Longevity As A Competitive Advantage For Entrepreneurs with Jesse Levey

with Jesse Levey

Mar 7, 2025 · 00:40:58

Today's guest is Jesse Levy, founder and CEO of Longevity Health. Jesse started Longevity Health based on his own frustrating experience trying to develop a structured science-based longevity program. Prior to Longevity Health, he spent 13 years in the fintech space, including 6 years at Credit Sesame, where the company grew revenues 40 times. Jesse has an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BA from Tufts University. Jesse's longevity goal is to ski in his 80s and hike in his 90s. He lives in Lafayette, California with his wife, 3 kids, dog, and 5 chickens. Welcome to The Total Entrepreneur: Mind, Body, Spirit, where we turn cutting-edge science into practical strategies for entrepreneurs. I'm your host, Dr. John Torrance, Entrepreneur Inc. 5000 honoree and professor of entrepreneurial practice at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management. Each episode, we dive into mental, physical, and spiritual health with expert guests offering actionable insights to help you thrive and perform at your highest level. Let's get started. Jesse, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

So with longevity health, tell us a little bit about what that is and, and how you got there.

I have a family history of heart disease. Most of the men in my family had a heart attack before the age of 50, actually. And that just had me really motivated to be healthy from a young age. So I ran 3 marathons. I did CrossFit for 10 years. I tried every diet out there. I did paleo. I did vegan. I did pegan. I did keto. I did these juice cleanses. I did all these sorts of things. I was always just trying to be healthy, but it wasn't until a few years ago that I found my way to the longevity space. And I realized that actually there's like science behind all of this. What I can do to live longer and healthier. And, I tried to design my own program. I went deep into the science and all the different influencers in the space. And, it was really hard because there's a lot of conflicting information out there. Some of the stuff I needed a doctor to order lab work, et cetera. I went to my doctor, she was really dismissive. And then, I just started looking around. I was looking for like, okay, maybe I need to join a longevity-focused concierge medical practice.

Mm-hmm.

And so I started exploring and what I found was that most of them were pretty expensive, like $100 grand a year.

Hmm.

They all had some bias. It was like, oh, you just need to get your hormones in check, or, oh, you just need to take these supplements, or you need to do this stem cell. It was like they all had this sort of dogma about what people needed to do to live longer and healthier. Whereas like my read of all the research was actually really depends on your biology and your goals and your lifestyle and all of these different components. And so, I teamed up with a doctor. I thought, this doesn't exist. I got to start it. You're on the ball. This is the 3rd company that I've started. So, I've been an entrepreneur in the fintech space. I was there for 13 years. I was the president of Credit Sesame for about half of that. And so, I started the company, teamed up with a doctor, and the first product we launched, we called the Billionaire Bundle. And, it's an all-in-one program that includes a longevity executive physical and then a longevity-focused concierge, the kind of thing I was looking for. It's $899 a month. We do a bunch of testing and screening and diagnostics. All of that is included. You get access to a doctor and what we call a personal longevity board, which is like a board of directors for your health. And, we're building an AI tool that's going to make this more accessible. And so, We want to be able to deliver this globally at scale for a very low cost, like $10 a month. And, that's what we're working towards. That's the long-term vision.

So, yeah, just starting with a family history and continuing from there. Yeah, it's a great story. And, I love the fact that you were an entrepreneur before that and then you found your way to this space. That's really great. And, I had a similar experience. I was just looking for some kind of longevity clinic or doctor. And, like you said, they either wanted to get your testosterone really high without considering all the other effects of that. And yeah, it just didn't really feel right. So yeah, I ended up with a functional medicine doctor that I've had now for a while, super happy. So I've been following you on social media and I just get to read your posts and I like your approach to this. So can we talk about a few specific things before we get into such as some general things? Yeah, for sure. Your thoughts on alcohol, you've been posting a lot about that recently. Talk to us about that because I feel like it's just so hard socially in the US to avoid it, but you've got some good tips and just some thoughts on it.

So, you know, most things in the longevity space are customized. So, your exercise, your diet, medication, whether you should be on TRT or not, that's a customized thing. But, there's 2 things actually that I find that pretty much everyone can benefit from. One is reducing their alcohol intake. The other is optimizing their sleep. We can talk about sleep later.

They kind of go together, right?

They do. That's the thing is that reducing your alcohol intake actually helps your sleep. Now, there's been a lot of debate in the scientific world around whether a small amount, moderate amounts of alcohol is beneficial or not. And I think that the consensus has shifted to now where a small amount of alcohol is not necessarily bad for your health. Depending on who you ask, some people will say actually even a small amount is bad. But, you know, say 1 drink a day, 7 drinks a week. The general consensus that I can see is that that's probably not like really bad, but it certainly is not better than zero.

Right.

And I think that's a big shift over the last few years because it used to— there used to be, you know, there was some research that showed that actually people who had a small amount of alcohol had better health outcomes than people who had no alcohol. And as there was sort of a reevaluation of that, and the consensus was, well, actually, that was just— it wasn't a randomized controlled trial. It was observational studies looking at people who drank no alcohol versus people who drank a small amount of alcohol. And the reality was that people who were drinking no alcohol were drinking it because they some people had some underlying condition or reason why they were avoiding alcohol. And so that's why it looked like in the data that people who had drinking no alcohol actually had worse outcomes than people who were drinking. The research now has changed and the viewpoint has changed. And, you know, I'm wearing a Whoop, and many people I know, um, who wore Whoop— Yeah, I've used Oura as well. And you'll notice that The number one learning that people have with wearables is that when they drink alcohol, their sleep is worse.

Yeah, it is transformational, just that little bit of knowledge. Actually, I want to back up a little bit to the difference between having a little bit of alcohol and no alcohol, because I read a lot of Dan Buettner stuff, and he's a proponent of happy hour and having wine, right? But it seems like it's more the social component of that behavior to me. I don't know what your thoughts are on it, but it seems like promoting having alcohol every day at happy hour may not be the right direction. It's more the social behavior or having that community that is perhaps more effective from a longevity perspective.

Yeah, I think the research supports that. I mean, there's certainly anecdotal evidence of people who have these great communities, and there certainly are people who drank alcohol every day and lived to be 100, but that's not a science.

study. Right.

When you look at the studies, what they will say is that, yeah, a small amount of alcohol is— this is, and again, this is sort of a review, but a small amount of alcohol may not be worse than zero, but certainly is not better. Having said that, your point is 100% correct, which is that we know community connection purpose, meaning, all of these things have a positive benefit in your longevity. And some of that sort of social, uh, connection with people happens around alcohol.

Right.

And so one of the things that I have tried to say is that there are ways to create that sort of social connection of feeling like you're drinking without actually ingesting much, you could still have some alcohol. So for example, one of the— my go-to drinks is bitters and soda.

Love that.

So bitters actually has alcohol in it, and if you put a few drops in your drink, it looks like you're having a drink of alcohol, but the amount of alcohol you're drinking is like a tiny fraction of a drink. And so you have a drink, it feels, you know, a little bit more social, it tastes, you know, a little bitter like you're drinking something, And, that's what I usually do if I'm out with friends or at an event or something is that's my go-to drink. I actually do drink alcohol. I have about 1 drink a month, but I know that the impact. And so, I'm aware of it. And so, I try to pick those times when I'm going to have a glass of wine for a special occasion or something very carefully. And, I'm a big fan of Peter Attia. One of the things he said is he really enjoys the taste of alcohol, of having, I think, tequila and wine. And he'll say— he'll take a drink of wine, and if it doesn't taste good, he dumps it out. He spits it out, literally. Because there's a cost to drinking that alcohol, and so you should really enjoy it if you're going to do it. And look, like, I have— there are people who tell me, like, oh, you know, a life without wine is not a life worth living. And I can appreciate that. Everybody's got to make your own decisions, right?

Yeah, I'm sure.

In alcohol, I think the focus is, can you reduce your intake and be more mindful and thoughtful around when and why you're drinking it and understand the trade-offs? And then the other thing, which is sort of harder to do, is like, actually, happy hour is much better than a nightcap.

Mm-hmm.

Right? So the earlier you drink, the less it's going to impact your sleep.

Yeah, I've noticed that in my own data. Like, I'm much better off day drinking if I'm going to drink because my sleep outcomes are so much better if I have a drink earlier in the day. So yeah, for sure. Yeah, it is hard because everything socially revolves around that. Meet for a drink, you have dinner with wine, you have a happy hour. But like you said, there are perfectly suitable alternatives. Bitters and soda. My go-to is usually soda with a splash of grapefruit. Or like, you know, zero-proof, Seedlip, those types of things if you want the action of mixing a cocktail. So I've really enjoyed those and honestly haven't really missed the alcohol part of it as long as you still have that behavior. I've actually found that the most difficult part about not drinking alcohol is other people's discomfort with it. Yeah.

And that's real. And it is a social connection. Yeah, we're drinking together. And that's where some of these drinks actually makes that easier. So, if you're having, yeah, bitters or soda or zero-proof or something, people don't look at you weird. Oh, why aren't you? Because I work in the space and people know, people actually— I get both sides of that, which is, oh, you're having a drink.

Right.

Yeah, actually, I will have a drink occasionally.

Right, yeah. That is funny. Yeah, yeah. So, let's talk a little bit about So you mentioned alcohol and then sleep as things that can generalize to anybody without customization. So we know that alcohol affects sleep architecture and that sort of thing, but talk to us a little bit more about sleep and, and how that can be generally applied.

Yeah, so the first thing that we do in our practice is to try to optimize the time you're already spending in bed, right? So if you're getting 6 hours of sleep a night and I tell you you got to get 8, That might be difficult. I think we can talk about how to change the mindset for that. But the first thing is like, you're in bed 6 hours, let's optimize that time. And so, I did this in my own life. I did 20 different experiments to try to figure out what moves the needle. And the things for me personally that moved the needle the most was number one, a 100% blackout room.

Hmm.

So, I have blackout shades that completely give me 100% black. In the middle of the day right now, I could close the shades and you would think it's the middle of the night. And, I even have travel shades that I can take with me. It doesn't get to 100% with the travel shades, but it gets pretty good. That was a big impact for me. My phone use both before bed and in the morning. So actually, my phone, I've programmed it so that it doesn't work from 10:00 p.m. to 6:30 a.m. Interesting.

Yeah.

Sorry, I get up at 6:30. I don't look at my phone for 30 minutes.

Amazing.

You know, somebody had mentioned this and I was like, oh, that's an interesting thing. But I was waking up with the anticipation of the dopamine that I'm gonna get from the phone.

Yes.

So actually not using it. And I don't wear my Apple Watch at night either. So I did all of these experiments, but there are some things, I tried some supplements that didn't really do much. I tried mouth tape, which a lot of people talk about, which didn't really do much. Not everything moved the needle, and everyone is different. I can tell you that my wife doesn't actually like 100% blackout shades because it's easier for her to wake up with a more gradual thing. And we got these shades that have a timer, so they actually do come up when— anyways, but—

Yeah.

It's not— there's no absolutes in, you know, in health, but the absolute is you want to get the best sleep you can. And so number one is optimize the time that you're spending in bed. Number 2, and I actually learned this from Bryan Johnson, is a change in mindset, which is, as a human, your number one job in life is to be a professional sleeper.

I love it.

A hard thing to think about and a hard thing to actually change your mindset to that. But if you can do that, then the idea is you go to bed, on time and you wake up when you're done, the same way you go to work on time and you leave work when you're done.

Mm-hmm.

And of course, sometimes my kids wake up in the middle of the night, just like sometimes I'm at work and one of my kids is sick and I gotta go pick 'em up from school. Like, it's not 100% of the days that you can achieve that. But if you change that mindset, then it becomes, you know, sort of as you're deciding when to go to bed, It's already been decided, right? And so, I go to bed, yeah, at 10 o'clock, waking up at 6:30, 8.5 hours. And, that includes a wind-down routine and everything. Basically, that's my number one job in life.

Yeah. That's a good way to look at it, right? Because so often sleep seems like the first thing that you can sacrifice or give up, especially when you're busy, you've got a big project, or you're just very social. And, you know, a lot of the young entrepreneurs I work with, that is the first thing they sacrifice. It's that they don't— it's not prioritized, but there is an ROI to prioritizing that.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, what are your thoughts on cannabis use and sleep? I know it's different from alcohol, but I'm not actually that familiar with the science or the research on that. Have you experienced any patients who use it as a way to help them get to sleep? Does it help their sleep architecture? Does it hurt it, or is it neutral? Yeah.

You know, the research on cannabis, I think, is for a lot of different things is, is mixed. I think this is the sort of thing where you've got to try it yourself. And, you know, if that's something you want to, just like any other supplement or medication, I would say I wouldn't give generalized advice. I would say you should see how it impacts your sleep architecture. The really important thing here is that it's not just, did it help you go to sleep? Exactly right. There was a view for a long time that alcohol actually was beneficial. People would drink, you know, nightcap and it would help them get to sleep, but then it impacted their architecture over the night. So you really have to be measuring that to be able to evaluate whether something is actually helping or hindering your sleep architecture. And for some people, there may be, you know, some levels of cannabis that help. I don't know. It's not something that generally we recommend for our patients, but I do know some people. who say it really helps them.

Yeah. Yeah. No, for sure. Great. So, when somebody comes in for an initial visit or an assessment with Functional Health, what does that look like? Yeah.

So, we have a suite of tests that we think are foundational. And, it's blood work. So, we do really extensive blood work. We do a DEXA scan, which is a measure of your body composition. is a really valuable tool to see how much muscle mass you have, how much body fat, and particularly how much visceral fat and bone density. And, I can tell you particularly bone density and visceral fat are something that you really don't know unless you do a DEXA scan. And so, that's actually something that we've gotten a lot of information from.

And, visceral fat for everybody, just the different— can you explain that?

Yeah. So, visceral fat is the fat around your organs. And that's actually the fat that is really metabolically unhealthy and is a risk factor for all of these other diseases versus subcutaneous fat is the fat that your body is storing naturally to be able to use in times of famine, right? So our body—

You can observe that in somebody, right? But you can't really observe visceral fat in somebody without a DEXA scan.

Yeah. Well, yes, you can observe fat, but you don't re— I mean, you can do some tests, to see the percentage body fat. You don't necessarily need a DEXA scan, but if you do the DEXA scan, you'll find out the visceral fat.

Yeah.

And the crazy thing is, and I've seen this data several times, we might have 2 people, 2 women who have, let's say, 26% body fat. One might have 1 pound of visceral fat, one might have 3 pounds. They're the same weight, the same percent body fat, but the amount of visceral fat they have is dramatically different. And that's a function of your biology, right? How much subcutaneous fat does your body wanna store before it starts overflowing into visceral fat?

Mm-hmm.

And so you need a DEXA scan to be able to know that. And this is one of the things that drives me. I mean, BMI I think is an outdated form, but even percent body fat, you go into the doctor and they look at you and you can get a sense of like where someone is maybe, And they say, oh, you just need to lose 15 pounds. And in that example, you have 2 women who have the same percent body fat, the same, you know, stats. And unless you do a DEXA scan, you don't know. One of them at 1 pound of visceral fat, we might be telling her to gain muscle.

Mm-hmm.

The other one at 3 pounds, almost certainly we're going to say you should be losing fat. And you can't really target visceral fat directly. There are some things that people say you can do, you can try, but in general, you got to lose body fat in order to lose visceral fat. And so, for the one that has 3 pounds, we might want to try to take her down to 22% body fat. The one at 26%, we might leave it there, right? We might try to increase muscle mass as a way to change that. That's where the DEXA scan is so valuable. So, blood work, DEXA scan, we do a VO2 max test, which is where you get on a treadmill, you wear a mask, and it tells you your cardiorespiratory fitness.

Yeah.

Some people call it the number one biomarker for longevity. And, it's really important for lifespan and healthspan. And so, the data suggests that people with a top tier versus a bottom tier, it's 3 to 5x difference in terms of lifespan but also all-cause mortality in any given year, but also healthspan. Because if you want to stay active as you age, you need that cardiorespiratory fitness. And, this is one of the things that I think is really important to to understand, which is that your level of fitness will decline as you age.

Almost certainly.

Naturally. Naturally, right? And, there's nothing we know of today that can change that. There are hopefully going to be things coming down the pike that can slow down the aging process that can improve this, but your muscle mass, your VO2 max, all of these functionality of your body is likely going to be declining as you age. And so, the higher the point that you can get today, the more you will be able to do in your 80s and 90s. And so, one of the first things that we do with patients is we help them come up with a longevity why. My why, I want to ski in my 80s. I want to hike in my 90s. I want to live to be 102 so that I can meet my great-grandchildren if I have any. That's an estimate of when I will have great-grandchildren. Of course, I don't know, but I wanna also be able to be active. And so in order to do that, I need a very high VO2 max today because I can't hike in my 90s, assuming that it's gonna decline, you know, over the next 50 years to be able to achieve that. And so that's, you know, a really important component, VO2 max. And then we do a continuous glucose monitor, which you wear on your arm. It tells you your glucose, you wear for about 2 weeks. And that's because 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy.

Wow.

And so, we want to check your metabolic health. It's really a check. And, 93% of our patients aren't metabolically unhealthy, but it is important to check for that because type 2 diabetes becomes a risk factor for all of these other debilitating diseases. And so, we really want to help people. So, we do those 4. There's more tests that we do for some people.

Yes.

Those are the 4 basic ones. And then, from that, what we're trying to help people figure out is what are the top things for you to focus Right. And so, like those 2 women I mentioned, we might have one focusing on building muscle, we might have somebody else focus on losing visceral fat. We might have somebody like me because I have a family history of heart disease. I come in, the thing we might be focused on is let's develop a strategy to reduce your risk for heart disease. And so, it's really around customizing the specifics for the individual. And generally speaking, there's 2 things we're trying to achieve. Number one, don't get a chronic disease. And avoiding getting a chronic disease helps you both with lifespan and healthspan, right? I think there is this sort of misnomer in the space that like, oh, longevity is trying to extend your life. I don't want to extend my life if my healthspan is going to decline.

Right, yeah.

But actually, the things that you do to extend your lifespan, don't get a chronic disease, will also extend your healthspan. And so, if you don't focus on things like that, then your healthspan is gonna decline and it's not gonna be very pleasurable for you. So number one, don't get chronic disease, heart disease, diabetes, dementia, cancer. And so I have a strategy for all 4 of those, what Peter Attia calls the 4 Horsemen. But you may focus more on one than another. And then the second, which we've talked about, is maintain and improve your mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. And so those are the 2 things you're trying to achieve. And then how much you focus on one versus another is gonna depend on The data we get from the test.

Yeah, there was a lot right there that you, uh, that you laid down. So yeah, I definitely, I recognized a lot of the Centenarian Decathlon stuff from Peter Attia, right? And I totally appreciate the fact that if you want to do the things you're doing now into your 80s and 90s, you've got to perform better now to keep doing them at the same level. So I think that's something that gets missed with people is even if you're 50 and 60, you still have to train for these things that you want to do when you're older. And, I came to longevity and that kind of medical focus through metabolic health because my blood work when I was a fairly young guy, my fasting glucose was stubbornly high, A1C was high. I've got a history of type 2 diabetes in my family. And yeah, I know where that leads and it's ugly. And, like you said, you want to avoid chronic disease, especially as an entrepreneur because why manage chronic disease when you're older, when you should be enjoying the fruits of all your labor. So that's kind of the idea there. Yeah. What are some common myths or things that you hear from people, or people take as dogma or gospel that they really should just forget about?

The number one thing I think that is maybe a misnomer in this space, I think personally, is that diet is 80%, 90%, the most important thing you can focus on. And it's not to say diet isn't important because it is, but I, this sometimes this becomes a limiting belief. So I've talked to people who are like, oh, I don't wanna change my diet. Same, you know, as I don't wanna stop drinking. It's, well, I'm kind of happy with what I'm eating. And I, I tell them, look, there's 20 other things we can do to improve your, the trajectory of your long-term health without changing your diet. Now, doesn't mean that changing your diet wouldn't also help.

Right.

It just means that it's not the only thing. And so, I've talked to people who are like, oh, longevity, is that just all about diet? And, I say no. And, look, 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. It is hard to change your metabolic health without changing your diet.

Of course.

I'm not going to say it's not important. I just think that people are overemphasizing diet and that there actually are many other things that we can do that can help to optimize your health. And often I find there are small changes we can make that can impact your overall health. And I'm a big believer in balance. And so me personally, what I do in my own diet, I actually, you know, I told you I did all these crazy diets. I even had one diet where I only ate apples for 5 days. Like, I've done all these crazy diets. Now I'm actually the most flexible in what I eat than I ever have been. And what I do is I have caloric budget, 2,500 calories a day. I'm focused on 170 grams of protein to maintain and build muscle mass and 50 grams of fiber for overall health and to make sure that generally speaking, I'm eating whole foods, right? And so by doing that, that enables me to figure out how to fit in some cheat foods, right? So I can have a cookie, I can have a pancake, I can have a slice of pizza, but I can't have 10. Right? And so, my goals.

Right.

And so, that's how I do it personally. Our patients are all sort of doing these things differently, but I think that's one. The other, you know, we can talk about are supplements. There is a view from some people that like the secret to longevity are supplements. And, I think that's totally backwards. If there is a secret to longevity, it's not a secret, it's first your lifestyle.

Right.

The things that have the most proof are caloric balance, exercise, sleep, aggressive screening. There's no secrets out there. And if there was some great supplement that helps you live longer, everybody would be taking it. We would— you can't keep that sort of stuff secret. That's not to say that supplements don't have their place. You know, when we do blood work, we look for deficiencies and then we make recommendations based on goals and where you are. And, you know, me personally, I take creatine. I take omega-3 and I take vitamin D. Those are the only 3 supplements that I take. Um, so I think that's a sort of a misnomer. You know, some of it's people trying to sell you supplements, but some of it's like people honestly trying to find things that can be helpful. And I'm optimistic that there will be more, you know, longevity interventions in the future that will show really good changes. But I think that the 2 misnomers are one, you gotta take 100 supplements a day to live longer, which I don't think is true.

Right.

And 2, that the main way to optimize your long-term health is by changing your diet, which, you know, certainly can— that can be a component, but doesn't have to be the only thing that you're focused on.

Yeah, I love that approach because it, you know, it's, um, yeah, it's behavioral-based and you have control over it and there's no dogma. There's nothing that you absolutely have to do. I mean, unless of course you're on the edge of a condition that you have to do, right? How do you take your creatine? Because I, I take creatine powder and I find I try to mix it in coffee and other things. I just, I don't like the taste of it. What, how do you take it?

Pills.

Are you taking pills?

Okay. I started taking the creatine in pill form because it's easier to travel with. It's easier to take it. It's a lot of pills. I have this like little pill case and I told you I'm not taking that much. I'm only taking 3 supplements, but actually it's a lot of pills because it's 7. I'm taking 7 creatine pills and then I have omega-3. I'm also taking that in pill form. And I'm taking a lot of that. So, it's like I'm taking 5 grams of creatine and 3 grams of omega-3. And so, yeah, it is in pill form.

Yeah. The powder, I just can't seem to find a good way. I mean, if I have a bone broth or something, it seems to work really well with that, but I can't do it in coffee or water or anything like that. It just—

Protein shake. That was when I did use the powder, I would put it in a protein shake or smoothie if I had that. And, I actually do that because the powder is much cheaper than the pills. So, if I have a protein shake that day or I have a smoothie, I'll put it in there. But yeah, I agree with you. I won't put it in anything else.

Yeah. And, I've read a little bit about creatine, actually quite a bit because I take it. Is that something that in general people could feel good about taking or is it still the type of thing where before you take it, you still want to test and not gas and that kind of thing?

So, creatine, I would say just by my reading of the literature is that there's not much downside that— and that most people could probably benefit from taking creatine. However, the reason to take creatine is for muscle health and brain health. And it is something that is naturally occurring in the foods that you're eating and mostly in meat. And so, if you're like on a carnivore diet, You might not need to take creatine. Creatine is probably the one that is most recommended, but there is no supplement that we recommend for every single one of our patients. It's not like, oh, you got to take this because everybody needs to take it to live longer. But creatine is something that I do believe that most people can benefit from. Same with vitamin D and same with omega-3. The 3 that I take actually most Americans are deficient in vitamin D. Yeah. Right. And you can get it from diet. You can get it from more sun. We can measure it in your blood and make a recommendation based on that. But most people are deficient and most people can benefit from having higher omega-3s because we don't. But again, not everyone. And so I do think that you're better off doing the testing and the blood tests. Even if you don't do it with us, you do it with your primary care. They can It's relatively cheap to measure that before you take it because the other thing is that you want to know it's working. Yes.

Right?

And we all have different methylation patterns that allow us to methylate different nutrients. And so, you might be taking something that might not be having any impact, or you might have gotten a crappy supplement from a company that isn't actually giving you what they say they're going to give you. So, you want to test and see where your levels are. And then see if it has improved and gotten to an optimal level. And if you don't do the testing, then you can't do that. I'm a big believer, like, don't put anything into your body without knowing what's going to be the impact. And so, that's the other benefit of testing.

Yeah. What is your thought on these pace of aging clocks, right? Because I've read a lot of them. There's the Horvath clock. There's various tests you can do to get your biological age versus your chronological age. But my read of it is that there doesn't seem to be consistent buy-in from the community on it. I was just wondering what your thoughts are.

Well, first of all, I would say that these biological clocks show a lot of promise. If we could actually have— and it's not— I think that the, you know, I worked at Credit Sesame, so I'm— and we gave out credit scores for free, and it did help change behavior. People understanding their credit data, et cetera. And so, I'm a big believer that like, if you can put something into a number that can help people be motivated and focused on it, that can have a really big impact. I just don't think that the science is there yet. If we start— if, when, once we can have these biomarkers of aging that are clinically validated and show impact on actual outcomes, meaning healthspan and lifespan, and are modifiable, right? And so, you know, for— let me just give you an overly simplified example. So, there are biological clocks that will take a picture of your face and tell you what your biological age is. And actually, they're relatively accurate. You know, it might not be accurate for you, might not be accurate for me, but you take it at a population level, it's relatively accurate.

Yeah.

The problem is that let's just say you wanted to improve it. So, now your goal is, oh, I want to improve my biological age because this thing is accurate. I need to improve it. Well, there's 100 things you could do cosmetically that will make you look younger that won't make you actually healthier. And so, my fear with a biological clock is that you're doing things that may be making it look younger on the test that doesn't actually make you younger in reality. And, that's the challenge. And, I think the other thing is that we have all of these measures that we know actually do impact lifespan and healthspan. Visceral fat, metabolic health, VO2 max, etc. And so I would much rather focus on those for now. And hopefully one day we get these biological age tests that are more accurate in the future and predictive of outcomes and modifiable, meaning if you change them, it actually matters. And so another example, maybe a little more complex, is this thing called telomeres. And so, we know that telomeres have a really big impact on, you know, can have an impact on your lifespan and healthspan. But what we don't know is if you change the length of your telomeres, does that actually then impact your lifespan and healthspan? And so, let's just say you start measuring your telomere length and you're like, oh, here's my telomere length. And it's, is it good? Is it bad? I don't know. It's probably individualized. We know that they get shorter as you age. And that, that contributes to the aging process and is a marker. But if you measure that, do we know that sort of the absolute levels matter? And then do we know if we change it, that it's going to impact, you know, you as you age? So, there are so many different mechanisms that happen as you age that it's hard to know, you know, whether you're going after the right one.

Right.

And look, Your metabolic health reduces as you age. Your lipids decrease as you age. Your blood pressure gets worse as you age. So there are already all of these mechanisms that we know have causal outcome, negative outcomes. So I'd rather focus on those. But if we can get biomarkers of aging, then we can really start testing some of these interventions. One of the challenges in the longevity space is that to measure whether or not something is effective at helping you live longer and live better, it takes a really long time. So if we have these intermediate biomarkers of aging that we can use to test different interventions, that's gonna unlock a lot of opportunity. And so I know there's a lot of people focused on it. I'm optimistic that we'll get there. I just don't think we're there yet.

That was a great example with the face, right? Because yeah, you, you can focus on the one thing that's being measured, but it's not really doing What you ultimately wanted to do. So that, that, that was a, a great example. Yeah. Well, Jesse, to close, are there any like simple tips or are there a couple things you really want people to take away from this conversation? Yeah.

So the first thing that I will say, and we haven't really touched on this, but I think it's really important. So when I first got into this space, I started talking to people who are into longevity. And what I found is almost everyone, this was what I was doing too. Everybody, myself included, was just picking things randomly, going on social media, listening to Huberman, whatever comes that week. It's like, oh, let me go try that instead of actually thinking strategically. And one of the challenges is that the things that are most accessible in the space may not be the things that have the most evidence. So the things that have the most evidence are still sleep, caloric balance, exercise. But the things that are maybe easiest, most accessible, might be like grabbing, you know, a CGM or going to get a full-body MRI or taking this supplement or doing an ice bath. And all of those things have benefits. So I'm not saying don't do them. What I'm saying is that you need a plan and a strategy. And so the way that we think about it, I talked about why. So starting with a longevity why, and then getting to a longevity how. How do you now achieve this objective? And I gave you an example, which is true for most people, which is the how is often don't get a chronic disease and maintain and improve your mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. And if you can do those 2 things, you know, you're gonna live a long and healthy life and you're probably gonna achieve your longevity. Why? And then the what, what do you need to do now to achieve those 2 things is where now you get into the exactly what you should do. And so developing a strategy to avoid the chronic diseases and developing a strategy to maintain and improve your mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. Being now gets you into a much more cohesive program. And it's really hard to do that well. And we're building AI to help automate it and make it easier for people, but it is hard. And that's what our clinic does today. But I just ask people to think about it that way versus going to like, what should I be doing? It's no, actually it's what am I trying to achieve? And then, how do I get there? And then, what do I need to do to actually achieve those goals? And then, the second thing I would say, if there's one thing that I recommend every single person should go do, is get a DEXA scan.

Hmm.

And, the reason for that is because most people— the 2 things I think are most foundational are blood work and DEXA scan. Most people have had some level of blood work. Now, in our program, we do much more extensive blood work, I think that would be better if you have a little bit more budget, but you've probably had some blood work done at an annual physical. And so, if you combine blood work with DEXA scan, now you have the foundation, you have enough information to be able to figure out how do you achieve those objectives and then what do you do. Without the DEXA scan, I think it's very difficult. And, they're not expensive, it's like $50 to $100. I think the important thing is you want to get a body composition DEXA scan. scan, not a, uh, just a bone density DEXA scan. You want to know about your bone density, but you also want to know about your visceral fat and your muscle mass. And so, that's my recommendation.

Those are 2 great things for sure. So, Jesse, if people are interested in learning more about you and what you do, where can they find you?

longevityhealth.me. That's our website. Um, and there it has a description of all of our programs, You can sign up for the program. You can do—we do actually free consults, so you can go there and schedule a free consult. Longevityhealth.me.

Great, and your LinkedIn profile has some great content. You do a good job posting interesting things that that I want to read. So thank you for that. Yeah, you can follow me at on LinkedIn.

It's Jesse Levy, L-E-V-E-Y. We also—I have a longevity guide on our website.

You can.

sign up for. It's a free guide. Obviously my content on LinkedIn is free. I do do, um, some workshops about once a month as well. So if you sign up for the guide, then you'll get notifications about the workshops.

Jesse, thank you so much. I think this was a great conversation and hopefully it really helps people put some things into action. Thank you.

Thank you.

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