Mount Sinai Announces Rowan Women's Health Center

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0:47Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts. Radio. News. You're listening to Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Masser and Tim Stenevek on Bloomberg Radio.

0:59Carol Massar:Hey, I have to say I am a bit obsessed with a recent story, just asked my team, that was in the New York Times. It wrote a new therapy that has the potential to cure hundreds of diseases and even reverse aging. And the story from the Times, and this is a quote from the article, many scientists now believe that mastering cellular rejuvenation may be the key to transforming how long and how well we live. Some hope that they might eventually be able to harness the process to cure hundreds of diseases, extend life by decades, and even fend off aging entirely. Again, credit to the Times on this. And what they looked into, Tim, it's all about what triggers rejuvenation.

1:36Carol Massar:And they've done this in the lab. And apparently there's been a series of breakthroughs that have made that future feel tantalizingly close. Again, that's how the Times described it. We're not there yet, though. No, we're not. Lots of groups, though, working on this, including a new women's center at Mount Sinai. So let's get to the Business Week Women's Health segment where we focus on key issues and developing technologies impacting the present and future of women's health around the world. It's great to have back with us Dr. Fannie Alahi, Associate Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

2:05She joins us once again from New York City. Thanks so much for joining us. I want to talk about rejuvenation, but tell us about this new chapter that you're embarking on right now. It's a pleasure to be back. The new chapter is basically just formalizing a lot of effort that Mount Sinai and other healthcare systems have put into advancing women's health. I am a neurodegenerative disease specialist. I want to understand the causes, drivers of dementia in order to prevent it. And we've known for a really long time that women are at much higher risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than men. But the root causes of that have not been understood.

2:45And so this new center, the Rowan Center for Women's Health, is taking a holistic approach to understanding risk factors in women and aging trajectories.

2:57Carol Massar:Hey, you know, Tim and I are looking at each other and I'm like, oh, great, you guys, you know, another win for you all. And he says, well, women live longer. Is it is that why we are more at risk because we live longer? Are there certain things in terms of our composition, our makeup that make us women more susceptible? And it's not just about that. We live longer. Sorry, Tim. It's really interesting. We are more resilient. We do live longer, but correcting for that extra lifespan does not actually explain the increased risk. Now, there are biological risk factors. There are fundamental differences between women's biology and men's biology.

3:32And with the new tools at our disposal, we want to tap into understanding those pathways of vulnerability. How do you separate what actually works and what's been tested? what's been proven in a clinical setting with a randomized controlled trial versus, you know, people who come to you and say, hey, this is I saw this. This is supposed to be to reverse aging. This is supposed to help me. This is supposed to help me neurologically. It's what I've seen. It's what I'm seeing on social media. How do you separate the hype from what works? You need to do rigorous clinical trials. There is a lot of really exciting science emerging, including from the Icahn School of Medicine.

4:13The next chapter is to use the same methodologies that we've used for things like aspirin, drugs for cholesterol, the same rigorous randomized clinical trial design in order to test the anti-aging therapeutics. And we are undertaking a really exciting clinical trial at Mount Sinai that will test combination treatments to slow down the aging process. So this is really the next chapter for extending health spend.

4:43Carol Massar:Yeah, it's really fascinating. I am kind of obsessed. It's funny, we've done a lot of reporting. I think even in the Times story, they just talk about a lot of wealthy individuals who are obsessed and pouring money into it. I want to go back to something you said about the pathways to vulnerability for women. What are those pathways in particular? And there's so much out there on social media, you have to be very careful. But things where they say, here's how you can maybe fend off dementia or what you should be doing. And I don't know whether it's exercise, keeping the mind busy, just these different things that they talk about.

5:16I'll give a very concrete example based on work that my lab is doing. We are really focused on understanding how blood vessels age. We think it's a fundamental component of aging of every organ system, including the brain. And we've uncovered really striking differences between the trajectory of vascular aging in women and men. And one of the really big differences in our lifespan is this middle age where women undergo menopause. What's surprising to me, and this is the beauty of data-driven studies, is that it's not all hormonal. There's this drastic shift and the physiology of women really changes.

6:00And I can't help but think that that biology that shifts is part of the risk for conditions later in life, such as Alzheimer's disease.

6:10Carol Massar:So, you know, we go back to, and I can't remember if we've spoken with you about this before, but I know in this segment, we often bring it up, especially when it comes to women in menopause, the study, when it comes to hormones and how that's been rethought because there were flaws or the outcome maybe wasn't true and that we're now learning that women should maybe be taking hormones as they're going into menopause or before it. So what you're thinking around that, of course, every case is individual. I understand that in terms of healthcare and treatment, but is that part of something that can help women in this process, especially when it comes to our neurological aging?

6:51Yes. We think that there may be benefit to some individuals being on hormone replacement therapy. The question is for how long and how much of an effect is it going to have on Alzheimer's per se? And I think those studies are ongoing, but our data so far suggests that there may be an effect, but it wouldn't solve the Alzheimer's problem, to put it that way. So just going on hormone replacement therapy in of itself without understanding more of the biology and having other interventions is not going to stop women from having the higher risk of Alzheimer's disease.

7:29Carol Massar:Dr. Lahey, we have about a minute left, and I'm just curious, for women or men who their wives, their sisters, their daughters, whatever, might be listening, or friends, so what is your advice to women based on what you know and what you're looking into? I would say that for women, they should have the conversation about hormone replacement therapy because outside of Alzheimer's disease, it can have other benefits and it may also benefit Alzheimer's. I would say exercise, exercise, exercise, work on sleep, do sleep studies to make sure you don't have sleep apnea, healthy diet, including the Mediterranean diet.

8:07All of these are basically as though we're taking drugs. They have real impact on the biology is what we have discovered. So taking lifestyle measures seriously can truly diminish one's risk. Just very briefly, the hormone replacement therapy, what age should women start having discussions with their doctor about it? Right around menopause. I would not wait long because I think what we do know for sure is that if you wait too long post-menopause, you may lose the benefit and only have the risk.

8:40Carol Massar:Learning something every week. I feel like we hear about hormone replacement therapy almost every week. We do. We bring it up. Yeah, we talk about it all the time. Dr. Fannie Allahi joining us, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Associate Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience joining us right here in New York City. Thank you. Thank you. Look forward already to our next chat with you.

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