Feeling 40 at 80, your body still bouncy, your risk of disease no higher, and your zest for life intact… the longevity dream has its appeal.
But for some of those spending the most on it, it’s become a nightmare.
Achieving the impossible has turned to an obsession — and in some cases, an illness, with a determination to live a longer and healthier life, often to the detriment of health, happiness and relationships now. And the anxiety, depression, insomnia and isolation it can fuel have driven some to therapy.
Jan Gerber, CEO and founder of the Paracelsus Recovery, in Zurich, Switzerland, refers to the emerging phenomenon as “longevity fixation syndrome.”
At his $120,000-a-week clinic, he told The Post, he sees “very high achievers, entrepreneurs, more male than female, who have a lot of money and time at their disposal… [who] can do anything from parachuting to traveling to Antarctica to Formula One.”
The problem? “I’ve got the funds, but I’ve limited years.”
For those vulnerable to anxiety or obsessive behaviors, though, longevity —- something intended to be good for them —- can become an unhealthy fixation.
Often fueled by a longing for control, Gerber describes it as having some of the same markers of an eating disorder, “almost being an extension of orthorexia,” an obsession with eating healthily which could also include things like supplements and IV drips.
Then, he adds, the wearables take it further. “The Oura rings, the Fitbits, the glucose monitors that people start wearing — who absolutely have no reason to wear a glucose monitor because they have no risk for diabetes…”
Crucially, some are obsessing to the point where it really impacts their lives, like skipping family events because it disrupts a “protocol” or avoiding dinners with friends to make a cryotherapy session. This can all lead to feeling isolated, lonely and misunderstood.
The patients tend to come to the clinic with exhaustion, depression and insomnia. It then emerges that the longevity regimen they’ve been religiously following to “help” them has become the problem.
“The longevity industry itself bears some responsibility here. When you market fear of death and self-control as the solution, you’re going to create these patients.
Dr. Jordan Shlain
“There’s an added dimension that you don’t see with other compulsive behaviors,” Gerber said.
“When you have a bad night’s sleep or miss a workout, that guilt that comes with an additional stress trigger… that you wouldn’t have with gambling addiction, sex addiction or a drug addiction, because [the object of your obsession] is actually a good thing.”
This clinic is no ordinary place for therapy. Only one patient is treated at a time, ensuring privacy, as well as the support of at least fifteen experts.
“Everything is coordinated with Swiss precision,” Gerber said. “Treatment schedules, medical input, psychotherapy and lifestyle interventions are seamlessly integrated.”
The starting point is exploring what is driving the compulsive or unhealthy behavioral fixation, “whether [that’s] anxiety, unresolved trauma, emotional dysregulation, attachment patterns or identity dynamics.” Then targeted interventions like cognitive behavioral therapy, or other types of talking therapy, may be used.
Dr. Jordan Shlain, founder and CEO of Private Medical, said his team of doctors have seen the same story play out across their high-end US concierge clinics, describing it as “painful to watch.”
Instead of living life right now, patients are spending hours tracking biomarkers and obsessing over supplements. They often cancel social arrangements to avoid clashing with fasting or sleeping windows, and they’re not able to eat normally with others due to their restrictive diets, damaging relationships as a result.
His team has seen physical damage too: kidney issues from overdoing supplements, hormonal chaos, metabolic dysfunction from extreme fasting, injuries from overtraining and even cardiac events from unmonitored use of performance-enhancing compounds marketed as “longevity agents.”
For the doctors, treating these patients begs questions: How do we know what is in that vial or supplement — and that it wasn’t contaminated? What does the current evidence show? And, crucially, “Why are you gambling with your health?”
“It usually takes time and sharing some horror stories of stem cell injections that led to severe deficits and life threatening infections [for them to take note],” Shlain said.
“People need to understand that until and unless they have ‘aced’ the four pillars of health — diet, exercise, sleep and social nutrition — they should not be experimenting with their bodies based on some Instagram influencer — it’s a bad strategy.”
This may appear to be a problem confined to the wealthy, who can afford the most extreme and experimental regimens. But with the longevity industry now valued at tens of billions of dollars, there’s no question parts of it have gone mainstream — and so has the risk of those vulnerable to anxiety or obsessive behavior taking it too far.
This risk, unlike immortality, is real. Whether it’s driven by anxiety over death or disease, control in an uncertain world, or an underlying OCD or anxiety condition, it does not result in living “healthily.”
“The longevity industry itself bears some responsibility here,” said Shlain. “When you market fear of death and self-control as the solution, you’re going to create these patients. The responsible practitioners in this space need to be screening for this, not enabling it.”
The longevity mission is not negative in itself, of course. The fear of dementia, cancer and natural decline is reasonable — sensible, even.
Most of us can benefit from improving our habits a little, as long as we remain mindful of the reality that it’s fair enough to want to live forever — but you will die trying.
