Blood tests and ‘biodata’ have entered the fitness space.
On Monday, the high-end gym chain Equinox introduced a longevity program with a $40,000 annual membership fee.
According to a news release, Optimize by Equinox is “designed to unlock the peaks of human potential” through personalized nutrition, sleep and fitness coaching “based on members’ unique biodata.” The program is being run in partnership with the lab test startup Function Health, which was co-founded by Dr. Mark Hyman, an influential functional medicine physician. Function sells direct-to-consumer blood tests that assess cardiovascular, metabolic, liver, kidney and thyroid health, among other things.
According to Function’s website, its aim is to help people “live 100 healthy years.” Equinox doesn’t put a number on its goal.
“Health span is what we’re trying to figure out,” said Julia Klim, vice president of strategic partnerships at Equinox, referring to the number of years a person lives without serious illness. “But inherently, if your health span is good,” your life span should also improve, she added.
The program is the latest in a string of concierge health and fitness services that have capitalized on the current fascination with self-optimization and longevity. It isn’t even the most expensive — a $10,000-a-month fitness club is opening in Manhattan this spring. But scientists who study aging say that whether these services can deliver results worth their cost of enrollment is an open — and largely unanswerable — question.
So what do you get for $40,000? Optimize gives users access to Function’s panel of blood tests ($499), an Equinox membership (ranging from $3,600 to $6,000 per year) and an Oura smart ring (starting at $299). But most of the cost comes from 16 hours a month of one-on-one coaching. That consists of three weekly personal training sessions, two 30-minute meetings per month with both a sleep coach and a nutritionist, and a monthly massage. (Equinox private coaching averages $160 a session.)