Latest news with #healthoptimization
Medscape
11 hours ago
- Health
- Medscape
The Longevity Paradox: Medicine Meets Silicon Valley
'For without friends, no one would choose to live.' - Aristotle Jeffrey Benabio, MD, MBA Last year, Bryan Johnson, a 46-year-old tech founder, spent 2 million dollars on a regimen that included monthly plasma transfusions from his teenage son. Why? Well, we live in an age when the wealthy inject themselves with young blood, undergo elaborate hormone replacement protocols, get infusions of NAD+, and gobble metformin pill-packs to optimize their biological age. The sell is seductive: Death is evitable. Aging is curable. And with enough money, one can live to be old and healthy. The venture capital bets might be recent, but the yearning is ancient. Herodotus wrote in the 5th century BCE about special waters the long-lived Macrobians drank and bathed in — waters that not only extended life but left their skin "glossy and smooth." Later, Alexander the Great, in his conquests, was said to have been on a quest to find the "Water of Life." He died at 32, which is probably why his product isn't a popular supplement on Amazon today. Lucas Cranach's "The Fountain of Youth," painted in the late Medieval period, shows old and infirm patrons swimming in magical waters and emerging vibrant and young on the other side. Perhaps those waters had rapamycin-producing Streptomyces growing in it — which is a top seller today. The Fountain of Youth by Lucas Cranach d.Ä. Behind the tempting pitch to live forever lies an uncomfortable question: Is this medicine? Should we be testing testosterone on an athletic 23-year-old? Or continuously monitor glucose for a healthy adult with no signs of diabetes? Few doctors would order these for patients, and fewer payors would pick up the tab if they were ordered. This is the disconnect between medicine and entrepreneurs. "The medical system is so patronizing," said a young venture capitalist on a popular startup podcast I was listening to. He was complaining about how doctors resist ordering MRIs or specialized tests because we doctors "think patients are idiots." We do not. He's missing the point that, as a healthy 30-something, medicine is not resourced to help him with wellness requests. Who should pay for his requested MRI? Who would interpret the results? We physicians cannot keep up with the demand for services from those who need us acutely. We've no plan for absorbing a new generation of the "worried well" — better named the "ambitious well" — while also caring for their boomer grandparents. We have a critical shortage of primary care physicians; one that will only worsen as our population ages. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects a shortage of up to 40,400 primary care doctors by 2036. What happens if a portion of that workforce begins dedicating their time to monitoring biomarkers and fine-tuning supplement regimens for patients who are not sick? Healthcare resources — physicians' time, diagnostic equipment, laboratory services — are finite. Every hour we spend with a healthy person seeking optimization is an hour not spent with a patient who is ill. For every primary care physician giving up their practice for a cash-paying longevity clinic, there will be 2000 or so patients who now have to be redistributed onto already burdened practices. When healthy 35-year-olds can get same-day MRIs at boutique practices while my father-in-law waits nearly 2 months for an MRI to characterize a renal mass seen on ultrasound, we've failed. Caring for cash-paying patients who can sit with you for an hour is preferable to the daily grind of 15-minute appointments for patients who actually need an hour of your time. Why shouldn't docs get to choose? For one thing, our training is publicly funded. Taxpayer dollars pick up the tab for more than $20 billion in graduate medical education every year. It seems not quite right that this education doesn't at least in part serve the public who funded it. Despite these concerns, we should acknowledge the import of the longevity movement. Prevention is indeed better than cure. Early intervention can avert costly medical problems. And individuals have a right to pursue health optimizations they value, using their own resources. The question is, how should longevity medicine relate to our broader healthcare system and societal priorities? I think transparency is essential. Longevity interventions should be clearly labeled based on the strength of supporting research. It's the standard we adhere to every day in practice. We also need to be clearer about necessity versus enhancement. Insurance coverage and public resources should prioritize interventions that address or prevent disease. Enhancement services should be demarcated as distinct from necessary medical care. Physicians working in longevity medicine might also acknowledge some societal obligations. Perhaps consider devoting a portion of their practice to underserved populations or contributing to research that benefits the broader public, not just those who can afford boutique services. We also surely must address the structural factors that push physicians toward concierge practices. If doctors are fleeing due to administrative burden and time constraints, improving those would help ensure care remains accessible to all. Lastly, we might recognize that the best determinants of longevity operate at the population not the individual level. Clean air and water, safe neighborhoods, access to nutritious food, and strong social connections likely do more to improve the health and longevity of a population than any supplement or monitoring device. Realizing the promise of longevity medicine requires more than scientific breakthrough; it demands clarity about how these advances should be distributed and what values should guide their application. As physicians we face a choice: Should we allow longevity to become another domain where privilege determines outcomes? Or could we build a system where the benefits of extended healthy life are available to all? Since Herodotus and after nearly 2500 years of searching, we still haven't found the water of life. Or maybe Aristotle actually discovered it just a few years later: gymnastics, moderation in food and drink, and good friends. It's hard to raise a series A with that pitch though.
Globe and Mail
11-05-2025
- Health
- Globe and Mail
Is in-depth and expensive blood work worth it?
A number of new startups suggest looking at your blood for improvements in energy, mood, and even lifespan. Growing up, the only time I'd have blood work was if something was wrong. Doctors would run tests to check levels relating to negative symptoms. Blood counts to check for infections or problems with the immune symptoms. A metabolic panel to examine the kidneys. If my levels fell within a desired range, no action was taken. But increasingly, folks looking to optimize their health are taking a new approach to blood work, seeking out the tests and reading them like tea leaves. Results aren't just to indicate sickness or stressors. They're supposedly a gateway into more energy, better sex and a happier, longer, life. That's the selling point for a number of companies offering full blood-work panels outside of regular doctor visits. Brands like Life Labs, The Bespoke Wellness Group and Inside Tracker tout the benefits of personal analytics based on blood work. The detailed information gives you a more complete understanding of both how your body works now and how it might work better. It's info that comes with costs and risks. Packages including comprehensive testing, pages explaining that data, and personalized follow-up plans run about $600. While companies have privacy policies in place, handing over sensitive information is never 100-per-cent safe, as shown with the recent bankruptcy of 23andMe. Still, blood work offers factual information about what's going on in your body. Changes to your diet, workout and supplement routines can be shown in the results, offering empirical feedback when health matters can often feel like guesswork. Recently, I underwent a comprehensive blood-work panel from Canadian startup NiaHealth. The hope was that by checking my levels and crunching the numbers, I'd be able to make some changes. The past few months, I've been feeling exhausted. I've been having trouble completing workouts at the gym. I'm foggy during meetings, and getting up in the morning can feel like a herculean task. Nothing is wrong exactly, but things are not great. With continuing fatigue, I wanted to make sure something else wasn't going on with my health. Because I don't have a family doctor, blood work seemed like one of the best bets to do that. 'I encourage patients to get our blood work done on a semi-regular basis,' said Amanda Jaeger, a naturopathic doctor with Step Up Massage and Rehab. Naturopaths are limited in what they can offer. Compared with a physician, their focus is generally around optimization rather than medical care. For Jaeger, the tests help zero in on the cause of certain problems and catch things that might not be obvious on a surface level. 'There are things that some people accept as normal − things like period cramps or fatigue − that don't necessarily have to be that way.' Through her clinic, Jaeger is able to make recommendations for supplementation and lifestyle changes based on numbers in the blood work. Even if folks' biomarker levels are within 'normal' ranges, that can make meaningful impacts on patient's day to day. 'When it comes to reference ranges, there are some stark differences from the lowest to highest. … I'm trying to look for optimal functions rather than normal ranges.' For my NiaHealth test, I chose a panel with fifty-plus biomarkers plus a testosterone add on. There was also a thirty-minute consultation with a nurse practitioner from their team to explain my results. While a lot of startups in the blood-work space offer comprehensive biomarkers with their tests, Jaeger notes that most people can get by with less. A complete blood count, a comprehensive metabolic panel, a TSH screening for thyroid, vitamin D and inflammatory markers are cheaper tests or things that can be assigned through public health that give a great overview of what's happening with your body. Still, accessing those tests can be difficult from a walk-in clinic or if you don't have a primary doctor. My blood work came in less than a week after my visit to a local clinic. During the half hour NiaHealth consultation, a nurse practitioner pointed to borderline cholesterol levels, iron levels above average and some vitamin deficiencies. The website's dashboard offered graphs and grades for my results that were easy to read. Overall I was at a B+. Suggestions for my diet included trying fatty fish. Offers for exercise included breaking up my walks throughout the day and trying to jog. While I ranked a perfect score for my testosterone, my levels are on the lowest end of normal, and suboptimal, according to previous tests I'd done with InsideTracker. The nurse practitioner with NiaHealth was kind and informative, but after walking through my levels, there was hardly time to address the fatigue that had jump-started the process. She suggested that to better understand the causes of elevated biomarkers tests would need to be done with my (non-existent) primary-care provider. Nonetheless, getting the blood work done was helpful in planning some next steps. And for some, that can be an absolute game changer. For former bodybuilder and current fitness coach Dominic Kuza, checking blood work was key to getting lean and achieving physique goals both for himself and his clients. An out-of-pocket blood panel revealed unaddressed thyroid issues that were a major setback for his training, requiring medication and lifestyle changes to get on track. Based in America, his basic blood panel did not include testing for thyroid functions or hormones. 'Through my own blood work I've found things that were completely overlooked by doctors, but this was due to how basic of a panel that a physical with your doctor contains,' said Kuza. 'Blood work gives us information that allows us to see how our body is functioning internally and why someone might be having a hard time progressing in the direction they are hoping to.' For everything a blood-work panel offers, costs and potential privacy issues are important to consider when deciding whether you'd like to move forward with the work. In the case of NIA Health, it has a privacy policy that says it will not share personal information except in the case of service providers, legal compliance or the sale of the business. There are also valid concerns that private companies offering health services weakens Canada's universal health care and encourages a two-tier system. Not everyone has the means or desire to spend $600-plus on tests. At the moment, that limits customers to wellness and health fanatics rather than the general public. But knowing the stats on what's happening in your body − and what those stats mean − is one way you can start taking better control of your health. Without seeing the numbers and some general recommendations from the folks at NiaHealth, any changes would have been largely guesswork. Still, it's a big spend for general feedback such as trying a Mediterranean diet, exercise and the value of vitamin D. For anyone looking to get the benefits of blood work without breaking the bank, working with your doctor and requesting basic panels is still your best bet.
Yahoo
10-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Elizabeth Holmes' partner reportedly fundraising for new blood-testing startup
Billy Evans, partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, is working on a new startup that seeks to deliver 'human health optimization' through blood testing, according to The New York Times. The Times reportedly spoke to two investors pitched on the startup, called Haemanthus, and also viewed some of Haemanthus' marketing materials. In those materials, the company says it has developed a machine that uses lasers to analyze blood, saliva, and urine samples to detect cancer and infections. It reportedly plans to start with pet health before expanding to humans, and it seeks to raise more than $50 million. The pitch echoes that for Theranos, which promised to conduct a variety of medical tests on tiny amounts of blood drawn from pricked fingers. In 2022, Holmes (with whom Evans has two children) was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors, though she said in a recent interview that she remains 'completely committed to my dream of making affordable healthcare solutions available to everyone.' Early Facebook investor Jim Breyer told The Times that his team was asked to invest but declined 'for many of the same reasons we passed twice on Theranos.' Error while retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error while retrieving data
TechCrunch
10-05-2025
- Business
- TechCrunch
Elizabeth Holmes' partner reportedly fundraising for new blood-testing startup
In Brief Billy Evans, partner of Theranos founder Elizabeth Holmes, is working on a new startup that seeks to deliver 'human health optimization' through blood testing, according to The New York Times. The Times reportedly spoke to two investors pitched on the startup, called Haemanthus, and also viewed some of Haemanthus' marketing materials. In those materials, the company says it has developed a machine that uses lasers to analyze blood, saliva, and urine samples to detect cancer and infections. It reportedly plans to start with pet health before expanding to humans, and it seeks to raise more than $50 million. The pitch echoes that for Theranos, which promised to conduct a variety of tests on tiny amounts of blood drawn from pricked fingers. In 2022, Holmes (with whom Evans has two children) was sentenced to 11 years in prison for defrauding investors, though she said in a recent interview that she remains 'completely committed to my dream of making affordable healthcare solutions available to everyone.' Early Facebook investor Jim Breyer told The Times that his team had been asked to invest but declined 'for many of the same reasons we passed twice on Theranos.'
