Return on Health

Health is full of strong claims, conflicting voices, and bold promises. Most people end up overwhelmed and unsure who to trust. Return on Health aims to bring clarity by listening to every side, asking hard questions, and keeping science and common sense at the center.Hosted by Niko Hems and Miguel Medina Stanivukovic, the podcast takes a clear look at longevity, prevention, performance, and the future of health. We invite researchers, founders, clinicians, skeptics, and innovators, then pressure-test their ideas. Some viewpoints will align. Others will clash. That is the point.

Return on Health is a health podcast hosted by Niko Hems and Miguel Medina, with 13 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80. PitchCentric scores this show on Booking Probability, Listen Score, and live audience signals refreshed every 24 hours.

Niko Hems and Miguel Medina hosts Return on Health, a health show with 13 episodes published.

Our AI reads these to draft pitches. Use them as grounding for a pitch that cites a real guest and a specific topic.

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  Episode #12

  You Can't Stop Aging! Here's What Actually Matters… | Prof. Suresh Rattan

  Jul 26, 20261h 4mS1

  Most people think aging is a disease. Professor Suresh Rattan thinks that's one of the biggest misconceptions in modern medicine. The anti-aging industry has never been bigger. Every week there's a new supplement, a new biomarker, a new longevity protocol, or another promise that you can slow, reverse, or even cure aging. But after more than 40 years studying the biology of aging, Suresh has reached a very different conclusion. Aging isn't something to cure. It's something to understand. In this episode of Return on Health , hosts Niko Hems and Miguel Medina sit down with one of the world's leading biogerontologists to challenge everything we think we know about aging, longevity, and health. We explore why Suresh believes there are no genes programmed to make us age , why the anti-aging industry is selling false promises, what he really thinks about Bryan Johnson, David Sinclair, and longevity escape velocity, and why living well may matter far more than simply living longer. ━━━━━ ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━ Professor Suresh I.S. Rattan is one of the world's leading biogerontologists, with more than four decades of research into the biology of aging. He founded the Laboratory of Cellular Ageing at Aarhus University in Denmark, coined the term "gerontogenes" , founded the journal Biogerontology , and has published hundreds of scientific papers exploring why we age and what healthy aging really means. His work challenges many of the assumptions driving today's longevity industry, arguing that aging is a natural consequence of life - not a disease to be cured. ━━━━━━️ ABOUT THE HOSTS ━━━━━━ Niko Hems Niko Hems is a longevity expert and Head of Growth at YEARS, a company building a longitudinal, multi-modal health dataset to make prevention personal and data-driven. Miguel Medina Miguel Medina is co-host of Return on Health, a podcast built on a simple idea: a system always produces the outcomes it's incentivized to produce - so if we want better health outcomes, we need better incentives. ━━━━━⏱ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━ 00:00 Aging Is Not a Disease 01:39 Why the Longevity Industry Is Selling Products 03:32 Do We Actually Understand Aging? 08:40 Why Aging Isn't a Disease 18:22 The Truth About the Hallmarks of Aging 19:12 How Humans Already Doubled Their Lifespan 23:15 Bryan Johnson, David Sinclair & Living Forever 27:52 What Actually Helps You Age Better? 35:59 What Does It Really Mean to Be Healthy? 40:40 Why We Age in the First Place 48:05 Suresh's Definition of Health 57:26 Rapid Fire: Can Humans Reach 150? 58:08 The Best Form of Hormesis 1:02:07 How Healthcare Needs to Change ━━━━━ KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED ━━━━ • Is aging really a disease? • Are there actually genes that make us age? • Why do we age if evolution favors survival? • Does the longevity industry focus on the wrong problem? • What does Suresh really think about Bryan Johnson, David Sinclair and longevity escape velocity? • Can supplements or biohacks meaningfully slow aging? • What is the real definition of health? • Why is hormesis one of the most important concepts in healthy aging? • Can humans realistically live to 150 years old? • How should healthcare shift from treating disease to promoting health? ━━━━━ Connect with Professor Suresh Rattan LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/suresh-rattan-7951804/

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  Episode #10

  Best Selling Author: This Diet Will Betray You!

  Jun 28, 202658 minS1

  Is the longevity supplement hype real - or are you wasting money? Bestselling author Bas Kast breaks down what actually works in nutrition, supplements, and slow aging. Most people don't suffer from a lack of health advice. They suffer from too much of it. One expert says eat more protein, the next says cut animal foods. One says supplements are useless, the next sells a 100-pill longevity stack - and all of it sounds convincing. In this episode of Return on Health, hosts Niko Hems and Miguel Medina sit down with Bas Kast - the science author whose book The Diet Compass (Der Ernährungskompass) sold over 1 million copies - to separate evidence from noise. We cover what still holds up in nutrition science, which supplements are worth taking (and which are pure marketing), why you are never the "average" person in a study, and Bas's new project SlowAger. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 👤 ABOUT THE GUEST ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Bas Kast is a science journalist and bestselling author known for translating complex nutrition and longevity research for a general audience - without academic jargon or wellness hype. His book "The Diet Compass" (Der Ernährungskompass) became an international bestseller with 1M+ copies sold, grounded in thousands of peer-reviewed studies. His newer work focuses on vitamins and supplements (the "Vitamin Compass" / Der Vitamin-Kompass), and his current project, SlowAger, explores the messy intersection of nutrients, supplements and healthy aging. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ ABOUT THE HOSTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Niko Hems is a longevity expert and Head of Growth at YEARS, a company building a longitudinal, multi-modal health dataset to make prevention personal and data-driven. Miguel Medina is co-host of Return on Health, a podcast built on a simple idea: a system always produces the outcomes it's incentivized to produce - so if we want better health outcomes, we need better incentives. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ⏱️ CHAPTERS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 00:00 Too much health advice — the real problem with health information 01:18 How Bas Kast got into nutrition: headaches, low-carb & a personal wake-up call 05:15 Where health communication goes wrong: incentives & the Brian Johnson effect 12:19 The 3 principles of healthy eating (Michael Pollan's rule explained) 15:04 What Bas changed his mind on: whole grains, the gluten myth, cheese & intermittent fasting 21:01 Population data vs. personalization: why nutrition averages mislead you 28:28 A data-driven future for nutrition, CGMs & the 10-year Diet Compass update 33:25 The supplement hype: do we really need supplements? (NMN, NR, spermidine, taurine) 44:48 SlowAger, low-dose lithium & how to weigh risk vs. caution 51:06 Lightning round: 3 steps to use supplements intelligently 52:39 The most underrated supplement category (AREDS, lutein & zeaxanthin for eye health) 57:20 Return on Health: the one thing to fix in medicine — treat your body like your teeth ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 💡 KEY QUESTIONS ANSWERED ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ - Do longevity supplements like NMN, NR and spermidine actually work? - What are the 3 simple rules for a healthy diet? - Is gluten bad for you if you're not sensitive? - Why does the same diet work for one person and fail for another? - Which supplements are actually backed by strong evidence? - Is low-dose lithium safe as a supplement? - Why is the medical system "too reactive" — and how do we fix it? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🔗 LINKS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 📚 Bas Kast - The Vitamin Compass: https://vitaminkompass.com/ 🔔 Subscribe for a new episode every week

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  Episode #9

  Functional Medicine MD: What 5,000+ Patients Taught Him About

  May 31, 202659 minS1

  <p>Functional Medicine MD: What 5,000+ Patients Taught Him About Root Cause Medicine</p><p>In this episode of Return on Health, we speak with Dr. Peter Martin, physician, former CNS pharmacology researcher, and founder of FunMed, one of Europe’s leading functional medicine clinics.</p><p>Peter spent around 15 years in pharmacology research before his own burnout pushed him to look beyond the conventional model of symptom control. What started as a personal search for recovery became a data-driven clinical model built around root cause medicine, extensive biomarker testing, gut health, metabolism, and chronic disease prevention.</p><p>We talk ab...

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  Episode #8

  Harvard MD: The Truth About Peptides And Longevity Medicine

  May 6, 202658 minS1

  <p>Harvard MD: The Peptide Boom Is Here.. But Is Medicine Ready?</p><p>In this episode of Return on Health, Niko and Miguel speak with Dr. Anand Vinjamoori, Harvard Medical School and Harvard Business School trained physician, former founding Chief Medical Officer at Modern Age, advisor to Superpower, and founder of Next Generation Medicine.</p><p>Together, they discuss why longevity medicine is booming while many companies still struggle to build sustainable businesses, why peptides may become one of the next major waves in health optimization, and why the future of biomarkers will likely require a much more individualized...

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  Episode #7

  Geriatrician: Most Aging Is Preventable (But We Start Too Late)

  Apr 19, 202657 minS1

  <p>Most people think aging is something that happens later.</p><p>In reality, the processes that determine how you age — and whether you stay functional — start decades earlier.</p><p>In this episode of Return on Health, we sit down with Roberta Vella Azzopardi, a geriatrician and geroscientist with a PhD in cognitive frailty, to break down what aging actually looks like in clinical practice.</p><p>Instead of focusing on single diseases, this conversation zooms out: Why do people lose independence? What really drives decline? And where are the biggest missed opportunities in prevention?</p><p><br></p><p>Wh...

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