How to knock decades off your biological age, revealed by Britain’s top longevity doctor: Everyday habit that causes catastrophe, the treatments and supplements he swears by… and the tests you must have

I’m perched – locked, to be precise – in a cylindrical chamber that looks something like a mobile sauna cross-bred with a submarine, with a plastic mask clamped to my face and gulping pure oxygen into my lungs.

Aside from a vague sense of claustrophobia – worsened by the knowledge that as the chamber must be ‘decompressed’ there’s a five-minute delay before I can leave, even if I press the panic button – the sensation is perfectly pleasant.

In fact, I’m comforted by the notion that by breathing oxygen at up to three times normal pressure for up to an hour, a process with the rather sci-fi name of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy, I am apparently optimising its delivery to my blood plasma, promoting good health and all-round wellbeing.

It’s my first stop on a veritable carousel of health-enhancing treatments.

Next comes Intermittent Hypoxia Hyperoxia Training, or IHHT, another oxygen treatment – this one delivered via a mask while I recline in a dentist’s chair – to experience alternating bursts of low and high oxygen.

‘It’s like a workout for your heart and lungs, even though you’re sitting still,’ the cheerful nurse administering the treatment informs me.

Next stop will be an IV drip – vivid yellow in colour and featuring all manner of ‘super nutrients’, antioxidants and Nicotinamide Adenine Dinucleotide, or NAD+, a ‘coenzyme’ found in every living cell that declines as we age and which, studies suggest, can support energy and metabolic health when its levels are boosted.

When the combination creates an odd warm and fuzzy feeling in my chest as it’s finally dispensed over the course of a very relaxing 90 minutes – a sensation the nurse tells me is completely normal.

If you feel like you’ve over-indulged over Christmas and New Year, this could be just the tonic for you.

It may all feel rather futuristic, but if one GP has his way, such treatments could – and should – be routinely offered in hospitals and doctors’ surgeries up and down the land.

His name is Dr Mohammed Enayat, founder of the ‘longevity clinic’ HUM2N who believes such remedies – along with highly personalised body mapping using ‘biomarkers’ from blood tests to build a detailed picture of individual health – could transform the life expectancy of our nation.

Or, as he more succinctly puts it, ‘get us all not just living longer, but living healthily for longer’.

‘Ultimately all medicine is longevity medicine, right?’ he tells me. ‘In general practice we try our best with the tools that we have to keep you living longer and healthier – these are just new tools.’

Nonetheless, there’s no escaping the fact that longevity has become something of a buzzword in recent years, in part courtesy of high-profile ‘biohackers’ such as US tech tycoon Bryan Johnson, who claims to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on specialist regimens – among them undergoing a ‘total plasma change’ with his young son’s blood plasma – he claims, in a bid to live well past the age of 200.

Meanwhile, vitamin infusions, ‘microdosing’ powerful drugs like LSD and oxygen therapies are pretty standard issue for many A-listers and Silicon Valley types hoping to both make it to a century and look their very best while blowing out the candles on their centenary cake.

Yet there’s also a growing number of doctors in private practice who claim that, with some imagination (and, of course, some money), all of us could at least delay – if not avoid altogether – some of the processes that knock us down as we reach middle-age and beyond.

Which is what has brought me to Dr Enayat’s swanky clinic – a cross between a state-of-the-art spa (the clinic offers aesthetic treatments, too) and a futuristic medical centre – in London’s Knightsbridge, where I’ll provide blood and urine samples to be screened for up to 150 biomarkers indicating how my body is ageing.

I’m also trying out some of the therapies that Dr Enayat swears by, although I draw the line at an injection of Cerebrolysin, a peptide derived from pig brains said to optimise brain health.

While I do eat bacon, this just seems a porcine step too far.

He’s certainly a good advert for his own therapies, looking a decade younger than his 41 years – although he informs me that he’s actually not at his best. 

‘Around three years ago, I lowered my biological age to 24, but recently it went back up because of lifestyle changes that were adding stress,’ he tells me. ‘I wasn’t prioritising my physical health or making the best decisions around diet and lifestyle.’

It’s a common flaw, and one he believes is causing catastrophic damage to the nation’s health, swamped as we are by the modern curses of stress, pollution and too much screen time.

‘Ageing as a process ultimately brings on disease, but poor quality of life exacerbates it,’ he says.

A UK-trained GP, who still works part-time in the NHS, Dr Enayat’s interest in longevity medicine was sparked around ten years ago when he realised many of his patients were already on a rocky road to chronic poor health by the time they reached 50.

‘Many of them had poor diets and didn’t exercise, which was making their conditions worse – and the problem is that, once conditions become chronic, they can be hard to reverse,’ he says. 

‘It sparked an interest in how you could intervene before things do go wrong, because once they do they tend not to get better. So, while obviously I have an interest in living as long as possible, my starting point was actually about living as healthily as possible for as long as possible. Ultimately the two go hand in hand.’

He began examining what he calls ‘different wellness approaches’ around the world – from diet and supplements to alternative therapies like hyperbaric oxygen treatment – and was ‘blown away’ by data suggesting that not only could these substantially improve health but, in some cases, ‘reverse-engineer’ bad outcomes.

And so, in 2020, armed with his conviction that personalised wellness programmes could be the key to better health, he launched HUM2N. 

‘Covid was actually a really good time to do it, because it showed us the extent to which the pandemic adversely affected people with established chronic disease that was poorly self-managed,’ he explains.

In the past five years, the enterprise has grown to comprise a team of around 30 physicians – among them a consultant rheumatologist, cardiologist and oncologist – overseeing thousands of patients, the majority aged between 40 and 60 and who have noticed their bodies slowing down.

‘Many are your typical high performers – CEOs, executives, ‘supermums’, as well as athletes, musicians, names you might recognise,’ he reveals. 

‘The common factor is that these are people who want to get the most out of their health to improve their quality of life long-term, although we’re now also seeing a growing number of patients referred by friends or relatives who have conditions like inflammatory bowel disease or even cardiovascular and neurodegenerative diseases, looking for alternative support alongside traditional medicine.’

None of this comes cheap, of course. Entry-level membership is a monthly £349 affair, which includes twice-annual blood tests examining up to 150 biomarkers, as well as regular nutrition and medical consultations. 

If prescribed, treatment courses – such as IVs and hyperbaric oxygen therapy – are paid for separately.

Dr Enayat emphasises that, while he’s a fan of alternative therapies – he undergoes regular hyperbaric sessions and NAD+ IVs himself – it’s the biomarkers that interest him most.

‘Longevity cannot be achieved without addressing functional imbalances in your system,’ he says. ‘So while things like hyperbaric therapy and NAD+ are great and exciting, the thing that will absolutely keep you healthier in the long run is addressing those imbalances. 

‘We do that here by looking at many more biomarkers than the NHS, which typically looks at around 20 maximum in a health screen. At our level we get an amazing overview which gives us a really good lay of the land, helping us understand where you’re at, where your personal risk factors are and how they’re manifesting to impact your long-term health.’

I’ll admit I’m nervous about getting my results. At 53 (nearly 54) I’m a typically stressed-out midlife mum, juggling a demanding job with an (at times demanding) 12-year-old.

I don’t always eat as healthily as I should, I certainly drink more than I should, too, and I often suffer from low energy and battle anxiety.

‘Wired and tired’ is how Dr Enayat puts it – not an uncommon profile among those who come to his clinic (and which I think I might get printed on a T-shirt).

Given all this, I’m pleasantly surprised to find my ‘big-ticket’ items are in good shape: blood count, cholesterol, liver and kidney function are all ‘excellent’ despite my stress carb-loading.

‘Metabolically, you look really healthy,’ he reassures me. ‘And that’s really pro-longevity.’ In large part, he tells me, I have my parents to thank, given the strong genetic component at play.

Now for the bad news. ‘You have some dysregulated systems – from gut dysfunction and mild inflammatory symptoms to some hormonal imbalances,’ he says. 

‘It’s nothing to cause major concern right now, but if you don’t address them they’re storing up trouble for the future. By correcting and supporting those dysfunctional systems, we start to see them working better, which will keep you healthier long term.’

Among the culprits is raised levels of something called homocysteine – a sulphur-containing amino acid in the blood, which is not often scrutinised but which Dr Enayat tells me is highly associated with the development or acceleration of circulatory disease that in turn manifests in brain and heart problems.

‘There is a strong correlation between high homocysteine and the susceptibility of your blood vessels to the inflammatory processes that drive vessel disease,’ he says. 

‘Now, yours isn’t terribly high – it’s moderately raised – but it’s something to keep an eye on and suggests an issue with one of the chemical processes inside your body known as methylation.’

Eek! This sounds alarming, although Dr Enayat reassures me it can be addressed through targeted supplements using high-concentration nutrients, peptides and hormones, as well as dietary changes discussed with a nutritional therapist who also comes as part of the HUM2N package.

My bloods also show low magnesium – a vital mineral key to multiple bodily functions from muscle and nerve function to blood sugar control – and low vitamin B12 (also vital for nerve function). 

I’m also producing thyroxine at the higher end of the scale, marking me as at potential risk of hyperthyroidism in future.

‘That’s something you want to be monitoring,’ Dr Enayat says. ‘This raised marker could be transient, and you’re not showing antibodies in your blood, which is encouraging, but it could also mean a cyst or nodule within the thyroid that needs to be addressed. I’d recommend repeating the blood test in six months’ time.’

This is not remotely catastrophic, of course, but my dismay must register on my face. ‘Overall there’s no major disease pathology, which is fantastic,’ he reassures me. ‘But there are functional imbalances that, if optimised, will help you feel better and lead to better long-term outcomes.’

And in a nutshell, that’s the point of the service he’s providing. ‘If you went to your GP and had traditional blood tests, they’d tell you that you look really healthy – keep doing what you’re doing. And on one level they’d be right,’ he says. 

‘What we’re doing here is focusing on your personal metrics to identify the support needed to restore balance to your biology and promote better health.’

Which you might say is all very well if you can afford it, and most people can’t.

Dr Enayat doesn’t disagree. ‘But we have to think differently overall, because the reactive model of care we currently have – effectively pushing people further and further down the list while they get sicker before we intervene – is only going to increase the burden on everyone,’ he says. 

‘Everyone loses: the patient, the health system, the economy. This model is about identifying those processes sooner, preventing deterioration and improving quality of life and health. 

‘We don’t have the health-economic studies yet, but in time I’m confident that if the NHS adopted a more personalised approach it would ultimately be less expensive and deliver far greater long-term benefits.’

Even so, it’s hard to imagine hyperbaric chambers at your local GP surgery. But then, as Dr Enayat points out, the medics of 50 years ago would be stunned by what we have achieved by the march of technology. 

‘I genuinely think that what we’re doing as a healthcare provider demonstrates what’s possible when physicians adopt scientific innovations and think laterally to improve patient outcomes,’ he says. ‘Surely this is the future of healthcare we want?’