Fountain Of Youth
Regenosis has lofty ambitions of halting – even reversing – ageing with cutting-edge medical science. Chief scientific officer Brian Kennedy tells us more.
IMAGINE A WORLD without ageing: graceful bodies embalmed in the flower of youth, bursting with vitality, buoyant with meaning and joy. While this utopian fantasy might seem lifted from the pages of a science-fiction novel, it is in fact an increasingly feasible trajectory. According to Brian Kennedy, chief scientific officer at Regenosis and director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity, ageing is “modifiable” – a relatively modest term for an otherwise lofty ambition to halt, even reverse, ageing.
One of the first geroscience clinics and research companies in Singapore, Regenosis – founded by businessman Dato Shaun Lim and Teo Cheng Peng, co-founder of StemCord – lies at the forefront of cutting-edge stem cell therapy and research. Its aim is to “innovate and reform the way age-related diseases are viewed and treated in the world”.
Its state-of-the-art facility in Johor, Malaysia, – the first geroscience centre in Asia – offers a comprehensive range of personalised treatment programmes, procedures and therapies (from bodily screenings to dermal rejuvenation treatments), replete with personal medical concierge services and private treatment suites for individuals and families.
The firm is also the sole distributor of Rejuvant in Southeast Asia, the only health supplement in
the world clinically proven to reverse biological age by around seven to eight years. Kennedy was a part of the original research team at Buck Institute for Research on Aging in California, the US, that developed the supplement. It contains a highly pure, ‘body-ready’ form of calcium-alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG) – a substance produced by our bodies for cell growth, wound healing and the formation of muscle tissue. Robb Report talks to Kennedy, who is also a distinguished professor at Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine’s Department of Biochemistry and Physiology at the National University of Singapore (NUS), about what Regenosis does and how it can help us.
Tell us more about the approach that Regenosis takes towards anti-ageing.
By offering a holistic approach to long-term health and wellness, Regenosis maximises an individual’s health span and quality of life via a combination of healthy lifestyle choices and emerging longevity interventions. This includes monitoring an individual’s health conditions, developing personalised health programmes and providing a range of anti-ageing supplements and treatments, such as mesenchymal stem cell therapy.
What is geroscience and what is its relevance to anti-ageing?
The geroscience hypothesis posits that since ageing physiology plays a major role in most – if not all – chronic diseases, therapeutically addressing ageing physiology will either prevent the onset or mitigate the severity of chronic diseases. This hypothesis has emerged from the field of ageing research, which has uncovered mechanisms driving ageing, developed interventions to slow the ageing process and demonstrated that successfully slowing ageing leads to the prevention of many age-related diseases.
Practically, this means targeting healthy people who are ageing as a preventative strategy. Today’s medicine is mostly based on sick care, which waits for people to develop a disease before attempting to treat it. An effective geroscience-based approach emphasises healthcare instead, aspiring to keep people healthy for as long as possible.
Can you explain the science behind Rejuvant?
Rejuvant is made by Ponce de Leon Health. It contains AKG, a central metabolite that performs many important functions in human cells. Research conducted by Buck Institute and NUS point to the importance of AKG, showing that it extended lifespan and dramatically reduced frailty in mice. Additionally, Rejuvant contains vitamin A for males and vitamin D for females, which has also been shown to reduce frailty in male and female mice respectively. Many users of Rejuvant report improved endurance (especially during exercise), better bone health, the return of dark hair and a variety of other benefits – all of which are results that coincide with other published clinical studies on AKG.
“An effective geroscience-based approach emphasises healthcare instead, aspiring to keep people healthy for as long as possible.”
What are some lesser-known secrets to staying young?
It’s harder to substantiate this, but I believe that attitude plays a part. Individuals who stay optimistic, manage their stress levels, practise some form of mindfulness and stay engaged with society often have long, healthy and meaningful lives. We tend to focus on the physical aspects of ageing, but our brains are equally important – keep it engaged, active and in search of a purpose in life.