Four For Friday | Oct 27, 2023
Four For Friday | Oct 27, 2023
LF90 | New Insights Engine reduces food waste, economic impact of healthy ageing, Harmonic Health's dementia platform, and the gut's link with Alzheimer's
Welcome to a Looking Forward’s Four For Friday. Four things that have piqued my interest this week. Enjoy!
ReFED’s new data-driven insights platform
ReFED is a US non-profit focused on accelerating systems change and catalysing investment to reduce the 38% of food that is wasted by half. They recently released an Insights Engine that acts as an online hub for “data and solutions featuring the most comprehensive examination of food loss and waste in the United States”. The hub shows a real time view of food waste monitor, profiles of vetted solutions, a provider directory, and impact calculator, a capital tracker, and a policy finder.
Editorial: This seems to provide most of the tools and data needed to align and coordinate impact across a complex system - something that the healthy longevity space could do well to emulate.
Calculating the gains for healthy longevity
London Business School professor Andrew Scott released new research highlighting the economic benefits of addressing healthy longevity. It suggests that one more year to life expectancy is worth around 4-5% of GDP each year, resulting in trillions of dollars of potential value to countries around the world. As he says, “Basically health is really important and the most important health challenge these countries now face are from ageing-related diseases.”
It shows intriguing data that improving health can result in a bigger welfare gain for the population than GDP growth. In the graphic below, Australia received a major boost due to healthy ageing, while America’s declining health made the country poorer (column on the right).
Harmonic Health - new dementia platform
Healthcare venture builder powerhouse Redesign Health has launched a new dementia platform – Harmonic Health, which offers: “comprehensive care-management for patients and their caregivers, including a physician-engagement platform and 24/7 behavioral, social and medical support.” The company also offers telehealth, predictive care and educational content.
Link between the gut and Alzheimer’s
New research from King’s College London documents a links between the microbiome in the gut and Alzheimer’s disease. The researchers found that Alzheimer’s symptoms can be transferred to a healthy young organism via the gut microbiota. Take those probiotics!
That’s all for this week. As always, feedback welcome. Feel free to share insights or links of interest.
- Stephen