We no longer only have within our reach the classic recipe that we all know and that is so hard to apply to live longer and in better health and that we can summarize in eating and drinking healthy, sleeping well and doing physical exercise. In Ibiza, for the last three years there has been a clinic inside a hotel, the Six Senses Ibiza, yes you read that correctly, a clinic inside a hotel, which is dedicated to its patients and clients living longer and in better health, a fabulous challenge to say the least. It is the RoseBar, a 500 square meter space that has nothing to do with a bar, and is located inside the hotel without being part of it, although it shares its founder. RoseBar is a project of Dr. Mar Hyman, an eminence in the field, in collaboration with the hotel’s developer Jonathan Leitersdorf. Open for three years and having broken even for the first time this year, it is a unique space that is open to the local public during the winter with treatments at very competitive prices. Through a holistic and functional approach and after a diagnosis of the patient, the clinic has a masterfully designed environment that transmits an already rejuvenating peace and biohacking therapies such as hyperbaric oxygen chamber, full body cryotherapy, regenerative ozone therapy, infrared sauna, photobiomodulation therapy with red light, intravenous nutrition station, among others. A whole world for a neophyte in the field. At the head of this business and this fabulous challenge is Dr. Federico Madrid (Valencia, 1969), a doctor specializing in functional medicine. Madrid advocates a paradigm shift from the traditional approach to the treatment of pathologies to a global vision combined with high technology and scientific research on ancestral techniques. Born and trained in Medicine in Valencia, he specialized in Internal Medicine in Barcelona, has been medical director of the Teknon clinic and manager of the Blue Health Care clinic in Madrid, also dedicated to longevity. In addition to being managing director of RoseBar, he continues to do what he is passionate about: being a doctor and being in contact with patients. “What we do is more complex than simply seeking to live longer. We have many very dedicated professionals with a lot of training and we continue to innovate in bringing new treatments related to the activation of your systems that allow you to be as healthy as possible for as long as possible,” he explains.
-Describe exactly what you do.
-I practice integrative medicine: integrating medicine and lifestyle, functional medicine, nutrition, exercise. In addition, spiritual practices.
-At first, I find it hard to understand.
-For example, by spiritual practices we refer to yoga, meditation, breathing work also known as Breathwork, among other disciplines. It seeks to integrate the aspects of healing and regeneration in a holistic way, treating not only the body but also the mind and spirit.
-Does meditation cure?
-In the case of meditation, it has been scientifically proven that it can help you take fewer drugs, be more prepared for surgery and help with chronic lung disease. In short, the medicine we practice is a functional and integrative, holistic medicine, which sees the individual as a set of elements, mind, body and soul. All of this is in line with what Six Senses Ibiza seeks to contribute to spirituality, community and the integration of the most holistic aspects in the wellbeing of the individual. We could say that the hotel part is more oriented to the wellbeing of the accommodation, food and spa; and we are more oriented to health and longevity with the elements we have.
-What are these elements you are referring to?
-What we offer the client is, first of all, professionals, doctors and health professionals, who attend in this integrative, holistic way, in which we see the person as a whole, not as a series of pathologies in a partial way, but as a person who has a history that must be understood and a series of vital events that often determine the pathologies that he develops throughout his life and thus act on the vital moments in life, of losses, gains, transcendental events, understanding how this is transferred to health and disease. Above all, we work from the function: the function of breathing, the function of relating, the function of digesting, the function of resting, the function of moving and developing the locomotor system. Our vision is not so much of medical specialties but to understand the individual, to see if any of its functions is impaired and as a result of working that function, to restore its proper performance, understanding what elements of the environment and genetics of the patient have led him to have this type of disorder and empowering him to become aware of what is happening to him and that he is an active element working on his healing or his pathway, his way to more longevity, more quality of life and more satisfaction.
Longevity medicine, much more than just living longer
-That is, we can do much more to live more years and live them better than eating well, not drinking, not taking drugs, sleeping well, being mentally balanced….
-Yes, most of our clients are healthy people who want to maintain their health for as long as possible and use the elements we have, both human and material, to do so.
-It sounds all very good, but it’s still not entirely clear to me how they manage to gain longevity….
-The treatments we offer are hyperbaric oxygen therapy (the clinic has a hyperbaric chamber), ozone therapy, and what is nowadays called biohacking which is the activation of your systems in relation to technology such as red light, exposure to cryotherapy, or compression therapy to activate all your systems so that you are as active as possible, you are with the maximum possible welfare and that helps you maintain your immune status and your state of protection against aging and degenerative pathologies of the nervous system, the musculoskeletal system, or specifically, for example, cancer.
-Journalists love data: is it quantified how long life can be extended?
-It is important to differentiate that the service offered is not to extend life. We have tests, telomere length tests, tests that we call true age, which help to contrast the chronological age with how your organism is with respect to your systems. A 50-year-old person can have a biological age of 35 or an age of 70 if what has happened in those 50 years has led the organism to be very deteriorated. We can determine that with technology.
-And based on this data, do you choose one treatment or another and can you extend life expectancy and quality of life?
-Most of our customers want to live as long as possible with the highest possible quality of life, and that’s what we aim to provide as well. In order to achieve this, it is above all important to take preventive measures for both aging and degenerative diseases.
Nutrition, physical activity, good rest and more
-Do you incorporate nutrition into your treatments?
-Yes, nutrition is a very important element. Mainly in terms of supplementation: supplementing with amino acids, trace elements, antioxidants, so that the body has all the elements it needs to function, because many times in our day-to-day nutrition they are not there. This supplementation is done orally and also, from time to time, intravenously.
-What about sports?
-In the functional medicine model, one as a professional acts from the point of view of the functional physician, providing everything that corresponds to our field of work. Then, we work in interdisciplinary teams: there is a nutritionist who gives you the approach to nutrition, how you eat, we take care of mental health with their professionals; and within the hotel we also have a team of physiotherapists and physical exercise therapists who help you set up your activity tables, with correct stretching, postural hygiene, and more, so that you keep your joints well and avoid a sedentary lifestyle.
-Do you work with psychologists from any particular school?
-We have therapists who, as our clients are not in the long term, generally make a more life coach type intervention, life orientation, detection of whether there is a major problem of insomnia, anxiety or depression, and based on this, give guidelines for mental health hygiene during the period they are here, and if a detection of the aforementioned pathologies is made, refer them to a specialist.
-Do you also work in aesthetic medicine?
-Not exactly, or at least not in the sense of a classic aesthetic clinic. We have treatments that have an impact on aesthetics from regeneration, such as facial PRP (Platelet Rich Plasma), which is the injection with microneedles of plasma from your centrifuged blood. This regenerates your skin and dermis with your own cells. There is nothing artificial about it. We are not an aesthetic clinic, but our vision includes everything regenerative in all specialties, regenerative dermatology, regenerative gynecology, regenerative urology, men’s health, women’s health, hormone supplementation and more. All of those lines interest us, but we are not specifically an aesthetic clinic.
-Do they also treat addictions?
-So far we have not been involved in addictions, but we have had cases of people with psychological or psychiatric disorders that we have been able to help: with oxygen, with energy therapists who have helped them to rebalance.
-And all these benefits are available to a client who comes to spend a few days? I have the feeling that these treatments require a long period of time to take effect.
-With the local residents of Ibiza, as we are open all year round, we can work on long term plans, with weekly sessions. For example, we had the case of a lady in her 40s who came with many problems that seemed to be mental health problems, a lot of anxiety and insomnia. When we investigated, we saw that there was an important lack of trace elements, minerals and vitamins. We saw that with a blood test. There was also an imbalance in the microbiota, the microorganisms that we all have in the digestive tract. Then, with supplementation, dietary changes and some small pharmacological intervention and psychotherapy, that person became a person with better quality of relationships, better quality of sleep, and of life in general. This was achieved with a very multidisciplinary intervention, mainly between the nutritionist and the mental health professional who saw her.
-And the tourist?
-Many people who come to the hotel have never been to a longevity clinic, so we do what I usually call a baptism, just as you do the baptism of scuba diving, but of longevity. We teach them the different techniques we have, especially biohacking, and at least in the day or two that they are at Six Senses and that they go through the clinic, they try a touch of longevity treatments.
-And you can already tell?
-This may have the specific effect of having a treatment of infrared light, or compression boots, or cryotherapy, but what it allows that person is to become aware that these treatments exist, and that they can contribute to their health and regeneration in a different way, different from the vision of pathology that can be found in more conventional medicine.
Taking the focus off the pathology and putting it on the person.
-Which pathologies are more appropriate to treat through the functional or regenerative medicine you practice?
-Functional medicine is one concept and regenerative medicine is another. Functional medicine is to restore the function of the individual taking into account all the factors around him. Regeneration is more related to, first, seeing if there is degeneration and if there is, reversing it, and regenerating your own organism so that you do not lose muscle, so that you do not lose nervous system, so that you do not lose lung capacity, etcetera. Before any imbalance, especially of hormones, of the digestive system, of the nervous system, the approach of traditional medicine is going to be that of the pathology. Is this right or wrong? “Your thyroid does not work, so I supplement you with hormones”, that is what traditional medicine says. In our approach, the approach is your thyroid is not working because you also have an imbalance in the digestive system, or because your microbiota is not right and this we have to look at. If you don’t sleep or you are anxious, it is also because your digestive tract is out of balance with your diet and bacteria are growing and producing toxins, so at the same time you feel drained and have chronic fatigue. Rheumatism? Well, instead of treating rheumatism with corticosteroids and anti-inflammatory drugs, is to look at why do you have rheumatic disease? why do you have inflammation? Because you have stress that you can’t eat, because you have a sedentary lifestyle, because you’re not getting adequate nutrition and you don’t have enough antioxidation. We do not compete with traditional medicine, the rheumatologist does very well in diagnosing a rheumatoid arthritis. But we are going to look at that rheumatoid arthritis in a more holistic way. In the case of rheumatism, we are going to focus on the endocrine hormonal system, everything related to the digestive system, the nervous system and everything related to the locomotor system. We are going to give you a different vision that is not so oriented to pathology, diagnosis and invasive treatment. We are going to look more at the relationship with their environment and with elements that probably up to now that person has not looked at, related to nutrition, with the microbiota, with supplementation and trace elements in general.
RoseBar and Six Senses Ibiza, pioneers
-Is it a pioneer in the RoseBar world?
-Yes, it is a pioneer in the world. There are other longevity clinics and new ones are being developed in the United States and Europe, but the RoseBar model, inserted in a luxury hotel context. In addition, the project is led by Mark Hyman, a reference who is called from the U.S. Congress to give advice on nutrition legislation. We would like RoseBar Ibiza to be the flagship of a network of clinics in many more locations.
-Is it a scalable business model?
-I have been working in hospitals for many years and I have noticed that taking medicine out of that harsh environment, focused on invasiveness, intervention and a model of diagnosis and treatment of pathologies, and taking it to a friendlier environment, more related to wellness and being well with oneself, I think that in itself is already a value. Therefore, the idea is to replicate it in environments outside the health field, in luxury hotels, or in residential environments of villas, etc., places that can have a longevity clinic that can serve local residents and people who may come from outside.
Special membership in RoseBar longevity clinic for Ibicencos
-What is the cost of the treatments?
-There are treatments from 50 euros, such as cryotherapy or compression drops. More complex treatments can be around 390 euros.
-What does it include and how does it work?
-The membership we are offering now for the winter, until March, for locals, is 250 euros per month. Within that, you can do all the biohacking treatments from Monday to Friday: infrared light, boots, cryotherapy, all unlimited. We want the local resident to be able to come here, not to think it’s just an exclusive place they can’t access, that they can get in touch with longevity medicine. For the summer season it will have continuity, we are looking at the conditions.
