Cedars-Sinai has opened a new clinic focused on helping patients improve their long-term health.
Healthcare professionals in the Healthspan Clinic concentrate on the prevention and treatment of age-related illnesses and disabilities like cognitive decline and impaired mobility. The clinic is open to patients 18 and older.
“Aging is the leading risk factor for developing multiple chronic conditions that diminish quality of life,” said Sara Espinoza, MD, medical director of the Cedars-Sinai Healthspan Clinic and a Gerontological Society of America fellow. “This unique clinic offers scientifically backed science with clinically proven treatment and lifestyle recommendations that can improve health and wellbeing—now—and as individuals age.”
While advancements in medicine like antibiotics, vaccines and childbirth care have increased the average U.S. lifespan, physician-scientists at Cedars-Sinai are more concerned with keeping patients healthy—not merely alive. The medical term is “healthspan,” and the clinic’s experts say their goal is to help adults stay healthy and independent as long as possible.
“To do so, it is important that our approach is guided by scientifically proven, evidence-based findings about the fundamental aging processes that are root-cause contributors to multiple disorders and diseases—in other words, the new field of geroscience,” said James Kirkland, MD, PhD, director of the Center for Advanced Gerotherapeutics at Cedars-Sinai.
Patients seeking care at Cedars-Sinai’s Healthspan Clinic participate in at least one in-person visit. Experts assess patients for physical and cognitive function, lifestyle factors such as diet and exercise, and overall health status.
Espinoza said these consultations are an opportunity to discuss healthy-aging goals and habits. Patients are provided guidance on lifestyle, such as diet, exercise and sleep quality. Patients in the Healthspan Clinic also can opt to participate in a biorepository that analyzes patients’ blood and other data to track biomarkers linked to the onset of diseases.
“This clinic is an opportunity to change the trajectory of a patient’s health before they have complex medical issues,” said Espinoza, also the director of the Center for Translational Geroscience at Cedars-Sinai, where investigators conduct clinical trials for medicines and lifestyle advances aimed at healthy aging.
Nicolas Musi, MD, director of Cedars-Sinai’s Diabetes and Aging Center and the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, and Kirkland are also part of the clinic and provide treatment recommendations for metabolism, endocrinology concerns, and questions regarding interventions that potentially affect fundamental aging processes.
Espinoza said Healthspan physicians can refer interested patients to geroscience clinical trials at Cedars-Sinai or through the Translational Geroscience Network—an international consortium studying the biology of aging to prevent, delay or treat age-related diseases.
The network comprises 90 clinical trials across the U.S. and northern Europe and is led by Kirkland. The National Institutes of Health recently renewed the Translational Geroscience Network grant, awarding nearly $3 million over the next four years. “The NIH renewal allows the network to keep studying a range of conditions that accelerate aging, including long COVID, obesity and Alzheimer’s disease, to ultimately find new ways to help people age in better health,” Kirkland said.
As the Healthspan Clinic grows, Espinoza also plans to hire physical trainers and dietitians to help curate personalized diet and exercise plans for patients.
To make an appointment with the Healthspan Clinic, call 310-423-3870 and select option 1.
Read more from Cedars-Sinai Discoveries: The Future of Aging Research
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