Professor Andrea Maier: Can We Really Slow Ageing — and What Actually Works?

Can we change how we age? And how much of what's being sold in the name of longevity is backed by human evidence?

In this episode, I sit down with Professor Andrea Maier, an internal medicine specialist, geriatrician and longevity researcher, to explore those questions. Her work examines how we can preserve health and function as we grow older, and how promising research can become effective clinical care.

We discuss supplements, biological age tests, wearables, fasting and the future of personalised longevity medicine. Andrea explains why "possibility is not proof" is such an important distinction when assessing claims about slowing ageing.

One of the most striking moments is her account of testing commercially available NMN and urolithin A supplements. Some contained little or none of the advertised ingredient, raising questions about what consumers are actually paying for.

We also explore why a younger biological age score doesn't tell the whole story, how menopause affects organs throughout the body, and why preserving muscle needs to remain a priority when considering fasting.

Andrea shares her own approach to longevity, including why sleep comes first and why she measures before choosing an intervention.

In this episode, we cover:

• Where longevity claims are running ahead of the evidence.

• What supplement testing revealed about quality and label accuracy.

• Ageing as a balance between accumulated damage and repair.

• The role of everyday lifestyle choices in healthy ageing.

• What biological age tests can tell us, and their limitations.

• Why trends in wearable data can be more useful than a single score.

• When longevity interventions need medical guidance.

• Women's health, menopause and the importance of research that considers sex and life stage.

• Senescent "zombie" cells and what we still don't know about senolytics in humans.

• Fasting, time-restricted eating and protecting muscle.

• The future of precision longevity medicine.

• Andrea's personal priorities for ageing well.

Episode timestamps

00:03 — Introducing Professor Andrea Maier: possibility is not proof
02:20 — Supplements and longevity claims: what does the evidence support?
05:55 — What testing NMN and urolithin A supplements revealed
10:06 — Supplement regulation and consumer confidence
12:03 — Can we modify the ageing process?
16:03 — Good stress, harmful stress and the body's response
17:49 — How lifestyle choices influence healthy ageing
28:27 — Wearables, biological age scores and tracking trends
32:43 — Turning health data into practical action
38:12 — Women's biology and the gaps in longevity research
43:31 — Menopause and ageing throughout the body
45:07 — Senescent cells and the promise of senolytics
49:14 — Fasting, calorie restriction and time-restricted eating
54:28 — Protecting muscle while fasting
58:17 — The future of personalised longevity medicine
01:01:10 — Healthspan, independence and the wider benefits of longevity
01:06:00 — Andrea's personal longevity approach

CONNECT WITH PROFESSOR ANDREA MAIER

Andrea Maier is Oon Chiew Seng Professor in Medicine, NUS Academy of Healthy Longevity, National University of Singapore and Professor of Gerontology, Human Movement Sciences VU Amsterdam after serving from 2016 to early 2021 as Divisional Director at the Royal Melbourne Hospital, Australia, and as Professor of Medicine and Aged Care at the University of Melbourne, Australia. She graduated in Medicine from the University of Lübeck, Germany, was registered 2009 in The Netherlands as Specialist in Internal Medicine-Geriatrics and was appointed Full Professor of Gerontology at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (The Netherlands) in 2013. Andrea B. Maier is an authority in geroscience and precision geromedicine with more than 500 peer reviewed publications (H index 92, i10 index 382). She is invited member and advisor of international academic and health policy committees and funding agencies, including the World Health Organization evaluating the United Nations Decade of Healthy Ageing and Hevolution. She is the past Founding President of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society and serves as selected Member of The Royal Holland Society of Sciences and Humanities, Fellow of the Atria Academy of Science and Medicine, and Board of the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research. In 2023, she co-founded the NUS Academy for Healthy Longevity to conduct, teach and disseminate Geroscience and Precision Geromedicine. To bring highest evidence-based Precision Geromedicine to clinical practice, she founded Chi Longevity - Asia's first evidence based Precision Geromedicine clinics – in 2022 and established Maier's Longevity in 2024 in The Netherlands

• X (Twitter): AndreaBMaier
• LinkedIn: andreamaierprof
• Instagram: @drandreamaier

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