Since 2022, Dr. Avinish Reddy has been studying longevity and teaching his patients how to structure their daily lives to stay in the best possible health. He also worked with world-renowned physician and researcher of longevity medicine Dr. Peter Attia for a little over a year before setting out on his own.
In July 2024, Reddy launched his medical practice, Elevated Medical, where he focuses on “making sure my patients feel supported and tracking everything that I feel needs to be tracked daily,”
Reddy thinks about his practice in four buckets:
- Medicine: Performing labs and imaging
- Exercise: Connecting his patients with a fitness trainer
- Nutrition: Pairing his patients with a nutritionist and monitoring their glucose spikes, calories and macronutrients
- Lifestyle: Placing a spotlight on improving areas like stress, sleep, emotional health and relationships
As a longevity doctor, Reddy makes it a point to incorporate the habits he suggests to patients into his own life — here’s how.
‘Longevity doesn’t have to be that complicated’
I like to break down exercise into two simple buckets: 50% strength training, 50% cardiovascular training. For me, that’s three days lifting weights in the gym, three days of cardiovascular training on a bike or a treadmill or whatever I want.
I have this separate goal with cardiovascular training of increasing my VO2 Max, because studies show that it directly correlates with longevity and living a longer and better life.
So, the three days of cardiovascular training, two of them are generally low-intensity, something from 45 minutes to an hour. And the third one, this is the one that increases your VO2 Max, is three minutes of high-intensity cardiovascular exercise on, three minutes off. I try to do four or five cycles of that.
What are some things you do for your brain and for your mental health?
Brain health is definitely something that I prioritize a lot because I just feel it’s so scary to think about dementia and not being able to think the way that we think.
There’s a couple supplements I’d recommend, omega-3 supplementation, as well as B vitamins like B12, B9 and B6.
The thing that’s very overlooked, which I’ll always say, is exercise. Regular exercise reduces the risk of dementia. And then there’s specific activities that lower your risk for Parkinson’s and dementia as well, including racket sports like table tennis and pickleball. Because they use hand-eye coordination. I play ping pong, pickleball and tennis.
I have a two year old son, so I don’t have that much time. But down the road, I’m planning on learning to play an instrument, or learning a language — that definitely uses a different part of the brain, and helps reduce your risk of dementia as well.
What’s your social fitness like, and how do you keep up with it?
As a longevity doctor, patients are always trying to optimize every aspect, whether it’s work, exercise, diet or sleep. And social connection ends up falling to the bottom of the list.
There’s this Harvard study that’s been going on for years, where they followed all these men over generations, and the ones that proved that they were the happiest and lived the longest had the strongest connections. I always think about that.
In general, for me, it’s making sure that I talk to my parents every day. I don’t live next to my parents anymore. I also keep in contact with my college roommates and friends.
It’s important to keep in contact with friends from college. But on top of that, joining a basketball league or some sort of community that keeps you active as well builds social connection.
I see patients that are older and if they get hurt, their first reason for wanting to get back exercising is because they’re like, “I want to go back and see my golf friends” or “I want to go join my pickleball league again, to see my friends.” It just makes you realize that exercise doesn’t have to be that complicated, and longevity doesn’t have to be that complicated.
What’s your daily diet like, and what are some of the foods you eat for longevity specifically?
In the past few years, people have been very focused on protein. And protein is definitely important, but for me it’s pretty easy to get enough protein. So personally my focus is on getting vegetables.
That’s trying to make sure I eat a salad for lunch and throwing extra vegetables on my plate for dinner. Because that’s probably where I’m lacking.
People always focus on their strengths, like, “Oh, I lift this much weight. I’m going to lift more.” But when you think about health, to focus on the things that you’re worse at, or the things that you don’t focus on, that’s where you’re going to see the biggest bang for your buck.
With nutrition, it’s just realizing where you’re weak and trying to build that out. So for me, it’s making sure I get enough vegetables. And I use a continuous glucose monitor once every year for a couple of weeks, just so that I can just see if there are any foods that are causing my blood sugar to spike and things.
This is just a fun question. What are you currently reading?
People are always surprised when I say this, but the book that I love is a book called “Die With Zero” by Bill Perkins. I’ve read it more than once.
It’s really the books about optimizing your life and making the most of your time and experiences and memories. It’s probably surprising for a longevity doctor to be thinking, “Oh, you want to make the most memories.” But for me, it’s not about trying to live the longest life.
Of course, I want to live long, but it’s important that we create memories and have great experiences. And that’s why I try not to be too obsessive about any one thing.
If you’re trying to live perfectly, you’re not going to be able to have all the experiences that you want. So the goal is to balance both and just be very consistent with sleep, exercise, diet and stuff when you’re at home.
The daily habits of a longevity doctor
To sum up, here’s what Reddy does every day for a long, healthy and happy life:
- For his body: Exercising six days a week, using a 50/50 split of strength training and cardio.
- For his brain health: Working out regularly, playing racket sports like pickleball and taking omega-3s and B supplements.
- For social fitness: Speaking to his parents as often as he can and staying in touch with his college friends.
- For his diet: Focusing on adding more vegetables to his meals.
- For his media diet: Reading about the importance of making memories in life to have no regrets in old age.
