struck by how many startups are helping people age poor better, whether that means remembering medication, exercising at home or remaining independent or things along those lines. But are we still missing the bigger picture?

Because even if people remain healthier for longer, society still has to support so many more years of life. Are the wider social and financial implications of longevity being taken seriously enough, do.

Speaker B: 00:36:38

You think, in healthcare Conversations, probably not as much as you would expect. I think it should come up more because I think financial health is health.

But you know, personally, this terrifies me and I think it's something as a society we need to be thinking more about, but not to bring it back to health, but our community led longevity session we're planning. Alexa, I think a lot of the solutions could lie from community to community.

And that's where I think it's like boiling the ocean to try to tackle it for the entire U.S. population. If you're talking about the U.S. but at a community level, maybe there's things that, that you can do.

Looking at the grocery stores, the free grocery stores that mom Donnie is building in New York City, that's really exciting to me. I think he's a great example of a leader who's really thinking about this at a community level. Personally, I think we need more of him out there.

Speaker C: 00:37:27

Yeah.

I would also say if you haven't tuned in to Kara Swisher's documentary on longevity on cnn, it really touches on exactly what we're talking about, which is that she ends up being a guinea pig and trying out all of these different hacks. You know, she tries out the hyperbaric oxygen chamber. She talks to a lot of leaders in, in longevity as an industry.

And she really kind of comes down at the end really to say, you know, I think it's about your community and I don't think, you know, necessarily I'm going to buy into all of this. That's obviously one person's take.

But I think her as, you know, using herself as a guinea pig and going through all of these and to really kind of almost touch on it as what we've heard about coming out of the blue zones around community walkability, eating well. So I think that again, we're seeing this come back down to earth a little bit. But it'll be interesting to follow some of the innovations as we go on.

And actually what could move the needle on like a population level, what scares.

Speaker B: 00:38:21

Me is just isolation in this younger generation. Smartphones and social media were a part of their lives at a very young age.

And what that may mean older in life and will they be the loneliest generation of them all? Like, that's scary to me.

Yeah, I think that that sense of community piece is probably one of the most underestimated, but one of the most important levers to longevity.

Speaker A: 00:38:45

You mentioned GLP1 medications earlier.

Do you think they will remain primarily treatment for obesity and diabetes, or do you think they could eventually become part of mainstream longevity medicine.

Speaker B: 00:38:58

Yeah, I'm personally really excited about GLP1s and kind of where they go.

What scares me now is more in the women's health side because we do know the side effects of muscle loss and bone density, which are much more of a risk for women.

So I hope maybe they can figure out a way to reduce those side effects and some of the different versions of this medication that will come out in the next decade. But until that happens, I hope we still spread the message about building muscle while you're on these drugs and eating a high protein diet.

Cause I think that's really important.

Speaker A: 00:39:30

But don't you think it's too simplistic to say that GLP1 medication causes the muscle loss directly?

Much of that muscle loss may result from rapid weight reduction because people also don't eat enough protein and don't train enough, rather than from the medication alone. And shouldn't we be having a more nuanced conversation about how these drugs are dosed and used, particularly as their potential application expands?

Speaker B: 00:39:59

Yeah, I mean, I think you have to weigh the risks with the rewards of anything you do. If you are at high risk of cardiovascular disease, women are at much higher risk generally of cardiovascular disease.

We present symptoms differently than men. Often that's overlooked.

So if these drugs are going to help reduce your risk, I think maybe then the muscle loss and the bone density, if you're keeping an eye on it and eating right, maybe a risk worth taking to reap the other benefits. Yeah, I mean, I think people just have to make the best decisions for themselves personally.

But I think it is pretty across the board, at least from everyone I know who has been on this medication, the muscle loss has been pretty significant.

Speaker A: 00:40:41

Do you not think that that's exactly the problem, that everybody has to make their own decisions? Why is there not a funded study on it?

There are these, let's call them even, rumors that it might be beneficial to healthspan living longer, healthier, not just direct weight loss. Why do you think it is that this is still a field where again people, and again mainly women have to sort of experiment on themselves.

Why is the market not funding a proper study on it and looking into it? I mean, it's not just one or two voices that are saying that there is, you know, a whole group, a mass of people promoting those things.

Speaker C: 00:41:22

I think there is work being done and that we will definitely be seeing updates and more research coming out around exactly that. But yeah, I agree and I think that it will just Take time to see what the outcomes are for these drugs across a host of conditions.

Speaker B: 00:41:39

Yeah. As there's more coverage for using these drugs for different conditions, I think there will be more research that follows.

You know, Medicare covering it partially right now is a good step forward. Maybe that opens the door for more research.

Speaker A: 00:41:53

Yeah. Because I feel again, it's.

It's sort of a women's issue and women are being left behind because GOP is said to be very helpful for perimenopausal women and issues that arrive during perimenopause. And I again feel it's just swept to the side because I don't know, it's women, it's not so important. I don't know. But let's move on here.

If you are designing the agenda for health in 10 years time, what themes are coming up?

Speaker B: 00:42:21

What would dominate in 10 years from now?

Speaker C: 00:42:24

Oof.

Speaker B: 00:42:25

I mean, just thinking even about how far we've come in the almost decade that health has been around now, I mean, it's a little scary, just the rate of progress around AI. So God knows how far we'll be in 10 years. I'm thinking about next year and how far we'll be.

I think the way we access healthcare will be fundamentally different than we do now in 10 years from now. Actually, in a debate that we're planning to have on our program, this year is around will AI replace primary care? Like maybe in 10 years from now?

That is something that we see. So I'm not trying to predict the future, but I. I think we'll see a massive shift in regards to AI's role within care delivery.

Speaker A: 00:43:12

Is that something that you think is scary or something positive?

Speaker B: 00:43:17

Maybe a little. A little fear. But if it improves access and gives people who don't currently have access a chance to better their health, then I'm all for it.

Speaker C: 00:43:30

Yeah, I don't think it will be what is happening with AI in healthcare? It's not even like that anymore. Right. We're talking about, is AI going to replace X, Y, Z?

I think it'll just be embedded and we'll see what that looks like and what the next kind of frontier of conversations look like.

But I think it's impossible to predict because to Jodi's point, I feel like there's so much that's happened even in the last year across longevity, across women's health, across the consumer world. I don't even know. It's completely like a blank space in some ways. Yeah.

Speaker B: 00:44:01

I think we will make major strides in women's health too. Like, we will have so much more research and data in 10 years from now. Like, sky's the limit to what we'll learn. I'm excited for that.

Like, what will we unlock about our health that we didn't know before? And then like, watch out, men. Because then if we start to close this health span gap, like they. Yeah, we're coming.

Speaker C: 00:44:21

Yeah. If there's one message in this podcast that we're coming. Yeah.

Speaker A: 00:44:25

Oh, yes.

Do you think that AI will then democratize the world of healthcare, be it from a financial perspective, equalizing the gap between rich and poor and between men and women?

Speaker B: 00:44:39

Yes, I, I do. I mean, anyone can go on ChatGPT, Claude, on their phone right now.

We're, we're seeing the data of how many people are actually doing that and asking health related questions. I think that will just exponentially increase in the next few years.

So when it comes to that part, yeah, I think it is reducing the divide between the 1% and everyone else and how they can access certain, you know, health related information. Obviously there are mistakes and hallucinations which are really scary, especially if people act on them. So we need to get that under control first.

Speaker A: 00:45:17

And if you could change one assumption that today's healthcare leaders hold, what would that be and why?

Speaker C: 00:45:24

I have one that I think is hopefully not being held anymore and won't be, but it's that women's health is niche. I think that women's health is not niche. It shouldn't be when that's 51% of the population.

And I think really reframing women's health is not just these endpoints of fertility or menopause, but really a continuum of the conditions and the experiences that women have that are different from men and disproportionately affect women. One of them being that women are 2/3 of Alzheimer's patients and they struggle with cognitive decline at a disproportionate rate.

I was talking to someone last week who is in healthcare and didn't know that. And so I do think it's really important to reframe. Women's health is not just around fertility. Yeah, that's mine.

Speaker B: 00:46:07

That's a good one. Ditto to Alexa's. And then also I would add the misconception that older adults are not digitally savvy and won't access some of these tools.

My grandfather is well into his 90s and calls Ubers for himself. Like that's a misconception that we need to break because, you know, they should be Top of mind.

When companies are building products that are serving them and we should assume that they will figure it out, and they can figure it out.

Speaker A: 00:46:35

How long do you think this will take for companies to realize? Are we talking months, days, years, decades?

Speaker B: 00:46:41

Well, 11,000 people, like I said, are aging into Medicare every day. So, yeah, I think pretty, pretty damn.

Speaker A: 00:46:47

Soon that's what should happen. But you think it will?

Speaker B: 00:46:51

Yeah, I think there's a lot of conversation happening about that right now. So I feel confident and I think.

Speaker C: 00:46:56

It's conversations that you have intergenerationally because I think as the younger generations understand what older adults need and actually include them in the conversation while they're building these tools, I think that's what will really fill that gap and help to Jodi's point.

Speaker A: 00:47:11

Well, that's such a nice, positive thing to end on, especially seeing that I'm getting older every day. I'm happy to know that my future might look brighter than I think it does. I always end with rapid fire questions for my guests. So no different today.

The only thing different is that I have two people answering. So whoever wants to go first can go first. Okay, what's the single best piece of advice you would give your younger self?

Speaker B: 00:47:39

Don't worry about being skinny. Be strong.

Speaker C: 00:47:42

I would say that there's no such thing as a five year plan. I started in media, now I'm here. And a lot has changed within health, within journalism, within the way we think about storytelling now.

I believe live events are a great way to storytell. So I think that if you plan for that, you'll be too rigid and not be flexible to pivot.

Speaker A: 00:48:04

Name one habit everyone should adopt for a longer, healthier life.

Speaker B: 00:48:08

Sleep well, prioritize sleep.

Speaker C: 00:48:11

Text someone when you think of them.

Speaker A: 00:48:14

If you weren't in the field of healthcare, what career would you have chosen?

Speaker B: 00:48:20

I always wanted to be a host of the Today show. So maybe I would have gone into like broadcast journalism. Still, if they're interested, I'm still interested.

Speaker C: 00:48:30

I can see it. Jodi, it's time I actually did theater growing up. So I'm just gonna go on a whim and say that I would wanna be a Broadway star.

Speaker B: 00:48:40

Well, time for that too.

Speaker A: 00:48:41

Yeah, you never know what microdose habit, sort of five minute routine or small daily action yields outsized longevity benefits.

Speaker C: 00:48:51

I would say just laughing because I think that's your community and it's good for your health. So finding time to slow down and laugh with your friends. But yes, Jodi said, go on a walk better.

Speaker B: 00:49:03

I Like laughing better.

Speaker C: 00:49:05

No, walking is good too.

Speaker B: 00:49:07

Yeah. Go for a short walk every day.

Speaker A: 00:49:10

What's the craziest longevity myth you've encountered and is there any truth to it?

Speaker C: 00:49:15

I mean, I guess I would just say the rhetoric that we aren't going to die because there is no truth in that.

Speaker B: 00:49:25

Yeah. Yeah. And that we can generally reverse aging. I don't think we can reverse aging. So. And I think that may be the wrong goal to shoot for.

I think a better goal would be to live a healthier life, not necessarily a longer one. Very true.

Speaker A: 00:49:43

But I have to tell you, I had some guests on that would strongly disagree with you on not being able to reverse aging.

Speaker C: 00:49:50

Yeah. I mean, there's interesting science out there around how you can rejuvenate cells and whatnot.

But I think as like a protocol that's scalable, that we're all going to be doing that. I think that's where. Or is that what we should be doing, even? And that's the question too.

Speaker A: 00:50:04

But also the question is, what do you really mean with reverse aging? Is it when you do a biomarker test and you're 40 and your biomarker age tells you you're 60 and then you come back to real biological age?

Is that reversing aging? What exactly is the definition? So I think that whole longevity field as a whole really does have problems with wording and is meant by what?

Anyway, that's for other people to bother with. We have enough on our plates to deal with. Jodi and Alexa, thank you both so much for making the time to join me on Beyond Longevity.

Longevity has clearly reached an important milestone. It is no longer a niche discussion taking place on the sidelines. It has earned its place in the mainstream healthcare conversation.

That does not mean the hard questions have been answered. Far from it.

There is still more evidence to generate, more debate to be had and a long way to go before many of these ideas are move from discussion into everyday healthcare.

That means convincing healthcare systems, insurers and policymakers not just that longevity is an interesting idea, but that it can genuinely improve people's health. But perhaps that is exactly where longevity needs to be right now.

Not as a field claiming to have all the answers, but as a serious part of the discussion where those ideas can be challenged, tested and refined. The challenge now is no longer getting longevity into the conversation. It is turning that conversation into better healthcare.

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to Beyond Longevity, leave a review and share it with anyone interested in the future of health, medicine and longevity. And as always, thank you for listening.