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25.07.2026
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25.07.2026
In Russia, they will study how metabolic disorders affect biological age and life expectancy. The study will be conducted by the I.I. Dedov National Research Medical Center of Endocrinology and Promomed Company. The head of the company, Doctor of medical Sciences Peter Bely, told RT how the study will be organized, what modern anti-obesity therapy is changing and why its effect can go far beyond medicine.
Excess weight, the main cause of which is metabolic disorders in the body, is now considered not only as a risk factor for the development of certain diseases, but also as one of the mechanisms of accelerated biological aging. In an interview with RT, Peter Bely, head of Promomed, explained how metabolic disorders affect life expectancy and quality, why the fight against obesity can change the burden on the healthcare system, and what opportunities modern therapy opens up.
The "life-shortening pandemic"
The joint work of the I.I. Dedov National Research Medical Center of Endocrinology and Promomed is devoted to metabolic health. However, the subject of research will primarily be its violation — metabolic unhealthiness and those processes that lead to serious illnesses and shorten life expectancy.
"When a person is slim, fit, and athletic, we say that they are in good shape, metabolically healthy, and have a favorable prognosis for a long and productive life. But when it comes to metabolic ill health, different levels of awareness of this huge concept begin here," explained Bely.
Previously, metabolic unhealthiness was mainly associated with insulin resistance. Today, it is considered as the central mechanism of a single pathological process that can sequentially go through several stages, the source noted.
"Insulin resistance is a spinal column. Overweight, obesity, metabolic syndrome, prediabetes, and type 2 diabetes are essentially different stages of the same disease. Diabetes itself, like excess weight, becomes a serious complication of it," said Petr Bely.
However, the effects of metabolic disorders are not limited to diabetes mellitus. Among them, the RT interlocutor named cardiovascular diseases, joint and liver damage, cancer risks, as well as reproductive health disorders.
"Now we perceive metabolic unhealthiness as a much larger condition — if you will, as a pandemic of shortening life. Obesity is now referred to as an epigenetic phenotype, that is, an acquired rather than an innate mechanism of accelerated aging," said the head of Promomed.
According to Bely, accelerated aging and shortening of life for a period of five to 20 years with obesity occurs due to the fact that several pathological mechanisms are triggered in the body at once. One of them is a violation of DNA methylation. To explain what this means, he compared the work of genes with a musical instrument.
"Imagine a set of genes that are responsible for metabolic health, and the hands of an organist playing them correctly. And suddenly the harmony of the genetic code gets lost, the tags in the DNA molecule begin to arrange themselves chaotically, and the whole game is disrupted.: instead of a harmonious melody, a cacophony arises. This happens not at the genetic level, but at the epigenetic level," explained the Doctor of medical Sciences.
According to Peter Bely, accelerated aging is also associated with chronic inflammation, shortening of telomeres, protective areas at the ends of the chromosome, and disruption of the mitochondria, our energy reactors in cells. However, domestic pharmacology can handle this.
"The short formula is this: an obese person lives less and ages faster. This is provided by several pathological mechanisms at once — impaired DNA methylation, chronic inflammation, increased stress on the heart, blood vessels, brain, telomere shortening and premature cell death and mitochondrial disorders. In general, all these factors give a minus of 5-20 years of life. But aging is not a program set in stone: by controlling these factors, the process of accelerated biological aging can be reversed," explained Peter Bely.
"Life expectancy forecast"
The scientific part of the clinical research project on the metabolic health of citizens was headed by the National Research Institute of Endocrinology. The program will include participants from all over Russia. The patients will be divided into age groups, each of which will be studied separately, and then the results will be compared.
Each participant with metabolic disorders will be matched with a person of comparable age and anthropometric parameters without such problems. Control pairs will allow us to collect statistically reliable data and assess how obesity and its duration affect the aging process of the body.
In the course of the study, experts will analyze theblood nitrogen, genetic features, markers of aging, and risks of developing other diseases, including cancer, against the background of metabolic ill health. The observation period will be one and a half years. Then it will take time to process a large amount of data, so the main results are expected in about two years.
"When the study is completed, we will have a simple calculator. It will be possible to enter a person's data into it and not only get a forecast of life expectancy, but also to understand the ratio of his biological and passport age and what needs to be influenced to prolong an active life for a person. The importance of this research for fundamental science cannot be overestimated. We are moving from describing biological models to practical medical data and evidence," said Bely.
"Add life to the years"
Peter Bely said that Promomed has drugs in its arsenal that can affect metabolic disorders. The drugs work by mimicking the effects of natural intestinal hormones. Initially, they were developed for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.
"These are incretinomimetic drugs that activate the body's own incretin mechanism. This is a nature—like technology: drugs almost completely repeat the structure of the body's own regulators, act on receptors and trigger natural biological processes," the scientist said.
The turning point was the use of these drugs in people without diabetes, but overweight or obese, that is, at a stage when insulin resistance has not yet turned into diabetes, the source said.
"When people with obesity and a high body mass index began to receive such therapy, but without diabetes, a real revolution began. Today it is one of the most demanded classes of medicines in the world," he said.
The most modern representatives of this field include drugs based on semaglutide and tirzepatide. According to Peter Bely, therapy helps not only to reduce body weight, but also to improve indicators related to metabolic health.
"Weight decreases, the volume of adipose tissue decreases, the body mass index decreases. Indicators of insulin resistance, cholesterol, and glycated hemoglobin may normalize, while systemic inflammation decreases and disappears. Disposable autoinjectors with a preset dosage are used to administer the drugs developed by the company. The man removes the cap, presses the auto-injector to his stomach and presses. The procedure takes a few seconds and is performed once a week," said Bely.
According to him, this regimen simplifies compliance with the therapy prescribed by the doctor: with daily administration, the patient may skip the next dose or refuse treatment, and the use of pre-installed injectors instead of syringe pens eliminates errors in dosing.
"The task of modern medicine is not only to add years to life, but also to add years to life. This class of therapy allows you to do both," concluded Peter Bely.
"Unload the healthcare system"
Metabolic disorders and obesity are accompanied by life-threatening diseases that place a heavy burden on the entire healthcare system. With the development of cardiovascular complications, treatment costs are particularly high. A patient may need long-term treatment, rehabilitation, and ongoing drug therapy after a stroke.
"The treatment of such a patient takes several months or even years. About 80% of stroke survivors have some degree of disability, and only 20% can fully return to work and their former lives," said Petr Bely.
And if we take into account the entire range of diseases associated with metabolic disorders, the economic consequences are even broader, the source added.
"If we count heart attacks, diabetes, joint replacement, reproductive health disorders and other related conditions, we can talk about costs that amount to about 3% of GDP. At the same time, about 4% of GDP is allocated to all medicine," he said.
Correction of metabolic disorders can reduce the number of patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus, cardiovascular diseases and severe lesions of internal organs, Bely believes. This will allow resources to be redirected to diseases whose treatment options are still limited.
"We can smashto strengthen the healthcare system, and use the released funds for genetically determined diseases, oncology, autoimmune diseases, dementia and lesions of the central nervous system," concluded Peter Bely.
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