The New Frontiers Of Medical Science

On August 24, Bay Area-based health nonprofit Crack the Wellness Code (CWC) hosted a one-day wellness conference called Decoding Emerging Therapies and Practices at the SRCM Heartfulness Center in Fremont featuring speakers from the fields of digital medicine, preventive health, and longevity.

The conference was one of many events that CWC organizes routinely to educate citizens about wellness. Through a network of accomplished healthcare practitioners, doctors, researchers, and a proprietary app, the organization hopes to create a wellness ecosystem in which individuals can actively monitor and evaluate their health without incurring high medical costs.

Founder Naren Bakshi established CWC after a successful career as a tech entrepreneur during which time he developed multiple health problems. “I had everything that you can think of in terms of finances, a lot of fame everywhere, but inside, I was not happy, because I was not in good health,” he said.

In 2011, he took matters into his own hands and completely transformed his life, overcoming many of his health problems and dropping more than 90 pounds of weight. Inspired by his story, internist Dr. Pankaj Vij approached Bakshi with a proposal to create a dedicated wellness ecosystem for the public. Their collaborative efforts started in 2018 through the India Community Center in Milpitas, and led to the official establishment of CWC in 2022.

Bakshi hopes that his organization will enable the community to undergo the transformative experience that he did and enhance their quality of life. The 80-year-old said, “If I can change my habits at age 65 you can do it too.”

AI in Healthcare

At the conference, Dr. Ashish Atreja and Dr. Daniel Kraft spoke about the ways in which AI can revolutionize healthcare. Dr. Atreja is a digital medicine specialist while Dr. Kraft is a physician, innovator, and investor in the healthcare space.

The former highlighted AI-based applications that allow patients to continuously track their health, (which is not possible otherwise) in what he called a patient-centric approach to healthcare.

Dr. Atreja also stressed the importance of validating AI models with evidence-based practice. He suggested that after doctors have validated these models, they should be able to prescribe these apps to their patients just like they would medicines. He offered examples of applications that have been employed successfully including text alerts for heart attack patients, a Covid-19 information bot that reached a million people during the peak of the pandemic, and continuous blood pressure monitoring.

Dr. Kraft addressed the rise of AI-based wearables, which have become a critical part of health monitoring for many people. These interventions provide e granular data about our health metrics, said Dr. Kraft, which enables a shift from “reactive healthcare to proactive healthcare.” He suggested that wearable technologies will open doors for better remote care and hospital-at-home solutions if the data they generate is integrated into healthcare systems.

Dr. Atreja urged the audience not to be fearful of technology but to keep an open mind about using it to practice wellness.

“If you think of it as a tool, and if we adopt it the right way, we will have a transmission at scale which we have never seen in humanity,” he said.

90 is the new 40?

Health psychologist Dr. Elissa Epel, and author and anesthesiologist Dr. Michael Roizen discussed managing stress and other factors that influence our biological age.

In her research at the University of California San Francisco, Dr. Epel studied the biological process of aging using the four metrics of blood cells, immune cells, inflammation, and a specialized cell organelle called mitochondria. Her research reveal that people can actually control the rate at which they age, because genetic factors do not entirely determine it.

“We know that some of us age faster than others, some of us age in dog years faster than the clock, and some of us defy that and age more slowly,” she said. “While a small amount is genetics, a large amount of this biological aging is actually regulated and controlled by our mind states, and how much stress we carry each day.”

Dr. Epel pointed out that stress management could be a key intervention critical to slowing the body’s aging process as is the importance of fostering a strong mind-body connection.

Dr. Roizen echoed Dr. Epel’s findings, stating that wellness does not necessarily depend on chronological age. He listed fourteen different parameters that determine our “real age”, two of them being stem cells and telomeres.

Stem cells are self-renewing cells that the body uses for repairing damage, while telomeres are protein structures that protect DNA from damage. Dr. Roizen presented research showing that maintaining a steady store of stem cells in our body and elongating our telomeres are key to unlocking a longer life.

He suggested a balanced diet, moderate, regular exercise, and stress management as interventions to help maintain stem cell count and increase the length and robustness of telomeres.

Given the fast pace of modern medical advances, Dr. Roizen estimates that human life expectancy will increase exponentially in the future.

“It is at least 80% likely that you’re going to get to be 40 again when you’re 90,” he said. “The catch is that you have to stay young to benefit from it. That is, you have to do wellness because if you don’t, you end up with structural change and disability too severe to get the benefits.”

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