Mind Money and the Future of Well Being

[Music] good afternoon everyone it's with great pleasure that I'm here today in a conversation with Christian angam Meer a Visionary entrepreneur and investor whose work has spans over mental health biotechnology and Longevity as the founder of aerian Investment Group Christian not only Built a remarkable portfolio of venture but also reshaped how we think about the intersection of Science and Innovation his personal philosophies commitment to making a global impact continue to inspire many in both the business and scientific communities today we'll exp explore Christians unique insights into the future of well-being biotechnology and Longevity as well as their implication for the UAE and the global economy Christian how could you could you possibly share with us how your personal philosophies shape your investment strategies specifically in well-being Mental Health and Longevity so I first of all thank you for having me and and welcome everybody um I don't know maybe to call it a personal philosophy is is philosophy is almost too uh makes it sound too uh intellectual because it's actually very simple um I don't want to age when I was like 20 25 I was like this sucks like aging we we tell ourselves aging is good and you get wiser no why can't you get wiser and more educated all the time but stay young physically so I always thought since I'm started to age that aging is a disease and more convinced than ever we're making good progress we can talk about that to really cure reverse it slow it down so and so I don't want to age so that's why longevity and I want to be happy um so that's why mental health and if you look at these two things this is truly or these two things are truly I think the the two objectives every single human being has if I would ask here everybody of you wants to be happy nobody would raise the hand and say no I want to be unhappy and everybody of you wants to be healthy nobody would say oh I want to be sick and once you're happy and healthy it's it's a very natural desire to live this life which is unbelievably awesome I'm a huge Optimist I think we're going to go into the most amazing time of humanity and I want to experience this for as long as possible so that's sort of it's you can call it egoistically but in a good way my egoistic wish to live very long very happy and very healthy is hopefully also allowing that for everybody else as well that's great that you say that because uh one of the um uh metrics that we look into in the UAE is the happiness of the UAE population and we score very high when it comes to happiness uh moving on to the next question on the UAE specifically so the UAE has made commitments in biotechnology and in becoming a global hub for biotechnology as well so what what do you see and how do you see this focus in biotechnology and Innovation shaping the Region's economy and its role in well-being as as well I me even without more Innovation if you look at the US uh the whole healthc care system is already 177% of GDP so it's just it's anyway a very important sector yeah then second if you would ask yourself and my guess is that half of the group here are people who maybe move to the UAE from outside when you move somewhere normally I think if you're parents you think about schools that's very important but otherwise I think one of the top ranking if not number one ranking decisions where people move to is like how good is the healthcare system so so the Healthcare System I think is one of if if you have a great one like here it's one of the most or even not the most uh attractive thing for expats to move uh to to a certain region um then I know you're making real good progress in even sort of expanding that let's call it value chain from clinics back to drug development like new stuff um so I think if it's definitely one of the most exciting uh sectors here in the Middle East great that sounds very promising as the biotech and Longevity sectors continue to grow do you envision health and well-being become core pillars of the economy they I think they already are but it's going to be much more because we're going to add on it maybe as as one maybe what what the real change and by the way where also the UAE is at the Forefront so when they came here for the first time in Abu Dhabi you really had posters which said like we want to become the global leader in longevity and you might think that is just a side thing but why this is important is because till round about 10 years ago the idea in the scientific community and actually in the global regulatory world that aging is a disease which can be prevented slowed down maybe even reversed was actually seen as absurd so I'm thinking and talking about it since 20 years and people really said okay he's a little bit crazy he's a little bit if you're still going to read articles that I'm eccentric I'm very proud of that um because I always thought it's natural again you don't want to to to age just people don't dare to say it so but then 10 years ago a colleague of mine with whom I then started a company who I'm very proud of is is Professor Manuel Serano he for the first time really defined what what aging is and what what he uh came up with or what he sort of defined was that it's not a single disease that was kind of the the point where we got it wrong and even if I'm saying now aging is a disease it's not correct because that simplifies it too much he came out and said wait a moment there are nine so-called Hallmarks of Aging um and like metabolic dysfunction stem cell exhaustion sort of nine suddenly very definable issues and these nine Hallmarks of Aging they form then because we all have these diseases they form a picture we call aging uh and ultimately dying and that was sort of a pivotal moment where suddenly scientists were saying wait a moment maybe we can do something the problem is like always Regulators globally especially in the US are lagging behind so even and we do that if we have new Medical Treatments in development which slow down aging we cannot at the moment go to the FDA and say hey cool here's a here's a new drug Let's test it it's going to slow down aging because the FDA will say but where's the problem you're not curing a disease because The Regulators have not caught up with defining aging as a disease so we always have to find complicated workarounds and try it for what we call acknowledged diseases so this is why it's so important what the UAE is doing and my colleagues here are working a lot with your Regulators the more we socially and then ultimately though with the the regulator Define aging as a disease and Longevity as a Target the easier you make it for people like us to design trials and do all of the scientific work so that whole focus of the UAE as simple as it sounds on longevity and making it a topic is helping a lot because it's really changing the Global Dynamics on the drug development side so other than um defining uh aging as a disease what do you think are other opportunities and key challenges as well when it comes to uh expanding in that field here in the UAE and the broader Middle East well let me say the opportunity because we're in very good discussions I think if you go one step further is to really redefine what medicine is so again maybe you have never thought about it but where does our modern definition which we apply around the world of medicine actually comes from it comes from the 1920s in the US before the 1920s in the US everybody could calls a doctor you had no education you said I'm a doctor you couldn't three patients and everybody could say oh this is a this is a medication whatever there was Zero regulation and zero definition and then in the 1920s the US government said we need to sort of regulate and Define that they commissioned the report which is called the flexner report and the flexner report did many good things and for the time it was super Innovative for example said hey if you want to be a doctor you have to go to medical school they defined medical education all of that they defined that medications need to have at least some form of proven efficiency back then in 1920 so all of that was great but the one thing is that what they kind of again for the time it was very Innovative but they defined disease as a negative deviation from the norm and they Define medicine as just something which you would take if you have a negative deviation from the norm so in many cases that's very obvious by the way you have cancer you want to get rid of it you have a viral infection you want to get rid of it that's a very obvious thing but there are some other things where why would we wait till for example till we get sick so the whole Western system yeah um is really screwed a bit because it's because of that definition if you would go to a doctor and say I'm healthy they would like what you make what are you doing here I'm you have no business with me while actually we should all be much more focused on not getting cancer in the first place not getting sick in the first place so so unfortunately that definition which we're now having since 100 years is completely ignored preventative medicine and then to go even one step further come back to longevity what it completely ignores is actually who defines what the norm is for example have you ever thought about you were born with a certain IQ and you just accept it yeah but why why can't there be medications which make us smarter yeah again you think aging is normal but as my colleague Manuel defined no it's a disease why can't we reverse it um you wna most most here guys like you want to look more muscular yes you can go to the gym but why shouldn't there be medications which make you more muscular so one of our big topics at a Pyon is the whole idea of enhancement so not just first of all preventative not getting a disease but then going one step further and actually uh giving all of us the freedom to really Define our own Norm like what do you again hopefully a lot of people here in the room would say you're happy but maybe you want to be more happy yeah just like challenging that that we just always have to wait till we're sick saying look first of all don't want to get sick but ideally you should all be able to Define what you want to be how you want to look how smart you want to be how happy you want to be and then sort of optimize yourself with the help of science thank you that's uh very inspiring is I'm sure everyone else here would like to know more other than prevention when it comes to um mental health and well-being if there's any specific note that you could keep us with um that would resonate with us what would you what would that be me so as I said so we working in in our biotech Department we're working on many new sort of modalities treatment options for as I said hopefully making all of you happier healthier whatever uh but that takes time it's really like biotch is a long game yeah so and as I said just the the framework has just shifted which allows us um to do that however because that's normally and I love that question because you should go home and take something home hopefully take something home that the world is going to be awesome um and the UAE I really believe it uh has a great place in it but the other thing which you should take home is there are some things everybody can do right now you don't need any medication whatever um to stay both mentally and physically healthy and they actually simple and hard because they need a little bit of discipline but if you look scientifically at the five most important things for your health both physically and and and mental health is the number one is sleep yeah if you don't because people always come up to me and like oh which drug can I take what makes me I was like do you sleep enough if if you don't don't even talk to me because we don't need to talk about the incremental thing I can do with you for very if you don't that the one thing God gave us um is sleep it's the one thing which is doing by the way it's cleansing your brain whatever it's sleep enough yeah um my one luxury which I try to have not today but like normally is like not waking up with an alarm clock and L sleeping as long as my body needs it because also sleep goes in cycles and if you pull yourself out of a cycle the whole cycle is invalid so sleep enough don't wake up with an alarm CR the second equal these are the two things and by the way this is why I think what you said is true that the UAE has a high happiness level equally important in sleep is social relations you need to have family and friends ideally intergenerational family by the way and I'm not saying that because it sounds good that's hard research about what really drives um happiness Factor and you need to have time to spend time with them and really have social relations the third one is food um practically Mediterranean diet like a lot of vegetables little to no sugar uh which is a problem here yeah with all the dates and all that um and um and more fish than meat um the fourth one at least if you follow your rules you're great um I'm actually unhappy that they serve alcohol more and more alcohol is the devil I really mean it I've never tried it if you look at it scientifically it is crazy like this would be like one of the worst you wouldn't even think about ever approving this if this would be a new invention yeah alcohol is scientifically speaking the worst thing you can do to your body yeah it accelerates aging it's a it's a cell poison so don't do it uh and then the fifth one is go to the gym two three times a week you need to do equal amount of cardio and weight training oh I I want to add the 61 do a lot of checkups because like if you have bad stuff but you catch it early science is already pretty good you're going to be fine if you miss it you're not so checkups be disciplined and by the way all of that these six things require discipline so you have to do it all the time but then actually you add literally already now if you follow that no alcohol exercise diet happiness sleep um and uh prevention and checkups it's really statistic basally makes round about 15 years of your life expectancy one five years you can enjoy life see where this world is going enjoy it with your family so really stick to it thank you so much Christian for your invaluable insights I'm sure um this not only touches um and shapes Industries it also touches personal lives as well and the intersection of science Innovation and well-being as well it's an undoubtedly an exciting space that we look forward to seeing how your vision continues to unfold as well thank you so much for having me enjoy the time [Music]