Do GLP-1 drugs fight cancer?

🙌 Happy Friday! 

Morning sunlight helps set your body clock, but darkness is essential for repair. Now, a California-based aerospace company got approved to test a space mirror that bounces sunlight to Earth at night. As we engineer more light, will protecting darkness become a surprising new longevity habit?

Let’s go!

This week:

Is Ozempic a longevity drug?

As researchers continue to ask this question, scientists have released early data suggesting that adding a GLP-1 drug to some cancer therapies could make those treatments more effective in certain patients. 🛤️

While we still need larger, controlled trials, this offers new hope and hints at a promising target for hard-to-treat cancers that don’t respond well to standard treatment or immunotherapy.

The study: In experimental models of liver cancer, immunotherapy was given either alone or combined with a GLP-1 drug. Adding the GLP-1 appeared to help rebalance metabolic pathways and reduce inflammation. It also gave the immune system more opportunity to attack tumor cells.

💪 And, in some cases, adding a GLP-1 was even linked to more tumor cell death, which is a huge win in cancer therapy.

Most cancers disrupt normal cellular metabolism, creating a tumor environment that can make treatment less effective. GLP-1s support healthier energy metabolism and immune function, which might help immunotherapy work better in certain patients.

Looking ahead: GLP-1s continue to fascinate longevity researchers, with potential benefits for dementia, heart disease, stroke, and potentially cellular aging. This is still early and unpublished research, but who knows? Cancer recovery might soon join the list.

🏃 What we clicked next: What is ‘Ozempic face?’

🌀 Intense breathwork might be the closest thing to a psychedelic you can do, without the drugs.

In a small new study in Frontiers in Psychology, doing an intense breathwork session led to a more profound psychedelic-like experience than meditation. The benefits seem to stay well beyond the session.

In the “Airways to Alteration” trial, researchers tested a hyperventilation-style breath session against a classic guided body scan meditation in healthy adults aged 18–65 years.

Both practices eased stress, anxiety, and depression, but the breathwork performed better on most other measures:

Insights → Action: Beyond the mat, participants reported insights that changed how they behaved in the days after the session. This is a kind of habit-building shift that can be important for healthy aging.

Zoom out: Breath really can shape your reality, from better mood to healthier behaviors and a new way of seeing life. When taken to the edge (in a controlled setting!), the shifts might be surprisingly profound.

→ Note: Skip intense breathwork if you have serious respiratory or cardiovascular issues, panic disorder, epilepsy, or other major mental health conditions.

→ Good news! Gentle, paced breathing is safe for most people and linked to other nervous system benefits, such as improving heart rate variability, stress, and brain markers.

Research suggests that men and women don’t experience muscle loss the same, and a new review argues we shouldn't measure it the same way either. As we age, hormone loss drives muscle decline in both men and women, but it hits different pathways:

Big picture: Sarcopenia isn't one-size-fits-all. 💪 While scientists explore new biomarkers that could lead to sex-specific treatments, everyone can do a few things to preserve muscle mass and independence now, like resistance training, adequate protein intake, and consistent functional testing like grip strength.

What’s actually happening to your skin as you age? Join Carolina Reis Oliveira, PhD, longevity researcher and co-founder of OneSkin, for the full picture. RSVP now.

Note: This event is only for Circle members! If you aren’t already part of our women’s health community, click the link to join.

For deeper connections: The Livelong Women’s Inner Circle ^TM is a tight community of experts, entrepreneurs, doctors, and passionate women who want to connect about women’s health with confidence and clarity. 👉 Join the Inner Circle

Highlighting your responses to last week's question, featured in “Biological age clocks”

We asked: What makes someone “young” for their age?

No matter what we’re told, healthy aging is not just numbers. Most of you said that youth is about energy and curiosity — that’s being engaged in your life, able to do the things you love (which, according to many of you, is gardening!), and trying new things.