Longevity program

It is said that Christmas is for children, and the young at heart.

What about the not-so-young, and the dual citizens (Filipino and senior)?

Aging, of course, is on adult minds not just during this season of joy. It is of special concern for people like me who are caring for loved ones suffering from cognitive decline.

So my interest was pricked by an invitation to the launch of a “longevity program” using genetic technology by the Wellness and Aesthetics Institute of The Medical City in Ortigas, Pasig.

The program initially smacked of utopian sci-fi, especially in this land of the science-challenged. In the invitation emailed to me, it was described as a program that “seeks to redefine aging by focusing on cellular health, offering individuals the tools they need to navigate their habits and lifestyle for a better and longer health span.”

Among other things, the longevity program features pharmacogenomics. This involves using a client’s unique genetic data to personalize medical treatment and predict the effectiveness and potential side effects of medication. Five genes will be examined to derive drug profiles for more than 180 types of medication.

Also part of the program is nutrigenetics – the idea that genes influence nutritionally related diseases such as diabetes. Based on genetics, personalized meal plans can be customized for over 800 nutrient gene genotypes. Weight management becomes more efficient. Athletic performance can be boosted.

Even if the program was being launched by one of the country’s top hospitals, I would have dismissed the promise of genetics-based lifelong wellness as medical marketing hype.

Except the consultant and technology curator for the program is Dr. Raul Destura, noted biotech expert who heads the Philippine Genome Center. The infectious disease expert drew national attention when he rolled out, in the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak, the first and only locally produced reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction test kit.

Remember the RT-PCR test, so limited and expensive at the onset of the pandemic when it was most needed? Doctor Destura’s GenAmplify COVID-19 RT-PCR Detection Kit was manufactured by his company, Manila HealthTek Inc., and priced so much lower than the imported versions. He has also developed a dengue testing kit.

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Destura is the director of The Medical City’s Clinical and Translational Research Institute. Seeing his name at the top of the invitation for the longevity program, off I went yesterday to The Medical City.

The program starts with biological age testing, to determine how fast or slowly your cells are aging. This, according to the invitation, aims to “evaluate life expectancy and health status based on biomarkers.”

I always thought all I needed for this was to look in the mirror and feel how much my bones creaked upon getting out of bed in the morning.

In this case, a blood sample is extracted from the finger, and the cells are examined for specific physiological indicators. Dr. Christian Flores, director of the Wellness Institute, told me biological age testing indicators have been established in the global scientific community.

The Wellness Institute’s patient No. 1, The Medical City president and group CEO Dr. Eugenio Jose Ramos, was happy to announce at the launch that while his chronological age is soon-to-be 68, his biological age turned out to be 62.

It’s personalized, predictive and preventive, with timely medical intervention allowing precision treatment. It allows skipping trial and error in medication. To illustrate, Doctor Flores said testing under the nutrigenetics program may show that a woman having trouble conceiving is low on folic acid. Nutritional intervention can then help deal with the problem.

While the technology has been available in several other countries for some years now, The Medical City is the first to offer the program in the Philippines.

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At the launch, it was pointed out that humans are living longer; the average lifespan in Japan, for example, is now 87 years.

But when the audience was asked who wanted to live to be a hundred, or even 110, only a few hands went up.

The objective in longevity is not just a long life but aging well, with cognitive functions and as much of physical and sensory capacities as possible intact. What good is living to the ripe old age of 100 if you can no longer take a shower by yourself, follow movie plots or even remember how many children you have?

There are anecdotal stories about the effectiveness of stem cell therapy. But so far, no peer-tested drug or medical intervention has been developed that can credibly promise to reverse Alzheimer’s.

The longevity program, unfortunately, does not cover cognitive decline.

And no, it will not erase wrinkles even temporarily like a Botox treatment, although nutritional intervention might encourage hair growth.

Still, the hospital aims not just to promote longevity, but also “to inject life into the years.”

It’s not a default component of treatment in The Medical City group; doctors will determine which patients might benefit from genetic precision treatment.

Also, as in any medical intervention, a key question is always the price. Will the cost of the lifelong wellness program give me a heart attack?

Those who can splurge on Botox and stem cell therapy will find biological age testing affordable at P50,000 to P60,000, and nutrigenetics at P20,000.

“Our motivation stems from the belief that living a healthy life and achieving lifelong wellness is a choice,” the invitation to the launch explained.

As Doctor Flores declared: “It’s not about living longer. It’s about living better.”