Board-Certified Bariatric Surgeon. Founder of Sano Longevity. Speaker at Longevity Fest 2025.
For more than ten years, Dr. Meredith Sweeney spent her days inside the abdomens of patients whose metabolic disease had become a surgical emergency. Today she runs a longevity practice in Louisville built on a single conviction: it is easier to prevent the disease than to cut it out.
Limited new patient appointments each month. No obligation. HSA and FSA eligible.
Reviewed by Dr. Meredith Sweeney, MD, FACS, FASMBS | Board-certified bariatric surgeon, A4M member, founder of Sano Longevity in Middletown. Last updated April 2026.
Dr. Sweeney did not arrive at longevity medicine from a wellness conference. She arrived from inside other people’s abdomens.
For more than ten years she was a board-certified bariatric surgeon at Norton Healthcare in Louisville, performing the operations that treat the consequences of metabolic disease after every other intervention has failed. She saw, with the naked eye, what almost no other physician in the country sees on a daily basis.
“I could see the consequences of metabolic dysfunction. Yellow droplets and big dilated livers because of all the sugar stored there. I had to physically lift up livers that were sometimes so heavy we had to insert two retractors into the abdomen. Purely because of metabolic dysfunction.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney, MD, FACS, FASMBS
That image is the difference between a longevity doctor who learned this from a textbook and a longevity doctor who learned it with her hands. No conference can teach you what a fatty liver feels like under your fingers. No supplement company can show you what visceral fat looks like when you are looking at it directly. Dr. Sweeney did not need a study to convince her that metabolic disease was the central problem. She had been operating on it for years.
The shift started in 2018. While still operating full-time at Norton, she began going to conferences on low-carb medicine, metabolic health, and the science of preventing the disease she was operating on. She bought textbooks. She read journals. She built a clinical education in nutrition and metabolic medicine that no formal residency program had given her.
And then she did something most surgeons never do. She rewrote the preoperative and postoperative diet protocols at her own hospital. With no formal nutrition credential. Because nobody else was going to do it, and her patients needed it. She watched her bariatric patients recover faster, hold their results longer, and avoid the complications that the old protocols allowed. The data on her own surgical caseload validated the approach. She kept building.
“I come at it with a level of education that most physicians do not have. They do not even know they need it.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
By her own count, she was spending 90% of her time outside the operating room managing the lifestyle and metabolic health of her surgical patients. She was filling a gap the system was not filling.
“It is just metabolic health looking a little different. Going from the most reactive extreme to the most proactive approach. It is one continuum.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
The break came in 2023. Norton made her pay $70,000 for a billing mistake that was not hers. She sat with the bill for a few days. Then she mailed her resignation letter to the CEO’s office, certified mail, on August 1, 2023. She worked her 90-day notice. Her last day at Norton was December 1, 2023, which happened to be her son’s tenth birthday.
“I was willing to give up my house, my car, pull the kids out of sports. I could not do it anymore. When Norton pulled that on me, I just knew. God gave me the kick in the butt I needed to jump off the cliff.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
Nobody at Norton was surprised. She had been talking about this for years. As one colleague told her on her way out: “Yeah, that is what you talk about. This is clearly what you are passionate about.”
She opened Sano Longevity in March 2025.
Her first patient was a scrub tech from Norton who had worked night shifts with her in the OR for years. He had heard her talking about this long before the doors opened. He showed up the day Sano opened. He is still a patient today. That is what trust earned over a decade of late nights in an operating room looks like when it walks in the door.
In December 2025, less than a year after launching, Dr. Sweeney spoke at Longevity Fest, the largest annual longevity medicine conference in the United States.
“I am a fixer. I start at the bottom and fix it there, and then everything upstream is magically better.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
Most longevity doctors describe their experience in years. Dr. Sweeney’s experience is best described in patients, surgeries, and operating-room hours. Here are the numbers.
Total bariatric surgeries performed at Norton Healthcare (2016 to 2023)
Bariatric and metabolic patients managed across the surgical pathway
Of her clinical time at Norton spent outside the operating room, managing the lifestyle and metabolic health of her surgical patients
Sano Longevity patients evaluated since opening in March 2025
Most longevity practices in the country were founded by physicians who never operated on a metabolic disease. Sano was founded by a surgeon who did, hundreds of times.
“I take very complex sets of data and weave them together into an actionable and realistic plan that is going to move the needle. We have to eat, we have to move our bodies, shit is going to happen, we have to manage our stress, and we have to sleep. If we do those things with intention and with a data-driven plan, we are going to live longer, more enjoyable lives.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
Dr. Sweeney’s philosophy is that nutrition, movement, stress, and sleep are not lifestyle suggestions. They are the four spokes of a wheel that does not turn if any one of them is missing. She measures every spoke before she touches a hormone, prescribes a medication, or recommends a supplement. She also knows that perfection is not the goal.
“If you just got off the phone fighting with your wife in the parking lot, I can only give you one task to do for the next three months. I create small wins in each of the four categories and they usually take it from there.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
This is what makes her clinically different. Most longevity practices sequence labs, then hormones, then supplements, and never address the four pillars at all. Dr. Sweeney sequences the four pillars first, measures everything that drives them, and then layers in the hormones, peptides, and prescription medicine when the foundation is in place. Order matters. Doing it backwards is why most longevity protocols fail.
Measured caloric and protein targets in grams, not platitudes.
VO2 max-derived training zones and strength protocols. Muscle is the organ of longevity.
Screened before any hormone intervention.
Built into the plan, not bolted on.
“If someone’s fasting insulin is through the roof but they are not sleeping and their stress is off the charts, I have got to address that first.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
Dr. Sweeney runs a 25-marker metabolic panel through Quest Diagnostics on every new Sano patient. Twenty of those markers actively drive clinical decisions. She is not interested in collecting hundreds of data points as a marketing claim. She is interested in the markers that change outcomes. In her first 125 Sano patients, three patterns have repeated themselves with alarming consistency.
Fasting insulin is a marker of metabolic dysfunction that primary care almost never tests, because insurance does not reimburse it as a screening test. Dr. Sweeney considers not testing it close to malpractice. Elevated fasting insulin predicts type 2 diabetes, fatty liver disease, and cardiovascular events years before any of them appear on a standard panel.
Standard labs say an Omega-3 index above 5% is fine. Longevity-grade research says you want to be above 8%. In Dr. Sweeney’s first 125 Sano patients, almost nobody walked in above 3%. The Omega-3 index is one of the most actionable longevity markers in modern blood work, and almost nobody is measuring it.
“Hormones are a piece of it, but unless you address your lifestyle first, hormones will not work well. And by the way, there is no lab test that accurately tells you a woman’s hormones are in check from a single draw. Anyone who says otherwise is lying.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
“They tell you your hormones are out of whack based on a cortisol level they drew at 2pm. If they did not tell you to get the lab at 6am, they do not know what they are doing.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
This is the clinical assertion that separates Sano from the hormone-optimization clinics that dominate the longevity space. Hormones matter. Cortisol matters. But interpreting them from a single timepoint draw, with no diurnal rhythm context, is medicine that does not understand its own labs.
“I am going to identify the things leading you toward premature dementia, bone fractures, metabolic dysfunction, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease. Years ahead of time.”
Dr. Meredith Sweeney
Dr. Sweeney has been featured on Louisville television, on national longevity podcasts, and on the main stage at the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine’s annual conference.
Anchor Shannon Cogan visited Sano Longevity to get her biological age tested on the PNOĒ platform. The segment aired on WAVE Sunrise.
Watch the segment →
Dr. Sweeney spoke at Longevity Fest in December 2025, the largest annual longevity medicine conference in the United States, organized by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.
Available on Spotify and YouTube.
Watch on YouTube →
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Available on Spotify.
“Best Google review on the page goes here once Bridge pulls them from GBP. The breast cancer survivor who flew in from New York is Dr. Sweeney’s flagged favorite for this slot.”
Placeholder for real 5-star Google review pulled from GBP. Bridge to extract the top 3 highest-signal reviews before publish.
Credentials, clinical philosophy, what separates her practice, and how to book.
Dr. Meredith Sweeney is an MD, FACS (Fellow of the American College of Surgeons), and FASMBS (Fellow of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery). She completed general surgery residency at the University of Louisville from 2011 to 2016 and a fellowship in minimally invasive and bariatric surgery in 2012. She is a member of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine.
Dr. Sweeney spent 90% of her time outside the operating room managing the metabolic and lifestyle health of her bariatric patients, filling a gap the system was not filling. In her words, longevity medicine is metabolic health on the other end of the same continuum. She founded Sano Longevity in March 2025 to work with patients before disease, not after.
In Dr. Sweeney’s first 125 Sano patients, roughly 90% had elevated fasting insulin and roughly 90% tested below the longevity-optimal Omega-3 index of 8%, with most walking in below 3%. Both findings predict chronic disease 10 to 20 years before symptoms appear on a standard panel. Primary care almost never tests for these because insurance does not reimburse them as screening tests. Book a free consultation to discuss what your panel might reveal.
Longevity Fest is the largest annual longevity medicine conference in the United States, organized by the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine. Dr. Sweeney spoke at Longevity Fest in December 2025, placing her among the recognized voices in longevity medicine nationally.
Yes. Dr. Sweeney is board-certified in surgery and is a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and a Fellow of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery. She is currently pursuing American Menopause Society certification.
Dr. Sweeney practices at Sano Longevity, 306 Middletown Park Pl Unit D, Louisville, KY 40243. The clinic is open Monday through Thursday from 9am to 4pm. Telehealth follow-up appointments are available for established patients. See pricing or the Longevity Track for membership details.
Dr. Sweeney sees a limited number of new patients each month. The first call is free, takes 30 minutes, and is the right place to figure out whether Sano Longevity is the right fit before you commit.
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Reviewed by
Founder, Sano Longevity in Middletown, Louisville. Board-certified bariatric surgeon. Fellow of the American College of Surgeons (FACS) and the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery (FASMBS). Member, American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M). Speaker, Longevity Fest 2025. More than ten years of metabolic medicine experience at Norton Healthcare before founding Sano Longevity in March 2025.
Sano Longevity
(502) 208-6476