Inside the Northwestern Medicine Human Longevity Clinic inspired by Amish genetics

CHICAGO — I’m no Bryan Johnson, but I was feeling pretty confident when I strolled into the Northwestern Medicine Human Longevity Clinic in July.

I’ve taken several aging tests over the past year to learn how my cells and systems are functioning. One pinpointed my biological age at 29 and another at 36, which is remarkable since I’m 43.

But I was truly humbled at Northwestern’s clinic in the heart of Chicago — and not just because I found it hard to run on a treadmill while wearing a special mask.

The clinic, which officially opened in July, puts you through your paces. I wore an uncomfortable, inflated arm cuff to evaluate the inner lining of my blood vessels and vigorously blew into a mouthpiece to measure the strength of my lungs.

“We’re a clinic for people that are curious about these health metrics and want to know more,” Dr. Baljash Cheema, the clinic’s medical director, told The Post.

He said the intent is to “get a sense of where you’re at and to arm you with information that may motivate you to make change.”

Here’s a look at the itinerary — which costs $4,200 out of pocket and takes about four hours and 15 minutes to complete — including the two tests I hopelessly failed.

The rise of Northwestern’s longevity clinic

There are several hundred longevity clinics worldwide, with one estimate suggesting as many as 800 in the US alone.

Northwestern’s was born out of research on a protein called PAI-1 by Dr. Douglas Vaughan, director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute at Northwestern’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

PAI-1 helps regulate blood clotting by counteracting the mechanism responsible for breaking down clots.

In his research, Vaughan learned that PAI-1’s powers extend well beyond clotting. It’s a key driver of aging and disease across several organ systems.

Vaughan determined that some members of a Swiss Amish community in Indiana carry a unique genetic mutation that results in very low levels of PAI-1, enabling them to live longer, healthier lives.

“He came up with a testing protocol that measures the rate and the pace of aging in those individuals,” Cheema explained.

“That is what we then translated into a clinical program, knowing that there are still many questions that need to be answered,” he added. “We’re doing the research here to try to answer them.”

Cheema emphasized that the clinic’s methodology stems from scholarly work backed by Northwestern, which has research partners around the world.

“We will not recommend people to do things, interventions, take supplements, take nutraceuticals, do types of exercise, patterns of sleep, diet, etc., that are not rooted in science,” he said.

Inside the protocol

“There are tons of tests that we are doing that just aren’t done elsewhere,” Cheema said.

There were 14 major points on my agenda, exploring everything from my heart’s performance to the stiffness of my arteries.

I stared at the ceiling for seven minutes, allowing the dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) machine to precisely capture my body composition.

The clinicians also took six vials of blood to assess my chemical balance and metabolism.

None of these tests was particularly taxing until I got to spirometry.

This is where you blow into a mouthpiece while wearing a nose clip to check how well your lungs work.

You’re supposed to pretend that you’re blowing out birthday candles. I’ve had many birthdays, but it took me several tries to get the hang of it.

Mercifully, I felt optimistic about the following exam, a cognitive assessment, which involved recalling words and drawing a picture of a clock face.

Then I had my eyes photographed, my hearing tested and my nose gauged by sniffing things like strawberry and leather.

The physical feats ranged from easy — walking at a comfortable pace — to hard — wearing a mask while running on a treadmill that grows more intense with a steeper incline and faster pace every few minutes. I was glad when it was over!

A month after my visit, Cheema reviewed my results with me.

What I learned

The clinic, so far, has attracted 30-somethings wanting to know how they stack up against their peers, mid-lifers curious about how they’re aging and people even older suffering from chronic conditions.

Cheema said the results across the spectrum have been fairly consistent — but “not earth-shattering.”

“I think a lot of people have more body fat than they expect. A lot of people have a lower peak VO₂ than they would have guessed — that’s the measure of your cardio-respiratory fitness,” Cheema said.

“A lot of people are not as strong as they expect,” he continued. “Sometimes people don’t have as much balance as they may have expected.”

Most of my results came out just fine — my only two surprises were failing a hearing test in one ear and bombing the sharpened Romberg test, which measures your ability to balance with one foot in front of the other with your eyes open and closed. It can help screen for dementia.

I made it 30 seconds with my eyes open and just 16 seconds with my eyes shut.

Cheema assured me that he struggled with that test, too. He suggested increasing strength, flexibility and coordination.

As for my hearing, my left ear wasn’t tuned in to the highest frequency, 4,000 Hertz, which is very close to the top note on a standard piano.

I joke that the deficiency could be from years of listening to my grade-schooler yell, “Mom!” at that pitch.

I fared better with biological age. The various AI-based and molecular clocks calculated my cellular age from 34 to 44.

It appears my hormones are ruining my average, which is not a shock to me since I have endured several rounds of in vitro fertilization.

Cheema’s recommendations included adding high-intensity interval training — short bursts of explosive effort — to my running schedule and weights to my workouts to increase strength and reduce fat.

I was encouraged to monitor my hearing, use white noise and an earlier bedtime to improve sleep and make better dietary choices. None of this was unexpected information, but I suppose that’s better than being caught off guard by the results.

The clinic is not meant to diagnose disease — but the tests may catch early signs of it.

Cheema advises going through this protocol yearly.

I am slated to have my blood drawn in six months to see if these suggestions moved the needle.

Tech millionaire turned longevity obsessive Bryan Johnson does his intensive aging testing daily, but who has that kind of time?