Prestigious Nonprofit Health Systems Move Into Cash-Pay Longevity Clinics, With One Northwestern-Affiliated Package at $5,500 a Year

According to STAT, reporter Sarah Todd went through assessments at hospital longevity clinics in two states. One was a clinic affiliated with Northwestern University in Chicago. Its annual package costs $5,500. Todd reports that the tests measured the health trajectories of her heart, brain, lungs, eyes and ears, along with her strength and fitness.

The centerpiece she describes is the VO2 max test. It shows how efficiently the body uses oxygen. STAT calls it medicine's most accurate measure of cardiorespiratory fitness. Todd walked on a steep treadmill wearing a mask while an assistant periodically asked her to rate her exertion on a 1-to-10 scale. The goal was to reach 10, the top of that scale.

STAT reports that these health systems promise a rigorous scientific approach to helping people keep their vigor as long as they can. Their pitch is that the assessments give a more detailed picture of current condition and aging trajectory than a typical doctor's visit.

That pitch puts hospitals into a market that has long drawn costly and questionable practices. STAT points to examples ranging from 1920s doctors who grafted monkey testicles to Bryan Johnson's since-abandoned blood transfusions from his teenage son. A hospital name offers something those earlier efforts lacked: an established clinical brand.

The competitive logic is easy to see, though it is our interpretation and not a finding from the STAT excerpt. A hospital affiliation may lend credibility in a field where trust is hard to earn. A cash-pay package also does not depend on insurer reimbursement.

Critics raise two concerns, according to STAT. The first is how to reconcile high outof-pocket costs with hospitals' nonprofit status and charitable missions. The second is that, in the push to attract paying customers, clinics may offer tests without enough evidence that they improve people's health.

Those questions matter for strategy as well as ethics. If scrutiny of nonprofit status grows, premium programs could draw attention from regulators and the public. If evidence for the tests remains thin, the clinics' scientific positioning may be hard to sustain. The excerpt does not say how either issue might play out.

This is the first part of STAT's series Selling Longevity, which examines the science and the risk of getting ahead of research in search of profit. What to watch next: whether more health systems open similar programs, and whether the evidence on these tests catches up with the prices.