Up next / Personal Health Youth, On Tap Forever

Your stem cells hold the cure to a host of illsand maybe aging itself. Forever Labs is making sure theyll be there when you need them.

- Jeff Bercovici

In a clinic in leafy Orinda, California, Anthony, a 45-year-old medical sales rep, lies facedown on an examination table, a sterile sheet draped over his bare bottom. Orthopedic surgeon Chad Roghair uses an ultrasound machine to locate the posterior iliac crest of Anthony’s pelvis, and then numbs the area. Roghair makes a tiny incision with a scalpel and inserts a pencil-size tube called a trocar, through which he drills two centimeters into Anthony’s hipbone. Attaching a syringe, he slowly draws out 60 milliliters of marrow.

It’s a rich, dark red. Like beet juice.

A nurse immediately places the vials in a container lined with dry ice, which she will send to Ann Arbor, Michigan, where a company called Forever Labs will place their contents into cryostorage.

On his feet moments later, Anthony explains why he’s here: Coronary artery disease runs in his family. Should he suffer a heart attack in the future, clinical trials currently underway suggest the stem cells in his marrow could help regrow heart muscle. Or maybe he’ll have a stroke, in which case there’s equally good evidence suggesting those same stem cells will help restore brain tissue. Of course, Anthony could be lucky and avoid any major health problems for 25 years. But then he may choose to have the cells, which have the ability to turn into several types of tissue, infused into his bloodstream as an all-purpose antiaging treatment.

All of that is what Forever Labs offers to the hundreds of people who, like Anthony, have paid $1,500 to have their cells extracted and are spending another $250 per year to have them cryobanked. Consider it a down payment on a future in which health care may be more about maintenance than disease treatment, and aging is a condition to be managed—if not cured outright.