“Ageing as a disease”: Longevity medicines fraternity builds framework to tackle ageing

Professor Andrea B Maier, co-director of Singapore-based Centre for Healthy Longevity, pointed out the above during her presentation at the Growth Asia Summit 2024 held in the city-state last month.

The geroscience expert gave a talk on the topic “Optimising health now: How cutting-edge evidence-based diagnostics and interventions can address the challenges of an ageing society.”

While there are diagnostics and interventions available to prevent age-related diseases, Prof Maier said that it was crucial for these to be embedded into a proper medical framework.

This will help health care practitioners in following a system or guidelines in making diagnostics and interventions.

“We have to build a framework, that's what we're trying to achieve at the moment,”​ she said.

The first step will be to acknowledge ageing as a disease that could be diagnosed and treated in the clinical setting.

“For the medical system to diagnose something, you need ICD codes, which stands for the International Classification of Diseases. Otherwise, I cannot bring this into clinical practice.​

“To diagnose something, I’ll need ICD codes, and so we’re working with the WHO (World Health Organisation) in acknowledging ageing as a disease,” ​she said.  ​

There is currently a related ICD code known as ICD XT9T that is included in the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision (ICD-11).

It defines ageing and the related diseases as “caused by pathological processes which persistently lead to the loss of organism's adaptation and progress in older ages”.​

Prof Maier said the idea was to help individuals who are identified as fast-agers or at higher risk of developing certain diseases in taking preventative actions.

“Everybody is ageing, but mainly a couple of us suffer more compared to others and then we should focus more on the ones who are ‘fast-agers’ versus the ‘slow agers.’​

“We will identify who are at risk, who will develop in roughly 10 years’ time, a disease, and then it's up to individuals to take action or not,” ​she explained.

Diagnose before taking supplements ​

Prof Maier is also the co-founder of CHI Longevity, a first-of-its-kind private clinic in Singapore that specialises in healthy longevity, including the reversal of biological ageing.

However, she is a staunch believer that before giving any interventions, diagnostics should be performed to know what exactly is required.​

“You cannot in my view ask anybody to take supplements or probiotics if you don’t know who that person is,” ​she said.

The types of diagnostics used could be categorised into three key sectors: 1) biological measurement at the genome level, 2) clinical measurements such as blood sugar level, and 3) digital measurement using wearable devices.

As for interventions, it could range from therapeutics, supplements, lifestyle and environment changes.

Testing the interventions ​

In addition, Dr Maier’s team is on a mission in finding out if supplements do what they claim to do.

“We are looking at every molecule to see whether it works or not,” ​she said.

An example with clinical evidence is nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), she said, citing a study published in Geroscience during 2022.​​

The study reported that taking 600mg of NMN daily for 60 days was the optimal dose for boosting the body’s nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+) and physical performance.

Another example is alpha ketoglutarate (AKG) which Dr Maier’s team is currently conducting a clinical trial on.

Known as the ABLE study​, the goal is to find out if individuals taking AKG will become younger in terms of their biological age.

The team also has an ongoing collaboration with Haleon to clinically trial its multivitamin supplements involving participants in their 40s to 60s.