Latest news with #EricTopol
Forbes
5 days ago
- Health
- Forbes
Why Self-Care Has Become The Most Important Form Of Healthcare – And What You Can Do To Improve It
Extending healthspan—the period of life spent free from major diseases—is far more about lifestyle choices than genetics. In his recently published (and very good) book Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity, Dr. Eric Topol emphasizes that extending healthspan—the period of life spent free from major diseases—is far more about lifestyle choices than genetics. His recommendations, grounded in decades of research on individuals who thrive into their 80s and beyond, focus on practical, evidence-based strategies. In addition to the health-related benefits of proper self-care, there are growing financial benefits. As healthcare related to chronic conditions (including heart disease, diabetes, obesity, cancer, and neurogenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's) becomes increasingly expensive, and as more of the costs of healthcare are being passed onto insured consumers in the form of increased deductibles, co-payments, and coverage limitations, and as more individuals are uninsured, avoidance of expensive healthcare conditions and procedures has become essential to financial security. It's NOT All in Your Genes For much of my generally healthy life, I have been hearing that 'you can't beat your genes.' I have always been skeptical of this notion, not due to any hard evidence to the contrary, but because of an instinctive sense based on observation that it must be an oversimplification, and because of a stubborn refusal to accept such a fatalistic approach in my own life and those of friends and family members. Fortunately, there is growing evidence to suggest that my instinct has been correct, including one study highlighted in Dr. Topol's book. Two decades ago, a California research team he led sequenced the genomes of 1,400 adults aged 80 or older without any major illness. The researchers expected to find genetic differences between this cohort (which they called the 'Wellderly') and the majority of older adults who have at least two chronic conditions (which they called the 'Illderly'). However, the Wellderly study found almost no difference between the biological makeup of the two groups. What they did find was that Wellderly members were more physically active, more social, and typically better educated than the general public. That genes don't necessarily determine healthy aging is 'liberating,' and suggests that 'we can all do better' to delay disease, says Topol. In his book, Dr. Topol cites many examples of Super Agers whose parents died in their 50s from chronic conditions. Yet, these people are going strong in their 80s and 90s, and he believes that lifestyle has a much greater impact on health and longevity than genetics. While genetics may set the 'upper limit' for human lifespan—generally 90–100 years—he believes that lifestyle choices largely determine how close individuals come to reaching that potential without significant limitations. Dr. Topol and a growing number of other experts estimate that 80–90% of heart disease, 40–50% of cancers, and nearly half of Alzheimer's cases are delayable or preventable through lifestyle factors such as exercise, diet, sleep, and social connection. Genetics may account for only 10–20% of overall health outcomes and lifespan, with lifestyle accounting for the remaining 80–90%. Evidence-Based Self-Care If you accept this premise, the next question is, 'What kind of self-care will extend my healthspan that is supported by evidence-based research?' There is no shortage of unsupported recommendations. One of the reasons I admire Dr. Topol's approach is that he sticks to what is supported by research and cites the research being cited. As background, he is a cardiologist, founder of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, and a molecular scientist who has published 1,300 articles and multiple books. Following is a summary of what Dr. Topol has to say about what he calls 'Lifestyle+.' However, I highly recommend that you read the chapter in his book on this subject, as it contains many actionable insights that are beyond the scope of this article, including summaries of the evidence supporting some healthspan-promoting practices and casting doubt on the efficacy of others. 1. Exercise as the Cornerstone 2. Mediterranean Diet 3. Sleep Quality and Duration 4. Social Connection and Cognitive Engagement 5. Avoiding Unproven Longevity Hacks Measuring Your Risk Dr. Topol recommends a personalized and dynamic approach to health risk evaluation, including but also moving beyond traditional population-based screening and annual tests. His logic is based on the fact that many potentially debilitating diseases develop over decades, and that understanding one's vulnerability to one or more of them well in advance can facilitate interventions to prevent or delay the onset of symptoms. His key recommendations include: 1. Longitudinal Tracking of Lab Tests 2. Emerging Blood-Based Screening 3. Genomic and Polygenic Risk Scores 4. Brain Health and Alzheimer's Disease 5. AI and Digital Tools 6. Avoiding Unnecessary Full-Body Scans 7. Reservations about Aging Clocks Recommended for a Reason I rarely endorse a single work as I am with Super Agers, but as it has become increasingly clear that we must take more responsibility for our own health care—for both healthy aging and financial security—it has become equally difficult to find trusted sources of information about how best to do this among the torrent of possibilities that are not evidence-based (e.g., more than 60,000 diet books are sold on Amazon). With that said, the combination of rapid advances in life science and information technology, including polygenic risk scoring, genome sequencing, imaging, and multimodal AI, is accelerating the pace of change and identifying new opportunities to increase healthspan that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. So, there is no healthspan 'handbook' available today that will be completely relevant tomorrow. Our ongoing challenge will be to sort through the many possible breakthroughs to identify the few that are truly supported by evidence. There are 326 research citations in Dr. Topol's nearly 100-page bibliography in Super Agers, which is the kind of scientific rigor we need to guide us today and hope to have at our fingertips tomorrow.
Yahoo
20-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
What's the Best Age to Start Building Healthy Habits to Boost Longevity? An Expert Explains
Aging is a natural part of life. Despite what the anti-aging industry tries to sell you, you can't stop the clock. However, there are ways to maintain and improve our physical and mental wellbeing as we age, which may help slow down the biological aging process and prevent age-related diseases. Maximizing our "healthspan," or the number of years we live in good health and disease-free, is just as important as maximizing our lifespan, according to Dr. Eric Topol, cardiologist and longevity scientist at the Scripps Research Institute. previously spoke with Topol about his science-backed lifestyle habits to age healthier in his New York Times bestseller 'Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity.' These include things like exercising regularly, avoiding ultra-processed foods, prioritizing nutrition, eating enough fiber, getting enough sleep, and staying mentally active. When is the best time to build these healthy aging habits? Expert Tip of the Day: It's Never Too Early or Late to Prioritize Healthy Aging "It's never too early or too late," Topol said of starting healthy aging habits in a TODAY segment aired June 25. Generally, your 60s are when you start to experience significant loss of muscle mass and bone density. "As you get to be 60, age-related diseases start to really hit," said Topol. These include cardiovascular disease, cancer and Alzheimer's. The earlier you start building healthy aging habits, the better, says Topol. However, if you can start adopting these by your 50s, it can make a big difference. "In advance of that (decline) in your 60s, if you start at age 50 doing all those things, it's about seven to 10 years of healthy aging that you can gain," says Topol. But if you're over 50 or 60 and haven't changed your habits, it's never too late to start. Why It Matters Previously, it was thought that the secret to aging healthy was good genes. But in a 2007 study, Topol and other scientists at Scripps Institute analyzed the DNA of 1,400 people between the ages of 80–105 who had never developed any common chronic diseases. "We found almost nothing to account from their genetics for their extraordinary healthspan," said Topol. However, they did share common lifestyle habits that may help slow down biological aging, he explained. "Exercise is paramount, (especially) strength training," said Topol, adding that it not only maintains muscle mass and bone density but also promotes balance, which prevents falls. It also keeps the immune system strong as we age. In his late 60s, Topol started strength training three days a week. "I'm more fit and stronger than I can ever remember,' Topol, now 71, said. It's also important to eat a balanced diet that provides enough protein, healthy fats, fiber, and vitamins and minerals. Fiber is a standout healthy aging nutrient, said Topol, and getting enough of fiber can help prevent chronic disease. And prioritizing sleep and staying mentally fit can protect our brain health as we age and reduce the risk of cognitive decline. How to Get Started No matter how old you are, you can adopt these habits to live a healthier, longer life. Here are more of Topol's science-backed "lifestyle-plus" factors: Do 100 minutes a week of resistance training. Follow a Mediterranean diet. Eat 25–30 grams of fiber per day. Avoid ultraprocessed foods. Socialize with others. Don't take unnecessary supplements. Spend time outdoors in nature. TODAY's Expert Tip of the Day series is all about simple strategies to make life a little easier. Every Monday through Friday, different qualified experts share their best advice on diet, fitness, heart health, mental wellness and more. This article was originally published on
The Verge
14-07-2025
- The Verge
Google's curated AI ‘notebooks' talk you through topics from parenting to Shakespeare
Google is partnering with authors, researchers, and publications to launch 'featured' notebooks within its AI notetaking app, NotebookLM. These notebooks come pre-filled with research, and let you interact with the app's tools, including its AI podcast maker, to learn more about each topic. Google has released eight featured notebooks to start, including one focused on longevity from Super Agers author Eric Topol, another centered around parenting advice from Jacqueline Nesi's Substack newsletter, 'Techno Sapiens,' and a notebook on the complete works of Shakespeare. It also partnered with The Atlantic and The Economist to launch featured notebooks. Google started letting users share their notebooks publicly last month, and this most recent update appears to be a step toward allowing people to explore a range of premade notebooks rather than creating their own. More than 140,000 people shared public notebooks in the past four weeks, according to Google. 'For newcomers to NotebookLM, the notebooks are a preview of how useful the product can be when you've assembled a collection of sources for whatever project you're working on,' Steven Johnson, the editorial director for NotebookLM, writes in a post on X. 'But it's also a preview of a potential future where there are thousands of expert-curated notebooks on all sorts of topics that you can add to your own collection, to have the knowledge you need on tap.' The featured notebooks include original text from the source material, whether it's a book, play, newsletter, or online article. NotebookLM automatically summarizes this information and comes pre-loaded with notes about the topics discussed in the source material. You can also interact with NotebookLM's AI chatbot to ask questions about the information, as well as listen to pre-generated Audio Overviews, the podcast-like discussions featuring AI 'hosts.' Google says it plans on launching new featured notebooks in the future, which will include more from The Economist and The Atlantic.
Android Authority
14-07-2025
- Business
- Android Authority
Google's underrated AI tool just got a major upgrade with featured notebooks
Andy Walker / Android Authority TL;DR Google is adding expert-curated featured notebooks to NotebookLM, expanding its role beyond personal research and note-taking. Topics include the complete works of Shakespeare, Yellowstone travel tips, and predictions from The Economist. The new feature is desktop-only for now and follows the recent rollout of public notebook sharing. NotebookLM was already doing a good job as anything from a personal research assistant to an advisor on your car maintenance. But Google keeps building as ever, and the AI-powered note-taking tool now also comes preloaded with curated expert guides. Google has announced a new wave of 'featured notebooks' for NotebookLM, offering collections of hand-picked content created in collaboration with researchers, authors, nonprofits, and major publishers. The new notebooks span a broad range of topics, including scientific guides, historical analysis, and even the complete works of Shakespeare. The launch lineup includes longevity advice from Eric Topol, data-driven insights from Our World In Data, parenting tips from psychologist Jacqueline Nesi, and predictions from The Economist's The World Ahead 2025 report. There's also a Yellowstone travel guide with geological and biodiversity insights and an earnings tracker covering top global companies. Each notebook can be explored as usual with NotebookLM's core features, letting you ask questions, explore content through mind maps, and generate Audio Overviews — AI-generated podcasts that bring your notes to life. The new collections follow Google's recent rollout of public notebook sharing, which the company says has already led to over 140,000 public notebooks in just four weeks. More featured notebooks — including additional collaborations with The Economist and The Atlantic — are expected soon. We're big fans of NotebookLM as a hidden gem among Google's AI tools, though we were a bit nonplussed by the Android app. Featured notebooks are rolling out now and only on desktop, which is just one more reason to stick to the web version for now. Got a tip? Talk to us! Email our staff at Email our staff at news@ . You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it's your choice.
Scientific American
14-07-2025
- Health
- Scientific American
A Longevity Expert Breaks Down the Science and Hype of Biological Aging Tests
How old are you really? Counting birthdays may be a common tally, but your 'age' isn't determined by time alone. New research increasingly shows the importance of considering chronological age as something very different from biological age—in which the body and its cells, tissues and organs all have separate 'clocks' that can tick at different speeds. 'Calculating biological age, I think, is core to the advances we've made in the science of aging,' says Eric Topol, a cardiologist and genomics professor at Scripps Research in California. 'It's a way you can tell if a person, organ, or any biological unit is at pace of aging—if it's normal, abnormal or supernormal.' In his new book Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity, Topol delves into the recent surge in public interest in biological aging and the accelerating quest to refine ways to measure it—giving a more precise picture of a person's longevity prospects and of potential ailments that can be prevented or treated early. Scientific American spoke with Topol about the latest research in biological aging, factors that might speed it up or slow it down and what it can tell us about our health. On supporting science journalism If you're enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today. [ An edited transcript of the interview follows. ] How is biological age determined and how has the research evolved? The real beginning of this research started more than a decade ago by geneticist Steven Horvath with his 'clock' [test], with which, basically using saliva, you could look at specific genetic markers in a genome and predict a person's biological age. His clock is really known as an epigenetic clock, or methylation clock. As people age, DNA changes and gets methylated—this is when a methyl group [molecule] attaches to specific nucleotides of DNA. I kind of liken it to the body rusting out. Basically, you're getting marks at specific parts of the genome that track with aging in humans and every other species of mammal. In Horvath's initial test, there clearly was a detection of both alignment with the person's real age, or chronological age—and when it wasn't matching up. In other words, if a person's biological age was off by a few years from their real age, you'd wonder why that is. Then what's proliferated in the more than 10 years since has been all these other clocks: protein clocks, RNA clocks, immune system clocks—you name it. Using plasma proteins from a blood sample, we can also clock organs—whether it's the heart, brain, liver or kidney. So we have seen just enormous advances in these clocks, and they keep getting refined with added features. There's a race to get the best clocks to predict survival. What can biological age tests tell us clinically? We can detect in an individual if something's not right at different levels. For example, if your biological age is five years older than your real age, is there an organ that might be linked with that? Then you can use these clocks to see if lifestyle, prevention or treatment can slow down the pace of aging and get it into alignment with your actual age. The question is: When will doctors actually start using them? The medical community is very hard to change. So it hasn't happened yet, but I believe it will eventually. Tests are also made available by commercial companies, but they can be very expensive. You can run an epigenetic test in a very simple way for $10 or $20, while some of these companies are charging $200. I haven't seen their publications to be able to say with confidence that they are doing things right, and the lack of standards from one company to the next is disconcerting. They don't want to shock [customers by telling them] that they're 10 years older than their real chronological age. Eventually, I believe, we're going to have high-fidelity epigenetic clocks with no motivation for a provider to hold things back if a person's data are really bad. Why might someone biologically age 'faster' or 'slower' than their actual age? If you had to pick one mechanism behind why biological age and chronological age are misaligned, it would most likely be because there are some genes that are either protective or linked with accelerated aging—but that's such a small part of the story. Another root cause appears to be that our immune system gets weaker and less functional as we get older. In the average person, this starts around age 55 to 60. It drops its level of protection, or it gets dysregulated—off track—and it can have an untoward, hyperactive response. Now when you have that happen, you start to see inflammation in the organs, such as in the arteries of the heart or the brain—it's what I call 'inflammaging.' Obviously our lifestyle also has a big impact—eating a really healthy diet that's not proinflammatory and doesn't have a lot of ultraprocessed foods or red meat. Good sleep health helps reduce inflammation. There's only one thing that's been definitively shown to slow the epigenetic aging process, and that's exercise. I think these clocks ultimately are going to be very good incentives for people to adopt a healthy lifestyle. We can't get everybody to do all these things that we know help them, but if they get their own data and they see something's off track, the hope is that they'd [change their lifestyle]. That's, of course, just one of the ways to prevent diseases. There are also drugs and other treatments. What environmental factors are also important to consider? We have all kinds of food deserts in the U.S. We have air pollution and unmitigated accumulation in the air and water of microplastics and nanoplastics, which get into every part of our body and induce inflammation. And we have forever chemicals as well that are pervasive. These all play a factor in lifestyle, health and aging. Let's talk more about 'inflammaging.' We know some inflammation can be good for the body to fight infections, for instance, but a lot can be bad. How does chronic inflammation potentially accelerate aging? Inflammation and aging are so tightly intertwined. The immune system is really the driver for good [when it attacks pathogens] and for bad when it promotes too much inflammation in walls of arteries or the brain. That's heart disease and neurodegenerative disease, respectively. But what's so exciting is we can dial up or down the immune system now. For example, [there have been] natural, amazing experiments with the shingles vaccines, which reduce dementia and Alzheimer's disease 20 to 25 percent. So how does that work? Well, [the vaccine] amps up the immune system in people and older adults. That's going to be the critical thing in using these metrics: zooming in on the immune system and inflammation to keep people's immune system intact and stop it when it starts to go haywire. That's the future. In the last chapter of the book, I presented the first cut of my ' immunome '—an assay of every virus and pathogen I've been exposed to, every antibody I have. But that's just scratching the surface. The immune system clock could turn out to be the most useful of all; if I could pick one, that's the one I would want. But the immune system is very complex. Maybe we don't have to do a systematic, comprehensive assessment of our immunome [that would include checking antibody titers and] sequencing B cells, T cells and interferons. If we can use just a group of plasma proteins, that would be terrific. That remains to be seen. There's a human immunome project just getting started to try to compare things such as the proteins with the much more sophisticated and expensive ways to get at the health of an immune system. What are the downsides of slowing down biological aging, or extending lifespan? We feel really great if we get to age 85. 'Super agers' who don't get one of the big four age-related diseases [type 2 diabetes, cancer, or heart or neurodegenerative disease] say 'Well, I did it.' Of course, if you get up to age 98, you're really doing well. I think we're going to have a whole lot more super agers. But that's not going to get around the fact that eventually they're going to develop some problems—one of the big four or other conditions. It could be you get an infection because your immune system is just too weak. Or it could be you break your hip because your bone density is so low and you wind up with a pulmonary embolus [a clot that blocks blood flow to the lungs]. Eventually you die, and you may have a chronic illness between that point of extended health span and when you die. I don't want to put a sense out there that super agers won't see problems in the latter stages of their lives. But the point is, let's extend the health span—high-quality life without these big age-related diseases—as much as we can before getting into the downturn of a health arc.
