‘For Every Drug, We’ll Save 100 People and Kill 3’: Inside the Race to Fight Aging

Fortune

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.

Transcript

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.

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