In this episode, I sit down with Dr Brendan Khong, a London-based aesthetic physician and regenerative medicine advocate, for a practical conversation about what it really means to age well, starting with the skin, but quickly expanding into whole-body biology.

The central theme is a shift now reshaping aesthetic medicine: moving away from surface-level fixes and toward addressing the underlying drivers of visible ageing. A key driver, Dr Brendan explains, is inflammaging, a chronic, low-grade inflammation that builds over time and accelerates both skin ageing and broader physiological decline.

He breaks down why some conventional aesthetic approaches can backfire, particularly repeated high-heat energy treatments, which may contribute to fibrosis, uneven pigmentation, and a dull, “waxy” skin texture over time. His approach favours smarter, gentler interventions, including an anti-inflammatory 1064nm Nd:YAG laser, targeted resurfacing that can be safer across a wider range of skin types, and calming injectables such as Meso-Wharton (a peptide product derived from Wharton’s jelly) used in practice to support skin quality, texture and fine lines.

But this is not just a conversation about devices and injectables. Dr Brendan argues that better results start with better assessment and the need to factor in gut health, supplement use, stress load, and cortisol patterns before reaching for a needle or a laser. He is also candid about timelines: collagen remodelling takes time, and unrealistic expectations are one of the biggest problems in aesthetics.

For day-to-day longevity habits that support skin health, he highlights fundamentals that are often overlooked: exercise, stress management, avoiding very hot showers, and finding a retinoid your skin can consistently tolerate.

Dr Brendan Khong | London's Most Sought-after Aesthetic Doctor

Dr Brendan Khong (@drbrendankhong) • Instagram profile

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

02:06 Brandon’s Medical Journey

03:36 Skin as an Inflammation Mirror

07:19 Supplements and Gut Health

10:15 Overtreatment and Inflammaging

14:47 Anti-Inflammatory Laser Approach

17:39 Regenerative Injectables Peptides

21:36 Personalised Protocols and Expectations

25:18 Why Glanine Stands Out

25:57 Microspheres Not Clumps

26:55 Anti-Inflammatory Collagen

27:47 Safety Profile Focus

28:45 Building Patient Protocols

30:25 Longevity Over Quick Fixes

32:17 Future Of Aesthetics

33:41 Gentler Treatment Philosophy

34:49 Quantum Magnetic Resonance

36:18 Healthy Beauty Trends

37:25 Daily Longevity Skin Tips

40:10 Rapid Fire Longevity Qs

45:14 Final Takeaways And Wrap

What happens to your financial plan when you live to 100?

Most pension systems were built around an ~80-year life expectancy. Much of today’s financial advice still follows a linear life-stage model. And many businesses have not yet reckoned with the fact that both their customers and their workforce are ageing in ways that will reshape everything.

In this episode of Beyond Longevity, I am joined by Nadine Esposito, founder of Wellthspan Advisory and a senior risk management professional, to unpack why longer lifespans are not just a medical story — they are a planning and financial one, with major implications for strategy and society.

Nadine’s path into longevity came not through medicine, but through risk, ESG, and a deep interest in the health–wealth connection. She introduces the concept of wealthspan planning: moving away from rigid life stages towards a model that accounts for career pivots, caregiving gaps, health shocks and the very real risk of outliving your money and any affordable care options.

We cover

1. The health–wealth connection — why “health is wealth” works both ways and how financial stress and poor health reinforce each other over a longer life
2. What businesses need to wake up to — ageing customer bases are changing consumption patterns across housing, travel, mobility and services
3. The workforce challenge — flexibility, lifelong learning, the rise of the “sandwich generation,” and why simply raising retirement age misses the point
4. Risk in longevity startups — data security, AI-driven health apps, sensitive personal data, and income regulations (including EU AI Act transparency obligations around human–AI interaction)
5. Longevity and inequality — why longer lives may widen the gap without smarte intervention and access

Key takeaways

1. Wealthspan planning replaces linear life-stage models with something far more dynamic and realistic
2. The two-way link between health and finances means you cannot plan one without the other
3. Businesses should start with a longevity maturity and gap assessment — and test whether products and services actually work for older customers
4. Investors should ask harder questions about IT security, regulatory readiness and risk management — not only financial fundamentals
5. Health and financial literacy, prevention, and employer/insurer incentives are among the highest-leverage policy priorities

Links

1. LinkedIn (Nadine): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadine-esposito-b1804415/
2. Wellthspan Advisory (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/company/wellthspan-advisory
3. Website:

What can a tiny worm tell us about human ageing, and could gut bacteria hold the key to a longer, healthier life?

In this episode of Beyond Longevity, we sit down with Professor David Weinkove: Chair of the British Society for Research on Ageing (BSRA), Professor at Durham University, and Co-founder and CSO of Magnitude Biosciences. David's lab uses the short-lived nematode C. elegans to run fast, rigorous experiments looking for interventions that extend healthspan and lifespan, and the results are pointing in some surprising directions.

We cover how Prof David moved from physics into experimental molecular biology, how his team discovered that bacterial strains and metabolites can dramatically alter how long worms stay active, and what inhibiting bacterial folate synthesis reveals about the biology of ageing. He also explains how worm movement is a practical proxy for healthspan and why that matters for scaling up research.

The conversation gets into the thornier questions, too: when do you need mice, and when might you skip straight to human-relevant models? How do you fund prevention research when the payoff is decades away? And what are the real risks of mandatory folic acid flour fortification, a policy Prof David argues deserves more scrutiny, given potential microbiome effects we don't yet fully understand.

Prof David also unpacks what the BSRA does day-to-day: from connecting researchers and lobbying government to running small grants and building bridges with clinicians and industry, and why he thinks the longevity field's biggest enemy isn't scepticism, it's overpromising.

Plus, we discover the most extreme longevity idea he's ever come across (involving spare parts — we'll leave it there).

Links:

https://www.durham.ac.uk/staff/david-weinkove/

Home - Magnitude Biosciences

HOME PAGE - BSRA

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-weinkove-bab807b

In this episode:

00:00 Welcome to Beyond Longevity + Meet Prof. David Weinkove

02:40 From Physics to Bioscience: Career Origins & Model Organisms

04:29 The Breakthrough: How Bacteria (and Folate) Can Extend Worm Lifespan

09:12 Measuring Healthspan in C. elegans: Movement, Decline & New Tech

10:38 Why C. elegans? Fast Ageing, Whole-Organism Biology & Screening Power

12:19 Worms vs Mice: Similarity to Humans, Ethics, Cost & Experimental Variability

15:35 Translating Worm Findings to Humans: Microbiome Links, Exercise Paper & Next Steps

17:52 Funding the Science: UKRI, MRC vs BBSRC, and the Reality of Grant Constraints

20:52 Why Longevity Research Struggles for Support: Messaging, Hype & Prevention

28:39 BSRA’s Mission & the Five Pillars: Public Engagement, Advocacy, Fundraising, Translation

32:01 Breaking Down Silos: Making Longevity Research Useful (and Public)

34:07 Prevention Mindset: Why “Healthier for Longer” Isn’t Instant Gratification

36:15 When to Start Interventions: Metformin, Timing, and Trial Design Challenges

39:39 Why Magnitude Bioscience Exists: Fast Whole-Organism Ageing Screens

41:12 What Companies Test in Worms: From Candidate Drugs to 1,000-Compound Screens

42:48 Folic Acid Fortification & the Microbiome: A Potential Unintended Consequence

45:55 Should Government Engineer Health? Autonomy, Risk, and Public Policy Trade-offs

52:37 Ageing Demographics & the Case for Prevention-First Healthcare Investment

55:59 Making Longevity...