Longevity clinics around the world are selling unproven treatments

The quest for long, steadfast life—and adjacent immortality—is astir apt astir arsenic aged arsenic humans are, but it’s ne'er been hotter than it is close now. Today my newsfeed is afloat of claims astir diets, workout routines, and supplements that volition assistance maine unrecorded longer.

A batch of it is selling fluff, of course. It should beryllium reasonably evident that a healthy, plant-rich fare and mean workout volition assistance support you successful bully shape. And nary drugs oregon supplements person yet been proved to widen quality lifespan.

The increasing tract of longevity medicine is seemingly aiming for thing successful betwixt these 2 ends of the wellness spectrum. By combining the established tools of objective medicine (think humor tests and scans) with immoderate much experimental ones (tests that measure your biologic age), these clinics committedness to assistance their clients amended their wellness and longevity.

But a survey of longevity clinics astir the world, carried retired by an enactment that publishes updates and probe connected the industry, is revealing a messier picture. In reality, these clinics—most of which cater lone to the precise wealthy—vary wildly successful their offerings.

Today, the fig of longevity clinics is thought to beryllium determination successful the hundreds. The proponents of these clinics accidental they correspond the aboriginal of medicine. “We tin constitute caller rules connected however we dainty patients,” Eric Verdin, who directs the Buck Institute for Research connected Aging, said astatine a nonrecreational gathering past year.

Phil Newman, who runs Longevity.Technology, a institution that tracks the longevity industry, says helium knows of 320 longevity clinics operating astir the world. Some run aggregate centers connected an planetary scale, portion others impact a azygous “practitioner” incorporating immoderate constituent of “longevity” into the treatments offered, helium says. To get a amended thought of what these offerings mightiness be, Newman and his colleagues conducted a survey of 82 clinics astir the world, including the US, Australia, Brazil, and aggregate countries successful Europe and Asia.

Some of the results are not each that surprising. Three-quarters of the clinics said that astir of their clients were Gen Xers, aged betwixt 44 and 59. This makes sense—anecdotally, it’s astir this property that galore radical commencement to consciousness the effects of aging. And probe suggests that waves of molecular changes associated with aging deed america successful our 40s and again successful our 60s. (Longevity influencers Bryan Johnson, Andrew Huberman, and Peter Attia each autumn into this property radical too.)

And I wasn’t amazed to spot that plentifulness of clinics are offering aesthetic treatments, focusing much connected however aged their clients look. Of the clinics surveyed, 28% said they offered Botox injections, 35% offered hairsbreadth nonaccomplishment treatments, and 38% offered “facial rejuvenation procedures.”  “The favoritism betwixt longevity medicine and aesthetic medicine remains blurred,” Andrea Maier of the National University of Singapore, and cofounder of a backstage longevity clinic, wrote successful a commentary connected the report.

Maier is besides erstwhile president of the Healthy Longevity Medicine Society, an enactment that was acceptable up with the purpose of establishing objective standards and credibility for longevity clinics. Other results from the survey underline however overmuch of a situation this volition be; galore clinics are inactive offering unproven treatments. Over a 3rd of the clinics said they offered stem-cell treatments, for example. There is nary grounds that those treatments volition assistance radical unrecorded longer—and they are not without risk, either.

I was a small amazed to spot that astir of the clinics are besides offering medicine medicines disconnected label. In different words, drugs that person been approved for circumstantial aesculapian issues are seemingly being prescribed for aging instead. This is besides not without risks—all medicines person broadside effects. And, again, none of them person been proved to dilatory oregon reverse quality aging.

And these prescriptions are coming from certified aesculapian doctors. More than 80% of clinics reported that their signifier was overseen by a aesculapian doc with much than 10 years of objective experience.

It was besides a small astonishing to larn that contempt their precocious fees, astir of these clinics are not making a profit. For clients, the yearly costs of attending a longevity session scope betwixt $10,000 and $150,000, according to Fountain Life, a institution with clinics successful Florida and Prague. But lone 39% of the surveyed clinics said they were turning a nett and 30% said they were “approaching breaking even,” portion 16% said they were operating astatine a loss.

Proponents of longevity clinics person precocious hopes for the field. They spot longevity medicine arsenic thing abbreviated of a revolution—a determination distant from reactive treatments and toward proactive wellness maintenance. But these survey results amusement conscionable however acold they person to go.

This nonfiction archetypal appeared successful The Checkup, MIT Technology Review’s weekly biotech newsletter. To person it successful your inbox each Thursday, and work articles similar this first, sign up here.