The new benchmark center for preventive medicine for healthy longevity: 700 m2 and three "blue zones"

With 700 square meters dedicated to preventive medicine for healthy longevity , the Neleva Clinic has just opened in Madrid. The prestigious Dr. Ángel Durántez , the center's medical director, has just exchanged his 55 square meters in El Viso for this impressive space in the heart of the Salamanca district.

For the pioneer in Spain of proactive preventive medicine , this large-scale use of space is due to "a confluence of circumstances." He explains to El Confidencial that the main reason is that "there has been an awakening in society toward prevention, a fact that occurred with the pandemic. People realized that the most vulnerable were those in the worst health, in addition to the elderly. This means that the aging process itself makes us more vulnerable to everything, which is the decline of intrinsic capacities. This, which some of us had already been developing in the clinical field through prevention, began to transcend in a more relevant way to the general population."

He adds that "following the articles by Carlos López Otín , there has been an exponential increase in interest in geroscience research, in the study of why we age and what can be done to prevent this progressive deterioration, not only by preventing already known diseases, but also by acting directly on the aging process. This has led many research institutes, some specializing in cancer and others specifically focused on geroscience, to develop their research, and there is starting to be a significant amount of investment."

“Another pillar is the availability of resources for research , and Silicon Valley is very interested in this: Jeff Bezos supporting Altos Labs, Sal Karman involved in Retro Bio, and Google with Calico. All the tech companies have begun investing in research into aging and how to address it, slow it down, or reverse it. This, along with artificial intelligence and the exponential development of biotechnology, is leading us toward this latest concept, precision geromedicine.”

He has himself seen the increase in public interest in the number of his patients: while before the pandemic there were around 350, he now has around 1,000.

The sum of all these issues, along with the emergence of a new shareholder base, is what makes the opening of Clínica Neleva possible.

Opinion

The new clinic is divided into three medical units , each named after one of the famous blue zones . It also includes various complementary diagnostic testing rooms, a blood collection point, a hyperbaric chamber, a cryotherapy unit, and a red light unit, among other facilities.

When asking Dr. Durántez How would you explain to someone who knows nothing about this world what they will find when they go to the clinic, he answers: “I have to explain to them that this is a new paradigm of medicine that is based on proactive prevention, which depends more on the patient than the doctor. That he will have to do the work, while I will advise and accompany . That if we don't measure, we don't know how we are, that we have to make an effort in lifestyles , that they don't necessarily have to be a sacrifice.”

He also explains to those who are unfamiliar, "that we need to conduct longitudinal monitoring over time, adjusted to the pillars of this medicine: physical activity, nutrition, avoiding toxic habits, sleep hygiene , stress control, regular measurement, we complement our diet with any necessary supplements, and from certain ages we optimize our metabolic and hormonal levels. And with ongoing monitoring, we check ourselves no matter what, whether we are well or ill, because the idea is to place the biomarkers at optimal values; we are not satisfied with normal ranges. Normal ranges are very vulgar."

To provide this care, Dr. Durántez works closely with several healthcare professionals : “We practice a very transversal approach, similar to family medicine or internal medicine. In fact, the specialties we see patients with are: internal medicine, family medicine, sports medicine… We have a general practitioner and a family doctor in the back office analyzing all the tests. We also have a nutritionist , a nurse, and a health coach .” The latter profile is a specialty studied in the United States, which is “a mix of nutritionist, trainer, and psychotherapist. They are professionals who are well-versed in all aspects of healthy lifestyles.”

To all of them are added "the specialists who support us." It has agreements with teams of cardiologists, urologists, and gynecologists.

All these specialists, together with its 700 square meters on Claudio Coello Street, make it the healthspan clinic largest in Spain and places it in the world's top 10 .