Longevity Medicine & Geriatric Medicine

Successful and healthy aging

Healthy aging

The goal of healthy aging is not simply to extend lifespan but also to extend health span. Population-based studies have shown that older adults spend the majority of the last 5 to 11 years of their life living with multiple chronic diseases and poor health, burdened with disability and reduced quality of life for most of these years (1,2). However, this life trajectory does not have to be the inevitable case.

Research using modeling has predicted that as life expectancy increases, most of the years gained will be spent with four or more diseases (3), underscoring the importance of prevention and proactive strategies to extend health span and reduce disability and frailty. This is where the power of an integrative medicine X functional medicine X lifestyle medicine approach that we practice at Wisdom Health and Wellbeing comes in.

Dr. Wang has witnessed and helped countless patients stay healthy long into the eighth, ninth, and tenth decades of life. While the term “longevity medicine” is relatively recent, the concepts and principles have long been practiced and researched in the fields of integrative medicine, functional medicine, lifestyle medicine, and geriatric medicine.

Longevity medicine

Longevity medicine is considered an emerging field focused on the early detection, prevention, and personalized management of aging-related processes to optimize healthy lifespan and promote healthy aging. Its integration of advanced diagnostics, lifestyle interventions, and targeted therapies are part of the core principles and practice of functional medicine. Longevity medicine takes advantage of the knowledge gained from molecular biology, geroscience, and translational research to address the underlying mechanisms of aging, with the goal of maximizing years lived in good health.

Lifestyle interventions have the strongest evidence for extending health span and reducing multimorbidity (the presence of two or more chronic diseases or conditions). Combining healthy diet with other lifestyle factors (such as physical activity, weight management, smoking cessation, and low alcohol consumption) can extend disease-free life expectancy by 8 to 10 years (4-6). Reducing inflammation, improving insulin sensitivity, supporting mitochondrial function, and optimizing the gut microbiome are some of the integrative and functional medicine strategies that are linked to delayed onset of age-related diseases (7, 8).

Geriatric medicine

In addition to providing care for adults of all ages, Dr. Wang, as a board-certified geriatrician (geriatric doctor), offers expert geriatric care to older adults, with a focus on whole-person healing (through holistic therapeutic approaches and lifestyle interventions) and reduction of medication use whenever possible. The practice of good geriatric medicine emphasizes attention to the biological, social, and psychological determinants of health, akin to the practice of integrative and functional medicine.

As a result of physiologic changes with aging, older adults deserve special clinical attention when it comes to the management of multimorbidity and optimization of functional status to ensure the highest quality of life. Reducing and minimizing the number of medications is crucial, because medications are more likely to cause adverse effects in older adults, dosages need to be tailored, and meticulous attention is needed to recognize potential interactions among medications and supplements. This attention is particularly important in situations where many medications are being used—a phenomenon called "polypharmacy," prevalent in the current health care system.

Geriatricians (physicians with subspecialty training in the care of older adults) incorporate the unique physiologic and psychosocial needs of older adults into their care. By using a holistic medicine approach faithful to the principles of geriatrics, Dr. Wang sees older adults enjoying a high quality of life as they age and saying that they now "feel great!"

Dr. Wang was formerly on the full-time medical faculty in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and in the Division of Geriatric Medicine and Aging at Columbia University Medical Center.

References

1. Rizzuto D, Melis RJF, Angleman S, Qiu C, Marengoni A. Effect of Chronic Diseases and Multimorbidity on Survival and Functioning in Elderly Adults. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2017;65(5):1056-60.

2. Landre B, Fayosse A, Jacob L, Bloomberg M, Danilevicz I, van der Heide F, et al. Role of age in the association of chronic conditions and multimorbidity with incident ADL disability: multicohort analyses of 108,810 adults. Geroscience. 2025.

3. Kingston A, Robinson L, Booth H, Knapp M, Jagger C, project M. Projections of multi-morbidity in the older population in England to 2035: estimates from the Population Ageing and Care Simulation (PACSim) model. Age Ageing. 2018;47(3):374-80.

4. Nyberg ST, Singh-Manoux A, Pentti J, Madsen IEH, Sabia S, Alfredsson L, et al. Association of Healthy Lifestyle With Years Lived Without Major Chronic Diseases. JAMA internal medicine. 2020;180(5):760-8.

5. Li Y, Schoufour J, Wang DD, Dhana K, Pan A, Liu X, et al. Healthy lifestyle and life expectancy free of cancer, cardiovascular disease, and type 2 diabetes: prospective cohort study. Bmj. 2020;368:l6669.

6. Wang X, Ma H, Li X, Heianza Y, Manson JE, Franco OH, et al. Association of Cardiovascular Health With Life Expectancy Free of Cardiovascular Disease, Diabetes, Cancer, and Dementia in UK Adults. JAMA internal medicine. 2023;183(4):340-9.

7. Cagigas ML, De Ciutiis I, Masedunskas A, Fontana L. Dietary and pharmacological energy restriction and exercise for healthspan extension. Trends Endocrinol Metab. 2025;36(6):521-45.

8. Murillo-Cancho AF, Lozano-Paniagua D, Nievas-Soriano BJ. Dietary and Pharmacological Modulation of Aging-Related Metabolic Pathways: Molecular Insights, Clinical Evidence, and a Translational Model. Int J Mol Sci. 2025;26(19).