How A Simple Test Unlocks The Secrets of Longevity

It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by technology. Instead of feeling excited when reading about the latest developments in medicine, science, artificial intelligence and reverse aging, many people feel anxious – like they are being left behind. 

Most adults are fortunate to squeeze in their annual check-up with their doctor, let alone keep up to date with longevity research and how it could impact your life expectancy. That once-a-year physical is important of course, but it’s not enough. Every day, there are steps people can take that will also affect their long-term health. That includes alternative approaches to healthcare designed for each person’s physiology or specific medical conditions.

Life expectancy is about more than having a prolonged lifespan. After all, most people don’t just want to live longer. They want to live better. Like a never-ceasing perpetual motion machine, Longevity Escape Velocity  or LEV, is when “…technology can extend a person’s life by more than a year for every year they are alive. In other words, every year that you are alive, your lifespan increases by more than one year.” 

Getting on the road to LEV begins with an inexpensive at-home test from Kyla. This test can help patients discover the hidden health obstacles preventing them from living their best life. These tests are just one component of the anti-aging program. Unlike many companies where the test is the last step, Kyla works hard to build an ongoing relationship with every patient through a personalized, AI-driven risk engine that helps individuals maintain good health and extend their life.

Keep reading to learn how to achieve LEV by taking charge of your life and your life expectancy.

The Challenge of Aging

Some 10,000 feet above sea level and nestled within the bristlecone pine forest, lives a tree older than Egypt’s pyramids. The aptly named Methuselah Tree is over 4,000 years old. Enduring the suboptimal conditions of California’s arid and windswept White Mountains, the bristlecone pine’s unique wood makes it resistant to disease. It also shares with other trees a talent for enduring droughts and other stressors. Or as Edmund Schulman wrote in the National Geographic nearly 70 years ago, “There is something a little fantastic in the persistent ability of a 4,000-year-old tree to shut up shop almost everywhere throughout its stem in a very dry year, and faithfully to reawaken to add many new cells in a favorable year.” 

People are not quite as blessed. While global life expectancy has increased from 48 years in the 1950s to over 72 years in 2021, in the U.S. it’s gone in the opposite direction. In the 2020s it dropped to just over 76 years –– the shortest it’s been in almost 20 years. Blame COVID-19 along with drug overdoses, and other “deaths of despair,” but when doctors study aging and reverse aging, plummeting life expectancy is like running into a hard brick wall. Still, many are hopeful that the first person who will someday celebrate a 150th birthday has already been born. 

“We’re beginning to understand how dietary interventions affect cell age,” Vanderbilt University’s Rafael Arrojo e Drigo, PhD explains. “We know that caloric restriction in most animal models tends to extend the average lifespan of an animal. And the initial data that we have is that caloric restriction tends to prolong cellular lifetime — the cells tend to be longer lived.” 

What we eat influences our lives. At Kyla, it’s easy to access information on how diet affects the body. While other companies charge hundreds of dollars for a similar test, at Kyla for just $99 patients can learn about vitamin deficiencies, blood sugar levels, cholesterol and so much more. Even better, after receiving the results they’ll have the opportunity to speak with a medical professional who offers guidance on making the best choices. They are able to do this in part by accessing the latest technology thanks to Kyla’s AI-driven risk engine. By inputting information from test results along with the patient’s answers to a simple questionnaire, and thousands of data points, the healthcare provider is able to deliver a detailed life expectancy analysis. 

As pointed out in the Yale Ledger, “The integration of technology into longevity and anti-aging research is revolutionizing our understanding and approach to extending human life. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning are at the forefront of this transformation, analyzing vast datasets to identify biological markers of aging.” Patients don’t even need to do an at-home test if they don’t want to because just by downloading the Kyla app and filling out a questionnaire, they can access the company’s proprietary risk engine for free. 

Once completing an at-home test or filling out a questionnaire, individuals should follow up with a healthcare professional. Fortunately, Kyla’s tests and the detailed life expectancy analysis gives them the tools they need at the doctor’s office. Those tools empower patients while delivering valuable insights about the health of vital organs like the lungs, heart, and brain along with information on hormonal imbalances, vitamin and nutrient deficiencies and thyroid levels among other potential talking points to share with their physician. 

Living Better, Living Longer

Although Vanderbilt’s Drigo says he’s “excited about dietary interventions that might actually trigger cells to be more resilient and potentially live longer,” the question few ask is, are the long-lived happier? Did Noah’s grandfather Methuselah enjoy his nearly 1,000 year lifespan?

Studies reveal recovery time wanes as people age. Examining blood cell and step counts, researchers realized a pattern. Writing in the May 2021 of Nature Communications they noted a lack of resilience –– something other than just disease driving a decline in the body’s ability to return blood cells or gait to a stable level after a disruption. Yet the issue isn’t just about extending life. As University of Illinois at Chicago epidemiology professor S. Jay Olshansky told Scientific American in 2021, ”The focus shouldn’t be on living longer but on living healthier longer.”

Kyla founder Garick Hismatullin agrees wholeheartedly. The company’s singular mission  is not just extending life, but extending your healthy lifespan –– your healthspan as many are calling it. After all, by 2050 over two billion people around the world will be over 60. Most of them would benefit tremendously from the type of longevity research currently accessed by billionaires. 

That’s why it’s important to realize that Kyla is more than an inexpensive at-home testing service. Kyla’s revolutionary Anti-Aging program offers not just advanced testing but health insights –– an extensive, personalized health overview that not only provides test results but identifies health risks as it delivers a detailed life expectancy analysis. Participants can speak with a doctor who follows up on their results and creates a personalized health goal incorporating the use of supplements, dietary changes, exercises, medications where necessary and lifestyle changes. 

“The goal of Kyla is to create a global primary care program that tackles human longevity,” Hismatullin told Medium. “When we think about primary care, we think about going to an office where an old doctor takes our blood pressure and does blood work. These doctors don’t have access to all of your data and are not thinking about extending your life 20 to 30 years beyond natural human lifespan and beyond.”

As Hismatullin explained, with Kyla’s personalized, AI-driven healthcare, the program constantly ingests and analyzes data about the patient. Everything from basic family history, to nutrition, to their genome –– puts patients in control of their healthcare. This is something that even the most expensive concierge doctor can’t deliver. Kyla does –– with initial cards priced at just $99. By uniting highly trained healthcare providers with the very latest in AI, the company is transforming how healthcare is delivered. With just a simple blood test, Kyla’s tech is at the user’s fingertip.

Sources:

1. Tyson, Peter. “A Tree’s Secret to Living Long,” Nova Online. November 2001. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/methuselah/long.html
2. Verrett, Bethany. “How Old Was Methuselah and How Did He Live for Hundreds of Years?”Bible Study Tools. August 24, 2020. https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/how-did-methuselah-live-for-hundreds-of-years.html#google_vignette
3. Rafael Arrojo e Drigo, PhD quoted in Macmillan,Leigh. “What are you most excited about?” Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. May 16, 2022. https://medschool.vanderbilt.edu/vanderbilt-medicine/what-are-you-most-excited-about/ 
4. “What’s Behind ‘shocking’ U.S. life expectancy decline,”Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. April 13, 2023. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/whats-behind-shocking-u-s-life-expectancy-decline-and-what-to-do-about-it/
5. “The New Frontier: Human Efforts and Breakthroughs in the Science of Longevity and Age-Defying Research,” The Yale Ledger. February 4, 2024. https://campuspress.yale.edu/ledger/the-new-frontier-human-efforts-and-breakthroughs-in-the-science-of-longevity-and-age-defying-research/#:~:text=The field of cellular research,models, suggesting future therapeutic possibilities.
6. Pyrkov, T.V., Avchaciov, K., Tarkhov, A.E. et al. “Longitudinal Analysis of Blood Markers Reveals Progressive Loss of Resilience and Predicts Human Lifespan Limit. Nature Communications. May 25, 2021.
7. Willingham, Emily. Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests,” Scientific American. May 25, 2021. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/humans-could-live-up-to-150-years-new-research-suggests/
8. Weiner, Yitzi. “Health Tech: Garick Hismatullin On How Kyla’s Technology Can Make An Important Impact On Our Overall Wellness,” Medium. July 21, 2022. https://medium.com/authority-magazine/health-tech-garick-hismatullin-on-how-kylas-technology-can-make-an-important-impact-on-our-47d95a40988e