Hey Doc,
In this issue 104, I mapped the systems a physician founder needs to build, launch, and scale a longevity clinic. It became the Longevity Clinic Readiness Checklist - the practical guide I wish I had when I started.
As always, Happy Sunday.
Dr. David Luu, Founder, longevitydocs.™
One story a week for physicians moving into longevity medicine (part 3).
Longevity Clinic Readiness Checklist
Why we created this
Longevity medicine should be more than a menu of tests and therapies. It should be physician-led, grounded in evidence, transparent about uncertainty, measured by outcomes, and supported by systems that protect patients and clinical judgment. We created this checklist to help physicians and practice leaders identify what must be documented, implemented, and reviewed before launching or scaling a longevity medicine practice.
How to use it
Review the checklist with your leadership team. Tick an item only when it is documented, assigned to an owner, implemented in practice, and reviewed on a defined cadence. Keep evidence for each completed item, prioritize safety-critical gaps first, and turn the remainder into a dated action plan. Revisit it at launch, before adding services, after major changes, and at least annually.
Download the Longevity Clinic Readiness Checklist
Introducing the Longevity Medicine Lexicon
Longevity medicine is moving faster than anyone can build standards for it.
That is mostly good. More people care about their health. More physicians are moving into prevention. More researchers are studying aging. More companies are shipping products.
But the vocabulary has not kept up. The same term means three things depending on who is using it, and patients arrive with definitions they got from a social media post.
We need words everyone agrees on.
The Lexicon is our answer. A standardized definition for each concept, with the publications behind it, so you can check the evidence without a PhD and without fact-checking an influencer.
How the Lexicon works
1. Pick a concept and learn it with references.
Take DEXA Scan. Definition, how it works, how it is measured, what the levels mean, with a T-score table and a citation on every claim. Key takeaways at the bottom if you need it in thirty seconds.
2. Explore connected concepts.
Every concept sits in a map. DEXA connects to bone density, muscle mass, sarcopenia, visceral fat, osteoporosis. Follow the links or open the graph and see the whole field at once.
3. See what the LongevityDocs community says about it.
This is the part no textbook has. Under Community knowledge, you get what physicians in our network actually do with the concept in practice.
A Mastermind faculty debate on whether an AI read of a plain spine image can substitute for DEXA, and why FDA approval says no. A Hormones Mastermind participant asking why we wait until 65 to scan bone, by which point the damage is done.
Members can jump straight to the timestamp and watch it.
Open to everyone
The definitions and references are free. Anyone can read them. The community layer, the sessions, the timestamps, the full recordings, is for physicians members of longevitydocs.
Some concepts are already written. Others are referenced constantly and not yet covered. Those are on the frontier list, and they get written next.
If you are building a clinic, explore the Lexicon to standardize how your team uses clinical language.
ROOMS
The Heart-Gut-Brain Connection
September 2, 2026, 12.00pm ET• longevitydocs.ai
Dr. Sarah Cammarata, board-certified psychiatrist, will discuss The Heart-Gut-Brain Connection: Preventing Comorbidities and Boosting Mental Health.
Women’s Longevity Protocols
September 9, 2026, 12.00pm ET• longevitydocs.ai
Dr. Elizabeth Poynor, gynecologic oncologist and Chair of Women’s Health & Gynecology at Atria, will discuss the latest women’s longevity protocols.
MASTERMIND
Skin, Bone & Muscle
October 24, 2026 • New York City
Faculty:
Saranya Wyles, MD, PhD
Amanda Hill, MD
Naana Boakye, MD
Doris Day, MD
James Peyer, PhD
Dan Belkin, MD
Neely Kahn, MD
Catherine Johnson, MD
Kay Durairaj, MD
Elizabeth Yurth, MD
SUMMIT & AWARDS
CANNES 2027
June 9-11, 2027 • Cannes, France
DIGITAL
MEDICAL EDUCATION
Keto Outperforms Mediterranean and Low-Fat on Liver Fat: RCT
WashU randomized 42 patients with obesity, prediabetes, and fatty liver to keto, Mediterranean, or low-fat, fed them everything, and matched all three arms to roughly 10% weight loss. Keto cut liver fat 67% versus 45%, with no rise in lipids despite 73% of calories from fat. Prediabetes resolved in half the keto group, 29% Mediterranean, 7% low-fat. Cell Metabolism
For longevitydocs: same weight loss, different metabolic outcome. In a patient with steatosis and prediabetes, the carbohydrate restriction is doing work independent of the pounds. Worth holding onto as GLP-1s make the pounds the easy part.
Silent Atherosclerosis across Adult Life
Atherosclerosis may begin in early adulthood and remain clinically silent for decades before cardiovascular disease manifests. Although silent atherosclerosis is associated with cardiovascular events and death independent of traditional cardiovascular disease risk factors, its age- and sex-specific prevalence, vascular territory distribution, and plaque volume across adult life remain incompletely defined. NEJM
For longevitydocs: this is the evidence gap underneath every imaging decision you make in a 40-year-old. Risk calculators are built on events, not on the twenty silent years before them. Until the prevalence data exists, you are making a judgment call each time, and the honest version of that conversation says so.
Longevity Medicine Certification for Dermatologists
Our CLD learners told us they wanted to study alongside their own specialty. So we built one, starting with dermatology.
Dermatologists see skin aging every day. Patients come in for the surface and want the inside treated too. They ask about biomarkers, hormones, GLP-1s. This cohort teaches how to apply longevity medicine in a dermatology clinic, on the patients already in front of you.
Limited to physicians in dermatology, plastic surgery, and aesthetic medicine.. Applications close September 25.
Every week, I track funding, FDA approvals, product launches, and breakthrough announcements shaping longevity medicine.
PHARMA
Mounjaro Approved for Cardiovascular Diseases
FDA approved tirzepatide on August 28 to reduce MACE in adults with type 2 diabetes at high risk. SURPASS-CVOT ran 13,299 patients across 30 countries for a median 210 weeks, head to head against dulaglutide rather than placebo. Result: non-inferior, 8% lower rate of CV death, heart attack or stroke, superiority not established.
POLICIES
“Intrinsic Capacity” in the NYT
The WHO's composite of what a person can actually do, scored across locomotion, cognition, sensory, psychological, and vitality. Grip strength and gait speed. It landed in ICD-11 in 2022, and ARPA-H is now funding work to test whether it tracks function and whether exercise or GLP-1s can move it.
WEARABLE
Abbott Adds Ketones to the Sensor
FDA authorized Libre Duo 10 Day on August 25, the first sensor tracking glucose and ketones together. Built for insulin users and patients on SGLT2s, where DKA develops with normal glucose and admissions are up 55% in a decade. The biowearable just picked up a second analyte, and it will not be the last.
MANUFACTURING
Celularity Manufactures Muse Cells
Robert Hariri built Celularity on placental-derived cell therapy. This week it started manufacturing someone else's platform: Dezawa MuseCells, MuseExosomes, and MuseSecretome, at its Florham Park site. The science is not the bottleneck anymore, cGMP capacity is. If you use exosome or secretome products, ask which facility made the vial and from what starting material.
Every doctor should be a longevity doctor
longevitydocs.™ is the research and education network for longevity medicine - 1,000+ physicians, 68 countries
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