Is Longevity Medicine Going Mainstream?

This article is part of our Longevity special section on living longer and healthier.

Both of Kathleen Wood’s parents died relatively young, before age 62, and because of that she is very proactive about her health. Last year, the 66-year-old business owner decided to explore longevity medicine programs. Ms. Wood, who lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., didn’t feel comfortable receiving care outside of a major medical system. She is originally from Chicago, so when she learned that Northwestern Medicine had opened a longevity clinic, she was in.

“I knew I wanted my care to be backed up with medical research and medical science,” she said in a phone interview.

There are hundreds of boutique longevity medicine clinics in the United States, with services that aim to extend life span and health span (the number of years lived without chronic disease or disability). Until recently, these programs, which can cost thousands to tens of thousands of dollars a year, were situated outside of mainstream medicine; many offer screenings and interventions that are not yet proven to be effective.

Fountain Life, for example, a membership-based longevity company with five clinics, allows members at its highest tier —$23,500 annually — to access whole genome sequencing, whole body M.R.I., stem cell therapies and therapeutic plasma exchange, among many other assessments and treatments.

Dr. Dawn Mussallem, the company’s chief medical officer, wrote in an email that some therapies Fountain Life offer “have early, promising data” for longevity. She added: “I don’t accept that a test or therapy is either standard of care or has no value at all. Much of the most important science lives in between.”

For consumers like Ms. Wood, programs situated within nonprofit academic medical centers feel safer; they carry an expectation of accountability and evidence-based treatment.