Jan Gerber, CEO of Paracelsus Recovery, on high achievers needing treatment for “longevity fixation syndrome”

People have sought to achieve eternal youth and immortality since we became conscious of our fleeting time in this world. The search for everlasting life even drove people like the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León on adventures to find the Fountain of Youth in the wilderness of Florida.

While that legendary life-extending water spot has eluded discovery, today people have turned to varied experimental therapies and treatments to attain for what is the time being the impossible. However, for some it has come at a heavy cost. Not just for their wallets, but also their health and social lives and led to “longevity fixation syndrome,” requiring expensive therapy to cure.

Putting life at risk while seeking immortality

Jan Gerber, CEO and founder of the Paracelsus Recovery, in Zurich, Switzerland spoke to the New York Post about this unhealthy fixation to being forever young. His clinic treats “very high achievers, entrepreneurs […] who have a lot of money and time at their disposal,” for the low price of $120,000 per week of treatment.

While that may seem like a staggering amount of money, the support team of at least 15 experts at Paracelsus Recovery only treats one patient at a time in order to ensure privacy. Clients come to Gerber’s clinic because they’ve started suffering from “anxiety, depression, insomnia and isolation” from their attempts to beat death for good.

They’ve developed these problems because the “protocol” they are obsessively following conflicts with social events that are just as important to living a healthy life as eating good and working out. These can include family get-togethers and dinners with friends.

“People start giving up on things that are important for them — the career can suffer, personal relationships can suffer,” he told The Sunday Times.

Additionally, those protocols can sometimes result in longevity fixation syndrome sufferers speeding up the clock to their departure from this life. Dr. Jordan Shlain, founder and CEO of Private Medical, told the New York Post that at his clinic he has seen patients with physical damage from their protocols.

“Kidney issues from overdoing supplements, hormonal chaos, metabolic dysfunction from extreme fasting, injuries from overtraining and even cardiac events from unmonitored use of performance-enhancing compounds marketed as ‘longevity agents,’” are just some that he shared with the outlet.

“It usually takes time and sharing some horror stories of stem cell injections that led to severe deficits and life threatening infections,” Shlain told the publication to open patients’ eyes to the dangers of what they are doing in the hopes of living longer.

“People need to understand that until and unless they have ‘aced’ the four pillars of health — diet, exercise, sleep and social nutrition — they should not be experimenting with their bodies based on some Instagram influencer,” the medical professional added. “It’s a bad strategy.”

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