Human lifespan could soon pass 100 years thanks to medical technology, and spas are well positioned to be at the forefront of this revolution.
A report from the Bank of America (via CNBC) echoes a report we published at Spa Executive in 2017, and suggests that, as we’ve been saying for some time now, it’s a pretty exciting time to be in the business of wellness.
According to CNBC, analysts at the Bank of America have flagged “companies working to delay human death” as one of the biggest investment opportunities over the next decade, and this market is expected to be worth at least $600 billion by 2025.
The analysts say that genome sequencers and biotech companies are on the cusp of “bringing unprecedented increases to the quality and length of human lifespans.” They also said that developments in genome science, big data, and what has been dubbed “ammortality” (the quest to delay death, or a limited version of “immortality) could soon prolong healthy human life well beyond 100 years.
Contributing to these developments are an increase in the speed at which medical knowledge is advancing, and a dramatic decrease in genomic sequencing costs. These factors (and likely many others) have enabled a new frontier in precision medicine to further extend life expectancy, said the analysts, “heralding a ‘techmanity’ (technology meets humanity) revolution.”
What a human lifespan of more than 100 years means for spas…
As we stated in a report we published in 2017, The Spa of the Future, the futurist James Canton discussed the expanding roles that spas will play in the coming years as the world moves in this direction.
Canton stated that spas will become centers of longevity and life extension, and predicted that a new era for spas will be fueled by a fusion of next generation wellness and health informatics.
“The information to which we will have access will allow spas to design personalized programs for enhancement and prevention,” Canton said. “If I’m going on vacation for a week to a spa, I want to get to the next level of my health and wellbeing. I don’t want to just lose a few pounds, or just relax. I’d like to get some insight so I can live an extra, vital 20, 30 or more years.”
He predicted that “The spa of the future is going to look very different. People are going to go to a spa and have a completely different kind of experience, one that really rejuvenates their health and wellbeing, and enables them to do more, live longer, and be healthier. I think that spas could lead a revolution.”
While we did allow for the probability that some spas will likely continue to do what they do today, others will meld new available technologies and data with the traditional experience to create a new experience.
At the ultimate degree of this, spa, longevity, and health enhancement merge into human design clinics, said Canton.
“You have a spa treatment, a Botox treatment, you get rid of your wrinkles, a little lipo, a breast augmentation, maybe take care of those cancer cells, you get a great massage, a rigorous workout, a few cybernetic enhancements for that hip that’s not been doing so good. They upload some new stuff for you. The inborn nano-device inside of you identifies certain genes that are going to express certain diseases, and we neutralize them. Early Alzheimer’s might be edited out.”
Canton predicted this scenario emerging within five years, and pointed out that there are already clinics already offer some of these things, such as stem cells and other “life extension” treatments, to a small market of cutting-edge elite.
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