What happens to your financial plan when you live to 100?

Most pension systems were built around an ~80-year life expectancy. Much of today’s financial advice still follows a linear life-stage model. And many businesses have not yet reckoned with the fact that both their customers and their workforce are ageing in ways that will reshape everything.

In this episode of Beyond Longevity, I am joined by Nadine Esposito, founder of Wellthspan Advisory and a senior risk management professional, to unpack why longer lifespans are not just a medical story — they are a planning and financial one, with major implications for strategy and society.

Nadine’s path into longevity came not through medicine, but through risk, ESG, and a deep interest in the health–wealth connection. She introduces the concept of wealthspan planning: moving away from rigid life stages towards a model that accounts for career pivots, caregiving gaps, health shocks and the very real risk of outliving your money and any affordable care options.

We cover

1. The health–wealth connection — why “health is wealth” works both ways and how financial stress and poor health reinforce each other over a longer life
2. What businesses need to wake up to — ageing customer bases are changing consumption patterns across housing, travel, mobility and services
3. The workforce challenge — flexibility, lifelong learning, the rise of the “sandwich generation,” and why simply raising retirement age misses the point
4. Risk in longevity startups — data security, AI-driven health apps, sensitive personal data, and income regulations (including EU AI Act transparency obligations around human–AI interaction)
5. Longevity and inequality — why longer lives may widen the gap without smarte intervention and access

Key takeaways

1. Wealthspan planning replaces linear life-stage models with something far more dynamic and realistic
2. The two-way link between health and finances means you cannot plan one without the other
3. Businesses should start with a longevity maturity and gap assessment — and test whether products and services actually work for older customers
4. Investors should ask harder questions about IT security, regulatory readiness and risk management — not only financial fundamentals
5. Health and financial literacy, prevention, and employer/insurer incentives are among the highest-leverage policy priorities

Links

1. LinkedIn (Nadine): https://www.linkedin.com/in/nadine-esposito-b1804415/
2. Wellthspan Advisory (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/company/wellthspan-advisory
3. Website: https://www.wellthspanadvisory.com/
4. Longevity Readiness Diagnostic Tool: https://www.longevityreadinessdiagnostic.com/
5. Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nadine.esposito_/

Beyond Longevity is hosted by Daphna. New episodes every Monday. Subscribe and listen at https://beyond-longevity.co.uk/listen

Timestamps

00:00 Welcome to Beyond Longevity + Why Longer Lives Change Money

01:40 Nadine’s Path: From Risk & ESG to the Longevity Space

03:45 From Biohacking Curiosity to the Pension Reality Check

06:42 Wealthspan Planning: Where Health and Wealth Collide

08:42 De-Risking Longevity: Individuals, Employers, and Startups

11:25 Health Data & Cybersecurity Risks in Longevity Tech

17:54 AI in Health: What Users Should Know Before Sharing Data

21:17 Investor Checklist: Security, Regulation, and Risk Appetite

26:08 Longevity’s Business Impact: Aging Customers, Products, and Cities

30:04 Mobility, Social Connection & the Rising Cost of Aging

30:57 New “Life Events” After Retirement: Property, Divorce & Starting Businesses

32:45 The Aging Workforce: Lifelong Learning, Flex Work & Employee Resilience

34:22 Rethinking Retirement Age: Reskilling, Career Resets & Hiring Barriers

39:25 What Policy Should Change First? Financial + Health Literacy & Prevention

45:26 Will Longevity Widen Inequality? When Wealth Becomes Health

46:50 Personal Playbook: Healthspan Over Lifespan & Building Sustainable Habits

49:03 How Any Business Can Prepare: Longevity Maturity Checks & Accessibility

51:48 Key Takeaways + Rapid-Fire Q&A (Sleep, News, Fasting Myth)

58:09 Final Wrap: Longevity Is a Planning Topic (Money, Work, Risk)

Welcome to Beyond Longevity, the podcast that explores not just how we age, but how we can build a longer, healthier future for ourselves.

Joining me today on Beyond Longevity is Nadine Esposito, founder of Wealthspan Advisory.

Having worked as a senior risk management professional, Nadine's perspective on longevity is shaped less by medicine and more by long term financial planning.

She is thinking in time horizons.

She encourages people not to postpone the real world decisions until they become urgent or in some cases, just too late.

Nadine has followed the longevity space closely for years and she brings genuine depth of understanding to it.

But what makes her contribution distinguished, distinctive, is how she translates longevity into a simple reality.

If we live longer, we all have to think about money differently.

That applies to private individuals planning their own lives and it applies to businesses too, because longer lifespans change everything from workforce planning to products, pricing and long term liabilities.

This conversation is therefore not just for finance people, it is for anyone.

Because all of us need money to live and most of us will need better financial planning if the timeline gets longer.

Hi Nadine, you are Deputy CRO and you work a lot in the longevity field with wealthspan Advisory and various other projects.

Could you give us a quick version of how your career took you into the field of longevity?

Very good question and thank you Daphne for asking.

Might be confusing for people because what does risk management in a way have to do with longevity?

And I think I need to expand here a bit.

So at very early stages of my risk management career I started to look into also sustainability.

And that's important just from a background perspective because in the end, as most people know, sustainability and longevity are closely interlinked because there's not going to be a longevity without sustainability and a healthy planet.

But that's a completely different bucket.

I started a building here in support of the sustainability practice at Deloitte Switzerland and studied also sustainable finance.

But was also already back then interesting to me was that most of the sustainability and ESG discussion is around climate and some at some stage water and gender equality.

Right?

So I would say that's, that's the big, big bucket, what the big discussions are about and what most of the reporting on an ESG level is about.

But I personally was always most interested in the health and well being sdg.

Right.

And I also said that potentially the S in ESG could be around demographic, could be around health and well being and not only from this environmental and governance perspective.

So I started looking closer into kind of how could I link this S with the SDG for health and well being.

And back then I suddenly stumbled across a push or, or smaller pushes on social media around something called longevity.

And as curious as I am because some people call me a vacuum cleaner for information, I started digging deeper.

And I also have to explain that I think I was very at the start looking into blue zone diets.

I chased across whole Sydney for Okinawa sweet potatoes just because they are apparently the longevity food.

I did chia pudding 20 years ago and biohacking was very interesting.

I mean there is this one biohacker, Max Gutzler with Flowgrade in Germany and I got to know him when he was starting to build his own company in the biohacking scene.

So on a personal level that always interested me and then there was this longevity and I suddenly discovered that my personal interest had now a name and that's called longevity.

But you know, sitting there and thinking about it, I was well that's nice and it's interesting, but I definitely do not have a credibility to talk on social media about health aspects.

I am not a medical professional and I will not claim to be one.

I mean nowadays everybody on Instagram is suddenly a nutrition advisor and a personal trainer and longevity coach after having done a two hours course online.

But I think that's just not credible.

And we are talking about health related matters and there it's on a doctor's level, on a professional's level to give their opinion.

Then I discovered what now happens if all those people get to 100?

But we can say they had been built in a time where people had in the Western and European countries and also the US had an average life expectancy of around 80.

So but this is still increasing and the future generations, and especially the people who are nowadays interested in longevity, they will or have to plan to 100, 120.

Suddenly where should that money come from?

Because if previously you saved for 20 years post retirement, how should that money last for suddenly double the amount of time?

Just to make numbers quite striking, right?

And then it got interesting and now I love to combine topics, I love to combine industries and knowledge buckets and see connections.

And then I saw the connection between the impact of your health on your finances and the impact of your finances on your health.

Speaking with wealth managers, especially in the ultra high net worth individuals sphere, that's not something new.

But Speaking to the doctors about the link, for some of them it's new and vice versa, right?

So there is this niche where two industries suddenly combine.

And I believe with the whole longevity discussion, we see a convergence more and more of the financial industry and the health industry.

Because in the end we have as a lot of people now suddenly say health is wealth, right?

But sadly also wealth is health.

We have that and we know that also since a long time.

So that's this where I discovered and developed or are looking closer into the whole topic of wealth span planning.

Because I say it's not anymore a wealth planning, a linear wealth planning, you know, with educating, saving, retiring and accumulating.

We will see in future more a wealth span planning which takes into account career changes, stepping out of workforce due to caregiving, then also the implications and the impact of health events and health shocks on your finances.

Then also care risk with care shortage.

We might have the finances even because we planned perfectly.

But suddenly we will see people who do not have access to care anymore just simply because care shortage and care personally is limited.

So all of these is combined, should be combined in future in a modern wealth spend planning.

Now, what's getting interesting and why?

It's an interesting link to my role and my daily business as risk officer.

You can literally say I on my daily basis I de risk finance working in a bank, right?

But I also help now de risking longevity.

And that's in three pillars.

The first pillar, that's the wealth span pillar, right?

That's more on a level of individuals helping individuals understand how those links are coming closer, understanding how health and wealth are combined, what it means and which all of the considerations are key.

And what it also means in the end for the financial industry, for new products and services.

Longevity is also interesting for each and every company actually because.

And there it's more in the microeconomic discussions, it's more labeled on the demographic change, less on the longevity.

But in, in a way it' it's interlinked.

Demographic change means that companies need to be aware that their customer basis is aging.

I mean, there will be some companies that purely focus on people 15 to 25 and they will struggle seeing that this age group is shrinking.

But most industries will see that there is a large percentage shift of their clients moving into the 50 plus segment.

That's challenging.

They have a different consummation behavior, they have different needs, they have a different spending behavior, different priorities.

A lot changes with age.

And there we have the whole discussions of menopause, potential onset of Alzheimer potentially.

Also things around people needing more flexibility in their time commitment or day structures.

There is this sandwich generation where we'll see people who need to take care for their parents while taking care for their children.

And I love from an Australian prime life partners from Ellie Bloom.

I loved her.

So saying that it's not only a sandwich generation, it's even a club sandwich generation.

So we have a crispy bacon there and then on, on the last pillar where also risk management and longevity are combined is in longevity companies.

That's a new industry of startups with a lot of money currently being invested in because definitely the need is there.

But, and there is this big, big but most of these companies handle health related data but not all of them have a technical setup which is robust enough to handle health related data.

There is a big risk that they will be prone to cyber attacks, that we will see data leakage.

Many people are so worried about the security of their data at banks.

I mean just knowing the whole ton of regulation we need to comply with.

But just look at for example, and I don't want to name anybody or just for an example, but we see more and more hotels for instance, which now deliver health related services, some longevity treatments, just dealing with more personal data, taking some blood samples and so forth.

But not every hotel has that robust IT infrastructure to actually handle health related data.

Then also we see a lot of the longevity startups and all the variables and those tons and tons of new apps that are developed based on AI.

It's just amazing what you can do with lovable.

I mean with wipe coding.

You sit there for four hours and you create amazing app.

Super interesting.

I personally would also have tens of ideas that I could program but nobody asked how securely that those things are coded.

I mean it's super exciting.

Oh, I can share all my health information, I can upload everything and it will tell me how to interpret it.

But did you ask how secure this amazing app is coded?

Do you know where your data will be stored?

Do you know if your data is anonymized?

Do you know who has access to that data?

I mean your health data and especially data if, if something is for free, you are the product and normally it's your data and a lot of companies will be behind your health data.

So that's now very it nerdy and I don't want to turn the world black or Anything.

It's just with all this hype now, especially for the startups, but also for the investors, it's important to consider if there is a robust diligence performed before investing.

And then also all the clinics, I would also say the supplement startups, I mean, there are already at the horizon trends asking for regulation tasks from a customer and consumer security perspective, ensuring that those black sheeps are thinned out.

And we have seen in the past, especially for highly regulated industries, one of the key drivers for startups to fail is not reaching compliance, or not reaching compliance early enough, or getting maybe an approval, but then having afterwards compliance issue with fines, reputational damage and so forth, which most of those startups cannot compensate.

And also again, from an investor perspective, before a lot of money is invested, it could be wise, especially in future, to assess if, if the structure is already built to manage upcoming regulations and if just simple basic frameworks or structures are in place.

So that's what I mean with on one hand de risking finance, but also de risking longevity.

No, no, I think you've raised some excellent points.

And if you think about it, everything you've said is very logical and makes a lot of sense.

And yet even me, I've seen how many startups there are that are, just like you said, some kids sitting at home writing some code, but not really realizing the impact that it has on various levels.

First of all, advising people on medical issues, you and me were in a very similar position.

We are very well educated because we've educated ourselves well in the field of longevity and all this, but we are no experts, so we can only share our opinion.

But there are a lot of people who know even less than us and yet feel they can not only share their opinion, but give out information and like you said, collect information from the general public.

And I'm always amazed how easily people give away their data, their health data and all this without any thought to any repercussions.

And yet when you have AI, the face recognition to recognize if somebody's wanted by the police, certainly in England, everybody is up in arms about it, about, you know, oh, this is, you know, private information and I don't want the police to have my face.

And yet everybody's on Instagram and TikTok and everything.

So people don't, I think, see the correlation.

So I just wanted to ask a little bit more about this AI and what the public needs to be aware of when giving information, but also the platform creators and all that, and even the ones with good intention, not the ones that necessarily want to take your data and sell it on which a lot do, especially in the health industry.

Because like you said, data is where the money is.

But what can the general public do to be more aware of it and know the risks?

And also what can people who want to help the wider public because there are people, you know who want to improve the health system.

And I've had a lot of people on here who created platforms that are super helpful and hopefully will do very well.

But how does one make sure it's secure?

And not only secure within a country because these days, you know, there are no country sort of borders anymore.

You know, the Internet is worldwide.

So maybe you can elaborate.

As I previously said, I'm your doctor.

That's a moment where I have to say I'm not AI specialist.

I'm looking more and more into the topic and very excited about it.

I have to admit.

It's not one day where I don't use AI.

I need to admit it.

Various versions and I love the new what now.

For instance, Claude has been recognized for for medical information.

We have MacGT and I have also, I must admit, uploaded X rays into AI.

What is the result?

To challenge my doctor been it done it just to say and also this field is so fast evolving.

What I can share with my that space limited knowledge is first the user needs to be aware that he is chatting with AI and it's not a person.

And what is AI in the sense or that strikes me every time I need to get it back into my mind.

These are large language models and what do they do?

They base on probability of how good a word fits to the other.

This is not a human but they are amazingly accurate.

I mean they are at some stage more accurate than a doctor and that's the thing but it's.

It's a machine behind it and if you share personal information, be aware that you are doing it.

I think it's just about the being aware of what you are doing.

And then there are more and more.

For instance we have now Swiss GPT which is limited to the Swiss parameters.

There are more and more solutions which have a secured parameter and where also then the whole aspect of hallucination like NotebookLM just literally focuses on what you upload.

So it's not hallucinating but it's all of those risks.

And we now have in the eu, the EU AI act already which requires companies at least to inform the customer that he is now interacting with AI from a secure from an issuer or coding perspective it's definitely the topic of where the data resides.

So I don't want to be biased but I'm a bit hesitant to share something to China.

Everything goes to the U.S. yes.

Then also definitely every company by now the topic of data leakage and your information being copied into even if it's just deeper the translation tool we have it nowadays everywhere and every company is looking into those challenges.

It's hard to say just a secure handling anonymization where possible that at least you de risk it in a way and yeah be very precautious especially when things are for free or as everything that is novel and if it doesn't have a credible company behind it I think it's just the basic security awareness but it's so hard and it's so tempting.

Definitely.

So we have a lot of investors listening who invest in longevity startups and all that.

What do you think are sort of three important questions that they ought to ask before investing?

I think it's a no brainer around the financial structures.

I think that's the key thing.

You know when he's what's the business plan?

When will you be net positive burn rate and so forth.

I mean everybody is focused on these numbers.

One thing I currently nowadays I would definitely advise is to check on the IT security and AI side.

How secure is the IT infrastructure?

Especially which data is the company handling?

Is IT handling client data, sensitive data, health related data?

How secure is this all managed?

Just because you do not want to invest in a company which is prone to day collage cyber attacks and then faces fines and reputational damage.

So we have the IT side I would say then I would especially also challenge or advise to see, see and check if it's an industry which is up for upcoming regulation.

Is there simply what kind of regulation is it?

What hurdles would it mean if they are not currently already considered?

How could that start up from day one kind of expand and integrate into their services and products certain quality benchmarks, meet criteria, production criteria?

Could all of these be met or would that mean a complete redesign, new manufacturing processes, new ingredients set up and so forth?

Right.

The maturity of reaching compliance and then also I would recommend is there at least a basic understanding of risk management in a sense of what's the risk appetite for all of those risk management vectors?

Is the management and potentially the board aware of it and what are they willing to accept?

Or then say okay no this is now over our risk appetite.

We need to find measures to control IT or reduce this risk.

That's what I would highly recommend just simply to be.

Besides the financial robustness on, on a solid basis.

A lot of the points you've raised are I would say applicable to any startup.

Doesn't have to be in the longevity field, but I do think it's very important to especially people that want to invest in longevity startups because people are often very enthusiastic about the product they're selling and not really know about the legality behind what they're doing.

Because it's one thing if you set up a startup selling shoes, there's not that much risk other than financial risk involved.

Whereas as you said very clearly dealing with medical information entails a lot of regulations and rightly so.

And I think there'll be even more to come because an ever expanding field.

And so yeah, watch this space to

this I think it's important or could be important to add.

I mean previously around the whole app development and AI, you could say it was more limited to the IT space.

I mean the tech nerdies developed their app, it was more differentiated and the medical side remained more in a, in a personal space.

But suddenly we see a lot of medical professionals with a good intention wanting to deliver apps and AI services and or maybe don't have that technology background.

Right.

So hopefully they are collaborating with a tech person, but that tech person when coding doesn't have the medical experience so they potentially don't get the coding right.

So because I've been in meetings with medical professionals and I and they just talk different languages that they understand each other and get a doctor to speak in processes, that's already a huge challenge.

It's two worlds coming together into a world that is being regulated but still not regulated enough and is constantly changing and adapting.

So yes, all the players involved need to be hyper aware of anything new happening.

And yes, you need more than for any other business sector, I think a very solid foundation.

Let's move a little bit away from the startup.

Let's see how does longevity and longer living apply to business in general?

What changes for businesses if their customers live to 95, you know, 100 rather than die at 80?

What different decisions do they need to make?

And not just the customer, but, but also for the staff Because I guess that also changes how a business looks at its future.

Sure.

When we look at what we know about changing consumer behavior, we look at how our grandparents aged.

Now a new generation, a more tech savvy generation, a generation which already had a different lifestyle and that's a completely new foundation aging.

So we do not know based on the past how the structures and needs and purchasing behavior of the coming old generation will look like.

So we need to learn while this generation ages.

And that's again an amazing use case for AI because it's fast learning, fast adopting and can manage huge data sets.

But what we have seen in the past is that on one hand for sure, we see that the children get out of the house, smaller families, couples, widows, single households and everything around single households down to smaller package sizes.

At older age you should eat more protein, less carbs, it's more convenient.

It's not a kilogram pack, it's a more 200 gram pack.

We see now Swiss grocery companies that have depending on the area advisories coming in, how should they rearrange and restructure their whole shops, their whole product shelves?

For older consumer bases, then also housing the real estate, right?

We do not need any more this six bedroom house or six bedroom apartment.

It's more down to smaller apartments for one or two people.

That's from a housing perspective.

Then also the whole travel industry.

Travel for the 50 plus, travel for 60 plus.

I mean when we look at the coming people around 50 which will enter soon retirement age, they are especially in Switzerland, still very well off and they, if they are healthy enough, want to travel.

So but with a little bit more luxury, maybe they're less flexible, maybe they have already mobility issues, right?

But they still want to travel and luxury.

So I have even seen that multi generational traveling is a topic when the grandparents want to travel with the children.

So though that's definitely also in travel industry.

This topic we will see also in the whole public service and public transport, right, that people want to remain mobile.

But currently everything is apparent based how do we handle people that are not so tech savvy, how to create age inclusive cities, age inclusive transport.

Because transport means mobility, mobility means independence, you want to stay as long as possible.

Independent mobility also means that you can be social and meet friends.

We know that social interaction is a key pillar for healthy aging.

Isolation is devastating for your brain health, for your mental health, for your physical.

But a lot has to do with mobility, especially if you can't drive anymore at older age, then just simply.

We also know that the amount of money you spend on health and well being and medical expenses rises beyond something around 65 to 70 exponentially.

So the older you get, the larger percentage of what you spend goes versus medical expenses.

Super interesting for the pharma industry, definitely that are the more or less known shifts with an aging consumer basis in the financial Industry we talk about life events.

That's from a financial planning perspective.

Very known life events are something like divorce, having children.

Life event is also buying property, selling property.

And in the previous or the still let's say common financial planning, most of these life events happen before retirement age.

But we will see that many of these life events will happen in future post retirement age.

So I believe or predict that marriage and divorce at 18 will become also more a normality that more and more people want to buy property with 70, with 75.

Don't try to get a mortgage nowadays above 65 even if you have the money right.

Also founding businesses.

If you ask on the street what's the medium age for people to found a business, they will tell you 35 to 45.

But if we are fit, I see and believe more and more especially people post retirement will fund their business because they say I had always this dream and always this idea and all of my previous bosses did it wrong.

I want to do it differently.

And I am now building my business, I want to share my knowledge and they're going to do it with 70.

I mean things will change.

And that means also achieving change in products and services now from the financial perspective.

But that also goes down to it and so forth.

And that's what I mean.

With all industries are impacted and then also as you mentioned, yes, the whole employee basis is aging.

And there topics like how do you remain or keep the lifelong learning in place, how do you keep those people digitally savvy, how do you potentially create new career paths with maybe stepping down from a leading strenuous managerial role to more an advisory role while still having your pension secured.

More flexibility around work hours, more flexibility for potential onset of health related issues.

But with workforce shortage it's just going to be on the horizon.

And I'm now not talking about an employee well being stress app.

I'm more favoring the topic of employee resilience which covers just also the inclusion and knowledge what it means to age.

But also educating employees at all age stages, how they can remain healthy at all age stages to be resilient.

You've made an interesting point.

I've extracted from what you said that you think the pension age is going to be extended so because people live longer they will have a longer pension life, which is definitely reasonable.

But do you not think that the working life is just going to be extended so pension age will come later or do you not see that as an option in the near future?

It would be the first logical step, right?

So you Reduce the amount of years people are in pension while upping up retirement age.

I don't think that it's so simple because there are industries, especially on the building side, physical, intense industries where people just go, cannot work in that industry for longer.

They are physically exhausted, they have pain.

So it could be to see, could we reskill them at some stage.

And that's also something which I believe definitely will be.

We will have to let go of this idea of one career, of this one ever, you know, stepping up career with the salary, going up with every year that we will see a reskilling and then a potential drop again in salary and starting again at a lower and working up again.

Do you not see that already in the younger generation?

I mean if you look at the older generations, they're most of them, A lot of them stayed at their company for 20 years, 30 years, 40 years, you know, got pins and congratulations, you've been with us 40 years.

Do you not think that the trend in general goes to people sort of job hopping?

The younger generation don't seem to be in a job for more than two years.

So I think that is already being sort of implemented.

And yes, it has to spill over to the older generation still.

But do you not see that that's where the trend is going anyway in the workforce?

Everything.

Just my personal opinion, I would say from an employee perspective, yes, definitely the job hopping, but which is not really advisable always.

And job hopping doesn't mean reskilling could be that people just remain in their industry.

The thing is companies are not there yet.

Don't try to get a job at 55.

It's extremely hard.

And especially if you go and say with 50, okay, I want to reskill, I train myself on something completely different.

It's very hard nowadays to make an industry shift.

Even if you say, okay, I'm willing to take the lower salary, I'm willing to start again at scratch.

Find a company that gives you that chance.

We still have a skill based hiring approach.

We don't have an attitude based hiring hiring.

I mean just look at, for instance, take now in, in Switzerland.

It's, it's very predominant topic.

You, you have now with the Credit Suisse merger, you have very experienced, very senior people and some of them, they want to reskill.

And I mean somebody who was an MD at Credit Suisse, he, if he says I want to be the junior again, the company will say no first.

You have been leading 300 people.

You're not going to expect an order for somebody that is 30 years younger than you are and we cannot offer you the salary.

So discussion stopped.

So if, even if the employees maybe have this modern approach and willingness, it's also on the employer side to be there more flexible.

Plus also there should or needs to be, especially in Switzerland, but depending also on the pension scheme restructuring on the whole pension scheme.

Because in Switzerland the older you get, the more the company needs to pay into your pension fund.

So employing somebody with 60 is extremely costly.

So a company thinks twice if he's going to employ somebody who is new in a field, doesn't have any experience, costs more, potentially wants part time work, is anyway potentially going to drop out in two years time.

It's not that attractive.

And to your question, it's also when we just look at America, I mean for being able to work to 75, if you say we're just going to leverage the retirement age, I don't see that the generations are healthy enough potentially to work that long.

When we just look at the numbers of metabolically ill and diabetes 2 and there is a fairly sick generation coming.

So I think it's a very faceted and difficult question.

There's no easy answer to it and I think hopefully in 10 years the system will have regulated itself to work it out.

But I agree with you in the near future this transitioning to people living longer than going to be very difficult.

We're not sure where this is going to go.

Which big policy lever would you change to make it more financially sustainable for older people?

The pensions, the healthcare funding incentives or anything else?

What would you change first in order to facilitate country moving into this era of longevity, era of their citizens living longer.

I mean it all needs to change.

We can agree on that.

But where to start?

Where would you start?

I would say education.

Education around financial literacy and education around health literacy.

Because I believe that people are becoming more and more reliant on.

Well, the state will look after me, the pension fund will look after me, the doctor will look after me.

And I believe we need more again people becoming more proactive, taking ownership of their own finances and own health.

But that means having the knowledge and the education.

And I've been quite shocked by the financial literacy numbers from Australia.

Apparently high financial literacy is already to know that you should spend less than you earn.

That's high financial literacy.

It's not about even knowing what a butterfly on a bull and a short and the long is.

I mean that if you ask me what's high financial literacy, I, I would say okay, I, I need to Calculate a butterfly and then have a bull and a bullish market, you know, and go long and go short.

No, no, we are talking about knowing that you should budget and spend less than you earn and that should start at ideally primary school and not somebody needing to study business to get that knowledge of financial literacy and then also health literacy.

And definitely a push for prevention because if you just look at a coffee machine, if you maintain the coffee machine and constantly clean it and look after it, it can stay for years and years like new.

But if you don't do anything until it's broken, you need to bring to fix it.

It, it's going to work again, but it's going to be 90% of what it was.

It will never bounce back fully.

That's also with your health, if you get to know what are the basics.

And it's so amazing with lifestyle what you achieve.

It's.

You don't need the costly treatments and products, they're great.

But it's still the basics.

It's the sleep, it's the movement, it's the nutrition, it's the stress.

If you get those right, you can already go very far.

But if you burn out, if you really ruin your metabolism, get metabolically ill, yes, there might be a drug, there might be a product, but you're just not going to get to those hundred percent back again.

And just being aware that yes, the doctors are amazing, but they're a safety net, they're not your security, they're just a net that you don't fall out of the kind of whole system in a way.

So definitely also favoring more on the prevention.

And that's what I see especially it needs more support from the insurance industry, support that preventative measures are more supported.

Just also it's still so shocking to see, see that for instance dentist visit in most countries.

I don't think in any country it's not part of the standard health insurance.

But oral health is so important for overall longevity.

By now we know the importance of the oral microbiome for brain health.

Right.

So and potentially also on on the employer side, I mean could it become normality having one day per hour where you can block for physical activity and the employer supports it, just knowing if the employees move more, they're going to be healthier, maybe also rewarding if somebody says no, I log off after 6, 7pm Because I need the mental distance, really pushing for not being contactable, reachable all the time, just to again limit kind of the constant stress exposure.

I don't want to say or put up any ideas.

I just think that it could potentially be a positive circle if there is more flexibility on the employer's side.

But also definitely it's not going to be good to give everybody one hour of physical activity per day and the people don't use it for physical activity.

I mean, that's again the misuse of a good thing.

A lot of things to think about and a lot of angles for leveraging results.

No, the whole system overall needs to be made preventative rather than reactive, which I think it is at the moment.

And it's from all aspects.

It's whether the individual who doesn't do anything themselves for their own health to the medical system in most countries that is reactive and like you said, cures you when you're ill, but does very little to nothing to prevent you becoming ill. No incentives, and this is crazy to me for the health insurances to, to push this longevity idea, to push the healthy lifestyle, because that works in their favors.

I understand maybe for the pharma industry, they don't necessarily want you to be in the best health, but all other industries, like you said, any business should want the population to be healthy and as well as they can be.

But do you think that this longevity, living longer, is going to widen the inequality between people and the ones that can afford to live longer and the ones that can't really afford to live longer because they have not been financially educated enough to know that they need money to support themselves when they get older?

Yes, and I think it's even a bit more sadder in a way that we now know that having enough money also allows to age better.

So we potentially will see people running into longevity risk, meaning that they don't have the finances anymore.

And combine this with a high chance that they also didn't have access to cutting edge health care from an earlier stage.

So their health might even be worse with higher medical bills, with less money.

I personally believe in the gap, it's going to even widen to those who can afford to live longer and have the money that lets them live longer.

Sadly to some stage also wealth is health.

What do you think sort of is a simple action or the most important action that the individual can do to prepare for a longer life.

I personally favor more trying to stay longer healthy compared to living longer.

So the topic of favoring the health span compared to the lifespan then also it's not sexy.

I think it's a good thing on social media that a healthy lifestyle becomes more and more favorable.

But I mean, it's it's not flashy.

It's kind of a bit boring.

It's early to bed.

Rather eating less than too much.

It depends how your taste but are trained.

But if you've been raised and had nothing except for fast food it's rather plain and boring food for transition phase then physical exercise depends if somebody if you're somebody who loves to move or if you're somebody who doesn't really like to move.

But movement is the key part of it and it's something on the long term it's not a quick fix.

So if you are a fan of taking the easy route for each and everything and just a pill here and a pill there and that's gonna solve the issue and I rather do nothing and then take a EV shot that's not gonna bring you long.

It's finding joy in the journey and not the goal.

It sounds a bit boring I know but it's kind of settling yourself with the idea that it's a marathon and you need to be into it with a pace you can sustain.

And it's also not go in all change everything and then fail after a week.

It's small incremental steps building habits, building foundations and building onto it.

That's all I can say.

And habit change that's the big thing.

Also the insurance industry struggle with and everybody struggles with habit change is hard and it's difficult but it's possible from a business perspective.

If a business came to you regardless what kind of business and says look we want to move in that direction.

We want to be aware of longevity people living longer.

What could be a first step that pretty much any business can do that is not altering their whole substance and but.

But that they can actually implement successfully.

They could use my longevity assessment book that I published for free.

I made a simple maturity gap analysis with a couple set of questions questions which everybody could run through.

It depends how far they want to dig.

Right.

So it's from just sitting down 15 minutes and just looking at our products and services and then looking who's our client basis and then thinking that those age do those products still meet or could we potentially if we have a product create an alternative product product to the same product and sell it for double price.

Just looking at the simple thing like you have the one way razor and now you make it pink and then you sell it for 50% more because it's now suddenly a female razor.

So you take a product and it's the product you always had and you just add maybe a Silver line and then you may name it and then it's suddenly 20% more expensive because it's now age adjusted.

I mean I'm not marketing professional but I see also a lot of opportunities, not only risks and I mean you are targeting a consumer basis which does have some money and is willing to spend some money.

So interesting concepts.

No, I definitely would recommend to sit down and potentially ask an expert, expert in the field or somebody who looked into the topic a bit more like to identify where are the gaps also around simply accessibility for people.

If you're a company that wants to thrive fully towards fully digital, are you potentially leaving out a significant proportion of people?

If you are fully app based, is the app simple enough to be used?

If people have impaired eyesight, could there be a need to have potentially a different version of the app?

Just all of those thoughts which should be considered.

I really would say it depends from a 15 minute sitting down to a two month project in assessments.

Just to sum it all up, what's.

What's the one thing or the two things or the three things that you just wish everybody understood about longevity and

money or longevity and business that they are combined?

Health and finances are so much interlinked, so much more than people think.

Health is the basis for being able to work and, and create wealth.

And wealth enables you to have access to healthcare, to food, to be able to go to the gym.

And it's also being aware the impact of financial stress on your health.

And that's so profound.

And especially also for women it's important to know this combination because they are sadly still rather those who have gaps in their pension money who have lower in average wages.

And I don't say lower wages for the same job.

I say they're more in jobs that are low wage jobs.

That's definitely, but also encouraging everybody to be again more proactive and taking ownership.

Ownership is the most important thing and you know, especially for the individual you need to be the CEO of your own life.

It's too important to just give the reins to someone else, be it in business or in health.

So I think that's really important.

We've covered so much and still I could talk to you for hours and hours.

This is so interesting but always at the end I ask my guest five rapid fire questions.

Oh, now I'm getting nervous.

No, no, you'll see, they're very easy.

They're not scary at all.

They're very easy.

Okay, so the first one is what's the single best piece of advice you would Give your younger self light's not fair.

That's a great answer.

So true.

And you know, nobody has said that to me and I have to say that's the best answer I've heard.

So true.

And the sooner you learn that, the better.

Name one habit everyone should adopt for a longer, healthier life.

Prioritize your sleep.

If you weren't in the longevity field at large, what career would you have chosen?

I would have become doctor.

What?

Microdose habits, sort of five minute routines or small daily actions yield outside longevity benefits.

Reading the newspaper and staying on top of news.

Most people would say that these days that leads to a shortened life and a quick death.

It's so important if you want to stay up on the finances.

You're right.

What's the craziest longevity myth you've encountered?

And is there any truth to it?

I mean, doctors will now tear me apart, but I am very sensitive to this whole glorification of fasting and calorie restriction because severe underweight is even more deadly.

And if you are in the longevity scene, it's currently like it's all about, oh, I fast longer than you.

I am in a deeper calorie deficit than you.

And we know that muscle is our longevity organ and you're not going to preserve it if you are too low in calories.

And you and as a woman, if you fast too long and I know doctors, if you talk with them, they sow a calorie deficit of 5 to 10% and fasting depending on cycle and so forth.

But all of these buts are not so much pushed on social media.

And if you just scroll through social media, you feel like you failed.

If you have a larger eating window than six hours and you failed.

If you're not sticking to 1,200 calories with five hit sessions per week and that's so dangerous.

This is your rapid fire questions time.

But I have to say I completely agree with you and latest research actually dates that especially for women, this fasting is really not good.

Again, not all women, but the majority of women, these long periods of fasting are just not good and counterproductive.

So I'm actually very happy you've raised that.

And I think at the moment, like you said, it's a trend and a hype.

But we've seen trends and hypes come and go.

There've been many over the years and I'm pretty sure this is also one that in the future is going to be maybe not completely sort of debunked, but certainly modified and adapted.

Like you said, it's not black and white and it's certainly not good for everyone.

So thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

As I said, could have asked you another 20 questions and just listened to you.

It's so insightful what you were saying.

And also your angle on it is just so very interesting because what very few people do is sort of tackle the longevity field from not even a risk assessment side, but the financial overview, which I think many, many people disregard.

And it's going to be a key topic once people realize the extent to how life is going to be when people just live longer.

So, you know, I think you are, you're a trendsetter in the making and people will pay a lot of attention to the field you're in in the future.

There's no choice.

They'll have to.

So yes, thank you so much for spending the time with me and thank you for sharing your thoughts.

It was a pleasure.

Thank you so much.

If you take one thing from today's conversation, it is that longevity is not only a medical topic, it is a planning topic.

A longer life stretches the timeline and that changes how we must think about money, about work, about risk, and the decisions we make in the present.

Nadine's work through wealthspan Advisory brings structure to that reality.

We talked about why both individuals and businesses need to rethink old assumptions, how to plan in decades rather than years, and how we all must adopt a clearer strategy that can replace vague intention with something actionable.

Thank you Nadine, for a thoughtful and genuinely informative conversation, for bringing a disciplined long horizon perspective to a topic that can otherwise feel very remote.

If you enjoyed this episode of Beyond Longevity, please subscribe and share it with your friends, family and colleagues.

For more information and links, have a look at the show.

Notes let's redefine what it means.

It means to live longer, to live healthier.