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On this episode of Longevity by Design, Dr. Gil Blander sits down with Dr. Evelyne Bischof, President of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society. Evelyne discusses her background in internal medicine and oncology and how her work puzzling together patient diagnoses led her to the field of longevity medicine. She highlights the importance of optimizing health span, not just lifespan, and how healthy longevity medicine benefits not only individuals, but population health and the world economy as well.
Gil and Evelyne explore the difference between longevity medicine and traditional healthcare. Evelyne explains that longevity medicine uses a broader range of diagnostics, including advanced biomarkers, imaging, and cognitive tests. This approach aims to build a personalized health trajectory for each patient. They also discuss the role of AI in healthcare, with Evelyne expressing hope for faster, AI-driven diagnostics and drug discovery in the future.
Finally, they touch upon the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society, its mission to establish longevity medicine as a recognized medical discipline, and the exciting developments in the field, such as the SHARP study at the Sheba Longevity Center. Evelyne emphasizes the importance of being data-driven and encourages listeners to collect and track their own health data. She believes this empowers individuals to make informed decisions about their health and longevity.
Guest-at-a-Glance
💡 Name: Dr. Evelyne Bischof
💡What they do: President
💡Company: Healthy Longevity Medicine Society (HLMS)
💡Noteworthy: Physician-scientist specializing in longevity and precision medicine.
💡 Where to find her: LinkedIn
Episode highlights:
[00:01:24] Meet Dr. Evelyne Bischof
[00:05:12] The Concept of Longevity Medicine
[00:08:42] Health Span vs. Lifespan
[00:11:39] The Role of Diagnostics in Longevity Medicine
[00:22:54] Global Landscape of Longevity Medicine
[00:29:50] Collaborations and Growth Initiatives
[00:30:30] Monthly Case Studies and Activities
[00:31:27] Membership and Target Audience
[00:34:42] Organizational Structure and Leadership
[00:39:52] Shiba Longevity Center Overview
[00:45:22] Future of Longevity Medicine
[00:50:27] Top Healthspan Tips and Final Thoughts
Key Insights
Healthspan, Not Just Lifespan, is the Goal
Longevity medicine prioritizes extending the period of healthy life, not just extending life itself. This focus on healthspan aims to minimize the time spent suffering from age-related diseases and maximize the time spent enjoying optimal physical and cognitive function. By targeting the aging process itself, longevity medicine seeks to delay the onset of chronic diseases and improve overall quality of life, enabling individuals to remain active, engaged, and independent for as long as possible. This shift in focus represents a significant departure from traditional healthcare, which typically addresses diseases after they develop, rather than proactively preventing them.
Data-Driven Healthcare is the Future
Collecting and tracking personal health data is crucial for optimizing longevity. By gathering information on various health parameters, including biomarkers, imaging results, cognitive function, and lifestyle factors, individuals can gain a comprehensive understanding of their current health status and identify potential areas for improvement. This data empowers individuals to make informed decisions about their health, work with healthcare professionals to develop personalized interventions, and track their progress over time. As technology advances, AI-driven tools will play an increasingly important role in analyzing this data, providing personalized insights, and accelerating the development of targeted therapies.
Longevity Medicine: A Holistic Approach
Longevity medicine takes a holistic and personalized approach to healthcare, going beyond simply treating diseases as they arise. It involves a comprehensive assessment of an individual's health status, including physical, cognitive, and lifestyle factors, to identify potential risks and develop personalized interventions. This approach recognizes that aging is a complex process influenced by multiple factors and that a one-size-fits-all approach is not effective. By addressing the underlying causes of aging and tailoring treatments to individual needs, longevity medicine aims to optimize healthspan and improve overall well-being.
The Intersection of Oncology and Aging
Evelyne discusses how her background in oncology informs her work in longevity medicine. She notes the similarities between the two fields, emphasizing the importance of understanding the aging process to address age-related diseases, including cancer. This connection highlights the shift from treating diseases in isolation to tackling the underlying process of aging itself.
"That's why the intersection of oncology and aging research, which actually have so much in common, is exactly the difference between prevention or treatment."
Defining Longevity Medicine and Its Importance
Evelyne defines longevity medicine as optimizing health span by targeting age-related processes. She clarifies that it's not just for healthy individuals but for almost everyone, except those in terminal palliative care or with severe cognitive decline. Longevity medicine focuses on prevention and being anticipatory, using evolving tools to create personalized health trajectories.
“We are trying to optimize health span along the lifespan by targeting age-related processes. We really want to be not only preventative but also, in a way, anticipatory, and be able to use all the tools that we have right now and tools that are evolving very fast.”
The Role of AI and Diagnostics in Longevity Medicine
Evelyne and Gil delve into the critical role of AI and diagnostics in longevity medicine. They discuss how longevity medicine utilizes broader diagnostics, moving beyond standard blood tests to incorporate radiological tests, body composition analysis, cognitive assessments, and even data from wearable fitness trackers. Evelyne highlights how this data, combined with AI, helps create personalized treatment plans and identify optimal health trajectories for each patient.
“The things that are coming in as an added value from healthy longevity medicine are specific diagnostics. It would be driven not by the normative ranges, but really with the help of AI to direct to what is optimal for that patient. And by this, I don't only mean the blood tests; I mean also all the radiological tests, body composition tests, and then cognition tests.”
The Vision and Mission of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society
Evelyne shares the mission of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society (HLMS), which she leads as President. She outlines the organization’s threefold focus: establishing longevity medicine as a recognized medical specialty, educating physicians and healthcare professionals, and collaborating with industry and stakeholders to drive the field forward. Evelyne emphasizes the importance of collaboration and the inclusion of various healthcare professionals, including nurses, therapists, and nutritionists, in the longevity ecosystem.
"Positioning healthy longevity medicine as a subspecialty or specialty in the field requires working on guidance and recommendations. We actually call it standards of clinical practice."
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