End of 2024: Reflecting on Progress and Looking Ahead to 2025
As I look back on my predictions of a year ago, I am slightly humbled. I wrote: “As so many health longevity clinics open up around the world, we will develop mechanisms to share insights and best practices,” and, “We are beginning to see promising pharmaceutical products targeting the mechanism of aging, and so will want to work with regulators to enable these to move much faster than before.” Both these items remain on the agenda, but—despite broad agreement that they are priorities—I struggle to see any major breakthroughs in this past year.
On the first issue, the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society led by Andrea Meier has continued its regular case study discussions that contribute greatly to knowledge-sharing. Building on this, my good friends Tina Woods and Joanna Bensz have launched an Institute dedicated to advancing clinical consensus, giving me hope for progress in 2025. Tina Woods also joined me for our first short interview series. This initiative brings the '10 Wicked Issues' to life through conversations with specialists. We are thrilled to share the first of these interviews with you in this edition.
Image: Unsplash
Pursuing the "10 Wicked Issues" in Healthy Longevity
This year, my '10 Wicked Issues' survey sparked remarkable engagement and highlighted key priorities. Public and Political Advocacy topped the list, underscoring the need for a fresh narrative around aging to drive investment and policy change. I am working with a small London-based group to create a draft and invite others to share anything they have along these lines.
Other top issues included Gaps in Scientific Knowledge, particularly debates on causative versus secondary aging mechanisms, and Biomarker Convergence, vital for assessing emerging therapies. Innovation Affordability also stood out as a reminder to ensure healthspan solutions reach billions, not just billionaires.
Lower-ranked topics like Clinical Trial Structuring and Regulatory Issues remain essential for robust evaluation systems, while Data Science and Personalization, though ranked last, could become the field's toughest challenge. Bridging large-scale research with individualized aging processes is a frontier I’m eager to see advanced in 2025, as the new power of generative AI is turned in our direction.
Longevity Skeptics: Challenging the Narrative
Meanwhile, in 2024, some "longevity skeptics" made their mark. Firstly, in a paper in Nature Aging titled “The implausibility of radical life extension in humans in the twenty-first century.” It concludes that we won’t see most people reaching 100 until we can fundamentally modulate biological aging. But that is exactly what scientists in the field are seeking to do.
Another paper, attacking the “Blue Zone" claims of supercentenarian communities, raised questions about the validity of these records, even citing pension fraud as a factor. The author even won an Ig Nobel Prize for his analysis. Much that the Blue Zones work highlighted—the value of family and community, plant-based diets, and exercise in the course of daily life—is surely unarguable, but skepticism about the accuracy of age records should give researchers pause as they approach studies on the world's oldest populations.
The Road Ahead for 2025
Where might we see genuine advances in 2025? The field of digital twins continues to grow rapidly, offering models that could forecast health outcomes and pave the way for "precision healthspan." I also see collaborative workshops addressing the '10 Wicked Issues' as a key opportunity for progress, and I intend to prompt these wherever I can.
Reflecting on the past year in the industry and our work, I’m reminded of the power of community-driven insights. As we launch the short interview series, I’m excited to bring even more voices into the conversation, fostering collaboration to bridge the gaps in industry dialogue. Whether it's advancing healthy longevity clinics, tackling regulatory hurdles, or fostering new narratives around aging, there’s much to work towards in 2025.
As always, I welcome readers’ observations and predictions and will showcase them here.
Happy holidays, wherever you are in the world and in your healthspan journey!
