LAS VEGAS — Just beyond the flashing slot machines and cigarette-saturated casino air, thousands of the health obsessed gathered in a convention hall here to demonstrate their hacks for living longer lives. They infused ozone into their blood streams, stood on vibrating mats, swallowed samples of supplements and took scans of their livers.
The gathering of wellness clinic operators, doctors and antiaging enthusiasts last month offered a vivid snapshot of a booming industry built upon the promise of longer, healthier and more vibrant lives. At the center are customers, fed up with or skeptical of the current health care system, who are willing to take risks with unproven treatments and spend extraordinary sums of money to extend their lives.
“There’s always something new in the longevity business,” Veronica Zarco, a partner at a clinic in Miami Beach, said after testing out a $60,000 light bed. “So we want to be on top of our game.”
Longevity medicine has exploded into the mainstream in recent years, fueled by billions of dollars in private investment, influential allies in the federal government and lobbyists promoting it at both the state and national levels. But the fervor around the industry has also outpaced rigorous scientific evidence and federal regulations that would ensure basic standards throughout the sector.
At its core, antiaging medicine revolves around the reality that the older we are — the weaker our hearts, the more brittle our bones — the more susceptible we become to afflictions like cancer, heart disease and dementia. The average American dies at about 76, with the last decade of life often spent in poor health, according to the World Health Organization. Longevity experts theorize that if humans can slow the natural aging process, then we can avoid debilitating ailments and live longer and healthier.
Human aging is increasingly recognized as a key area of research, with major institutions such as Brown and Harvard universities studying ways to slow or reverse natural declines. Numerous clinical studies are also exploring strategies to extend overall health. At the same time, critics warn that longevity medicine exists in a regulatory gray area where influencers can promote unsafe protocols and clinics exaggerate the benefits of their treatments.
“A lot of this space is dominated by medical influencers, and not scientists,” said Douglas Vaughan, director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute at Northwestern Medicine. “We’re still in the discovery mode, and we are trying to find the truth and interventions that are scalable, affordable and effective for the 99 percent.”
The Food and Drug Administration — which is responsible for approving new drugs and ensuring they are safe and marketed appropriately — does not classify aging as a disease, identifying it instead as a natural, universal process. As a result, there is no regulatory pathway to approve medications specifically targeted to aging.
Meanwhile, the big money keeps flowing in.
Global investment in longevity companies surged to $8.49 billion in 2024, a 220 percent increase from the previous year, according to industry analysts at Longevity.Technology. Much of that investment was centered in the United States, analysts say. The longevity and preventive wellness market — defined as the money customers spend on products, services and technologies aimed at extending their lives and enhancing their health — is expected to explode globally from $784.9 billion in 2024 to $1.9 trillion by 2034, according to MarketResearch.com.
Silicon Valley figures have been behind some major investments in recent years: In 2021, Altos Labs, a biotech start-up focused on antiaging launched with $3 billion in funding from wealthy investors that reportedly included Jeff Bezos. The company says its aim is to rejuvenate cells to a more youthful state in a way that would prolong a healthier life. Altos Labs and Bezos Expeditions, which runs the billionaire’s investments, did not respond to a request for comment. (Bezos owns The Washington Post.)
Also in 2021, OpenAI CEO Sam Altmaninvested $180 million into Retro Biosciences, a start-up that says it is developing therapies to add “10 years to healthy human lifespan.” The company is currently “fundraising for the next stage of expansion,” said Joe Betts-LaCroix, CEO of Retro Biosciences.
Momentum around the industry hit a tipping point last year, as powerful allies of the industry ascended into the federal government. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longevity enthusiast himself, has described his own antiaging routines that include a “fistful” of vitamins, testosterone and a stem cell treatment he once received in Antigua. Kennedy has called for an overhaul of FDA funding and regulations, and said last year that if people want to take an experimental drug they “ought to be able to do that.” A top adviser to Kennedy, Calley Means, was the closing speaker at the Las Vegas conference, LongevityFest, considered one of the largest annual gatherings of the industry.
The Department of Health and Human Services said in a statement that it “urges individuals to consult with their health care provider before using any new supplement or product” and that “the FDA does not comment on or speculate about future or potential policy decisions.”
Robert Goldman, who co-founded the group that started LongevityFest, the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M), said companies and investors will continue flocking to the sector as the population ages. In the past few years, he said, the industry has experienced an “explosion we’ve never seen,” and he predicted it will continue to grow “at a rate that will boggle your imagination.”
“Sixty will be the new 40, and 90 will be the new 60,” Goldman said.
Cashing in
The boom in consumer demand has inspired as many as 800 longevity clinics to spring up around the country, according to some estimates. These clinics often charge as much as tens of thousands of dollars for a single visit.
Common offerings include infusions of NAD+, a molecule found in all cells that clinics often claim can help with energy, brain function, antiaging or recovery; hyperbaric oxygen chambers, a pressurized chamber where customers breathe pure oxygen; and chelation therapy, a treatment that removes heavy metals from the body. None of those treatments have been proven to slow aging in large-scale human trials.
Many longevity customers say their interest was borne out of frustration with the American health care system, which will prescribe a battery of medications when people are sick but doesn’t do enough to prevent their physical decline in the first place. One of those people is Johnny Adams, a 75-year-old who has ventured into the unproven — and sometimes dubious — edges of longevity medicine in his search for a healthy life as he ages. (Adams said he has attended LongevityFest conventions in the past, but not the most recent one.)
Beyond his strict regimen of healthy eating, supplements and exercise, Adams last year paid thousands of dollars to fly from his home in California to Texas for a young plasma exchange, a therapy that replaced his blood plasma with plasma from a young donor. The FDA warnsthere is no evidence this procedure prevents aging or provides other health and wellness benefits.
As he experiments with various therapies, Adams said he measures basic metrics with cognitive and physical tests. Along with these objective measures, he said, an important metric is also “How do I feel?”
“Do I feel better? Do I experience a joy of living?” he said. “Even if it is placebo, I’ll take it.”
Inside the vast exhibition hall in Vegas last month, clinic owners from all over the country tested out new products to sell to clients like Adams. There were supplements, lots of them: ones to mitigate stress, others to improve skin elasticity, many to enhance mitochondrial function.
Stephen Dahlin, a chiropractor who runs a clinic in central California, tested out an intravenous laser that beamed light into his blood through an IV. Through his skin, the laser — which can cost $20,000 to $40,000 — glowed red, yellow and blue. Others tried out electromagnetic frequency machines and hyperbaric chambers, while a robot clomped around throughout the weekend with a shirt that said “Got Peptides?”
Goldman, the co-founder of A4M, said the annual conference — which is run by Informa Connect, a company that hosts live events — said the quality of the products and vendors “has increased every year.”
“You don’t see hanging crystals and things like that,” he said. “If someone is going to be an embarrassment, we don’t want them here.”
Still, some of the conference’s biggest vendors and presenters have previously run into issues with state and federal regulators.
Between 2022 and 2025, Olympia Pharmaceuticals, which customizes prescription medications and specializes in longevity and weight-loss products, was repeatedly cited by the FDA for deficiencies. In one complaint, a person who took a peptide provided by the pharmacy “thought they were going into cardiac arrest,” according to an inspection.
As one of the biggest sponsors of the event, Olympia had its brand plastered on signs throughout the conference hall and on the lanyards of attendees. In a response to questions about its inspection records, Olympia said “each complaint was documented, assessed, and addressed in accordance with established procedures and adherence to federal regulations.”
Calroy Health Sciences, which sells a seaweed extract that it claims can help clear plaque from arteries and was another major sponsor, received a warning letter from the FDA in 2022 for making misleading claims about a product on its website. Responding to a request for comment, Calroy cited a 2023 FDA letter that said the matter had been resolved.
The majority of physicians who presented during the conference appeared to be in good standing with state and federal regulators, according to a Post review of medical board records. But some had been the subject of disciplinary actions.
For example, Frank Shallenberger, whom A4M features on its website as “a pioneer in integrative and anti-aging medicine,” has been reprimanded three times by the Nevada medical board between 1995 and 2023 for deficiencies including misdiagnosing a patient and improperly prescribing controlled substances, including hormone replacement therapy to himself and his wife.
In an email, Shallenberger said “it is not unusual for doctors who think out of the box to be the target of unfair accusations from various regulatory agencies.”
“I have been targeted several times in my 50+ year career,” he said. “Not for any negative outcomes but for using therapies such as homeopathy, ozone therapy, hormonal replacement therapy, and other natural therapies which are not considered ‘usual and customary’ by some regulatory boards.”
Along with running an alternative medicine clinic in Nevada, Shallenberger also provides training courses on ozone therapy, a process that involves introducing medical-grade ozone gas into the blood and is commonly offered by wellness clinics focused on antiaging. The FDA has warned that introducing ozone into the blood has “no known useful medical application in specific, adjunctive, or preventive therapy” and can cause serious side effects.
Shallenberger also said in an email to The Post that the FDA’s stance on ozone therapy “is simply embarrassing” and that it “Would have saved hundreds of thousands of lives in the COVID epidemic if it had been used by more than a handful of American physicians.”
Doreen Brown, CEO of Informa Connect’s medical division, said in a phone interview that the conference organizers verify presenters’ licenses and assess any concerns on an individual basis. She also said the conference “does not vet” for scientific validity of products that are being marketed in the exhibition hall. Such would be “an unnecessary undertaking because it’s a trade show,” she said. Brown and a representative for Informa did not respond to questions about specific sponsors and presenters at the 2025 conference.
“We’re trying to make a difference in health care, and we want to be on top of making sure we are the evidence-based education because there is so much going on in longevity,” she said. But “some things slip through the cracks and we don’t know.”
‘An existential moment’
Means, the close Kennedy ally, told conference attendees that the country is in “an existential moment” when it comes to health care, but there is also “legitimate concern about patients having the right information.”
He said the current administration has a “significant bias toward trusting patients in the world of personalized medicine and patient autonomy,” he said. “Even if there are risks.”
After Means stepped off the stage, he was swarmed by attendees, asking for selfies and thanking him for his work in the administration.
“This is different from what happens to me in D.C.,” he said.
But longevity medicine investors and advocates are ramping up their lobbying efforts in the nation’s capital.
The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, formed in 2022 to advance aging research in the United States, is lobbying the federal government to recognize aging as something that is treatable. The group, which has spent at least $283,000 in federal lobbying since 2022, according to OpenSecrets, in April held its second summit on Capitol Hill and congressional briefing that included opening remarks from Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. A bipartisan House Longevity Science Caucus, initially formed in February 2023, was also relaunched in April.
The lobbying group played a key role in crafting and passing two Montana bills last year that lowered barriers for clinics and physicians to provide healthy patients with experimental drugs and therapies that do not have FDA approval. The laws also added oversight and enforcement to the use of such therapies.
Dylan Livingston, the founder of the Alliance for Longevity Initiatives, said he wanted to address the policies standing in the way of the industry after “seeing a lot of people go to Antigua or Mexico or Bolivia to get some sketchy shot from some guy.”
“I was like, why are we putting people from America in that position?” he said.
‘Why not try it?’
Diana Zuckerman, president of the nonprofit National Center for Health Research, has heard plenty of stories about how an unconventional therapy changed the life of a patient or that of a loved one. There are those who suffered from cancer, heart disease or long covid, unable to find solutions to their issues until they said they discovered certain offbeat treatments that weren’t available in conventional settings, or the United States.
While some may have appeared to benefit from an unconventional therapy, she said, it is important to rigorously test these treatments with randomized, double-blind studies in humans.
“You’ve spent all this money, you want to feel some benefit has accrued, so you really believe that you feel better,” she said. But “there are costs for all these things.”
Erskine Thompson, 60, is unbothered by such costs.
Toward the back of the exhibition hall in Las Vegas, Thompson sat among a steady stream of attendees who sat down on black plastic chairs while a nurse poked an IV into their arms. After their blood snaked its way through the tubes, the nurse took a syringe of ozone gas and pumped it into the IV bags, turning their blood from a deep, rich color into a bright, frothy, bubbly red before funneling it back into their bodies.
This ozone therapy treatment, offered at the conference by a Michigan-based company, Simply O3, is an increasingly popular one among providers who claim the treatment helps boost immunity and reduce inflammation. It’s also lucrative: The average clinic generates an additional $60,000 per year by adding IV ozone therapy, according to a company brochure. SimplyO3 did not respond to a request for comment.
Thompson said he has seen the impact with his own eyes. He first came across ozone therapy in Mexico, when his mother-in-law was being treated for Stage 4 cancer. He said the treatment helped her walk and talk in her final months of life. When he and his wife saw the therapy in the exhibition hall for $100 — a special conference price — they immediately jumped at it, thinking they could use an energy boost during the long weekend in Vegas.
“If a lot of people say it makes them feel better,” he said, “then why not try it?”
Daniel Gilbert and Lauren Weber contributed to this report
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