Beware of spit and sperm
Dr. Macrene Alexiades on what works when money's no object and the best thing that's 100% free.
In this send:
Photobiomodulation, Harvard, natural sun, XERF, microwave, stem cells, ZenTite, Macrene Actives, sleep, snail mucin, Mad Cow, K-beauty, Pico Genesis, Neutrogena…
Welcome back to High Touch. You’ve seen Dr. Macrene Alexiades’ name in this newsletter before, when she balanced and brightened my face in all of 10 minutes of sitting in her clinic for PRF injections.
When we met for the first time a couple of months ago, I was bowled over by her—her three Harvard degrees, her pioneering work in so many of the most presently relevant aesthetic technologies, her time management??? She somehow writes textbooks, produces a podcast, has a skincare line, and still lives a fabulous, cosmopolitan lifestyle on top of running her practice. It has to be said that her eye for facial harmony, something that can’t be taught, makes all of those qualifications that much more pressing. After her inclusion in May’s procedure round-up, I had a handful of people who have access to the best providers in the world reach out to say they also see Dr. Macrene.
On a subsequent stop by her Upper East Side practice, I spoke with Dr. Macrene about her background, her philosophy, the common traps in cosmetic dermatology, plus what’s worth the money—the new, virtually painless intervention that’s staving off facelifts, say. Super actionable insights from her ahead, but first, some news from the High Touch universe lately:
A touch of High Touch
The air conditioner in my bedroom broke and my Oura ring recovery score has been freaking out about it. I “hacked” my sleep score last night by taking a pillow into the living room where the working AC dropped my RHR back down and brought my HRV back to baseline. Not sophisticated, but effective. Apollo, meanwhile, published a peer-review study that claims its wrist wearable adds 46 minutes to sleep through vagus nerve stimulation. Not insignificant! I think we’re going to see a lot more wearables that do rather than just track.
Speaking of Oura, a ring maker just figured out continuous cuffless blood pressure, a metric the big three (Oura, Whoop, and Apple) have yet to land. Signal is a standalone blood pressure-reading device that sends real-time metrics to an app. Launched this week and costs $399, but I’m guessing it’ll get bought out by one of the aforementioned consumer health giants very soon.
Another week, another almost illegibly vibe-coded telehealth platform has hit the market. And even though it’s called The Pep Club (and features heavily on stock images of people in tennis clothes for some reason), the premise hinges on monthly blood testing done through a mail-in capillary collection kit. It measures metabolic, inflammation, hormone, thyroid, micronutrient, and longevity markers—and then of course, offers GLP, glutathione, and NAD+ add-ons. Basic monthly testing starts at $99, which is not bad. Only available in Texas so far.
So much consumer health tech this week, but last one to say that Withings’ long-awaited BodyScan 2 is here. Basically, it’s a very smart scale that can measure body comp, cardio health, basal metabolic rate, glucose resilience, and shows you the weather. It’s $599 and 99% as accurate as a DEXA.
Laura Reilly: How do you describe what you do, and how did you get here?
Macrene Alexiades: I was an artist. I started doing portraits of family and friends as early as three years old. When I was a little bit older, I realized I had been drawing profiles. My mom was an artist and I basically watched how she would draw faces. I started to emulate her and copy the way she was drawing and painting and whatnot. The other thing that really captivated my attention was nature and science. Before I went to school, when I was really young, I put toothpicks in the garden, tracing the path of ants. I noticed that ants always followed the same circuitous path. Even though I was such a small child, I recognized that they were sending signals.
About 16 years later, I was in a Harvard auditorium with E.O. Wilson, a very famous animal and behavioral scientist, saying that they had discovered that ants release pheromones, invisible signals when they find food, and they meander their way back to the hill. All the ants use that random, bizarre pathway, it’s never the fastest or the straightest, but it is the pathway. It’s so cool that I figured that out when I was a kid. That was the competing parts of my mind. It was the artistic side, and then this science and math side. This continued throughout my childhood—I was winning science fairs, but I was also painting portraits.
In high school, I was already in a lab; I was working on plant molecular biology and insect biology. When I got to Harvard, I started as a biochem major. I switched to bio, but the first thing I did was go into a lab. I was working on insect development, finding non-toxic modes of insect control. My idea, which started years prior, was oral contraceptive for insects. It was really brilliant. Then I moved into another lab on plant molecular biology—I did five years on photo regulation, which is light regulation of genes. I started to become an expert on plant biology, photo biology, hence me being a laser specialist.
I ended up in medicine ultimately. I thought I could keep art as a hobby, and I couldn’t. So what I do now, which is basically injectables, lasers, developing technologies—it’s my art, and it’s my gift. I was so good at portraiture, I’m so good at seeing the beauty in the human form and in the world, but mainly the human form. I think that I found a way to give that gift back.