I’m in a cramped examination room at a clinic in Panama City. The lights are dim, and calming classical music plays from built-in speakers. A nurse has injected a dose of stem cells into Kenneth Scott through an IV in his arm; earlier, those same stem cells had been extracted from Scott’s body so they could be “activated.” Now Scott leans his head back as a laser passes back and forth over his neck. “Tiempo,” the nurse says, sitting next to him. A doctor switches the focus of the laser in his hand to the right side of Scott’s head, telling me that the beam guides the stem cells to where they’re “needed most.” Scott hopes this shuttling around of his stem cells, a procedure that costs patients $10,000, will rejuvenate his 82-year-old body and ward off the effects of aging.
Scott is a slight man, of short stature, and boasts a generous shock of white hair. That morning, when I had arrived at the clinic, he greeted me in an airy button-down shirt, shorts, and sandals, bouncing with childlike energy, eager to show me the many machines, medicines, and methods he employs in his attempt to turn back time. Until recently, he lived in Florida, where he ran a successful real estate business. Now he’s turned the majority of his focus toward extending his life as long as possible, and he thinks the procedures he gets in Panama are the key. As we talk, he reels off the benefits of the stem cell treatments, as well as facts from studies he’s read, but he struggles to catch my questions. (He does not wear a hearing aid and believes that wearing one would further damage his hearing.) Later, when I ask stem cell scientists about the treatment I watched Scott receive, they dispute almost every step of the process. For example, when it comes to the type of stem cells that the clinic claims it injected into Scott, most doubt that they even exist at all.
No matter: The Xtend clinic, where I met up with Scott, is one of many locations across the world that American and Canadian tourists visit to pursue experimental, unproven treatments they hope will buy them a little extra time on this planet. These facilities are found in countries with looser medical regulations than you encounter in the United States and Europe. They’re also often in gorgeous locales, so visitors can combine unregulated therapies with a stay at a luxury hotel and days spent on white-sand beaches.
The treatments on offer at Xtend and elsewhere have an air of science and spirituality to them—they are discussed at longevity conferences, biohacking meetups, and even immortalist churches. As the author of a book about the modern pursuit for immortality, I’ve watched longevity tourism surge in popularity in recent years. And as rumors circulate that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s secretary of health and human services, is a fan of the kinds of treatments on offer at the clinics, they don’t merely reflect the way the ultra-wealthy combine their longevity hobby with travel. These facilities may, people like Scott hope, offer a glimpse at the future of American health care. Scott doesn’t have time to wait, though. During my days in Panama with him, I saw up close just how far he’d gone in his devotion to this alluring—but very questionable—kind of medicine.
The seeds of Scott’s journey into offshore medical treatments can be traced to about 2002, when he began to experiment with fasting as a way to prevent persistent sinus infections. It actually worked—fasting allowed him to gradually introduce foods back into his diet, revealing a straightforward gluten intolerance, a condition that, indeed, can be linked to nasal issues. From there, he looked further into unconventional approaches to staying well and, drawing inspiration from the 1980s bestseller Life Extension: A Practical Scientific Approach by Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw, started a health regimen that gradually became more complex.
But it wasn’t until the fall of 2022, during a layover at Miami airport, that things really accelerated. As he hauled his carry-on to his gate, Scott, then 79, found he had to take several breaks. He was, he realized, weakening physically. Scott decided he didn’t just want to survive beyond 80; he wanted to be able to live life at the same pace that had seen him bounce from one career to another, from the Air Force to real estate to biotech. He wanted to be able to look after himself. And as a wealthy man immune to many of the struggles of other financial demographics, he wanted to continue avoiding quotidian struggles. “The reality is that, on average, after the age of 80, 5 percent of your peer group die every year,” Scott told me. “Well, I’m not part of that.” (Five percent is actually a conservative estimate: That’s the case for an 80-year-old man. By 85, according to the Social Security Administration, it’s more like 10 percent. Death comes quickly.)
Read the full story: Welcome to the Longevity Tourism Boom (Slate)