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The information provided in this podcast episode is for entertainment purposes and is not medical advice. If you have any questions about your health, contact a medical professional. This content is strictly the opinions of Lucas Owen and is for informational and entertainment purposes only.

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The references, claims and scientific information linked to any products are only applicable to those listeners who are based in the US. If you are outside the US, this information does not apply to you. It is not intended to provide medical advice or to take the place of medical advice or treatment from a personal physician. All viewers of this content are advised to consult with their doctors or qualified health professionals regarding specific health questions.

00:46

Thank you for listening to the Boost Your Biology podcast. My name is Lucas Owen. I uncover the most cutting edge health information on the planet, ranging from hormones, nutrition, supplementation, fat loss, biohacking, longevity, wellness, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Boost Your Biology podcast.

01:11

Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome back to the Boost Your Biology podcast. Today I'm super excited because we'll be exploring and understanding the rate at which our organs are aging and so I'm joined in the studio with two out of the three co-founders at Generation Lab. We have Michael Susswell and Alina Liu. Welcome to the podcast. Hello, thank you. Thanks for having us. Awesome, awesome. So maybe

01:40

Let's get into the details about this particular technology. First of all, my audience is very interested in understanding the rate at which they're aging. So first of all, do you want to sort of start out by mentioning a little bit about this term epigenetics and sort of break that down for my audience? Totally. So think of what 23andMe is testing is the heart rate of the company. We call that as DNA. That's the representation of what is the color of your skin, of your

02:08

eyes, that's never changing is the hardware of the body. But the software of the body is always changing. That's how your genes are being expressed. So your lifestyle, you're having chronic stress, you're traveling a lot, all of these are gonna like exchange, actually making expression of their DNA itself being changed. And that is called epigenetic, like how your genes are being expressed.

02:30

the things of your body that change with your habits, with your lifestyle, as opposed to the things that will never change. And so for the things that we care about, it's, it's very, uh, worth time to check it every so often to see how you're performing. And whenever Alina and I decide to do something to ourselves, like a do a sauna or she's taking some new supplement, we like to do a before and after. And this way we can see how our, uh,

02:58

DNA is reacting and how our bodies are aging due to the new behaviors that we're doing. And 80% of how you're aging is dependent on epigenetic rather than your DNA itself. So it's very important to get your epigenetic being tested.

03:13

Yeah, and also I would say this is another step beyond just your regular blood testing. So a lot of my audience is probably already doing blood testing maybe every three to six months. And they're also doing different interventions. They're trying to track whether or not, you know, their gym training is affecting their testosterone or if they're, you know, so this is, you guys have basically built out and they're exploring one step further looking at how it's affecting our, you know, genetic expression.

03:42

Yeah, I think that's exactly it. And we're, you know, I like to think two steps, but we'll go with one step for the, for the purpose of this. There's really, there's really a value in understanding how quickly your different organs are aging and getting a warning sign before something happens. So, you know, we've had a lot of examples, but before we get to those, just, just in general, it's kind of like the experience of driving a car.

04:09

And you have a, your brake light will pop on and you don't know why exactly, but it, you know, it could be the brake pads or the brake drums or your electrical system. It could be any number of things, but we know go to the mechanic and get your brakes checked.

04:23

And that's essentially what we're able to do is to see across the body 19 different systems, how they're performing and what is the thing that you should be most concerned about and working on the most for improvement. There's no sense of trying to improve your liver if your liver is not as relatively healthy as compared to your brain. And so it's really about unlocking knowledge about your own body and then doing something about it.

04:49

In terms of how it compares to some of the other, I mean, there's quite a few genetic tests on the market. You mentioned the labs, for example. And I think Function Health is a really cool company. They have a really cool product. They make it much easier and cheaper for you to do traditional lab work at home or in your local community. And I think that's extremely valuable. But what we're doing is quite different.

05:15

Alina is really the biologist though. So maybe I'll let her talk a little bit about it and then I'll try to add some color. Yes. It's very different. So compared to what LabCorp or other diagnostic company that's doing for blood work, that's for sick care. What it means that if anything, that's showing up that you're bad, that means you're really bad.

05:35

bad, like you're already entering into disease stage because for sick care, we're detecting if you're having disease or not. And if all of those biomarker, like your glucose level is out of range, that means you're having diabetes.

05:47

Now you're done. But now we are talking about health tests, which means we can actually detect signals before they're turning into disease. We can actually detect the early signals of accelerating of the aging down to each different organs in your body, your brain, your muscle, your liver, your heart, your reproductive system, inflammation before they're turning into disease. So it's not, it's not early detection. What we've created is pre-detection before there's a problem,

06:15

can we see some signal before something develops? And as Alina was saying, the FDA says you don't have diabetes until you hit a certain threshold. So you're fine, you're fine, you're fine, and then, oh shit, you got diabetes. So we really don't think that's a good way of going about managing our own health. So this is really what this does, is it allows us to know

06:39

What's going on before there's a real accident about to happen? Yeah. And it actually took us 20 years to understand how aging is happening in your body down to each different organs. And most importantly, you're not doing the test because for us to tell you that you're old, you're doing the test because you want to know what's next and what is the best way for you to reversing it. So that's a very important next step that we will guide you hand by hand by telling you that, Hey, rather than eating reprimiscent,

07:05

NAD+ is good enough for you. Rather than doing stem cells, you might consider plasma exchange because there's a lot of inflammation in our body that will actually inhibit stem cells from regenerating. So there's a lot of side-by-side, very detailed action plan that we will guide you and also match you with a longevity clinic to guide you what is your longevity supposed to be looking like.

07:26

Yeah. So, you know, as you take a report, you can expect to see things like, Hey, we, you know, you might try this, you might try that as recommendations, but, but then you also get connected with a real physician who will say, okay,

07:39

Here's your results. Here's what I understand. Tell me about your life. They'll be able to go a little bit more into your family history, a little bit more into your daily activities, and then really come up with an action plan for you in which you'll have your own dashboard and all of the things you and your doctor talk about will be there for you to access anytime. So that's essentially what we've built. And it's really, at least from my side, I really want to see a center of truth for all the things that are out there.

08:07

And this is one of my biggest passions with this diagnostic is, you know, I don't know if some people call me a biohacker, some people don't. But whatever you call me, I really sometimes am confused about what is working with people and what is not. And there seems to be a study for everything. And I think part of it is different people react to different therapies differently.

08:31

And so something that works for me is not necessarily gonna work for Alina. And I think we've seen that in many cases. Some people have really rich diets of fruits and vegetables

08:43

And taking a supplement, I'm not sure if I should say names here or not, but maybe that supplement isn't particularly good for you because you're getting all those nutrients already. Whereas someone who just eats birthday cake every day, I'm talking to her, maybe that supplement would be healthy. So it really, it is a personal thing. And this is one of the passionate sides of this product that we have is it allows you to get into the details of your life and what you need.

09:12

What's really exciting about it, Michael, is the fact that it's like, I mean, the future of medicine was always going to go down the route of more personalized, more precision. And what you guys have basically built out here is the ability for people to see in real time changes in their quality of life and also analyze the effectiveness of certain interventions. Because as you said,

09:36

Like going into a sauna three times a week for Alina may be more beneficial, you know, for her versus yourself. Or maybe somebody might benefit from, you know, intermittent fasting. How does that affect your, you know, gene expression? It depends upon the individual. Yeah, it really does change. And, you know, so it's kind of hard. I'm guilty of it myself. I'll say, oh, this doesn't work or that doesn't or that does work.

10:00

But really what I'm saying is I found that works for me or doesn't work for me. And we kind of live in this whole world of statistical medicine where even clinicians will say, you know, 90% of the people in your demographic

10:14

see good results from this drug or this therapy or this exercise, but maybe you're in the 10%. And how long are you going to do that for before you figure that out? Who knows? So this is something that I think kind of puts medicine in the hands of people again, to see how they're performing given their doctor interventions or what they read online. And let's be real, like that's where I get, like I go to the doctor, but I do, I watch a lot of YouTube. I, you know, I watch,

10:41

I watch your channel, I watch all these other channels and I want to know what's working for people, what other people are trying. And now I have a way of seeing before and after of what's working for me. Yeah, I would put it in a single slogan of it's just a BS detector because there are so many things out there that say that it's working, but you really have no way to actually see whether things are working or not.

11:05

There's a lot of YouTube videos saying that this supplement works, that medicine works. This is the holy grail of longevity, but

11:13

After people are trying it, if you ask them, do you know if it's actually working or not? Most of the people are saying no, like 99% of the people. Well, I don't know. They're like, oh, I didn't even think you'd ask that question. Well, you could even use, like the slogan could also be ruling out placebo. Yeah, that's a good one too. We've been really jumping on just asking people, does it work? Like gut milk, but does it work?

11:37

So we'll work on that a little bit. I think we have some more refining to do. What have you both sort of found in terms of personal experimentations and interventions? Like I'm actually really curious to know about what has actually moved the needle in terms of, you know, different interventions. I have two stories. Do you want to go first or should I go first?

11:54

Well, I can share some case studies that we have been seeing because we are working with more than 125 clinics and every single clinic is doing different longevity therapies or like stem cells, different things. So we actually see different things works differently. And I'd love to share some like realistic data to you. But yes, please share some personal story. I'll share one personal story and then we can talk about some of the case studies because I'm obviously very biased.

12:21

So I think the one I like the most is a discovery that I had where my respiratory system, which is normally very good, started going up. And then on the subsequent test, it was the worst system in my body. It just really skyrocketed and it was really spiking.

12:40

And I don't smoke. So I was like, where is that coming from all of a sudden? And I realized I was spending an abnormal amount of time in my wood shop. It was a holiday season. I had a little bit more time off. And I was doing woodworking in a closed garage with no air filter. And I was like, maybe that's the reason. And then I got an air filter. I opened up the doors, spent a little less time in the shop.

13:06

And over the next two tests, it came back. And actually my last test I took, it was all the way back down to my best performing system. So there is like, I felt no symptoms, which is key to this story. It just, I saw something happening in the results. I knew what it was because I, it's just kind of logical. I addressed it and I fixed it before it really became a major problem for me. And, you know, there is lots of studies that show wood dust causes cancer.

13:35

So I was quite glad to be able to catch that. So with that score, just sort of break that down. Cause my audience is probably wondering like with the exact test, right? It's a cheek swab test. So it's an, yeah. So it used to be, so we first developed it with a cheek swab test, but we've really moved more into the blood side. And it's more, it's just an easier signal to get. It's a little bit more rich information. Yeah.

14:02

We'll try to relaunch the cheek swab in the future. But what we're really measuring is the body's, we're measuring entropy and the body's ability to fight entropy and maintain homeostasis. So in particular, my respiratory system, we have like cell cytokines and senescent cells, all of these things bombarding our body, causing excretions out of tissues.

14:26

and it makes it harder and harder for our body to counterbalance that. And when we're young, we're very good. And we see this little oscillation, entropy, homeostasis, entropy, homeostasis. But as we get older, we lose the ability to come back to homeostasis quickly.

14:43

And so this oscillation gets noisier and noisier. And that's what we mean by biological noise. And in my case, I had more inflammatory factors, more things causing the biological, the entropy to speed up. And so by trying to get the air filters, staying out of the shop a little bit, I had less factors causing biological noise. And so my body was more easily able to

15:09

Bring me back to homeostasis more rapidly. Yeah. And the way how we are seeing the speed of aging is by looking at more than half a 1Million of the sample size ranging from people who is 25 years old to 80 years. So. Healthy aging.

15:22

Aging is not a disease. So we really have to differentiate who is aging versus who is diseased. So we found out 460 specific sites that tightly control how you're aging. And this is very proprietary to us. We have a custom chip that we apply for patents with Illumina together. And that's how we're analyzing all of the how noise is impacting our body and where is that noise is coming from.

15:45

Is it from your brain, your respiratory system, from your muscle? Which part of your body is the noisiest? And how can you hone in into that to solve it? With the exact scores, is it sort of giving you like a percentage score, like out of 100? Or like, how is it represented? Yeah. It actually gives you two different scores. One is what is your biological age? And that age means age.

16:10

Not exactly how old you are biologically, but you are currently aging at the speed of 39 years old. It's not saying that, bro, you're 39 years old, like you're done. No, that's not what it means. It means that, hey, this system's in our body right now is aging similar at the speed, the pace of aging of 39 years old. So you should really take care of that because there is an ability that for you to reversing it back to the younger stages.

16:35

So this leading to example of we're seeing like thousands of samples for doing case studies on stem cell or plasma exchange. And we are seeing in stem cells after people are doing before versus after just within three to six months that they're- What type of, yeah, which types of stem cells? There's many different types of stem cells. Like there is mesenchymal stem cell, there is mu cells, there's stem cell exosomes. So people are doing different types of stem cell, but we are seeing-

17:04

kind of all of them is able to be repairing tissue regeneration very well so net net positive across the board and i gotta be honest i didn't expect that i i was me too i've been very skeptical of stem cell therapies but we're getting the data back and it's pretty consistent where we've had like five or six patients uh go through stem cell therapies and they've all come back with

17:31

very improved results with a good period of time in between. Is it across like multiple organ systems? Multiple clinics, multiple systems. So it's through, for example, inflammation aging is reversed by 13.6 years old.

17:48

the brain aging group reversed by 6.6 years old. Reproductive system is reversed by 4.5 years old. And this is a real data from a normalized patient. - A particular person, yeah. - Similar to that, we are seeing plasma exchange is really helping inflammation age reduction because that's getting rid of all of the microplastic that has been accumulated in your body.

18:10

Would you say that that intervention, plasma exchange, is more accessible than stem cell therapy right now in the world? I would say it really depends because it's an FDA-approved way to actually treat a disease. So you can actually get that as off-label, similar to how Brian Johnson did it. So now we're seeing more and more biohackers like Mark Hyman, Peter Diamantis, Brian Johnson, they all are switching places.

18:34

into getting therapeutic plasma exchange. It's not like blood boys, like actually getting blood from the younger guys. No, that's not the case. Thank you. And that's very important because Dr. Irina Kamboy, which is our third co-founder, she invented that and she discovered that aging is reversible by diluting your old plasma. That's the very famous parabiosis, which is the young mice and old mice plasma exchange experiment starting from 2005 on the nature.

19:03

Yeah. So in terms of frequency, like, um, do you have data on that? Like in terms of, should they do it two, three times a year or. Yeah. Most clinicians are offering it like three or four times a year. Um,

19:16

But the data would suggest maintaining efficacy would require more frequency than that. Yeah. What we're seeing depends on where are you along the journey. You might require a different frequency for sure. And then for people, it's the same therapy that's used for people with blood diseases, diabetes.

19:37

overdose on a drug or immunorejection. Yeah, organ transplantation. After that, if you are having immunorejection or if you're having chronic inflammations in your body or after chemotherapy, you want to boost your immune system back. This is all of the way of using therapeutic plasma exchange. If you do it too frequently, it's probably not good. It's kind of like changing the water for your fish is good. But if you change the water in your fish tank every day, they're going to die.

20:05

So it's something like that. It's a good analogy. In terms of other interventions, I'm just sort of thinking outside the box now, like, you know, rapamycin is popular, fecal transplants, I mean, like microbial interventions. What else have you guys sort of seen move the needle? You know, I'd say the stem cells and the exosomes and the TPE, I think, stick out the most. Yeah.

20:30

I think there have been a lot of changes from patients with their doctors that maybe were specified for a particular function. And we see that, but it's not as impressive as these broad-based therapies. Yeah. Whenever people are entering into biohacking world, we always say, consider the basement, the fundamentals first, because we do see that

20:55

Even fasting for a week is able to be changing our biological age dramatically. And we are seeing people who went through fasting is reducing their inflammation age a lot. But at the same time, their whole body's age is going down, but the muscle age is coming up because they're losing muscles at the same time.

21:12

So we're seeing this interesting signals that a lot of things are actually not purely good or purely bad. They have some of the pros and cons at the same time. You just have to know what is the best for you. Yeah, we actually had one user who's a health coach.

21:30

Decide to stop doing cold plunges because of our test. Now, obviously, cold plunges have lots of great data about them. There's some there's some negative data about muscle recovery, but mostly it's pretty positive. But she stopped doing it because she found through our test that she actually had a high score on her heart. I had a feeling. Yeah. She was worried about, you know, causing too much stress to to overreact.

21:58

work her heart. So she changed the way she approached her therapies to get similar effects. But I do think this is a really good point Alina's making. Mostly, things are usually not all good or all bad. It's usually somewhere in between. That's why we need data. Data is the power to make the decisions.

22:20

Yeah, no, I really, really think that's, it's exactly what my audience needs because everyone in like, they're always undergoing new experiments, trialing different things. Like a lot of my people listening to the podcast, they're, you know, trialing a new supplement. They're trialing a new sleep routine or a new, you know, wearing, what happens when you wear blue blocking glasses at nighttime? Does it actually impact your health? You know? Yes, I love it. I love, and this is like, this is why I have always experimented on myself.

22:49

It's just kind of fun. You're the OG biohacker. Well, I don't know. I won't go that far. But I'm definitely old. I'll give you that. Alina was saying 39 was old a second ago, and I was like, I wish.

23:02

Michael is at least doing like more than 12 times for the test. Yeah, 15 I think now. 15 times and similar to me more than 10 times. So both of us is using ourselves to test out whether things are working or not. I thought one of the supplements that I was drinking, which is a green drink, I thought it's working and tested out it's not working. Can I guess what that was? You can guess. I don't know if Alina will tell you or not. I think I already know. Yeah, I think you got it.

23:31

And a lot of things that I thought is going to work, it's not working. But a lot of things that I thought not going to work, like Sana, it's actually helping a lot. So it's surprising to actually see what's true and what's moving the needle or not, purely by the data rather than the advertisements. Yeah, and actually on the Sana one, last story, or actually I have so many, but I won't promise it's the last story.

23:55

But I'd been doing the sauna for one month and I had hoped to see a very large change. I did see a change, but it wasn't as large as I had expected. I did it six times a week for a month or six times a week for a month. So I missed one day a week, 20 minutes at a shot at around 170 degrees. And I everything across the board improved a little bit.

24:19

So maybe I need to do it longer or, you know, maybe maybe test again after three months. But it's this kind of it's this kind of data that is really helping me to see, oh, this supplement has a big effect. This is I have no idea what it's doing. And in those cases, I stop the supplement because I care about my liver and I worry about that, too.

24:39

Yeah, I'm just thinking about it now from like, if we had to sort of explain what you guys are pioneering and sort of exploring is you're trying to gauge the effect size and the impact, the degree of impact of these different interventions, how they have on your objective markers, not subjective. This is objectivity. So therefore, like this is data that can't be

25:03

fabricated. I really love that you bring this up, Lucas, because there is a comparison I'd like to make. I would always encourage your audience to be skeptical of the data and how it's processed. I would agree with your assessment of our data, which is maybe something equivalent to saying you go to a carnival and you see someone there who's guessing people's weight. A lot of tests are that guy.

25:31

counterpoint is we're the bathroom scale. You stand on it, that's the number. That's it. There is no other interpretation. But we see with the Dunedin pace clock, the Horvath clock,

25:44

These were all used by Irina in our lab to try to test the efficacy of therapeutics. But we found that they were not able to tell the difference between healthy and unhealthy populations. And they manipulate data in something called elastic net, which is like this linear regression model.

26:01

that adds weights and biases to different readings, uh, inconsistently each time you take the test. And so we, we really moved away from that completely because it's making predictions, uh,

26:15

And there is a lot of data there that's manipulated. And so I like the distinction you drew there and I'm happy for the chance to highlight the difference. Yeah, and if your users are curious about that result, we actually published that on the cover of Aging in 2023 September called Failed Test of DNA Methylation Clocks and Development of a Noise Barometer, which is the method how we are using. We measure and we quantify what are them we're predicting. Because biology, think of…

26:43

or glucose level, your blood pressure, you are measuring rather than predicting. Predicting will never actually get it correct. You need to measure very, very accurately. And that's how we are doing it. That's a good, that's a good amount.

26:56

I took a screenshot of that study and I've put it into the video, the YouTube video. So my audience will get more information about that soon. That's a great paper. Jumping into that is fantastic. Yeah. I was just thinking about, because I know Brian Johnson recently has sort of shared one of the most powerful interventions that he's sort of implemented and trialed. And it's actually something that I got my hands on, which is a hyperbaric oxygen chamber.

27:22

I'm really curious. I don't know if you've heard from clinics or from case studies, if anyone's actually seen any improvements. - You know, we'll be able to better answer that in a few short weeks, I think. - But anyone, if in your user base is already doing that, please do our test. Like we want to see- - Yeah, before and after. - Yeah, before and after. - Yes, we need to see it.

27:43

We have one clinic that I know that is offering that as a therapy, but I haven't looked at the specific data yet if that's working for them. But the clinic is a very well-known clinic. It's an excellent clinic called Extension Health in New York.

27:58

And they're very, very sophisticated, very offering all the latest tech. So I would expect if they have it and they're using it, it's probably there's probably some efficacy there. And they're using our tests very, I don't know, like 80 tests a month or something over there. So we're quite keen to see how that data rolls out. But if they're using it and using our tests, I would imagine they're having good results.

28:22

Yeah, my predictions would be, I mean, in terms of improvements, I'd say cardiovascular wise, I'd say potentially some improvements if it's helping to reverse. Cardiovascular, oxidative stress, inflammation. Respiratory probably. These might be the most impactful. Yeah, inflammation definitely. Inflammation is like the worst thing. So reducing that is pretty good.

28:47

So the test itself is a system age. So that's the name of the test that falls on the Generation Lab? Yes. Generation Lab is a biotech company and our diagnostic is system age test. And this system age test right now, you guys are the only ones who basically…

29:07

using it, right? There's no other brands that are using it. That's right. That's right, Luke. It's our IP. We created it. And that paper that Alina mentioned, DNA methylation fail tests. We wrote it too. It's our paper. And that was the original…

29:23

impetus for this test. And so it's our IP through and through. It literally took us nine months to actually translate what we published in paper into the product that you're seeing, like an in-home blood test that you can collect the blood, the entire user experience, and you can ship it back to the lab. And you are placing the sample on

29:42

the chips that we have designed with Illumina, all of this 460 CPG sites, data analysis, our patented Oregon-based analysis and mapping that into your personalized action plan. All of that will be created. So yeah, so 20 years to do the research and then nine years

30:00

And nine months is, you know, in the biotech world is extremely fast. Most companies would have taken three to five years. But because Irina left Berkeley on a sabbatical, she just threw her entire weight into this. And, you know, there's a big difference between lab science and commercial science, which is something that as a non-biologist,

30:20

biologists and non-scientists, the only one of the group that's a non-scientist. I didn't know that before. And to see the speed at which the data science team moved and with Irina's help, it would have taken us five years without her help. So it's incredible. Very, very important. Yeah.

30:38

In terms of customer base right now, so majority of your users would be based in the US, I'd imagine? Majority are in the US, but we also have users in the UK, Germany, Germany.

30:53

UAE, Cabo, Mexico. So I think in Canada. So that's where we're at right now. We'll be in the whole world soon, but give us a few more weeks. Yeah. And we're seeing, interestingly, our user space are usually founders, CEOs, executives, or biohackers who are investing in their own health, or whoever is using Woof, RR Ring, that's already tracking and investing in their own health.

31:18

So these are our user base, which is totally like very aligning with who is listening to our podcast already. Oh yeah, absolutely. And I'm just sort of thinking about like,

31:27

Because they reach a point where, let's say, they've maybe exited one or two different companies. And like they're throughout a point in their life where they just want to preserve the quality of their life for as long as they can, right? Yes, yes. I mean, that's exactly where I came into this with my journey. So it was exactly that. Well, you can share to my listeners. I mean, you've got an absolutely epic background, man. And yourself as well, Alina. But yeah, just…

31:54

Like, how did you find yourself, like, emerge into this sort of space? Yeah, I'll try to make my story short. I'm usually long winded. But I mean, really, my whole life, I've had an interest in living a super long time. And then, like, maybe about 15 years ago, I just was like, you know what, I think this is real. And I'm going to try to live forever.

32:16

But I was still, you know, I had a job and I was, you know, I had some other companies with some distribution companies that I had started. I started a video game company and then I was working for the US government, designing software to detect fraud in the markets. And someone walked up to me and was like, let's go to Silicon Valley and start another company. So I went there and I was doing AI for seven or eight years. And then it was just time at a certain point for me to exit.

32:46

I did okay for myself. It was a billion-dollar company. He is really playing down, but I need to tell you guys. She hates it. She doesn't want me to get away with it. It's a billion-dollar unicorn company that partially got exited to DoorDash. It's not just an AI company. It's a real deal. Okay, so that. And then I was volunteering at an accelerator called Techstars.

33:12

And I was just helping some companies out there. And I unfortunately joined that too late to be part of the healthcare group. But Alina had a company, a different company at the time, a medical device company. She was pitching there. And long story short, we had a chat and she's like, what are you doing? And I'm like, I don't really have an answer to that. I just exited my other company. I was doing this Techstars thing, which ends today.

33:39

But the thing I'm trying to really get into and what I want to build is I want to live forever. And then she's like, come over here. And then like, fuck this company. Let's start a new company. Let's do it. And like a week later, we had this company. So yeah.

33:59

That was the short version of the story, but that's how I got involved. And, you know, I had been traveling and meeting scientists and investors about, you know, what's real in biology right now. What should I be trying to build around me? But Alina already had a great vision. She already had a great relationship with Irina Convoy. She was her undergrad student before she went to Harvard. And so, yeah, it was, she's like,

34:27

you got to meet irena and i met with them together and they're like listen michael everyone is guessing no one really understands the root causes of what makes you age and if you don't understand that then you're guessing on any therapy you come up with uh and i found it very convincing and she was like what we're going to do first is perfect this measurement tool so we can measure the causes of aging and then we can do something about it and i thought that was very pragmatic

34:55

And it was very convincing to me. And I was like, all right, I don't need to start it by myself. I'm going to join you guys and let's go. So we've been going a million miles an hour. That was two years ago. That's crazy. That's crazy. How much you've achieved in two years is wild. Like you said, any other company would take like three years just to process the process.

35:18

Yeah. Part of it is definitely like a lot of credits to Irina's 20 years of the science that she actually did research on aging. And this is really our first product. Like there's more exciting product that's coming out. That's actually able to be reversing aging, but we will hold that for the next episode. Yeah.

35:39

Well, in terms of interventions, are you more thinking down the route of health tech devices or more so like supplements and therapeutics? Like drugs. We actually invented a new molecule like three weeks ago. Oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness. That was a fun day. That's it. We'll hold it because major press will be coming.

36:04

Well, this is something I haven't really shared to my audience, but I mean, just a little bit about my background. My father's a pharmacist, right? And I had the choice of going down the route of becoming a pharmacist.

36:13

But I chose not to, and I was more so interested in like naturopathy, you know, natural holistic healing. But deep down inside me, I feel like one of my legacy missions and goals is to discover a molecule or an ingredient or a supplement that changes the world. So it sounds like you've already done that. We can find another one. Yeah.

36:38

Well, man, I hope so. You know, things are really exciting on that front. But, you know, it's easy to get excited about the future stuff. And we seriously are. But really, you know, we get phone calls every week right now with people calling us and saying, essentially, you saved my life in so many words. And, man, I got to say, like, I didn't expect the test to be have this much success and this much capability this early.

37:05

And it's just really motivational for the whole company to say, wow, these people are calling. You found calcification issues in my vascular system. You found an issue with my heart. You found an issue with my gut health. We had a doctor call us. She's like, Michael, your test is broken. I'm like, well, tell me more. And she's like, well, my readings are as expected. Where it's high, it should be high. Where it's low, it should be low. Except…

37:33

I have the perfect gut. Like I preach it. I work on it. I help so many people with their gut health. It's kind of my thing. You're telling me I have gut issues.

37:44

And she went back to her credit and did some traditional diagnostics, some additional research and testing. And she did uncover several issues with her gut health that she then addressed. And so it's really exciting when people are happy with you, but it's even more exciting when they're angry at you for telling them that they're old. And then they actually go and do the research and they're like, oh, yeah, actually, I'm finding a problem now.

38:12

It's really, you know, one of the biggest compliments we get on a weekly basis is please just keep telling the truth. And that to me is extremely rewarding, especially for what I said earlier is wanting to have a center of truth of what is real and what is not.

38:29

What does the cutting edge research say and what does it not say? And exposing that to both patients and doctors. So it's almost like our dream is coming through on that test and our promise to the world. That's incredible. So basically what you're saying is like she prioritizes, she actually specializes in gut health optimization or that particular area. And then she found out through the test that there was a lagging

38:57

organ system. She was asymptomatic, had no symptoms. She was not going to look for anything. But because of our tests, she looked.

39:07

And she found issues. So it basically prompted further diagnostics, right? Yes.

39:28

But they know where to look now. It would be very impractical to go and get, you know, 10,000 tests done at the doctor and test everything. So this is kind of like a great way to get a dashboard of your health. Yeah. And that's the power of pre-diagnostic, which is detecting early signals before things are actually falling apart. So you actually have the power to reverse the fact. You don't have cancer yet. There's still a chance. Yeah. That you can reverse it before it actually happens.

39:55

And in terms of the dashboard itself, how did you come about arranging that in a way from a user experience point of view, not making it too overwhelming for the customer? What did the iterations look like in terms of presenting that? We make the actionable items super clear for you and also tell you why do you need to work on that is because one of your top aging factor is reproductive health, is your immune system and also inflammatory health. So we give you

40:23

a very precise reason why do you need to do this therapy, medicine or longevity intervention. So the next step is very clear that after seeing the report, you're not knowing that, oh, I'm young. So I'm happy or I'm old. I'm sad. It's we're telling you that what do you need to do next step? Like we're guiding you holding our hand that this is your longevity journey. And we are telling you where is the map that you need to go for the next step to actually work on that.

40:49

And when you look at the first page, Lucas, you know, you see that we highlight the top five. And it's because it's a little bit overwhelming to see a readout of every system in your body. It's like, where do I start?

41:01

So we really just want you can always be doing things. You know, you get to basics and then there's like always things to do beyond the basics. So, you know, let's focus on the things that are causing you to age the most. Let's start there. And when you connect with the doctor, that's generally where they're going to start to. What are the things that are causing you to age the most in your body? Let's tackle that and then we'll move on as we go. So that's some of the thought between that.

41:29

by behind the report itself. But as Alina said, getting action plans early and explaining to you what's going on, connecting you with a physician to build your dashboard. These are kind of like taking you through the steps of the process. As you as you first get the test, we kind of release these things to you as you go, because we don't want it to be overwhelming. But we do want you to go talk to a doctor.

41:54

And so that is part of the cost of the test. It's not an additional cost. We may launch a VIP service to have like an hour long consultation in the future. But everyone should be able to get a few minutes with the doctor, explain my results to me and what exactly should I be doing? And it's just a great chance for us then to say,

42:15

what doctors are having the best performance and then trying to help people. Eventually we'll be able to help people pick things based on their biology without talking to a doctor. But that's far in the future. We still like the doctors. They're really, really important for interpretation, getting family history,

42:34

digging into other factors that we're not looking at, comparing that to your glucose monitor, comparing that to your HRT levels or whatever else it is you're testing.

42:45

So it's an important part of the picture, but it's not the whole picture. And with that being said, if any of your viewers want to talk to one of the top VIP doctors who serves Tony Robbins, Zac Efron, Chris Hemsworth, and all of the NFL players, or even Dr. Mark Hyman, we have all of those doctors. They're already using our text exclusively for their VIP clients. And their VIP clients are…

43:12

And these celebrities are literally emailing us and calling us saying, hey, I want to get the test. Like, get me tested. And you mentioned Adil. So he's also one of our doctors. Yes. Yeah, he's been on the podcast as well. Oh, really? Yeah, he's an incredible, incredible mind, incredible brain. And I just love his…

43:32

We're doing 7.30 a.m. to 11 p.m. every day right now. He's doing laps around us. That guy moves. He is using our test on every single one of them.

43:48

Oh, every patient that comes through here. Every patient that comes through his clinic. Eternal health. That's amazing. Yeah. That's so cool. Yeah. Well, that's what I was thinking before is like when it comes to actionable steps, when people want to actually make change and behavioral change, when they have the data points that they can actually look at and see firsthand, like this is where I'm lagging. Okay. Therefore I need to do X. It's like they're more likely to create changes

44:15

to facilitate behavioral change. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, you'll try something like I started taking a vitamin D because I thought I needed it. The last two reports are showing no change and I'm not feeling different. I have a workmate who takes vitamin D every day and like his results are much better because of it. So it really like

44:40

So-and-so is having a great response doesn't mean it's working for me. And that's like the big takeaway that I'm starting to learn. Not just because it's not working for me doesn't mean it's bullshit.

44:51

But it might be bullshit for me. So I should, you know, really take this test and try it out. And I always go to my results now because I have so many tests to look from. But is it working is a really powerful test for yourself and ask yourself, like, do you feel different? Can you see a difference?

45:11

And oftentimes you can't, and you just keep doing it anyway, because you bought these vitamins and they were expensive. Yeah. So in a summary is that if you can't measure it, you can't change it because it's not visible. And when I was dropping out of Harvard through my PhD in my med school, George Church actually giving us a quote because of what we are creating as a system age test saying that

45:35

The power of epigenetic is that you can actually foreseeing before the symptom is actually happening. And by seeing how your data is being refluxuating and changing based on epigenetic, that's the power of when you can change. And that's on our website. So you can literally quote him on that.

45:53

Wow. Incredible. Well, I'm looking forward to, cause I'm heading to Dubai in August when I arrive is I'm super excited to take the test myself. Like I can't wait. Oh, definitely. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, it's such an exciting space to be in. I mean, what, what, what's your, what's your like five to 10 year plan? Like what, what do you want to be known for? I'll let Alina answer that. Yeah. Yeah.

46:20

We are making aging an option, which means we do believe like in 10 years that we will be having the power to reverse and stop aging. And the reason why we are called Generation Lab is because we believe that this generation, whoever is alive right now, will be the generation that's making aging an option and have the power to reverse aging back to a younger stage. We'll all be ancients. We'll be the oldest humans alive. Yeah.

46:47

Yes. That's incredible. That's incredible. Well, was there anything else you wanted to mention to my audience in terms of, you know, I mean, future directions, you sort of mentioned that in terms of the iterations, you've evolved the product, you're planning on continuously improving the product.

47:05

Yeah, I think there's one last thing is, you know, we're always in development on the product. You know, we have 19 systems that we report on right now, but we actually have another four in development and two of them are in validation now. And the first one is skin and women's reproductive health.

47:23

So those two will be coming out real soon. And then we have two more in the works, which have a little bit of work to do, but it seems we have a strong enough signal to create a report on it. Yeah. So based on these data, we'll be having more and more precise way. For example, we've discovered that

47:40

if you're founders or CEOs or executives, you're aging 1.5 X faster than normal people. Don't tell me that I'm going to have to retire. You're traveling a lot because you're lacking of sleep. You're fasting. Like you're aging way faster than normal people does. And usually that speed is 1.5 X. So,

47:59

Usually. Brian Johnson is doing a little bit better. You have a shot, Lucas. Don't give up. Don't scare me. I won't book a flight ever again.

48:10

So if you see yourself lining in 1.3, like within founders, you're already doing great. But within normal people, you need to do a little bit more extra work. They need to install hyperbaric oxygen chambers on the plane. There you go. Now you're talking. That would actually be very useful. Yeah. It really would be. Look at the x-rays. It really would be. Yeah. That's the best place. That would be like super first class.

48:36

That's an interesting thing. As we're collecting more data, we are seeing that, for example, women in their 50s to 55 is actually accelerating a lot of aging. The first acceleration is when they're pregnant and delivering the baby. And the next acceleration is starting from 50 to 55. It's whole body aging faster because of the menopause. And men and women are aging very differently as well. And another thing that's fun to share is that because we always ask a lot of

49:05

to our users and we ask them, if you're having 20 more years of life, what are you going to do? Ooh, let's ask Lucas. Yes, what are you going to do, Lucas? I had to think about this because I actually was discussing it the other day. And if I had an extra 20 years with good quality, not just an extra frail… Hiking up mountains. Like healthy life. Honestly, I would probably…

49:35

Well, I think I pivot careers and I do something completely different to the health space. And I probably, I don't know, maybe start a business for, I don't know, some sort of mentorship, mentoring program for like younger kids. I mean, don't tell your audience that, man. They'll lose you.

49:55

We do find that usually when we're asking these questions, people are having three types of answers. And that actually represents three of us somehow, like in GenerationLab as founders. Michael represents four people who want to explore the furthest of the universe. What is the extreme of humanity? The boundaries of unknown.

50:19

I want to actually live up for the purpose that why I'm here on the earth is to protect more lives and making them live a longer and healthier life. So I need to achieve that before I'm dying. And similar to Irina is she needs more time to complete her work. She is like, I need to solve aging and I really need more time to actually make this solvable.

50:40

So three of us is having kind of similar but different perspective of aging. And some of people will say that, especially when they are having children or babies, they'll like, I want to spend more time with my children and I want them to see them growing up, getting married. I want to see my grandchildren. I want to play golf with them. I want to go hiking with them.

51:02

it really is time is the only limiting factor for humanity and if we're able to be giving more life a healthier and longer time that's invaluable i also think it's valuable if i may that um just think about the decisions we would make as people individuals differently if we knew we were going to be around for say i don't know make up a number 300 years

51:27

You're going to be around during climate change issues. You're going to care a little bit more about it. Sustainability. You're going to care a little bit more about building your house in a good place. You're going to care more about the development of your community and the water quality because you might only be 100 years old, but you're going to be there for another 200 years. So I really believe it changes the mindset of us as humans and how we govern ourselves.

51:54

to be able to be healthy and live really long lives and all of us to be part of a single generation, I think is just fundamentally changing the world and how we think. That's what I believe. And Alina is a little bit more benevolent than me. I just want to travel the universe and learn everything and try everything. Alina really does want to help people. So maybe we can speak to both sides of your audience.

52:23

Yeah, no, for sure. I think the idea of like wanting to explore and just constantly stretch the boundaries of what it means to be human. And like the idea of even like colonizing another planet to me is also quite exciting. Like I just, I'm open to that personally. I know some people are like, what are you talking about? We'll have to build a rocket ship together.

52:51

Yeah, well, we'll have time. That's the point. We can do that. Yeah. We'll make that happen. It's incredible. Well, I'll just mention for those listening in, if you do want to actually check out this incredible technology health tech kit, I will leave that linked in the podcast show notes. If anyone wants to actually order a kit,

53:09

or make sure to leave that link in the show notes. But otherwise, if anyone else wants to check it out, they can go to, at the moment, it's generationlab.com. That URL is active and live. But otherwise, Alina and Michael, thank you so much for jumping on the podcast. Oh, we had a blast. Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us. It was a good time.

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D:2025.07.09<markdown>

卢卡斯欢迎听众回到播客，并称今天非常兴奋，因为将探讨人体器官的衰老速度。他介绍了演播室里的两位嘉宾 ——Generation Lab 的三位联合创始人中的两位，迈克尔・萨斯韦尔和刘艾琳，并对他们表示欢迎。迈克尔和艾琳分别回应了欢迎。卢卡斯表示，他的听众对了解自身衰老速度非常感兴趣，提议先从 “表观遗传学” 这个术语入手，为听众进行解释。

迈克尔首先回应，他将 23andMe 所检测的内容比作公司的 “心率”，也就是 DNA，它决定了人的肤色、眼睛颜色等，是人体的 “硬件”，永远不会改变。而人体的 “软件” 却始终在变化，即基因的表达方式。生活方式、长期压力、频繁旅行等因素，都会导致 DNA 的表达发生改变，这就是表观遗传学 —— 基因如何被表达，那些随习惯和生活方式变化的身体特征，与那些永远不变的特征相对。对于我们关心的方面，每隔一段时间检查一次，看看表现如何是很有价值的。他和艾琳在尝试新事物时，比如桑拿或新补剂，都会进行前后检测，以观察 DNA 的反应以及身体因新行为而产生的衰老变化。他还提到，80% 的衰老取决于表观遗传学，而非 DNA 本身，因此检测表观遗传学非常重要。

卢卡斯表示，这比常规血液检测更进一步。他的许多听众可能已经每 3 到 6 个月做一次血液检测，也在进行各种干预，想追踪健身是否影响睾酮等。而迈克尔和艾琳所做的，是更进一步探索这些干预如何影响基因表达。

迈克尔认为确实如此，甚至可以说是两步。了解不同器官的衰老速度，并在问题发生前收到预警，这很有价值。他举例说，就像开车时刹车灯亮了，却不知道具体原因，可能是刹车片、刹车鼓或电路问题，这时候需要去 mechanic 检查刹车。他们的检测能看到身体 19 个不同系统的表现，以及最应关注和改善的方面。如果肝脏状况良好，就没必要去改善肝脏，而应关注其他问题。这能让人了解自身身体状况，进而采取行动。 他提到，Function Health 是一家不错的公司，让传统实验室检测在家或社区就能进行，更便捷便宜，很有价值，但他们所做的与之不同。艾琳作为生物学家，进一步解释，传统血液检测（如 LabCorp 等诊断公司的检测）是为 “疾病护理” 服务的，即检测是否患病。如果生物标志物（如血糖水平）超出范围，意味着已经患病，比如糖尿病。而他们的检测是 “健康检测”，能在疾病发生前检测到信号，发现各个器官（大脑、肌肉、肝脏、心脏、生殖系统等）衰老加速的早期信号，以及炎症等在发展成疾病前的状态。这不是早期检测，而是在问题出现前的 “预检测”，在疾病发生前看到信号。 迈克尔补充，FDA 认为，在达到某个阈值前都不算糖尿病，于是人们一直处于 “没事” 的状态，直到突然确诊糖尿病。他们认为这种健康管理方式并不好，而他们的检测能让人在真正的健康危机发生前了解情况。

艾琳表示，他们花了 20 年时间才理解人体各器官的衰老过程，而人们做检测不是为了知道自己 “老了”，而是想知道接下来该怎么做，以及逆转衰老的最佳方法。他们会一步步指导，比如告诉用户，与其服用某种物质，补充 NAD + 就足够了；与其做干细胞治疗，可能更适合血浆置换，因为体内过多炎症会抑制干细胞再生。他们会提供详细的行动计划，并匹配长寿诊所，指导用户的长寿之路。

迈克尔补充，检测报告中会有建议，比如尝试这个或那个，用户还会连接到一位真正的医生，医生会结合用户的家族史、日常活动等，制定行动计划，用户可以在自己的仪表盘上随时查看。

迈克尔谈到，他有时会被称为 “生物黑客”，但他有时会困惑于哪些方法对人有效，哪些无效，因为似乎每种方法都有相关研究支持。但实际上，不同人对不同疗法的反应不同，对他有效的方法不一定对艾琳有效。比如，有些人摄入大量果蔬，某种补剂可能对他们作用不大，而对于只吃生日蛋糕的人，这种补剂可能有益。这正是他们产品的价值所在，能让人了解自身生活细节和需求。

卢卡斯认为，这很令人兴奋，因为医学的未来必然走向更个性化、更精准的方向。迈克尔和艾琳所构建的，是让人们能实时看到生活质量的变化，并分析特定干预措施的效果。比如，艾琳每周三次桑拿可能比迈克尔更受益，或者有些人可能从间歇性乏食中获益，而这对基因表达的影响因人而异。 迈克尔表示确实如此，他坦言自己也会说某些方法有效或无效，但实际上只是对自己而言。现在处于 “统计医学” 时代，医生会说某一疗法对 90% 的同群体人有效，但个人可能属于那 10%，却要花很久才能发现。而他们的检测能让人们重新掌握医学主动权，看到在医生干预或根据网上信息采取行动后的身体表现。他自己也会看医生，但也会看很多 YouTube 视频和卢卡斯的频道，想知道别人在尝试什么，而现在他有办法看到这些尝试对自己的前后效果。 艾琳将其总结为 “BS 检测器”，因为市面上有很多宣称有效的东西，但人们无法知道其是否真的起作用。很多 YouTube 视频说某种补剂、药物是长寿的圣杯，但当被问及是否确定有效时，99% 的人都会说不知道，甚至没想过这个问题。迈克尔补充说，这也可以称为 “排除安慰剂效应”。他们一直在问人们 “这真的有效吗？”

卢卡斯好奇他们在个人实验和干预方面有哪些发现，哪些干预措施真正产生了影响。迈克尔表示自己有两个故事，询问艾琳是否想先讲，艾琳则想先分享一些案例研究，因为他们与 125 多家诊所合作，这些诊所进行不同的长寿疗法（如干细胞治疗等），他们能看到不同方法的不同效果，随后再分享个人经历。

迈克尔先分享了自己的经历：他的呼吸系统通常很好，但在一次检测中，呼吸系统的衰老指标突然上升，在后续检测中成为身体最差的系统。他不抽烟，于是开始思考原因，意识到那段时间是假期，他在封闭的车库里做木工活，且没有空气过滤器。他推测可能是这个原因，于是配备了空气过滤器，打开车库门，减少在车间的时间。在接下来的两次检测中，呼吸系统的指标恢复了，最近一次检测甚至回到了最佳状态。关键是，他在此过程中没有感觉到任何症状，只是从检测结果中发现了问题，通过逻辑推理找到原因并解决，在问题恶化前将其修复。而且有很多研究表明木屑会致癌，他很庆幸能及时发现。

卢卡斯询问检测的具体方式，是否是脸颊拭子检测。迈克尔回应，最初是脸颊拭子检测，但现在更多使用血液检测，因为血液信号更容易获取，信息也更丰富。未来可能会重新推出脸颊拭子检测。他们所测量的是身体对抗熵增、维持内稳态的能力。以他的呼吸系统为例，细胞因子、衰老细胞等不断冲击身体，导致组织分泌物质，使身体更难维持平衡。年轻时，身体在熵增和内稳态之间的波动很小，但随着年龄增长，快速恢复内稳态的能力下降，这种波动越来越混乱，这就是 “生物噪声”。在他的案例中，炎症因子等导致熵增加快，通过使用空气过滤器、减少在车间的时间，减少了导致生物噪声的因素，身体更容易快速恢复内稳态。

艾琳补充，他们通过分析超过 50 万份样本（年龄从 25 岁到 80 岁）来确定衰老速度。衰老不是疾病，必须区分衰老和患病。他们发现了 460 个特定位点，能紧密控制衰老过程，这是他们的专有技术，他们与 Illumina 共同设计了定制芯片，并申请了专利。通过这些，他们分析生物噪声对身体的影响，以及噪声来自哪个器官（大脑、呼吸系统、肌肉等），并针对性地解决。

卢卡斯询问评分方式，是否是百分比（如 100 分制）。艾琳解释，评分有两种，一种是 “生物年龄”，但这并非指实际生理年龄，而是表示身体系统当前的衰老速度与 39 岁人群的衰老速度相似，提醒用户需要关注，因为有能力将其逆转到更年轻的状态。

她举例，他们对接受干细胞治疗或血浆置换的数千样本进行案例研究，发现在干细胞治疗后 3 到 6 个月，前后对比有明显变化。卢卡斯追问具体是哪种干细胞（间充质干细胞、mu 细胞、干细胞外泌体等），艾琳表示人们使用的干细胞类型不同，但总体而言，干细胞在组织再生修复方面有积极作用，整体效果是正向的。迈克尔也表示，他原本对干细胞疗法持怀疑态度，但数据显示，有五六位患者接受干细胞治疗后，在一段时间内都有显著改善。 艾琳进一步给出数据：炎症衰老可逆转 13.6 年，大脑衰老可逆转 6.6 年，生殖系统衰老可逆转 4.5 年，这是来自标准化患者的真实数据。她还提到，血浆置换对减少炎症衰老很有帮助，因为它能清除体内积累的微塑料。

卢卡斯询问血浆置换是否比干细胞治疗更容易获得。艾琳表示这取决于具体情况，血浆置换是 FDA 批准的疾病治疗方法，可用于标签外用途，就像布莱恩・约翰逊所做的那样。现在越来越多的生物黑客（如马克・海曼、彼得・戴曼迪斯、布莱恩・约翰逊）开始采用治疗性血浆置换，这与 “年轻血液输注” 不同。他们的第三位联合创始人伊琳娜・坎博伊博士发明并发现，通过稀释旧血浆可以逆转衰老，这源于 2005 年《自然》杂志上关于年轻小鼠和老年小鼠血浆交换的 “异种共生” 实验。

卢卡斯询问频率数据，比如每年做两三次是否合适。迈克尔表示，大多数临床医生建议每年 3 到 4 次，但数据表明，要维持效果，可能需要更高的频率。艾琳补充，频率取决于个人的健康状况，不同人可能需要不同的频率。血浆置换就像给鱼缸换水，有益处，但每天换水，鱼会死亡。它也用于治疗血液疾病、糖尿病、药物过量、免疫排斥（如器官移植后）、慢性炎症或化疗后增强免疫系统等。

卢卡斯又想到其他干预措施，如雷帕霉素、粪便移植、微生物干预等，询问他们是否观察到这些措施有效果。迈克尔认为干细胞、外泌体和治疗性血浆置换的效果最为显著。艾琳表示，当人们进入生物黑客领域时，他们总是建议先考虑基础方面，因为即使一周的乏食也能显著改变生物年龄，减少炎症衰老，但同时肌肉年龄可能上升，因为会流失肌肉。很多事情并非纯粹的好或坏，各有优缺点，关键是要知道什么最适合自己。

迈克尔分享了一个案例：一位健康教练根据他们的检测结果停止了冷浸。冷浸有很多研究支持其益处，虽然有一些关于肌肉恢复的负面数据，但总体积极。但这位教练的检测显示心脏评分较高，她担心冷浸会给心脏带来过多压力，于是改变了干预方式以获得类似效果。他认为艾琳的观点很对，大多数事情并非全好或全坏，这就是需要数据的原因，数据是做决定的依据。

艾琳提到，她自己做了 10 多次检测，迈克尔做了 15 次，他们都用自己来测试各种方法是否有效。她曾认为一种绿色饮料有效，但检测后发现并非如此。还有很多她认为有效的东西实际无效，而像桑拿这种她没抱期望的，却有很大帮助。这让她通过数据而非广告，了解到哪些真正有效。

迈克尔接着分享了桑拿的经历：他每周 6 次，每次 20 分钟，在约 170 华氏度的环境下进行了一个月的桑拿，希望看到显著变化，但各方面指标只略有改善。他推测可能需要更长时间（如三个月），再进行检测。这种数据能帮助他判断补剂的效果，对于不清楚作用的补剂，他会停止使用，因为担心对肝脏造成负担。

卢卡斯认为，他们所开创的是衡量这些不同干预措施的效果大小和影响程度，基于客观指标而非主观感受，这种数据无法造假。迈克尔对此表示赞同，并做了一个比喻：很多检测就像嘉年华里猜体重的人，而他们的检测就像浴室秤，站上去显示的数字就是客观结果，没有其他解读。他提到邓迪时钟、霍瓦特时钟等，伊琳娜曾在实验室用它们测试疗法效果，但发现这些时钟无法区分健康和不健康人群，且使用 “弹性网”（一种线性回归模型）处理数据，每次检测时对不同读数的加权和偏差不一致，所以他们完全摒弃了这种方式，因为其结果是预测性的，且存在数据操纵。

艾琳补充，他们在 2023 年 9 月的《衰老》杂志封面发表了一篇名为《DNA 甲基化检测的失败》的论文，阐述了相关观点。他们的检测是测量而非预测，非常精准。

卢卡斯提到布莱恩・约翰逊最近分享的一个有效干预措施是高压氧舱，他自己也尝试了，好奇诊所或案例研究中是否观察到改善。迈克尔表示，几周后可能会有更明确的答案，他们希望使用高压氧舱的用户进行前后检测。他知道纽约的 Extension Health 诊所提供这种疗法，该诊所很知名，技术先进，每月使用他们的检测约 80 次，他推测如果该诊所使用高压氧舱且结合他们的检测，可能效果不错。

卢卡斯预测高压氧舱可能在心血管、氧化应激、炎症和呼吸系统方面有改善。迈克尔认为炎症的改善肯定会有，炎症是很糟糕的，减少炎症非常有益。

卢卡斯询问该检测是否名为 “系统年龄检测”，且只有 Generation Lab 在使用。迈克尔确认，Generation Lab 是一家生物技术公司，“系统年龄检测” 是他们的诊断产品，这是他们的知识产权，源于那篇关于 DNA 甲基化检测失败的论文。从论文到产品（如家用血液检测、用户体验、与 Illumina 设计的芯片、460 个 CpG 位点分析、基于器官的专利分析以及个性化行动计划等），他们花了 9 个月时间，这在生物技术领域非常快（通常需要 3 到 5 年），这得益于伊琳娜从伯克利休假后全身心投入，实验室科学和商业科学有很大区别，没有伊琳娜的帮助，他们可能需要 5 年时间。

卢卡斯询问目前的客户群体是否主要在美国，迈克尔表示主要是美国，也有英国、德国、阿联酋、墨西哥卡波和加拿大的用户，且很快会扩展到全球。艾琳补充，用户通常是创始人、CEO、高管、生物黑客（他们在健康方面投入，使用 Woof、RR Ring 等设备追踪健康），这与播客听众群体很契合。

卢卡斯认为，这些客户处于人生阶段，希望尽可能长时间保持生活质量。迈克尔表示这也是他进入该领域的原因，并分享了自己的经历：他一生都希望长寿，15 年前意识到这是可行的，便立志要活很久。他曾创办视频游戏公司，为美国政府设计检测市场欺诈的软件，之后有人邀请他去硅谷创业，从事 AI 领域七八年，公司成为市值十亿美元的独角兽，部分业务被 DoorDash 收购。退出后，他在 Techstars 加速器做志愿者，遇到了当时在做医疗设备公司的艾琳。艾琳得知他想长寿后，邀请他一起创办新公司，一周后公司成立。他之前一直在寻找生物学领域的机会，而艾琳有清晰的愿景，与伊琳娜・坎博伊博士（她的本科导师，后去了哈佛）关系密切。伊琳娜认为，人们在猜测衰老的根本原因，若不了解，对任何疗法的尝试都是猜测，他们的首要任务是完善测量工具，以测量衰老的原因，再采取行动。这一务实的想法说服了他，于是加入了团队，至今两年，公司发展迅速。

卢卡斯分享了自己的背景：父亲是药剂师，他本可以成为药剂师，但选择了自然疗法，内心希望发现能改变世界的分子、成分或补剂，他觉得迈克尔和艾琳已经做到了。迈克尔表示他们可以再找一个，并提到三周前他们发明了一种新分子，相关重要新闻即将发布。

迈克尔提到，现在每周都有人打电话说他们的检测 “救了自己的命”，这超出了他的预期。有一位医生曾质疑检测结果，因为除了她引以为傲的肠道健康检测结果异常外，其他结果都符合预期。这位医生通过传统诊断，确实发现了肠道问题并加以解决。当人们因检测结果生气（被告知衰老），随后通过研究发现问题时，这更令人兴奋。这印证了他们 “追求真相” 的承诺。

卢卡斯询问检测报告的仪表盘是如何设计的，以避免让客户感到信息过载，迭代过程是怎样的。艾琳表示，他们会为用户提供明确的可操作项，并解释需要针对哪些方面进行干预（如生殖健康

go on

、免疫系统、炎症健康等是主要衰老因素），让用户清楚下一步该做什么，就像在长寿之旅中牵手引导，告知前进的方向。

迈克尔补充，报告第一页会突出显示前五个最需要关注的方面，因为看到全身所有系统的读数会让人不知所措，不知道从何入手。他们希望用户能持续采取行动，先从基础做起，再逐步深入，重点关注那些导致衰老最快的方面，医生也通常会从这些方面入手。这是报告设计的一些思路。如艾琳所说，尽早提供行动计划、解释情况、连接医生制定方案，这些步骤会逐步呈现给用户，避免信息过载，但仍建议用户咨询医生。 目前，咨询医生的费用包含在检测费用中，未来可能会推出 VIP 服务，提供一小时的咨询，但每个人都应该能有几分钟时间让医生解释结果和具体做法。他们也会评估哪些医生的表现最好，以便更好地帮助用户，未来可能实现无需医生，根据生物学特征推荐方案，但目前医生仍很重要，能结合家族史等其他因素进行综合判断。

艾琳提到，他们的检测被一些顶级 VIP 医生使用，这些医生为托尼・罗宾斯、扎克・埃夫隆、克里斯・海姆斯沃斯等名人以及 NFL 球员服务，马克・海曼博士也是其中之一。迈克尔补充，阿尼尔博士（曾做客该播客）的 “永恒健康” 诊所的每位患者都在使用他们的检测。

卢卡斯认为，当人们有具体数据点，看到自己的短板，就更有可能做出改变，促进行为改变。迈克尔表示同意，他举例自己因认为需要而开始服用维生素 D，但两次检测显示没有变化，自己也没感觉不同，而同事服用后效果显著。这说明别人有好的反应不代表对自己有效，这是他从检测中得到的重要启示，并非否定该补剂，只是可能对自己无效，因此需要通过检测来确认，并参考多次检测结果判断效果，而不是因为购买了昂贵的维生素就一直服用。

艾琳总结：无法测量的东西就无法改变，因为它不直观。她从哈佛医学院博士退学，乔治・丘奇对他们的 “系统年龄检测” 评价道：“表观遗传学的力量在于，能在症状出现前预见，通过观察表观遗传学数据的波动变化，就能拥有改变的力量”，这句话在他们的网站上可以看到。

卢卡斯表示，他 8 月将去迪拜，很期待自己做这个检测。

艾琳表示，他们的目标是让衰老成为一种可选项，相信 10 年内将有能力逆转和阻止衰老。公司名为 “Generation Lab”，是因为他们相信现在活着的这一代人，将成为能让衰老成为可选项、有能力逆转衰老至更年轻状态的一代，大家都将成为活得最久的人。

迈克尔提到，他们一直在改进产品，目前报告涵盖 19 个系统，还有 4 个在研发中，其中皮肤和女性生殖健康两个系统已进入验证阶段，很快将推出，另外两个还在完善中，但已有足够强的信号来生成报告。

艾琳分享了一个发现：创始人、CEO、高管等人群的衰老速度比普通人快 1.5 倍，原因包括睡眠不足、频繁旅行、乏食等。布莱恩・约翰逊的情况稍好，卢卡斯仍有机会。

艾琳提到，他们会问用户：如果能多活 20 年，会做什么？她请卢卡斯分享想法。卢卡斯表示，若能多活 20 年且保持健康，他可能会转行，不再从事健康领域，可能会开展针对年轻人的指导项目。

艾琳说，用户的回答大致分三类，正好对应他们三位创始人：迈克尔代表那些想探索宇宙极限、人类边界的人；她自己是想实现保护生命、让人们更健康长寿的目标；伊琳娜则是需要更多时间完成研究，解决衰老问题。还有些有孩子的用户表示，想多陪伴孩子成长、见证孙辈成长等。 迈克尔认为，时间是人类唯一的限制因素，若能拥有更健康、更长的生命，那是无价的。他设想如果能活 300 年，人们会更关注气候变化、可持续发展、社区建设和水质等问题，因为会亲身经历这些，这会从根本上改变人类的思维和治理方式。艾琳更乐于助人，而他想探索宇宙、学习一切、尝试一切，他们的不同想法或许能迎合听众的不同需求。 卢卡斯表示，探索和突破人类极限的想法很令人兴奋，甚至对殖民其他星球也持开放态度，迈克尔提议未来一起造火箭，因为他们会有足够的时间。

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D:2025.07.09

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