Four For Friday | Dec 22, 2023

LF99 | Longevity growth opportunities, psychedelics for dementia, greenery slows your aging & Indonesia sending 100k workers to Japan

Welcome to a Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week. Enjoy!

Big growth opportunities: longevity, space, AI

Up there will AI and space, longevity is seen as ‘the next big thing’ in this piece in Bloomberg, with an interview with Abby Levy, co-founder of Primetime Partners. She highlights caregiving, financial services and dementia as three particular areas of growth.

Psychedelics for dementia

Some intriguing research into whether pyschelics, which have been shown to reactivate and potentially regrow neuronal connections, could play a role as a treatment for dementia and / or Parkinson’s. Given the lack of innovative treatments out there, this kind of left-field approach seems worth exploring.

Living in green areas slows your aging

A recent study found that a 5% increase in your neighborhood’s green space is associated with a 1% reduction in the ageing of cells, as measured by the length of telomeres, a common aging biomarker. More green space wasn’t associated with longer lives however, if the green area also had significant amounts of racism or pollution. Again, it’s the total environment that matters.

Indonesia sending 100k care workers to Japan

Looking to fill the gap of caregivers, the famously immigration-resistant Japan is bringing in 100,000 workers from Indonesia (subscription reqd) to help with the shortage of workers to care for its aging population.

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That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.

- Stephen