Can AI look at your retina and diagnose Alzheimer’s? Eric Topol is hopeful
For decades now, It is well established that when you turn 40 you need to pay more attention to your body. This is when women should start getting mammograms and men should pay a little more attention to their prostate. Over the course of the next decade, you’ll start getting colonoscopies, and from then on, it seems like a gradual march of doctor’s appointments and tests until your body gives up in your seventies or eighties.
But what if modern medicine has the wrong timeline? What if we unnecessarily test some middle-aged people for diseases they will likely never develop, while blindly ignoring the 20-year-old who is most susceptible to colon cancer? Is there a way we can stay healthy even as we age in a way that is both meaningful and not dependent on taking 12 horse-sized pills every morning?
Eric Topol certainly thinks so. Cardiologist, Scripps Research Associate, and author Super Eggers He is convinced that new innovations in medicine, bioengineering and anti-inflammatory awareness with the help of artificial intelligence have the potential to revolutionize the way people age.
During WIRED’s big interview event in San Francisco on Thursday, Topol told features editor Sandra Upson that while he was working on Super Eggers He learned that there is a difference between longevity and longevity, and neither has anything to do with genetics. A person who is “elderly,” or over 65, and is generally healthy has roughly the same genetic makeup as someone who is elderly and facing major health challenges, such as heart disease, cancer, or a neurodegenerative disorder.
Instead, Topol said, there seems to be a correlation between having a healthy immune system and healthy aging. Lifestyle can also affect your health, as Topol advocates a diet low in ultra-processed foods, focusing on sleep quality over quantity, and getting outside in nature. He also recommends exercising, focusing on both aerobic work and resistance and balance exercises, which can help the body become more flexible as we age.
Photo: Annie Noelker
Photo: Annie Noelker
If possible, people should permanently avoid environmental stressors such as air pollution, micro- and nano-plastics and chemicals, all of which are pro-inflammatory, Topol said. President Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., despite their agenda to “make America healthy again,” aren’t addressing all of that, Topol noted.
For the average American, the lifespan of health is about 63 to 65 years, Topol said. On the other hand, the lifespan is about 80 years. This means that most Americans spend the last 15 years of their lives in relatively poor health, with one World Health Organization statistic saying that most older adults experience only one “healthy birth” after age 65.
“Healthy longevity should be as close to longevity as we can get, and I think we can do that,” Topol told Upson. This is a unique moment in medicine. Part of it is because we have multifaceted AI, but part of it is because we have new layers of data. We’ve never had organ clocks that track the rate of aging for every part of your body, including your immune system. We’ve never had biomarkers like p-tau217, which tell us the risk of Alzheimer’s in 10, 10, 10 years. In recent biomedicine, it is the ability to quantify aging criteria.
