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The Good Question Podcast
Engineering A Longer Healthspan Dr. Adrijana Kekic On AI, Biomarkers & Precision Longevity
00:39:23
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- [00:01]
A
You're listening to the Good Question podcast with Richard Jacobs. Our goal is to make each of our guests exclaim, hmm, that's a good question. I don't know the answer. Because when that happens, it means you, the listener, may be inspired to learn more beyond the interview and to ask great questions yourself that lead to new insights. In this podcast, we cover historical and current anthropology, comparative religion and history. Welcome. And let's get started.
- [00:36]
B
Hello, this is Richard Jacobs with the Good Question podcast. My guest today is Adriana Kickic. She's the founder of Future Rome. So we're going to talk about biomarkers and what the concept of cellular drift means and how dysfunction can progress silently. Despite all your labs looking normal, which is very unusual. I remember years ago I had thyroid cancer and I learned for people that have thyroid cancer, for instance, usually unless it's like Hashimoto's or something, all your labs could look norma. So I've experienced this. So, yeah. Adriana is a nationally recognized leader in precision pharmacogenomics and systems based medicine. So we're going to talk about her current work. So welcome. Adriana. Thanks for coming.
- [01:15]
C
Thanks so much for having me. Richard, I am so excited to have a chat with you.
- [01:19]
B
Good. How did you get into biomarkers and how did you learn about, you know, the topics that you write about, your research and you teach about?
- [01:27]
C
Yeah. So just for some background, because we are also getting to know one another and probably me to your audience. So I am a pharmacist. Pharmacist by training. I'm a pharmacist, nutritionist, healthcare innovator, but really at the core of things, I'm pharmacist by training. I'm trained in genetics. I am clinic trained and awarded there. But I became a systems thinker while I was at Mayo Clinic, which then led me to become a longevity pharmacist. And how that happened is especially in respect to biomarkers, is I continuously would see something that most people would not see, and that is patients would come to see me. Everything looked good on paper, but they still were not feeling good. So like you said, you had, and I'm sorry to hear this, you had thyroid cancer. I unfortunately, like you said, see this with number of folks where their labs may look normal and yet they may not only not feel, you know, well, you know, in optimal health down the road, months and sometimes perhaps even years, they end up with some really significant chronic disease. This is something of a similar path, Richard, that actually happened to me, believe it or not. So While I was Mayo, they hired me specifically to do, to spearhead something called pharmacogenomics. So let me really briefly explain what that is, because it does tie into this whole world of biomarkers. Pharmacogenomics simply means that we can use your DNA, look at your genes, because you can find genes on your DNA. So we can look at your genes and they can tell us how well can you metabolize a medication or even how well you may respond to a medication even before you take that medication. So pharmacogenomics is kind of like a tool of this precision concept of precision or personalized medicine. So Mayo hired me to help spearhead. That's what I was doing there for almost a decade. In 2021, I, while at Mayo, I nearly died from something that was preventable, and it was missed. And not only did I, I mean, I missed my own symptoms. So I don't blame any of my physicians. We all missed them. We all missed my symptoms because we were focused on what the standard blood work showed. And that standard blood work showed everything was good and normal, when in reality, I had massive blood clots that were accumulating in my lungs to the point that they nearly killed me.
- [03:57]
B
Oh, wow.
- [03:58]
C
So I am intimately familiar not just as a healthcare professional, but also as a patient myself, because I became overnight, I went from being a healthcare professional to ending up in ICU to becoming a patient. And so I am very familiar with this concept of just because your blood work shows. Shows that everything is good, quote, unquote. That doesn't necessarily really represent the full picture of your health. And there is quite a bit that we can really not be able to see through that standard blood work.
- [04:27]
B
Yeah. How did you get these clots, by the way?
- [04:29]
C
I will tell you briefly. I injured my right knee. I'm a former athlete, not a professional. I did martial arts my whole life. I squatted. I. As I squatted, I tore three ligaments in my knee. And I was supposed to have a surgery just. So this was November 2021, when I injured my knee in December Liter a month to date, December 2021, the day before my scheduled surgery, I passed out at home and nearly died. And it's actually quite a miracle that I was able to pull through, but I did. And so those clots came from my legs, something called deep vein thrombosis. So when you injure yourself, your body goes into this, like, overdrive high mode to really kind of help with an injury. And what happens during that process is you start to make blood clots. But however, if you, you don't pause on that, if you don't stop on that process, the inflammation and blood clots really can take off and those clots can travel and lodge into your brain, your heart or your lungs. I got lucky. They launched in my lungs.
- [05:32]
B
Yeah, lucky, lucky. It sounds like there's no good place for them to lodge.
- [05:35]
C
No, there really is not. And so you know, that, as you can imagine, truly pulled the rug underneath my feet. And the reason was this. At that time Richard, I was already very involved with AI based solutions. We were using something called deep learning and machine learning to kind of build these algorithms based on many biomarkers, especially genetic biomarkers, to be able to say what does Richard or Adriana's makeup look like in terms of their either genetics or other cellular parts that we can then appropriately and with precision prescribe the good treatment for them. And I thought, my God, how is it possible that not only was I disconnected from myself, from my own symptoms, not knowing, but also as a healthcare profess that we're in the 21st century and I nearly died from something that was incredibly, you know, preventable. We should have caught this. So I decided to go and do something about it, which out of that, you know, path came my company. And what we really do with futur is my philosophy that everything is cellular in I mean everything is information and my way of viewing it things is what I call original CIA cellular intelligence in action. Which means that we are more than our just a standard bl. I wanted to connect the dots that are currently not existent in healthcare and that is these technologies, something called multiomics. I'm happy to expand. So multiomics along with AI based technology called digital twin. So we can then see what's happening in the cellular level, hopefully years or months before you end up with some disease or condition. And then secondly, and more importantly, use those insights to build out your lifestyle, operating system so we can tell you nutrition wise, what to eat, how to eat, when to eat, how to move, how to exercise, how to rest, sleep, stress, relational health. And the biggest pillar that I'm usually mostly kind of focused on is substances. So either supplements, medications, peptides and so on, we can truly personalize this based on your biology. So my personal and professional experience led me to what I'm doing right now and what I'm really promoting and that is being at the driver's seat of your health through the cellular insights and this advanced technology.
- [07:58]
B
So are you looking for new biomarkers or a better Interpretation of existing ones, like what's, what are example of things that you look at and what kind of signals do they give you?
- [08:07]
C
Yeah, so the short answer is both. We need to understand the insights that even current biomarkers can give us, especially the combination of them. I'll give you some specifics. When you go to do your doctor's visit, may maybe get either conventional or functional medicine. It doesn't matter much, but you may get I don't know, 50 up to 100 biomarkers. Sometimes if you really do advanced testing, it might be almost upwards of 200 biomarkers. Typically all of us are going to have like insight into in terms of like your thyroid health, thyroid biomarkers, immune system lipids or cholesterol, blood sugar, you know, and so on. Some of those biomarkers that we use in standard practice, if you properly kind combine them, can give us more insight than just focusing on the biomarker itself. Like for example, if you looked at something called apob or even fasting insulin. So APOB is a lipid biomarker and then fasting insulin is really just a biomarker of exactly what it sounds. Fasting insulin levels, if those are outside of range, really what that means is that you are likely heading towards not only maybe diabetes or having high cholesterol, but something more important, more impactful, which is called cardio metabolic health, which is one of the four horsemen of death. Most of us in developed world are likely to die from these, one of these four horsemen of death, either cardiac disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, dementia or cancer. And interestingly all of those can kind of be traced back to the cellular disruption. Which brings me to the second part of your question and that is, are we only looking at these current biomarkers to understand them better or are we looking at more biomarker? Short answer is we are looking at universe of biomarkers. So in comparison if you go to your doctor, you get 100 biomarker tests. What we typically do is we will essentially assess over 20,000 biomarkers. This comes from the world or universe of so called multi omics. You heard about genetics, genomics, right? I assume?
- [10:20]
B
Yeah, I heard about proteomics, genomics and all that stuff. So the microbiome, so the futurum I guess is the play on words for the, for an ohm, a world of its own or like a world of measurements, you know?
- [10:33]
C
Yeah, I love it. Yeah, that's exactly kind of the idea that I had putting the coin words together, future of you that really rests or future of your health that really rests on the universe of you, the, the multile and that multi ohm. I always say I think of it almost like layers of onion. So at the very core of the onion would be your genome, your genes. What sits on top of your genes would be essentially turning genes on and off would be layer of epigen genome, which is epigenetics. So that essentially means how does the environment, internal and external environment that you live in, how does that affect your genes? Because your genetics is not your destiny. We know that even through twin studies, you know, some twins same, essentially genome virtually same. But if they live different lifestyles, they're going to have very different life destinies. Some may end up with disease early, some may end up with disease not at all, or later, then, then down the stream. Each gene or genes, I should say, encode for proteins. They give instructions to make proteins. These are not dietary proteins that you eat. These are molecules that communicate stuff. In our body, they're molecules of life. We cannot live without enzymes and other proteins. That layer is called proteon. And then of course you have almost like a little outside layer inside of our body that is these chemicals that are called metabolites, these are byproducts typically of cellular metabol. And that layer is called metabolome. And then you mentioned also something like microbiome layer, mitochondrial layer. Mitochondrias, as you likely know Richard, are powerhouses of the cell. So if you think of a cell like a car, the mitochondria would be the engine that allows the car to run. It makes energy. Mitochondrias do a lot more than just make energy. So we actually assess also mitochondrial biomarkers. So now that I spitted all of this out, I'm going to include two more things we also assess. Digitome would be real time data that you can get from your digital devices. Those are also important. Not everything counts, but those are important. So resting metabolic heart rate, VO2 max, your sleep, maybe biomarkers and so on. And the final one would be something called exposome, which is essentially how does the environment that you live in from the water that you drink, air that you breathe, house and car that you drive, how does that affect all of this that I just said in terms of your, your onion. So hopefully that gives a little bit more insight as far like the expense or expand like universe of the biomarkers that we look at.
- [13:12]
B
If I go and get my blood drawn, can they look at my epigenetic profile or just just regular biomarkers? Like, you know, I can get my, my DNA sequence for instance, but can I see the epigenetic patterning and can that be understood? Is that available yet?
- [13:26]
C
The short answer is not really. Are there companies that are actively working on that? Yes, absolutely. I'm not going to be naming any companies. I'm happy to provide notes for the show if that's really of interest to you or in your listene. But think about like this. There are platforms already, especially that I see with my microbiome and metabolome colleagues who have those companies, they already think of it like this. They already have a structure or a platform that can perform not only assessment of your blood or your saliva or your urine or your stool sample or whatever, they already have the infrastructure build out. Now what they need are two additional elements being able to assess those samples for not only genetics, but now epigenetic, proteomic, metabolomic and all of these other elements. So that's in the works. And then the second part that us clinicians are looking for you even as a, as a patient individual who is leading your health. What we're looking for is actual guidance. So that's this AI based technology called Digital twin. And Digital Twin, for some of your listeners who may not be familiar, familiar with the concept essentially means the following. This especially multiomics big data creates big data. So thousands of biomarkers, that's big data, that big data can go onto a computer where we can build kind of like a digital version, computer version of yourself out of those biomarkers and then we can run simulations, thousands of simulations to say hey Richard, you are going to be traveling or Richard, you have been eating more meat or you have been exercising, you've been taking this supplement. What does that mean for your biology? How is your biology going to change? Or what do we need to give you? Or what do you need to do to course correct so you don't end up with cancer, diabetes or X, Y and Z. So there are companies out there, they're including us, we are building our own digital twin. I'm knees deep in data, both taxonomy, ontology, to kind of build the data model that would allow us to really effectively navigate through the universe of this big data and more importantly put you at the driver's seat of your health where you can actually understand what all of those biomarkers mean.
- [15:50]
B
Okay, so how the biomarkers obtained, is it through just blood tests or like, you know, you go, they listen to your heart and they hook you up to see your VO2 max and you know, like what, you know, what biomarkers are looked at and how are they interpreted?
- [16:03]
C
Yeah, great question. So I want to give us maybe some kind of like guardrails. Here I am in space of longevity, more importantly in space of health span expansion. So health span means number of years that you live in good health. Longevity is a bit of a nebulous word, but essentially kind of copes to bring your health span and align it with your lifespan. So lifespan is simply the number of years that you live and longevity medicine is the fastest growing field of medicine, even though the term itself is a little bit nebulously defined. Is it biohacking? Is it wellness? Is it stem cells? What exactly is it? So we are focused on identifying those early predictors and markers of cellular disruption that can lead to chronic diseases, including those four horsemen of death. To answer now your question, I'm going to tell you with what you know, where I exist. Biomarkers can be obtained either through your tissues, your blood, saliva, urine, skin, sweat, even also your bowel movement, V swabs, you name it. Just essentially your, your biological sample being a tissue or blood or something like that. Other set of biomarkers can be digital biomarkers. So those digital biomarkers don't need necessarily a test. It's what you mentioned. It could be maybe you going to a clinic or a place where they can assess your VO2 max. So you would typically get some sort of like a little apparatus that you put on your face and you get maybe on a treadmill and they essentially assess your VO2 max. Or you can have like an apple watch whoop or something along that line, a wearable device that also can do that. And you know, a bunch of other biomarkers that can come from that would be quality of sleep, numbers of hours. CGM continuous glucose monitor is what we oftentimes will give to most of the folks that I work with because 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy.
- [18:05]
B
Most of us are, you say 90,
- [18:08]
C
93%, 93% of Americans are metabolically unhealthy. And when you metabolically unhealthy, that means that your cellular health is disrupted and you are likely on a path of developing cardiometabolic disease. That means pre diabetes, when you have blood sugar issues or if you truly end up with diabetes, typically that will require significant lifestyle change and medications and, or I should say medications and cardiovascular diseases. As you likely know, it's going to be high blood pressure, high cholesterol, cholesterol that can lead to Heart attacks and strokes. So 93% of us are not properly guided in terms of how do we prevent this from happening. Because our healthcare system right now is designed to do. It's not broken, it's designed to do what it's designed to do. And that is, it's reactive and it's really good at addressing acute issues, but it's not designed to help us, you know, engage in preventative health.
- [19:13]
B
Yeah. Okay, so when someone has this assessment, what are you doing with the data? Are you, do they come several times a year and you track it somewhat longitudinally or is it a one time thing like how does it work?
- [19:24]
C
Yeah, great question. We are a concierge virtual company, which means we work with folks, you know, us, Canada, Europe, but we really work hand in hand with folks. We do not just do the test and then in, you know, four or six months from now or a year from now, we do another test and we send you the information. This is intensive, labor intensive for us, but it's also work for you. How it works is simple. You come in, we do the recommended testing based on what, what is going on? What do you need to achieve? Is it going to be course correction, health optimization or the third path would be. Everything is good, but I need to chart my longevity path. So those three things, course correction, health optimization, longevity. Once we understand where you're at, we will essentially tests that you need to go through to achieve that. Once the test results are back and it takes anywhere between two to four weeks for all of the results to come back, Typically we start with very advanced clinical blood work. I'm talking about anywhere between 200 to a thousand clinical biomarkers. We usually obtain that just through the blood. Then we will do something called metabolomics that I mentioned earlier that assesses your cellular health through the fuel that you're putting in, including your mitochondrial function. And then usually the third one is going to be this grade microbiome testing. And once we collate those results, and we do a lot more than that, but those are kind of foundational elements, once those results are back, then we create your healthspan operating dashboard. That dashboard is essentially going to communicate what's happening at the cellular level. So you have understanding and then we meet with you to not only review that, but really to design your health span roadmap based on those six pillars that I mentioned. Nutrition, movement, sleep, stress, relational health, and substances. When it comes to substances, we use your biology, your digital twin to formulate and then compound specifically for you your supplement and Those supplements are continuously adopted or edited over time. Our goal is not to over supplement you. Our goal is actually to reduce the number of things that you're putting in your body and really with precision identify the things that you need to optimize your biology. So that's kind of the process and we typically do the coaching kind of every single month. Every of our clients and our folks don't like to be called patients, they like to be called clients or individuals. They will have weak touch points with concierge theme, including concierge, nurse and client experience support.
- [21:57]
B
Okay, and then what a plan of action comes from there. You identify what's up, what's down, what's out of balance, and then what Custom supplementation, custom diet supplementation, all that stuff.
- [22:07]
C
Yeah, it's all about precision. So precision, nutrients, nutrition. It can include things like, okay, this is what essentially this, this is the. When you are based on your biology, the best time or times for you to eat, the frequency and more importantly, what you eat, how you eat, not just when you eat. This is going to be some clients or some folks like to have very, very laid out plan, meaning, okay, for the next, you know, give me a weekly monthly meal planning, which we can do. Give me the shopping list, all of that. And then as far as supplements go, it's not only really just the supplements. We're trying personalize everything that they would put in their body, be it a peptide stack, if they, let's say, need to go down that path or desire to go down that path. Also medication stack. And again, our goal is not to make folks dependent on outside substances unless they truly needed it or maybe needed it as bridges and really get them to know themselves. Our tagline is really know yourselves, know yourself so you can gain that agency over your health.
- [23:15]
B
Okay, how long does this process take?
- [23:18]
C
Ah, good question. Question. So for usually I would say about six months for most folks. There are many folks who after six months, as a matter of fact, 100% will want to stay on. So once you go through six months that I would consider course correction for most after six months to 12 months would be health optimization. And beyond 12 months would be more like, okay, now we're talking about building out Richard's longevity, you know, path. What do you need to have along that path? What sort of other testing do we need to do in future? You know, is there a stem cell therapy that needs to be, you know, considered in time to come? If so, who are our vetted partners? So we have an ecosystem of vetted partners. Essentially either physicians who are specialists in their areas or practitioners like I recently have just gone through a process. Richard. This was new to me. I did not know what this was until just recently and I ended up really liking it. Something called brain spotting. I don't know if you have ever heard of. Heard of this.
- [24:18]
B
I've heard of Trainspotting, but not brain spotting. What is it?
- [24:21]
C
Have you heard of emdr? Eye.
- [24:23]
B
Yeah, Eye movement desensitization.
- [24:25]
C
Exactly. So it's. I mean, I'm not going to talk about evidence or beliefs if you believe in this or not. I wanted to go through this process that was called brain spotting with a practitioner who's also Arizona based. She works with mostly athletes and high performers, be it like executives and so on, who kind of need to up their game or remain at that level. A game. And brain spotting is a cousin or an offshoot of emdr. Whereas opposed to moving your eyes, you're kind of centering your eye in a specific spot and then you usually they will use bilateral sounds or beats or music sometimes to really tap into those feelings and emotions that might be stored that don't serve you well. So may negatively impact your emotional, mental and cognitive well being. So, you know, even something like that, we have partners who can help with that.
- [25:19]
B
Well, it's cool. So I don't know like, how much more efficacious is this method than traditional methods? Like what kind of conditions have you found it's best for?
- [25:28]
C
As far as brain spotting, I'm not the expert, so I really cannot speak about that. We are right now in the midst of really creating kind of the partnership path to see what clinical evidence has this practitioner on her own has achieved. And so far she has had some really excellent results with wrestlers here in Arizona, also some, some athletes. So it's, you know, from her experience, it seems to work. But I really cannot comment more until we have some additional data.
- [25:56]
B
Okay, is this going to be in use clinically as like a standard block of tests, you know, for other physicians or what's the like a rollout plan for it?
- [26:05]
C
Well, we are not a testing company, so that's number one. We are agnostic in a way as far as who is the testing company that we work with as long as they go through our own internal checklist process. So they have to be clinically validated, analytically validated, clinically validated. And we work really with reputable companies. A lot of them are offshoots from my Mayo Clinic colleagues. So independent companies that may have offshooted from Mayo Clinic, Stanford, you know, ASU and you know, reputable centers with clinical evidence to back it up. So we're not a testing company. Those testing companies, they will do their own thing. They were, they're going to continue to advance. What I am really concerned with and what we are working on is I am a clinician. I need to be able to help folk who come to see us in the way that I wanted to help myself. And that is I want to be at the driver's seat of my health. This what we're talking about here, Richard, the multiomics world of testing and also insights and whatnot. This is going to take another 15 to 17 years to make it to as a standard of care or practice in your local doctor's offices. And why and how do I know that? Well, I have been talking about pharmacogenomics as a very simple, you know, elegant meaning tool of the precision medicine for the last 15 years. And I would have thought that by 2026 this is going to become a standard of care. And when I ask people, have you had pharmacogenetic testing done? They're like, what is pharmacogenetic testing? What's that? So even not only individuals, but even physicians and pharmacists and colleagues, they're still not fully aware of what this is, even though it has a lot of clinical validation trials, use guidelines, even where insurance companies are reimbursing for these tests. And yet 15 years later, it's still not a standard of care. And I just don't want to wait. I nearly died. I know there is a technology and better way to do health. I want this and I know many folks also do. So that's what we are tasked with is how do you make sense out of this multi omics world. That's why we're building this digital twin that will empower both clinicians to be able to plug in whatever data comes in, that will be evidence stratified and then empower you as an individual driving your health to be able to be, to act on that so you can prevent your greatest asset, which is your health.
- [28:29]
B
Oh, why is this not more widely adopted, you think?
- [28:32]
C
There are several reasons and I'll give you maybe just couple of number one, multiomics is still relatively an unknown. Most of us are not even trained in foundational level of multiomics, which is genetics. Most of us healthcare professionals are not trained in genetics. We have very rudimentary knowledge about genetics. If you talk to a physician or a pharmacist or a nurse, and you say proteomics or metabolomics. Unfortunately, even in 2026, most of them are going to say, I don't really know what that means. So education part needs to be fulfilled. The second part is there is a wild west in terms of companies or testing platforms that are doing number of different things. There is not a consensus. There is not a unifor platform where you go give your blood or your blood sample and they're going to run everything. That's the question that you ask me, does that exist? This short answer is not, but it's coming. And because of those two things, the third part that's missing is there are no specific guidelines yet. And because of those, most insurance companies are not going to pay for this. So those are some of the obvious reasons.
- [29:46]
B
Okay, let's see what you mean. Yeah, we still, yeah, I've heard plenty of people getting blood work and you know, the doctors like, oh, you don't need those tests, you don't need to do this, you don't need to do that. Just do this one.
- [29:58]
C
You know, I will tell you that my first client was me. My second one was my husband. My husband is okay with me saying this story because what happened was the following. He just did a yearly physical and came back with a clean bill of health. And shortly after that, we were up and running with testings that we kind of buttoned up to say, okay, we're going to run these tests. I am building out the digital twin and kind of stratifying this information and then building, building out protocols. So he was very keen and he actually did our testing and we kind of assessed all of those test results. What came back from him was not a clean bill of health. What came back from him were conditions that his cells at the cellular level were already showing that he was down the path of developing cardiovascular disease, which runs in his family, which his standard test did not show. And he was down the path of lot of, you know, kind of, let me put it this way, unfavorable signatures coming from prostate health. He does not have any issues with prostate. However, he has family members who do. And so this gave him very early window with very specific actionable steps that he could take in terms of preventative health. So he shifted his entire diet. He shifted how he works out. My husband is an executive who also races cars. He, he usually would have back issues because of, you know, number of different reasons. And when he shifted these things, Richard, his back issue resolved and you would say, well, that's a lifestyle. How does A lifestyle, resolve my back issue. The point is, all of this that we're talking about, be it diabetes, dementia, cancer, whatever, all of this is happening at the very foundational level, which is our cells. So that needs needed to be fixed.
- [31:52]
B
And once you were able to assess them properly, like, what, what. I don't know if you're able to say what he did, but yeah, you know, what's one thing he was he missing? Supplementation or like, how did you help him?
- [32:02]
C
Yeah. So I will share maybe some of these. They're not basic, but they're definitely foundational elements. The very first thing we changed was his diet, nutrition. He thought he was eating healthy. He was simply not eating for his biology. So there is something, I don't know if you're familiar with this, the concept of circadian rhythm eating, which essentially means you would want to eat during the daytime. So, you know, as most of us who are busy parents, busy with work and life, a lot of times dinner becomes the most abundant meal of the day because you finally sit down and hopefully eat with your family or whenever you can, and then it's usually late at night and then you go to bed. So we change the circadian rhythm of eating. We also change the type of nutrients that better fit his gut microbiome that better fit his metabolome signatures. And that meant, you know, staying away from either like either certain healthy meals or healthy foods that we would consider to be healthy. But in reality, his cells were not properly digesting those things. And then the second major thing that we changed was the way that he was working out. He started incorporating more like flexibility, agility, cardio, very versus just weight training, which really compounded obviously on his back. And yes, we personalized supplements that supported his gut and mitochondrial function so he could recover faster.
- [33:31]
B
How old was he when you did this and what was the effect?
- [33:33]
C
He was 45, 46. So he now, like when we are actually just heading to his racing team, we're here in Arizona and his racing team is in Las Vegas, Nevada. So we're just heading there tomorrow morning. He's going to be racing tomorrow and we were just reflecting on that. Not too long ago, he used to have significant back pain after the race. And he's like, I'm really looking forward to my race because I know now what I need to do in terms of his recovery. So he'll oftentimes do like cold plunge after, obviously the session. But he now also uses the supplements, relaxation techniques and stretching and whatnot, and the right food to fuel his body before then.
- [34:13]
B
Oh, I mean, how much better is he doing if he just expresses it and like, you know, what do you see and what does he see?
- [34:21]
C
Yeah, well, Francisco is here. Francisco, how much better are you doing? He said 100%. So what I see on him in terms of his data, this is obviously, obviously subjective. But I, what I see in terms of his data, even his standard blood work came back not only normal, there is a difference between normal meaning within the norm normative range. And there is a difference between optimized. So even his regular standard work, like you know, if you go to your doctor, you'll get fasting blood glucose, you will get ldl, you may get apob, you may get thyroid. All of that went from normative category or almost like on high normal end to optimized just by going through, through what I just described. And of course the data that we see with him with metabolomics and microbiome, if I can visually maybe describe this, the areas that he will was let's say red or orange in, he's full on in green now.
- [35:16]
B
Okay, well that's great. Yeah, that's really good. So again, how long the path to this is widespread, available in many clinics or what do you see as the future of this protocol over the next, you know, just couple of years?
- [35:27]
C
Yeah, it's very difficult really to give a good assessment on this. What I'm seeing in terms of my colleagues, I know some of them are bringing us like concierge clinics are bringing us into their kind of like a highest tier offering because this testing is not, definitely not cheap. How long until this becomes a standard of care? Like I told you, if we are following data from studies that were done on like innovative technologies or so ways of doing things, it's going to take at least another 15 years. Now the, the benefit that I'm seeing, like what makes me really excited is a lot of this already is either exist in direct to consumer market. I would be cautious of course with some of those things things because there is, it's a wild west like I said. So for example, you can do the microbiome test with one company and if you compare that to another company's results, they may differ. Maybe not the most foundational elements, but they may differ. Same goes for example if you do the epigenetic test or biological age test. A lot of people get hung up on biological age and we do a variety of different biological ages from epigenetics to glycan age to number of different tests. Biological age is incur it's impossible to measure right now because we do not have a consensus of what biological age is. And so this is my roundabout way to answer your question. To say I really don't know what I'm seeing are two things. Number one, many of us are bringing this into clinical practice. Some of us are focused on direct to consumer. Some of us, like us, also leverage, you know, research grade tests that give a lot more deep, deeper insights. And the second part is we're starting to see institutions like my Mayo Clinic colleagues. I just had a meeting with them earlier this week at Aztec Week. This is a shameless plugin for Aztec Week, but just had a meeting with them. They do some extraordinary work, hopefully enabling this to be brought into clinics everywhere. Mayo Clinic has something called Mayo Clinic Platform and it's basically an infrastructure that you can go and play with federated data. This would be kind of like these data lakes that are protected so you can kind of, you know, do inquiries of whatever you want to look at in terms of biomarkers and insights. So I'm sorry, I know I'm not giving you a specific answer. Some of it exists right now, but some of it is not going to exist until future.
- [37:47]
B
Yeah, that's crazy that it's going to be possibly so far away, you know?
- [37:51]
C
Yeah, I know. That's why I did not want to wait.
- [37:54]
B
Yeah, no. Well, very good. What's the best way for people to get in touch and to get, you know, get help if they otherwise can't?
- [38:01]
C
I appreciate you asking me that. I actually love and live this space of precision medicine and longevity medicine. Feel free to reach out to me directly with any questions you can find me on social media. LinkedIn. My full name, Adriana Keikich. A D R I J A N A K E K I C. Same goes for Instagram, Dr. So d r.a d r I J A N A K A K K I C and you can also do Longevity quiz on your own just to see where you're at along your journey. You can do that directly through the website at www.futurum.com f u t u r o m e dot com.
- [38:35]
B
Okay, well, very good, Adriana, thanks so much for the podcast and, and being honest and open about what is and what's not possible.
- [38:42]
C
Thank you Richard for having me. I really appreciate you giving me the space.
- [38:45]
B
If you like this podcast, please click the link in the description to subscribe and review us on itunes.
- [38:53]
A
Thank you for listening to the Good Question podcast. Please email support at the good question. Podcast.com if you have any referrals to great guests. For a start to interview, visit thegoodquestionpodcast. Com to hear more interviews. And please help us spread the word by rating and reviewing us on Apple podcasts, iTunes, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you listen to this podcast.