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The Longevity Community: A New Blueprint for Healthier Aging
Imagine a community designed to help you live a longer, healthier, and happier life. It sounds almost too good to be true, right? Welcome to our intriguing chat with Ted Teele, the brain behind this innovative concept known as "longevity communities." In our discussion, he shares his journey from personal transformation through longevity science to creating an entirely new model of senior living for the baby-boomer generation. What sets this apart from your usual active adult community? It's a myriad of things, from personalized health screenings to dedicated longevity coaches. And, of course, it touches upon the potential for anti-aging capabilities, giving a whole new perspective on the golden years.
As we dive deeper into the world of longevity communities, we unravel the components that make such communities an appealing prospect for the aging population. Forget dull, monotonous retirement homes; these communities are buzzing with engaging activities, educational opportunities, and even gamification. Backed by longevity science, the residents can benefit from individualized wellness programs designed to enhance their quality of life. We also delve into the potential of reversing the aging process - a tantalizing idea that could redefine our understanding of aging.
Now, what about the financial side of things? Fear not, we've got that covered too. As we discuss the monetary benefits of longevity communities, it becomes clear that these places aren't just an exciting prospect for the aging population but also a lucrative investment. With higher occupancy, lower turnover, and greater revenue per resident, they offer an attractive return for developers and investors. As our chat winds down, we introduce you to Ted's company, Longevity Community Consultants, helping providers set up such innovative communities. So join us in this fascinating discussion as we explore how we can prioritize the well-being of seniors and create a positive impact on society.
Well, instead of building communities that are perceived as a place you go to die, let's build communities that people perceive as a place you go to live healthier, happier and longer. If people really believe that if they move into this community, they will live healthier, happier and longer, that's going to make an enormous difference in terms of the attractiveness of the community. Of course, in order to deliver that brand promise, the communities would have to be optimized for longevity so we can effectively deliver healthier, happier and longer lives for our residents. This is not a fundamental change to what is being delivered to the customer, also known as the residents.
John Hauber:Welcome to the Senior Housing Investors Podcast. If you are an owner operator, investor, developer or buyer of senior housing, you've come to the right place. The best way to stay connected with us is to sign up for our weekly newsletter at havenseniorinvestmentscom. This podcast doesn't exist without you, our community. Thank you for listening and reach out to us anytime.
Ted Teele:Good day. We welcome Ted Teele to the show. Are you ready to learn about longevity?
John Hauber:communities and how they can benefit baby boomers as they age. Listen in, as our host, John Haber, has a great conversation with Ted John. Thanks, Kelsey. Today's special guest is Ted Teele, an accomplished entrepreneur with a Harvard MBA and over 25 years of experience leading various successful technology companies. As the CEO of Touchtown, the leading company in senior living resident engagement, Ted successfully transformed the company and sold it after four years to a Unigust in 2019. Recognized for his marketing prowess and branding expertise, Ted has been crafting an innovative housing and community model designed to appeal to and inspire baby boomers, including himself and many in our audience. During a quintuple bypass in 2019, Ted welled deeply into the study of longevity, adopting numerous health-focused lifestyle changes. His journey in longevity science not only transformed his personal life, but also inspired him to develop the housing and community concept for boomers that he will introduce today. Welcome, Ted. Glad to have you on the show and I'm really excited to have you here. This is going to be a great show today.
Ted Teele:Well, thanks for inviting me, John, and I agree this is a very exciting opportunity to talk with senior housing investors and other people interested in the senior living market. So how are you feeling? Well, I am feeling great. I walked 11,000 steps today. I lift weights, I do yoga on the beach, I do interval running. I've met my lowest weight in 20 years, and very healthy. When I had my bypass the good thing is the plumbing wasn't working, which is why they had to do the bypass, but my heart was still good and so I avoided the heart attack, which is very important, but I did have to did make me really think about changing my lifestyle significantly, and that did drive me to think about how I could take what I'm personally learning and apply it to attract baby boomers to senior living, which I know is an issue that most everybody in senior living is grappling with today.
John Hauber:Well as our listeners know, 775,000 units need to be developed over the next six years. So why do you feel that senior living investors should develop new concepts to be attractive to the baby boomer cohort?
Ted Teele:Well, for one thing, 90% of seniors surveyed by a place per mom said they never want to live in senior living and they look at senior living as the place you go to die. And I know we've all heard of adult children talk about their parents and try to get their parents to move into senior living, and there's huge resistance to that and that's not good. If your brand, if you have a product that 90% of your target market never wants to use your product which is the case for senior living that is not good. You know that has a huge financial implications for the industry. You know the average occupancy in independent living is 6% worse than for active adult communities and the average age of admission continues to go up. So for AL communities the occupancy is even worse, 5% lower than IL. But what I'm really talking about is how to attract boomers that can do their activities for daily living, which is really what independent living is all about today, and it is not working for that 60 to 80 age group.
John Hauber:So what is your concept for attracting boomers?
Ted Teele:Well, instead of building communities that are perceived as the place you go to die, let's build communities that people perceive as the place you go to live healthier, happier and longer.
Ted Teele:If people really believe that if they move into this community, they will live healthier, happier and longer, that's going to make an enormous difference in terms of the attractiveness of the community. Of course, in order to deliver that brand promise, the communities would have to be optimized for longevity so we can effectively deliver healthier, happier and longer lives for our residents. In other words, this is not about rebranding the senior living product that exists today. This is not a fundamental change to what is being delivered to the customer, also known as the residents. So it's a totally different service and again focusing in on that 60 to 80 or 55 to 80 age range and, as you mentioned, I'm a boomer myself, so it's not a senior living concept that I'm talking about here. It's an entirely new category of community Based on the research that I've seen, the senior living brand is irreparably tainted for baby boomers, so it will be important to call it a new category, which I'm calling longevity communities.
John Hauber:Couldn't we accomplish the same thing under the senior living banner?
Ted Teele:Well, the senior living brand, as we've talked about, is really damaged, but it's associated with 80 plus year old people and we're never going to attract 60 year olds under the senior living banner. You can add some longevity components to senior living community, but if we're going to attract a whole new age cohort we have to have a different category.
John Hauber:So how do longevity communities compare to active adult?
Ted Teele:John, that's a great question.
Ted Teele:Active adult communities, which are targeted toward the 60 to 80 time frame age group. They do provide recreational and social opportunities, which are good for the health If you're playing pickle ball every day, that's a good thing but active adult communities do not provide a comprehensive framework to help residents more easily live healthier, happier and longer. They have exercise rooms and weight rooms, but longevity is much more detailed than that and there's a need for more support for residents. As you know, active adult communities don't provide much support perhaps an activities director, but no science and rarely much supporting technology. In other words, active adult is typically a real estate play instead of a caring and support mission, which is senior living. So longevity community is a much better fit for people that are investing in senior housing. Longevity communities will provide a comprehensive support framework to help residents live healthier, happier and longer. We can also provide that same framework to people who want to live at home, in other words, non-residents, which means there will be additional revenue sources to offset the increased support costs that come with longevity communities.
John Hauber:And very, very interesting, Ted, and it kind of reminds me, when you talk about longevity, of a documentary that's on Netflix called Something Blue Zones. These are areas of the country that have a high number of centenarians that live in those areas and they're actually, you know, get to over 100 years old, very healthy, their minds intact, they are surrounded by family and such, and so how do the longevity communities relate to blue zones?
Ted Teele:And it's one question and anybody listening to this that has Netflix, I recommend that you go watch the four-part series on how to live to be 100. And there's tremendous content in there. But what will somebody who's providing housing? How do they take that and make it easier for people to live to be a healthy 100? What longevity communities will do is provide a science-based and fun because fun is really important approach to helping people do what they need to do to increase their health and life expectancy.
John Hauber:So how do longevity communities actually help residents and other members to live healthier, happier and longer?
Ted Teele:Longevity will use the latest science AI-based longevity technology, longevity program, enthusiastic coaches and lots of fun to help people do what they need to do. So let's talk for a minute about the science. Scientific knowledge related to longevity has increased enormously over the last few years, since we were able to complete the almost $3 billion project to sequence the entire 22,000-ish human genes in the genome. It took 30 years. It ended in 2021. Scientists have been able to identify every one of our genes and analyze what they do. In fact. Coming out of that process, there's an emerging field of science focused on longevity, with many prestigious scientists involved.
Ted Teele:One example is David Sinclair, and he has a great podcast. He's a Harvard geneticist. He believes that aging is a disease that can be treated and he's been working hard to get aging classified as a disease. He believes that aging is not something that's inevitable. It's due to the degradation of something called the epigenome, a degradation which can be reversed or slowed with the right longevity protocol, which includes lifestyle changes. Just to explain the epigenome for a second you have the genome and the epigenome.
Ted Teele:You can use a piano player analogy. Your 22,000-ish genes are like the keys of a piano and your epigenome is like the piano player, just as the piano player presses the keys. Your epigenome controls which genes are expressed or played at any given moment, but the epigenome gets messed up as we age, which makes the body worse at key functions like DNA repair. You get cancer every day, but your body gets good at killing off the cancer DNA. You get older. Your epigenome isn't working as well. The cancer spreads. Sinclair and many other longevity scientists believe you can slow or even reverse the degradation of your epigenome using science. So we're going to use the leverage, the insights of these longevity scientists, to make it easier and obviously it's all about how easy something is to do. The easier you make it for people to do things that are good for them, the more likely they are to do it, and we want to help them slow or reverse that aging process, and there's a lot of science underneath how to do that.
John Hauber:I agree with you. You and I have spoken offline about longevity and longevity science. I think you said, John, I think you're one of the only ones in the senior living space that actually knows what longevity science is all about. The reason I studied it is because I want to make sure the communities that we eventually build really have individuals coming in to those communities knowing that they have purpose, that they're going to live their lives healthier, longer, and it's good for business. I mean, the longer that we can have residents staying in our communities and facilities, the better for the bottom line.
Ted Teele:I mean it's like the state goes up.
John Hauber:It's an informal industry metric. Yeah, so I mean, I just take, for example, my mother is 82 years old. She's highly social, she is part of a singing group, she is going, going, going all the time and she's extremely happy and she has no disease whatsoeve she' none at 82 years old. In addition to leveraging longevity science, what are some of the other components of longevity communities that would make it easier for residents to live healthier, happier and longer?
Ted Teele:Great question. First, we will provide a longevity support framework that utilizes AI and other technology, and so there's five components of the support infrastructure. One is fun. You got to find fun activities longevity education, gamification. A lot of studies show that if you gamify things, outcomes are better, something that I call mutual commitment. You and five of your friends agree to meet at 630 in the morning on Saturday for the kayaking trip, and you get up that morning. You're much more likely to show up because you committed to your friends. And the fifth component is longevity concierge or coach. Everybody will have a longevity coach essentially helping them out.
Ted Teele:There will also be numerous science based longevity programs that residents will be able to participate in them. All of these have been shown to increase the average health and life expectancy, and they include precision health and screening and I'll talk more about screening later. Dietary recommendations based on science and the residents health profile and supplement regimens. Fun social activities to build relationships, which are very critical for longevity, cardio balance and resistance training. Sleep optimization it's harder to sleep as you get older, and sleep is critical for preventing Alzheimer's and a lot of other diseases. And then there are rain, exercises and games, relaxation and meditation, sauna, and this next one I know is hard for many people cold plunges. There are biochemical benefits of them, but certainly you don't have to do that. The final longevity program is purpose driven group activity. So all of those delivered through the support infrastructure, support technology apps and other technology will be provided using that science as the underpinnings of it.
John Hauber:And I think what everyone is saying to do, and the question is, will they do it? And how do we motivate individuals to, you know, take a stand on their health and take control of their health, and so I completely believe in all those. I actually did my first cold plunge a couple months ago. Oh man, I could last maybe five minutes, that's about it, it's still good. So what will happen when? What's the first thing that will happen when someone joins a longevity community?
Ted Teele:That's a great question I did want to address before I answer the question, sure, something else that you raised. There's a lot of studies that show that baby boomers are very interested in their health and physical and cognitive health. There's 70 million baby boomers. Certainly not every one of them is interested in their health. There are a lot of people that don't want to know, but there's a lot of people that really want to see their grand kids graduate from college. They start paying a lot more attention to this subject than when they were 30 years old.
Ted Teele:But in terms of the first thing that will happen and somebody joins a longevity community, the first thing will happen is they'll get a series of tests to determine what their personal risk factors are.
Ted Teele:These would include genetic and gut biome analysis, plus dreams, to determine the risk of cancer, heart disease and other chronic diseases.
Ted Teele:There are also tests to determine people's what they call the epigenetic going back to that term or biological age, where you get a score based on your biological age. We know that the chronological age keeps getting older, but it is possible and there are examples many of them of people whose biological age gets lower because it changes in their lifestyle and other aspects. All these tests that we'll do the day you start and then every year after that, we'll be able to measure whether or not we're actually successful in increasing health, as measured by the biological score, which uses a number of biomarkers. One that I'm familiar with uses 80 different biomarkers to give you a score. We'll be able to do that for residents and compare them to a control group in the general population that has similar characteristics and really be able to show that if you move into this longevity community you will live healthier. Of course, we can do surveys like the Michelle Hollerin surveys, where you're finding out resident satisfaction as well. You can measure that as well.
John Hauber:Ted, you and I have spoken about this and you know that I'm on a protocol for reversing my biological age. My first blood test that I took as a base put me at 53 years old and I56 ' 56. Three months after taking a protocol I won't name the drug that it is my biological age based on these biomarkers put me at 45 years old and so it's incredible Took all my inflammation out of my body. This is true science. Everyone I mean this is really those that are in the know and those that are in science understand that we can have anti-aging capabilities or even reverse aging. So how would life be different for residents if they follow these protocols?
Ted Teele:Well, they'll be healthier with a higher average life expectancy, and when you talk about longevity science, they always look at what is your chance of dying in the next five years. If you get in a sauna five times a week, your chance of dying goes down. So these are things that you can actually measure. But so the big difference is they'll be healthier and certainly they'll have more fun and be happier because of the relationships they build in the longevity community. Because we will work hard, just like the communities that use Touchtown and other engagement products in the senior living space. They work hard to get people to engage with each other and with the community, and so by having that component along with the longevity aspects of things, people will be actually healthier and happier and they'll be much more up to speed on their personal health situation, which is really important to know where you are at any given moment in time.
John Hauber:So, Ted, how often do you get blood tests?
Ted Teele:Every three months. I get a lot more blood tests than the average person gets when they just get one that their doctor prescribes. You have to ask for these tests and. But I get a lot and I get screens and that's why I'm here today, because I got a screen for my coronary artery screen. So it's really important to get those kind of screens, but we could make it so much easier for residents to do that sort of thing. It'll be part of the process, so that's very important.
John Hauber:So what could a longevity community do to help boomers who would prefer to continue living at home?
Ted Teele:Well, in addition to resident members of the community, there would be other categories of community members, so you could think of somebody that lives there as a member of the community able to leverage all the longevity infrastructure and programs.
Ted Teele:But you would also have other categories who would also benefit from the science, infrastructure and longevity. Well also and this is a really important point for investors contributes significantly to the achievement of revenue and profitability goals, and these would be area members, people that live near the community that come there to take advantage of all the longevity programming. Virtual members Meredith Oppenheim created something called the Vitality Society where people are getting a benefit virtually, so obviously it can't be as much as when you're right there and you're doing all this testing, but we could have virtual members and if we're down here in Florida, where I live, or someplace warm, or maybe even in someplace up north with a summer, you could have seasonal members. So I've got a model, a very detailed financial model, where each member would get from the community and what their monthly cost potentially could be, and certainly that model will get refined over time and made more specific based on the location of the community in the surrounding demographics and also just learning more about consumer preferences.
John Hauber:So what would be the financial advantage to investors or developers to establish longevity communities?
Ted Teele:Well, first, there is generally a financial benefit from offering a product that is compelling to the target market, a product that people need. It's not all about as much as I'm a marketer and a brand builder. If you provide a product that people want and need, you're going to make money, much more money, particularly if you're an early adopter, if you move into a market earlier, a non-saturated market, which longevity communities. This is a brand new concept. Higher occupancy is certainly something that I would anticipate Lower resident turnover and greater average revenue per resident compared, particularly to active adult, because there's more value that's being provided. But the community, as I mentioned earlier, will also get revenue from the non-resident members. I'll list to the bottom and, as you know, in the senior living revenue model, non-residents are not a significant contributor to revenues, but they would be in longevity communities.
John Hauber:It's kind of like the concepts that some developers out there senior living are opening up their restaurants to the community. Same concept they saw that by opening up the restaurants they gained more revenue, and so the same thing here is what you're talking about.
Ted Teele:The other benefit is people are in there Like you can imagine, a longevity community with in four or 500 residents or whatever but people that in the surrounding area that come to participate in the programs. They'll make friends, you know, and that is essentially a prospect for the future, because they'll want to live at their club. Basically.
John Hauber:Will there be also be cross-generational components to the community?
Ted Teele:Well, john, I know you're a huge advocate of the cross-generational concept. I'm thinking that there's cross-generational components we have. One approach would be to provide free or subsidized membership and housing to college students or recent grads who can provide hands-on support and help operate this longevity support system. But I do think there's an advantage. You know you can't, when you're with a target market, to focus in on that 60 to 80 or 55 to 80 market, because health and longevity, as I mentioned before, are much more immediate issues for that age group.
Ted Teele:According to 2023 CDC figures, about 70% of 55 to 64 year olds have at least one chronic disease and over 85% of 65 plus year olds have that. So there are tens of millions of 55 to 80 year olds who are striving to live their best lives. They can do all their activities for daily living in spite of battling a chronic disease. So I think this product, the longevity community product, is particularly attractive in that time frame. And one note you know I've really invested a lot in the science biology, biochemistry, physiology, microbiology, immunology and I listened to a lot of longevity podcasts and I've read a lot of the books and most of them are not targeted. None that I've actually read are targeted to that 60 to 80. A lot of them. The podcast was certainly relevant to 60 to 80 year olds, but they're not dealing with the unique issues of that age group that we could deal with.
John Hauber:So what I've read, Ted, is that if someone starts in their 50s doing the longevity protocols that are out there, they'll actually live to 125 to 130 years old and without chronic disease, without the issues that our grandparents had, and be able to have a real good cognitive function. So when we look at the market today, we look at so many senior living facilities currently in place. Can they put these longevity protocols in place?
Ted Teele:Yeah, I think you wouldn't call them a longevity community because that is targeted towards the 60 to 80. And there's, you know, the full manifestation of the concept would really be for that age group. But there's no question that a senior living provider could implement longevity components into the 80 plus age group using that science that is so critical. By the way, one comment you know it's all about probabilities and odds. Right, we can't make any guarantees to anybody. That's the reality. Just like when you go to a hospital, you don't get a guarantee, right, you know they may say you do this surgery, it increases your probabilities of living long, right, or whatever, but there's no guarantees. If you look at a group of people, you can measure the averages and we will increase the average life expectancy for people that live in longevity communities. I have no doubt about that.
John Hauber:So, based on your research, what longevity tips do you have for our listeners?
Ted Teele:Well, I do have a few, and you are somebody that is like for me. There are a number of other people in the industry that I know. Lori o is an example that you know really adopting longevity as a lifestyle for themselves. But virtually every longevity scientist on a podcast the interviewer might say is there one thing that you should do that you recommend listeners do to increase their life expectancy? Virtually all of them say cardio and resistance training at the top of their list. Resistance training means weights and as you get older it's really important to build a continue to maintain your muscle mass. So you know that's really important. There's something called starco pina. That happens when you get older. You get weak and you're more likely to fall, and that really hurts your life expectancy. And diet truly matters to. Most people know the diet that they need. That's really important for them, and so I won't go into that right now. But I also think it's important to do some basic health screens that most people don't do.
Ted Teele:Some people say that they would rather not know, but not knowing will reduce your average life expectancy Because the odds of success of dealing with cancer or heart disease or any other chronic disease are much higher if you catch them earlier. So the screens are all about do I have this problem today? And there's cancer screens and there's heart disease screens. So the top of my list for anybody over 40 would be to get a calcium score CT, which measures the amount of in your coronary arteries. This is the test that saved my life. I found out I had a problem and I started watching it closely in. Three years later I got a bypass so many people dying heart attacks without even knowing they had a problem. Their doctor says you know they have acid reflux, but they really have blocked arteries. And a simple test to cost about 100 bucks that's what I paid. The insurance companies won't pay for it, which I think is a scandal. But once you get the test and you find out you have a problem, the insurance companies now have to pay for all the much more expensive tests to tell you how bad your problem is and because they call that the concept of medically necessary, so that calcium score CT is number one.
Ted Teele:There's another critical test that most people don't get I know you've gotten it and you've improved your score Is there's C. It's called C like the letters C reactive protein test and C reactive protein is a liver protein that gets expressed when there's a lot of inflammation in your body. Many older people, as you get older, you tend to have chronic inflammation, which they call inflamaging, which is heavily associated with cancer and many other diseases. The C reactive protein test will tell you if you have a problem with inflammation and then you can try to figure out what it is and you might be able to make it go down with some lifestyle changes. But maybe you have a chronic disease in there that you need to find.
Ted Teele:Another one that I did is the grail cancer test. Like the Holy Grail, and that's a company that raised $2 billion. It cost about $1,000, so it's not for everybody, but I could afford it. I wanted to know. Both my parents died of cancer. I wanted to know do I have cancer? What is the probability of me having cancer?
Ted Teele:They look at your blood for 52 different cancer DNAs which are floating around in the blood. Obviously, when you get stage four you have a lot more of it. An independent lab fed the Grail Cancer Test a whole bunch of known samples and they found 97 percent of stage four, 75 percent ish of stage three, 50 percent of stage two and 25 percent of stage one. Now that test is going to get more sophisticated, but I still wanted to know whether I had a negative score. So chances are I didn't have a stage three or stage four cancer, which is really good news. But there's a lot of other screens and please feel free to reach out to me after you listen to this podcast, via my LinkedIn profile, Ted Teele. My last name is T-E-E-L-E, so Ted Teele on LinkedIn, and if you send me a message on any of these topics, I will respond.
John Hauber:Well, I just want to bring up one other area that is in the news these days, and it's called full body MRI scans.
John Hauber:These scans are picking up the smallest bit of cancer.
John Hauber:It is looking at your arteries, it's looking at your full body structure, and there's a company out there right now that is just doing the MRIs and they have a waiting list until March of next year and they charge $2,500 for this full body scan. So I've just been hearing stories of individuals even in their 30s going to get an full body MRI scan and finding out that they have stage four cancer. So I really truly believe that the future looks extremely bright when it comes to health care. If we can do preventative medicine or preventative health care, we can do it for health span and we're on top of it and the costs continue to go low. We're truly going to expand our health span and I truly appreciate you being on our show and, please, everyone, reach out to Ted on LinkedIn and it will be in the show notes, and I really appreciate your time today, Ted. I appreciate the times that we've spent in the past speaking about it and I appreciate the individual who referred me to you. Can you remind me who that was?
Ted Teele:It was Kelly Stranberg.
John Hauber:Yeah, Kelly Stranberg. Kelly's big in the senior living space and I'm just so excited about longevity that she said, oh, you've got to talk to Ted and Ted you've got to talk to John. So I've really enjoyed this talk today and our talks in the past and I hope you have a great day, Ted.
Ted Teele:Thank you. Can I make one more point? Yes, of course. Well, actually too. That MRI scan I want to get that. I think it's. I got to get on the waiting list. I guess there's a company called Fountain Life that well, it's pretty expensive, but they'll do that test and several other ones. But to get it for $2,500, if you can afford it just doing the test increases your average life expectancy because if you find something you can deal with it.
Ted Teele:But the other point I wanted to make is I am very excited about helping providers that want to build or establish a longevity community. So if you find this topic interesting and you would like some help in a consultative manner to help you think through the process, build a plan, I've established a company called Longevity Community Consultants that is focused on helping providers do that, because how do you get from ear to ear when it's not something that you've been doing for 20 years? So if you want to talk either about your health or about me helping you or brainstorming about longevity community, find me on LinkedIn and thank you so much, John. You're a fine human being, highly ethical company doing really good work and, like most other people that I know and seeing you're living, you really care about the people that the industry serves, and that is commendable, and I think that's one of the wonderful things about seeing you're living is that people care about the people they serve.
John Hauber:Amen when our culture puts aging individuals at the top of the spectrum and takes care of them. In my faith, that's what we're asked to do is take care of the most vulnerable populations around us, and I believe that your mission, Ted, is good for the world. Thank you.
Ted Teele:Thank you, thank you.
