Abu Dhabi’s Department of Health introduced a licensing framework for Healthy Longevity Medicine Centers in October 2024. The framework defines a clinical category and sets facility standards as researchers work to test whether interventions can extend healthy life in humans.
What the research can establish
The central hypothesis remains unproven in people. Daniel Belsky, associate professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, said researchers hadn’t tested the idea in humans. “We don’t know yet whether we can really do this,” he said, pointing to evidence and resources now being mobilized to test it.
Nir Barzilai, director of the institute for aging research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, said, “Aging has biology. This biology drives diseases.” He argues medicine could eventually target biological processes associated with aging, instead of waiting for diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer to arise and treating each condition separately.
Researchers have manipulated aging biology in organisms ranging from roundworms to mice. Belsky said medicines, exercise, calorie restriction and other interventions can slow the buildup of cellular changes associated with aging and extend animals’ lives. But human clinical trial evidence that intervening in this biology can extend health span isn’t available yet, he said. Researchers are moving toward trials. Animal studies haven’t established that the approach will work in people.
Measuring biological age
Researchers are investigating biological measures of aging rather than relying only on chronological age. One line of work examines epigenetics: changes in how genes are regulated without altering the underlying DNA sequence. Belsky said chemical tags called methyl groups bonded to DNA “could track the passage of time in a human body.”
Belsky’s Finding Aging Biomarkers by Searching Existing Trials (FAST) project gathers multi-omic data, including proteins, metabolites and epigenetic marks on white blood cells. The researchers aim to identify indicators that respond to interventions and could help measure effects on aging biology. They haven’t established a link between changing those biomarkers and extending healthy lifespan.
A trial that starts when participants are 40 or 50 might need to follow them for two or three decades to determine whether an intervention prevents chronic disease. Researchers are therefore studying whether aging biomarkers could serve as “surrogate endpoint[s]” in trials, if they reliably indicate that an intervention is likely to prevent disease or extend healthy lifespan.
Clinics and licensing
Longevity clinics offer conventional medical assessments alongside broader testing intended to build a detailed picture of a person’s health. Mayo Clinic launched its Healthy Longevity Clinic in 2023. Singapore’s National University Health System established a similar program that combines detailed assessment with personalized lifestyle or medical interventions. Some scientists have cautioned that the field needs better regulation as these clinics become more common.
The Department of Health described Abu Dhabi’s licensing framework as the first of its kind globally. It licensed the Institute for Healthier Living Abu Dhabi as the world’s first state-designated specialized Healthy Longevity Medicine Center.
“All your cells are aging constantly,” said Allan Boston, the institute’s chief operating officer. He said therapies, drugs, immunotherapies and technologies might alter the biological pathway, slow it or potentially reverse it. Belsky also pointed to sleep, exercise, community and diet, saying these can influence aging biology without advanced medical innovations or specialist clinics. “We can add healthy years to our lifespan even without these new drugs,” he said.