WEALTH August 29, 2026 0 Comments

Unlocking Ageless Secrets: How Caitriona Ryan and Cutting-Edge Science Are Defying Time Itself

Ever wondered why, despite all the miracle potions and anti-ageing elixirs flooding the market, truly effective longevity supplements still feel like a needle in a haystack? Professor Caitriona Ryan, a consultant dermatologist steeped in science and passion, took the plunge into this vast rabbit hole—not just chasing business gold but driven by a profound obsession with cognitive decline and the aging process itself. What if the secret to aging well isn’t just in what you put into your body, but how you move, sleep, and nourish it every single day? Caitriona’s journey from a first-class honors graduate at University College Dublin to co-founding ID Formulas—a supplement range tackling cellular aging head-on—is as inspiring as it is groundbreaking. And here’s a kicker: genetics? Merely 20% of the story. The real game-changers are exercise, sleep, and nutrition. So, if you’re dreaming of boarding planes in your 90s still lugging your own suitcase, this conversation is for you. Let’s dive into how science, lifestyle, and smart supplementation might just rewrite the rules of aging. LEARN MORE.

Professor Caitriona Ryan tells Sarah Freeman why she launched an anti-ageing supplement range, while stressing that exercise plays a central role in longevity

Professor Caitriona Ryan is a consultant dermatologist and co-founder of ID Formulas, a longevity supplement that targets all aspects of cellular aging.

Having graduated from University College Dublin with a first-class honours medical degree, she began her dermatology training at St Vincent’s Hospital in Dublin and then completed a residency and research fellowship in Texas. She is co-founder of the Institute of Dermatologists.

Why did you decide to launch your own product?

So many patients ask me what anti-ageing supplements to take. I went down a rabbit hole that didn’t stop.

First of all, there was the business opportunity, but the bigger piece for me was ageing in general. I’m obsessed with dementia and cognitive decline.

When you look into what makes us age, what makes us old and wrinkly in appearance but also decrepit and frail, it’s all the same cellular processes.

So the same things are happening, but in different tissues that manifest differently and at different rates in different people as well.

You emphasise quality of life rather than just longevity, why?

Traditional medicine has been absolutely great at [helping] us live longer. [However] the quality of life is the key.

I would prefer to die at 80 than live to 100 with 20 years of dementia and that’s what’s happening. We’re just prolonging chronic diseases and healthcare spend.

If we’re really going to move the needle, we only want to add quality years to someone’s life.

What part do your genetics play?

Your genetics actually only make up about 20 per cent of how you age. The biggest [factor] is exercise, and then there’s sleep and nutrition.

By nutrition, I mean a balanced, healthy diet, preferably a Mediterranean diet. There’s no medicine that comes close to exercise [for changing] the way you age. In [my] 80s and 90s I want to be getting onto a plane, putting up my suitcase by myself.

That isn’t [determined by] what you do then, it’s putting the graft in now.

What impact does our lifestyle have on our ageing process?

We don’t put enough emphasis on sleep.

There’s a much higher mortality risk if you’re not getting more than six hours. I actually bought one of those mattresses to make the bed colder because that gives you deeper sleep. Also, when you’re stressed, it affects your biology.

I see this all the time in clinics. Someone’s rosacea is flaring or they’re covered in psoriasis and they haven’t had a flare in years. I ask what’s going on in their life and [often] it’s a divorce or a job loss. Psychological health affects physical health, we all know that, but it also affects your biological age and how your DNA is behaving over time.

[There’s] also loneliness. It soundsa little bit abstract, but [loneliness has been] shown to be a really important mortality risk.

Social isolation is huge, and it’s not just the older people living on their own after they’re widowed. I think of all the 20-year-olds who are working from home [and] socially challenged.

With so many products on the market, how does yours stand out?

We’re very different. Our supplement is €250 a month, it’s a lot of money, someone’s hard-earned cash. Say you start taking a new supplement and you think, ‘I feel better’, [but] it’s very hard to know and how do you measure that?

We need to be able to prove to people that it makes a difference.

The younger generations coming up behind us are all about the data and the biometrics. Whoop (a wearable fitness and health tracker) has been really interested in our journey and has given us an API integration.

So if you start our supplement, hit the button ‘Connect Whoop’, and that will then track. After being on it for say 8 or 12 weeks, you’ll be able to look back and ask, ‘did it improve my trend lines?’