Dr. Mark Hyman had a presentation at the Longevity Clinic conference in December at the Buck Institute. I got some photos of the presentation that you may find interesting. His presentation was on how his clinic approaches longevity medicine.
Click on any slide to make it full screen.
You can also click on the first slide then just use the left/right arrows on your keyboard to go through the entire slide presentation full screen.
I also have the presentations from other longevity clinics and will try to get them up on the site at some point. It provides a good look at the current state of the art in terms of how current longevity clinics are approaching this area. While many of us may not be able to afford some of their higher-end services, we can perhaps replicate some of the efforts through other means, or look for a’la carte pricing from other vendors.
@RapAdmin thanks for sharing these presentation photos. It is apparent that a lot of thought went into the presentation. I cannot tell how much is “perfuming the pig” vs real science. But it would certainly be entirely useful for a person just getting started down the longevity path in any case.
For people selling a subscription service, complexity is a useful feature (“only we understand; you need our help to make progress”). For people learning about health and longevity, complexity is the enemy. Too much complexity is a barrier to understanding; while overly simplistic (just eat keto), reductionist (free radical model of aging), analogous (a body is like an engine) models of health produce over confidence, short term positive results, and long term failure.
It’s hard to know what to do.
To use an old startup analogy, I am desperately trying to assemble the airplane (find my optimal longevity plan) while I and the airplane parts fall from the sky (everyday is one day closer to the end). After looking at Dr Hymans presentation, I am thinking I should develop my own presentation (my model and status) to identify where I should focus my investigations and experiments. So far it’s been too reliant on finding treasures that wash up on the beach.
I only heard of Hyman a couple of months ago but I’ve binge watched a lot of his interviews on YT. Find him a lot more interesting than Attia and have learned more from him or at the very least got food for thought. His “bias” is toward more lifestyle interventions and natural supplements than prescription pill popping. Topics he covers that I find underrepresented by Attia et. al. are microbiome health, heavy metal toxicity, and neurodegenerative disorders in an open minded non reductionist way — he’s got the the best guest interviews on the latter with well respected neurologists.
This offering seems to be trying reach more of the masses. Has any one looked at/evaluated it or even done it?
Probably is hyping the ratio of value to price they are offering… but does look like one gets more from just an epigenetic test for a similar price:
$15,000 on your own. $499 with Function.
The first membership that includes a 100+ lab test routine with thorough, personalized insights.* No insurance. No fees. What could cost $15,000 on your own is just $499 a year.
No - this was a small conference of only a few hundred people, mostly doctors interested in the longevity clinic business area. They didn’t do video recordings and the presentations weren’t for a mass audience. I did record the audio of some of the presentations on my phone as I sat there. Let me see what I have.
Yes - what we really want to know is the relative importance, or impact, or benefit, of any given area on our long term outcomes (all cause mortality?).
Ultimately its going to be an individualized thing anyway, so I’m thinking the best approach is just to learn about what is out there, and try to learn about the cost/benefits of different activities/tests, etc. and then make individual decisions based on your own medical/health situation, key perceived risk factors and budget.
I’ll post the other presentations over the coming month and together they give us an idea of approaches, tests and interventions that these clinics are offering.
Trudiiagnostic offers an explanation of ‘intrinsic’ and ‘extrinsic’ ages in ths video, starting around 23:00: (BTW, they say my intrinsic is 11 years younger than chron.)
Whereas I’m given an extraordinarilly good extrinsic age , which is said to reflect my immune system status, the immune report says I have an inverted (less than 1:1) CD4/CD8 ratio, which is associated with ‘short term likelihood of death’.
It’s probably the rapamycin (if you take rapamycin that is ). Here is what they say about that ratio:
We have been able to refer patients for additional testing to diagnose HIV, Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia, and even individuals taking their Rapamycin at too high of a dose.
ChatGPT:
rapamycin is known to inhibit the activation and proliferation of T cells, but it may also selectively spare or even promote the expansion of regulatory T cells (Tregs), which are typically CD4+. This selective sparing could theoretically influence the CD4/CD8 ratio, although specific effects can vary.
[…] For patients on rapamycin, regular monitoring of immune function, including measurements of CD4 and CD8 T cell counts and the CD4/CD8 ratio, is essential to assess the immunosuppressive effect of the drug and adjust treatment as necessary. Monitoring is especially important in transplant patients and individuals with conditions affecting immune function, where maintaining a balance between effective immunosuppression and preserving immune competence is crucial.
Here are all the tests included in the $500 Function Health Plan:
I copied all the tests into a spreadsheet and then looked up the prices on Marek, as best I could:
It looks like the same tests via Marek come in at $800+. And I couldn’t price the ‘biological age’ test included, as there’s no Marek test for this. (Just to be crystal clear, the Marek total includes the total price for those tests that are available 2x during the course of the year.)
). Here is what they say about that ratio: