Sergey Young Redefining Healthy Aging The Future of Human Longevity is Here - LongevIQ Podcast

Redefining Healthy Aging: The Future of Human Longevity is Here

In this episode

In this episode, we’ll take a look into the future. With all the advancement of longevity science and technology, could we live to be 200 years old but still healthy and vibrant? And if so, what would our lives look like?

For this episode, we’re super excited to have with us Sergey Young, a visionary in the world of longevity innovation and the author of the Science and Technology of Growing Young. As we discuss, there are many promising technologies on the horizon which could become available even in the next few years. In fact, we already have some remarkable devices that can help us to optimize our lifestyle and likely improve our healthspan. We have a lot more control than we realize.

Also in this episode:

  • Dr. Patti Shelton, MD, LongevIQ medical communications officer
  • Amir Ginsberg, LongevIQ founder.

Podcast notes and links

  • Sergey Young: website
  • Sergey’s latest book: The Science and Technology of Growing Young: Learn more.

Main topics

  • (0:00:00) Podcast and episode intro, medical disclaimer
  • (0:01:38) Living to 200 years young – a brief look into the future
  • (0:07:43) Is there a limit to human lifespan?
  • (0:11:48) Affordable, innovative technologies to revolutionize future healthcare
  • (0:14:29) Longevity and healthspan technologies available today
  • (0:17:20) Wearables – personalized healthcare devices
  • (0:21:07) Lifestyle and supplements
  • (0:26:35) Think and grow young – the longevity mindset
  • (0:28:25) Coming soon: a new horizon of longevity innovations
  • (0:33:56) Getting in the driver’s seat of our health: the future starts today
  • (0:38:26) The mind-body connection to health and longevity
  • (0:47:01) Sergey’s top 5 longevity tips

Transcript

This podcast episode was edited to improve readability.

Podcast and episode intro, medical disclaimer

[00:00:00] Dr. Patti: This is Dr. Patti Shelton, and you are listening to the LongevIQ Podcast. We discuss anti-aging and longevity science and how to benefit from it so we can all live long, healthy, happy lives.

Just before we get started, a quick medical disclaimer. This podcast is for informational purposes only. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or to provide or replace medical advice.

Please use this information to educate yourself as much as possible and share this information with a qualified health practitioner that you trust.

In this episode, we’ll take a look into the future. With all the advancement of longevity science and technology, could we live to be 200 years old but still healthy and vibrant? And if so, what would our lives look like?

For this episode, we’re super excited to have with us Sergey Young, a visionary in the world of longevity innovation and the author of the Science and Technology of Growing Young. As we discuss, there are many promising technologies on the horizon which could become available even in the next few years. In fact, we already have some remarkable devices that can help us to optimize our lifestyle and likely improve our healthspan. We have a lot more control than we realize.

Also joining us today, as always, is Amir Ginsberg, the founder of LongevIQ.

Thank you so much for being here, Sergey Young. It’s really exciting to meet you. Thanks for coming.

[00:01:32] Sergey: Hello everyone. I’m so excited to be here with you today.

Living to 200 years young – a brief look into the future

[00:01:37] Dr. Patti: Awesome. We were so excited to read your book. You have so much passion for all of this. The science and the longevity and what it’s like for people to live long, healthy, happy lives.

You present such a fascinating vision of the future, what it could be like to be 200 years old. So maybe for anyone who’s not read your book yet, share that vision. What might it be like for someone to be 200 years old using all of this beautiful longevity technology?

[00:02:04] Sergey: 200 years young, this is how I would call it.
Just one thing before we go into the future. I’m obviously super positive about the future. But one would need to balance my genetically predefined high level of optimism with, you know, certain aspects of ethics, regulation, et cetera. In fact, my next big book is going to be about the future of humans. And this is where it sometimes gets really controversial. So, while I’m a technological optimist, we still need to sort out a lot of things on the ethical and moral fronts. So don’t take it one-sided that this future is guaranteed or this future would not require our changes in society, ethics, and regulation.

Okay, future. Imagine 50 years from now. Well, reaching 200 is going to be at least a hundred years from now.

Sleep of the future

[00:02:59] Sergey: We need to redefine so many things in our lives. Let’s think about sleep first. It’s very likely that the definition of sleep will be completely redefined, and the process of sleep as well.

Think about Tesla when for like 20 minutes, you can supercharge yourself. We’ll have something which will be like super sleep for like 20 minutes.
Or you’ll have the option to do like the old-style, classical, overnight recharge for your body and mind. So that’s kind of one thing.

Second, we all know today that the environment where we sleep is extremely important. So this whole environment is going to be redefined by technology in terms of the level of temperature, level of oxygen in the bedroom, and our ability to block the light. So it’s going to be much more technology-driven overall.

Then, this important period of sleep is going to be used by so many devices and technology, and pieces of science to help us live longer, healthy, and happy life. So, I’m talking about nanorobots or nanobots, which are actually already in development. We’ve seen a few great nanobot companies for our longevity vision fund. This is where we invest in different longevity technologies. They will be in your bloodstream identifying different injuries, making repairs, delivering some nutrients, and doing the scanning. So that’s going to be part of your sleep, or it’s going to work while you are sleeping.

And we already have an opportunity to use sensors. For the beautiful audience we have today who can see me. I’m using Oura ring to measure my sleep. Yeah. Using Apple Watch or, I mean, you can use whatever devices and gadgets you want, wearables you want as your personalized healthcare devices, but I think we are going to be full of sensors and diagnostic devices because the name of the game will be to identify the first signs of disease as soon as possible.

Food of the future

[00:05:04] Sergey: In terms of the food, this is a fascinating topic, and I’m not sure if all of us are ready for this message. Our food will be much more functional, probably synthetic, where all the nutrients and necessary elements are going to be integrated into this constructed food.

I see the point in terms of where we’ll have enjoyment and happiness, you know, rather than having a good meal with a friend. I accept all of that.

But I just got an interview with the team responsible for pet food in one of the large companies. And I have seen fascinating statistics that when dogs switch to this more orchestrated synthetic food, the lifespan of the dogs increased by 40 to 70%. I’m not comparing ourselves with dogs, but I just want to provoke your thought that even if we think the food
today should stay the same for the next 200 years, it might not be the same.

Gene therapy

[00:06:05] Sergey: And it’s going to be a different world. It’s going to be a world without genetic diseases. And as we know, like 30 to 40% of our longevity, depending on the study you look at, is defined by genetics. So while today we are really enjoying the stories of centenarians who’ve basically been lucky in the genetic lottery, we are all going to be lucky. We’re all going to be winners in the genetic lottery.

AI, internet of bodies and the internet of minds

And I’m pretty sure our brain is going to be integrated with artificial intelligence and computing power because I do think the name of the game in the future is the combination of human intelligence and artificial intelligence. It’s not conflicting. It’s not either or. It’s actually a combination of both. And this is where I see the development of this. And I actually find it really fascinating.

Today, we know the term like the internet of things. In the future, we’ll have the internet of bodies and the internet of minds.

And it’s going to be a completely different level of intelligence on the planetary level. It’s going to be collective intelligence. While today it’s more like a metaphor. Relying on collective, you know, wisdom, collective history, and work of so many generations. In the future, it’s going to be instant. It’s going to be run as a huge network.

So We as humans are going to be at a completely different level supported by artificial intelligence, but also, because of this collective nature of future intelligence, we’re going to be at a completely different level of development as a species, both within our planet, but also some places outside our planet.

So that’s the story of the future.

Is there a limit to human lifespan?

[00:07:43] Dr. Patti: Do you think there’s any limit to human lifespan? You mentioned 200 years, but 200 years young, as though that’s not the end necessarily. So just based on what you’ve seen of the research so far, and of course, we may not know this yet. What do you think?

[00:07:56] Sergey: Well, that’s a great question. Look, I’m not a scientist, right? So I have three degrees, chemical engineering, banking and finance, and business administration.

So take it with a certain skepticism, but if you ask me as someone who spent five years investing in longevity technologies and digital healthcare, I do think in current biological form, it’s going to be very difficult for us to live beyond 120 to 150 years. So it’s not going to work beyond this limit.

To live longer than that, we would need to redefine what the human body and mind mean. And I’m talking about human augmentation. We can use the metaphor of the old car, right? When for the old car, you replace the engine, you replace certain parts, and the same is going to happen with our body.

So it’s going to be an integration of man and machine and some biological material and engineering material as well. Don’t be scared. It’s really far away from today. So it’s just food for thoughts and trying to change the ethics and social nature of today’s world. But we just need to be aware of that.

One other thing, which I actually find very interesting to think about. So when people talk about immortality, they are like, you know, Sergey, you’re promoting immortality. I’m actually not promoting immortality because my definition of our longer living in the future will be like points in time in your life when you would need to decide whether you’re going to be immortal or not. It’s very likely to be like every 5 to 10 years. You would need to decide whether you’re taking the next layer of what is available today through science and technology to extend your life, healthy lifespan, for another 5 to 10 years.

So it’s going to be a series of your own decisions to extend your life or not. But obviously, we need to work a lot on that front because in some cultures and religions, if you decide not to extend your life, this will be considered like suicide.

But again, it’s a Philosophical question, and it’s not going to be me
or one or two people to find this solution. Very likely, it’s required a lot of collective work to find a reasonable ground for this model of life extension.

[00:10:09] Dr. Patti: So fascinating and so interesting. You hear people talking about increasing human lifespan, but we don’t think about like what it means to be human. It might not be the same as we do that.

[00:10:21] Sergey: I agree. I think it was a couple of years ago. I’ve done a TEDx called Morality of Immortality. And the main thing is we just created technologies to extend our life, but we haven’t created a life that we want to extend. In the majority of poles, 80% of people don’t want to extend their lifespan.

And even if you focus the question on the healthspan, there’s going to be more people who would not choose this option than the people who would be like pro-life extension. And that’s a serious problem. Actually, the longer we go through different horizons of longevity innovations, the way it’s defined in the book, the more ethics, social dilemmas, and regulation would play a role.

I just want to be provocative today for our smart audience, and everyone can think about the implication of these technologies for our life. I think we’re going to be ready for very radical life extension and healthspan extension in 10, 20 years from now from science and technology points of view, but we are not going to be ready from human ethics and regulation. It’s going to be the main barrier actually to embracing and using these technologies.

[00:11:34] Dr. Patti: in a way, that’s a very sad situation. If 80% of people think it’s not even worth bothering to live longer on this planet. That’s a huge problem.

Affordable, innovative technologies to revolutionize future healthcare

[00:11:45] Sergey: It is. Yeah. But look, I just need to focus, right? So in a way, I’m an investor and supporting different technologies which would today bring a lot of relief and improvement to the current healthcare system. And then, hopefully, all of us can sort out the ethical and social things in the next 10, 20 years collectively starting today, not delaying this.

And I’m so happy that the things that we invest in bring 10, 20 not percent, but times improvement in terms of the cost or efficiency against the current state of interventions.

For example, we invested in a company called LyGenesis. They do organ regeneration. They actually use our lymph nodes to regrow liver and help people with terminal liver diseases. They started a human trial. It got FDA approval a year ago to help people with terminal liver disease survive and improve the quality of their life.

Their solution for liver transportation is 20 to 30 times cheaper than when you use the donor liver for transportation.
Like, they would use one donor liver to help 50 to 75 people. So it’s not going to be $800,000 like it’s today in the US, and you need to wait for 6 to 12 months for the donor organ. It’s going to be instant, and it’s going to be $20,000 to $30,000 per surgery.

Or, we invested in a company that does early cancer diagnostics, similar to Grail, called Freenome. They will have the marketable product pretty soon. They use liquid biopsy, our blood actually, to identify many types of cancer at the early stage.

If you look at the potential cost of this early cancer diagnostic toolkit, it’s $200-$300. Even colonoscopy for prostate cancer and colon cancer, you know, would cost 10 times more.

And I can go on and on with all of these 20 companies that we have in our portfolio or in portfolios of somebody else that I know.

My dream is for healthcare to be very science and tech-based and a part of universal basic income or universal basic services.
I think for many countries in the world, in 20 to 30 years from now, it’s going to be completely economically affordable to offer this as a basic service to their citizens. But again, I’m a dreamer. I’m super optimistic. So, You know, I’m okay if you are pessimistic about what I’m promising about the future.

Longevity and healthspan tech available today

[00:14:19] Dr. Patti: This is fascinating. What a fascinating thing to think about. And you’re starting to sort of pull it towards, you know, we went dreaming way far into the future, and then maybe just a few years from now. I think what a lot of people really want to know is what’s available right now. What can I actually use right now?

[00:14:34] Sergey: So the disappointing discovery that many of us made about today’s situation is that your healthspan and life extension options are still pretty much focused on lifestyle interventions.

Obviously, would I like to surprise you with something high-tech which would help you immediately? Yes. But as a reliable person, I will not be able to do it with you today.

It’s a lot about lifestyle changes, and then we’re talking about physical exercises, sleep, diet changes, and passive longevity, as I call it, which is basically avoiding smoking or not taking unnecessary risks. But there are a number of science-based and tech components which are available today. And this is extremely important. I would think about two things.

The importance of medical screening

[00:15:25] Sergey: So, one is the medical screening. What is happening in the medical screening space is really amazing. If you think about today’s full body MRI, if you do it on a 3 Tesla MRI device, it actually has a pretty advanced AI system, which would be able to, well, let’s, look at comparisons.

So human radiologists working under time pressure, which, unfortunately, is a reality for doctors and our healthcare today, would be able to discover early-stage breast cancer just by looking through your scan in 36% of cases because it’s early stage, right? So it’s just really difficult for the human eye to catch it.

Same scan, but with a combination of artificial intelligence and radiologists, 94% early-stage cancer discovery. And it’s a huge difference. And we all know that even where we are today in terms of technology and healthcare, early-stage cancer for the majority of cancer types, if you identify that really early stage, the recovery rates are from 90% to 100%.

That’s great. And then, late-stage cancer stage four is 10-25% recovery. It’s a huge difference in terms of the quality of your life and the length of your life.

So what I always say, the most important day of your life every year is the day of your medical screening, not your birthday.

And you could mention – I’m not a doctor, but I saved so many lives, just by basically pushing people to the medical screen, and it’s all the same story. They call me up and say, Sergey, you saved my life. You know, it was early-stage cancer. I’m fully treated and recovered. The quality of my life is the same. Thank you very much. I can spend this time with my loved ones for more years. So that’s kind of one thing which is pretty unusual and new for us, even for our generation.

Wearables – personalized healthcare devices

[00:17:19] Sergey: The second piece is actually what we call today wearables. I call them personalized healthcare devices, and we have fascinating things today.

Like the Oura ring, which helps me to establish the feedback loop with my deep sleep or REM sleep. So when I started to use the Oura ring, I think my deep sleep numbers were like 40 to 50 minutes a night. Right now, I’m in 2.5-3 hours territory. And again, I mean, Oura ring will not help you to sleep better, but just knowing every morning what you’ve done the day before or what was the condition for your sleep or the length of your sleep and how it’s affected your sleep. It’s just powerful feedback, and this is the importance of that.

Another example. Like, I am not prediabetic in terms of my condition, though I’m 51, and I need to watch that. But probably for two weeks every quarter, I use a continuous glucose monitor. And it’s amazing When you can establish the connection between the food or the drink that you just had with your glucose spike or your body’s reaction to glucose. I find so many different and interesting things about relations.

I thought I shouldn’t eat pasta. Now I eat pasta because I’m actually pretty cool in terms of my reaction to that. And I’m a big fan of ice cream. For the last four years, I haven’t really allowed myself to eat ice cream. But I discovered that if I start with the salad and then have some proteins, a little bit of ice cream at the end of the meal is actually fine. My glucose level is kind of almost the same. There’s no spike there. So, I made a few great discoveries.

And I’m fascinated by what is happening with our smartwatches or wearables. I’m going to use the Apple watch as an example. But feel free to use whatever you want. Samsung watch, Whoop, Garmin.

It is already a very powerful device that can detect five different types of heart irregularities. A doctor that I know uses it. If he’s called on the plane to help a passenger, he just uses it for an electrocardiogram, the apple watch from his hand. It can also detect if you kind of fell on the street. If you haven’t pushed the combination of buttons within the minute, it’s going to call the ambulance for you.

And I can go on and on. If you look at the Apple strategy in the field of healthcare, and I’m pretty sure this kind of strategy is on top of the minds of people who run tech companies.
Now, this is great, and we need to use it. So it’s not counting your 10,000 steps anymore. It’s actually your personalized healthcare device.

[00:20:00] Dr. Patti: And so it sounds like a lot of the power of these wearable devices actually lies in how they help you optimize your lifestyle for your personal biology.

[00:20:13] Sergey: I agree with you, Patti. I think this whole notion of personalization is so underestimated today.

They even created a drug for a girl, and it was a drug for her. We’re thinking about medicine and healthcare today with the limitation of
the human brain and human intelligence.

But what’s going to happen? Artificial intelligence is going to help to personalize so many things for us. And obviously, the efficiency of the next generation of healthcare is going to be completely different because it’s going to be tailored for us.

Remember my story about the glucose monitor and the fact that actually pasta and ice cream are allowed for my diet? They are not really damaging my health. This is just a really small example of how personalized medicine and healthcare will look in the future.

Lifestyle and supplements

[00:21:07] Sergey: I actually want to mention the importance of lifestyle changes as well. So, we are kind of skeptical on a general level. Like, okay, well Sergey, my mom told me that. Diet, exercise, and sleep.

But think about this. I think it was in the book of Dr. Kara Fitzgerald, the younger you. And she described this study that they’ve done. They’ve been able to decrease the biological age, which means making people younger by 3.2 years. Let’s say three years younger in the course of eight weeks.

And, you know, what are the miracle tools that they use? Sleep, diet, exercise. That’s it. Eight weeks. You can be three years younger, and this is amazing. And if you put wearables and medical screening on top of that, this is amazing.

[00:21:57] Dr. Patti: That is amazing. And already here, it’s not a dream in the future. It’s already true. What about supplements? I know some people feel really overwhelmed by all the options that are out there. How do people know what’s going to move the needle? What’s really actually worth investing in?

[00:22:13] Sergey: That’s a great question. And I have my own waves, like in terms of the diet sometimes, like really strict diet wise, sometimes I’m kind of more relaxed because it’s really difficult. You know, I’ve been doing this for the last probably five to six years, and it’s really difficult to stay on a strict regimen all the time.

And I went through similar waves on the supplements. If you speak to the two years younger version of me, which is, two years ago, you know, I was doing like probably 30 supplements a day. 30 different types of supplements, and I would take them morning, afternoon, and evening just to distribute this heavy load.

Today I’m more relaxed about that, and I’m looking at two groups of supplements personally, and this is what I’m taking.

One is basic supplements, which have proven helpful for our longevity and health. Very classical things like Omega-3. I have a genetically predefined, pretty high cholesterol level, and I’m not on statins because my whole health story started with me rejecting the idea of taking statins for every day of my life or that time, I thought, another 40 years.
Right now, you know, I’m thinking about 150.

Omega-3 was really helpful for me in decreasing my level of cholesterol. I’m not giving everyone’s advice. I mean, your doctor would need to define what is good for you. But frankly speaking, the combination of fiber and omega-3 does probably the same job for me in terms of decreasing my cholesterol level in combination with my dietary choices than, you know, in comparison to statins. So omega-3.

Vitamin D, I think, is important. We are all deficient in Vitamin D because we are always under the roof, whether it’s your car, your home, or your office. Very few of us have the beauty and enjoyment in our life to spend so many hours outdoors every day.
So yeah, I measure my vitamin D level every quarter. I’m measuring a lot every quarter and adjusting my vitamin D intake, and I think it’s great.

Occasionally, like once a year, I would look at the different B vitamins panel because they are extremely important. And sometimes I discover that I’m deficient in a particular vitamin B, So I’m taking this as well.

That’s kind of the first group, which is classical old school, available in every pharmacy for you.

The second group, what has happened in the last five years, is the arrival of these longevity supplements. So right now, we can go to CVS or Walgreens or Boots and actually find particular supplements, which are, if you look at certain studies, we believe they’re helping us to live longer.

The one that I’m taking is NMN. Funny enough, I think right now in the us, NMN is moving from a non-regulated space to a regulated space. But you know, so far, so good. What I purchased before the change is enough for me for the next six months. And we’ve invested in some of the companies within our portfolio which actually use NMN for fertility.
They do it for dogs and horses simply because, from a regulatory perspective, it’s just much easier to test it on animals, and they achieve amazing results. So I’m not talking about humans here, but again, NMN.

The thing to consider about supplements, it’s just a lot of placebo effect, both for drugs and supplements that we have. And I’m a typical placebo guy, so, like, if you believe it’s working for you, your body and your mind will respond to that. So the placebo effect is probably like 30% to 48%.
I don’t know how many people in our audience know, but there are a number of placebo pharmacists in the world. Probably, all of them are now online. So you actually buy, and you know that this is a placebo. There is no chemical substance against any disease. And the funny effect of the placebo is that even if you know that this is a placebo, but you believe in it, it still works for you.

But again, 30% to 40%, I’m cool with that outcome, and it’s not going to work for everyone. I’m an optimist, and I’m also an optimist about placebo pills as well.

Think and grow young – the longevity mindset

[00:26:35] Dr. Patti: That’s such a great way of looking at the placebo effect, because sometimes people dismiss it like, ah, it’s just placebo. But really, that’s kind of proof that the mind and the body are powerful and that your mind has a huge impact on your body.

[00:26:49] Sergey: Agree. And there’s this part called Think and Grow Young in my biggest book, The Science and Technology of Growing Young. So Think and Grow Young covers the topic of the psychological aspect of aging. And again, I’m a great believer in that. In fact, my story in working on longevity started with solving my own personal health problem, and then it quickly extended to the mission to help as many people as possible to be a healthy and happy version of themself around the world.

[00:27:21] Sergey: I started with like a daily mantra in the morning. I want to live 200 years, which is completely irresponsible and not possible given where we are today in terms of science and technology. So I want to live 200 years in the body of a 25 years old man, young man. And you know what? I did it for the first month, and I couldn’t really believe it, but the way my body responded to that, you know, I actually became younger in terms of my appearance, but also in terms of my emotional drive.

It’s almost like traveling back in time when I was a young boy, you know, running, smiling, enjoying the life. So do this little experiment. Think about yourself as a younger version of yourself. Your target psychological age should be like aggressively low. And see how your body responds to that. My guess is that, at least for half of the population, it’ll actually help you to redefine your life and become a little bit younger.

[00:28:21] Dr. Patti: This is a fantastic message. Absolutely.

Coming soon: a new horizon of longevity innovations

[00:28:25] Dr. Patti: Let’s also think kind of beyond every day. So some people might go to a longevity clinic, let’s say once a year, sometimes a little more.
So What’s available now or what’s coming very, very soon in those kinds of clinics? If someone was thinking about investing in that?

[00:28:40] Sergey: Yeah. So, my horizon for the upcoming innovations is actually 5-10 years from now because I’m an investor. So the typical investment period is anywhere between 3 to 7 years, and it’s sometimes much closer to 7 than to 3.

This is the main part of the book, which I call a new horizon of longevity innovations. And when people ask me what are the most exciting things which are happening there, I’m always talking about three things.

One is gene editing and gene therapy. And again, we will be able to become all winners in the genetic lottery. We will be able to help people with rare genetic diseases, also called orphan diseases. Well, we call them rare, but there are 300 million people on earth suffering from these diseases, so they are not that rare.

We are going to obviously help our longevity genes to manifest themselves, and this, I guess, can probably add at least 5 to 10 years to our healthy lifespan. So that’s one thing, genetic editing therapy.

The second is organ regeneration, and we did discuss that. It sounds a little bit ridiculous today, but I think the level of argumentation and organ regeneration and organ replacement opportunities in this field that we’re going to see in the next 5 to 10 years is going to be amazing. There’s going to be a lot of progress into that. And it’s not only internal organs.

And the third one is longevity in a pill. If you go to the pharmacy today and ask for something against aging, they will send you crazy, or they will send you to cosmetics or supplements, and I don’t think it’s the way it should be, right?

We all know that after the aging processes start in your body, which usually happens after the age of 40 to 45, your statistical chances of getting age-related diseases and eventually die from them, like cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and neurogenerative diseases, are increasing exponentially 20-50 times.

And we are obviously much better at looking at something which would slow down or even reverse the aging processes inside your body. So I do think in 5 to 10 years from now, we are going to have longevity in a pill. We’re going to see a completely different category of drugs, which would help us redefine aging.

And it’s easily can be drugs that we know today, which are going to be repurposed like metformin or rapamycin, or it can be drugs developed with the help of artificial intelligence.

Like, we have two companies in our portfolio in LVF, the Longevity Vision Fund, which use artificial intelligence for drug discovery for the first part of it.

So the first stage of drug discovery is usually two years. And I’m oversimplifying this for this discussion. So they’ve been able to engage artificial intelligence and compress this part of the drug discovery cycle from two years to two months. And this is amazing. Think about the drug development process today in the US. It’s at least 2.6 billion per every drug and 12 years.

And this is just an example. What if you can compress it from 12 years to 10? How much capital can you free up and decrease the cost of drug development? And this is just the beginning. These companies work on solutions across the whole drug development cycle, not only the initial stage of it.

So longevity in a pill is going to be the norm in the future. It’s going to be here in 5 to 10 years. And again, it’s probably going to be some old drugs, and some new drugs developed.

[00:32:11] Dr. Patti: What about some of the technologies we have that maybe aren’t super mainstream yet, but they’re out there, stem cells, cryotherapy, red light therapy, things like that? How do you feel about where those are at now? Do you feel like they’re worth investing in? Do you feel like maybe soon they will be?

[00:32:29] Sergey: Yeah, I actually think that a series of mini-shocks makes us stronger rather than the weakest. So in terms of like infrared or cryotherapy, you know, I’ve tried so many times. I kind of like it, but I don’t think that it’s going to radically change our ability to live much, much longer. Okay. So that’s on that front.

I think stem cells, overall, are an extremely powerful avenue. Personally, I’m like a super conservative guy when it’s related to human health. When I’m investing, we are always looking at the benefits and risks associated.
So from my personal perspective, I’ve been offered to go through stem cell procedures many times all around the world. I always said no. I just want to see a little bit more trials and a little bit more evidence for particular cases where it’s going to be safe to use it and for what particular indications.

So from my personal perspective, if you have something really terminal and it’s a question of life and death for you, I would probably speak to your doctor and have a blessing to use this therapy, but I’m 51 and have another 5 to 10 years to wait. You know, just sit and wait and see what will happen in this field.

Getting in the driver’s seat of our health: the future starts today

[00:33:46] Dr. Patti: That’s a really good message, just really thinking through what you’re considering, not just jumping into the optimistic view. What about mistakes that you see people making? You hear from a lot of people about their longevity journeys and things. What do people maybe sometimes get wrong commonly?

[00:34:06] Sergey: Well, look. We are all a product of this society and our healthcare system, and it’s just a lot of embedded beliefs that sometimes are limiting us from just being the healthier and happier versions of ourselves.

Examples. Number one. Think about this. We delegated all our health choices to other parties: doctors, insurance companies, big pharma, big food, and the government. They all decide. Make your kind of health-related decisions. Obviously, I’m not arguing that we all just need to become doctors, but just being a sensible part of this group, making this collective decision. You need to be in the driving seat.

And if you have some doubts specifically, I’m always telling people, like, if you have something coming out like a huge surgery recommendation or a really radical intervention in your health, ask for a second or third opinion. It’s always great to see a more balanced perspective.

Think about this. When we speak with the medicine, the healthcare system, and doctors today, we have all the beauty but all the limitations of human intelligence. You always carry in the risk of someone just had an experience with their own sample of patients through the years.

But what if your situation is really different on a personal basis from the statistical sample that this particular person had? So in the future, and some of it, like the 3 Tesla MRI device that I mentioned, is already available today. The combination of AI, which is strained on a hundred thousand samples, and human intelligence and the human doctor. This is going to be the way for the future.

So I actually believe that we really need to take back control of our health and orchestrate everything which is happening around us in the system. Again, you know, not to make the final decision, but be part of it. So that’s one.

Uncovering the origin of disease vs. symptoms management

Second, a number of solutions exist today, and the majority of them are looking at symptoms rather than the origins of the disease. And I’m not really going to extremes now. I’m not saying you should not take medication. And I’m not saying in opposite, like every time you should take medication.

Let’s go through my example. For the last two weeks, I have had extremely high blood pressure, obviously, a major risk factor for heart disease, right? And, you know, if you see the doctor, they would tell you, well, Sergey, this is blood pressure management medication. It’s going to reduce your blood pressure, and that basically means taking it for the rest of your life. But apparently, what has happened was that I like a bit of weight training, and there was something related to my spine and my muscle work, which actually limits the outflow of the blood from my head, and it’s affected in a negative way my blood pressure.

A few visits to the doctor fixing that helped me to reduce my blood pressure. But like in a normal condition, think about if this would happen to you or your neighbor next door. They would just continue to take this blood pressure medication for decades.

And this is the norm of the system. To protect against the risk, doctors would need to work on the standard protocols. And standard protocols should work for everyone, which is not always the case. So, think not about symptoms, but think about the origin of your diseases
and if some of them are fixable and changeable on your level.

The body’s self-healing capabilities

I think the current paradigm of healthcare is like, everything; your recovery should be supported from the outside. While I think our body has certain self-healing capabilities. Again, I’m not going to the extreme saying like, don’t take any drugs, just pray, meditate, eat a plant-based diet, and you’ll be healthy.

No, but the combination of classical medicine and also relying on the capabilities of your body to recover. This is mother nature embedded immune system. We can go into details of that. I think it’s extremely important to rely on that, and it’s specifically the case for developed markets and the US as well.

Lastly, I think we are not looking at food as something which can be our remedy or can be our poison as well. We underestimate the importance of food as an important lifestyle factor for our longevity.

The mind-body connection to health and longevity

[00:38:26] Sergey: And finally, every time we talk about health, in 80% of cases, by default, we’re talking about physical health, while mental health is extremely important too. And I know a lot of people in the longevity sector who actually think mental health is actually your determinant of physical health as well. Again, not going to extremes. So I think we’re just underestimating and neglecting the connection between our mind and body. And that’s an important thing to realize.

[00:38:52] Dr. Patti: And you talked about how powerful it was for you, who’s already a very optimistic person, to like focus even more on optimism.

[00:38:59] Sergey: Yeah. Yeah, I agree.

[00:39:03] Dr. Patti: I want to give Amir a chance to ask questions. I’ve seen him over there, like thinking and being very patient.

[00:39:09] Amir: I don’t know if you see me smiling. I am so happy we just mentioned mental health because it’s one of the most overlooked factors, especially in the longevity space. And you gave a really beautiful example of how changing your mindset with a simple mantra made a big difference for you. So maybe we could talk just a bit more about your experience with the mental and emotional part of this, the mindset, the longevity mindset, if you will.

[00:39:35] Sergey: Yeah. Let’s talk about it. Thanks for this question, Amir. Remember, I’m a chemical engineer by degree. So I’m always trying to be like fact-based, technology-based, and science-based as well.

And I think that this side of our life and our health is still under-discovered and under-investigated in a way because simply the natural focus was on the physical aspects of our health, not the mental ones. So that’s one.

Second, you think about this, for many decades, we’ve been fighting the longevity barriers that we have around when we turn 50 to 60, which are cancer and heart disease. And there were not so many people who were living through 70 or 80 or even 90.

This is where you face the next wave, the next barrier, which is the neurogenerative space. So naturally, through the history of humanity and the evolution of healthcare, they were more focused on the physical aspects and physical barriers like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes rather than the neurogenerative space.

And this is why it’s extremely important to even overinvest our time, focus, and resources into understanding that.

I’m not that knowledgeable in this field, but I can tell you what I am doing.

The anti-aging power of natural sleep

So one thing. I think sleep is extremely important for your hormonal health and, therefore, your mental health overall. The majority of us have sleep deprivation on different dimensions. And I think what took it for me to change all of this is two things. One is a book by Matthew Walker called Why We Sleep. Before that, I was just using my sleep hours as an endless credit to sleep less and do more in real life.

It was completely normal for me to sleep five and a half hours every night and then survive on coffee and my embedded level of energy. After reading this book, my rule is eight hours in bed, which is seven hours of sleep. And I’m sticking to that. It’s an extremely important rule in my life.

I obviously know a lot of founders, doctors, and longevity clinics around the world. And this amazing guy, Jack Randall in London, I remember I had lunch with him the first time I saw him. So I asked: Jack, you have this beautiful longevity and health optimization clinic. Tell me one thing. Which is the most important?

And this is we typical humans; we like one thing. Well, human biology would not ever support one thing. You know, it’s always the complexity of human biology that you need to address on so many dimensions.
But, you know, as a weak human, I’m like, tell me one thing. And I remember his answer: Sergey, every night we can visit the most powerful clinic in the world. We go to bed, and we sleep.

And I thought, what an amazing way to underline the importance of sleep. I can tell you as a responsible biohacker or longevity guy who invests in longevity and affordable longevity for so many people. To recreate the effect of eight hours of high-quality sleep by alternative means like supplements, physical exercises, and diet, you need to spend like, I don’t know, two or three hours a day, and it’s not really even possible to just recreate it by different means.

But then you sleep, and your body has this natural regulation system in terms of hormonal and all other aspects of health. So that’s extremely important. And that’s number one.

Meditation

Second, meditation worked in a big way for me, and I’m the type of guy who is very like tech-driven, and I think 25% to 50% of people would need the excuse, like a gadget, to start certain changes in their daily routine.

So it took me Muse, you know, this device, which actually helps you meditate or start meditating. But then, in like three months, I quickly realized that human beings would not really need any gadget to meditate, right? It’s just like, you put yourself in silence, close the room, and then you meditate.

And meditation made a huge impact on me. I also tried the tech version of meditation called neurofeedback. This is what Dave Asprey does in his program called 40 Years of Zen. There are a number of neurofeedback clinics all around the world. The one I’ve done in London. It’s been amazing. It was the impact of like I was doing vipassana, which is silence meditation for a week or so, and it’s a very powerful tool. But again, you don’t need to buy these neurofeedback sessions. You can just sit down and meditate and it’s extremely important for your balance.

Be a good and kind person

And the third thing is just be a good person. Think about the religious or spiritual reasons or people with a mission that you met in your life. They look younger. They radiate. They’re more happy, and I think the definition of success and the importance of money that we have in the current society is obviously overrated. Sometimes it just doesn’t have anything related to your level of happiness. So be a kind person, give more than you take, think about other people, and you’re going to be happier, healthier, and you’re going to live longer.

[00:44:49] Dr. Patti: Yes. Wow. What an amazing message.

[00:44:54] Amir: What a powerful message. Kindness and being a good person. And funny as it is, this is probably what’s going to lead to a long, healthy life.

[00:45:04] Sergey: Absolutely.

[00:45:05] Dr. Patti: Yeah. People tend to get so individually focused when they’re thinking about longevity. People just really like, it’s all about me, it’s all about myself. But as you’re sharing, we can’t really separate ourselves from what’s around us, and focusing on other people actually helps us too.

[00:45:20] Sergey: Absolutely.

[00:45:21] Dr. Patti: Do you have any more questions, Amir?

[00:45:23] Amir: One question, although this was the absolute perfect message to wrap this. But we mentioned neurodegenerative disease. Do you see any big breakthroughs in that area? Because obviously, if we don’t have our brain with us, then there’s really no point in anything else.

[00:45:40] Sergey: Yeah, yeah. I agree, Amir. I think we are at a really early stage of trying to understand that, and I think the science and technology sectors have the right focus in terms of just basically having more data to analyze that, you know, better scanning, better AI to interpret this and this is what will lead to big conventions and big discoveries.

But we are at an early stage, but again, the technology is so promising. What I’ve heard is that for neurogenerative diseases, there’s still no critical mass of science and technology in this field that makes it investible for us.

But If you believe that the first signs of Alzheimer’s start at the age of 40 to 45, like literally 30 to 40 years before it manifests itself, that’s a long feedback cycle.

And remember, I was talking about the importance of establishing the feedback cycle. So I do think we are at an extremely early stage today, but we have the right focus in terms of the academic community and entrepreneurial community; just trying to analyze this whole thing until we have enough data. And then, the combination of human talent and artificial intelligence will help us to arrive to important conclusions in the next five years.

[00:46:52] Dr. Patti: Fantastic. A lot of us have lost family members in that way, that sort of slow fade out, and it’s so difficult. So we hope that can get solved.

Sergey’s top 5 longevity tips

[00:47:01] Dr. Patti: We usually like to end with just kind of your top tips. Maybe talk a little bit about what you do for longevity and what your kind of top tips would be for people to focus on, like the main points that they can keep in mind.

[00:47:15] Sergey: Okay. Five things. There are not all surprises. We covered some of them. And by the way, I’ll talk about five things, but there is more in the book. In fact, the biggest chapter in the book actually called, who wants to live Forever, with 10 longevity choices. So, people might want to refer to this too.

So five things. One is medical screening. We discussed that. And when I have 30 seconds and time for one tip only, I mention that. I think it’s extremely important. My medical screening is actually on the 23rd, like 10 days from now, in San Diego, in Human Longevity Center. So for me, it’s extremely important.

The second is passive longevity. Don’t do stupid things. Right? For example, smoking. At a certain point, I was thinking about whether I should even mention smoking because it’s outdated. It’s not fashionable anymore. But 25% plus of the younger generation up to 30 years still smoke certain kinds of electronic or classical cigarettes.

Using seat belts – plus two years to your life, not driving a motorcycle. Like all of these relatively simple things save a lot of years and take out a lot of risk from your life.

Third is the diet. There’s a lot of disagreement in the academic community. Diet-wise, which will extend lifespan and healthspan? But there’s one agreement. Decreasing your calorie intake, the number of calories you take every day, by 15% to 25% will very likely add another two to five healthy years to your life.

So that’s, I think, extremely important. Taking out all the unnecessary sugar from your diet. I’m a big fan of fasting, so I’m like fasting 36 hours every week. Usually, Monday evening to Wednesday morning. And I love this impact of fasting on me. But, you know, obviously, one would need to design for himself or herself what is the fasting or intermittent fasting regime that they want to use.

Fourth is physical exercise, and we have this binary like extremes when we think about physical exercise. For some of us, oh, I need to run a marathon, or the other extremists like, I don’t have time for that, for the big sport. I’ll just sit down and watch football on TV.

Well, there’s something in between. You don’t need to go to extremes. 10,000 steps a day. You know, I think it’s just an amazing target. And then if you can put something on top of it, like stretching, yoga, and weightlifting, which is extremely important at the age of 50 for your bone density and protecting your skeleton. Also, cardio, at least 90 minutes a week, is very important.

And number five and the last one, this is what I call peace of mind. We just discussed that. Sleep, meditation, and being a good person, enjoying your life.

[00:50:07] Dr. Patti: I see Amir, like just say, yep, I agree. This is perfect.
[00:50:14] Amir: It’s a really powerful message, and we’re so happy and grateful to you, Sergey, for mentioning these.

It seems like right now, prevention through lifestyle is huge. And more and more people need to hear this message. Just do one more thing, just one little thing, and just be strong when temptation, or however you want to call it, occurs. It’s okay that life throws you here and there. But the more we hear this and share this information with each other, the more we realize the norm actually needs to be redefined to a better, healthier norm.

[00:50:46] Dr. Patti: We have a lot of power. We have so much ability to control how we age and how we feel on a daily basis.

[00:50:55] Sergey: Absolutely.

[00:50:56] Dr. Patti: Thank you so much, Sergey. Oh, we’re so happy to have you here. And it’s nice to see someone so smiling and positive. So thank you for sharing that enthusiasm, that energy, with our audience. We really appreciate it.

[00:51:08] Sergey: Yeah. Thank you for your time today. Remember, it’s time to take back control of our health. All of us need to be in the driving seat and, please, be healthy and happy. Thank you. Thank you so much.

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