Hey Doc,

Just landed in the French Riviera. Cannes Longevity Summit is in ten days, production is starting tomorrow. As I sat down to write this week’s newsletter, I kept coming back to the question I hear most from physicians right now: what is a longevity doctor, and how do I become one?

So I wrote about it. Ten traits that define what a longevity doctor actually is. Not a title. Not a certification alone. A way of practicing medicine that most of us were never trained for but all of us can build toward.

Issue 96 is out.

Dr. David Luu, Founder, longevitydocs.™

PS: today’s office view in Monte-Carlo

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

What’s a Longevity Doctor?

10 traits that make a longevity doctor

When I started medical school, I wanted to save lives. Surgery, transplants, the adrenaline of the ER. I trained to treat disease. But by the time I saw most patients, the damage was already done. What if we could get there earlier? What if we could prevent the disease before it appears, and help people live better, not just longer?

The medicine has changed. The technology has changed. The patients have changed. The doctor should change too. Focused on maintaining health for longer. Here are ten traits that define what a longevity doctor actually is.

1. Focus on aging mechanisms: most chronic diseases have an aging mechanism underneath them. Cardiovascular disease, neurodegeneration, metabolic syndrome, cancer. All downstream of the same biology: genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic drift, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence. A longevity doctor understands these hallmarks as clinical targets. Treat the mechanism. The diseases slow down.

2. Monitor the exposome, longitudinally: we take cardiac troponin for granted now, but it only entered the guidelines in 2000. A longevity doctor measures markers most of traditional medicine still dismisses: genomics, epigenetics, proteomics, metabolomics, air quality, endocrine disruptors, heavy metals, microplastics, stress, social isolation. And they don't measure it once a year. Wearables, continuous monitors, and ambient clinical intelligence can track it daily, turning a single snapshot into a continuous picture of where the patient is heading.

3. Apply N-of-1 thinking: the randomized controlled trial tells you what works for the average patient across a thousand people, but your patient is not the average. They have their own genetics, their own environment, their own response curves. A longevity doctor tracks individual responses in real time, measures the impact of every intervention, and adjusts faster and more precisely than population-based medicine ever could. Measure, intervene, measure again, because every patient is a study of one.

4. Combine medicines: a longevity doctor treats the patient and their close environment: family and home using nutrition, sleep, movement optimization, pharmacology, peptides, hormones, stem cell biology. Lifestyle first, pharmacology second, advanced intervention third. Old therapies and modern ones, combined strategically and sequenced intelligently.

5. Use innovation ethically: gene editing is reaching the clinic. Stem cell therapies are already here. Senolytics, epigenetic reprogramming, and mitochondrial transplantation are in the pipeline. A longevity doctor understands the science before consensus but waits for evidence before applying it to a patient. The line between early adoption and recklessness is ethics, and it matters because your patients trust you with their biology, with their life, and that trust is not something you get to rebuild once you've broken it.

6. AI-augmented: a longevity doctor uses AI to expand the quality of care and to run their practice from anywhere, with more time for the patient in front of them. AI scribes handle documentation so the physician can focus on the conversation, not the screen. AI lab interpretation flags trends a manual review would miss. Ambient AI captures patient metrics longitudinally and surfaces risk before symptoms appear. Clinical decision support tools guide intervention in real time. The technology improves the experience, the physician improves care.

7. Publish real-world data: every patient you treat is a data point the field doesn't have yet. The big trials matter, but their exclusion criteria screen out most of the patients we actually see in clinic. Track what you're doing, write up the cases that surprised you, and share your findings. It helps your patients, it helps the longevity medicine community, and the physician who publishes becomes the physician other physicians call.

8. Align incentives with outcomes: fee-for-service rewards visits. Concierge medicine rewards hospitality. Neither rewards health. A longevity doctor should be compensated for keeping patients healthy, not for seeing them only when they're sick, and not for serving as an expensive insurance policy. Build pricing around what actually matters: biological age reduction, cardiovascular risk improvement, metabolic markers, patient-reported quality of life. When the doctor succeeds only when the patient gets healthier, everything changes. That should be the economic model of modern medicine.

9. Collaborate and educate: longevity medicine doesn't live inside one specialty. A longevity doctor builds relationships with other specialists where the conversation goes both ways, learns constantly from the science and technology emerging across disciplines, and values peer learning and real-world evidence over competition. And they teach, through social media, newsletters, lectures, workshops, and community events, because the knowledge you carry compounds when you give it away.

10. Build for access: a longevity doctor is not just a concierge provider for the wealthy. They advocate for the education, policies, culture change, and economic models that make longevity medicine available to everyone. The infrastructure, the credentialing, the education, and the clinical tools we build must reach every population, every geography, every income level. Democratizing longevity medicine is not a business strategy. It is improving humanity.

These ten traits are not a checklist you complete overnight. I tried to identify the patterns I see in the physicians who are building this field and translate them into something practical, something you can adapt to your own practice, your own patients, your own timeline. Pick one this quarter. Build it in. Then pick the next one.

A longevity doctor is a physician trained to treat the biological mechanisms of aging rather than disease alone. They combine traditional, preventive, regenerative, and performance medicine, monitor the exposome longitudinally, apply N-of-1 interventions, use AI-augmented clinical tools, publish real-world data, and align their incentives with patient outcomes.

Every doctor should be a longevity doctor.

Every week, the Longevity Docs App feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

Teens are doing peptides

A physician reported high schoolers using Retatrutide, GHK-Cu, and Tesamorelin with a parent helping reconstitute. The group flagged real risks in adolescents: accelerated epiphyseal closure, disrupted spermatogenesis, and shortened adult stature.

Stem cells: promise vs. noise

A neurosurgeon's viral reel questioning stem cell therapy split the room. The consensus: autologous has decent data, allogeneic is early, the overselling is real, and the field needs physician-led evidence before it gets regulated out of reach.

GHK-Cu: topical wins

Injectable GHK-Cu causes significant site reactions and the hair growth signal may be placebo. A dermatologist in the group recommended topical post-microneedling as the cleaner option with better evidence.

Testosterone pens?

Xyosted is a prefilled testosterone enanthate autoinjector, $200 for four pens, works in men and women, and most of us aren’t using it. A compliant pen solution for peptides and hormones is also coming to the US market soon.

Verve-102: one-shot PCSK9 gene editing

Remarkable science, not ready for patients. No long-term safety data, irreversible, off-site editing in adrenals and spleen, and no outcomes data. Watching.

ROOMS

Anatomy of a Longevity AI Agent

Dr Neil Panchal

• An AI agent differs from a chat session: it takes a goal, breaks it into steps, pulls context, uses tools, and reports back, rather than requiring the physician to orchestrate every step

• A clinical AI workflow has four parts: a trigger (patient message, lab result), reasoning through an LLM, memory and retrieval for persistent context, and execution via APIs and model context protocols

• You don’t need to code. The entire system runs on markdown files as instruction manuals, saved skills for repeatable workflows, slash commands to trigger them, and plugins for clinical or business operations

• HIPAA-compliant AI tools (Open Evidence, ChatGPT Clinician, Perplexity Health, Amazon HealthAI) are maturing but still require enterprise-level deployment for high-risk patient data

• Patient consent can enable use of non-compliant tools like NotebookLM if properly documented

• De-identification remains imperfect and liability-bearing

• There is a cost-benefit tipping point where building your own AI system costs more in time and tokens than outsourcing to a vetted platform

• Longevity medicine generates more data per patient than almost any specialty, making AI workflow automation especially valuable for freeing up time for clinical reasoning and patient relationships

Stay up to date with the latest news & rooms inside longevitydocs.ai

Get the App

Alzheimer's Plasma Biomarkers Detect Neuropathology in Midlife

CARDIA cohort, 1,350 adults, mean age 61. Plasma p-tau217 and Aβ42/40 detected Alzheimer’s neuropathology in 4 to 15% of midlife participants. Those positive showed worse processing speed, executive function, and up to 4x higher odds of accelerated memory decline. Stronger associations in women, Black participants, and APOE ε4 carriers. Lancet

Why it matters: Alzheimer’s neuropathology is detectable with a blood test years before symptoms. Plasma p-tau217 is becoming the troponin of neurodegeneration. Consider adding it to midlife panels, especially for patients with family history or APOE ε4 status.

Universal transcriptomic hallmarks of mammalian ageing and mortality

Transcriptomic and DNA methylation clocks showed correlated age acceleration in human blood, which was strongest for the chromatin-associated module clock, highlighting mechanistic links between molecular ageing modalities. This study reveals conserved signatures and a modular architecture of mortality regulation, providing a framework for quantifying and targeting ageing of cellular subsystems across species and tissues. Nature

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

TECH

Sunrise Air: Sleep Apnea Diagnosis Without the Lab

80M+ American adults have obstructive sleep apnea. Untreated OSA elevates risk of stroke, heart failure, type 2 diabetes, and premature mortality. Sunrise has launched a rechargeable chin sensor that delivers clinical-grade diagnosis over multiple nights at home, no wires, no mask, no lab.

WEARABLES

Luna Band: No Screen, No Subscription, $149

A wearable from India’s top smartwatch brand (Noise, backed by Bose) that strips out the screen and the monthly fee. Research-grade sensors, voice-first logging for meals, mood, workouts, and symptoms. Pay once, wear continuously. Voice-first health logging mirrors how physicians actually gather information. Credible sensors without subscription lock or screen fatigue is where continuous monitoring should be heading.

AI

Insilico Medicine x Human Longevity: AI Foundation Model for Longevity

Insilico Medicine and Human Life Foundation Models (new entity from Human Longevity, Inc.) announced multi-million-dollar co-development of industry's first large-scale foundation models dedicated to human longevity science. Leverages Human Longevity's decade-long multi-omic and longitudinal clinical datasets (thousands of subjects) for early disease detection, risk prediction, and AI-driven therapeutic discovery.

CULTURE

Harvard Publishes Consumer Longevity Guide

Harvard Health Publishing released "Pathways to Longevity," covering hallmarks of aging, biological age, lifestyle interventions, and emerging therapies (rapamycin, metformin, GLP-1s, senolytics), edited by Dr. David Barzilai. When Harvard validates longevity medicine as a clinical discipline, it gives you institutional language for patient education and peer credibility.

CARE

Dubai Opens Part-Time Consulting for International Doctors

Dubai Healthcare City's C37 platform lets overseas physicians consult patients in a fully managed clinical environment without opening a permanent practice. A longevity specialist in Barcelona can now see patients in Dubai on demand, no clinic setup required. The infrastructure for distributed, global physician networks is live.

Discover who is going Back to Medicine

Longevitydocs Cannes Summit & Awards- June 9-11

Discover the Pioneers & Agenda

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

Apply to Join

Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

Subscribe to the Longevity Docs Newsletter

Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

Back from Memorial Day weekend. I walked on the beach. Coffee dates with Moana. Met dozens of friends. Amazing dinners, great lunches, crepes for breakfast. I cooked, swam, ran, lifted, did webinars, played games. Friends laughed at me, I made fun of them. Tried golf for the first time with Tayron, talked about the future of the world with family, and laughed a lot too. I lived.

I started writing this newsletter somewhere between the crepes and the pool. Over the weekend I talked to several doctors. The same two problems kept coming up. Some don’t have enough patients to make a good living. Others have too many patients to live a good life. Both feel stuck.

I had a cover story ready on the Enhanced Games and performance medicine. It can wait. The doctors I talked to this weekend aren’t thinking about the Enhanced Games. They’re thinking about Monday morning. So I rewrote this week’s newsletter for them.

How to find the right patients. How to build a practice that sustains you. And how to make sure the life you’re building for your patients is one you’re also living yourself.

Issue 95 is out.

Dr. David Luu, Founder, longevitydocs.™

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

Acquire Patients Better: The Physician-Patient Fit Checklist

In startups, nothing happens until you find product-market fit. In longevity medicine, nothing happens until you find patient-physician fit (PPF).

Your Ideal Patient Profile (IPP)

Before you build anything, create your IPP by answering questions like these. Prevention or performance? Content creators or hedge fund managers? Weight, hormones, cognition, or annual checkups? Digital or in person? $2K or $20K annually? Social media or country club?

If you can’t answer these in one sentence each, you’re fishing in the ocean. Fish in a pond. Write your IPP on one page. Every decision flows from it.

Pillar 1: Authority

How the right patient finds you and trusts you before the first call.

• Speak where your IPP gathers. One talk at a wealth advisory dinner converts better than 10,000 Instagram impressions.

• Do research. Case series, posters, clinical letters. Content says you’re informed. Research says you’re contributing.

• Become certified. Get your CLD credential. It answers the question every prospective patient is already asking: how do I know this doctor is serious?

• Short-form builds attention. 60-second explainers, study carousels, quick commentary. Top of funnel. Earns the click to your long-form.

• Local press and PR. One newspaper feature puts you in front of 50,000 people in your market. Start local.

• Long-form content builds trust. Monthly newsletter, YouTube, LinkedIn articles. Let the right patient spend 20 minutes inside your clinical thinking before they call.

• Write a book. Could be a 50-pages ebook. A clear thesis on how you practice longevity medicine. It works while you sleep.

• Volunteer. Free workshops, pro bono screenings, community webinars. Earns trust no marketing budget can buy.

Pillar 2: Community

How the right patient gets referred to you.

• Build your physician referral network. Cardiologists, endocrinologists, concierge PCPs. Coffee plus a one-page summary of your practice. Remove every barrier to that referral.

• Nuture your patient referral network. A patient who feels seen over years tells their inner circle. That compounds faster than any ad spend.

• Join a professional community. Inside Longevitydocs, 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries. A CLD graduate in Miami refers a relocating patient to a CLD graduate in San Francisco. Trust transfers.

• Host events. Annual retreat/summit, dinner talks, small-group Q&As. Builds loyalty and generates referrals no platform can replicate.

• Build an ecosystem of partners. Country clubs, gyms, media, other clinics, personal trainers, hotels.

Pillar 3: Strategy

Authority gets you found. Community multiplies your reach. Strategy makes it run.

• Write a plan. One page. New patients per month, conversion rate, retention at 12 and 24 months, revenue per patient, referral rate, cost per acquisition by channel. Review monthly. What gets measured gets managed.

• Hire the team. You cannot be the clinician, marketer, scheduler, and content creator. Hire a concierge manager who owns the patient experience between visits. Contract a content coordinator. Delegate everything that doesn’t require your medical license.

• Invest in tools. CRM that tracks every patient touchpoint and referral source. Website that answers three questions (measure, prescribe, relationship). Analytics on every channel. Digital intake forms that screen for fit before you invest time.

• Design the experience. NPS survey quarterly. Design every touchpoint: first email after enrollment, lab results delivered with context (not a portal dump), quarterly reviews, annual reassessments. Patients leave practices that feel transactional. They stay in practices that feel intentional.

• Message your patients. Monthly newsletter. Quarterly check-in from the concierge manager. Lab reminders before they’re due. Reactivation outreach for patients who lapse. Silence between visits communicates that you only care when they’re paying.

• Leverage AI. Documentation tools give you 60 minutes back per day and can compound. AI lab interpretation flags trends across panels. Automated scheduling reduces no-shows. Use AI to expand quality of care, not just volume.

What’s next

Define your IPP. Build authority so that patient finds you. Build community so that patient gets referred to you. Build strategy so that patient stays.

I put it all into a one-page checklist. Adapt it to your practice and your market. Then pick your IPP this week. Everything downstream gets easier once you do.

Every week, the Longevity Docs Chat feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

HRT After Breast Cancer with Dr. Jordan Emont

Dr. Emont (OBGYN, Menopause Society-certified, founder of Meridian Medical) argued that millions of breast cancer survivors are denied hormone therapy based on outdated trial data using synthetic progestins, not the bioidentical hormones used today. The key evidence: the Stockholm trial (10-year follow-up) found no increased recurrence in ER-positive patients on tamoxifen + HRT, while HABITS (stopped early, weaker methodology) did. These trials used older regimens, not transdermal estradiol or micronized progesterone.

Key Takeaways:

• Breast cancer is not one disease. Receptor status changes the entire risk calculus. ER-negative survivors have front-loaded recurrence in the first 5 years, then less than 1% per year, making HRT conversations very different after that window.

• Duavee (conjugated estrogens + bazedoxifene) is underutilized. It acts as a SERM in breast tissue and deserves wider consideration for ER-positive patients who need symptom relief.

• Testosterone may be protective. Preclinical data show apoptosis in ER-positive tumors, plus cognitive and mood benefits.

• Neurokinin antagonists handle vasomotor and sleep symptoms without systemic hormone exposure in the first 5 years post-diagnosis.

• Even low-dose vaginal estradiol (4 mcg Imvexxy) can trigger breast sensitivity in some survivors. Dose matters.

• GLP-1 agonists and metformin provide adjunctive anti-growth signaling through insulin sensitization, relevant for survivors with concurrent metabolic risk.

Bottom line: Survivors face greater long-term mortality from cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis than from cancer recurrence, yet are routinely denied HRT. The modern evidence supports individualized risk stratification using receptor status, tumor genetics (ctDNA, Oncotype, Breast Cancer Index), and patient preference over blanket contraindication.

Perimenopausal Weight Loss Resistance with Dr. Catherine Johnson

Dr. Johnson (triple board-certified, obesity medicine + menopause) reframes perimenopause as a precision diagnostic window: the woman gaining weight despite unchanged discipline is showing you her future cardiometabolic, sarcopenic, and osteopenic trajectory in real time. The physiology is estrogen/progesterone chaos producing fragmented sleep, elevated fasting glucose, insulin resistance, and visceral fat accumulation, typically starting in the late 30s and accelerating two years before and after the final period.

Key Takeaways:

• BMI lies in perimenopause. Use body composition (body fat ≥30% = overweight regardless of BMI) and HOMA-IR (fasting insulin × fasting glucose ÷ 405) instead.

• Screen every perimenopausal woman for Hashimoto’s. It’s present in 20% of this population, and estrogen fluctuation shifts thyroid binding globulins, producing clinical hypothyroidism with normal-looking TSH.

• Progesterone first, estrogen last. Progesterone restores sleep and improves insulin sensitivity. Testosterone replacement is deferred until weight is down to avoid fluid retention and growth-factor signaling.

• Don’t prescribe exercise first. When cortisol is high, ferritin is low, and sleep is broken, exercise sabotages weight loss in the first six weeks. Fix sleep, nutrients (vitamin D 45-65, ferritin, folate, B12), and cortisol before adding training.

• Her SAME framework: Structure (planning), Accountability (data-driven check-ins), Metabolic advantage (insulin sensitizers, GLP-1 agonists, phentermine/topiramate, Vyvanse for binge-eating/brain fog), Environment (social and relational context redesign).

• Pharmacologic toolkit spans progesterone, metformin, GLP-1 agonists (500-900 fewer daily calories), Contrave, and phentermine/topiramate ER. She teaches nutritional ketosis with finger-stick ketone monitoring to demonstrate the glycogen-to-fat-oxidation switch.

• Quarterly labs to show patients their own fluctuation pattern. Full panel includes androgens, DHEA-S, FSH, estradiol, progesterone, cortisol, insulin, ApoB, Lp(a), full thyroid with binding globulins, celiac screening, and uric acid.

Bottom line: Perimenopause is a systems-level metabolic crisis, not a discipline failure. 40% of a woman’s life is lived postmenopausally, and her trajectory is being written now. Validate her experience, protect her sleep and energy, optimize nutrients and hormones, then build strength. She’ll refer your entire network.

One-Shot Gene Edit Cuts LDL Cholesterol 62% Durably

Verve Therapeutics (now Eli Lilly) published Phase 1 results for VERVE-102, a base-editing therapy that permanently inactivates the PCSK9 gene in the liver via a single IV infusion. At the highest dose, PCSK9 dropped 88% and LDL fell 62% (78 mg/dL), with reductions holding for at least a year. No dose-limiting toxicities. 35 patients with familial hypercholesterolemia or premature CAD.

This is a potential one-and-done replacement for lifelong PCSK9 inhibitor injections. If it holds in larger trials, it fundamentally changes how we manage high-risk lipid patients. NEJM

Retatrutide Hits 30.3% Weight Loss at 104 Weeks

The AJMC piece adds a longer-term data point: patients on 12mg retatrutide lost an average of 85 lbs (30.3%) by week 104, up from the 28.3% at week 80. Even the low 4mg dose delivered 19% loss. The weight loss curve is still trending down past 80 weeks, which matters. It suggests the drug hasn’t plateaued where tirzepatide typically does.

Sleep as a global health priority

Researchers propose treating sleep the way we treat climate or infectious disease: as a planetary health issue requiring coordinated international action. The framework connects human sleep, animal sleep, and environmental exposures (light/noise pollution, climate change, screen time, shift work) into a single model. Key data points: sleep disorders affect roughly a third of the global population, costing $680B annually across five countries, and rising temperatures could strip 50-58 hours of sleep per person per year by century's end. Sleep regularity is a stronger mortality predictor than sleep duration. Cell

AI Predicts Alzheimer’s Trajectory From a Single MRI

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

HSBC Launches Longevity Care

HSBC Singapore is bundling longevity services (health concierge, preventive screenings…) into its premium banking tier through partnerships with IHH Healthcare and Raffles Medical Group.

For longevitydocs: Banks are becoming a distribution channel for longevity medicine. If HSBC is packaging healthspan programs for affluent clients, that’s a new referral pipeline and revenue stream for longevity-trained doctors who can plug into these ecosystems as providers or advisors.

INVESTMENT

Oura Files for IPO

Nourish Raises $100m for AI-native Metabolic Clinic

Nourish, the largest virtual dietitian-led clinic in the US, raised a $100M Series C to expand into physician-led metabolic care, including GLP-1 prescribing and lab testing. The company hit profitability in 2025 and is scaling its physician workforce through 2026.

For longevitydocs: Nutrition-first platforms are moving upstream into your lane. If insurers start routing metabolic patients to Nourish instead of specialist visits, the referral map changes fast.

Kin Health Raises $9M for a Patient-Facing AI Visit Notetaker

Free app records doctor visits, returns AI summaries with action items. Founded by GoodRx/HeyDoctor alumni and two physicians. Monetizes via referral commissions, not subscriptions. Plans to integrate EHR data later this year.

For longevity doctors: Patients will start arriving with AI transcripts of prior visits across multiple providers. Useful for continuity, but watch for hallucinated action items.

CULTURE

Enhanced Games Platform

The Enhanced Games launched in Vegas: openly doped athletes competing in swimming, sprinting, and weightlifting, funded by Silicon Valley at a $1.2B valuation. Results were mostly underwhelming, one swimming world record. The real play is a telehealth business selling testosterone and peptides to consumers.

For longevitydocs: This normalizes supervised performance-enhancing drugs (steroids, testosterone, HGH, peptides, stimulants, etc) and builds consumer demand for those substances. More patients will come asking, the question is whether they come to you or to a DTC app.

Discover who is going Back to Medicine

Longevitydocs Cannes Summit & Awards- June 9-11

Discover the Pioneers & Agenda

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

Apply to Join

Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

Subscribe to the Longevity Docs Newsletter

Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

This one is not for everyone. Most physicians are exceptional at what they do: treating patients in clinical settings, saving lives, practicing medicine at the highest level. That is the backbone of healthcare and it always will be.

But some of you have decided to go a different route. To treat aging before it becomes disease. To extend healthspan by compressing the years we spend living with age-related chronic conditions. Some of you are just starting, either transitioning from another specialty or fresh out of residency. I have been there. I feel you.

Here is what nobody tells you: you need a plan. Not only a clinical plan. A business plan: accounting, legal, marketing, hiring, pricing, operations. None of that is taught in medical school. And yet all of it determines whether your practice survives year one.

Longevity clinics are growing everywhere in the world. There is no going back. But is yours profitable? How do you scale? How do you improve efficiency? I get these questions all the time. There is no perfect playbook, but I want to dedicate this week’s story to the math behind it.

So this week I am writing about how to build a $1M longevity clinic.

11:25am. 94 is out.

Dr. David Luu, Founder, longevitydocs.™

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

How to Build a $1M Longevity Clinic?

You are starting you longevity clinic or want to grow it. Like any business, you need a revenue target. I am using $1M because it is the number where investors start paying attention. Whether that means an investment round, or simply building a practice valuable enough to sell when you want to stop (and yes, work is longevity). $1M in revenue is the threshold where your clinic becomes an asset.

These are U.S. numbers. Adapt the math to your market. The models are universal. The price points are local.

And to be clear: we are talking about revenue, not profit. Profit varies based on your cost structure, your geography, your team, and how you run the practice. But you cannot have profit without revenue. So start here.

I get this question all the time. So here are three models, with their trade-offs. I am not including interventions, modalities, or prescriptions here. This is pure longevity care services: membership, testing, consults, coaching. The clinical add-ons are separate revenue lines that change the math significantly depending on your practice.

Three Roads to $1M

Model 1: Concierge

50 patients. $20K each.

This is the boutique clinic. You see fewer patients, spend more time with each, and charge accordingly.

The math: 50 patients × $20,000 per year = $1,000,000.

Your patients expect full access: your phone, same-day responses, comprehensive testing, personalized protocols. The higher the price, the higher the expectation for outcomes. More human in the loop at every step.

Margins per patient are strong, but your revenue has a ceiling. You are selling your time. At around 50 patients, one physician can deliver. Growth means either raising prices or adding another physician, which changes the business entirely.

• Pros: highest revenue per patient, deep relationships, strong retention, simple operations.

• Cons: you are the ceiling, burnout risk, small patient base means a few churns hurt, hard to sell the practice without you in it.

• Best for: physicians in affluent markets who want a small, high-touch panel and are comfortable being the product.

Model 2: Volume Hybrid

200 patients. $5K each.

Lower entry price, wider funnel. The membership fee covers the clinical relationship, but the clinic does not reach $1M on membership alone.

The math: 200 patients × $5,000 = $1,000,000.

In practice, your $1M usually looks like this: a few hundred thousand from memberships, the rest from labs, imaging, supplements, wellness programs, group consults, and products. Membership gives you the relationship; everything else lives on top of that.

You also need a team. One physician cannot see 200 patients, manage protocols, and run operations. A PA or NP handles follow-ups, routine check-ins, and protocol management. A medical assistant supports in-office testing. A part-time coordinator keeps the calendar and inbox under control.

A real tech stack is mandatory here: scheduling, intake, automated follow-up, patient communication, lab ordering, and data tracking. Without it, this model breaks around 70–80 active patients. Operationally heavier. More moving parts. But at 200 patients with multiple revenue streams, you have a real business.

• Pros: diversified revenue, more resilient to churn, buildable team, genuinely sellable business.

• Cons: operationally complex, staff management, higher fixed costs, upsell dependency, tech stack is not optional.

• Best for: most physician-owners who want a clinic that employs a small team, has an in-person footprint, and is built to be an asset, not just a job.

Model 3: Platform

500+ patients. $2K each.

Digital first. Lightweight physical footprint, if any. AI and automation handle intake, lab structuring, risk scoring, and routine patient communication.

The math: 500 patients × $2,000 = $1,000,000.

In this model, the physician is the trust layer, not the bottleneck. You are not selling your hours. You are selling access to a system with your name, judgment, and protocols behind it. The system does the heavy lifting; you do the thinking.

You review key labs, make decisions, write prescriptions, and coach where it really matters. You can work on an hourly or session-based model and adjust your lifestyle up or down. See patients from anywhere. Work 20 hours a week or 50. Your call.

This is where the physician becomes scalable. The technology makes your brain and your model available to far more people without adding a linear number of hours. This model barely exists at individual-physician scale today, but the economics point here. It has the lowest startup cost, the widest reach, and the highest scalability. It is also the hardest to build, because the technology and regulatory layer have to be right.

• Pros: location independent, lifestyle flexible, lowest overhead, highest scalability, highly sellable if built well.

• Cons: technology dependency, trust is harder without in-person, relationships are thinner, regulatory complexity across states, the AI layer does not yet exist off the shelf.

• Best for: tech-forward physicians willing to build or partner on a platform and expand across regions via telehealth.

The Metrics That Matter (for Every Model)

If you do not know your numbers, you do not have a business. You have an expensive hobby.

Track these monthly:

• LTV (lifetime value per patient).

• CAC (cost to acquire one patient).

• LTV:CAC ratio (you want at least 3:1 or you are buying revenue, not building a business).

• Churn (how many members leave per year).

• Revenue/margins per physician.

• Upsell conversion rate (how many members move into higher-value services).

• Lab and testing cost per patient.

• Staff cost as a percentage of revenue.

• Rent or lease as a percentage of revenue.

• Marketing spend as a percentage of revenue.

• Tech stack cost per patient.

• Breakeven patient count (how many active patients you need to cover your monthly burn).

These numbers tell you which model you are actually running, not which model you think you are running.

The Longevity Clinic Checklist: What You Need Before Patient One

You do not need everything on day one, but you do need a clear sequence. Think in three phases.

1. Before Launch: Non‑negotiables

Legal and Structure

• Entity formation (LLC, PLLC, or PC, depending on your state).

• Management Services Organization (MSO) with a Management Services Agreement (MSA) if you are separating clinical and business operations.

• Business bank account.

• Malpractice insurance (confirm longevity/preventive coverage).

• HIPAA compliance plan.

• Patient consent and waiver templates.

• Membership agreement terms.

• Accountant (monthly, not just tax season).

• Healthcare attorney (one call before launch saves ten later).

Licensing and Credentials

• State medical license (and additional states if telehealth).

• DEA registration (if prescribing controlled substances).

• CLIA waiver or lab partnership agreement.

• NPI number.

• Collaborative practice agreement (if hiring PA/NP where required).

Core Clinical Infrastructure

• Lab partner (or in-house CLIA-waived testing).

• Imaging partner (DEXA, CT calcium score, MRI referral pathway).

• Pharmacy relationship (including compounding if applicable).

• EMR (as your clinical dashboard, not just a billing tool).

Essential Tech and Presence

• EMR (there is plenty of them now)

• Patient messaging (HIPAA-compliant).

• Scheduling (built into EMR or separate).

• Payment and membership billing (Stripe, Square, or membership platform).

• Telehealth option (HIPAA-compliant).

• Simple website: clean, fast, with one clear call to action (book/apply).

2. First 90 Days: Build the Funnel

Team (Part-time is fine)

• Front desk / patient coordinator (part-time).

• Virtual assistant (scheduling, follow-ups, inbox).

• Bookkeeper (weekly).

Marketing and Acquisition

• Brand: name, logo, colors, one clear positioning statement.

• Website live before you open.

• Google Business profile claimed and optimized.

• Social media presence (LinkedIn minimum; Instagram if consumer-facing).

• Referral network started (PCPs, cardiologists, endocrinologists, therapists).

• One lead magnet (free consult, webinar, or guide).

• CAC tracking from day one (how much you spend per new patient).

3. Next 12 Months: Scale and Systematize

Advanced Clinical and Data Infrastructure

• Wearable data integration (Oura, Whoop, CGM, etc.).

• Data aggregation platform for labs and wearables.

Expanded Team (Depends on Model)

• PA or NP (essential for Model 2 and Model 3; not required day one for Model 1).

• Medical assistant (if you are doing in-office labs or vitals).

• Marketing support (freelancer or agency, not full-time yet).

Financial Planning and Review

• 12-month cash runway or clear revenue plan.

• Monthly burn rate calculated before launch and revisited quarterly.

• Pricing model locked (membership, per-visit, or hybrid).

• Break-even patient count known and updated.

• Revenue per patient target set.

• LTV and churn assumptions documented and then replaced with real data.

• Quarterly P&L review on the calendar.

Where AI Fits

AI coaching on labs will become a commodity. Every report will start to sound the same. That is fine. Let the machines summarize.

What remains scarce is the physician: your trust, your guidance, your judgment, your ability to motivate and hold patients accountable. That layer is not going away in three years. Probably not in ten.

Build your clinic so that AI and software handle everything repeatable—and you focus on the work that only you can do.

Choose Your Model, Know Your Math

Pick the model that matches your risk tolerance, your lifestyle goals, and your market:

• Boutique (50 × 20K).

• Volume hybrid (200 × 5K).

• Platform (500 × 2K).

And if $1M feels far away, remember: Model 2 is 200 patients at $5K. That is 17 new patients a month for a year. One physician, one PA, one tech stack, one year.

The time to build is now. We will go deeper into these models in at the Longevity Docs Summit in Cannes in few weeks.

Every week, the Longevity Docs Chat feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

Is there a clinical difference between tirzepatide and semaglutide for reducing alcohol cravings and tolerance?

A physician who prescribes both shared his experience: tirzepatide is more effective for cravings specifically, but semaglutide also works well for reducing overall intake. AUDIT score reductions are comparable in his clinic.

Another member added a practical observation: patients eat less on both medications, which means they hit higher blood alcohol levels faster when they do drink. “They end up pregaming harder than they used to party.”

A third member asked whether the effect differs between branded formulations (Mounjaro vs Zepbound vs semaglutide). The consensus: the molecule matters more than the brand. Tirzepatide’s dual GIP/GLP-1 mechanism may explain the stronger craving reduction, though head-to-head data in alcohol use disorder does not yet exist.

Separately, a member flagged two GLP-1 drug interactions from recent literature: risk of hypercalcemia when combined with thiazide diuretics or calcium supplements, and increased lithium levels in patients on lithium therapy.

Key Takeaways: tirzepatide may have an edge over semaglutide for alcohol cravings, but both reduce intake. Monitor patients who drink on GLP-1s for faster intoxication due to reduced food intake. Check for thiazide and lithium interactions. Head-to-head data is needed.

PCOS Is Now PMOS

Polycystic Ovary Syndrome is officially renamed Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS). The Endocrine Society and more than 50 global patient and professional organizations led the change after 14 years of collaboration. The old name reduced a complex, long-term hormonal disorder to a misunderstanding about ovarian cysts. There is actually no increase in abnormal cysts on the ovary. PMOS affects 1 in 8 women worldwide, more than 170 million. The new name leads with hormones and metabolism, reflecting what the condition actually is: a multi-system endocrine disorder with impacts on weight, metabolic health, mental health, skin, and the reproductive system. A three-year transition period begins now, with full implementation in the 2028 international guideline update. Endocrine Society

Why it matters: the name was a barrier to diagnosis and care for decades. Physicians and patients both defaulted to thinking “ovarian cysts” when the real drivers are hormonal and metabolic. For longevity physicians treating women’s health, this reframe aligns PMOS with the metabolic and endocrine lens already used in practice. Update your clinical language now. The guidelines will follow.

Sleep Duration and Biological Aging: The U-Shaped Curve Across Every Organ

A new Nature study of nearly 500,000 UK Biobank participants mapped sleep duration against 23 biological aging clocks across organs and omics layers. The pattern is U-shaped everywhere. Both short (under 6 hours) and long (over 8 hours) sleep accelerate aging in the brain, liver, lung, immune, endocrine, and adipose systems. The sweet spot: 6.4 to 7.8 hours. Both extremes raise all-cause mortality (HR 1.4 to 1.5), but through different routes. Short sleep acts directly on systemic disease risk. Long sleep appears to be a signal of underlying organ aging already in progress.

Why it matters: Sleep duration is a cheap, modifiable vital sign that tracks biological age across the whole body. Seven hours is not a lifestyle recommendation. It is a biomarker. Ask about it at every longevity visit.

Beta-Blockers May Protect Against Vascular Dementia. ACE Inhibitors May Not.

Researchers used Mendelian randomization across 46 drug targets and nearly 900,000 controls to test whether existing lipid-lowering, antihypertensive, and anti-inflammatory drugs could be repurposed to prevent vascular dementia. Beta-blockers targeting the ADRB1 receptor showed the strongest protective signal. ACE inhibitors showed the opposite: a potential increase in vascular dementia risk. Most other drug classes showed no effect. Nature Aging

Why it matters: vascular dementia is the second most common form of dementia and shares biology with cardiovascular disease. Many longevity patients are on antihypertensives. If beta-blockers protect the brain while ACE inhibitors do not, that changes how physicians weigh cardiovascular and cognitive risk together. For patients on ACE inhibitors, this is worth watching as pharmacovigilance data catches up.

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

AI / TECH

Doximity Launches Free Prescribing for Physicians

Doximity released Doximity Prescribe, a free prescribing tool built into the platform through a partnership with Photon. Physicians write the prescription inside Doximity. The patient receives a text to choose their pharmacy and view estimated costs before pickup. No extra portals, no pharmacy calls. Fully mobile. Free for all verified U.S. physicians, NPs, and PAs. For longevity physicians running cash-pay practices, patients seeing costs upfront and choosing their own pharmacy removes the friction that eats clinical time. Doximity

Function Health Acquires SuppCo. The Supplement Trust Problem Gets a Data Layer.

Function Health acquired SuppCo, a supplement verification platform that has rated 35,000+ products and analyzed 500,000+ routines. SuppCo’s independent testing found roughly half of top-selling supplements failed basic label accuracy. Function plans to connect supplement data to its existing biomarker platform so patients can see whether what they take actually moves their numbers. No supplement sales, just scoring and verification. For longevity physicians, this is the infrastructure that turns “should I take this?” from an opinion into a lab-verified answer. Longevity Technology

POLICIES

Makary Out at FDA. What It Means for Longevity Therapeutics.

Marty Makary resigned as FDA Commissioner on May 12. His replacement, acting commissioner Kyle Diamantas, is a food-industry lawyer with no medical or scientific background. Makary was polarizing, but he lowered the bar for drug approvals in ways that mattered for aging science: single pivotal trials instead of two, and a plausible mechanism pathway for rare disease drugs. Senolytics, rapamycin analogs, NAD precursors don’t fit traditional approval frameworks. Makary’s FDA was at least asking the question. Physicians should watch whether those pathways survive the transition or get quietly shelved. STAT News

SCIENCE

900 “Dark Proteins” Mapped Across 32 Cancers. Proteomics Is Moving Faster Than Genomics.

Researchers mapped roughly 900 "dark proteins," proteins with no known function, across 32 cancer types using mass spectrometry on more than 1,100 tumor samples. Several of these dark proteins sit on cell surfaces, making them viable targets for immunotherapy. One candidate, C1orf116, showed up consistently in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and is now being tested as a CAR-T target. The study reframes the proteome: the proteins we have ignored may matter more than the ones we have studied. For longevity physicians tracking cancer risk as part of biological aging panels, this is a signal that protein-level diagnostics are moving faster than genomics alone. STAT News

Discover who is going Back to Medicine

Longevitydocs Cannes Summit & Awards- June 9-11

Discover the Pioneers & Agenda

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

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Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

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Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

4:12am. Sunday. NYC. Newsletter 93. We organically reached 10,000 followers on Instagram and 7,770 readers with 373K all-time views. Thank you all!

This week: we are launching Jobs, a new feature for physicians to refer patients, hire talent, and find research collaborators directly inside the platform.

I also deep dive on The Longevity Care Race and what it means for physicians.

11:58am. 93 is out. Happy mother’s day to all

Dr. David Luu, Founder, longevitydocs.™

Every week, we ship something new for this community. Features, experiences, and products built by physicians, for physicians. The platform grows because you do.

APP

Launching Jobs: Refer, Hire, Partner

Every day we get demands for a new medical director, or a physician asking to refer a patient to another specialist. Hiring. Referrals. Partners. So we built Jobs.

One network. Three post types. Two minutes to publish.

Refer a patient. Post the clinical need, location, and remote availability. Longevitydocs in the network can respond directly.

Find a research partner. Post your study scope and find a co-investigator in Tokyo.

Hire a longevity physician. Medical director roles, clinical positions, enterprise advisory seats. NextHealth, Sha, and L’Oréal recruited directly from Longevitydocs.

How Jobs works

To post: Open the app. Tap Jobs. Pick a post type. Title, description, location, remote toggle. Submit. Every post is moderated before it goes live. Track everything from “My offers.”

To browse: Filter by Referrals, Collaborations, or Hiring. Search by specialty or location. Apply or respond inside the platform.

Every physician is vetted. Every post is reviewed.

Open the app. Tap Jobs.

Jobs is now available on the longevitydocs.ai

Download the App

ROOM OF THE WEEK

Next Rooms

Rooms are available on the longevitydocs.ai

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

The Best Longevity Care Platform Does Not Exist Yet. Everyone Is Building It.

Longevity care is medicine for people who want to age well and do not wait for disease or complications. The goal: improve age-related biomarkers and outcomes. Reduce biological age. Lower inflammatory markers. Restore hormonal balance. Improve cardiovascular risk profiles. Extend the number of years lived without disease, disability, or cognitive decline.

Longevity care is clinical medicine applied before disease, measured in biomarkers, and accountable to outcomes. And right now, every major platform in health is racing to deliver it. It runs on three pillars.

• Personalized data: genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, wearables, imaging, and lab panels that build a biological profile specific to one person.

• Outcomes-based interventions: pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals, nutrition, exercise, sleep, and behavioral protocols matched to that profile.

• Continuous care: longitudinal tracking that measures whether the interventions are working and adjusts them when they are not.

Some build for scale

Every major platform in health is racing to deliver longevity care.

WHOOP added on-demand clinician consultations, EHR syncing, and was selected into the CMS Innovation Center ACCESS program. A wearable company is now a care delivery company.

Google launched Health Coach. $9.99/month. Gemini-powered. Fitness, sleep, and health advising inside the Fitbit app. Apple is building Health+, an AI coach trained on physician data across cardiology, nutrition, sleep, and mental health. Expected later this year.

Hims & Hers has 2.5 million subscribers, at-home labs, telehealth, in-house pharmacy, and a longevity specialty launching in 2026. Noom acquired a compounding pharmacy, launched telehealth-led weight management with GLP-1 prescribing, and is building care plans that pair medication with behavioral coaching

Function Health built a Medical Intelligence Lab unifying lab testing, imaging, wearables, and medical records with AI. Midi Health serves 25,000 patients per week across 500 providers in 50 states with an AgeWell longevity program.

Equinox launched EQX Arc: diagnostics-led women’s health powered by Function’s biomarker panels, integrated with Oura Ring, backed by a Women’s Health Advisory Board of physicians.

They have the technology, the capital, and the distribution. What they do not have is the physician expertise to deliver longevity care with clinical depth and accountability. AI can interpret labs. Platforms can scale access. But the clinical judgment, the risk stratification, the treatment decisions that actually change outcomes

Some build for precision

On the other side, physicians, clinics, and health systems have something none of these platforms can build from scratch: trust. Decades of patient relationships, clinical credibility, and the license to treat. But trust alone does not scale.

Health systems are the slowest to move. Most lack the consumer experience, the digital infrastructure, and the service offerings patients now expect. Patients are not waiting. They are moving to platforms that answer faster, even when those platforms have less clinical depth.

Longevity clinics have the expertise. Advanced diagnostics, personalized protocols, physician-led care. They cannot scale. Overhead is high. Infrastructure is limited. Most serve hundreds, not millions. The clinical knowledge is there. The delivery model is not.

The healthcare expertise is there. What needs to improve is the longevity medicine knowledge, the delivery model, the patient experience, the messaging, and the convenience. The platforms building for scale solved those problems first.

8 Steps to Build a Longevity Care Program

Whether you are a clinic, a health system, or a platform, these are the 8 components you need. Every company in this article is assembling some combination. No one has all eight yet.

1. Brand and Acquisition. A reason people show up before they are sick. This could be a wearable, a gym, an app, or a physician’s reputation. You need a front door.

2. Care Offering. Weight management. Hormone optimization. Full-body diagnostics. Women’s health. Cardiovascular prevention. The strongest programs offer multiple lanes under one roof. Start with one. Build from there.

3. Testing. Biomarkers, imaging, DEXA, CT scans, VO2 max.... Testing is what separates longevity care from reactive care. It gives you the data to personalize interventions and track outcomes over time.

4. Data and Wearables. Continuous data from wearables turns a single visit into a longitudinal relationship. HRV, sleep architecture, glucose, activity. The data layer is what makes longevity care different from annual physicals.

5. EMR. The EMR is no longer a billing tool. It is the clinical dashboard. Testing, imaging, wearables, and clinical notes need to live in one place. Without a unified record, there is no care delivery.

6. Physician Consultations. Telehealth, in-person, or both. The physician is still the trust layer. No program scales without clinicians who can interpret the data, adjust the plan, and manage risk.

7. Pharmacy. Prescribing without fulfillment creates friction. The programs that own pharmacy own the patient relationship. GLP-1s, HRT, cardiovascular medications, nutraceuticals.

8. AI. AI connects the other seven into a single operating system. Lab interpretation, risk scoring, patient communication, clinical decision support, operations, and personalized care.

Longevity care for all

AI coaching based on labs will become a commodity. More accessible, more affordable, more available. That is a good thing. Millions of people who never had access to biomarker data will get a personalized report on their phone. But every AI-driven report will start to sound the same.

What remains rare: the trust, the guidance, the motivation, and the accountability that come from a physician. That layer stays precious. People will have more data than ever. They will still need a doctor to help them act on it.

Longevity care is entering its industrialization phase. The platforms are being built. The infrastructure is being assembled. LongevityDocs is building the physician infrastructure that powers it: the community, the education, the credentialing, and now the tools to refer, hire, and collaborate.

Longevity care for all is closer than the field thinks. Every platform above is building toward it. Physicians shaping thew conversation will be in Cannes.

Every week, the Longevity Docs Chat feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

Beta-Blocker Protocol Before Cleerly CTA

A member asked the group:

should I hold Toprol in an athletic patient with a sleeping heart rate in the low 40s before a Cleerly CTA?

Standard prep calls for low-dose metoprolol (25-50 mg) the night before and morning of. The concern: the nighttime dose pushing heart rate dangerously low during sleep.

A cardiologist offered a clear threshold:

if asymptomatic and HR above 45, no need to hold. Below 45, lower the dose or stop entirely.

An interventional specialist went further:

no beta blockade at all for HR below 55. Athletes have high resting vagal tone. Endurance athletes often run in the 30s at night.

A cardiology-focused internist took a different approach: she still gives a low dose day-of because anxiety and the contrast bolus spike heart rate. She skips the PM dose for bradycardic patients. She also noted nitroglycerin during the scan causes compensatory tachycardia, which is part of why the beta-blocker protocol exists.

Then a real case made the discussion concrete. A member shared that his wife’s scan was cancelled. Toprol held for HR of 52. Contrast pushed her to 80.

Multiple members responded:

find a cardiology-run center with IV metoprolol on standby.

One confirmed his center does every scan this way.

The discussion shifted to whether CTA was the right test at all. With Lp(a) of 250 and ApoB of 130, one cardiologist laid out her approach: drive ApoB as low as achievable, use Repatha (drops Lp(a) 25-30%), add ezetimibe and bempedoic acid especially for ApoE4 carriers, monitor with CIMT. For younger women, she raised breast cancer risk from CTA radiation and recommended CIMT plus CAC as alternatives.

Key Takeaways: HR above 45 and asymptomatic: proceed with beta-blocker. HR below 45: reduce or stop. Always skip the PM dose for bradycardic patients. Always have IV metoprolol on standby at the imaging center. Before ordering Cleerly, ask whether the result will change management. In very high Lp(a) with elevated ApoB, aggressive lipid-lowering may be the move regardless of imaging. Find a cardiology-run center. The cancelled scan was preventable.

Core Capacity clock of human aging

Researchers built an aging framework from 2,019 individuals integrating clinical, physiological, and molecular data across three tiers: physiological decline, multimodal precision, and organ-specific aging rates. Plasma protein clocks proved to be efficient proxies for whole-body functional status. The framework also identified coagulation factor accumulation as a driver of multi-organ senescence and systemic inflammation. Cell

For longevitydocs: most biological age tools measure one layer. This connects molecules to function in a single system. Coagulation factors as an aging driver are measurable and potentially targetable. A more comprehensive clock is coming. Physicians running proteomic panels are already on the right track.

Semaglutide Reduces Heavy Drinking in Alcohol Use Disorder

108 adults with alcohol use disorder and obesity received weekly semaglutide (2.4 mg) or placebo alongside cognitive behavioral therapy for 26 weeks. Semaglutide reduced heavy drinking days by 41% (12 fewer days per month vs. 8 for placebo). Total alcohol consumption dropped nearly 50% more than placebo. Weight loss: 11.2 kg vs. 2.2 kg. Number needed to treat: 4.3, lower than any approved AUD medication.

For longevitydocs: GLP-1s keep expanding beyond metabolic disease. Alcohol use disorder accounts for 5% of deaths globally and accelerates biological aging across every organ system. A single weekly injection that reduces drinking, weight, and cravings simultaneously is a longevity intervention whether or not it is labeled as one. For physicians already prescribing semaglutide, this is a new clinical indication to watch.

Lifestyle Intervention Did Not Change Brain Biomarkers but Protected Cognition in At-Risk Adults

POINTER trial: 983 adults aged 60-79 with risk factors for cognitive decline received either a structured or self-guided lifestyle intervention (exercise, nutrition, social engagement, cardiovascular monitoring) over two years. Neither group showed changes in amyloid, tau, hippocampal volume, or white matter lesions. But adults with lower baseline hippocampal volume or increasing tau showed significantly better cognitive outcomes in the structured group. JAMA Neurology

For longevitydocs: lifestyle interventions may not reverse brain pathology, but they protect cognition in people who need it most. The benefit was greatest in those already showing signs of neurodegeneration. For longevity physicians: brain imaging can identify which patients will benefit most from intensive lifestyle protocols. Precision prevention, not one-size-fits-all.

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

WHOOP Adds Clinician Consultations and EHR Syncing

WHOOP is launching on-demand video consultations with licensed clinicians inside the app this summer. Consultations start with months of continuous biometric data, not a blank intake form. EHR syncing through HealthEx connects diagnoses, medications, and procedures. New AI features include persistent memory, proactive check-ins, and voice-based habit journaling. WHOOP

Why it matters: a wearable company with continuous data, clinical consultations, and medical record integration is now a care delivery platform. WHOOP was also selected into the CMS ACCESS program for Medicare beneficiaries. The line between consumer health and clinical medicine is disappearing. Physicians should pay attention to who is building the infrastructure around their patients.

AI

Google Launches AI Health Coach with Gemini

Google Health Coach is live for Fitbit and Pixel Watch users. Gemini-powered. Personalized workout plans, sleep analysis, recovery insights, and nutrition advising built on continuous biometric data. Members can connect CGMs through Health Connect and ask the coach how specific meals or workouts affect glucose. Medical record syncing lets the coach summarize clinical history in plain language. Included free with Google AI Pro and Ultra subscriptions. Google Blog

Why it matters: Google just built a longitudinal health advisor that reads your wearable data, your glucose monitor, and your medical records. For $9.99/month. At that price and distribution, this reaches hundreds of millions of people before any physician does. The AI health coach is becoming the first point of contact for health decisions. Physicians need to be inside these ecosystems, not outside them.

Hims & Hers Launches Labs AI Care Agent

Hims & Hers launched Labs AI, an AI agent that reasons across up to 130 biomarkers, personal health profiles, and historical trends to deliver personalized analysis. It identifies patterns across markers (e.g., LDL, ApoB, and Lp(a) together signaling cardiovascular risk) and connects customers to licensed clinicians when needed. Built on clinician-designed guardrails, not the open internet. Hims & Hers

Why it matters: 2.5 million subscribers now have an AI that reads their labs the way a longevity physician would, for the cost of a subscription. When it flags an ApoB and Lp(a) pattern and recommends a clinician, that referral goes to a Hims provider, not yours. The platform that interprets the labs controls the patient relationship.

POLICIES

ARPA-H Launches AI-Powered Research Acceleration Program

ARPA-H announced IGoR (Intelligent Generator of Research), a five-year program to build an AI-enabled research ecosystem targeting complex chronic diseases including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and autoimmune conditions. The system uses AI to identify knowledge gaps, recommend experiments, standardize protocols for reproducibility, and continuously refine disease models. Goal: accelerate biomedical discovery at least ten times faster.

Why it matters: the replication crisis and fragmented research have slowed breakthroughs for decades. IGoR builds infrastructure to fix both. For longevity medicine, where complex multi-system aging mechanisms resist traditional single-lab approaches, a networked AI-guided research ecosystem could compress timelines on the diseases we care about most.

SCIENCE

Genome editing can be risky. Meet the epigenome editors

Scientists are using CRISPR’s guidance system with the cutting enzyme disabled. Instead of altering DNA, epigenetic editors silence or modulate genes by adding chemical markers. Clinical trials are targeting PCSK9 (atherosclerosis), hepatitis B, and muscular dystrophy. A single dose could replace daily pills. The Economist

Why it matters: lower risk than gene editing, with direct relevance to aging. Chronic inflammation and cellular senescence have epigenetic components. PCSK9 silencing as a one-time injection would reshape cardiovascular prevention.

The Thymus May Be a Key Longevity Organ

Adults who had their thymus surgically removed were twice as likely to die of any cause and twice as likely to develop cancer within five years, per a landmark NEJM study. New research using AI-scored CT scans found that a healthier thymus predicted lower lung cancer, cardiovascular death, and all-cause mortality over 12 years, plus better response to cancer immunotherapy.

Why it matters: the thymus trains T cells, shrinks after puberty, and was dismissed as vestigial for decades. It is now being reconsidered as a regulator of aging, immune surveillance, autoimmunity, and cardiovascular risk. Researchers are working to regenerate it. For longevity physicians: immune aging starts with thymic involution. This organ may be the missing variable in how we think about immunosenescence.

Washington Post

Discover who is going Back to Medicine

Longevitydocs Cannes Summit & Awards- June 9-11

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Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

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Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

4:45am. Like every Sunday, blank page. What’s this week’s cover story?

Then I remembered yesterday. Press day. A reporter asked me for my most underrated longevity secret. When I said community, she looked surprised. Then very interested.

Social longevity is the bet every patient, every doctor, every society should be making. In an era of AI and self-optimization, the highest-leverage move is the oldest one: community, purpose, altruism.

Took a break for lunch in sunny SoHo with family and friends. Walking the talk.

Back at the desk, inspired by the street art on the way home, designing the cover.

4:57pm. App is live. Cannes is five weeks out. Newsletter 92 is out.

Dr. David Luu, Founder, longevitydocs.™

Every Wednesday, we ship something new for this community. Features, experiences, and products built by physicians, for physicians. The platform grows because you do.

APP

The Longevitydocs mobile app is live.

Longevity medicine in one place. In your pocket. Every day.

Here’s what’s inside:

News. Curated longevity medicine intelligence, daily. New research, business moves, regulatory shifts. Two minutes. You’re current.

Hippo AI. Trained on the full CLD curriculum. Ask it anything. Generate quizzes. Build flashcards. Get protocol summaries before a patient visit. Your second brain for longevity medicine.

School. The complete Certified Longevitydocs program. 50 units. 100+ hours. Syncs between desktop and mobile so you can learn in fifteen-minute windows between patients.

Community. Meet physicians, exchange protocols, debate the literature, share clinical insights in real time. Plus live Rooms with guest experts every week.

Every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Now you can carry that mission in your pocket

If you’re a member, download and log in with your existing credentials. If you’re not yet a member: apply to join here

Available now on the Apple App Store. iPhone only. Android coming soon.

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ROOM OF THE WEEK

How Should We Treat High Lp(a)?

5 Key Takeaways from LongevityDocs Rooms

by Dr. Giovanni Campanile

1. Test once, then test the family. Lp(a) is 80-95% genetic. A first-degree relative has a 50% chance of also being elevated. One test per patient, one conversation per family. Flag >30 mg/dL even though guidelines say >50.

2. You cannot lower Lp(a) directly, so lower everything else harder. PCSK9 inhibitors are the go-to today. Push ApoB to <40 (not the usual <60). Keep statins despite the paradoxical 10-20% Lp(a) rise. Add aspirin for the thrombogenic profile. Add HIIT for the plaque reduction data.

3. Image the coronaries before starting HRT in postmenopausal women with high Lp(a). If plaque looks unstable, stabilize first. Transdermal over oral in year one. Women who started HRT premenopausally and enter menopause on it do not carry the same plaque-rupture spike risk.

4. Three RNA therapies landing in 2026-2027 will change the field. Pelacarsen (Lp(a) down >80%), olpasiran (down 95%, quarterly injection), muvalaplin (oral). One of them may become the first medical therapy for aortic stenosis.

5. Obicetrapib is the sleeper for the trifecta patient. Oral CETP inhibitor, EU-approved, lowers LDL 50% plus Lp(a) meaningfully, and slows Alzheimer’s progression in ApoE4 carriers. If your patient has elevated ApoB, Lp(a), and ApoE4, this is the one to watch.

Join our next Room tomorrow

Rooms are available on the longevitydocs.ai

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

Social Longevity: 12 Reasons Community Is the Longevity Superpower

Did we make longevity selfish? Most protocols and innovations in this space are self-centered, performative, and isolating. The entire movement has been reduced to a single-player game.

But being social is not a lifestyle trend. It is the oldest survival mechanism our species has. What I call social longevity is the combination of community, purpose, and altruism. For 300,000 years, humans survived because we belonged. That is what separated us from other species. Not our teeth, not our speed. Our ability to cooperate, bond, and build trust across generations.

Isolation kills. Comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The WHO linked social disconnection to 871,000 deaths annually. Most longevity clinics do not screen for it.

The most powerful longevity intervention is not a molecule. It is other people. It is free. Yet it is the greatest investment you will ever make in your health.

Here are twelve reasons why.

1. Inflammation. Loneliness elevates CRP, IL-6, and fibrinogen in a dose-dependent manner. The more isolated you are, the more inflamed you become. Social connection suppresses NF-kB inflammatory signaling at the genomic level. Belonging could be anti-inflammatory.

2. Immunity. Isolated individuals show reactivation of latent herpes viruses. Wound healing slows by 40 percent. NK cell activity declines. Connection keeps your immune system vigilant.

3. Stress Hormones. Loneliness compresses cortisol dynamic range, reducing your ability to mount and recover from stress. Chronic isolation produces cortisol blunting, the same pattern seen in PTSD and burnout. Social interaction restores HPA axis flexibility.

4. Cardiovascular. Loneliness increases heart disease risk by 45 percent and stroke by 28 percent. Social integration reduces cardiovascular mortality by two to three times independent of traditional risk factors.

5. Telomeres. Social isolation is associated with shorter telomere length. Caregiving stress without social support accelerates telomere shortening by ten years of cellular aging. Disconnection ages you at the chromosomal level.

6. Cognition. Social isolation has a direct causal effect on cognitive decline. Loneliness increases dementia risk by 40 percent. Purpose reduces Alzheimer’s risk by 2.4 times, even with amyloid pathology at autopsy.

7. Behaviors. Social isolation activates the Conserved Transcriptional Response to Adversity: 53 pro-inflammatory genes upregulate, antiviral defenses shut down. Purpose-driven well-being reverses this pattern. Pleasure-driven well-being does not. Your genome distinguishes between types of happiness.

8. Nervous System. Social engagement activates the ventral vagal complex, promoting parasympathetic dominance. This could predict greater cognitive flexibility and lower inflammatory gene expression. Connection calms your sympathetic nervous system at a level you cannot consciously control.

9. Oxytocin. Social bonding triggers oxytocin release, which modulates the HPA axis, has anti-inflammatory properties, and increases trauma resilience. Prosocial behavior activates dopaminergic reward circuits. Helping others feels good because, biologically, it is good.

10. Purpose. Purpose reduces all-cause mortality by 15 percent across 136,000+ participants. Ikigai is associated with a 36 percent reduction in cardiovascular mortality over seven years.

11. Generosity. Volunteering cuts mortality risk by 22 to 44 percent. Giving support is more protective than receiving it. Prosocial spending lowers cortisol more than self-directed spending across cultures.

12. Network Effect. Health behaviors propagate through social ties up to three degrees of separation. Your friends’ friends’ friends are shaping your physiology. Isolation is not just the absence of connection. It is the absence of the upward pull that connected people exert on each other.

What’s Next

Who do you eat dinner with? Who calls you when something goes wrong? What are you building that is bigger than yourself? Most longevity intakes never ask these questions. They should.

My next passion project: building a Social Longevity Score. Three pillars. Connection. Purpose. Altruism. Measured with the same rigor we apply to biomarkers, correlated with the same panels we already run, and scored in a way a clinician can act on. In the coming months I will go deeper on each of these twelve reasons, and the research behind it.

Every doctor should be a longevity doctor. But no longevity doctor should practice alone.

A Note on the Evidence

These are associations and mechanisms, not clinical trials. The data suggests social connection is biologically active. It does not yet prove that prescribing community saves lives the way prescribing a statin does. We need evidence-based research using multi-omics (genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, epigenomics) integrated with longitudinal outcomes to move from association to intervention. If social disconnection carries the mortality risk of 15 cigarettes a day, we owe it that rigor. The tools will never be ready if nobody builds them.

Holt-Lunstad J, Smith TB, Layton JB. Social relationships and mortality risk: a meta-analytic review. PLoS Medicine. 2010;7(7):e1000316.

U.S. Surgeon General. Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation. Washington, DC: HHS; 2023.

WHO Commission on Social Connection. Social connection linked to improved health and reduced risk of early death. June 2025.

Smith KJ, et al. The association between loneliness, social isolation and inflammation: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2020;82(8):801-812.

Cole SW, et al. Social regulation of gene expression in human leukocytes. Genome Biology. 2007;8(9):R189.

Cole SW. Human social genomics. PLoS Genetics. 2014;10(8):e1004601.

Fredrickson BL, et al. A functional genomic perspective on human well-being. PNAS. 2013;110(33):13684-13689.

Van Bogart K, et al. Daily loneliness and cortisol dynamic range. Biological Psychology. 2026;109247.

Stout DM, et al. Loneliness and blunted cortisol reactivity to social exclusion. Social Neuroscience. 2023;18(4):289-301.

Haucke M, et al. Loneliness and cortisol during COVID-19 lockdown. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2022;144:105894.

Valtorta NK, et al. Loneliness and social isolation as risk factors for coronary heart disease and stroke. Heart. 2016;102(13):1009-1016.

Berkman LF, Syme SL. Social networks, host resistance, and mortality: a nine-year follow-up study of Alameda County residents. American Journal of Epidemiology. 1979;109(2):186-204.

Glaser R, et al. Stress-related impairments in cellular immunity. Psychiatry Research. 1985;16(3):233-239.

Kiecolt-Glaser JK, et al. Slowing of wound healing by psychological stress. The Lancet. 1995;346(8984):1194-1196.

Pressman SD, et al. Loneliness, social network size, and immune response to influenza vaccination. Health Psychology. 2005;24(3):297-306.

Steptoe A, et al. Loneliness and neuroendocrine, cardiovascular, and inflammatory stress responses. Psychoneuroendocrinology. 2004;29(5):593-611.

Epel ES, et al. Accelerated telomere shortening in response to life stress. PNAS. 2004;101(49):17312-17315.

Kivimaki M, et al. Social disadvantage accelerates aging. Nature Medicine. 2025;31:1635-1643.

Hale JM, et al. Causal effect of social isolation on cognitive function. Journal of Gerontology B. 2026;gbaf254.

Sutin AR, et al. Loneliness and risk of dementia. Journal of Gerontology B. 2020;75(7):1414-1422.

Boyle PA, et al. Effect of a purpose in life on risk of incident Alzheimer disease. Archives of General Psychiatry. 2010;67(3):304-310.

Porges SW. The polyvagal perspective. Biological Psychology. 2007;74(2):116-143.

Colzato LS, et al. Variable heart rate and a flexible mind. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience. 2018;18:600-610.

Gimpl G, Fahrenholz F. The oxytocin receptor system. Physiological Reviews. 2001;81(2):629-683.

Sharma SR, et al. Oxytocin and trauma resilience. Pharmacology and Therapeutics. 2020;214:107602.

Moll J, et al. Human fronto-mesolimbic networks guide decisions about charitable donation. PNAS. 2006;103(42):15623-15628.

Cohen R, et al. Purpose in life and its relationship to all-cause mortality and cardiovascular events: a meta-analysis. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2016;78(2):122-133.

Sone T, et al. Sense of life worth living (ikigai) and mortality in Japan: Ohsaki Study. Psychosomatic Medicine. 2008;70(6):709-715.

Okun MA, et al. Volunteering by older adults and risk of mortality: a meta-analysis. Psychology and Aging. 2013;28(2):564-577.

Brown SL, et al. Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it. Psychological Science. 2003;14(4):320-327.

Dunn EW, et al. Spending money on others promotes happiness. Science. 2008;319(5870):1687-1688.

Christakis NA, Fowler JH. The spread of obesity in a large social network over 32 years. New England Journal of Medicine. 2007;357(4):370-379.

Christakis NA, Fowler JH. The collective dynamics of smoking in a large social network. New England Journal of Medicine. 2008;358(21):2249-2258.

Cacioppo JT, Fowler JH, Christakis NA. Alone in the crowd: the structure and spread of loneliness in a large social network. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 2009;97(6):977-991.

Every week, the Longevity Docs Chat feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

HRV: Are Doctors Built Different?

It started with a simple question about magnesium glycinate and a spike in HRV on WHOOP. One member quickly flagged the confounders:

WHOOP’s HRV isn’t an overnight average, it’s weighted towards deep sleep. And detecting deep sleep itself uses HRV, creating a circular measurement problem.

Another physician agreed and raised excipient sensitivity in specific supplement formulations as a variable worth checking.

Then a member shared something remarkable: 840 days of simultaneous WHOOP and Oura data showing chronically low HRV that never once reached normal range. But within that low range, HRV still predicted recovery with strong correlation (r = 0.68, 834 nights).

Best-HRV nights: recovery 79%. Worst: 47%. System is adaptive. Just running on a different scale.

That prompted a provocative hypothesis from another physician:

doctors may carry a constitutional low-HRV phenotype.

The idea is that elite test-takers are selected in part for higher baseline sympathetic tone, a trait that helped survive the MCAT but may leave us running hot for life. He cited research from the Israeli Defense Forces showing autonomic regulation as an independent predictor in elite military selection.

A colleague pushed back thoughtfully:

I’d be cautious about extending this to a constitutional low-HRV phenotype or selection bias in physicians. The evidence I’m aware of tends to support state over trait, with training and practice environments shaping autonomic patterns over time.

Key Takeaway:

Stop comparing your HRV to population norms. Within-individual trends matter more than absolute values. Track your own baseline. Measure your own trajectory. And if your HRV runs low, consider the possibility that it reflects your autonomic wiring, not just your lifestyle. The data to prove or disprove that is not here yet. But the question is worth asking.

Elevated Ferritin: Case Study

Community Case: Elevated Ferritin with Normal Iron Studies

A member posted a clinical question:

ferritin at 482, positive for one HFE H63D variant, normal iron and TIBC. What else beyond phlebotomy?

What followed was a 24-hour clinical deep dive involving gastroenterologists, cardiologists, and longevity physicians across multiple time zones.

One physician laid out the systematic workup:

Check transferrin, TIBC, liver enzymes, CRP, ESR, uric acid, LDH. Rule out alcohol, intense exercise within 72 hours, and inflammation.

A cardiologist cut to the core:

Measure transferrin saturation first. If TSAT is above 45%, this is iron overload. A common cause of elevated ferritin is fatty liver or a neoplasm or any other inflammatory condition.

Another member added hepatitis screen, CGM, and liver imaging to the list, then shared a case where unexplained hyperferritinemia turned out to be SAPHO syndrome presenting as severe acne and dermatitis.

Two other physicians shared their own cases of persistent ferritin elevation post-COVID (ranges of 377 to 700) with normal inflammatory markers and no clear etiology. One is trialing lactoferrin with an 8-week follow-up.

One member challenged the group to think upstream: why is the body sequestering iron before we rush to treat? She cited evidence on iron withholding as an immune defense mechanism.

Another connected it to hepcidin upregulation in patients on rapamycin, linking mTOR inhibition to mild iron deficiency anemia.

Key Takeaways

Isolated ferritin elevation is never simple. TSAT is your first branch point. Then think broader: liver, inflammation, autoimmune, post-COVID, and medication-induced causes including rapamycin. Do not reflexively phlebotomize without understanding the mechanism.

AI vs. ER Physicians in Triage Differential Diagnosis

Study published in Science showing AI models outperforming real ER physicians in triage differential diagnosis across multiple phases of clinical reasoning. Why it matters: Models used were from mid-2025. Current frontier models are significantly stronger. The gap between AI and physician performance at pattern recognition is widening. The physician value shifts to context, continuity, and care. Science

Caloric Restriction Reduces Inflammaging Through Complement C3a Suppression

Yale researchers analyzed proteomics from the CALERIE trial and identified complement C3a suppression as the key mechanism behind caloric restriction’s anti-aging benefits. The source: a macrophage subset in visceral adipose tissue that expands with age and drives complement activation. Neutralizing C3a in aged mice reduced inflammation and shifted macrophages toward an anti-inflammatory profile. An FDA-approved C3 inhibitor (pegcetacoplan) already targets this pathway.

Why it matters: C3a is now a measurable biomarker for inflammaging, visceral fat is confirmed as the epicenter, and a druggable CR-mimetic pathway already has an approved drug.

Current Status and Future Perspectives on Long COVID Pathophysiology

Review of 400+ million cases globally. Five mechanisms identified: immune dysregulation, viral persistence, microclotting, autonomic dysfunction, and neuroinflammation. Spike protein detectable in 60% of patients at one year. No validated biomarker. No cure. Why it matters: These are the same mechanisms we target in aging. Long COVID is accelerated biological aging triggered by infection. Our frameworks apply directly. Communications Medicine

They Are Certified Longevity Docs (CLD)

Congratulations to the physicians who earned their Certified Longevity Docs (CLD) designation this month. Empowering the next generation of physicians committed to the standard of evidence-based longevity medicine education.

Dr. Jorge Perez grew up in Cuba near a medical center, which inspired his desire to work in healthcare. Now a Cardiologist at the Chen Senior Medical Center in Miami, Dr. Perez focuses on supporting his senior patients in building happy, healthy lives. His recent research includes Echocardiographic Features of Longevity in Centenarians, noting that centenarians represent an under-studied population within cardiovascular medicine. He received Fellow of the Year Award for Excellence in Professionalism and Compassionate Care at Mount Sinai Medical Center of Florida.

Dr. Anna Chromcova is the Co-Founder and Medical Director of Doktůrek.ai, on a mission to revolutionize primary care. She is a graduate of First Faculty of Medicine, Charles University in Prague, starting her career in medicine as a Radiologist. Her passion for technology led her to join Carebot at Medical Director, a medical software company using AI and Machine Learning to evaluate radiology imaging. In addition to building Doktůrek.ai, she is a general practitioner in the Czech Republic where she supports her patients with hyper-individualized care throughout the their health journey.

The Certified Longevity Doctor designation is the standard our community is building. If you practice longevity medicine with evidence and accountability, this is the credential that says it.

Apply to Become Certified

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

CVS launches AI health platform with Google

CVS Health partnered with Google Cloud to launch Health100, an AI-powered health technology subsidiary. The platform uses Gemini models to deliver cross-network care management across pharmacy, provider, insurer, and PBM channels, with wearable integration and real-time biomarker tracking planned for 2026.

Why it matters: A $102.5B company building AI-driven preventive health infrastructure is moving into the data-rich space longevity medicine pioneered. Physicians who position themselves within these ecosystems early will have an advantage. Those who do not may find retail healthcare defining the category for them.

AI

Google DeepMind Launches AI Co-Clinician

Google DeepMind announced a “triadic care” model: AI agents that interact directly with patients under physician supervision. In blind evaluations, the system recorded zero critical errors in 97 of 98 primary care queries and matched or exceeded physicians in 68 of 140 consultation skills, including guiding physical exams via live video. Experienced physicians still outperformed on red-flag recognition.

Why it matters: AI is moving from information tool to clinical teammate. The physician value is no longer diagnosis. It is judgment, relationships, and the ability to design longitudinal protocols no AI can yet own. Build your practice around what AI cannot replace.

INVESTMENTS

Infinite Epigenetics Acquires Tally Health

TruDiagnostic’s parent company acquired David Sinclair’s Tally Health, creating a vertically integrated platform combining CLIA-certified lab infrastructure, 115+ research partnerships, the world’s largest private DNA methylation datasets, and consumer-facing at-home epigenetic age testing.

Why it matters: Epigenetic testing is moving from research curiosity to scalable infrastructure. The consolidation of methylation data at this scale will accelerate validation of biological age markers we already use. Physicians who can interpret epigenetic data will be essential partners in this ecosystem. Those who cannot will watch platforms deliver longevity medicine without them.

SquareMind Raises $18M for Robotic Skin Imaging

SquareMind’s Swan robot performs automated full-body dermoscopic imaging in minutes. Contactless, AI-paired, designed to track new or changing lesions over time. Round led by Intuitive Surgical founder Fred Moll’s fund. Commercial launch imminent in US and Europe.

Why it matters: 80% of melanomas are new lesions, not existing moles that changed. That makes comprehensive skin mapping a longevity screening imperative. For physicians building skin into their diagnostic framework, this turns a subjective visual exam into structured, trackable data at scale.

POLICIES

FDA Moves to Limit Compounded GLP-1s

The FDA proposed excluding semaglutide and tirzepatide from the 503B bulks list, finding no clinical need for outsourcing facilities to compound these drugs from bulk substances. Public comment open until June 29. Individual patient compounding under physician prescription (503A) remains intact for now.

Why it matters: The regulatory direction is clear. Build protocols around branded or FDA-approved pathways and document clinical rationale carefully. Affordable access through compounding is narrowing, not expanding. Be aware for your patients

PHARMA

LSD-Based Anxiety Drug Nears FDA Approval

Definium Therapeutics expects Phase 3 results for DT120, an LSD-based treatment for generalized anxiety disorder. Phase 2 showed 78% clinical response and 50% remission after four weeks. No new anxiety drug has been approved since Cymbalta in 2007. All 7,000 existing Spravato centers could deliver it.

Why it matters: DT120 works through 5-HT2A receptor activation and neuroplasticity, not symptom suppression. If approved, the first new class of anxiety treatment in nearly two decades. Mental health is a longevity intervention. This is the mechanism catching up to that reality.

CULTURE

Longevity Travel Goes Mainstream

ELLE reports luxury hospitality is embedding real diagnostics into the guest experience. Santa Monica Proper Hotel offers 160+ biomarker panels on-site. Clinique La Prairie leads clinical wellness tourism, now valued at $18B and projected to reach $48.2B by 2033. Properties are integrating pharmacogenetic testing, red light therapy, and IV drips alongside indigenous healing traditions.

Why it matters: Hotels are building longevity medicine into hospitality at scale. New referral channels, consulting opportunities, and clinical partnerships outside the clinic. People want longevity medicine woven into daily life, not confined to a waiting room.

Qantas Redesigns Long-Haul Flights Around Longevity

Qantas is adding wellbeing zones on its new A350 fleet for Sydney to London and Sydney to New York routes, launching 2027. Stretching handrails, exercise programs, hydration therapy. Clinical research with the University of Sydney confirmed the need to move during flights is physiological, not a luxury.

Why it matters: An airline just cited clinical research to redesign the flight experience around movement, hydration, and circadian reset. Longevity thinking at 40,000 feet. For physicians flying to Cannes in June: the flight is part of the protocol.

The Cannes Ecosystem Map

Cannes. June 9–11, 2026. Palais des Festivals.

We built this summit on a simple belief: longevity medicine will not scale inside silos. It scales when the hospital system, the AI lab, the beauty conglomerate, the clinic, the investor, and the regulator are in the same conversation. That conversation happens here.

This is the operating table where the ecosystem gets built.

Who you’ll meet in Cannes:

• Health Systems: Mayo Clinic. Mount Sinai. Sheba Medical Center. Cedars-Sinai.

• Academic Societies: American College of Cardiology, The Academy of Geroscience

• Clinics: Atria Institute, Clarify Clinic, Fountain Life, Next Health, Extension Health, Neko Health

• Big Tech & Consumer Health: Samsung, Noom, Hims & Hers, Hone Health, OpenLoop, Eli Health

• Beauty & Longevity: Lancôme, L’Oréal Group

• Investors & Capital: TPG, Primetime Partners

• Public Sector: City of Cannes, U.S. federal longevity initiatives.

The agenda includes: Nir Barzilai on the state of geroscience. Ami Bhatt and Zahi Fayad on the AI-augmented physician. Vania Lacascade on Lancôme’s longevity launch. Hon Pak on Samsung’s ambient longevity ecosystem. Saeju Jeong on scaling longevity to millions. Mayo, Mount Sinai, and Sheba on the longevity hospital of the future. Women’s Longevity 360. The Longevity Clinic Standard. The economics of a profitable clinic.

Off stage: White Party on Majestic Beach. Sunrise Run Club on La Croisette. Bioharmony on the beach. Leadership lunches on the sand. Black-tie Gala and the inaugural Certified Longevitydocs™ graduation at the Carlton.

Every seat in this room was earned. Every name on this list is building something. The question is not whether longevity medicine becomes the standard of care. It is who builds the infrastructure that makes it possible.

Will you be in the room?

Join us in Cannes - Book you Ticket

Mastermind Replays Now Available

3 Masterminds. 3 topics reshaping longevity practice: AI & Tech, Peptides, and Hormones - featuring the dozens of faculty. Trusted by hundreds of physicians

Access the Replays

Conferences

Jun 9–11 — Longevity Docs Cannes: Awards & Summit

Jun 29–Jul 1 — A4LI H-SPAN Summit · Washington, DC Longevity medicine meets regulation and policy.

Aug 24–28 — ARDD · Boston Where aging research meets drug discovery.

Oct 17 — Longevity Docs Skin Longevity Mastermind · New York, NY.

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

Apply to Join

Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

Subscribe to the Longevity Docs Newsletter

Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 1,000+ physicians across 68 countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

It’s 4:10 in the morning in New York City. The apartment is quiet. It’s still dark outside, but my mind is already in Cannes: sun on La Croisette, coffee and a croissant (yes!), friends I haven’t met yet.

I’m a few days late on this newsletter. I always tell my team: if you wait until you’re ready and perfect, you’re too late. But I needed the time. Because building the experience in Cannes isn’t about filling an agenda. I wanted to think of this summit like a book. Who are the characters? What are the stories? What will you feel, and what will change when you go home?

Every person on this stage was curated because they are shaping the future of longevity medicine. Every moment is designed to mean something, one after the other. We’re creating an experience for physicians at every stage of the journey: learning, building, scaling, leading.

We’re not just hosting another conference. We’re building the home of longevity medicine.

Once Upon a Time

In 1959, my father landed in Cannes. He became a physician and participated in the creation of the first university diploma in acupuncture at the University of Montpellier.

Two years ago, the city of Cannes called me and asked if I would organize a longevity summit. The circle closed. Same city. Different generation. Same idea: medicine evolves when doctors decide to lead it.

Cannes is already home to some of the world’s most iconic cultural gatherings: the Film Festival for cinema, Cannes Lions for creativity. Longevity medicine is becoming a cultural moment. It needed a home.

And if you’ve ever walked La Croisette in the morning -the Mediterranean air, the markets, the pace of life- you’d swear Cannes looks like a blue zone. There is something poetic about gathering the world’s longevity physicians in a city that already lives like one.

Longevity medicine is at an inflection point. Patients are driving demand. Physicians are stepping into new roles as clinicians, investors, and founders. Companies are scaling the science. Governments are starting to fund it. What’s missing is the standard: the protocols, the credential, the community that turn longevity from a trend into a discipline.

Cannes 2026 is where we set that standard: with evidence, with ethics, and with equity.

If you already know you need to be in the room.

Apply for Cannes 2026

The White Party - Majestic Beach

The story begins Tuesday evening on the deck of the Majestic Hotel Beach. Mediterranean sunset. White‑evening dress code. Mocktails, music, and hundreds of physicians meeting face to face. Powered by Noom.

Speaker & VIP Dinner - Palm Beach

Most events hide the speakers at a back‑room dinner. We’re opening the table. For the first time, select VIPs join the faculty the night before the summit. We have 60 seats at the table. One Place. Every speaker. If you want real conversations, this is where they happen.

LongevityDocs Run Club – La Croisette

The day starts the way longevity physicians should start every day: moving. We inaugurate the LongevityDocs Run Club with a 30‑minute Zone 2 run along La Croisette. Every few minutes, you rotate conversation partners. By the time you reach the pier, you’ve already met your first circle. Led by Paul Alexandrov, MD, and Vikas Mehta, MD. Powered by Eli Health.

Red Carpet – Palais des Festivals

The same red carpet where movie stars stand. Today it belongs to doctors. Every guest gets their moment, the quiet reminder that longevity medicine deserves the main stage.

Terrasse French Breakfast – Vibrant Lounge
Croissant, coffee, and conversations after the run. The formal program hasn’t started yet, but the community already has.

Welcome Back to Medicine.

Thomas de Pariente, Deputy Mayor of Cannes, opens the summit—because longevity medicine belongs in the same city where industries come to set their agenda.

I will kick of with the question how to scale physician‑led longevity care with evidence, ethics, and equity. This is why we’re here.

Targeting Aging

Where science is and where medicine should be.

Nir Barzilai, MD, President of The Academy of Geroscience. A legend in our field who has spent decades studying centenarians and leads the Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME) trial, the first FDA-approved clinical trial targeting aging itself. He has done more than anyone to put geroscience and longevity medicine on the map with strong evidence. You will learn:

• The current state of senolytics and aging biomarker science.

• What N‑of‑1 research means for personalized longevity interventions.

• How aging biomarkers are changing the way we measure outcomes and talk to patients and payers.

The Longevity States

Why ARPA-H is investing to extend healthspan.

Rafid Fadul, MD, Chief Medical Officer of ARPA-H, joins me for a conversation about how the U.S. government is funding the technology, medicine, and care models that make longevity a national priority. You’ll learn:

• How ARPA‑H works and which programs touch longevity care today.

• Where government money is flowing, and how to join studies or apply for funding.

• How to position your clinic or system ahead of the policy curve.

The AI‑Augmented Physician

Using AI to deliver personalized care and better outcomes at scale.

Two of the most influential voices at the intersection of AI and clinical medicine, on one stage. Ami Bhatt, MD (Harvard, Mass General, ACC, FDA Digital Health Advisory Chair) and Zahi Fayad, PhD (Mount Sinai, Healthspan Initiative, Digital Twin) discuss what it actually means to deliver AI‑assisted care. You’ll learn:

• How AI is already changing diagnostics, risk prediction, and treatment planning in longevity programs.

• How regulations are evolving—and what “safe implementation” looks like today.

• How to think about data volume, liability, and clinical responsibility as AI scales.

The GLP-1/Peptides Tsunami.

Are all peptides created equal?

Geoff Cook (CEO, Noom), Steven Murphy, MD, and Jeffrey Egler, MD (CMO, Noom), unpack the most exciting and most dangerous frontier in longevity practice. You’ll learn:

• The latest research on GLP‑1s and peptide‑based protocols.

• Why Noom acquired a 503A pharmacy, and what it signals.

• How FDA reclassification is reshaping risk, and how to design a compliant, evidence‑based peptide strategy.

Build Your Longevity Practice

Digital vs. brick-and-mortar?

Ali Watson (LifeSpan MD, 20+ locations and nationwide telemedicine), Mohit Joshipura, MD (CMO, OpenLoop), Melissa Loseke, DO (Re‑New Institute), and Abbi Levy (Primetime Partners) sit together to answer the question every longevity physician is asking. You’ll learn:

• How to build and scale a brick‑and‑mortar clinic.

• What it takes to build a fully digital clinic licensed in all 50 states.

• How to raise or deploy capital in the longevity economy, and how to prepare your practice for exit.

Leadership On the Beach – Majestic Lunch

We walk to the Majestic Beach for a three‑course Mediterranean meal on the sand. Sunlight, healthy food, and intentional networking. Every table is a roundtable; every guest has a voice. This is where board seats, advisory roles, and investment conversations quietly begin. You don’t want to miss this table.

From Lab to Shelf

Inside Lancôme's journey from longevity science to global launch

I will sit down with Vania Lacascade, PharmD, Global Brand President of Lancôme and former Chief Innovation Officer of L’Oréal, to explore what happens when a Fortune 500 beauty group deploys 4,000 scientists toward longevity. You’ll learn:

• How to move from diagnostic to technology to product at global scale.

• How Lancôme builds partnerships (NVIDIA, Timeline, and more) and runs innovation.

• A framework physicians can adapt for building their own evidence‑based brands and services.

Longevity Founders Mode

Behind the practice: the wins, the scars, the lessons

Jonathann Kuo, MD, Founder and CMO of Extension Health (65‑person team). Amanda Khan, MD, who went from zero patients to a six‑month waitlist. Jila Meyer, MD, CLD, building the EmpowHer longevity community. Ken Winnard, MD, opening a 6,500‑sq‑ft OneLife Health & Performance center. You’ll learn:

• How to avoid the classic traps in year one.

• How to navigate institutional resistance and competitive markets.

• How to leverage community to speed up learning and de‑risk big bets.

Confessions of a Longevity Doctor

After 20 years: what works, what's missing

Elizabeth Yurth, MD (Boulder Longevity Institute) sits down with Cynthia Keller, MD CLD faculty, for an honest conversation about two decades on the frontier. You’ll learn:

• Which therapies (from supplements to stem cells) have stood the test of time.

• What remains unproven or oversold.

• The foundations that consistently move the needle in real patients.

See Day 1 Agenda

The Industry’s Big Moment. Trade the scrubs for the gown and tuxedo. The black‑tie gala at the iconic Carlton Hotel is the most exclusive night in longevity medicine: one red carpet, one room, one community.

Join the Gala, Awards & Graduation

Bioharmony on the Beach.

Breath, movement, and a community reset to start the day.
Tamsin Lewis, MD, physician and Ironman athlete, leads a sunrise session of playful movement, breathwork, and meditation on the beach. A nervous‑system reset that aligns with what we preach: circadian rhythm, recovery, and community. Powered by Eli Health.

Terrasse French Breakfast at Vibrant Lounge, Palais of Festival

The Chief Longevity Officer Steps In.

Why longevity belongs in the C-suite.

Dawn Mussallem, DO (CMO, Fountain Life, ex‑Mayo), and Jessica Shepherd, MD (CMO, Hers, Hims & Hers), moderated by Saad Alam (CEO, Hone Health), map out a role that barely exists, and is about to be everywhere. You’ll learn:

• What a Chief Longevity Officer actually does, from clinical strategy to research to culture.

• Where the role sits in the org chart, how it’s funded, and how impact is measured.

• How to position yourself (or your physician leaders) to be first in line.

Longevity Hospital of the Future.

How Mayo Clinic, Mount Sinai, and Sheba Medical Center are building it.

Sara L. Bonnes, MD (Mayo Clinic), Evelyne Bischof, MD, PhD (Sheba Medical Center), Zahi Fayad, PhD (Mount Sinai) moderated by Elisabeth Roider, MD (Nescens). You’ll learn:

• How three leading systems are designing longevity programs inside legacy institutions.

• What offerings, technology, and therapies they include and what they cut.

• Payment models, education, and leadership structures that make it sustainable.

Ambient Longevity.

What the Samsung, the world’s most integrated health‑tech conglomerate, sees that most doctors don’t.

I sit down with Hon Pak, MD, Senior VP and Head of Digital Health at Samsung Electronics. Samsung builds medications, biologics, imaging, and runs its own medical center. Now it is building a full longevity ecosystem .You’ll learn:

• Samsung’s vision for a full longevity ecosystem across wearables, home, app, and AI.

• The sensors and biomarkers coming to your patients’ wrists and homes.

• How to build the foundations of “ambient care” inside your own practice or system.

The Longevity Clinic Standard.

The protocols and modalities every clinic should offer.

Darshan Shah, MD (Next Health) building toward 150 locations by 2027. You’ll learn:

• Testing protocols, technology stack, modalities, and EMR design that underpin a scalable clinic.

• The business model, SOPs, and brand architecture that attract and retain high‑trust patients.

Women's Longevity 360.

The complete protocol for half of thew world.

Elizabeth Poynor, MD, PhD (Atria), Saranya Wyles, MD, PhD (Mayo Clinic), and Giovanni Campanile, MD (CorAeon), moderated by Jessica Shepherd, MD (hers).

You’ll learn:

• How to design an integrated women’s longevity program across hormones, cardiovascular health, and skin.

• Protocols that are working at leading centers, and how to adapt them in your own clinic.

Beyond the Scale.

The Noom story: scaling longevity to millions.

I sit down with Saeju Jeong, Co-founder and Chairman of Noom, who raised more than half a billion dollars and is now steering the platform into longevity care.

You’ll learn:

• How Noom evolved from weight loss to longevity and what that means for physicians.

• How to think about reaching and retaining patients at true scale.

• How to lead in difficult times.

Know Your Numbers.

The economics of building a profitable longevity clinic.

Felix Olale, MD, PhD (Senior Advisor at TPG) and Jijoe Joseph, MD, DO, MBA, (Aesura Health) who just left the ER workshop the real numbers behind a longevity clinic.

You’ll learn:

• How to model revenue, margins, staffing, overhead, and time to profitability.

• The financial levers that matter most and the one mistake that kills many clinics in year one.

• A simple model you can take home and apply the week you get back.

Doctors in the Followers Era.

Build a brand, educate patients, influence culture.

Darhsan Shah, MD, Tania Elliott, MD, Thomas Paloschi, MD, and Guénolé Addor, MD, debate what it means to be a physician in a world that rewards attention.

You’ll learn:

• How to grow an audience and build authority without sacrificing credibility.

• How to design social content that educates rather than entertains.

• How to differentiate your personal brand from your clinic brand.

Explore the Full Program

The Standard Has Been Set.

It was never meant to be a conference.

Three days in Cannes. Two days of summit. One gala. Forty speakers. Hundreds of physicians from around the world. And one question that will run through every session, every fireside, every conversation on the beach: how do we democratize longevity medicine?

We are uniting:

• The legend who has spent decades proving that aging is a treatable condition.

• The U.S. government agency investing a billion dollars to make healthspan a national priority.

• The largest tech conglomerate building a longevity ecosystem from the wrist to the home.

• The number one beauty group in the world turning longevity science into global products.

• Physicians from the leading hospitals in the world, Mayo Clinic, Mount Sinai, Sheba Medical Center, Harvard, and NYU.

• The leading medical society in cardiology.

• Founders who left the ER, who went from zero patients to six-month waitlists, who opened 70 franchise units, who raised half a billion dollars.

We are bringing them here so you can take what they know and build.

The Certified Longevitydocs who will graduate on that stage in Cannes will be the first of their kind. The five physicians who will receive the Longevity Docs Awards will be recognized by their peers for shaping this entire field. The physicians who will sit at those tables on the beach will be connected for life. The ideas pitched over lunch could become companies.

We are building a movement to inspire the next generation of physicians who are committed to science, evidence, and outcomes. To do the work, build the practice, set the standard, and prove that evidence-based care can scale and impact lives globally.

That is what Back to Medicine means.

Save your seat in Cannes

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 600+ doctors across 50 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

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Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from hundreds physicians across 68+ countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

It is 5:07am. New York City is dark. Like every Sunday, I start the newsletter from a blank screen, coffee in hand, the city not yet awake. I love this moment.

This week’s conversations were about peptides and platforms. Regulations, risks, science, media. The pattern reminded me of the cannabis era, so I went deep into the history, the correlations, the question of whether history repeats itself.

I asked myself: are peptides the new cannabis? Will peptide shops sit on the same sidewalks of SoHo, next to our favorite yoga studio?

Still committed to the mission: making longevity medicine the new standard of care. Every doctor should be a longevity doctor.

This is Newsletter 90. The unfiltered, unsponsored version of my reflections on longevity medicine.

Dr. David Luu - Founder, longevitydocs.™

PS: Are you getting ready for Cannes? Email me back here. I read every message. I reply to everyone.

Every Wednesday, we ship something new for this community. Features, experiences, and products built by physicians, for physicians. The platform grows because you do.

We are launching Events

Peer learning has always been a medical tradition. The conference was just the easiest format.

There is no community without programming. A once-a-year gathering is not enough.

We started with a chat. Then online masterclasses. Our first in-person mastermind. The Summit and Awards in Cannes. Roundtables in different cities. Now Rooms.

Each one built for physicians, by physicians.

The new Events feature on the platform brings it all under one roof: our programming, and the events of partners we trust.

A year-round commitment to the kind of learning that actually changes how we practice longevity medicine. We build what doctors will use to take better care of their patients.

ROOM

What Happened in the Room stays in the Room

but we’d like to share the key takeaways

Last Wednesday we launched Room: live, 20-minute peer sessions on longevitydocs.ai. Here’s what physicians took home.

Room 1: How to Practice Longevity Medicine - Dr. David Luu + guest Dr Steven Murphy

• Add a longevity layer to your specialty. If you are a cardiologist, go deeper into cardiovascular aging, prevention, data, wearables, and emerging therapies. Build on the expertise you already have. That is the fastest path to outcomes.

• Pick one niche to serve everyone. Trying to serve everyone dilutes the offer. Choose one audience, go deep, and build the practice around them. Depth creates referrals, reputation, and pricing power. Fit matters on both sides: not every patient belongs in your practice, and not every physician is right for every patient. Be intentional about who you take on. The wrong fit drains the team. The right fit compounds trust over years.

• Serve patients like five-star hotel guests. Every touchpoint, from first inquiry to follow-up, should signal the same level of care as the clinical work. Loyal patients are your best marketing. Invest in the experience and the practice compounds on its own.

• Do not over-invest in shiny technology you cannot leverage. Outsource it. Partner with specialists who own the tech layer so your attention stays on clinical work, strategy, and relationships. Tools should serve the practice, not distract from it.

• Build a Formula One team. Longevity medicine is a team sport. Surround yourself with operators, clinicians, and support staff who execute at the highest level. The physician stays in the driver’s seat on clinical judgment and strategy. Everyone else makes the car faster.

Room 2: Gut Health Reset - Dr. Mishal Reja

• Treat IBD as a systemic inflammatory disease, not a gut condition. The gut is the central hub of the immune system, wired directly to the vagus nerve, with downstream effects on neurological health, skin, mood, weight, and oncogenesis. Approach it as a longevity lever, not a GI problem.

• Work the triple pathophysiology stack. Genetics set the stage. Environment pulls the trigger: emulsifiers, glyphosate, early-life antibiotics, and microplastics now documented in UC and Crohn’s tissue. Stress drives it through cortisol’s mucolytic action on the mucus layer. Miss any axis and you miss the disease.

• Run a longevity-grade workup across all three axes. Pair standard labs and SIBO testing with inflammatory gut markers, genetic panels covering oxidative stress and detox pathways, and total toxic burden testing for mold, metals, and environmental exposures. Only order tests you can act on.

Room 3: The AI Tech Stack for Your Practice - Dr. Omar Saleem

• Start and go deep on two or three tools, not twenty. Tool minimalism beats tool maximalism. A workspace suite, a general-purpose LLM, and a second-brain note system is enough to run a modern longevity practice. Chasing every release is a tax on attention.

• Think in systems, not tools. Design an ecosystem, iterate at both the prompt level and the practice-design level, and communicate with precision. AI’s real strengths are synthesis and coordination. Both depend on clarity of instruction.

• Respect the HIPAA/GDPR split. It is the non-negotiable design constraint. Workspace suites with a signed BAA are compliant for patient data. Most consumer LLMs are not. Operating rule: general LLMs for everything non-clinical, BAA-covered tools exclusively for patient data.

• Invest in trust, not tech. As building commoditizes, trust is the final product. A usable longevity practice site is now a prompt away. AEO is overtaking SEO, with the bulk of traffic flowing through one dominant LLM. What stays defensible is domain expertise and patient relationships. Let AI handle admin so you spend more time on the relationship.

• Automate your Monday-morning prep. It is the highest-leverage AI use case in the practice. An agent workflow that reads the day’s schedule, pulls each patient’s labs from storage, and produces clinical briefings can collapse hours of prep into under 30 minutes. Treat clinical decision support as a watchful second tier where emerging longevity literature still requires source verification.

  

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Next Rooms

This week's full programming is live on the app. Don't miss the live conversations.

Apply to Join Next Room

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

Are Peptides the New Cannabis?

A personal reflection for physicians. Science evolves. Regulation evolves. Our professional obligation does not: protect patients and practice within the law using the best evidence available at the time.

Recent announcements about peptide reclassification made me think of the cannabis story. So I went down a rabbit hole this morning.

I see patterns worth a moment of reflection.

Here is what I saw and what I think it means for how we educate and empower ourselves as a community.

The cannabis story, briefly

Cannabis did not begin as a counterculture product. It entered Western medicine in the nineteenth century, appeared in the U.S. Pharmacopeia by 1850, and was prescribed through normal pharmacy channels for decades.

Then policy shifted. The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937 restricted medical access. The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed cannabis in Schedule I, blocking most research and routine prescribing. Demand did not disappear. It just became illegal. Clinicians stepped back. State-level reforms began reopening medical access with California in 1996.

The pattern: Discovery → Adoption → Restriction → Gray market → Incremental legitimization → Commercial scale.

The peptide story, so far

The peptide story starts with insulin in 1921. A century later, dozens of FDA-approved peptide drugs sit firmly in mainstream practice.

Then came GLP-1s.

Exenatide was approved in 2005. Liraglutide in 2010. Semaglutide in 2017. What began as a diabetes medication became, by the early 2020s, one of the fastest-adopted drug classes in modern medicine — reshaping how healthcare systems, payers, and patients think about metabolic disease, obesity, and preventive care. The GLP-1 class alone is now a market measured in the tens of billions, with manufacturing capacity still racing to catch up with demand.

That is the visible, regulated track. Discovery, decades of development, large trials, approval, and scale.

A second track developed more quietly. Over two decades, 503A compounding pharmacies and clinicians used compounded peptides — BPC-157, CJC-1295, Ipamorelin, thymosin alpha-1, TB-500, and others — where mechanistic rationale was plausible and bedside experience was ahead of large-scale trials.

In 2023, the FDA moved a group of peptides to Category 2 of the 503A bulks list, ending their eligibility for standard compounding. In 2024, PCAC declined to recommend adding several peptides to the approved list, citing limited U.S. outcomes data. In 2026, FDA signaled reconsideration of approximately a dozen substances, with meetings scheduled in July 2026 and February 2027.

The outline: Discovery → Adoption → Restriction → Gray/alternative channels → Potential reconsideration.

The story is still being written and GLP-1s are a reminder that when a peptide class does cross the full regulatory arc, the impact on medicine can be generational.

The Comparison Between the Cannabis and Peptide Stories

The two stories trace the same shape. A scientific breakthrough. Decades of legitimate pharmacy use. A restriction event that redirects demand rather than eliminating it. Physicians practicing between observation and evolving regulation. A slow, uneven path toward reconsideration.

The differences matter too and they are worth naming carefully.

What this means for the physicians community

This is where I think the pattern is useful.

Peptides, like cannabis, are one chapter in a longer story of emerging modalities. Others will follow. What does not change is our obligation as physicians. What can change, and what this community is built to change, is how prepared we are when the next chapter arrives.

Four things each of us can do, independent of where the regulation lands.

1. Educate. Stay fluent in the evidence, the mechanisms, and the regulatory framework that governs our practice. Emerging modalities reward physicians who understand the science before the marketing. Longevity Docs exists to make that education continuous, peer-reviewed, and physician-led.

2. Stay updated. Regulatory landscapes shift. FDA, PCAC, state boards, and international bodies move on their own timelines. A community that tracks these changes in real time (and translates them into clinical language) protects every physician in it.

3. Run research. Advisory committees declined several peptides in part because organized U.S. outcomes data was missing. That is a gap a physician community can close. Clinician-led registries, standardized data capture, and shared protocols turn individual bedside experience into evidence the next regulatory cycle can actually weigh.

4. Operate legally and ethically. Stay within the boundaries of current law. Careful patient selection. Informed consent. Transparent communication about what is known, what is unknown, and what may change. Documentation that holds up to scrutiny. This is the posture that outlasts any regulatory cycle.

Every week, the Longevity Docs Chat feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

Does mTOR Inhibition increase Lipids?

A clinical thread emerged around rising LDL and triglycerides in patients on mTOR inhibitors and whether the community is measuring the wrong things.

One physician laid out the mechanism clearly:

“mTOR2 inhibition drives the hepatic insulin pathway toward higher TG and LDL. Another possibility is increased breakdown of adipose, which means more FFAs delivered to the liver which then converts FFAs to TGs.”

He kept going, reframing it as a feature, not a bug:

“If we are pushing metabolism more towards autophagy and energy conservation you can see higher circulating cholesterol. Fat is being mobilized, not stored.”

Then the sharp critique:

“They should have checked ApoB and they missed the mark there. I wouldn’t be surprised if there was elevated LDL but no major increase in ApoB. They should also monitor fasted insulin.”

Key takeaway for Longevitydocs:

If you’re dosing rapamycin or any mTOR-targeting protocol and tracking standard lipid panels, you’re reading the wrong instrument. LDL elevation under mTOR inhibition could reflect fat mobilization and autophagy. ApoB and fasted insulin could be a better signal.

Public use of a generalist LLM chatbot for health queries

Analysis of 500,000+ Microsoft Copilot health conversations (January 2026): nearly 1 in 5 involve personal symptoms or conditions, and 1 in 7 of those are about someone else. Personal queries spike at night when care is least accessible. Mobile skews personal, desktop skews professional. A large share focus on navigating the system itself: insurance, referrals, logistics. Nature

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Your patients are running symptoms through Copilot at 11pm the night before their appointment. On mobile. Often for a parent or child. Increasingly to navigate insurance we never trained for. Tomorrow's patient arrives pre-informed, pre-anxious, and pre-diagnosed by an LLM. Be ready.

Anemia and Blood Biomarkers of Alzheimer Disease in Dementia Development

In this cohort study of dementia-free older adults, anemia was associated cross-sectionally with higher levels of AD blood biomarkers and longitudinally with increased dementia risk. The highest dementia risk occurred when low hemoglobin and elevated AD biomarkers coexisted, suggesting a potential interplay between anemia and neuropathology in dementia development. JAMA

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Anemia is one of the most undertreated findings in adult primary care often dismissed as nutritional or age-related. This data reframes it as a potential accelerant of neurodegeneration, especially when layered onto elevated AD biomarkers. For longevity physicians, that's a clinical mandate: don't stop at the CBC. Pair hemoglobin trends with p-tau217 or GFAP in your high-risk patients, and treat anemia as a cognitive risk factor, not just a hematologic one.

Interferon-related inflammaging links epigenetic age acceleration to multimorbidity

Mendelian randomization shows four interferon-pathway cytokines (CXCL9, CXCL10, CCL11, IL-18) rise with age and causally drive epigenetic age acceleration and age-related disease. Aging also dysregulates immune cytokine production in response to microbial stimulation. The interferon pathway is emerging as a target for anti-aging interventions. Cell

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Inflammaging has been a useful concept but clinically vague. This paper names four cytokines with a causal Mendelian randomization signal, not just correlation. That moves interferon-pathway inflammation from hypothesis to tractable target. Watch for emerging IFN-modulating interventions and testing.

Electromagnetic field-inducible in vivo gene switch for remote spatiotemporal control of gene expression

A remotely controlled in vivo gene switch responsive to electromagnetic fields (EMFs) enables precise spatiotemporal gene activation. A CRISPR-Cas9 screen identified cytochrome b5 type B (Cyb5b) as the likely EMF sensor, activated by rhythmic oscillatory calcium dynamics. EMF activation of the Oct4-Sox2-Klf4 (OSK) cassette induced partial reprogramming in aged mice, conditional APP expression recapitulated Alzheimer's pathology, and EMF-mediated Tph2 expression restored serotonergic activity in Tph2-mutant mice. Cell

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Partial reprogramming via OSK is one of the most discussed frontiers in longevity science, but delivery and control have been the bottleneck. An EMF-triggered, non-invasive switch changes the calculus. You could, in principle, turn on a rejuvenation cassette with external signal precision rather than systemic dosing. Still preclinical, but the delivery architecture is what makes this category eventually clinical. Worth tracking as the bridge between reprogramming biology and deployable therapy.

They Are Certified Longevity Docs (CLD)

Congratulations to the physicians who earned their Certified Longevity Docs (CLD) designation this month. Empowering the next generation of physicians committed to the standard of evidence-based longevity medicine education.

Dr. Sumita Jain — Founder, Corsano Health and Wellness (Zionsville, Indiana)

Ten years in primary care, with a specific commitment to bringing preventive medicine to underserved and underrepresented patients. Proof that longevity medicine belongs in every zip code, not just the wealthy ones.

Dr. Johan Hedevåg — Founder & CEO, Revi Health (Stockholm, Sweden)

One of Scandinavia’s first CLD-certified physicians. Building longevity practice infrastructure in a region where the specialty is still being defined. Founder and CEO of Revi Health, a network of clinics in Sweden, focusing on longevity, regenerative medicine and performance health.

The Certified Longevity Doctor designation is the standard our community is building. If you practice longevity medicine with evidence and accountability, this is the credential that says it.

Join the April Cohort

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

Bryan Johnson Offers Free Biomarkers Testing

Blueprint launched a direct-to-consumer biomarker membership at $365/year: two annual panels, 100+ biomarkers, 160+ measurements. Members get blood draws and urine samples through Quest, a dashboard visualizing results, uploads from past labs, and an AI health companion. Physician review costs extra. Athletechnews

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Physicians will increasingly compete with platforms, not other physicians. The panel, the dashboard, and the AI companion are being commoditized at $365/year. What stays defensible is the physician who interprets the results, contextualizes them against the patient's life, and builds the plan. Position yourself as the analyst and strategist, not the gatekeeper to labs. Patients will arrive with their Blueprint dashboard open on their phone. Be ready to add the layer they cannot get from a platform.

AI & TECH

Function acquires Getlabs to scale at-home testing

Function Health, the $2.5B membership-based lab testing startup ($365/year, 160+ biomarkers), acquired at-home phlebotomy platform Getlabs on April 10, 2026. Members will soon be able to choose between Quest Diagnostics' 2,200 locations or schedule at-home/in-office draws via Getlabs. Longevity.technology

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Function is quietly building the consumer rails for preventive medicine — direct-to-patient, subscription-based, geography-agnostic. They've now locked in both the lab network (Quest) and the last-mile collection layer (Getlabs). For longevity physicians, this is the competitive landscape: patients arrive already owning their biomarker data, already enrolled in a consumer brand, already expecting at-home convenience. The physician value is no longer access to testing — it's clinical interpretation, protocol design, and longitudinal care. The question for Longevity Docs is whether CLD physicians plug into this infrastructure or build a physician-led alternative.

POLICIES

FDA moves toward easing restrictions on certain peptides

The FDA will reclassify 12 peptides restricted from compounding since 2023, with advisory panels in July 2026 and February 2027. The first reviews seven peptides including BPC-157. HHS Secretary RFK Jr., a self-described peptide user, framed it as restoring "regulated access." Critics note limited efficacy data and documented adverse events.

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Patients will walk in asking for BPC-157 by name. Be the physician who can answer with clinical authority, not improvisation. Stay informed, read the news, connect with your community, and deepen your standard of care through our certification.

CULTURE

Climate Action and Healthy Longevity

Global life expectancy has more than doubled in a century, but climate change threatens to reverse those gains. The WHO projects ~250,000 additional annual deaths between 2030 and 2050 from heat, undernutrition, malaria, and diarrhea. A widening “longevity gap” is emerging: wealthier, greener neighborhoods outlive hotter, polluted ones by nearly a decade. The call: shift from counting years of life to building climate-resilient years across resilient infrastructure, low-carbon environments, and unified aging + climate policy.

Why it matters for Longevity Docs: Longevity has been built on the individual: labs, biomarkers, protocols. This reframes it as infrastructure. The patient in front of you is also a patient of their zip code, air quality, and heat exposure. Widen the clinical lens and speak into the conversation where longevity meets climate and equity. That is the difference between a specialty and a movement.

Conversations you won’t hear anywhere else.

New Speaker Announcement

Here’s the full speaker block in your order, with learn lines added, cleaned, and ready to paste:

Cannes 2026 Fireside Chats

As promised, the community is growing.

We curated another seven of the most consequential voices in longevity medicine, venture, tech, and healthcare policy. Leaders of industry meet the physicians building the next chapter of longevity medicine. Small group. Physician-focused. Live only.

Dr. Hon Pak, MD, Head of Digital Health, Samsung

The physician shaping how a billion devices become a preventive health platform.

Learn how consumer wearables and AI are redefining the data layer of clinical practice, and what physicians need to own before the platforms do.

Dr. Felix Olale, MD, PhD, Senior Adviser, TPG

Global health investor bridging longevity medicine, equity, and policy on three continents.

Learn how capital is flowing into longevity across continents, and where the physician voice still holds leverage in the global health system.

Elena Bonfiglioli, Healthcare Industry Executive, Microsoft EMEA

The platform layer behind the next decade of health AI, and what it means for physicians.

Learn what the enterprise AI stack looks like inside healthcare, and how physicians can position themselves as the interpretive layer platforms cannot replicate.

Abby Levy, Managing Partner & Co-Founder, Primetime Partners

Venture capitalist shaping the longevity economy. Former senior executive at SoulCycle. Founding President of Thrive Global with Arianna Huffington. Princeton. Harvard Business School.

Learn what venture is funding in longevity, what it is quietly avoiding, and how physicians can build practices that capital respects.

Ali Watson, Partner, LifeSpan MD

Two decades building concierge medicine and longevity before the field had a name. A strategist and operator who has worked with many of the most respected brands in the category. The person founders call when they want to build.

Learn the operational truth of scaling a concierge longevity practice, from one clinic to a network, and the mistakes that cost years.

Dr. Elizabeth Yurth, MD, Co-Founder, Boulder Longevity Institute

One of the most experienced and respected voices in clinical longevity practice. The generation that built the field.

Learn the clinical protocols that have compounded through two decades of practice, and the patterns that still hold after the hype cycles.

Dr. Amanda Kahn, MD

One of New York’s fastest-rising voices in longevity medicine. The generation building what comes next.

Learn how a new physician builds a modern longevity practice from scratch, and what the next decade of clinical longevity actually looks like inside real offices.

Join hundreds of physicians and leaders from Mayo Clinic, Mount Sinai, Samsung, Noom, L’Oréal, ARPA-H, American College of Cardiology

These conversations happen once. In a room you have to be in to hear.

Cannes. June 9–11, 2026. One Room. Limited seats. Curated for physicians

Join us in Cannes - Book you Ticket

PS: The Back to Medicine visuals drop next week.

Mastermind Replays Now Available

3 Masterminds. 3 topics reshaping longevity practice: AI & Tech, Peptides, and Hormones - featuring the dozens of faculty. Trusted by hundreds of physicians

Access the Replays

Conferences

Jun 9–11 — Longevity Docs Cannes: Awards & Summit

Jun 29–Jul 1 — A4LI H-SPAN Summit · Washington, DC Longevity medicine meets regulation and policy.

Aug 24–28 — ARDD · Boston Where aging research meets drug discovery.

Oct 17 — Longevity Docs Skin Longevity Mastermind · New York, NY.

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 600+ doctors across 50 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

Apply to Join

Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

Subscribe to the Longevity Docs Newsletter

Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from hundreds physicians across 68+ countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

This is Newsletter 89. I skipped a few Sundays. It is 8:38pm sunday night, docs are waiting for the newsletter. I have to ship!

Nobody warned me about this. Building a physician community is the one of the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder than cardiac surgery. Harder than fundraising. Harder than building companies.

Getting doctors to trust something new doesn’t happen with a marketing campaign. It happens one conversation at a time. I speak with physicians around the world every day of the week. No exception.

10 physicians to 1,000 across 68 countries in two years. The movement is real. Now we need more rooms to gather, more experiences to connect, and more role models to show what’s possible.

One mission: making longevity medicine the new standard of care. Every doctor should be a longevity doctor.

That’s what we’re building. Newsletter 89.

Dr. David Luu - Founder, longevitydocs.™

Every Wednesday, we ship something new for this community. Features, experiences, and products built by physicians, for physicians. The platform grows because you do.

Rooms - The Digital Lounge for Longevity Docs

Launching this Wednesday

There used to be a place where doctors talked to each other. Not in a chat thread. Not on a podcast. In a room.

The hospital lounge is gone. Private practice replaced hallway conversations with isolation. The best clinical conversations you’ve had in the last year probably happened by accident, at a conference dinner, or between sessions.

We’re fixing that.

This Wednesday, we’re launching Rooms: 20-minute live audio discussions built for longevity physicians. Focused themes. Real cases. Genuine debate. Short enough to fit between patients. Deep enough to actually change how you practice.

Each week, leading physicians across the community will host sessions on clinical rounds, book clubs, practice growth, and emerging protocols. Kicking off the programming: Dr. Catherine Johnson, Dr. Mishal Reja, Dr. Omar Saleem, Dr. Jonathan Bastian, Dr. Mayoni Gooneratne, Dr. Anna Emanuel, Dr. Steve Murphy, Dr. Jila Senemar, Dr. Amanda Hill, Dr Giovanni Campanile, Dr. Sumita Jain, and more

I will open the first Room: “Do You Practice Longevity Medicine?” a live conversation on a very vibrant topic. Audio only. Physician-led. Open floor.

The lounge is back. Come in.

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

The Longevity Conference ROI: An Honest Audit

An honest audit of where conferences deliver and where they quietly drain you.

Sorry. This is partly our fault.

In April 2024, we organized one of the first conferences dedicated entirely to longevity medicine. Since then, the calendar has exploded. Every major city wants one. Miami. London. Dubai. Las Vegas. Cannes (our own Summit).

We helped start something. Now everyone wants in. And not all of it is good.

Some of these events are intimate, rigorous, and genuinely career-changing. Others are three days of panel discussions sponsored by energy drink brands, mattress company, wrapped around a networking dinner you didn’t need.

Your time is your most finite resource. Before you book the flight, here’s the honest audit.

5 Reasons to Attend

1. The Room Is the Product: No podcast replicates a well-curated room. The conversation that changes your practice rarely happens on stage. It happens between sessions, at dinner, in the hotel lobby. The right conference puts you in proximity to people you wouldn’t meet in five years of cold outreach.

2. Pattern Recognition at Speed: A focused conference compresses months of scattered reading into 48 hours of curated signal. You hear what’s emerging, what’s being debated, what forward-thinking physicians are actually doing in practice. Not what got published 18 months ago.

3. Clinical Confidence: Hearing a world-class clinician walk through a protocol in real time, with nuance, with pushback, with the messiness of real cases, builds a kind of confidence that a paper or course cannot replicate. That confidence changes how you show up for your patients on Monday morning.

4. Legitimacy and Visibility: Being present signals you are engaged at the frontier. For physicians building cash-pay or concierge practices, that visibility matters. Patients research their doctors. Colleagues notice who is in the room.

5. The Catalyst Effect: A partnership, a practice pivot, a collaboration, a referral network. Some of the most important decisions begin with a single conversation at a conference. You cannot predict which one. That’s an argument for being present.

5 Reasons to Think Twice

1. The Economics Rarely Add Up: Registration: $1,000 to $2,000. Flights and hotel: $1,500 to $3,000. Three days out of practice. A mid-tier conference easily crosses $5,000 to $10,000 with opportunity cost. Most physicians leave with a tote bag, a LinkedIn connection they’ll never message, and a vague intention to implement something. That is not a return. That is an expensive CME credit.

2. The Speaker Circuit Is Real: A growing number of longevity conference speakers are professional speakers first and clinicians second. Repurposed keynote. Same framework. Same book pitch. If you’ve attended more than three events in two years, you’ve almost certainly heard the content before, repackaged for a different city.

3. Sponsors Have Quietly Become the Audience Most conferences depend on sponsors, not attendees. The agenda is shaped by who is paying for it. Supplement companies, device manufacturers, and longevity tech startups are buying access to physicians.

4. The Information Is Already Everywhere The keynote will be on YouTube within a week. The panel will become a podcast. The citations will be in your inbox before you land. If information transfer is your primary reason, the conference is one of the least efficient ways to get it. The content has been commoditized. What hasn’t been commoditized is the room. But most conferences don’t deliver the room. They deliver a stage.

5. Community Without Continuity Is Just Networking The deepest failure of most conferences is what happens after. You exchanged cards. You had a great dinner conversation. You felt like you were part of something. Then you went home. And the isolation returned within a week. A conference without a living, year-round community behind it is a temporary sensation, not a structural solution to the professional loneliness that affects more physicians than the field will admit.

My personal checklist before deciding

The question isn’t whether to attend. It’s which conferences have earned your three days and your $10,000.

Before I book anything, I run through my personal checklist:

1. Will I learn something I don’t already know?

2. How fresh and relevant are the speaker perspectives or have I heard this keynote before under a different title?

3. Have I seen these speakers somewhere else recently (podcast, YouTube, another stage)?

4. Is there a real chance I’ll meet people who inspire me, challenge me, or become genuine collaborators?

5. Are the expo and sponsors curated or did they simply pay for a booth?

6. Is the format designed for conversation, not just consumption? Panels, workshops, and roundtables are not the same thing.

7. How many people are in the room? 2,000 attendees and 200 is a fundamentally different experience.

8. Is there a living community druing and after the conference?

9. Do I know anyone going? A warm room accelerates everything.

10. Is the city worth the trip? That counts too. Where you land shapes how open you are to everything that follows.

10 yes answers: block the calendar. Fewer than six: wait for the recap.

PS: Full disclosure - Longevitydocs organizes its own conferences. And yes, we try to check all ten boxes. You can hold us to it. Cannes, June 9–11.

Is Cannes Worth It?

Every week, the Longevity Docs Chat feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

GLP-1 & Hair Loss

A physician shared a patient with prior severe hair loss who did well for ~8 weeks on re-challenge with tirzepatide. Now reporting scalp tingling and early shedding. Continue? Stop? Dose adjust?

The first wave of responses pointed to the well-established indirect mechanism:

“It’s not a direct result of the med. It’s rapid weight loss changes, similar to bariatric. People under-eat and get nutritional deficiencies. Low protein plus low ferritin/zinc → hair shedding.”

The consensus here: check ferritin, albumin, zinc, B12, thyroid. Go low and slow. Replenish. Hair comes back.

Then a dermatologist pushed back and the thread shifted:

“Women are 15–17x more likely to experience it. There is a theory GLP-1 is activating adipocyte-derived stem cells leading to inflammation and accelerated skin and scalp aging. Although most experts say it’s indirect, clinically I’m seeing something more in some patients. I just don’t know how to identify them before.”

Another member flagged a key co-mechanism:

“TE can unmask AGA in certain patients. I wonder if that’s happening in a subset of the hair loss we’re seeing.”

The dermatologist shared her full GLP-1 Hair Loss Physician Protocol. Within minutes, the requests flooded in from across the group. Her core philosophy:

“Remove the inflammatory triggers in personal care products first: sulfates, phthalates, preservatives are causing inflammation and making things worse. These patients are desperate so they are using all kinds of crazy things on their scalp. Less is more.”

On supplements:

“I don’t use the off-the-shelf hair loss supplements. I use targeted, personalized supplementation. Don’t need biotin in crazy amounts.”

What’s next

A dedicated Longevitydocs Room on GLP-1 and hair loss is being planned. Audio only, physician-led, open discussion. Stay tuned for the date.

“Hair is never just one thing.”

GLP-1RA and the possible skin aging

GLP-1 drugs (Ozempic, Wegovy, Zepbound) are triggering “Ozempic face” through four mechanisms: disrupting adipose-derived stem cells, reducing estrogen production in the skin, starving skin cells of energy, and accelerating collagen breakdown. It’s not just fat loss, there’s direct biological aging happening at the cellular level.

The twist: the same drugs reduce AGEs and systemic inflammation, which protects skin health. Two opposing mechanisms, same drug. Endocrine

Why it matters for physicians: What your patients are seeing in the mirror is real biology, not vanity. Screening for skin aging markers before and during GLP-1 therapy may become standard of care, and the dermatology-longevity overlap is wide open for clinical leadership.

Dasatinib + Quercetin Causes Demyelination in Mices

The popular senolytic combo D+Q (currently in multiple clinical trials) caused significant white matter damage in both young and old healthy mice. Oligodendrocytes (the cells that produce myelin) stopped functioning properly without actually dying, triggered by endoplasmic reticulum stress and the unfolded protein response.

Why it matters for physicians: D+Q is being prescribed and self-administered widely in longevity medicine. This study suggests neurological risk may exist even in healthy individuals, at any age. Clinical trials haven’t been designed to catch this. Until human data clarifies the risk, caution is warranted.

Molecular Evolution of Animal Aging

Nature has solved longevity many times over. Long-lived species (bowhead whales, bats, axolotls, naked mole-rats) share four common strategies: superior DNA repair, controlled inflammation, sustained regenerative capacity, and environmental resilience.

The most clinically actionable findings:

• Inhibiting the enzyme 15-PGDH restores muscle strength by 10–15% in aged mice within one month — and also protects against Alzheimer’s

• DNA double-strand break repair is the strongest molecular predictor of lifespan across species — and can be pharmacologically boosted

• Senolytic precision matters — some senescent cells are protective; removing all of them causes harm

• Gut bacteria drive immune aging through a microbiome-senescence feedback loop that’s potentially reversible

Why it matters: The biology of extreme longevity already exists in nature. The clinical opportunity is learning to replicate it — selectively, safely, and measurably.

Welcoming the Certified Longevitydocs Candidates

This week, three physicians from across the world made the decision. They just joined our Certified LongevityDocs program to earn their CLD certification. Different specialties. One decision.

Dr. Samireh Said is a double board-certified dermatologist with 33 years of experience, trained at the University of California Irvine. After decades of treating skin at the surface, she's now building the clinical framework to treat it at the root: through the lens of aging biology. She joins the CLD program to formalize what she's already seeing in her practice: longevity medicine and dermatology are the same conversation.

Dr Daniel Kessler is double board-certified in Family Medicine and Integrative Holistic Medicine, trained at Emory, with two years at the CDC researching environmental toxins and additional training at the Mayo Clinic. He founded the KADAN Institute when conventional care reached its ceiling. He joins the CLD program to build the evidence layer his root-cause practice has always needed.

Dr. Bryan Love is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons, trained at Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University, with a career spent at the sharpest edge of human physiology — keeping people alive under the most extreme conditions. He joins the CLD program because the next frontier isn't the trauma bay. It's what happens before patients ever get there.

Three different entry points. One direction. Get certified.

Join the April Cohort

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

AI & TECH

Epic launches real-time disease surveillance across 300M patient records

Epic has quietly deployed one of the most powerful disease surveillance systems in medicine. Using its Cosmos platform — 300 million patient records across 2,067 hospitals — it now monitors county-level diagnosis rates and issues public alerts when illness rates spike beyond statistical norms. The system has already flagged elevated rates of bronchiolitis, measles, strep, and viral gastroenteritis across multiple states. Alerts are clinician-reviewed before publication and use the Farrington algorithm, the gold standard in public health surveillance, to filter seasonal noise.

Why it matters for longevitydocs: Real-world surveillance at this scale changes the signal-to-noise ratio in population health. For longevity practices tracking systemic inflammation and immune resilience, this kind of longitudinal signal infrastructure is what evidence-based prevention has always needed.

RESEARCH

Nestlé enters the longevity science space

Nestlé and Nanyang Technological University Singapore are launching a multi-year joint research lab focused on targeted nutrition and biological aging. The collaboration will study metabolic health, mobility, sleep, and menopause — combining Nestlé’s global R&D infrastructure with NTU’s clinical research capabilities. The move signals that food companies are formally entering the longevity science space, not as sponsors, but as investigators.

Why it matters for longevitydocs: When Nestlé funds aging research, the field has crossed a commercial inflection point. The nutrition-longevity connection is becoming investable science — and physicians who understand this space will be positioned ahead of the partnerships that follow.

CULTURE

America is structurally unprepared for its own longevity crisis

In 2026, the oldest Baby Boomers turn 80. Roughly 80% of households with adults aged 60+ lack resources for long-term care. Fewer than 5% of U.S. homes have basic accessibility features. The healthspan-lifespan gap currently sits at 12.4 years. It means most Americans spend over a decade in poor health before death. Researchers are calling for longevity preparedness to replace retirement planning as the organizing framework for aging policy.

Why it matters for longevitydocs: This is the demand signal your practice exists to meet. The gap between what the system offers and what patients actually need is where longevity medicine lives, and it is only widening.

Mastermind Replays Now Available

3 Masterminds. 3 topics reshaping longevity practice: AI & Tech, Peptides, and Hormones - featuring the dozens of faculty. Trusted by hundreds of physicians

If you weren’t in the room, this is your second chance.

Access the Replays

Conferences

Jun 9–11 — Longevity Docs Cannes 2026”: Awards & Summit

Jun 29–Jul 1 — A4LI H-SPAN Summit · Washington, DC Longevity medicine meets regulation and policy.

Aug 24–28 — ARDD · Boston Where aging research meets drug discovery.

Oct 17 — Longevity Docs Skin Longevity Mastermind · New York, NY. Curated physicians. Deep science. One room.

TBA — Longevity Clinics Roundtables · Buck Institute Clinical practice meets research infrastructure.

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 600+ doctors across 50 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

Apply to Join

Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

Subscribe to the Longevity Docs Newsletter

Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 600+ physicians across 50+ countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

It is 5pm. I just finished our annual lunch, surrounded by 30 people. Family. Friends. Every guest can bring a friend. No guestlist.

We cooked. We made fun of each others. We danced. Someone played guitar. Someone pulled out the dominoes.

One tradition I have kept. Before we eat, everyone stands and shares one word of gratitude. That is it. No speech. No performance. Just presence before the meal.

What struck me today was not the food or the music. It was the room. People who had never met, laughing like they had known each other for years.

This is my longevity way. A Sunday lunch that runs three hours longer than planned. Gratitude shared before the first bite. A community that feeds you before the food even arrives.

We talk a lot about health optimization. Today I wanna talk about life optimization.

Dr. David Luu - Founder, longevitydocs.™

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

Should Doctors Build a Personal Brand? 5 Pros and 5 Cons.

This cover story started in our chat. One doctor shared the social media agency he uses. Full production. Other docs chimed in. Some impressed. Some skeptical. Most asking the same thing quietly: should I be doing this too?

It made me think.

Doctors have always been a brand.

This is not new. This is ancient.

Hippocrates understood it. The physician’s reputation was sacred. How you showed up at the bedside. How you delivered a diagnosis. Whether you listened before you spoke. That was your brand before the word existed.

For centuries, doctors were recognized by five things: knowledge, expertise, service, bedside manner, and outcomes. Your patients knew it. Your community knew it. Referrals came by word of mouth. A doctor’s name carried weight in the village, the town, the hospital corridor.

No one called it branding. But that is exactly what it was.

The AMA banned physician advertising until 1980. But it did not matter. Reputations still traveled. Patients still chose their doctor based on what their neighbor said. Surgeons were still known for steady hands. Family physicians were still known for midnight house calls.

The brand existed. It just lived in conversations, not on screens.

How the brand metrics changed.

Not long ago, the markers of a great physician were clear. He trained at Harvard. She was featured in the New York Times. He published 100 scientific papers. That was the currency. Institutional pedigree. Media validation. Academic output.

Those things still matter. But they are no longer enough.

Today the metrics look completely different. Millions of followers. Celebrity patients. Brand partnerships. A lifestyle that signals success. Entrepreneurial ventures outside the clinic. Political positions. Cultural opinions. A personal story that people follow like a narrative.

The journey itself has become part of the brand.

A doctor used to be judged by where he trained and what he published. Now he is also judged by how he shows up online, what he believes publicly, and whether his story resonates. The CV still opens doors. But the personal narrative is what fills the room.

I am not saying this is better or worse. I am saying it is real. And ignoring it does not make it go away.

What changed.

The principle never changed. Where it lives did.

Google arrived. Suddenly your patients looked you up before they walked in. Your online presence became your first impression.

Social media followed. Doctors could speak directly to patients, to peers, to the public. Some embraced it. Most resisted.

Telemedicine removed geography. A doctor in Miami could treat a patient in Montana. But only if that patient could find them.

Now AI. Patients ask ChatGPT before they ask their doctor. The physicians whose thinking lives online are the ones AI surfaces. The invisible doctor becomes truly invisible.

Each wave raised the stakes. Each wave rewarded the same thing: the doctor who showed up with clarity about who they are and what they stand for.

What does building a brand actually mean?

Not a logo. Not a follower count. Not a production budget.

Your brand is your reputation. It is how people describe you when you are not in the room. It is the principles you defend. The positions you take. The way your patients feel after they leave your office and then search your name.

You already have one. The only question is whether you are shaping it or leaving it to chance.

5 Pros: Five reasons a brand can build you.

1. Trust. Medicine has always run on trust. But trust used to travel slowly: word of mouth, hospital corridors, a neighbor's recommendation. Now it travels at the speed of a Google search. Your brand is how trust scales. It communicates your principles before you speak. Your values before a patient books. Your personality before they walk through the door. The physicians patients stay with longest are not always the most credentialed. They are the most known, the most consistent, and the most believed.

2. Expertise. You can be the best longevity physician in your city and be completely unknown outside your zip code. A brand changes that. Every article you publish, every talk you give, every position you take publicly extends your clinical thinking beyond the exam room. Expertise without visibility is a ceiling. Your brand removes it. The physicians shaping this field are not necessarily smarter than you. They are just more visible.

3. Discovery. Your patients are searching right now. Not for a doctor. For an answer. For someone who understands what they are going through. If your name does not come up, someone less qualified fills that space. That is not a marketing problem. That is a patient care problem. A brand makes you findable by the right patients, at the right moment, before they ever pick up the phone.

4. Autonomy. The physicians with the most freedom are not the ones with the most credentials. They are the ones known for something. A strong brand gives you leverage over your schedule, your pricing, your patient selection, and your career trajectory. It is the difference between building a practice around your life and building a life around your practice. Brand is not vanity. It is the infrastructure of autonomy.

5. Opportunity. A brand compounds. Every talk builds on the last. Every published piece adds to the body of work. Every consistent post expands the network. Three years of clarity and consistency will transform your reach, your reputation, and the opportunities that find you: advisory boards, partnerships, media, speaking, investment. The physicians who built their brand five years ago are not working harder than you. They are just receiving more inbound than you. That gap closes the day you start.

5 Cons: Five Ways a Brand Can Break You.

1. Time. Building a brand is not a weekend project. It is a long game that demands consistent attention (content, presence, engagement, strategy) on top of a clinical schedule that already has no slack in it. The physicians who burn out on brand building are not the ones who tried too hard. They are the ones who underestimated the commitment before they started. A neglected brand does more damage than no brand at all.

2. Dilution. Slowly. That is how it happens. One compromised post. One paid ad. One position taken for reach instead of truth. You became a physician because you believed in something. The moment your brand starts chasing engagement instead of conviction, you begin trading your purpose for an audience. Your brand should amplify what you stand for. The moment it starts replacing it, stop.

3. Exposure. Everything you say publicly can be taken out of context, challenged, or weaponized. Trolls. Misinterpretation. Regulatory scrutiny. Licensing board complaints. These are not hypothetical. They are the reality of practicing medicine in public. Visibility is power. It is also exposure. Build your brand knowing both are true.

4. Investment. Branding building can costs up to tens of thousand dollar a month. That is what one physician in our group is spending on production alone. You do not need to spend that to start. But you do need to spend something: either money or an enormous amount of your own time. Photography. Video. Copywriting. Social management. SEO/AEO. The infrastructure of a serious physician brand adds up faster than it looks. There is no high-quality brand built on zero investment. Know what you are committing to before you begin.

5. Expertise. Nobody taught you content strategy, audience building, platform algorithms, or how to write a hook that stops a scroll. That gap is real. It humbles a lot of brilliant physicians who assume clinical excellence translates directly to online credibility. It does not. The skills are different. The learning curve is steeper than it looks. The physicians who succeed online are not just good doctors. They are also students of communication. That is a second education. Go in with your eyes open.

The Only Brand That Works.

Not the most polished. Not the biggest budget. The most true.

The doctors who will lead the next decade of medicine are not the ones who figured out the algorithm. They are the ones who had something real to say, to a specific group of people who needed to hear it, and kept saying it.

Figure out what you stand for. Then go stand there. Loudly, consistently, and without apology.

Measure your impact in outcomes, not impressions. Educate with generosity. Share opportunities. Care for the people you serve and guide them ethically — with the full weight of clinical judgment behind every word.

Hippocrates understood this a few years ago ;) The physician’s duty was never just to treat. It was to heal, to teach, and to guide.

That has not changed. The screen is just a bigger room.

The world does not have enough doctors doing that. Be one of them.

Every week, the Longevity Docs WhatsApp group feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

GLP-1s Are Stealing Joy. Does It Matter?

The weight comes off. The inflammation drops. The metabolic markers improve. But something else changes too. Some patients on GLP-1 agonists report a quiet flattening of life. Food stops being pleasurable. Hobbies feel distant. The drive dims.

One physician shared it happened to her personally at just 2.5mg of tirzepatide. She linked it to her COMT met/met variant, a genetic profile associated with slower dopamine clearance. She stopped the medication.

“N=1, but it was real. The anhedonia was bad enough that I didn’t want to continue.”

Another physician pushed back. For her, the clinical calculus is clear: optimize hormones first, check CYP2C19 metabolism, and consider adjunct options before attributing emotional blunting to the drug itself.

“Estrogen and testosterone status matter enormously here. I’ve seen patients feel completely different once we address the hormonal picture alongside the GLP-1.”

A third perspective: the new oral GLP-1 partial agonist entering the market may sidestep this entirely. Unlike full agonists, it reportedly preserves the drive for things that bring joy. The mechanism is different enough to warrant attention.

“It doesn’t kill motivation the same way. That’s a meaningful clinical distinction if it holds up.”

The deeper question no one has answered yet: are we selecting the right patients for these drugs? COMT variants, dopamine profiles, hormonal status. The era of prescribing GLP-1s uniformly may already be over for sophisticated longevity physicians.

No MBA? We got you! Launching Longevity Docs Growth.

Last week a physician in our group told me he’s been running his longevity practice for two years. Fully booked. No idea what his CAC is. No idea what his LTV is. Just working harder every month hoping the math works out.

That’s what Longevity Docs Growth is built to fix.

A business track for longevity physicians stepping into the next era of their practice and their life.

Whether you’re building from scratch, scaling what’s working, or expanding beyond the exam room: this track gives you the frameworks, the numbers, the playbooks, and the peers to do it faster and smarter than going alone.

Every session is built for longevity physicians, taught by longevity physicians and operators who have done it.

Who it’s for:

• The physician ready to start their first longevity practice

• The clinic owner ready to scale beyond where they are

• The established doctor ready to diversify into speaking, products, partnerships, or platforms

The Sessions:

Session 1 — Strategy

“Build The Longevity Practice Blueprint” The 101 every longevity physician needs before they spend a dollar or see a patient.

Session 2 — Operations

“Operate Like a Formula One Team.” The operating system behind the world’s highest-performing longevity clinics.

Session 3 — Finances

“Know Your Numbers” ARR. CAC. LTV. CPA. The four numbers standing between you and a practice that actually makes you free.

Session 4 — Marketing

“Acquire Better Patients Faster” Stop chasing volume. Start attracting the patients who stay, pay, and refer.

Session 5 — Branding

“Build Your Brand Before You Need It” The physician who owns their name online never competes on price.

Session 6 Technology

“Download the Tech Stack” The exact tools the world’s best longevity clinics are running right now.

More than a generic MBA. Join us in Cannes. The Growth Track is included.

June 9–11. Cannes. You should be there.

Secure yours now →

GLP-1 Receptor Agonists

GLP-1 and dual/triple agonists (semaglutide, tirzepatide, retatrutide) are now first-line for type 2 diabetes and obesity, delivering up to 25% weight loss and meaningful HbA1c reductions. Large RCTs confirm significant cardiovascular and renal protection, independent of glucose control alone. Key concerns remain: muscle and bone loss with sustained weight reduction, weight regain after discontinuation, and long-term adherence data still limited to under 3 years. The frontier is expanding toward neurodegeneration, liver disease, heart failure, and cancer, but health equity and cost access remain unresolved. NEJM

Epigenetic Age Feedback & Lifestyle Change

Sharing personalized epigenetic age data with patients works: after one year, 72% felt healthier, 60% increased physical activity, and 63% improved health literacy. Not all epigenetic clocks are equal — massive variability across 14 models tested, with Zhang2019-BLUP selected as the most interpretable for patient-facing communication without triggering unnecessary anxiety. Behavior change was hardest in smoking and alcohol (only 3% and 26% improvement), confirming that deep habits need more than biomarker feedback alone. Community-based delivery through trusted local networks was a key driver of engagement and retention. Epigenonmes

Why it matters: Showing patients their biological age can be a powerful behavior change tools in your clinical arsenal. The clock you choose matters. Pick one your patients can understand and act on.

AI Scribes Reduce Clinical Time

Across 5 academic medical centers and 8,500+ clinicians, AI scribe adoption cut total EHR time by 13 minutes and documentation time by 16 minutes per 8-hour day, while adding roughly half a visit per week. Benefits were largest for primary care physicians, female clinicians, advanced practice clinicians, and those using AI scribes in more than half their visits. Notably, after-hours EHR time didn’t change significantly, suggesting AI scribes aren’t yet solving the burnout problem at its root. JAMA

Why it matters: AI scribes are a real but modest win — not a revolution. For longevity physicians running high-touch, complex consultations, the documentation burden is even heavier.

Welcoming the Certified Longevitydocs Candidates

This week, three physicians from across the world made the decision. They just joined our Certified LongevityDocs program to earn their CLD certification. Different specialties. Different continents. One decision.

Dr. Tiffany Moon (USA) is a board-certified anesthesiologist, entrepreneur, and cultural force who has built a platform that reaches far beyond the clinic walls. She understands that the future of medicine is not just about what happens in the exam room, it’s about who gets to shape the conversation. Her ability to bridge clinical credibility with mass reach is exactly the kind of voice longevity medicine needs more of. She’s bringing that energy here.

Dr. Paul Verrills (Australia) is a pain medicine and interventional specialist based in Australia, recognized internationally for his pioneering work in neuromodulation and advanced pain therapies. He represents something critical for this community: longevity medicine is not a US phenomenon. It is a global movement. Australia is on the map. So is everywhere else.

Dr. Gurmeet Soni Bhalla (India) is a longevity clinician, allergist, and Chief Medical Officer at Resolute, based in Bangalore, India. With over 25 years of clinical expertise in Allergy, Immunology, and Pediatrics, she is redefining preventive care by bridging evidence-based medicine with emerging insights in longevity and human performance.

These doctors didn't think about it. They are doing it. Get certified.

Join the April Cohort

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

Hims & Hers Expands Personalized Digital Healthcare Platform

Hims is building a consumer-first digital healthcare platform that integrates diagnosis, treatment and fulfillment into a seamless, technology-enabled experience. Its model connects patients with licensed providers through telehealth, enabling personalized treatment plans supported by digital prescriptions, online pharmacy fulfillment and continuous clinical management.

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AI & TECH

How A.I. Helped One Man Build a $1.8 Billion “Telehealth” Company

Matthew Gallagher built Medvi, a GLP-1 telehealth company, in two months with $20K and a stack of AI tools — Claude, ChatGPT, Midjourney, ElevenLabs — outsourcing medical, pharmacy, and compliance infrastructure to third-party platforms. Year one: $401M in revenue, 250K customers, 16% net profit margins. Year two on track for $1.8B. His only hire was his brother. No venture funding. No office.

Why it matters: A non-physician just built a $1.8B longevity-adjacent business by doing exactly what most doctors won’t — moving fast, using AI ruthlessly, and staying lean. The clinical infrastructure already exists. The technology already exists. The patients are already there. The only thing missing is the physician at the center of it. That’s the CLD. That’s Longevity Docs. The rails are being built whether we build them or not. The question is who controls them.

───

RESEARCH

Hallucinated citations are polluting the scientific literature. What can be done?

A Nature analysis estimates over 110,000 scientific publications from 2025 contain invalid AI-generated references, with 2.6% of papers in some fields carrying at least one hallucinated citation — up tenfold from 2024. AI models stitch together fragments of real papers into convincing but nonexistent “Frankenstein” citations, making them hard to detect even for editors. Major publishers are now deploying screening tools, but detection remains imperfect and the problem is almost certainly larger in smaller, less-resourced journals.

Why it matters: The longevity literature is already noisy. If AI-generated citations are polluting the reference lists of papers your patients and colleagues are reading, your clinical judgment and ability to evaluate evidence critically has never been more valuable. This is exactly why physician-led, evidence-graded intelligence — like what we’re building at Longevity Docs — matters.

PHARMA/BIOTECH

Japan Approves the World’s First Treatment Made With Reprogrammed Human Cells

Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare officially granted conditional and time-limited marketing authorization to two regenerative medical products derived from reprogrammed iPS cells, marking exactly 20 years since the creation of mouse iPS cells. These will be the world’s first practical application of iPS cell-derived products. Wired

Why it matters: Within five years, longevity physicians will be fielding patient questions about iPS-derived therapies. Understanding the regulatory pathway Japan is building now prepares you to lead that conversation.

CULTURE

Ipsos Report: Strategic Implications of the Longevity Medicine Revolution

Ipsos: longevity medicine is no longer wellness. it is pharma’s next frontier.

Ipsos identifies five strategic categories now shaping the longevity market: molecular therapies (senolytics, NAD+ boosters), system optimizers (microbiome, immune resilience), experimental preventives (gene therapy, cellular reprogramming), diagnostics (biological clocks, biomarkers), and repurposed drugs (GLP-1s, metformin). Big pharma, biotech, platform R&D, and DTC companies are all converging on the same thesis: medicine is shifting from treating disease to preserving healthspan.

Why it matters: The report confirms what longevity physicians already see in practice. The industry is moving from reactive to proactive. Pharma is repositioning existing assets around aging biology. Commercialization models are evolving beyond traditional HCP channels toward consumer-driven, prevention-first strategies. For longevity doctors, this means growing institutional validation, new diagnostic tools entering clinical workflows, and an expanding evidence base for interventions already being used in practice. The question is no longer if longevity medicine becomes mainstream. It is how fast.

Mastermind Replays Now Available

3 Masterminds. 3 topics reshaping longevity practice: AI & Tech, Peptides, and Hormones - featuring the dozens of faculty. Trusted by hundreds of physicians

If you weren’t in the room, this is your second chance.

Access the Replays

Conferences

April 11 — A4M SpringFest · Miami

Jun 9–11 — Longevity Docs Cannes 2026”: Awards & Summit

Jun 29–Jul 1 — A4LI H-SPAN Summit · Washington, DC Longevity medicine meets regulation and policy.

Aug 24–28 — ARDD · Copenhagen, Denmark Where aging research meets drug discovery.

Oct 17 — Longevity Docs Skin Longevity Mastermind · New York, NY. Curated physicians. Deep science. One room.

TBA — Longevity Clinics Roundtables · Buck Institute Clinical practice meets research infrastructure.

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 600+ doctors across 50 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

Apply to Join

Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

Subscribe to the Longevity Docs Newsletter

Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 600+ physicians across 50+ countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

Three years ago, I started Longevity Docs from a WhatsApp group of dozen physicians. The mission is still the same: to democratize longevity medicine and make sure every doctor has the tools, the knowledge, and the community to practice it.

This week feels like a milestone.

I just got back from Denver, from AAD, the largest dermatology conference in the world. The energy around longevity medicine was impressive. Dermatologists are not just curious anymore. They are ready. They are asking the right questions. They want the knowledge. They want the community. They want in.

The timing could not be better.

Today we are launching Longevity Docs 2.0, our new home for the most influential physician community in longevity medicine. And we are celebrating our first-ever Certified LongevityDoc, Dr. Naana Boakye, a dermatologist who saw this coming before most.

This is just the beginning.

Dr. David Luu - Founder, longevitydocs.™

PS: thank you for your patience … a few days late, I know. Travel has been intense lately. But when I see my son waking up on the deck in the morning sun, I remember exactly what this is all about. That is the type of longevity we are building towards.

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

Longevitydocs 2.0: We Built You a Home

In February, we asked you a simple question: what do you actually need? The answers were clear: a searchable forum, shared protocols, a resource library, direct messaging between members. Not a WhatsApp group. A real home.

You asked. We built.

Today we are announcing Longevity Docs 2.0: the evolution of our community from a chat thread into a fully integrated platform built by physicians, for physicians. The most influential community in longevity medicine now has a place where it belongs.

Why We Built This

WhatsApp was never the destination. It was the beginning. A 10-physician became hundreds members across 60+ countries. The conversations got sharper. The protocols got more sophisticated. The community got bigger than any chat app was designed to hold.

Brilliant clinical insights were disappearing into scroll history. Protocols were being shared without documentation. Connections were happening between phone numbers instead of physician profiles. We needed more.

What’s Live Now: Beta by Invitation

The beta is open. Not to everyone yet, intentionally. We started with our earliest members, our most active contributors, and our Certified Longevity Docs candidates. The OGs who showed up when this was still just an idea.

Here is what they are building inside right now.

• Chat: Rebuilt from the Ground Up. Every member has a real profile, not a phone number. Every message can be answered as a thread. Every thread can be saved. The conversation you’re having today won’t disappear tomorrow.

  

• Hippo: A learning assistant trained on our certification curriculum. Ask anything about longevity medicine and get an answer grounded in the science we’ve built together. Available to all members. Fully unlocked for CLDs (this is not a Clinical Decision Support)

• Intelligence Brief: Daily synthesis of what matters (PubMed, journals, media) filtered through a longevity medicine lens and organized by Research, Clinical, and Business. All intelligence in one place

  

  

  

• School. Our masterminds and our Certification program are now directly on the platform. One home for your clinical education.

What’s Coming

We’re building fast and are working on shipping a feature every week. Here’s what’s next

• Opportunities: curated hiring and consulting opportunities sourced specifically for longevity physicians.

• Practice: tools for solo practitioners and clinics to grow their practice, build membership revenue, and strengthen their community presence.

• Patients: a channel for physicians to communicate directly with patients.

The Next Era

The next era of longevity medicine will be collaborative, physician-owned, and science-first. As knowledge and software become commodity, physicians will always find a home in Longevitydocs.

We started with a conversation. Now we have a home.

The beta is live. Your invitation is coming.

Welcome to Longevitydocs 2.0.

Every week, the Longevity Docs WhatsApp group feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

PRACTICE

Quest & Labcorp Rate Negotiation

Physicians in the community are actively negotiating better lab rates and sharing real numbers with each other. One member asked for “competitor pricing” after Quest pushed back on her rate request. Several colleagues stepped up to share their own contracts directly.

For longevitydocs: Running a longevity practice means managing margins. Knowing what your peers are paying is leverage. If you haven’t renegotiated your lab rates recently, you’re likely leaving money on the table. Connect with colleagues who have volume-based contracts. The community is your best benchmark.

INTERVENTION

Cord Blood Banking

A member’s daughter is expecting the community’s newest arrival. The conversation quickly turned practical: where to store umbilical cord stem cells. Cryocell came up as the top recommendation, with LifeBank USA flagged as the hospital-affiliated option.

For longevitydocs: Your patients are asking about this. Having a clear, evidence-informed recommendation ready (including what to look for in a storage provider) is a simple way to add value at a pivotal moment in a family’s life.

TECH & AI

1. AI Scribes & Clinical Documentation Freed AI, Heidi, Nabla, Plaud device. Freed winning on virtual visits, transcripts, and informed consent documentation. Heidi better for summaries and tables. Physical devices losing to apps.

2. AI & HIPAA. Claude Cowork not HIPAA compliant. Google Workspace and Vertex AI (Gemini) viable if set up correctly. N8N self-hosted on AWS/GCP the cleanest solution for HIPAA-safe automations.

3. Medical AI Tools for Clinical Decision Support Open Evidence (literature-based, PubMed-grounded) vs. ChatGPT (increasingly restrictive on medical questions) vs. Perplexity Health (strong on newer treatments). Always double check.

Last June, physicians, researchers, and founders from around the wordl gathered in Cannes for two days.

Watched the Mediterranean turn gold from the Majestic Pier. We ran La Croisette at sunrise. Had lunch with speakers on the beach. We left with protocols, partnerships, and friendships that don’t happen at any other event in medicine.

That was year one. This is year two, and it’s not slowing down.

The longevitydocs Summit & Awards is becoming the most important gathering in longevity medicine. Not because of the venue. Because of what happens when the right physicians and partners are together in the same room.

June 9–11. Cannes. You should be there.

Secure yours now →

Systemic epigenetic dysregulation as a driver of ageing and a therapeutic target

This framework reveals why therapeutics targeting epigenetic systems have consistent effects across multiple model systems and ageing phenotypes. The interconnected organization of chromatin regulation mechanisms creates concrete therapeutic targets to restore regulatory coherence. By providing mechanistic clarity on how epigenetic dysregulation drives ageing phenotypes, we aim to enable rational design of therapeutics that target the epigenetic systems that fail during ageing, rather than individual molecular defects. Nature Reviews

Trial Shows Lower LDL Target Cuts Heart Risks by 33%

Among patients with atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease, targeting an LDL cholesterol level below 55 mg per deciliter led to a lower 3-year risk of cardiovascular events than targeting a level below 70 mg per deciliter. Full Ez-PAVE trial results: NEMJ

Premature Menopause and Lifetime Risk of Coronary Heart Disease

In this cohort study published in JAMA premature menopause was associated with 40% higher lifetime risk of CHD in Black and White women. This suggests that premature onset of menopause is an important risk-enhancing factor for lifetime risk and should be routinely assessed in clinical practice to consider intensification of preventive efforts.

The First. But Not the Last.

Dr. Naana Boakye just made history. Here’s why it matters for every doctor reading this.

In October 2025, Dr. Naana Boakye made a decision that would change the trajectory of her practice. She enrolled in the Certified LongevityDocs program. Six months later, she made history.

Dr. Naana Boakye, MD, CLD, MPH is now the first-ever Certified LongevityDoc in the world.

She did it while running a full dermatology practice. Seeing patients every day. Showing up. That is what commitment looks like.

Why she did it

She didn’t need another credential. She needed a framework.

Like many of us, she saw the gap. Patients weren’t just asking about their skin anymore. They were asking about their energy, their aging, their future. They wanted a doctor who could see the whole picture.

In her own words:

“Patients sit back and they’re just like, no one has talked to me about this before. They’re so empowered. I’m connecting the dots. You’re inflamed now, so we have to do X, Y and Z, and I’ll see you back in three months. And they’re just like, whoa.”

That moment. That is why longevity medicine exists.

What changed for her

Dr. Boakye had been practicing lifestyle medicine for years. But something was missing.

“This just seems like a natural fit. The natural next step.”

The Certified LongevityDocs program gave her the clinical framework to connect the dots. Biomarker diagnostics. Metabolic health. Cellular biology. Regenerative protocols. All of it layered on top of the dermatology expertise she had already spent years building.

For a dermatologist, it is a natural extension. Skin is the most visible organ of aging. The biological mirror of everything happening inside. Dr. Boakye understood that before most.

What the Certified LongevityDocs program is

Not a weekend seminar. Not a marketing badge.

A rigorous, physician-grade certification built for doctors who believe medicine should be proactive, not reactive. That healthspan matters as much as lifespan. That every doctor, regardless of specialty, should be equipped to guide their patients through the science of aging.

Built for practicing physicians. Designed around your schedule. Delivered through our platform alongside a global community of physicians asking the same questions you are.

And when you complete it, you do not just earn a credential. You join a movement.

“There’s definitely a movement going on.” Dr. Boakye said it herself.

The movement

Longevity Docs started as a WhatsApp group of nine physicians in February 2023. Today it is a global community of over 1,000 physicians across 68 countries. All united by one belief.

Every doctor should be a longevity doctor.

The patients in your waiting room are already thinking about their biological age. Their cellular health. Their next 30 years. They are reading the science. They are asking the questions. The only question is whether their doctor is ready to answer them.

Dr. Boakye is ready. She proved that this week.

Your turn

Dr. Boakye started in October. She finished as the first.

The physicians joining the April cohort will be among the first Certified LongevityDocs in the world. They will know each other by name. They will build together. They will look back at this moment as the one where everything changed.

Be part of the longevity medicine movement

Join the April Cohort

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

Data show people racing to chatbots for health advice

A Rock Health survey of 8,000 consumers found 32% had used AI chatbots for health information, twice the number from a year ago. Of those, 56% used them to search for a diagnosis based on symptoms. This was before OpenAI and others launched dedicated health AI products. Your patients are showing up having already consulted a chatbot. That conversation happened before yours. Longevity physicians who integrate AI literacy into patient education - and who lead with precision data rather than general advice - will hold the clinical authority and trust that chatbots cannot replace.

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AI & TECH

Tom Brady Bets $200M on GLP-1s

eMed closed a $200M Series A at a $2B+ valuation. Brady is Founding Chief Wellness Officer and investor. Linda Yaccarino (ex-X CEO) runs the company. The model is employer-facing. GLP-1s are the most requested workplace benefit, yet only 1 in 5 companies offer it. PR Newswire eMed closes that gap with AI-managed clinical programs. 90% adherence, double the industry norm.

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WEARABLES

Oura Ring And Symptoms Radar

Symptom Radar could catch serious disease. The feature flags deviations from personal baseline vitals, no diagnosis, just a signal. It has now surfaced multiple cases of lymphoma and appendicitis in users who would have otherwise delayed care. The ring didn’t diagnose anything. It created the nudge to seek one. Condition-specific alerts may be the next frontier for Oura, and the company is already laying the groundwork. Through Oura Labs (in the Oura app), ring owners can opt into a clinical study focused on detecting high blood pressure. CNET

PHARMA/BIOTECH

FDA Approves Higher-Dose Semaglutide (Wegovy HD 7.2mg)

The FDA cleared Wegovy HD in just 54 days under its National Priority Voucher program. Same molecule. Higher dose. With semaglutide patents expiring in India and China and biosimilars incoming, Novo is building branded differentiation before the generic wave hits. Expect patients to ask for it. Have a clear protocol ready: who qualifies for the dose escalation, how you monitor, and how you counsel on the new skin sensitivity signal. Compounding access is already tightening.

Mastermind Replays Now Available

3 Masterminds. 3 topics reshaping longevity practice: AI & Tech, Peptides, and Hormones - featuring the dozens of faculty. Trusted by hundreds of physicians

If you weren’t in the room, this is your second chance.

Access the Replays

Conferences

Jun 9–11 — Longevity Docs Cannes 2026”: Awards & Summit

Jun 29–Jul 1 — A4LI H-SPAN Summit · Washington, DC Longevity medicine meets regulation and policy.

Aug 24–28 — ARDD · Copenhagen, Denmark Where aging research meets drug discovery.

Oct 17 — Longevity Docs Skin Longevity Mastermind · New York, NY. Curated physicians. Deep science. One room.

TBA — Longevity Clinics Roundtables · Buck Institute Clinical practice meets research infrastructure.

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 600+ doctors across 50 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

Apply to Join

Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

Subscribe to the Longevity Docs Newsletter

Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 600+ physicians across 50+ countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

I just got back from disappearing. This is Sunday! I landed at JFK at 11:29pm last night. One week. No meetings. No agenda. No Zoom. Just me and one question I needed to answer.

I call it Architect Week. Once a quarter, I disappear. Not to rest but to think. The kind of thinking that’s impossible when the calendar is full and the notifications are on. The kind that only happens when you remove everything competing for your attention.

This quarter the question was this: How do we help physicians build the longevity practice they went to medical school to build

I think I found the answer.

It’s not a framework, courses, or protocols. It’s The Operating System, built specifically for physicians who’ve decided that fighting aging is the most important work medicine can do right now.

More on this soon.

In the meantime… if you haven’t tried it, consider your own Architect Week. Pick a place or stay home. Clear your calendar. Choose one question. Sit with it until something breaks open.

What would would your question? Respond to this newsletter, I read every single one.

Dr. David Luu - Founder, longevitydocs.™

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

The Longevity Clinic Gold Rush: 5 Pros, 5 Cons

In 2020, longevity clinics were a niche experiment. In 2026, they are a global industry.

Serotonin Centers crossed 100 franchise locations inside gyms. Next Health sold 50+ territories. Fountain Life raised $108M. SHA and Clinique La Prairie are expanding into Asia and the Middle East. Neko Health is making it accessible at scale.

But the stronger signal isn’t the startups. It’s the institutions.

Weill Cornell launched a 12-month Longevity Medicine Program. Northwestern opened the Human Longevity Clinic. Mayo Clinic is building its own program. Sheba Medical Center became the world’s first academic institution with a dedicated longevity center. Abu Dhabi created the first government regulatory framework for longevity medicine on the planet.

When governments regulate and medical schools curriculum, a field has arrived.

$8.5 billion deployed in 2024 across 325 deals. Average deal size jumped from $20M to $69M. UBS projects $8 trillion by 2030. Over 800 longevity clinics operating in the US alone.

This is no longer about who opens the nicest clinic. This is about who sets the standard, and who gets left behind when it’s set without them.

And with that shift come major opportunities and serious challenges.

5 Pros

1. Patients are already here. They walk in with Function results, Oura scores, and biological age reports they have already GPTed. Educated, motivated, and paying cash, the demand is not something you need to create.

2. Cash-pay finally works as a business model. Memberships, annual panels, and protocols built around outcomes rather than billing codes. No prior authorizations, no insurance battles, just a practice that gets paid to deliver results.

3. Standards are being written right now, with or without you. Weill Cornell, Northwestern, Mayo, and Sheba are building longevity programs because the demand justifies it. Physicians who engage now help shape the standards

4. Science has never been more actionable. GLP-1 beyond weight loss, multi-omics clocks, AI, senolytics, the research moves every month and the tools to apply it now exist outside of research institutions.

5. Tools are within reach of every serious clinic. Genomic sequencing, liquid biopsies, AI imaging, and continuous biomarker monitoring are now available at the individual clinic level. The gap between what is possible and what most physicians offer has never been wider.

5 Cons

1. Anyone can open a longevity clinic. MedSpas are rebranding, gyms are adding IV drips, and HNWI are opening clinics like passion projects. Patients will look for trusted partner and real clinical care.

2. Training gaps are a patient safety problem. Less than 1% of medical school hours cover nutrition. Zero cover longevity medicine. Physicians opening clinics with enthusiasm but no foundation are not practicing longevity medicine.

3. Patient acquisition has become a war of budgets. Paid digital is saturating fast. Word of mouth does not scale. The clinics winning on acquisition are spending at levels most independent physicians simply cannot match.

4. Outcomes data does not exist, and that grace period is ending. Every clinic promises biological age reversal and optimized biomarkers. Almost none can prove it with publication. Patients and regulators will start demanding evidence.

5. Regulatory scrutiny is arriving faster than most physicians realize. Peptides, compounding pharmacies, CLIA certification, marketing claims, the FDA has already issued warning letters. When the first serious adverse event hits a franchise location, the response will be swift and broad. Build on solid ground now or scramble to retrofit it later.

The Opportunity

There is a white space in this market that almost nobody is talking about.

On one side, you have capital intensive brick and mortar clinics spending millions on real estate, equipment, and overhead before seeing their first patient. On the other, digital platforms with no physicians, no clinical judgment, and no accountability for what happens when the protocol does not work. In between, concierge medicine practices with loyal patient bases but zero longevity expertise, and no roadmap to build it.

None of them is what the market actually needs.

What the market needs is the longevity physician who owns and runs their own practice, serves up to 400 carefully selected patients, operates with a small focused team, and builds something that no platform or franchise can replicate: a real clinical relationship, grounded in evidence, tracked with outcomes data, and scaled with the right tools.

This physician educates their patients continuously. They publish their outcomes. They participate in a global peer network that keeps their protocols sharp. They use AI to scale their attention without diluting their judgment. They do not compete on price because they do not need to. They compete on results.

That position is still wide open.

The institutions are building. The governments are regulating. The franchises are scaling. And in the middle of all of it, there is room for the physician who simply decides to do this right.

The only variable left is you.

Every week, the Longevity Docs WhatsApp group feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

The questions we are still asking

Every week I try to summarize the best discussions and topics worth reading about from our physician community. This week I want to take a different approach: less about what we know, more about what we don’t. These are the questions your colleagues are actively debating, and the honest answer to each one is: we are not there yet.

Does spermidine promote cancer growth?

A new paper surfaced a potential mechanism linking spermidine, one of the most popular anti-aging supplements, to cancer cell proliferation. The group flagged it immediately. The pattern is familiar: a compelling mechanism, promising observational data, then an RCT or mechanistic study that complicates the picture. Antioxidant vitamins showed strong early promise before large trials returned mostly neutral or harmful signals. Metformin followed a similar arc for cancer prevention. The honest position right now: spermidine’s longevity benefits may be real, but we do not yet know whether the same pathways that promote autophagy could also accelerate tumor growth in susceptible individuals.

Is HRV becoming a moral compass rather than a clinical metric?

One member put it bluntly: “HRV is now less a metric than a moral compass, encouraging us all to drink less, inhale more, fetishise recovery and treat a late night like an act of self-sabotage.” The clinical question underneath is serious. Are we tracking HRV because it improves outcomes, or because patients and physicians find it emotionally compelling? Goodhart’s Law applies here: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure. Morning HRV and nighttime HRV measure different things. The goal is stress tolerance, not a better number on a ring.

Proceed with nuance. HRV is a useful signal. But conflating the metric with the outcome is a trap worth naming explicitly with patients.

How do you actually measure senescent cell load in a clinical setting?

The question came up in two parts: how do you determine the indication for senolytics, and how do you measure whether they worked? There is no validated, widely accessible clinical assay for senescent burden. p16, p21, and SA-beta-galactosidase exist in research settings. Circulating SASP markers such as IL-6, IL-8, and GDF-15 are used as proxies. But a clean, reproducible clinical tool for tracking senolytic response does not yet exist in the way we track LDL after a statin.

Even among the world’s leading longevity physicians, this question has no clean answer.

Last June, physicians, researchers, and founders from around the wordl gathered in Cannes for two days.

Watched the Mediterranean turn gold from the Majestic Pier. We ran La Croisette at sunrise. Had lunch with speakers on the beach. We left with protocols, partnerships, and friendships that don’t happen at any other event in medicine.

That was year one. This is year two, and it’s not slowing down.

The longevitydocs Summit & Awards is becoming the most important gathering in longevity medicine. Not because of the venue. Because of what happens when the right physicians and partners are together in the same room.

June 9–11. Cannes. You should be there.

Passes increase on March 29th.

Secure yours now →

Your brain talks to your skin, and stress is the messenger

A new study identified a specific population of norepinephrine-producing sympathetic neurons that directly innervate the skin and drive stress-induced flares of atopic dermatitis in mice via an eosinophil-dependent pathway. This is the first dedicated neuroimmune axis mapped between psychological stress and skin inflammation at this level of precision — and it opens the door to targeted interventions that block the neural pathway rather than broadly suppressing the immune response. For physicians managing patients with stress-related skin conditions, "reduce stress" is finally getting a clinical mechanism behind it. Science

Four biomarkers to predict heart disease before it starts.

A JACC study found that a single midlife measurement of CAD polygenic risk score, hsCRP, LDL-C, and Lp(a) predicts future coronary artery disease across both sexes and ages 40 to 69. It matches traditional clinical risk calculators while catching patients those calculators miss entirely. Most of your patients walk in with at least two of these already run. This gives you clinical justification to systematize all four as a standard longevity panel at first visit, especially in patients in their 40s where biomarker-based screening outperforms conventional tools the most. JACC

Epigenetic clocks changes predict long-term mortality

Multiple epigenetic clocks have been developed to quantify biological aging. However, whether longitudinal changes in epigenetic clocks carry independent information on health and survival has remained uncertain. Here, we show that longitudinal changes in several epigenetic clocks are independently associated with long-term mortality in a cohort that was followed for up to 24 years. Nature Aging

Real-world clinical utility of tumor whole-genome sequencing in solid cancers

In a real-world study of 888 solid cancer patients, whole-genome sequencing (WGS) succeeded in 89% of cases with a median turnaround of 6 working days, identifying actionable biomarkers in 73% of patients. Those who received biomarker-informed treatment lived a median of 96 days longer than those who did not. WGS was especially impactful in cancers of unknown primary, contributing to diagnosis or treatment options in 67% of cases. Overall, WGS-based diagnostics had meaningful clinical consequences for 41% of all patients tested, making a strong case for its routine use in oncology. Nature Medicine

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

Costco enters fertility care

As part of a monthly membership agreement, Costco members gain immediate access to Sesame fertility care coordination, complete diagnostic workups, and a clear path to specialty treatment. With a universal intake policy, every patient starts with Sesame and receives a comprehensive intake evaluation, coordinated diagnostic support, and a referral to highly-experienced specialty care with IVI RMA North America when clinically appropriate. Patients arrive at IVI RMA North America clinics informed, prepared, and ready to focus on personalized fertility planning and treatment.

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AI

Perplexity launches a consumer health AI that connects EHR and wearable data

Perplexity, best known as an AI-powered search engine, has moved into consumer health with a dedicated tool designed to link electronic health records and wearable device data into a unified AI interface. The product is positioned as a personal health intelligence layer, allowing patients to query and interpret their own clinical and biometric data through a conversational interface. Modern Healthcare

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SCIENCE

This overlooked organ may be more vital for longevity than scientists realized

In one study published on Wednesday in the journal Nature, researchers used artificial intelligence to analyze around 27,000 patient computed tomography (CT) scans and medical records to reveal that the health of the thymus may be linked to whether an individual develops cardiovascular disease or lung cancer or dies from any cause.

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WEARABLES

A biotech turns to Apple Watch to study its Parkinson’s drug

PHARMA/BIOTECH

Lilly finds a hidden chemical reaction in compounded tirzepatide with B12

Testing across ten compounded tirzepatide samples obtained from pharmacies, medspas, and telehealth platforms found a previously unknown impurity in all of them. The impurity results from a direct chemical reaction between tirzepatide and vitamin B12, including methylcobalamin, hydroxocobalamin, and cyanocobalamin. Fierce Pharma

Mastermind Replays Now Available

3 Masterminds. 3 topics reshaping longevity practice: AI & Tech, Peptides, and Hormones - featuring the dozens of faculty. Trusted by hundreds of physicians

If you weren’t in the room, this is your second chance.

Access the Replays

Conferences

Jun 9–11 — Longevity Docs Cannes 2026”: Awards & Summit

Jun 29–Jul 1 — A4LI H-SPAN Summit · Washington, DC Longevity medicine meets regulation and policy.

Aug 24–28 — ARDD · Copenhagen, Denmark Where aging research meets drug discovery.

Oct 17 — Longevity Docs Skin Longevity Mastermind · New York, NY. Curated physicians. Deep science. One room.

TBA — Longevity Clinics Roundtables · Buck Institute Clinical practice meets research infrastructure.

The Home of Longevity Medicine

longevitydocs.™ is the world’s leading longevity physician community - 600+ doctors across 50 countries united by a single conviction: every doctor should be a longevity doctor. Founded by Dr. David Luu, the platform offers its members network, education, and experience with the mission to democratize longevity medicine.

Not a member yet? Join longevitydocs™

We’re a physician-only network. Curated. Vetted. Built on trust. If you’re committed to practicing longevity medicine with rigor, peer support, and shared standards → this is your community. Apply to connect with our team.

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Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

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Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 600+ physicians across 50+ countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

This is Sunday!

What I heard: octors want to build their own tools. Knowledge bases. Patient education. Clinical workflows. AI and longevity medicine are converging and the physicians who move first will own their practice completely.

What I saw: the Longevity Docs Cannes Pioneers lineup is coming together. Every name we are announcing has built something, leads something, or funds something in longevity medicine. Not influencers. Operators.

What I believe: the next generation of doctors will not work harder. They will work smarter. They will own their technology, their operations, their patient relationships. All of it. Built on their own terms. That is the future of medicine and it is already happening.

Welcome to the home of longevity medicine!

Dr. David Luu - Founder, longevitydocs.™

In this week newsletter:

• Cover Story: 10 DIY AI tools every doctor needs right now

• Cannes 2026: the pioneers we are bringing to the stage

• Buzz in the chat: Lp(a) management in practice

• Research radar: gut-brain axis, orforglipron, new dyslipidemia guidelines

• Intelligence: Amazon, Microsoft, WHOOP

• Community: Dr. Jila Senemar-Meyer

We did not invite speakers. We invited pioneers.

Most conferences book names to sell tickets. That is not what we are doing.

Longevity medicine is already being led by doctors. The next step is building the ecosystem around it. Institutions that fund it. Governments that prioritize it. Medical societies that adopt it. Platforms that scale it. Capital that believes in it.

Every pioneer on this stage is a mechanism in that machine. Like the flux capacitor, the device that made time travel possible in Back to the Future, none of this works without each part.

This is not longevity medicine conference. We are building it in real time, in that room.

SARANYA WYLES, MD Medical Director, Mayo Clinic

Dr. Wyles leads dermatology and longevity medicine at Mayo Clinic, one of the most trusted medical institutions on the planet. She’ll take the stage to share how Mayo is building a dedicated hub for skin and longevity, and what it means when a world-class institution puts its full weight behind this field.

SAEJU JEONG Co-Founder & Executive Chair, Noom

Saeju co-built Noom into the fastest-growing behavioral change company in the world. In Cannes, he joins us for an entrepreneur session on the business and science of behavior change — and why he’s now turning his attention to longevity. A rare founder’s perspective that every physician in the room will want to hear.

RAFID FADUL, MD Chief Medical Officer, ARPA-H

ARPA-H exists to fund the medical breakthroughs that no one else will. Dr. Fadul will lay out the U.S. government’s current strategy and priorities on aging research — where federal investment is going, what’s being built, and why now is the most important moment in longevity policy history.

AMI BHATT, MD Chief Innovation Officer, American College of Cardiology

Medical societies shape how medicine moves. Dr. Bhatt will address how professional institutions can actively support longevity science and medicine — from clinical guidelines to technology adoption to physician education. A session for anyone who wants to understand how the establishment becomes an ally, not an obstacle.

MICHAEL CLINTON Founder, ROAR / Former President, Hearst Media

Michael Clinton spent decades leading one of the world’s most powerful media groups as President of Hearst Media. In Cannes, he moderates key panels and brings a perspective the medical world rarely gets: how culture, narrative, and media shape the way longevity reaches the people who need it most.

JESSICA SHEPHERD, MD Chief Medical Officer, hims & hers

Dr. Shepherd is one of the most prominent voices at the intersection of women’s health and direct-to-consumer care. She’ll cover how DTC models are reshaping access to women’s longevity medicine — what’s working, what’s missing, and how physicians can lead in a space that’s moving fast.

GIOVANNI CAMPANILE, MD Chief Medical Officer, CorAeonn

Cardiovascular disease remains the number one cause of death globally. Dr. Campanile will deliver a practical playbook for heart longevity — the clinical strategies, biomarkers, and interventions every longevity physician should have in their toolkit to keep patients’ hearts younger, longer.

GEOFF COOK CEO, Noom

Geoff leads the platform that has brought evidence-based health behavior to tens of millions of people online. His session will explore how digital care platforms can democratize longevity medicine — making what was once reserved for elite clinics accessible to a far broader population.

DIANE TY Managing Director, Milken Institute

Diane brings the Milken Institute’s lens on health economics and policy to Cannes as moderator of our institutional panel. She’ll guide the conversation on what it takes to build a longevity ecosystem at scale — bridging capital, policy, research, and clinical practice in one room.

ZAHI FAYAD, PhD Director of Biomedical Engineering & Imaging, Mount Sinai

Dr. Fayad represents the full force of Mount Sinai’s innovation engine. He’ll bring Mount Sinai’s voice across three dimensions: cutting-edge clinical research, applied patient care, and the future of physician education in longevity medicine. Institutional innovation at its most concrete.

EVELYNE BISCHOF, MD, PhD Sheba Medical Center

Dr. Bischof is making the case that longevity medicine doesn’t belong only in private clinics. Drawing from her work at Sheba Medical Center, one of the world’s top public hospitals, she’ll show how longevity care can be delivered at scale within the public health system — and why that’s the next frontier.

DAWN MUSSALEM, MD Chief Medical Officer, Fountain Life

Dr. Mussalem is at the forefront of longevity medicine’s most urgent operational challenge: how do you scale a world-class longevity clinic without compromising clinical standards? At Fountain Life, she is building the answer. In Cannes, she’ll share the blueprint for scaling longevity care with Mayo Clinic-level rigor — and why getting this right is the difference between a trend and a transformation.

More pioneers coming. We are building the home of longevity medicine.

Build with Us - Cannes 9-11

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

10 DIY AI tools to build your longevity practice

Imagine your entire practice running on technology you built yourself. Patient education. Onboarding. Follow-up. Billing. Lab visualization. Calendar. Team management. Revenue tracking.

No enterprise software. No six-figure IT contract. No developer on retainer.

You. A laptop. The right tools.

That world exists today. I live in it. Here are the ten tools that get you there.

From basic to advanced:

1. Wispr Flow: I haven’t typed a full sentence in few weeks. I dictate everything and it transcribes instantly, in my voice. If you spend more than an hour a day typing, this pays for itself in week one.

2. Gamma: Grand rounds presentation in 48 hours and no deck? Gamma builds it from a paragraph of text. Clean slides, smart structure, zero design skills required.

3. Perplexity Computer: Forget Googling. Perplexity searches, synthesizes, and cites. Deep literature pulls, quick clinical questions, competitive research. It’s what Google should have become.

4. Claude Cowork: Your AI desk partner. Feed it your documents, protocols, research. It creates local agents that know your context. Think of it as a brilliant assistant who has read everything you’ve ever written.

5. Obsidian: Obsidian is a local, offline knowledge base where you connect your notes, research, and protocols into a personal thinking system that compounds over time: your clinical brain, organized and searchable, with no cloud and no data exposure.

6. Manus: Rapid AI prototyping. Spin up a product idea before committing to full development. Two hours to a working prototype you can show investors or partners.

7. Paper: I replaced Figma with this. Mock up patient decks, presentation visuals, brand assets in minutes. Fast, elegant, no design degree required.

8. Cursor: A code editor powered by AI. You don’t need to be a developer. Describe what you want, it builds it. I’ve shipped functional tools without writing a single line from scratch.

9. Vercel: One click to publish anything to the web. Tools, landing pages, apps. No IT department. No dev team. If you’re building a practice, a product, or a brand, this is your infrastructure.

10. Openclaw: AI infrastructure for teams. Connect your systems, automate workflows, run backend operations. Not for day one, but when you’re ready to scale, you’ll know why it’s on this list.

Bonus: NotebookLM: this is Google’s AI research tool. Upload your papers, guidelines, protocols, and it reads them, finds connections, and lets you interrogate your own knowledge base like a conversation.

Conclusion

You don’t need all ten. You need two or three that solve your biggest friction points right now. Start with Wispr Flow if you’re drowning in admin. Start with Claude Cowork if you want a smarter research partner. Start with Gamma if you have a deck due tomorrow. Play with them. Invest time. Build your personailzed stack.

Want to go further?

If you want to see how doctors are actually coding their own tools, automating their clinics, building patient apps, and shipping products, join our AI chat group. This is where it gets real.

Join our AI Chat

Every week, the Longevity Docs WhatsApp group feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

Lp(a) management: what Longevity Docs are doing in practice

From emerging clinical signals to stubborn non-responders. Here is how our physicians are approaching one of the most complex lipid challenges in longevity medicine.

• Lp(a) declining on rosuvastatin 5mg and a GLP-1, no PCSK9 inhibitor. One physician is seeing this across a growing cohort and wants to correlate with serial imaging. The question: is the GLP-1 anti-inflammatory effect doing what we assumed required targeted therapy?

“Same lab, same units, 3 months apart. All other inflammatory markers level. I am continuing to see this across my fairly large group of patients.”

• CTA one year apart introduces too much variability. Use CIMT instead. The statin paradox: up to 30% of patients see Lp(a) rise on statins. The hypothesis is that the anti-inflammatory mechanism is driving the reduction, not the statin itself. For extreme cases: apheresis.

“Statins in general are hit or miss with Lp(a), and up to 30% of patients actually increase. I am curious if the GLP anti-inflammatory effect is doing this.”

• Meta-analysis of RCTs supports the ApoB/A1 ratio as a better treatment target than isolated Lp(a). Target: 0.2 to 0.3 in high-risk patients, with documented disease reversal as the result.

“In my patients with elevated Lp(a) and ASCVD, I aim for an ApoB/A1 of 0.2 to 0.3. I have been seeing significant reversal of disease using this approach.”

“When Repatha moved Lp(a) only from 169 to 145 nmol/L after two months, the playbook emerged: lower total ApoB below 60, add ezetimibe, rule out masked hypertension, assess insulin sensitivity. Do not fixate on the number. Optimize everything around it.”

• Olpasiran shows 90 to 95% Lp(a) reduction in trials. But the right question is being asked before the hype takes over.

"Niacin and Repatha have been shown to moderately reduce but no proven outcome benefit yet. Are we treating just a number? Is the juice worth the squeeze? TBD."

3 takeaways

1. An unexpected anti-inflammatory pathway may be lowering Lp(a). Emerging signal, not settled science. Track it prospectively. If you are imaging, consider CIMT, not CTA at short intervals.

2. ApoB/A1 ratio may be the better target. A ratio of 0.2 to 0.3 in high-risk patients, with documented reversal, is a practical framework worth adopting, especially when Lp(a) will not move.

3. Until olpasiran arrives, the playbook is clear: lower ApoB aggressively, blood pressure below 120/80, optimize insulin sensitivity, measure arterial stiffness with pulse wave velocity.

Ready to practice longevity medicine the right way?

The Certified Longevity Doctor (CLD) program gives you the clinical framework, the evidence base, and the community. Join the next cohort.

Explore the CLD Certification

New ACC/AHA dyslipidemia guidelines (March 2026)

Key changes: lower LDL targets across risk tiers (below 55 mg/dL for very high-risk), a new PREVENT-ASCVD calculator replacing models that overestimated risk by 40 to 50%, and Lp(a) now recommended for at least one lifetime measurement in all adults. ApoB recognized as a better risk estimator in metabolic conditions.

Why it matters: if you are not screening Lp(a) routinely, this guideline gives you the institutional backing to start. The risk calculator change also affects how you communicate cardiovascular risk to patients.

Gut microbiome drives age-related cognitive decline

Stanford researchers identified a specific mechanism: the bacterium Parabacteroides goldsteinii increases with age, activates myeloid inflammation, impairs vagal signaling, and disrupts hippocampal function. Old mice treated with a vagus nerve activator, including GLP-1 and capsaicin, performed cognitively like young animals. Nature

Why it matters: another mechanism linking GLP-1 to cognitive protection. The vagal pathway is becoming a serious longevity target. Watch this space.

Orforglipron beats oral semaglutide on every endpoint

Lilly’s ACHIEVE-3 trial: orforglipron, a once-daily non-peptide oral GLP-1, reduced HbA1c by 2.2 points versus 1.4 for semaglutide, and body weight by 9.2% versus 5.3%. No food or water restrictions. Separation visible by week 4. FDA decision expected April 2026. Lancet

Why it matters: if approved, this changes patient adherence conversations entirely. A GLP-1 with no fasting protocol is a different product in a patient’s daily life.

Most comprehensive cellular aging atlas ever published

Rockefeller researchers mapped nearly 7 million cells across 21 mouse organs at three life stages. Finding: aging begins earlier than expected and unfolds in a synchronized way across the entire body. About 40% of aging changes are sex-dependent, with females showing broader immune activation. Science Epiage

Why it matters: this data will anchor the next generation of aging clocks. And the sex-specific findings reinforce what many of you already see clinically in female patients.

Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.

CARE

Amazon launches health AI to all US customers

Free 24/7 virtual care for 200 million Prime members. Answers questions, explains health records, manages prescription renewals. Multi-agent architecture with real-time audit and HIPAA compliance. Fierce Healthcare

Human Longevity launches AI-powered app

Combines AI with longitudinal data from their Executive Health program. Continuous access to results, personalized insights, AI chat between visits. The annual checkup transformed into a continuous experience.

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AI

Microsoft Launches Copilot Health

Combines wearable data from Oura and Fitbit, EHR access from 50,000+ US hospitals, and verified clinical information from Harvard Health. Health conversations isolated from general Copilot. Waitlist open now. Microsoft AI

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WEARABLES

WHOOP adds women’s health biomarker panel

11 female-specific blood biomarkers including AMH, progesterone, prolactin, TPOAb, thyroid markers, leptin, B12, folate, magnesium, and phosphate. Results integrate with cycle tracking for personalized ranges. WHOOP Press Center

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PHARMA/BIOTECH

Lilly’s orforglipron and retatrutide named defining GLP-1s of the next decade

Clarivate names both as the pipeline drugs to watch. Retatrutide, a triple agonist targeting GLP-1, GIP, and glucagon, is in Phase 3 for obesity and MASH. Pharmexec

Certified Longevity Docs Spotlight: Jila Senemar-Meyer, MD

Dr. Jila Senemar-Meyer is a board-certified physician who transitioned to a full longevity practice in under a year. Starting solo, she now runs a three-person operation to meet growing patient demand. She is an advisor to MindBodyGreen and a Certified Longevity Docs (CLD) Cohort 1 physician.

Why did you make the transition to longevity medicine?

“I knew what women needed. When you go into the self-pay model, it’s a different animal. Do they understand the value? Are they willing to invest or not? And the ones who do — they are above, they’re just over the moon with it because they’re getting the care that they’ve wanted for so long.”

What has been your experience with the CLD program?

“It’s weird — I thought I would have time to get right through it and I’m finding I’m all over the place, but it’s easy to get through the chapters. I’m almost at chapter six. The way you have it with the talking in the middle and then a few points — it’s little bits that you’re getting quickly. It’s not like listening because I’ve done these courses where it’s like you listen to someone talk for 45 minutes and they lose you. With this, the guy talks for like a minute and a half, and then right underneath it, what he’s discussing, it’s all written out in detail. Then the next point is two or three questions regarding it, which I find helpful.”

How have the case studies helped?

“The case studies are really to implement — the epigenetic testing and the biomarkers and all of that. When you throw out these words they’re kind of scary. But when it’s broken down, I’m like, oh okay, I know what these are. I’ve done these, now I can expand upon them. So I’m actually developing stuff as I’m going through the units.”

How has your practice grown since starting?

“I knew that there was a demand. I just didn’t realize how huge the demand was. I probably would have done things a little bit bigger because right now I’m already growing out of my space. I had one person working, I’m already up to three people with assistants and back end managers. The volume is insane and it’s just going up and up and up. People are already approaching me to scale it going forward.”

What do you wish you had known before making the transition?

“I wish I would have taken the demand into consideration a year ago. But here we are. We’re working with this. It’s already being built out to be bigger in the next eight months probably.”

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3 Masterminds. 3 topics reshaping longevity practice: AI & Tech, Peptides, and Hormones - featuring the dozens of faculty. Trusted by hundreds of physicians

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Conferences

Jun 9–11 — Longevity Docs Cannes 2026": Awards & Summit

Jun 29–Jul 1 — A4LI H-SPAN Summit · Washington, DC Longevity medicine meets regulation and policy.

Aug 24–28 — ARDD · Copenhagen, Denmark Where aging research meets drug discovery.

Oct 17 — Longevity Docs Skin Longevity Mastermind · New York, NY. Curated physicians. Deep science. One room.

TBA — Longevity Clinics Roundtables · Buck Institute Clinical practice meets research infrastructure.

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Longevity medicine is the personalized, evidence-based practice of modifying the root mechanisms of aging (biological, cognitive, and psychosocial) before they become disease, extending healthspan, not just lifespan. Using advanced diagnostics, precision interventions, and AI-enabled monitoring, it translates measurement into action across every medical discipline. Success is measured in functional capacity, vitality, and disease-free years.

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Longevity medicine is moving fast. Every week, we bring you what matters: clinical insights, research signals, and perspectives from 600+ physicians across 50+ countries. One newsletter. Built for the physicians shaping this field.

Editorial Disclaimer:

This newsletter is published exclusively for licensed physicians and qualified healthcare professionals. It is not intended for consumers or patients.

All content, including the Buzz in the Chat section, is for continuing medical education and professional information purposes only. It reflects emerging research, science, and technology that may have implications for the practice of medicine. It does not constitute medical advice, clinical recommendations, or treatment guidance for any individual patient.

Peer-to-peer discussions reproduced in this newsletter represent the personal clinical opinions of individual physicians. They do not reflect the official position of Longevity Docs and have not been reviewed or endorsed by any regulatory, medical, or professional body.

References to specific therapies, compounds, devices, or protocols are provided for educational context only. Some may be investigational, off-label, or not approved by the FDA, EMA, or equivalent regulatory authorities in your jurisdiction. Physicians are responsible for independently evaluating all information in accordance with current evidence, applicable law, and the standards of their licensing board.

Longevity Docs does not promote, endorse, or recommend any specific product, treatment, or commercial entity. Nothing in this newsletter should be construed as a solicitation or as influencing prescribing behavior.

By reading this newsletter, you confirm that you are a licensed healthcare professional and that you will apply the information contained herein within the bounds of your clinical judgment, professional obligations, and applicable regulations.

If you are a patient or consumer reading this newsletter, please note that this content should not be used to make any health or medical decisions. Please consult your personal physician or a qualified healthcare provider for guidance specific to your situation.

Hey Doc,

This is Sunday!

What I heard: “happy birthday!” I turned 46 yesterday. What I truly heard was something else. A milestone. I stood on the staircase of life, looked down at 45 steps below me and looked up at the steps still ahead. And I thought: the most important thing was never the destination: it is the journey! The people you meet. The impact you leave behind. Grateful for this life. Grateful for this community. Let's go.

What I saw: Peptide Sciences (one of the largest grey market peptide suppliers in the world) shut down overnight. The grey market that grew because demand outran regulation is collapsing. The market is telling us something: the Wild West phase of longevity medicine is ending.

What I believe: It’s time to go back to medicine. Real medicine. Evidence-based protocols. Physician-supervised care. Traceable supply chains. Clinical accountability. The science has never been more promising and you physicians will lead the translation to clinicial care.

Welcome to the home of longevity medicine!

Dr. David Luu - Founder, longevitydocs.™

In this week newsletter:

• Cover Story: Longevity Docs Cannes 2026 Theme - Back to Medicine

• Buzz in the Chat: HRT, CAC & the stroke debate | MedSpa madness | AI in the clinic

• Research Radar: OMICmAge biological aging clock | Whole-body MRI meta-analysis | iPSC 20-year review

• Intelligence:

• Community: Dr. Jeffrey Rousse

Each week, I try to explore one idea that could advance longevity medicine and hopefully support physicians in bringing it to life.

Back to Medicine.

This is the theme for Longevity Docs Cannes 2026.

Remember the Doc? Not a longevity doctor. The other one.

The one with the wild hair, the lab coat, the DeLorean, and an unshakeable belief that if you understood the mechanics of time, you could change what came next.

Doc Brown didn’t wait for the future to arrive. He built a machine, set the coordinates, and went back not to relive the past, but to rewrite it. To intervene. To correct the trajectory before it became irreversible.

But here’s what the film gets right that most people miss: it wasn’t one dramatic gesture that saved everything. It was small things. A letter left at the right moment. A wire strung between two clock towers. A conversation that happened… or didn’t. The butterfly effect of ordinary decisions, made with intention, changing everything downstream.

I’ve been a fan of Back to the Future my whole life. Not because of the time travel. Because of the conviction. The idea that the future isn’t fixed. That if you understand how things work (really understand them) you can go back to the moment that matters and change what happens next. And that sometimes, the moment that matters is right now.

The Delorean of longevity

The science has been building for decades. Epigenetic reprogramming. Biological aging clocks. Senolytics. GLP-1 receptor agonists. Next-generation biologics. AI-driven diagnostics that can read a blood panel the way a master clinician reads a face.

We have everything we need.

This is our DeLorean moment. We have the machine. We have the fuel. We have the coordinates. Now it’s time to build the future of longevity medicine — personalized, proactive, focused on the patient who doesn’t wait for disease to knock on the door. A system designed around positive outcomes. Around people, not pathology. Around intervening before the crisis, not after.

Doc Brown didn’t wait for someone to hand him the blueprint. He built the thing himself.

That’s what we’re doing.

The Back to Medicine paradox.

Here’s the paradox.

AI makes us faster. More knowledgeable. Better at catching what we’d miss. It reads the data, flags the patterns, cuts the cognitive load that was quietly burning us out.

And with that time back, with that mental space reclaimed, we finally get to do what we became doctors to do in the first place.

Know the patient. Really know them. Their environment. Their stress. Their sleep. Their relationships. The things that don’t show up in a panel but show up in a life.

Take time to care. To understand. To guide.

That’s the Back to Medicine paradox. The most advanced technology in the history of medicine isn’t pulling us away from our humanity. It’s giving it back to us. AI handles the noise so we can focus on the signal. And the signal was always the person sitting across from us.

Shaping the Future of Longevity Medicine

Every decision you make in the clinic is shaping the future of your patient’s life. Every standard you hold, every protocol you tighten, every conversation where you choose rigor over shortcuts. That’s not just good medicine. That’s the future of longevity medicine being written in real time.

You are not a bystander in this field. You are building it.

And you are not alone. Six hundred physicians across fifty countries are making the same small decisions every day. Together those decisions compound into something the world will look back on and call a movement.

Cannes is where the movement meets.

The only place in the world where physicians sit in the same room as the scientists, the government leaders, the investors, the industry builders and shape the direction of longevity medicine together. Not as an audience. As architects.

The DeLorean is ready. June 9-11, we go.

The home of longevity medicine is open.

Join the movement in Cannes →

Next week: the first speaker announcements.

The lineup we’ve assembled for Cannes 2026 is unlike anything this field has seen. Scientists who are rewriting what’s possible. Clinicians who are living the mission. Builders who are doing something about it.

Every week, the Longevity Docs WhatsApp group feels like a front-row seat to the future of medicine. Here’s what had doctors buzzing:

HRT, Coronary Calcium & The Stroke That Split the Room

I could have summarized this one. I chose not to. Some conversations deserve to be read in full. Jump to the takeaway if you're short on time.

SL brought a real patient case: 55-year-old menopausal female on transdermal estradiol patch (0.05 2x/week), oral prometrium 100, and vaginal estrogen. Feeling amazing. Then her CACS comes back at 92. Cardiologist starts rosuvastatin 5mg, she’s on losartan 25. SL recommended staying on the patch, added baby aspirin, ordered a stress test — but couldn’t shake the worry.

JE cut through first: “No increased clot risk with transdermal at that dose. In the HERS trial, oral CEE only increased risk in the first year then no difference.”

EY: “There is NO increased clot risk with transdermal estrogen! Only oral. And it is cardioprotective.”

RD reframed the case: “CAC of 92 in a 52-year-old female places her in the 97th percentile for age and gender. She has accelerated atherosclerosis. Does she carry any prothrombotic SNPs? I would consider CTA and/or CIMT.”

M: “CCTA with Cleerly or HeartFlow, advanced lipid panel including Lp(a) and ApoB, consider nattokinase and PCSK9 inhibitor.”

GC added a critical sequencing point: “I would recommend either Cleerly or Caristo FAI to assess for inflamed/vulnerable plaque. If there is significant inflamed plaque, this has to be addressed before initiating HRT.”

Then JO shared a personal case that changed the temperature of the room: “My SIL who is 49 literally had a stroke this week. PFO found. No changes in her health, except she started 0.05mg transdermal estradiol a month or two ago.”

S asked the right questions: “Where was the stroke? Basal ganglia or cortical? HTN? Migraine with aura?”

JO: “Lacunar stroke. Otherwise healthy. No migraine history. Lots of stress.”

S delivered a neurology-grade analysis: “It is highly unlikely that her PFO caused a lacunar stroke. PFO-associated strokes are characteristically cortical or lobar infarctions from paradoxical embolism. Lacunar strokes result from occlusion of small penetrating arteries: lipohyalinosis, microatheroma, arteriolosclerosis. Strongest risk factors: hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, smoking.”

GC (a former structural interventionist) went deeper: “25% of the population have a PFO. I’m not aware of data that young people without risk factors develop clots all the time. PFO closure is only 60% effective if the PFO is actually the cause. We used the PASCAL classification and RoPE score to identify who truly benefits: because if the PFO wasn’t the cause, the closure device increases atrial fibrillation risk, which raises overall stroke risk.”

S agreed: “Location of stroke makes it less likely PFO-related.”

SM raised another angle: “Did she have COVID or flu in the last 120 days?”

RR weighed in with force: “Please let’s not start demonizing transdermal HRT when the relative risk for blood clots is 0.9 or less. Estrogen in this form is protective!” She pointed to post-COVID vascular fragility: spike protein-induced endotheliitis, glycocalyx destruction, amyloid-beta microclot formation: “This is ongoing and smoldering.”

T reinforced: “The relative risk is 0.92. It is protective. She was going to have that stroke.”

EF added: “Oral estradiol has never been shown to cause blood clots. The relative risk is always less than one. Estradiol is not the same as Prempro or CEE: and it has many benefits above and beyond transdermal.”

RD offered a cardiologist’s perspective on the PFO: “PFO is the reason for stroke in young patients. We all form small clots daily, except PFO patients have a way to pass them into systemic circulation. I don’t think hormones are to blame. I have a patient like your SIL. She was able to get PFO closed.”

JO closed the thread with a response that deserves to be read in full: “I’m not demonizing it. I have been a full HRT supporter for two decades… AND nothing is 100% absolute. This just happened in my family. Try to discount it. Ignore it. Argue it. Do what you like. I’m just giving this group information from someone close to my heart. Keep it somewhere in your mind, cause it happened.”

S honored that: “I agree this is our place to have challenging and open conversations. Appreciate your willingness to share this case. There are some who are newer to HRT like myself and it’s important for all of us to look at this info. My neurology colleagues are still debating this topic. All in peace.”

This thread was the community at its best: clinical rigor meeting personal vulnerability, and neither backing down.

MedSpa Madness: “Jacked Up Patients” Everywhere

HM asked what many longevity physicians are thinking: “Anybody else tired of seeing jacked up patients coming from medspas? Or is it a Miami thing?”

L didn’t hesitate: “It’s everywhere in the world!”

SM: “Connecticut too.”

Then the conversation went deeper than aesthetics.

JJ flagged that Florida is actually doing something — enacting the Prescription Drug Oversight Act. But in the same breath, he shared something that made the whole group pause: “I just saw on social media a ‘famous’ CRNA injector in Miami Beach who owns a very prominent medspa and is now offering ‘stem cells.’”

Summary: A nurse anesthetist running a medspa is now marketing stem cell therapies to consumers. No physician oversight. No clinical trial framework. No outcome tracking. Just a brand, a following, and a syringe.

JJ’s response captured the frustration and the hope: “This is a step in the right direction for those of us doing things the right way.” He then shared SM’s recent essay on the peptide market, which concluded with a line that became the quote of the week: “The next phase will move in one of two directions. Either deeper into the shadows. Or back into accountable medicine.”

RP added: “Maybe even both and physicians and patients decide which side they want to be on.”

This isn’t just a Miami problem. It isn’t just an aesthetics problem. It’s a medicine problem.

The medspa industry has exploded into a $20B+ market with minimal physician oversight. What started as Botox and fillers has expanded into hormone pellets, IV therapies, peptide injections, exosomes, and now “stem cells” all marketed directly to consumers by providers operating at the edge of (or beyond) their scope of practice. The patients who walk into your longevity clinic afterward arrive with complications, mistrust, unrealistic expectations, and sometimes genuine harm.

The regulatory response is starting. Florida’s Prescription Drug Oversight Act. The FDA’s crackdown on grey market peptide vendors (Peptide Sciences). Warning letters to compounders. But regulation alone won’t solve this. The demand driving patients to medspas is real… they want optimization, prevention, and longevity interventions. They’re just getting them from the wrong places.

The Takeaway: The medspa boom is longevity medicine’s shadow twin: same patient demand, zero clinical infrastructure. Every patient who gets reckless peptide injections or unregulated “stem cells” at a medspa is a patient who should have been in a physician-led longevity practice. The downstream cleanup falls on us: the complications, the distrust, the conversations that start with “someone injected me with something and now I don’t feel right.” This is exactly why standards matter. Why certification matters. Why this community exists. The Wild West doesn’t end with regulation alone, it ends when enough trained, credentialed physicians offer a better alternative. That’s the mission. That’s what Back to Medicine means

Ready to practice longevity medicine the right way?

The Certified Longevity Doctor (CLD) program gives you the clinical framework, the evidence base, and the community. Join the next cohort.

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Whole-Body MRI for Opportunistic Cancer Detection in Asymptomatic Individuals: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The first systematic review and meta-analysis evaluating whole-body MRI (WB-MRI) as a cancer screening tool in asymptomatic individuals. The study pools data across multiple cohorts to assess detection rates, false-positive burden, and clinical management implications of using non-contrast WB-MRI with diffusion-weighted imaging for multi-cancer early detection. Although WB-MRI shows potential as an opportunistic non-invasive cancer detection tool, modest detection rates, frequent incidental findings, unstandardized protocols, and lack of long-term outcome or cost-effectiveness data limit its current clinical utility. European Radiology