HELSINKI -- By Kim Yoon-mi/Korea Biomedical Review correspondent -- The existing healthcare system needs significant reform, as 98 percent of resources are dedicated to treating diseases rather than promoting wellness and prevention, according to a U.S. biologist.

At 85, Dr. Leroy Hood, who is exceptionally fit both mentally and physically, appeared eager to persuade international health experts and policymakers at the Radical Health Festival in Helsinki, held May 21-23, to shift their healthcare focus to a data-driven approach.

A world-renowned scientist and recipient of the National Medal of Science in 2011 bestowed by the U.S. President, Dr. Hood co-founded the Seattle-based Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in 2000, served as its first President from 2000-2017, and is a Professor and Chief Strategy Officer at ISB.

He received his MD from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Caltech.

He currently serves as CEO of Phenome Health, a not-for-profit company carrying out a project called Human Phenome Initiative to collect data from 1 million American individuals to promote data-driven health.

Why did he visit Finland?

“My purpose (in visiting Helsinki) is to propose a rational solution simply to replace our current disease care system where 98 percent of our effort is focused on disease to healthcare that's focused on wellness and prevention,” Hood said in an interview with Korea Biomedical Review on the sideline of Radical Health Festival Helsinki 2024 at the Messukeskus Expo and Convention Center in Helsinki on May 22. 

“What we're trying to do now is create partners that will bridge the enormous gap that exists between the reality -- you only make money if you work with sick patients -- and a reality where everything is going to be focused on wellness and prevention.”

Health underlies all of the fundamentally important characteristics of humans. 

Dr. Hood explained that early development, education, employment, community, creativity, and the ability to work, combined with a data-driven approach to health, provide the “possibility of expanding the health span” of an ordinary person from the 60s or 70s to their 90s or even 100s.

During the Radical Health Festival, he gave a presentation titled “The Potential of Digital Twins in Scientific Wellness: Case Brain Health and Alzheimer’s Disease.” He discussed studying normal brain health, understanding its functions, and comparing individuals susceptible to Alzheimer's with their digital twins to make recommendations on how to prevent the progression of Alzheimer's. His company also collaborates with Tampere University in Finland to support personalized and preventive medicine with digital twin systems. 

At a panel discussion, he shared evidence that made him think data-driven health can “enormously improve” the wellness of the average individual.

“The lower the age of your body is that's the biological age from your chronologic age the better you're aging. And we now have metrics that can suggest improving that difference even greater,” Dr. Hood said. 

With Dr. Jennifer Lovejoy, Chief Translational Science Officer at Phenome Health, Dr. Hood began a wellness program in 2015, ran it for four years, and found that women would lose a year and a half of their biological age if they stayed in the wellness program for a year, and men, 0.8 years.

“Those are kind of things we’re thinking about,” he said.

What does Phenome Health aim to do?

Specifically, Phenome Health is planning two major programs for data-driven health. 

One deals with individuals to optimize their health by analyzing their data and returning it in the way of the actionable possibilities that can improve health.

The second is to take on the four major chronic diseases -- diabetes, Alzheimer's, cancer, and cardiovascular disease -- and do observational clinical trials for three or four years to look at major features that have never clearly been defined.

For the long term, Phonome Health is soliciting aid from the U.S. Congress to carry out a “second genome project,” Human Phenome Initiative, where the company takes a million U.S. people’s data and analyzes their phenomic data over 10 years.

He went on to say that if this project is successfully conducted, it will bring three significant benefits: demonstrate that data-driven health significantly improves individual health outcomes, with a million data points for analysis; show that over a decade, early detection and prevention can significantly reduce chronic diseases; and catalyze the development of technology to enable data-driven health management at home, facilitated by cell phones.

“What's exciting is, if that really is true, then you can think about the democratization of data-driven health worldwide where you can go to underdeveloped nations like Africa and with cell phones you can mediate these kinds of things given agreements with governments…This is a big paradigm change,” Dr. Hood said. 

Tips for healthy living until 100

Dr. Hood’s chronological age is 85 but his biological age is 70.

His tips for a healthy life up to 100 and beyond? Exercise and intermittent fasting.

“In the U.S., most people gain an extra twenty or thirty pounds beyond. I weigh just what I weighed when I played sports in college,” he said.

Every morning, this octogenarian does 150 push-ups. Even during an overseas trip, he keeps his push-up routines. 

He also does knee bends, sit-ups, a lot of stretching exercises, and balance exercises. 

“I think balance becomes critical as you get older. Standing on one leg unsupported for a minute or so is a good test of your balance,” he noted. 

Regarding intermittent fasting, he said eating only during an eight-hour window of the day was an easy way to lose weight.

“It really doesn’t matter where that eight hours is but you cannot eat the other sixteen,” he added.