How much would you pay to live 5 or 10 more years, in good health? In the United States, the wealthiest are going crazy with new proposals to extend life, and the industry is taking advantage of it. The high-end fitness club chain Equinox, with more than 100 establishments in the United States, has just introduced a longevity program with a price of more than 3,000 euros per month, almost $40,000 per year.
In exchange for this exorbitant amount of money, according to the press release, Optimize by Equinox promises to “unlock the peaks of human potential.” It is not just about personalized physical training – this is a given – but also about studying the sleeping and eating patterns of each client.
Equinox has built the program together with the startup Function Health, which sells blood tests with more than 100 health biomarkers such as hormones, thyroid, toxins, cardiovascular markers… All of this to determine the biological age of each person. “Function is the most powerful approach to health I have seen in my career as a physician,” said Mark Hyman, the firm’s co-founder.
For those 3,000 euros per month, the exclusive club’s program offers the assessment of all that health data (the analysis costs about 450 euros), the Oura smart ring, three weekly 60-minute training sessions with a personal coach, two monthly consultations with 30 minutes each with a nutritionist and sleep coach, and a monthly therapeutic massage. All this in addition to access to E by Equinox, the brand’s private gym.
Indeed, if good health habits are the key to longevity, doing physical exercise, eating well, getting a good rest and controlling stress should have their effects. But to what extent can a program of these characteristics fulfill its promises about prolonging the years of life?
“A longevity program in a gym may be appropriate if it is considered from the person’s comprehensive health status (which encompasses the dimension of objective, subjective, mental and physical health) to nutrition, physical activity, stress control and quality. of sleep,” Consuelo Borrás, professor of physiology at the University of Valencia and collaborator of CENIE, the International Center on Aging, explains to La Vanguardia. ”If professionals are hired in the gym to control and design personalized protocols according to these parameters, it can be a good opportunity to control our speed of aging. The problem is the cost of this program, and that it requires a significant personal effort to be able to comply with it,” she adds.
Gemma Marfany is a professor of Genetics at the UB, and head of unit at the CIBERER (Center for Networked Biomedical Research) and author of the book Why do we age? “The reality is that we have many clues about what happens when each organ in the body ages, but we still don’t know how to safely extend a person’s longevity. “I believe that this gym program sells expectations, which involve a large part of scientific evidence, but also a large part of individual expectations of people with great purchasing power who believe that everything can be “bought” or “negotiated”, “she believes. .
Carolina Hernández is a biochemist, specialist in longevity and aging, consultant and director and coordinator of the Master of Anti-Aging and Longevity Medicine at the IL3-University of Barcelona. “The scientific basis of a program like this depends on each proposal, in this case it is not just any gym. It is allied with a serious laboratory and the analytical profile of what they study in each client is correct,” she explains.
The question also arises as to whether a detailed health status analysis (determining the person’s biological age) can provide great information to personalize exercise, diet, and other protocols. “Measuring biological age is useful to know where we are, but above all to see its evolution after any intervention we do,” says Borrás.
There are an increasing number of biomarkers associated with aging and diseases associated with this vital period (neurodegeneration, loss of muscle and bone mass, immunosenescence…), which can be measured and quantified, for example, through a blood test. As Marfany says, these biomarkers “can indicate the stage of “senescence” of various tissues or organs. This is relevant to make a diagnosis, that is, the current state with respect to biological age, and a prognosis, that is, what is the probability of developing certain diseases associated with aging.” But we must also keep in mind that these calculations are probabilistic, “they do not provide certainty.”
Furthermore, another problematic factor that must be added to the equation is that determining the biological age of an individual is not simple. Each individual ages at different speeds, and in addition, each of our functions also evolves at different speeds, “so that the biological sample used to determine biological age can also be decisive,” according to Borrás.
“To date, the best biological age marker that has been developed is Dr. Steve Horvath’s epigenetic clock, which measures DNA modifications (methylations) and informs us of how our genes interact with the environment and time, relating very well. with cellular aging,” adds the Valencian specialist.
According to Carolina Hernández, the approach to aging “is not simply through a blood test, it deserves a thorough study from the cellular, molecular, organic and functional aspects, and everything together and from a professional perspective allows us to assess the state of health. of a person and determine appropriate interventions to slow, reverse and prevent the aging process.” She believes that in this case, this company, Equinox, “has within its protocol the participation of doctors and health professionals who have an integrative and holistic view. In addition to having made a large investment deployment, they have partnered with another startup, Function Health, which has academically relevant people behind it.”
Is it really a meaningful health experience (and only available to a few), or is it a proposal with an aura of luxury and exclusivity, with little effect on the years we can live? “It depends on how well designed the program is. There may be programs that are well designed and based on science, and programs that do not have an adequate scientific basis, and that are simply a business. These programs must be comprehensive and must always be advised by experts on the subject and based on scientific evidence,” says Borrás.
Marfany emphasizes that, although it makes sense to think that continued biochemical control is convenient to improve the immediate quality of life, “the impact on extending human life has not yet been demonstrated. For more than 30 years, no one who has undergone similar interventions has achieved greater “longevity”, nor are they “younger” after the age of 70. On the other hand, people who have reached the age of over 100 are people with a relatively austere lifestyle, who have never been obese or had serious illnesses, have exercised moderately and have goals in life when they are older, they can reach a hundred years. In the Mediterranean area, there are many centenarians, and their “recipe” to become one has been to have a full, busy life, and with moderation in food, physical exercise, mental stimulation and emotional balance. They have never had to pay for it.”
Hernández concludes with a reflection on the longevity medicine that has been talked about so much in recent years. “Although the reasons why we age and how we can live healthier lives have been studied for many years, the medicine of longevity and healthy aging has gained greater interest in recent years. I believe that more and more people are eager to “manage their own health.”
Today, researchers and specialists in the sector are focused on bringing research advances to clinical practice as soon as possible. “Longevity medicine grows and evolves day by day, and – according to the biologist – it is important to consider the view of this medical branch for any stage of life to be predictive and preventive.”
Marfany emphasizes the difference between scientific evidence and our own expectations, and provides a critical vision. “We believe what we decide to believe in. It may seem to us that if we have to pay a very high price for what we want, that means it is true. But scientific evidence does not directly depend on the money one pays. Currently, a lot of money is being invested in advancing knowledge about aging and how to design therapies to slow this process. If we already had the solution of “eternal youth”, there would be no need to invest in so much research.”
