Dr. Leonie Bode - The Longevity Revolution Decoded

In this episode, we explore the growing trend of longevity and why it has become such a major focus in today’s health and wellness conversation, especially with rapid advances in AI and healthcare. Dr. Leonie Bode joins me to unpack what longevity really means. It is not simply about living longer, but about extending healthspan so people can continue doing what they love well into old age without prolonged illness.

We discuss the balance between genetics and behavior, highlighting that while genetics matter, lifestyle choices can strongly influence how genes are expressed. This makes self awareness and informed decision making essential for long term well being. I also share parts of my own health journey and how learning to listen to the body can lead to meaningful behavioral changes.

A major part of the conversation focuses on technology, particularly wearables and health data analytics. We examine both the benefits and the risks of constant health tracking. While these tools can provide valuable insights, they can also become overwhelming if data is not interpreted thoughtfully and personalized to the individual.

We also discuss the changing nature of medical advice in the age of social media and generative AI. While AI offers powerful opportunities to identify patterns in health data, we stress the importance of combining these insights with medical expertise and critical thinking.

Mental well being is another central theme. Stress, pressure, and emotional health play a major role in longevity and quality of life, alongside physical health. We reflect on how balance, enjoyment, and even occasional indulgence can coexist with a longevity focused lifestyle.

Finally, we address accessibility in the longevity movement and how technology can help democratize health knowledge and tools. The episode closes with Leonie’s personal story and a powerful reminder that longevity is not a distant dream but an achievable reality built on awareness, informed choices, and intelligent use of technology.

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Transcript

[0:00] Hello and welcome. This is the podcast from Noise to Sound. And today I have a very special topic to discuss. I think one of the biggest trends in the market right now, apart from AI, is longevity. So today with me I have Leonie, who will actually help us to understand what is longevity and why this has become such a major trend at the moment. Thank you, Leonie, that you're here. Thanks for having me here. Thank you. So can you give us a little bit insight? I mean, let's understand, first of all, what is actually longevity? Because the word itself sows, I want to live a little bit longer. It comes sometimes from the history book from Faust.

[0:39] Perhaps you know that someone sells his soul, let's say, for the devil to live forever.

[0:45] But is it about that? It's about having, let's say, a healthy life. Let's define together, actually explain to us, what is actually longevity today? Yeah. so basically the word longevity means living forever or at least as long as possible um what scientists and medical doctors usually understand is living as long as healthy as possible okay so until you die like with maybe 100 years or something like that you should be able to do sport or do whatever you would like to do. And then at some point, eventually you will have to die. But then at least you don't have to suffer 20 years or 15 years. Okay.

[1:32] I mean, that's a good definition. But for me, it's also important to understand when we talk about longevity, right? Is this thing mainly a behavioral thing or is genetics?

[1:43] You know, we have right now, again, all this mood. So how much of this is behavior and how much is predefined, let's say, inside me? Yeah. Very interesting question. There are always new studies coming out and some telling you, okay, genetics is like super little. Some tell you, okay, genetics is a little bit more.

[2:05] We know that genetics have some kind of influence. So whatever your genes give you, that's your basic. Sure. But you can modify it almost everything. In the genetics? Yeah. Like, not everything. Some genes are there that are maybe coding for certain diseases. Those are not modifiable. But apart from that, there are a lot of genetic parts which you can modify with behavioral changes. Okay. So you can modify some kind of your genetic expressions, which is quite interesting. Obviously. And exciting. But of course, you would have to know what patterns you have and how to influence them to make it beneficial. Yeah, I think that's the patterns. I think you had a very nice talk last time in TEDx. I've just listened to it. And you said, we need to listen to our body. Yeah.

[3:01] So when you said about listen to our body, I said, okay, I think sometimes my body speaks a language that I don't understand. So for us who are not coming as doctors yeah i mean listen to our bodies it's certain point understandable but in most of the cases we always downgrade it oh i'm tired oh the weather or the food i don't know yeah so what is the best way to decode when my body talks to me let's say, Very interesting question. And I think almost no one really understands what its body says until you start to decode it. Me neither. Like in the beginning, when I was in university and started working, I didn't understand my body. And I was eating like normal and I love sugar, like basically chocolate. Everyone. Yeah.

[3:55] But it really sent me on some kind of roller coaster. Yeah. But I thought it was just me. And then at some point, I realized, okay, some people are giving me snacks because I turned to get angry quite easily when I got hungry. So that was not nice. But at some point, I did some continuous glucose monitor and realized that these mood swings or angry faces absolutely fall at the same place like the glucose dipping. Okay. And the more chocolate you eat, the more you dip. And if you eat five times a day chocolate, then it's like really going up and down, going up and down. So, and knowing that, then you can somehow... Turn back a little bit or look back and understand these patterns. And glucose monitor is a very good thing. You can also use some wearables where you detect your heart rate variability, for example. You can measure, like this is a marker for relaxation, basically, or recovery.

[4:58] And when you do training or when you train very heavily, often you don't sleep well in the evening. Are you? Yeah. You don't know that because you haven't measured it's not everyone it's not everyone but like for a lot of people that's the case um but but you wouldn't you wouldn't even recognize that you would just feel tired or a little bit foggy maybe the next day but you wouldn't know why okay but with these little measurements that you can do you can start to decode somehow your body and then you learn to understand it that's actually a very fair point and you give me a nice pass now, because I'm coming, of course, from engineering and IT. You spoke about wearables.

[5:39] And right now it's a trend. Everyone has, you know, these hoots and smartwatches and you name it, whatever. And it has a lot of data. They provide a lot of data and there's very nice graphs and crazy apps and notifications of what you should do and not. Yeah. I mean, decoding something for you, I would say. Somehow. Somehow. Exactly. So I see a lot of numbers. Which actually only just saying I'm just thinking like a target but I don't decode them as a whole I'm just saying okay my heart rate I have to put it there but I don't care for the other metrics so at the end of the day I have everything and still I don't understand anything.

[6:23] So I think it's a great market the wearable it's a great gadget but still does it really give me this something extra that I would use for my quality of life? Question mark.

[6:36] I absolutely agree. And it can also stress you out a lot. Yeah, it does. It does. I know. Because you need to hit the targets. I know. I know. And the targets are set equally for every person. Yes. So there it's not individual. Like longevity usually should be a very individual path to health. Yeah. And everybody is different. Like my microbiome is completely different to your microbiome. Your genetics are different to mine. Like whatever. And these metrics are applied to everyone, like same age, same gender. There you go. And this can stress people. For example, heart rate variability, this recovery metrics, this is super individual. And this is also genetically determined. So when you want to achieve a very high recovery score, but you're just prone to a lower one because you're just physically not able to achieve that. You always feel stressed out. So this is something why I know that a lot of people start to removing their wearables because they just get stressed out. Yeah. I mean, to be honest, it's just like, I mean, at some point, because you don't understand, it becomes a watch again. Yeah.

[7:54] It's not a wearable anymore because, I mean, you've done the fun part for the first two weeks. You have some performance improvement or you hit some numbers and then you don't

[8:05] understand that and you say, okay, I will check the time or the notification whenever it comes. And for me then, the question is, I mean, on the other side, as a doctor, these numbers usually doesn't, I mean, it's not something that you can use because this is not a medical device. It's just a gadget at the end of the diet. So they're quite good. Yeah, yeah.

[8:33] Honestly, it's a gadget which actually brings very close. Exactly. But I cannot go to a doctor and I give this number and say, this is the proof. Yeah. Is it? I mean, People or doctors that are trained in longevity, they will be able to read these numbers and decode them together with you. Because I think that's the missing part. And all these wearable technologies, they try to integrate that because you would have to learn basically what is normal for this human. And because there is so much influence, like food influences, social life, stress, like so many things come together. That you would really need to interpret it on a very individual basis.

[9:20] But if they do that, then it becomes a medical device, which is quite difficult. It's tricky. But this is why right now we still have doctors, luckily, because they can interpret it when they are skilled or trained to do that and help you understand these patterns.

[9:38] Now, you brought me to another point now. So we still have doctors, but now we have AI. Everyone is, before going to the hospital, going somewhere, we're asking, chat, GPD, whatever it is, whatever you're using, or Gemini. And they say, I have these symptoms, or this is the case, what I have right now, what might be. And if it seems logical, I keep this answer. So I might not go to the doctor, for example. Or at least I can drop these numbers from my wearable into the chat GPD and say, you know, what do you think?

[10:13] So in the same moment, I feel a little bit smart because I don't need to go to a doctor and to the longevity expert. So I say, okay, you know what? I would smart the system. The same time, I have no responsibility from someone who says, yeah, this is right. So what is now the impact, I would say? Now we have wearables, we have data, let's say at home or personal. We have, and now we have AI, this link now that we have. How much this effect helps or not help, let's say, longevity journeys?

[10:46] I think it's super exciting because for the longevity path, you would like to collect as much data as possible. And this is too much for a human to interpret everything like you want to have blood values dna values sleep values only doctors understand that anyway yeah only doctors but not every doctor understands everything because you have to be super trained for this because you cannot study it right now like there are some classes that are taught but like when you go to university and come out you have no clue about longevity basically and when you do the training afterwards you don't learn about longevity so it's all coming after and it's this field is moving so rapidly that you have to really keep up to be able to do it so doctors now they can do it they can do it manually but with the help of ai you can much easier see pattern recognition and condensing it I think it still helps for now if a doctor can then have a look at these condensed data and.

[11:53] Explain it to you. Yes. And also set it a little bit in a context. But for analyzing this data, AI is genius. And I think this will be what pushes longevity a little bit further again. Okay, that's a fair point. Because the next question I have is like,

[12:11] right now, for the majority of us, of course, it's a trend that came like all trends came from US. The elite part of US you know Los Angeles I have money.

[12:21] Longevity trends and so on so forth the right gym the right food the right I don't know you know what I mean, so for all the rest who are not living in Los Angeles or Miami and mere mortals like us so longevity it's an expensive sport, so question is for me is I mean AI of course will make it, more accessible on one side. But on the other side, I would say, If that's so preventive, let's say, why can't we have it, let's say, normal? Because right now it costs a lot. It used to cost a lot more. It costs a lot still.

[13:06] Will this be accessible as knowledge, as tools, as examinations, you name it, or plans, health plans to the mass, at some point of time which we will be able to see it? I really think so because right now we can detect a lot of measurements already, and with AI, if we can use the AI to interpret these, then the price will go down because then you would have to pay for the lab costs or whatever kind of tests you undergo, but not that much for the interpretation. And right now, I mean, what is expensive is the staff that looks at your data and makes sense out of it.

[13:50] And once that can be done by AI, but then you have to have AI that is medically certified. Yeah, that's another thing. So I think this is a little bit the barrier right now because no one... And the data, of course. And the data, of course. I mean, I don't want my data to be very public.

[14:07] And I have another question there as well. I mean, assuming I have paid everything, I have my plan and you give me a plan and I know what I need to do to live better, longer, healthier quality of life, you name it. But it needs somehow, if it's also behavioral, it needs a little bit of a discipline. Assuming you say to me, you know, I've checked the pattern, I see your genetics, whatever, this is what you should eat or you should go to the gym or whatever, you should run so much, whatever. It requires discipline. And mind it? Yes and no. I guess? Yeah. It does. But if you measure it and you see what it does, like when I saw my glucose swings, I was like, shit, if I continue like this, I will develop diabetes. So I just stopped. And for me, it was not hard to stop because I just saw how it went. And I realized, okay, I get angry. I get tired. And as soon as I stopped that and changed my nutrition accordingly, I felt far less tired. I had no brain fog anymore. I had not these swings that I got angry when I was hungry. Now when I'm hungry...

[15:19] Whatever you don't go to chocolate no i can skip a meal easily and this is something that i feel personally and this is what keeps me motivated because i think when you see the data and understand it then it's not then it's more compared to eat healthy like everyone knows you should eat healthy but if you see what it does so the proof itself you mean yeah it will give you trigger the discipline itself. Because right now discipline is theoretical. It is. But if you, I mean, you're an engineer, like you should be someone who likes to see data. And if you see data change, you can connect it. And if you also feel it, like if you really start to listen a little bit and understand what changes your body does also, then you will understand, okay, your performance gets better, your mood gets better, like everything is somehow connected and i think that is a very or for a lot of people this can be a very good motivation i think that's i can absolutely relate because i think discipline by itself i mean we all know we have to do things so discipline is in everyday life uh it's missing sometimes yeah because you have to do things

[16:32] and you don't know what it costs you health-wise so when you see the cost of it, probably the there's not discipline anymore but it becomes a lifestyle and i understand it fully but for me it's also now.

[16:44] We're living in an environment which is very performance-driven. We're in Switzerland, but in the middle of Europe. And of course, I mean, health is very much a body-type thing, right? But at the same time, you have a mental, I would say, pressure, let's say. I mean, you need to perform. We live in this world, right? Yeah. And we have the behavior, you have your genetics, and you have this impulse from outside. So it influences you as well. So, as I said, you can have discipline, but if your life is busy, it's a busy life, period. So, how much this mental pressure that it can happen, I mean, everyone's talking about this, is influencing also longevity? I mean, mental pressure or stress is a huge trigger for everything. When you're stressed your cortisol levels go up this then triggers inflammation inflammation triggers other things like it's a whole circle and you never can cut out the mental part yes but it goes really hand in hand like you can lead a very busy life without feeling.

[17:58] Being at the edge or on the edge like all the time yeah pressure but not stress exactly like you you can cope with a bit. Like, pressure is not bad always. Yes. if you.

[18:11] Eat well, for example, the gut health has a huge influence on your sleep and on your mental performance as well. So like when you eat burger and chocolate and Coke all the day, but you will feel it, like your mental resilience will go down.

[18:28] True. I can say that. Yeah. For sure. But you crave these things when you don't feel well because they give you some kind of satisfaction on the short term, but on the long term, they harm you. But, of course, longevity is not only about measuring values, like heart values, but also about social belonging, fun. And this is why some people in this longevity world tend to be super strict and say, like, never drink alcohol, never eat chocolate. That's another thing. That's another thing, because you also need to enjoy life. And I think it's very well possible to kind of combine these two in a healthy way, that you just don't overdo it. Yeah, I remember also an ancient Greek philosopher said, I mean,

[19:17] you have to take your, where the measure for you is, then you have a healthy life. For example, right now we have the same trend, like everyone is going away from alcohol as if it's the worst thing in the world. And of course, it's not the best thing in the world. but it's not the worst thing in the world if you do it consciously and once in a while. Socially, you have a beer or two or a wine or something. If you have every day a bottle of wine, obviously, it doesn't help.

[19:47] But I think having control of things, I think, is the most important part, especially in that area, especially right now. I mean, we see a huge part of the Generation Z moving away of things that, of course, we knew it from before. I think we didn't need any studies to know that alcohol harms somehow, but now becoming super radical.

[20:09] Yeah, maybe, I mean, alcohol, now we know there is no lower dose of alcohol which doesn't damage your body. So whatever, it always damages somehow, and it always deteriorates your sleep somehow, it influences the sleep. So, but if that is something that gives you pleasure, and then it would probably not be the right thing to take it away from you because. Yeah, I mean, once in a while at least. Once in a while, exactly. If it's a pleasure every day, then you should maybe probably get more disciplined there or find something else. Yeah, I think as well. I mean, I think we've been very radical to that.

[20:51] And I want to bring you that to another topic right now. We were talking about, you know, a little bit those trends. We see now in social media, social media longevity. Now, there is a lot of pressure for social media. Hey, take this medicine, take this peptides. and the people have great bodies and try to convince you from something that they have done, although they are not experts, they're normal humans and haven't studied doctors, let's say, or whatever.

[21:21] And of course, through their accessibility on followers and people, they impose things very prominently in the market. And these things pop out right now. yeah so how can we secure ourselves from such impulses let's say from social media yeah experts yeah a lot of experts yes um.

[21:46] What I would say is everyone knows more or less what healthy is. Like you have to move, you have to eat properly, you have to sleep, you have to see some friends. That's the basis. And of course, it looks a little bit different from person to person how you would do it. Like what kind of sport you should do, for example, could be different from how I should do it. Like everyone should do strength training and endurance training. But the intensity and the way it's made, it's super different. And I think that is also a little bit of the danger from seeing these influencers because they do one thing and promote this one thing, which might be very good for their bodies, but might not good at all for another body. And this is a little bit this individual thing. And longevity works well when it's really tailored to your needs. So when you have done some analysis, and not only blood analysis, but like some broader analysis that you have a real picture of your body, then you can give very targeted advice that is really pinpointed to your needs. Mm-hmm.

[22:53] All of these, of course, eating chocolate is not good. That's a general thing. But not everyone behaves or reacts the same way. And just grabbing things right and left can also be dangerous. Like you don't want to swallow supplements that you then get overdosed and get side effects from that. Because some influence it. Yes, I think then that's the danger.

[23:13] I see at the moment, you know, we had these medicines that came out and you could be thinner. Yeah. This is a medication, of course, and it's tested and so on and so forth. I understand that. Of course, it has a social side of it. I understand it as well. There's a supplement, and the supplements are meant there to help, and I think they found a very easy way into the market through the vitamins that we all more or less, due to the weather, whatever, sometimes we take.

[23:50] But I think, as you said, we sometimes correlate the results of a person, to what we could do, let's say, for ourselves and having. I mean, that's very difficult socially-wise to take out of your brain. But you said before, we don't need to do only blood tests. What other tests do we need to do to, say, have a better picture for ourselves? Yeah. I mean, blood tests are a good starting point for sure, but they only tell you a little screenshot of the whole picture. What is super helpful is some kind of body composition analysis. Just to figure out how the muscle distribution is and how much muscles you have and especially all the visceral fat. Okay. Because you can be super slim and super skinny and still can have a lot of visceral fat inside your tummy, which you don't see. Yeah. And that would be detrimental on the long term. Really? Yeah. Although that's what you didn't know. So this is something that makes sense. Another quite interesting or probably the most interesting longevity parameter if you just have to pick one is the vo2 max like endurance yeah um which is you can measure it with the clock you can go somewhere they're easy tests but that is something that gives you a very good understanding of where you stand same as strength test you can just do a grip strength test.

[25:15] And um for a lot of people i know this continuous blood glucose monitor was super helpful because you can see how your body reacts on certain kind of nutrition. And this can be super different from person to person. Yeah, I can understand that, yeah. Like for one person, for example, you get a very huge glucose spike when eating a sushi bowl. Yeah. And another person just doesn't get anything. And it's like day and night. So it's hard to give one recommendation what to eat because some people just react differently. But now when we were discussing about, you mentioned before also,

[25:56] apart from the measurements that one has to do, and of course, when you do such consultations, right, and you have these measures and these measurements and so on and so forth, do you create a plan for that? It's just awareness. I mean, now I know, for example, that if I eat chocolate, I have my glucose up and down and that's it. So I have to take care. Or this has to come hand in hand with the plan together. Otherwise, it's half of the truth. Yeah, yeah. I think it really depends on the person. Like some people like to have very detailed plans and like to follow plans. That's the engineers. Maybe.

[26:36] And other people rather like to understand some patterns and start at some point. I think it never works when you try to change everything at the same time. So it makes sense to understand what are the most urgent priorities and then start on these. And for example, genetic testing, this is also something that is quite interesting. You only have to do it once. And you can do a whole genetic testing, which you can do, but also you can skip it and only do part. Because there are some very interesting parts of your DNA which you can measure and understand, for example, how you metabolize certain vitamins, like B vitamins, for example, or vitamin D or... We have anyway no vitamin D.

[27:24] Exactly, but some people can, you have to activate it in your body. Same with B vitamins. And some people just lack of this enzyme. They lack this enzyme to activate it. And this is something that you would never see in a blood draw, but you would only see in this test. And then you can take some supplements, basically, just to bridge this. Enzyme for example that doesn't work well in your body and this is something that you do once because that doesn't change um so this is also helpful that's a good input because i i thought you know usually doing um doing something like that with you know just with blood this would be enough yeah but there you wouldn't see it like there your vitamin levels could be super good yeah but then the activation is where it lacks and then on the midterm or on the long term this will put you on risk for cardiovascular disease, for example. So this is something there. It makes sense maybe to get a plan to understand it or like the most important priorities.

[28:27] But this is not something that you have to repeat on and on and on. Yeah, I understand. I'm sorry. But one of the things that's actually for us,

[28:38] we discuss about longevity is the biggest fear that I think every human has is how can I avoid, let's say, by having knowledge of my body, of my genetics and so on, so if my behavior change, cancer. Because I think longevity, it's on the core of it.

[29:00] Taking all the measures I can. I mean, at least when I started seeing about longevity stuff, all the measure I can to avoid or minimizing, avoiding, I don't know, but minimizing the effects that I probably have one day cancer. And I think, is there a link to that somehow, or is it the pinnacle of all research that's happening right now? No, like cancer, you cannot prevent it completely, but you can relevantly lower the probability that you will get it. Because cancer, as far as we know right now, is also a disease that just doesn't appear like this, But there are some things that have to fall in place and they accumulate over life. And if you're super stressed and have high inflammatory parameters in your body all the time, like these puts you a little bit more on the risk side.

[30:00] But it doesn't mean that if you lead a super healthy lifestyle, you will not get it. And I think this is something to keep in mind and also for people who might happen to develop cancer, that it's not their fault. Because if you say, yeah, but that means your body was not super healthy all the time, like you did a fault. I think if we do this, then it gets dangerous. Yeah, I think so as well. Therefore, I'm saying sometimes, of course, it's great if you can do the best in terms of behavior. But sometimes you cannot avoid stuff. I mean, you can only delay or so, but you cannot avoid stuff. So i'm just coming a little bit back to you so you study a little bit medicine and so on and the question for me is how do you i mean you personally how do you move let's say not being, 100 examined let's say your profession and say i will do that i will do longevity i mean what triggered you personally what why it is so important to you i mean that's just as an interest.

[31:08] Yeah um one was a very personal um thing probably um when i was younger my dad he had like severe allergies whenever he touched some kind of apple like his lips swell up immediately okay and it was like really severe and then at some point he went to see a doctor who treated him with some kind of lifestyle changes it was like in the beginning making fun a little bit of it was like okay now you have to change your nutrition fine now you take some vitamins fine where should this go to and at some point his allergies like almost disappeared and he even ate an apple and i was like oh wait a moment something that this doctor did helped him and it was not medicine because all these medication he took and desensitization and like nothing worked and that got my interest already and then working in hospitals i saw that most of the diseases i was treating i was like okay fine but this could have been prevented very easily and people just didn't know how and why.

[32:13] And this was basically what motivated me to change that, because now there's so much knowledge, and with the help of AI, it accelerates even more. And it's really a good time to understand the body. And I think it gives us a very good power that we are not victims of our body, but we can somehow create it and influence something, at least to a certain point. Yeah, I think we are going towards that as, I mean, technologies here, all progresses and humans as well become more open. So I think it's changing definitely a lot. And even if your parents have been sick, for example, from whatever lung disease or something or cardiovascular disease, this is a typical one. And you see, okay, my dad has it, my grandma had it, like it will happen to me as well. Now we know okay maybe but probably you can do a lot to prevent it yeah true and I think this is super empowering yes of course because we want we have the means now yeah I mean in this time yeah, of the world, let's say, to go across that. That is for sure. And you're also engaged with startups. We have one, your company, and you're trying to really come close and solve such problems. So I wish you, let's say, all the best for that venturing. Thank you.

[33:40] You can explain us perhaps a little bit what you do or if you want to. Oh, I think this is a little bit, that goes a little bit further. Yeah, don't worry, don't worry. But anyway, you can give us, let's say, I bought some information that can publish together here for the public, let's say, if you want to. And from our side, I want to wish you all the best there and thank you very much for your inputs. Thank you. Thank you very much as well. So thank you also for being here and following the podcast. We'll keep in touch also from your feedbacks. And if you have also any idea or any wish for future guests, please write me and hope to see you to the next one. Thank you very much, Slewini.