Transforming Healthcare: Insights from Dr. Julie Chen, Chief Medical Officer at Human Longevity
Dr. Julie Chen is a renowned expert in integrative and precision medicine, currently serving as the Chief Medical Officer and Medical Director at Human Longevity, Inc. With over 15 years of experience in integrative internal medicine, Dr. Chen is passionate about advancing preventative care, genomics, and precision longevity medicine. Her approach combines conventional medicine with functional and integrative modalities, focusing on root causes to optimize health and well-being. Dr. Chen has worked with leading companies in Silicon Valley to develop corporate wellness programs and has contributed to groundbreaking research, authoring numerous peer-reviewed articles on the science of longevity. Through her work at Human Longevity, she is dedicated to democratizing access to personalized, data-driven healthcare to help people live healthier, longer lives.
You can find more information about Dr Chen at humanlongevity.com
A Glimpse of What You'll Hear
00:06: Dr. Chen's Role: Chief Medical Officer and Medical Director of Human Longevity.
00:41: Background: Dr. Chen’s path to integrative internal medicine.
01:31: Conventional vs. Integrative Medicine: The gap in conventional care.
03:04: Integrative Approach: Addressing early-stage diseases.
03:49: Career Journey: Her transition to Human Longevity.
05:12: Why Human Longevity: The democratization of precision medicine.
06:08: Defining Integrative and Functional Medicine.
07:57: Whole-Systems Approach: Integrating multiple modalities for health.
10:09: Healthspan vs. Lifespan: Importance of longevity and functionality.
11:35: Collaboration with Conventional Medicine.
13:22: Preventative Care: Catching diseases early.
16:35: Success Stories: Examples of life-saving early diagnoses.
17:03: Partnership with Club Leaders Forum: Personalized health programs for wellness clubs.
19:49: Closing Remarks from Dr. Chen and Dafne.
In This Episode
Join us as Dr. Julie Chen, Chief Medical Officer of Human Longevity, discusses her journey into integrative internal medicine and precision longevity care. In this episode, Dr. Chen shares her insights on bridging conventional and integrative medicine, the importance of listening to patients, and how Human Longevity uses genomic data, biomarkers, and preventative care to catch diseases early. Learn about the exciting partnership with club leaders that brings personalized health optimization to fitness and wellness clubs across the U.S., ensuring members lead healthier, longer lives.
Quotable Moments
Dr. Julie Chen (01:31) – "There's a gap in conventional medicine... People feel the disease before it shows up on labs."
Dr. Julie Chen (03:49) – "We want to start to work on your health when it's a leaky faucet, because it's easier to fix and pull them back."
Dr. Julie Chen (05:12) – "Human longevity has the capability to take this whole systems approach to an international level."
Dr. Julie Chen (07:57) – "Genomics is looking at our blueprint, our DNA, to understand our predispositions and optimize health."
Dr. Julie Chen (10:09) – "We want to close the gap between healthspan and lifespan so people can enjoy life right up until the end."
Dr. Julie Chen (11:35) – "The future of medicine is symbiotic and complementary, not divided into different fields at odds with each other."
Dr. Julie Chen (14:21) – "Health and disease is not a black-and-white situation; it's always a spectrum, and we want to catch it early."
Takeaways
Precision Medicine Focus: Dr. Chen emphasizes the importance of precision longevity and preventative root cause medicine in improving overall health and wellness.
Conventional vs. Integrative Medicine: Conventional medicine is essential for acute issues, but integrative medicine addresses gaps in early-stage disease detection by focusing on what patients feel even when labs show normal results.
Early Intervention: Addressing health issues early, before they escalate, is key to preventing more severe conditions. Dr. Chen uses the analogy of fixing a "leaky faucet" to illustrate this approach.
Genomics and Personalized Health: Understanding a person’s genomic blueprint helps tailor interventions to prevent disease and optimize health, making precision medicine a vital tool for longevity.
Healthspan vs. Lifespan: The goal is not just to live longer but to improve the quality of life, narrowing the gap between healthspan and lifespan so people can remain functional and active as they age.
Symbiotic Medicine: The future of healthcare involves collaboration between conventional and integrative medicine, ensuring patients receive the best of both worlds for optimal care.
Preventative Health Importance: Proactive health assessments, even when individuals feel fine, can catch diseases early and dramatically improve outcomes.
Holistic Approach to Health: Integrating multiple disciplines—such as genomics, functional medicine, diet, and lifestyle—creates a comprehensive strategy for long-term health and disease prevention..
Transcript
00:00
Dafne Canales
Welcome to our podcast, Doctor Chen.
00:02
Julie Chen
Thank you for having me, Daphne. I'm really excited to be here today.
00:06
Dafne Canales
Tell us a little bit from a leadership perspective, your title, where you work, and all those great things.
00:12
Julie Chen
Sure. Absolutely. So my title is chief medical officer of human longevity. I'm also the medical director of human longevity, San Francisco. The reason I have both titles is because I'm really a part of the early phase teams of really growing this company. It's such a huge personal passion of mine to be here in this kind of medicine. Part of the reason I joined is because it's this kind of precision longevity medicine and preventative root cause medicine is really my passion. And so when I was offered the opportunity to join, I really could not say no.
00:41
Dafne Canales
And you have such a great and interesting background. Tell us a little bit about, you know, what brought you to your current role.
00:47
Julie Chen
Sure. So, you know, I kind of ended up integrative internal medicine in a roundabout way. There were, as we, a lot of us probably can relate to, we kind of have different paths in our lives as we get to where we are. And I do think there's a component of being really true to yourself, and your path then ultimately leads you to where you should go. And so I had a lot of different other specialties that I was also very interested in, because medicine as a whole is very interesting to me. But I did end up falling into integrative internal medicine, primarily because when I actually first started coming out of internal medicine, I was doing work with patients in primary care, and I realized that conventional medicine, and I think it is great. Conventional medicine, don't get me wrong, is amazing.
01:31
Julie Chen
If you've been in a car accident, if you need a surgery, it's nothing, there's nothing better than that. And I wouldn't recommend supplements for it. I would definitely recommend conventional, like ER care and surgery, et cetera. But I did notice that there's a gap in conventional medicine of those kind of early stage disease scenarios where, let's say, a patient has fatigue and they don't feel really well and they're losing their hair, but all of their labs actually come back normal. I think a lot of the times in conventional medicine, they may then say, oh, the person is fine. But I am a big proponent in believing in what the patient says. Like people who really know their body, sometimes they'll actually feel the disease before the disease shows up on labs.
02:13
Julie Chen
And so I've always had a really strong belief that you should listen to the patient. And if you listen correctly and ask the right questions most of the time, they'll get you actually to the right diagnosis, simply getting them to really talk about what's happening almost even 80% of the time, 90% of the time. So, and then we do a lot of the testing to confirm it. Now, you might say, if that's the case, why bother doing the testing? Because, you know, you might know it based on just what they're saying.
02:40
Julie Chen
But what we really find out is that people have an idea of what they have, and then we do need the testing to actually understand the depth of what it is and truly confirm what it is so that the future steps in therapy actually make sense and we understand the pros and cons, whether it's truly worthwhile to go down those paths. So I do think it's a hand in hand kind of thing. So when I first started doing mentis, and I noticed that a lot of people actually can fall in that, what I call watershed scenario.
03:04
Julie Chen
And so because of that, I actually ended up doing a fellowship integrative medicine to kind of really be able to provide the care for patients who are a, very motivated about their health, and they need guidance and help with that, and then b, also to have the tools and understanding so that if someone isn't fully ill yet, if they're at the cliff, how do I then help pull them back from the cliff so that they can end up feeling and being healthy? To usually use this term called the leaky faucet, it's almost like helping someone with a disease that's starting and they're like a leaky faucet. You know, a lot of conventional medicine will wait until it overflows and it's obvious, but we actually want to start to work on it when it's leaky faucet, because it's easier to fix and pull them back.
03:49
Julie Chen
So that's ultimately where I ended up integrative internal medicine, actually, for years, because of my personal passion in this, I've worked with a lot of companies, mostly focused on products that empowered people to have the tools to actually have the ability to care for themselves and to have the ability and the tools to understand what they're supposed to do, and then when they know what they're supposed to do, actually have the tools to go do it. So a lot of these companies I've worked with over time have been direct to consumers or companies where they've created products for people so that they can use it and help themselves more of a whole problem, attacking with a whole solutions option for them. And then I also worked a lot with companies that actually are focused on, like, wellness.
04:33
Julie Chen
So, for example, in Silicon Valley, where I live, I helped a lot of companies start their corporate wellness program. So my career is really kind of smattered in that. And then I also had my own integrative internal medicine practice, actually in the Bay Area for over 15 years. And so when human longevity actually reached out to me, because I had been working with tech companies as well as corporate wellness programs and my own company, and also product development and supplements and things like that, just a lot of tools, as I mentioned, to help with people. So when they reached out to me and they said, would you like to join human longevity? I did my due diligence. I looked into, and I think at the time, for me to really leave what I was doing to come here took a lot.
05:12
Julie Chen
And the reason I came here is because human longevity has the capability to really take this kind of whole systems approach, longevity precision medicine, to the point where it could be international, and that we can have a more unified approach to this at some point in the future and have enough research as well as the bandwidth to be able to create a democracy version of this kind of medicine. So to me, ultimately, longevity genomic precision medicine has to be the wave of the future. And I've always, you know, believed in that. And human longevity was a way for me to get there. And so I happily joined HlI, and that was over three years, almost about three years ago now.
05:52
Julie Chen
And it's been such an amazing ride because I think working in a company where everyone believes in that and is passionate about it and are willing to put a lot of time and energy and everything on the line to get there, it's very awe inspiring to be around a bunch of people like that.
06:08
Dafne Canales
Yeah, it is. It's such an innovative company. It's been around for a long time, and, you know, doing amazing things. And then for our listeners out there, I want, we need a little bit of a definition. So we need to define functional medicine, integrative medicine, genomics. Can you give us a little dictionary thing there? Sure.
06:27
Julie Chen
Of course. Absolutely. So integrative medicine is, if you really think about the words just integrating, it's integrating all the modalities of medicine. So what's interesting and the difference between integrative and functional is integrative is a little bit wider net of using things like chiropractic, traditional chinese medicine, functional medicine, homeopathy, even like clinical hypnotherapy, like unconventional medicine. It's integrating all forms of healing and modalities to really address health concerns. That's literally what integrative medicines, integrating all of the mortalities. Functional medicine is much more of a root cause, biological kind of focus on disease.
07:07
Julie Chen
And I actually am a big supporter and believer in functional medicine in the sense that I think if we're looking broadly at disease states, we do need to see both a global, more of a macrocosm of disease as well as the microcosm, and for us to really understand where it's coming from and how the cells and the biochemical pathways are occurring. For something to occur, it's important for us now that there's more and more studies about it really does allow us to put it all together and start at more of a cellular level. Now what's interesting is that if you combine things like functional medicine and then genomic medicine. So genomics is looking at our blueprint, our DNA, of what makes us, and also what disease states are based on, inherency of our DNA, what we're predisposed to.
07:57
Julie Chen
So if you look at the spectrum of our health, if we're able to, which is what human longevity does, start from the beginning of someone's blueprint, and then look at their predispositions, then start to look at the cellular level of what needs to be optimized, then look at the imaging level and the biomarker level of where they're at right now, and then put that all together, more of a circular loop of saying, okay, here's our genomics. What are your predispositions? How can we fix that? What are we finding right now? And then we take the data and recheck it over and over. And that's ultimately what leads us to a data driven circular pattern of constantly feeding back into the info so that we can continue to move someone's health forward to optimize it. That's ultimately what we're looking for, right?
08:40
Julie Chen
So integrative medicine then at the other end of it is again this integration of genomics, functional medicine, diet, lifestyle, exercise, risk factors that are identified now versus future risk factors. A lot of what we do, for example, we can even identify dementia risks far in advance, and then also track the organ changes over time and as well as the functional changes over time. Because you might see shrinkage of the brain, but you also sometimes, maybe it's so early on that you don't see any volume change in the brain, but their functionality is changing. So there's so many factors that you do have to integrate together both to identify their issues, but also to integrate together so that you can have a comprehensive whole systems approach to health.
09:24
Julie Chen
So whether it's dementia risk, both on the diet and exercise end, the stress level end, because that will impact your sleep and exercise and all of that. So it's integrating solutions, but also integrating the diagnostic status to figure out where your health is right now.
09:38
Dafne Canales
Right. And one of the things that, because you're talking about a whole system, it's not just, there's so many, you know, books out there and different podcasts, and it's not just about just doing genetics or just doing something. It's about taking, like you're saying, that integrated approach to health and figuring that out. And I know that human longevity is very rooted in science, and you talked about some studies, and I think there's over 20 different scientific journals and papers that's been written by your leadership team. Tell me a little bit about the science behind human longevity.
10:09
Julie Chen
Absolutely. Yeah. And to your point, I mean, it's actually 60 plus peer reviewed journal articles. And it's quite a bit because we are so steeped in science. I think one thing that is so important to human longevity is that we actually have talked about this. It's not about sensationalism, it's about the science of it. And so for us to have that, we would have to have studies, we would want to really track someone's health over time and look at whether, if we did implement something, whether that intervention actually changed the clinical course, that's what evidence of medicine really looks at, and then isolating certain factors to see what's significant or not.
10:50
Julie Chen
So science to us, is important in the sense that if we are truly to change medicine, which we really want to, in a sense, not that, again, I don't want to say that conventional medicine is bad. It's not. But for certain key factors, like for trauma and, you know, acute issues or life threatening issues, conventional medicine is. There's nothing better than that. But when we're looking at, like, longevity care and where we are nowadays living longer and longer, and we want that kind of health span and lifespan gap to actually be narrow, meaning we want people to be really functional, enjoying life, traveling and having fun and exercising right up until they, whenever their life ends, instead of it being like the last ten years, they're sickly. Like, we don't want that. So we want to close that gap between health span and lifespan.
11:35
Julie Chen
We really need to have the science to help support not just people's internal beliefs that this is important because we want that as well, but also to change the community of medicine, to understand that this is important. Meaning we need ultimately, to democratize this. We need insurance buy in, we need government buy in, we need other healthcare institutions to acknowledge the importance of this, things like that. And that really can't happen in medicine unless you have strong science.
12:05
Julie Chen
I will say, I think because of the fact that we are so robust in science, this also explains why we're co branded with Mass general, and mass general is such a strong historical entity of science and standard of care, that I do think it speaks volumes that they are co branding with us and working with us, and we have this partnership where we can see this kind of medicine continue to grow. And I do think it's important for us to do that with conventional care, because only by doing that can we grow in parallel, where it's symbiotic and complementary. Because if you try to split off and do things completely differently and there's no communication, ultimately this is not the kind of medicine that will be able to be survivable in the field of science and medicine.
12:52
Julie Chen
Nor will it benefit people the most if two arenas of medicine are conflicting or at odds. So I think the ultimate way for all, everybody to really benefit from this kind of medicine in the future is for us to be able to have an understanding and a mutual respect in all of the versions of medicine together, so that patients in the future, clients, people, can utilize the best of both worlds without there being some sort of conflict that one side is not talking to the other or not believing in the other.
13:22
Dafne Canales
Right, right. And like part of that preventative medicine at human longevity, you encourage people who have no symptoms at all, who feel healthy to come into the clinic. So can you tell us a little bit about that?
13:35
Julie Chen
Sure. You know, I think what's interesting that a lot of people maybe don't think about is, I think the way it's sometimes been portrayed is that health and disease is very much a. You're healthy and then you're sick, but it's actually always like a spectrum. It's not like you're like 100% healthy and then all of a sudden you got sick. And there was no predecessor of like, changes that's occurred. It's usually always a timeline of slowly worsening. It's just that we don't feel it until it gets to a significant level. What we're really hoping to do is to catch diseases at a much earlier stage, even if they're asymptomatic, because I'll let you know. I've had multiple members and patients now where they've come into HLI for fun because their spouse really wanted to do it.
14:21
Julie Chen
And we've actually found significant findings like brain aneurysms and or early stage cancers, or cancers where even if it's farther along, it's not gone to the point where it's irretrievable. So for us, it's really important for people to really understand that to have cancer at stage three and four, the mortality rate is significantly higher. Seventies, eighties, that kind of, like, mortality rate than compared to someone finding it at stage one, the mortality rate on that is incredibly low. So as we age, our cells have this thing where it's constantly dying off and growing and things like that. And so when there's usually, like, errors in the cells, they have this thing called apoptosis, where it kind of dies off to kind of save your overall body, and it gets rid of the bad ones or the broken ones, right, if you will.
15:14
Julie Chen
But sometimes with cancers like that, then doesn't occur and the cells actually grow, and they're like mutated cells and they're not healthy cells. And so there's no checkpoints that normally can occur with healthy cells to kill off the bad cells. So the point is that as we age, that typically is a higher risk because aging is inflammatory. And aging, if you think of your body as machine, which it is as a machine, ages, there's going to be more issues that pop up. But if you, like, tune up your car or tune up your body earlier on, those kind of little things that start to occur, if you fix it and address it earlier on, they become non issues.
15:48
Julie Chen
I've had multiple clients where they had stage zero, one kind of stage one cancers where they went in, and because the tumor is tiny, they just cut it out. And the patient was done versus, if you look at these patients and they actually waited until it grew and it was in the bones and it had metastasized to other organs, that's a very different scenario than if it was like a tiny circumscribed, a tiny, like, isolated lesion that they can go in and cut out. So in a lot of these cases, they've been really positive stories. Like, for example, the 40 some year old women or clients where we've had, whether it's tumors or cancers or brain aneurysms, like, we actually have been able to help expedite their care, and they had it addressed within a week or two or three, and then they're fine.
16:35
Julie Chen
Like, one woman thought she had just menstrual period headaches, but she actually had a brain aneurysm, and her grandmother actually died in her fifties. And went in and found it, and then within a day, we had it confirmed on imaging again with contrast, and within another day, got her in to see a neurosurgeon, head of neurosurgery, at a hospital. And then within, like, a few weeks, she had the surgery done, and these headaches that she thought was her period actually were the aneurysm, because she doesn't get them anymore.
17:03
Dafne Canales
Wow. Incredible. Incredible.
17:06
Julie Chen
Very rewarding work.
17:08
Dafne Canales
Yes, totally. I can see why you love it so much. So, human longevity has a partnership with club leaders forum platinum clubs, and so we have members coming in from all over the US to visit human longevity, and some of them are coming in to check on their health, but other ones are coming in to optimize their health. So tell us a little bit about how that partnership's been working or how the, how that works.
17:34
Julie Chen
It's been great. I think that, you know, I've always had a strong belief, and I think the leadership here at human longevity has always had the strong belief that obviously, we can't do everything right. So for us, it's really about the genomics, the biomarkers, the imaging, the labs, the follow up, the clinician care, the referral system, the incredible diverse network that we have within our system, and the other learning institutions like MGH and all of these other institutions to really get the care around the medicine part for the client. But it's not like we're also going to take them to the gym and make sure they work on their quadriceps and things like that. So club leaders forum has really helped us to create partnerships with clubs where their main strength is in these other modalities of diet, nutrition, exercise.
18:20
Julie Chen
I think the beauty of this partnership that's very much symbiotic and complimentary, is that the data that we actually glean from our testing can really help the club programs to be able to be more personalized in their approach to the members healthcare, as well as the fact that if there are safety issues, that the club teams actually are aware of it. So, for example, if someone has very significant hypertension with a brain aneurysm and or heart disease, they probably should not go full force on a vo two max kind of testing until we've got them stabilized. Right? But I think the hard part is that if it's just club forum or. And without this info, there is some risk that, you know, maybe this right now isn't the time to push them to 100%, you know, so I think that.
19:12
Julie Chen
But then also on the other flip side, you know, human longevity has a lot of these factors that can help identify that clients. Maybe their front quadriceps are weaker than their hamstrings. So to have the kind of wellness club members be able to then go back to their trainers and their wellness longevity team at the clubs to help them build the muscles, balance it out, or for example, even build bone without hurting their joints, like those are very much important, I would say bidirectionally. And so to have this partnership where we can address it from both ends is perfection.
19:49
Dafne Canales
Thank you. That is so interesting and such a great partnership. And it's like you said, integrative. And now you're taking it to a new level, bringing it back to the clubs, the fitness directors and the everyday lives of the members at these clubs. So that's really incredible. Thank you so much, Doctor Chen, for joining us here today. It was great.
20:11
Julie Chen
You're welcome. It was great being here. Thanks for inviting me.
20:14
Dafne Canales
Thank you.