EPISODE 80
Oct 21 2026

Eric Topol: A new era of prevention is coming. Will America miss it?

What if we could predict a heart attack years before it happens and prevent it altogether? Dr. Eric Topol believes we're entering a new era of personalized prevention, powered by advances in genomics, immune science and AI. But while scientists are discovering extraordinary new ways to measure and reduce disease risk, our healthcare system is struggling to put those discoveries to work. Topol joins The Other 80 to discuss what this new era of medicine could look like, why the U.S. may be left behind, and what it will take to turn scientific breakthroughs into better health.

Claudia and Eric cover:
  • Why sophisticated research keeps pointing us back to basics of healthy aging like diet and sleep
  • The emerging science of the “immunome”
  • How GLP 1s, vaccines and new anti-inflammatory therapies could help tackle inflammation

Dr. Topol says other countries are more likely to embrace a new era of personalized prevention:

“I believe we're going to see this take hold in other countries and we're going to learn from [them] because the US system, which does not provide health care in an equitable fashion by any means, has no universal health care. It should be a human right. This is a problem here. So watch out. Watch this space, but it’s not occurring in the United States, unfortunately, sadly.”

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ABOUT OUR GUEST

Eric Topol is the Founder and Director of the  Scripps Research Translational Institute, Professor of Translational Medicine, and Executive Vice-President of Scripps Research.

He has published over 1,200 peer-reviewed articles, with more than 370,000 citations, elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine. His principal scientific focus has been on individualized medicine using genomic, digital and A.I. tools.

He authored four bestseller books on the future of medicine: The Creative Destruction of Medicine, The Patient Will See You Now, Deep Medicine: How Artificial Intelligence Can Make Healthcare Human Again and Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity. Topol is the principal investigator to two large NIH grants, the All of Us Research Program that supports precision medicine and a Clinical and Translational Science (CTSA) Award that promotes innovation in medicine. He was the founder of a new medical school at Cleveland Clinic (Lerner College of Medicine), was commissioned by the UK to lead a review of their National Health Service, and is active clinically as a cardiologist. 

Additionally, Topol is Editor-in-Chief of Medscape, publishes the Substack newsletter “Ground Truths,” and maintains a strong presence on social media on Twitter (@erictopol) with over 680,000 followers.

For a complete list of publications, visit Google Scholar, and for details of his books, visit Amazon.

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For more information on The Other 80 and to connect with our team, please email claudia@theother80.com and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.