The leading causes of death in the UK are:
- Dementia and Alzheimer’s disease,
- Ischaemic heart diseases – diseases of heart, and veins and arteries of the heart,
- Cerebrovascular diseases – diseases of veins and arteries of the brain,
Longevity medicine is a preventive discipline of medicine focussed on slowing down and potentially reversing degenerative processes leading not only to the above conditions, but other areas of age-related decline as well.
How do we do this:
- Measure – we take, blood, saliva and stool samples to learn about your health, genetic makeup and its condition, and gut microbiome,
- Treat – we give you a protocol of treatment and recommendations to follow,
- Monitor – we re-test to see how you are responding, so we can adjust the protocol to your unique needs.
What do we measure and what it tells you?
- Blood markers – blood tests are traditionally a great value to any clinician to assess your health. We use test bundles from 34 up to 65 biomarkers to assess your body’s state and function overall and on organ level.
- Peak physical performance – a VO2 Max test is not only a straightforward and precise indicator of how fit you are, it also gives us an insight into how your body produces energy but burning fat or carbohydrates. You run on a treadmill or cycle on a spin bike with a mask on your face while the load is gradually increased. The mask measures how much oxygen you breathe in and how much CO2 you breathe out while your heart rate is being recorded.
- Genomics – we take a look at your genetic makeup to understand your inherent strengths and weaknesses, from propensity to build muscle, through ability to absorb nutrients from your food, to genetic predisposition to illness.
- Epigenetics – widely used in forensic science, epigenetic clocks analyse DNA methylation patterns to estimate age of victims or criminals from traces of their genetic material. These patterns change as people age, and have been linked to increased risk of disease and functional decline. We use it as another input to estimate your biological age and monitor your progress toward your younger self.
- Gut Microbiome – Did you know there are more microbes living inside you than there are cells in your body? The bacteria and other microbes in your gut help you digest food and may support immune, heart and brain health, while other may be contributing to metabolic diseases. Knowing the state of your gut microbiome allows us to recommend targeted changes to your food plan to cultivate an optimal inner fauna.
We will expand on all of these 5 areas in our future blog posts.