Leading physician in Singapore unveils holistic strategies for enhancing longevity

Dr. Andrea Maier, a leading expert in health and longevity with nearly 25 years of experience in geroscience, has dedicated her career to understanding the complexities of aging, CNBC highlights.

For the past decade, she has been applying her research findings in clinical settings.   As an internal medicine specialist in Singapore, she performs assessments on patients to evaluate their aging biomarkers, including the health of various organs.

Based on these evaluations, Maier provides tailored recommendations to enhance a patient’s longevity. 

“That can be changing a diet based on the microbiome, together with doing certain physical activities, or changing sleep habits or taking supplements based on what that body at that moment needs,” Maier said. 

In addition to her research and recommendations, Maier practices what she preaches by implementing some of these strategies in her own life.

"I think brain health is very underestimated. Knowing your brain capacity is important. Everybody [should] do brain tests, looking at what their short-term memory or their long-term memory is, and what the capability of the brain is to multi-task,” she said.    

Maier thinks the most important thing is simply using the brain. That’s what she does constantly.

"I just came back from Paris and Berlin. I had my quality time. Now it’s time to work for a couple of days or weeks, and then there is [more] quality time [with others],” she said.  

It’s very important that individuals are being heard and seen. It gives routine in life. 

As a physician, she never had a lesson about diet, which is quite bad, but that was the curriculum at that moment in time.   She has been a vegetarian since she was three for ethical reasons, but it also seems that it’s quite healthy. She leaves out red meat, white meat, and fish. She is 46 and still drinking Diet Coke.  

She often skips breakfast, which she didn’t know 20 or even 30 years ago was related to intermittent fasting or time-restricted eating. She really starts eating at two or three o’clock. Sometimes her first meal is in the evening, and she is fine. 

But these routines were actually part of lifestyle already before she had the knowledge that there could be a positive benefit.

"That does not mean everyone has to be vegetarian or vegan, and practice intermittent fasting. Having good quality intake is very important, and watching, of course, the outcome [of your eating habits]," she added.

By Naila Huseynova