From luxury longevity retreats to wearable glucose trackers, the race to slow down ageing was once mostly associated with the ultra-wealthy.
But experts say the trend is now starting to trickle down to affluent professionals – and increasingly everyday Brits – as more people look for ways to live healthier for longer.
New research from AXA Global Healthcare found wealthy UK professionals are spending an average of nearly £10,000 a year on longevity-focused healthcare, with some investing more than £50,000 annually.
The spending ranges from personal trainers and stress management through to advanced diagnostics and more specialist medical treatments, including experimental use.
While some treatments remain firmly in the luxury bracket, other elements of the longevity boom – including wearable health trackers, personalised nutrition programmes and more advanced preventative health screening – are increasingly being packaged for and adopted by a wider audience.
Dr Mayoni Gooneratne, a longevity expert and Functional Medicine Director at PHC Clinics, said more people now see ageing as something they can actively influence rather than simply accept.
She explained: “People are more aware that lifestyle and cardiometabolic risk explain a large share of premature ageing and chronic disease, and that these are modifiable. So longevity now feels more controllable than it did a decade ago.”
The doctor said growing access to wearable technology and preventative healthcare has helped fuel the shift, giving people more real-time information about their health.
“The consumerisation of health tech gives people more real-time feedback, which is motivating but can also create the sense that every metric can and should be optimised,” she said.
Fitness and personal training was the most common area of longevity spending among respondents of the AXA Global Healthcare study, with 53% investing in it over the past year.
Mental health, sleep optimisation and stress management followed at 36%, while nearly three in 10 (29%) spent money on personalised nutrition and metabolic health programmes.
Meanwhile, 18% reported investing in continuous health monitoring such as wearable devices and glucose trackers, with smaller groups also paying for advanced diagnostic screening (15%), concierge-led medical care (13%) and longevity-directed medications and supplements, including experimental use (16%).
Nearly three quarters (74%) of respondents said they plan to increase their spending on longevity-focused healthcare over the next three years.
Dr Mayoni Gooneratne said some people are also travelling abroad in search of newer or more specialist treatments, with almost half (47%) of respondents saying they had already done so and 37% saying they are open to doing so.
She explained: “Patients who travel specifically for treatments not yet approved at home are usually driven by a combination of hope, impatience and a desire to be ahead of the curve.”
However, the doctor warned that expensive “biohacking” treatments and anti-ageing interventions are not a shortcut to a longer life.
More than half (53%) of respondents said they expect longevity interventions to add at least six extra healthy years to their lives.
Dr Mayoni Gooneratne said that while those expectations may sound ambitious, the strongest evidence still points towards relatively simple long-term lifestyle habits.
She said: “Large-scale studies consistently show that combining core lifestyle changes – like staying active, maintaining a healthy weight, eating well and not smoking – can add around six to seven years of life, much of it in better health.”
But she warned the science behind some emerging treatments is still developing.
“There’s understandable excitement around drugs like metformin and rapamycin, but the evidence in humans is still at an early stage,” she said.
“We’re seeing promising signals and strong results in animal studies, but robust data on extending lifespan in people just isn’t there yet.”
Dr Mayoni Gooneratne added that while luxury clinics and expensive testing often dominate the conversation around longevity, many of the most effective changes remain accessible to most people.
“The underlying intuition – that proactive, data-driven prevention can add years of good life – is right,” she said.
“But the marketplace sometimes over-credits the newest or most expensive intervention rather than the unglamorous basics that move most of the dial.”
For most people, this involves regular exercise, good-quality sleep, maintaining social connections, managing stress, eating a balanced diet and attending routine health checks.
All of these can have a meaningful impact on health span, helping people stay healthier for longer without the need for costly interventions.
