Live Longer...and Healthier

TOM PARKER COULD never be accused of being a couch potato. The Dallas lawyer is a poster boy for healthy living, maintaining a lifestyle that would leave the typical 55-year-old wheezing in the dust. Working with a coach, Parker bikes for hours at a time in a tricked-out exercise room above his garage. And on weekend mornings he swims sprints in the choppy waters of Grapevine Lake, gearing up for triathlons in Nevada and Wisconsin.

But never mind all those amphibious miles: Parker is just getting started. Like most baby boomers contemplating their mortality, he monitors his cholesterol with guard-dog zeal, fighting to get his count under 180. He bolsters his diet with high-fiber wafers and omega-3 fish oil. And once a year this son of a doctor checks himself into the Cooper Clinic across town for a physical. Not just a perfunctory workup but an all-day ordeal: Doctors scan his heart, stick a camera down his gullet, conduct dozens of tests on his blood and run him to exhaustion on a treadmill. The price: a cool $3,000 a visit. "I worry about aging badly," he says. "I really do."

If this all sounds like a bit much, it's far from extreme for the new health investor. For a growing band of affluent consumers, living a longer, healthier life is the next big challenge — and often the next luxury indulgence. Vitamin-infused elixirs, 1,500-calorie-a-day diets and "executive physicals" have become routine. The most affluent Americans already live as much as four years longer than their peers, according to a recent government study. And many seem willing to spend to keep it that way. American households that earn $150,000 or more are forking over nearly $5,000 a year out of pocket for basic health care expenses — almost twice as much as those who earn less. That gulf widens when you factor in other wellness investments like gym memberships, acupuncture sessions and genetic tests that claim to pinpoint health risks.

All this spending amounts to far more than just high-end hypochondria. As boomers watch their parents age, they're confident that advances in medicine and science will let them stay healthier later in life. Life expectancy itself has marched steadily higher — about 25 percent longer for a 50-year-old adult since 1970 — but midlifers are hoping to add quality as well as quantity. "We want to dodge a few health bullets and keep up our primary asset, the brain," says Oz Garcia, a 57-year-old nutritionist and author of books on diet and longevity. "And people will pay for that." Their role model might be Sumner Redstone, the octogenarian Viacom CEO who seems intent on proving that 90 is the new 40. Redstone recently said that he's expecting to live 50 more years. His health secret? Daily doses of antioxidant-rich fruit juices, at $40 a bottle.

Many of these longevity seekers, of course, are taking a medical leap of faith. The benefits of many of their expensive exams aren't yet proven and can lead to false positives, heightened anxiety and invasive follow-up tests. Experts argue that some alternative treatments — a giant class of medicine that includes popular remedies like dietary supplements and Reiki energy therapy — lack evidentiary support and can result in people putting off necessary care. And even as the business of antiaging clinics has exploded, some techniques remain objects of skepticism.

Still, for every doubter there's a believer who's sure that science will unlock the key to longer life. We caught up with several health investors, some newly minted and some lifelong, each of whom took his own path to wellness. They've got one thing in common: They didn't blink at dropping a stack of dollars for the peace of mind that comes with potentially warding off a disease — or seven — and adding healthy years to their lives.