I had a consultation last week with a patient who had been doing everything right — SPF daily, good skincare regime, clean diet, regular sleep. She looked well for 49. But she wanted to understand why, despite all of this, her body seemed to be shifting in a way she couldn’t reverse with her current approach. More fat around the middle. Less definition in her arms. A tiredness that sleep […]

Every year, around my birthday, I have blood drawn. Not the standard screen my GP might order. Something more comprehensive — a panel I’ve built up over years of thinking about what actually predicts how well a body is ageing, as opposed to simply how old it chronologically is. I started doing this partly out of professional curiosity. I work in longevity medicine, I advise patients on ageing, I write […]

Every few months, a patient arrives at my consultation with a bag — and in the bag, usually, are several supplement bottles. Collagen drinks, collagen powders, marine collagen peptides. She wants to know if they’re working. Or, more precisely, she wants me to confirm that they’re working because she has been taking them consistently for eight months and feels invested. I take the question seriously. Not because the supplements industry […]