The PATH to the PEAK

The best new ways to live healthier—and longer— from apps to experimental treatments.

- Justin Fenner

IF IT SEEMS as though you’re being bombarded with more and more methods of buying your way into a longer life, full of enhanced and extended vitality, well, you are. “I think the amount of science emerging in our understanding of longevity—the reframing of ageing as a disease, in a sense, as a phenomenon that can be treated—is really exciting,” says Mark Hyman, MD, a longevity specialist. His new book, Young Forever: The Secrets to Living Your Longest, Healthiest Life, argues that we can become biologically younger, even as we age chronologically, by eating the right foods, prioritising sleep and exercise and trying some of the therapies described at right. (He is 63, with an alleged chronological age two decades younger, and plans to still be active at 100.)

As with any new frontier, plenty of wellness prospectors are panning for gold, offering everything from apps that recommend lifestyle changes to clinics whose bespoke treatments aim to help you achieve your fitness goals faster. But much of this requires serious work—so just how high up the mountain to enhanced longevity should you climb, and how do you know when you’ve reached the summit?

TIER ONE

Medical Metric-Tracking Apps

START If you reside in the US, download the InsideTracker app, which delivers health-improvement recommendations based on your medical data. Its Ultimate add-on (US$659) sends a real-life health-care professional to collect blood samples, then analyses 44 biomarkers to calculate how well you’re ageing against established standards.