Longevity clinics embody an important vision: healthcare is personalized, preventive, and engaged. They respond to a demand that traditional healthcare systems have failed to meet, which is optimization of healthspan. Several concepts should not be dismissed.
First, the potential to generate large-scale, longitudinal datasets on human aging. Unlike traditional clinical trials, which are highly controlled, time-limited, and often focused on specific diseases, longevity clinics engage individuals across years, sometimes decades, while capturing a broad range of biological and behavioral parameters. This deep phenotyping could reveal patterns of aging trajectories that are normally missed in conventional study designs currently undergoing in standard hospitals and clinics. Analysis and integration of collected datasets could highlight early biomarkers of decline, predictors of age-related disease, and identify subgroups that respond differently to interventions. With the help of artificial intelligence and machine learning data obtained could accelerate discovery and be potentially used to build actionable models.
Second, engagement of the patients. Clients are not passive recipients but are encouraged to track, monitor, and reflect on their own health metrics. This is exactly what we would like to achieve in geroscience: a cultural shift from reactive treatment to proactive management. Importantly, when individuals are deeply involved in understanding and managing their own biology, adherence improves, and lifestyle modifications, which remain the most robust interventions for healthy aging, become the norm.
Third, longevity clinics often act as early adopters of emerging diagnostics and interventions. Academic medicine is often constrained by excessive regulation and limited funding, and it may take years to validate and implement novel approaches. Private clinics operate more quickly and offer clients access to tools well before they are adopted in hospitals. When backed up by rigorous science, these tools and the analyses of the data obtained could shorten the translation from bench to bedside.
Yet for all their promise, most longevity clinics today fall far short of their potential. A major limitation is cost. Annual memberships frequently range from €10,000 to €50,000, with some “executive health packages” exceeding €100,000 (see Table 1). This makes them accessible only to wealthy elites, supporting a system of inequality in healthcare. Major issue is that the individuals most at risk of premature aging are normally coming from the lowest socio-economic levels.
