How ‘longevity' became the new buzzword in health
AT A time when many of us might feel powerless to influence world events, perhaps it's not surprising that our society is trying ever harder to exercise the ultimate form of personal control: over our own mortality. The desire for a long – even eternal – life is nothing new (China's first emperor and creator of the Terracotta Army, Qin Shi Huang, ordered subjects to search for the elixir of everlasting life). Now, however, this impulse is coalescing around one particular buzzword: longevity.
It's a timely topic, given that between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's population over 60 years will nearly double from 12 per cent to 22 per cent, according to the World Health Organization. But beyond its most basic definition, the word 'longevity' has acquired myriad new associations. Now, established ways to improve your chances of living longer – such as giving up smoking, exercising more, not getting lonely – aren't as attention-grabbing as commercialised, often competitive, approaches to extending your life.
Many approaches are constructive, such as that of Andrew J Scott, professor of economics at London Business School and author of The Longevity Imperative, who focuses on 'healthy longevity', and posits that there are other markers of ageing beyond chronological age.
But increasingly, the term is cropping up in marketing speak and in the luxury and lifestyle worlds. We now have hotels such as the Longevity Health and Wellness Hotel in the Algarve; a Longevity Lounge at wellness clinic Cloud Twelve in London, with biohacking gadgets such as a space-age-looking red light therapy helmet designed to promote hair growth and reduce brain fog. And then there's the Corinthia hotel's partnership with the London Regenerative Institute, offering everything from epigenetic testing aimed at determining how fast you are ageing, to hyperbaric oxygen therapy.
Dior's L'Or de Vie La Creme (£1,400, or S$2,400, for 50ml) contains 'Golden Drop Life Technology', a 'longevity elixir'; while this month, Swiss 'longevity brand' Loya launched moisturisers and serums that it says will bring 'a completely new category of wellness to the UK market'. Apparently, 'proprietary HappyFeelBoost technology' will rejuvenate skin and lift your mood. Any resemblance to the 'hypnopaedic' slogans in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is purely coincidental.
This year, Alex Hawkins, director of strategic foresight at The Future Laboratory, co-authored a report produced by The Future Laboratory in partnership with Together Group, about how luxury is embracing longevity.
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Hawkins tells me that a key character in taking the concept mainstream is super-rich biohacker Bryan Johnson, the subject of the Netflix documentary Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, and whose bid to reverse ageing has involved futuristic and dystopian strategies such as receiving blood transfusions from his teenage son.
Then there's the research around Blue Zones – global communities with a high concentration of people living to an advanced age, the subject of another Netflix documentary released in 2023.
Biohacker Bryan Johnson's bid to reverse ageing has involved futuristic and dystopian strategies such as receiving blood transfusions from his teenage son. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG
Hawkins says: 'Those two things open up an interesting split in the longevity conversation. On the one hand you have this high-tech, science-driven approach where someone is actively throwing quite a lot of money and technology at understanding and optimising their own ageing process; and on the other, with the Blue Zones, it's a radically back-to-basics approach to health. A lot of the reasons that we see people living longer in Blue Zones are really foundational things, like having strong community ties and eating relatively unprocessed diets.'
However, Johnson's Rejuvenation Olympics – a competition that encourages participants to measure their 'biological age' and upload it to a public leaderboard – demonstrates a competitive element to longevity pursuits. They have become a fitness flex, just like posting Insta pictures of yourself doing burpees as part of a Hyrox race. Where once people would brag about being 'crazy busy' or pulling an all-nighter at work, now, logging eight hours of sleep on your Oura ring score carries more cachet. There's been such a culture shift that it seems extraordinary now that live fast, die young was ever considered a cool rock'n'roll mantra.
Hawkins says the Future Laboratory report was exploring 'this idea that you and your quality of life are ultimately your greatest investment. It's definitely a status symbol in that way. Perhaps in the future it won't be so much about the designer handbag, it's more what treatments you have access to, what means you have to take control over your ageing.'
As consumers prioritise experiences over products, high-end fashion and beauty brands are following suit, aiming to offer what The Future Laboratory calls 'a new paradigm of transformational luxury'. Often, that might seem as much about looking younger for longer, as much as the prospect of actually living longer.
Not that it's limited to the highest end of the market. According to McKinsey's latest 2025 Future of Wellness Report, up to 60 per cent of consumers report that healthy ageing is a 'top' or 'very important' priority'. It notes that 'products and services have emerged to address these needs, including skincare products targeting long-term skin health and wrinkle prevention, supplements that claim to slow cellular ageing, epigenetic age-testing kits, virtual physical therapy solutions, and more'.
But is the word longevity really set to stay in the conversation? Or like the increasingly woolly 'wellness', will its meaning be diluted until it's used to describe random products in the outer reaches of Amazon? Anyone for a pair of marshmallow-pink-coloured Warmies, described as heatable wellness boots, scented with French lavender?
In other words, does longevity have longevity?
Anna Pione, a partner at McKinsey in New York, says: 'Where I think there is risk of a fad is in specific applications of what longevity means. Right now, like wellness, it's an extremely broad term... Do I think it will have the same prevalence in marketing language a few years from now? That's open for debate. It depends on whether some of these products and services really take hold and if consumers continue to see the value, as to whether you might see more of it.'
While longevity is predicted to be a growth area in hospitality, plenty of the major players seem measured in their use of the tag. Perhaps wanting to tap into its zeitgeisty vibes without overcommitting, should it become supplanted by another new term. The Soho Health Club, part of the Soho House Group, states on its website that facilities are 'designed to encourage performance and promote holistic wellness and longevity', via treatments such as contrast therapy (ice baths, infrared sauna) and IV drips including NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, a molecule favoured by various celebrities for anti-ageing).
However, Thiago Alves, Soho Health Club's UK manager, says: 'I don't necessarily have any member coming to me asking for longevity treatments. I think members are more curious about health optimisation, they want to live longer, they want to live better. They want to have a good time with us... we use quite a few words, but we don't necessarily use the word longevity so explicitly.'
The Dorchester Collection has revamped its spa at Coworth Park. Teresa O'Farrell, its global head of wellness and spa, who was part of the process, is also measured in her approach to namechecking longevity. 'It is something we talk about but we're not using it as a buzzword.' In fact she still talks about 'wellness' because it's 'the journey to longevity'.
'There are lots of extreme therapies, but Coworth Park is a countryside estate and we know that being in nature is good for physical and mental wellness, so that is part of longevity,' she says. 'You hear the birds, smell the fresh air the, trees, the grass, the flowers. As people walk up the path to the spa they are already reducing their stress.'
McKinsey's Anna Pione also emphasises that consumers will need to feel short-term benefits from products that promote longevity. Not everyone wants to wait half a century or more to find out if those supplements do what they say on the tin. FINANCIAL TIMES
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Straits Times
01-06-2025
- Straits Times
Implants could help treat eye condition which causes vision loss
The implant has already received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO Implants could help treat eye condition which causes vision loss SINGAPORE - Instead of receiving uncomfortable eye injections around once a month for a disease that can lead to blindness, patients may soon have an easier alternative. A new innovation will allow them to be treated twice a year via an implant the size of a rice grain. Swiss healthcare firm Roche, which developed the treatment, is now conducting a study of the implant involving more than 400 participants in 16 countries, including Singapore – the only country in South-east Asia in the study and one of only three Asian countries. The study, which ends in December 2026, looks at the efficacy and safety of refilling the implant every nine months, compared with every six months. The implant has already received approval from the US Food and Drug Administration. Treating neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD) currently requires injections into the eye as often as once a month. Studies have noted that patients' discomfort with the treatment can lead to undertreatment of the disease. The disease affects the part of the eye that provides the sharp vision needed for activities such as reading and driving, and can result in rapid and severe vision loss if left untreated. It results when new and abnormal blood vessels grow uncontrolled under the macula – the part of the retina responsible for sharp central vision – causing swelling, bleeding and fibrosis. The condition, also known as 'wet' AMD because these new blood vessels leak fluid into the retina, is one of the leading causes of blindness in Singapore, affecting more than 125,000 people aged 40 or older. This number is expected to increase to almost 200,000 by 2040, according to a study published in Annals, the official journal of the Academy of Medicine, Singapore in 2018. Roche's innovation to treat nAMD a refillable eye implant that continuously delivers a customised formulation of ranibizumab – a drug used to treat a number of eye conditions – over a period of several months. Also known as a port delivery system, the implant is inserted into the eye via a simple procedure and requires just two refills a year. Roche said in a statement that the implant could result in more reliable improvements in vision for people living with nAMD, reducing the risk of disease recurrence. Decreasing the need for frequent eye injections and doctor visits can also reduce the treatment burden for patients, the firm said. Singapore currently has four sites involved with the trial – the National University Hospital (NUH), Singapore General Hospital, Tan Tock Seng Hospital, and Eye & Retina Surgeons @ Camden Medical, a private clinic. Prof Caroline Chee and Dr Yuen Yew Sen from the department of ophthalmology at National University Hospital who took part in the trial. ST PHOTO: DESMOND FOO Dr Yuen Yew Sen, a consultant with NUH's ophthalmology department, is among those involved with the Roche's study here. He told The Straits Times only those who have recently been diagnosed with nAMD qualify for the trial, and four patients have received the implant at NUH. Once the treatment becomes commercially available – which he said could happen by 2026 – most patients should qualify for the treatment, except for those who have other eye conditions such as glaucoma. Beyond some initial minor discomfort following the surgery, patients who receive the implant are unlikely to notice it is even there, Dr Yuen said. 'Once the stitches dissolve, they don't actually feel anything,' said Dr Yuen, noting that similar implants are also used to treat conditions such as glaucoma. Such implants can also be used to treat other diseases related to the eyes, with trials looking at their use in addressing diabetic retinopathy on the cards, he said. Professor Gemmy Cheung, head of the retina research group at the Singapore Eye Research Institute, notes that nAMD presents differently in Asian populations due to the higher prevalence of a subtype known as polypoidal choroidal vasculopathy (PCV). 'PCV primarily impacts the blood vessels in the layer beneath the retina, causing serious vision impairment or even vision loss if left untreated,' she said. This is of concern because PCV has historically been considered more difficult to treat, with less predictable outcomes than typical nAMD, she said. While conventional treatments are effective in most PCV cases, frequent retreatment is required, said Prof Cheung, who also heads the medical retina department of the Singapore National Eye Centre. Lapses in treatment can result in reactivation of lesions and new instances of bleeding, she added. New therapies such as the port delivery system offer a 'promising approach to providing sustained disease control' in PCV, she said, adding they can potentially reduce the burden of frequent injections and improve long-term outcomes for patients. Join ST's WhatsApp Channel and get the latest news and must-reads.
Business Times
30-05-2025
- Business Times
How ‘longevity' became the new buzzword in health
AT A time when many of us might feel powerless to influence world events, perhaps it's not surprising that our society is trying ever harder to exercise the ultimate form of personal control: over our own mortality. The desire for a long – even eternal – life is nothing new (China's first emperor and creator of the Terracotta Army, Qin Shi Huang, ordered subjects to search for the elixir of everlasting life). Now, however, this impulse is coalescing around one particular buzzword: longevity. It's a timely topic, given that between 2015 and 2050, the proportion of the world's population over 60 years will nearly double from 12 per cent to 22 per cent, according to the World Health Organization. But beyond its most basic definition, the word 'longevity' has acquired myriad new associations. Now, established ways to improve your chances of living longer – such as giving up smoking, exercising more, not getting lonely – aren't as attention-grabbing as commercialised, often competitive, approaches to extending your life. Many approaches are constructive, such as that of Andrew J Scott, professor of economics at London Business School and author of The Longevity Imperative, who focuses on 'healthy longevity', and posits that there are other markers of ageing beyond chronological age. But increasingly, the term is cropping up in marketing speak and in the luxury and lifestyle worlds. We now have hotels such as the Longevity Health and Wellness Hotel in the Algarve; a Longevity Lounge at wellness clinic Cloud Twelve in London, with biohacking gadgets such as a space-age-looking red light therapy helmet designed to promote hair growth and reduce brain fog. And then there's the Corinthia hotel's partnership with the London Regenerative Institute, offering everything from epigenetic testing aimed at determining how fast you are ageing, to hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Dior's L'Or de Vie La Creme (£1,400, or S$2,400, for 50ml) contains 'Golden Drop Life Technology', a 'longevity elixir'; while this month, Swiss 'longevity brand' Loya launched moisturisers and serums that it says will bring 'a completely new category of wellness to the UK market'. Apparently, 'proprietary HappyFeelBoost technology' will rejuvenate skin and lift your mood. Any resemblance to the 'hypnopaedic' slogans in Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is purely coincidental. This year, Alex Hawkins, director of strategic foresight at The Future Laboratory, co-authored a report produced by The Future Laboratory in partnership with Together Group, about how luxury is embracing longevity. A NEWSLETTER FOR YOU Friday, 2 pm Lifestyle Our picks of the latest dining, travel and leisure options to treat yourself. Sign Up Sign Up Hawkins tells me that a key character in taking the concept mainstream is super-rich biohacker Bryan Johnson, the subject of the Netflix documentary Don't Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever, and whose bid to reverse ageing has involved futuristic and dystopian strategies such as receiving blood transfusions from his teenage son. Then there's the research around Blue Zones – global communities with a high concentration of people living to an advanced age, the subject of another Netflix documentary released in 2023. Biohacker Bryan Johnson's bid to reverse ageing has involved futuristic and dystopian strategies such as receiving blood transfusions from his teenage son. PHOTO: BLOOMBERG Hawkins says: 'Those two things open up an interesting split in the longevity conversation. On the one hand you have this high-tech, science-driven approach where someone is actively throwing quite a lot of money and technology at understanding and optimising their own ageing process; and on the other, with the Blue Zones, it's a radically back-to-basics approach to health. A lot of the reasons that we see people living longer in Blue Zones are really foundational things, like having strong community ties and eating relatively unprocessed diets.' However, Johnson's Rejuvenation Olympics – a competition that encourages participants to measure their 'biological age' and upload it to a public leaderboard – demonstrates a competitive element to longevity pursuits. They have become a fitness flex, just like posting Insta pictures of yourself doing burpees as part of a Hyrox race. Where once people would brag about being 'crazy busy' or pulling an all-nighter at work, now, logging eight hours of sleep on your Oura ring score carries more cachet. There's been such a culture shift that it seems extraordinary now that live fast, die young was ever considered a cool rock'n'roll mantra. Hawkins says the Future Laboratory report was exploring 'this idea that you and your quality of life are ultimately your greatest investment. It's definitely a status symbol in that way. Perhaps in the future it won't be so much about the designer handbag, it's more what treatments you have access to, what means you have to take control over your ageing.' As consumers prioritise experiences over products, high-end fashion and beauty brands are following suit, aiming to offer what The Future Laboratory calls 'a new paradigm of transformational luxury'. Often, that might seem as much about looking younger for longer, as much as the prospect of actually living longer. Not that it's limited to the highest end of the market. According to McKinsey's latest 2025 Future of Wellness Report, up to 60 per cent of consumers report that healthy ageing is a 'top' or 'very important' priority'. It notes that 'products and services have emerged to address these needs, including skincare products targeting long-term skin health and wrinkle prevention, supplements that claim to slow cellular ageing, epigenetic age-testing kits, virtual physical therapy solutions, and more'. But is the word longevity really set to stay in the conversation? Or like the increasingly woolly 'wellness', will its meaning be diluted until it's used to describe random products in the outer reaches of Amazon? Anyone for a pair of marshmallow-pink-coloured Warmies, described as heatable wellness boots, scented with French lavender? In other words, does longevity have longevity? Anna Pione, a partner at McKinsey in New York, says: 'Where I think there is risk of a fad is in specific applications of what longevity means. Right now, like wellness, it's an extremely broad term... Do I think it will have the same prevalence in marketing language a few years from now? That's open for debate. It depends on whether some of these products and services really take hold and if consumers continue to see the value, as to whether you might see more of it.' While longevity is predicted to be a growth area in hospitality, plenty of the major players seem measured in their use of the tag. Perhaps wanting to tap into its zeitgeisty vibes without overcommitting, should it become supplanted by another new term. The Soho Health Club, part of the Soho House Group, states on its website that facilities are 'designed to encourage performance and promote holistic wellness and longevity', via treatments such as contrast therapy (ice baths, infrared sauna) and IV drips including NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, a molecule favoured by various celebrities for anti-ageing). However, Thiago Alves, Soho Health Club's UK manager, says: 'I don't necessarily have any member coming to me asking for longevity treatments. I think members are more curious about health optimisation, they want to live longer, they want to live better. They want to have a good time with us... we use quite a few words, but we don't necessarily use the word longevity so explicitly.' The Dorchester Collection has revamped its spa at Coworth Park. Teresa O'Farrell, its global head of wellness and spa, who was part of the process, is also measured in her approach to namechecking longevity. 'It is something we talk about but we're not using it as a buzzword.' In fact she still talks about 'wellness' because it's 'the journey to longevity'. 'There are lots of extreme therapies, but Coworth Park is a countryside estate and we know that being in nature is good for physical and mental wellness, so that is part of longevity,' she says. 'You hear the birds, smell the fresh air the, trees, the grass, the flowers. As people walk up the path to the spa they are already reducing their stress.' McKinsey's Anna Pione also emphasises that consumers will need to feel short-term benefits from products that promote longevity. Not everyone wants to wait half a century or more to find out if those supplements do what they say on the tin. FINANCIAL TIMES
Business Times
28-05-2025
- Business Times
SingHealth Duke-NUS' AI spinoff inks MOUs with Roche, ST Engineering to improve healthcare operations
[SINGAPORE] Enigma Health, a healthcare artificial intelligence (AI) spinoff from SingHealth Duke-NUS Academic Medical Centre, has inked separate memorandums of understanding (MOUs) with Swiss pharmaceutical giant Roche and Singapore technology player ST Engineering to expand the reach of its agentic AI platform. Agentic AI is a class of artificial intelligence that can reason and act autonomously. The platform, Enigma, was developed by a team of clinicians and AI scientists to optimise workflow and streamline data-intensive, time-consuming processes at healthcare organisations. This could range from administrative work to analysing surgeries as part of clinical audits. At the same time, the platform is able to maintain the security and regulatory compliance of the data. 'We are not taking any data out from anywhere... we are deploying (Enigma) at the source,' said Dr Dario Heymann, chief executive of Enigma Health, at a media briefing on Tuesday (May 27). The MOUs, signed at the Asia Tech X Singapore Summit, will enable Roche and ST Engineering to make use of Enigma in certain areas. The first MOU signed by Enigma Health and Roche will enable the two entities to jointly explore advanced AI and digital technologies to accelerate clinical trial recruitment, improve market access and enhance business intelligence. 'When you look at clinical trials, 40 per cent of the cost is actually on the recruitment side,' said Dr Heymann. BT in your inbox Start and end each day with the latest news stories and analyses delivered straight to your inbox. Sign Up Sign Up Enigma would be able to identify patients much faster based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria selected by the company, which would then save time and costs for these trials. Better oversight The second MOU signing between Enigma Health and ST Engineering will add the AI firm's small language model to ST Engineering's Agil Genie Studio platform, which enables users to build and deploy AI applications. Small language models are streamlined versions of large language models, which refer to AI systems such as ChatGPT that process vast amounts of text data to comprehend and generate human language. ST Engineering builds command centres for hospitals, which serve to manage crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic, said Tan Bin Ru, president of enterprise digital at ST Engineering. 'The command centre leverages open-source large language models, but we realised that for specific areas, you actually need the small language model that Enigma is building, and it makes sense then to partner (with Enigma Health),' she said. For example, the hospital command centre has oversight of operating theatre capacity, but may not have the ability to check more specialised data such as post-surgery audits. Enigma's addition may then allow the command centre to look at both types of information from the same command centre. The two signings were witnessed by Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam at the summit's Scaling and Sustaining Healthcare with GenAI Symposium. In her closing remarks, she said that good governance is as crucial as technological advances in advancing the adoption of AI in healthcare. Minister of State for Digital Development and Information Rahayu Mahzam says: 'Without clear rules, companies hesitate to invest, and doctors hesitate to adopt new technologies.' PHOTO: SINGHEALTH 'Without clear rules, companies hesitate to invest, and doctors hesitate to adopt new technologies,' she said. While Singapore has provided clear regulatory pathways for adopting AI in healthcare, 'healthcare transformation requires collective effort and shared expertise', added Rahayu, who is also minister of state for health. 'The two MOUs exemplify our collaborative approach to healthcare innovation,' she added. Prior to the announcements, Enigma was piloted in several SingHealth institutions, such as the Singapore National Eye Centre, SingHealth Duke-NUS Institute of Precision Medicine (Prism) and KK Women's and Children's Hospital. 'At KK Women's and Children's Hospital and Prism, a pilot with Enigma cut genetic reporting time from 30 minutes per report to just seconds, or 1,400 reports in an hour, instead of weeks,' noted Rahayu.
