The Longevity Tests That Actually Matter

Hosts:

Phil Newman: ⁠qrco.de/bgXpNY⁠

Nina Patrick: ⁠⁠⁠qrco.de/bgXpKn⁠

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Sponsor: YEARS

YEARS is a physician-led longevity clinic in Berlin that takes a proactive approach to health. Combining advanced diagnostics, biomarkers, imaging, and longitudinal data, YEARS helps identify health risks earlier and build personalized strategies designed to support healthier, longer lives.

Link: www.years.co/en

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Guests:

Jürgen Mehrtens

Co-Founder & CEO of YEARS

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/j%C3%BCrgen-mehrtens-116303b1/

Website: www.years.co/en

Alexandru Ardelean, MD

Specialist in Internal Medicine of YEARS

LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/alexandru-c-ardelean-md-aba522109/

Website: www.years.co/en

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What if the future of preventive medicine is not simply better treatment, but knowing what is changing in the body years before disease appears?

Phil Newman and Dr. Nina Patrick sit down with Dr. Alexandru Ardelean, internal medicine specialist at YEARS, and Jürgen Mehrtens, CEO of YEARS, to explore how predictive biomarkers and longitudinal health data could reshape the way we understand aging and prevention.

Together they unpack the growing role of biomarkers such as GDF-15 and P-tau217. GDF-15 can reflect processes including mitochondrial dysfunction, hypoxia, oxidative stress, and chronic inflammation, while longitudinal measurements may reveal patterns that a single test cannot. They also discuss why these biomarkers are not yet used to prescribe specific treatments, but can help measure whether lifestyle interventions are working.

The conversation also explores how YEARS is building a standardized longitudinal dataset by requiring clients to undergo the same diagnostic framework over time, creating data that could eventually help researchers and pharmaceutical companies better understand aging.

They discuss biomarker variability, false negatives, patient adherence, community-based interventions, the role of partner gyms, YEARS' upcoming app, and the potential for private preventive medicine models to influence broader healthcare systems.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

• Why GDF-15 is emerging as a marker of cellular stress and how it relates to mitochondrial dysfunction, oxidative stress, hypoxia, and chronic inflammation.
• Why P-tau217 and other predictive biomarkers still require careful interpretation, longitudinal measurement, and clinical context before they can guide primary prevention.
• How YEARS is building longitudinal datasets through standardized diagnostics repeated annually or every two years.
• Why lifestyle interventions remain the foundation of prevention, even as increasingly sophisticated biomarkers become available.
• How community events, partner gyms, and digital monitoring can help patients stay engaged between clinical visits.

If you want to understand how predictive biomarkers could move healthcare from reacting to disease toward continuously measuring and managing risk, this episode connects emerging biomarker science with the practical realities of preventive medicine, patient behavior, and the future of longevity clinics.

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