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Decoding longevity
You need to know about the future of genetic testing and anti-aging.
Erin Hunter
October 22, 2024
The Livelong Newsletter
Hi everyone,
Precision medicine is creating a future where every treatment, lifestyle, or protocol recommendation is personalized to you.
With the addition of biological testing, you’ll know what treatments actually make you age slower— and better.
This is an exciting era of preventative care and AI innovations. To help us navigate it is longevity expert Dr. Matthew Dawson, the founder of Wild Health and CEO of the genetic testing company TruDiagnostic.
We explore:
↹ The better alternative to biological aging.
✨ Personalized medicine optimization.
🧪 AI and the future of genetic testing.
🛏️ Daily longevity habits.
➕ And much more…
Keep reading for the best conversation highlights.
Age in reverse
From TruDiagnostic, this epigenetic test 👆looks at 75+ key aging biomarkers which control your rate of aging. The test features:
🫀 A detailed and easy-to-read report of baseline aging metrics, including pace of aging, cellular health, and organ health.
🪴 Personalized recommendations for lifestyle changes that lengthen telomeres and promote anti-aging.
PRECISION HEALTH • Matthew Dawson
Is measuring biological aging overrated?
Read highlights from our discussion.
Measuring pace of aging is the integrator of achieving better health.
Erin Hunter: Why should we test for biological age [and] why should we care about the rate that our body gets older?
Matthew Dawson: Most people know their birthday 🎂, and so they know the chronological age (i.e., someone’s chronological age may be 30, meaning they have lived 30 years of life).
Biological age [the age of your cells] is important because age is the number 1 risk factor for every chronic disease.
Aging is a much bigger risk factor than smoking or drinking alcohol or being sedentary or obese.
→ Reducing that rate of aging is going to reduce your risk factors for death and every other disease.
Erin Hunter: Why is the process of aging the ultimate determinant of aging and getting diseases? How does that happen?
Matthew Dawson: That's just how it is. If you had a 60-year-old versus a 40-year-old and the 40-year-old smokes and is overweight and not exercising, they're still going to have a lower risk for chronic disease than the 60-year-old.
In the past, we haven't really talked about biological age. The reason is because we didn't have good ways to measure it 📏.
Now that we actually do have a good way to measure pace of aging, we’re trying to reduce it.
The longer we can stay younger, the healthier we're going to be, the better we're going to feel, the better we're going to perform.
Measuring pace of aging is probably the number one integrator of everything (hemoglobin A1c for metabolic health, your C-reactive protein (CRP) for inflammation, your triglycerides for cardiac health…)
“The longer we can stay younger, the healthier we're going to be, the better we're going to feel, the better we're going to perform.”
It's such an important number to know [and] track over time to see if what you’re doing is actually having an impact.
Erin Hunter: Pace is a dynamic thing–it happens over time. Yet these biomarkers [are static] but can show something that is dynamic?
Matthew Dawson: That is another reason why pace of aging is a better marker, in my mind, than biological age.
[For example], if your biological age is… say 42 years old, but you are chronologically 40 years old, it could be that you are doing everything really well right now but you did a lot of really wrong things in your 20s.
I can’t tell if the reason you are a little bit older biologically is because of the past or what is going on now.
The nice thing about the pace of aging is that it shows what is going on right now…
Key timestamps
[00:04:08] Pace of aging
[00:11:39] three important biomarkers of aging
[00:17:51] The future of precision medicine and genetic testing
[00:25:36] Optimize daily health
➕ Additional resources
Head to Wild Health for personalized, genetics-driven health care.
Listen to the Wild Health Podcast (co-hosted by Dr. Dawson) for deep dives into precision medicine and actionable health.
LIVELONG BOOKSHELF • Fall ‘24 🍁
Top longevity books for fall 2024
Cozy up with books that keep you up-to-date on longevity concepts.
The value of taking care of yourself now is health for your entire lifespan. That’s why we curated a list of the best books on longevity so you can kickstart your path to health and vitality.📚
☝️ Find your next favorite read here.
🔛 What’s next?
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🗨️ We love to hear from you! — Please share your feedback, stories, questions, testimonials, ideas, and more with us.
🔔 Catch up on our previous newsletters — Discover interesting, impactful content to support your longevity journey.
💡 In our most recent newsletter — we explore 5 stretches in 5 minutes, reducing breast cancer risk with diet, and more.
We can’t wait to cover more trending topics in longevity in our next newsletter. Stay tuned.
Longevity Media LLC
Be your own expert. Optimize your health. Look beyond conventional.
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