Why Aging Prevention Can’t Wait Until You’re Old

How do you want to feel in your body 10, 20, even 30 years from now?

Part 1 of the “Starting Young” Series on Aging Interventions

Most healthcare waits until something breaks. You feel pain, you get a test. A number is out of range, you’re prescribed a pill. A joint fails, you get a replacement.
But what if we flipped the script? What if we treated aging not as inevitable decline to be managed at the end of life, but as a process we can shape, starting now?

That shift is already underway. A new world of “aging interventions” is emerging: advanced blood panels that track biological age, genetic and epigenetic testing, continuous glucose monitors, nutraceuticals, structured lifestyle programs, and even experimental drugs like senolytics or off-label metformin. Concierge medicine and longevity clinics now promise to “future-proof” your body and brain.
And yet, most of these tools aren’t covered by insurance. They are paid for out of pocket, available mainly to those with the resources and knowledge to access them.

What Aging Interventions Really Are

When I talk about “aging interventions,” I don’t mean wrinkle creams or generic vitamins. I mean tools designed to slow, prevent, or even reverse age-related changes at a cellular and systemic level:

• Diagnostics: biomarkers of aging, advanced lipid panels, epigenetic clocks, whole-body imaging

• Lifestyle & coaching: precision nutrition, strength training, sleep optimization, stress regulation

• Supplements & compounds: NAD boosters, rapamycin, senolytics, adaptogens

• Preventive clinics: comprehensive annuals, functional medicine, concierge care
  Some of these approaches are well-studied and mainstream. Others remain experimental and barely regulated. But they share a common purpose: to keep you well for as long as possible, not simply to treat disease once it appears.

Why Insurance Doesn’t Cover Them

Insurance companies are built to cover what is proven, guideline-based, and cost-effective in the short term. Most aging interventions do not fit that mold yet.
They are often considered experimental or categorized as lifestyle medicine. Decades-long randomized trials proving cost savings are not yet available. And from an insurer’s perspective, paying today for something that might prevent disease 20 or 30 years later is a hard sell, especially when the patient may switch insurers in the meantime.

The Power of Starting Early

Here is why prevention can’t wait until old age:

• Compounding effects: Just like interest on money, health investments accumulate and strengthen over decades.

• Damage prevention: It is far easier to slow oxidative stress, chronic inflammation, and metabolic dysfunction than to reverse them once they are advanced.

• Behavioral momentum: Healthy habits are easier to build earlier in life, before chronic conditions complicate the picture.
  Start early and you are not just preventing one disease. You are reducing risks across the heart, brain, bones, and immune system. You are investing in quality years, not just extra years.

The Unequal Playing Field

Here’s the reality: if these tools remain accessible only to those who can afford them, healthspan, not just lifespan, risks becoming another marker of privilege.
This tension sets the stage for Part 2 of this series, where we’ll explore why access is so limited, from cost and insurance design to systemic inequities, and what it means if longevity becomes a luxury.

An Invitation

How do you think about investing in your future health? Have you tried any of these early interventions, and if so, what motivated you?
Let’s rethink aging together, not as a quiet slide into decline, but as an active practice that starts now.