Life is priceless. Pierre knows it, he is almost sixty years old. So to try to extend it, “while having a good time”, this business manager in the Paris region, who requested anonymity, decided to put his hand in his wallet. He is one of the first clients of Zoī, a luxurious and futuristic-looking preventive medicine clinic, launched in November. 2000 square meters, a stone’s throw from the jewelers of Place Vendôme and their eternal diamonds.
For around 3,000 euros per year, this medtech, financially supported by Stéphane Bancel (Moderna) and Xavier Niel (Free), promises to “optimize life expectancy” using the latest biomedical technologies. The sector is booming, driven in particular by the rise of molecular biology, a science now capable of reversing certain mechanisms of aging in animals, if not successful in humans. More and more high-end offers are riding on these advances and offering their services to slow down the attacks of time.
Passing an airlock, where a QR Code reader ensures that customers have subscribed to Zoī, two opaque doors slide and reveal a long corridor bathed in light, making you suddenly forget the Parisian cacophony. “It’s the opposite of a hospital,” Pierre appreciates: no waiting room, black walls and invisible doors, like in science fiction films. A former member of the Hermès house designed the scents. Speakers each play a note from a piece by Thylacine, the pioneer of symphonic electro. You have to walk to hear the whole thing.
In the “suites” – here we don’t say rooms – around twenty tests are carried out. Questionnaires, clinical examinations, imaging, samples, Zoī’s teams collect some 200 “biological markers” under a light which guides patients’ breathing during their cardiac measurements. “This allows us to know with unparalleled precision the state of fitness of clients and the warning signs of diseases particularly linked to aging,” assures one of the founders, Ismaël Emelien, a former advisor to Emmanuel Macron, crowned with his partner Paul Dupuy of a fundraising of 20 million euros.
Before coming to Zoī, Pierre was followed at the CIEM, in the 6th arrondissement – one of the oldest private health check-up services in Paris, along with the American Hospital. The leaders of large companies are sent there. But their analyzes do not include all those carried out by Ismaël Emelien’s start-up. “I want to avoid regrets, take control as much as possible,” slips Pierre. You have to wait six weeks to get the results. Accordingly, he will receive a personalized nutritional and physical program, accessible from an application. And, if he is sick, treatments.
In addition to the traditional triptych of heart rate, blood pressure and fundus of the eye, the company measures the quality of the microbiota using exhaled air. She checks the prostate with imaging to avoid rectal exams. Zoī’s doctors even look at the number of “methyl groups” attached to DNA, these substances which accumulate in excess with age and disrupt cells. Thanks to this, they claim to evaluate a biological age, the “real” stage of aging, in addition to the chronological age.
Taken separately, the finest data cannot be used, however, the company recognizes. Many parameters vary from one individual to another and have little meaning taken in isolation. But Claude Dalle, scientific advisor to the company, assures that when put in relation to each other, “they take on their relevance”. To detect pathologies as early as possible, of course, but above all to allow patients to realize their progression: “A check-up alone is only a simple screening if it is not followed by recommendations that they -same implementations, our goal is to create the first desirable health experience”, adds Ismaël Emelien. A snack prepared by Alain Ducasse and Japanese baths close the session.
“We can find anything among the offers visible online”
More and more specialized companies are offering to “take control of your aging”, in particular thanks to these methylation tests. “Using them on us for the effects of time would be a revolution, but none of these biological clocks are reliable enough at the moment,” warns Coleen T. Murphy, a biologist at Princeton University. No matter, technology is already making its way into American bathrooms: for 200 euros per month, Tally Health, a start-up founded by David Sinclair, a leader in molecular biology, provides one per quarter to its subscribers and delivers also fisetin, quercetin, resveratrol, spermidine. In mice, these molecules play a protective role at the cellular level. Nothing has been demonstrated on humans, but these products are increasingly sought after. The fault is partly due to Brian Johnson, American billionaire and first “longevity influencer”, 500,000 Instagram subscribers, who takes around a hundred pills daily.
In France, Dr Claude Chauchard, 168,000 subscribers on the same platform, also films himself swallowing a string of food supplements for breakfast. For half a thousand euros, this doctor (who did not respond to L’Express’s requests) carries out extensive blood tests for well-off fifty-year-olds. They leave with vitamins that he markets at the same time as online training. But also: probiotics, Viagra and hormones. And what does it matter if their anti-aging effect has never been demonstrated. How many of these molecules of youth, the juice of science extracted during cooking, will prove useful? “If these molecules are often interesting in animals, there are many fads in the field and we can find anything among the offers visible online,” warns Christophe de Jaeger, president of the French Society of Medicine and physiology of longevity.
To benefit from preview therapies, thousands of people go each year to the United States, China, India, Thailand or Mexico, according to a study published in 2022 in International Health. The legislation is more flexible there. The star product? Stem cells, also at the heart of anti-aging hopes – they could one day be transplanted, and rejuvenate our organs. In medical journals, doctors describe deformed patients after these experiences: sometimes, the cells proliferate in all directions, like tumors.
“Medical tourism”, condemned by the scientific community, which also questions the legitimacy of “longevity prognoses” – an estimate of the time we have left. What if these analyzes sold by Human Longevity or Fountain Life found a predisposition against which we could do nothing? “It’s very useful for planning your retirement, managing your assets, choosing your health coverage or simply preparing to age without your spouse,” responds S. Jay Olshansky, biodemographer and also founder of Lapetus Solutions. The practice is prohibited in France.
In his institute, an apartment in the 16th arrondissement of Paris transformed into a luxurious office, decorated with sculptures and paintings, Dr. de Jaeger sticks to what he can measure and fight. No promising pills unless there is a clear way to verify the results. He ensures that he evaluates the physiological ages of the patient, organ by organ. With the idea shared by all players in the sector that we must act upstream, rather than intervening when autonomy is lost or illness has set in.
In Lille, Eric Boulanger, professor of medicine and biology of aging, set up a pilot public program, called Tempoforme and partly financed by the Hauts-de-France region. It is first based on a self-assessment, a long questionnaire to be completed on an application to gauge physical and psychosocial capacities. Patients at risk can make an appointment to establish a prevention plan with the doctor and are entitled to tests: white blood cells, red blood cells, platelets, kidney and liver functions, cholesterol, blood sugar, glycated hemoglobin, vitamin D, TCH, albumin, subcutaneous glycation, osteometry. And that’s all. “We need few markers because we know that, in any case, what gives the greatest results is above all to stop toxins (alcohol, tobacco), to eat frugally and balanced, to sleep and to practice regular physical activity. The rest is putting the cart before the horse,” assures this researcher at the Pasteur Institute in Lille. Clients of expensive institutes have been warned.
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