Health Hunter Longevity Journal
By Brianna Vidal and Sarah Mullens, Co-Founders, Health Hunter
When we built Health Hunter, we built it around a belief that most Australians carry quietly: that staying healthy shouldn't be harder than getting sick. That access to preventative, personalised, practitioner-led care shouldn't be a luxury reserved for the few. That the gap between knowing you should do something about your health and actually being able to do it - finding the right practitioner, the right program, the right support - should be much, much smaller.
That belief took us further than we expected this year.
In June 2025, we joined the ANDHealth delegation to London Tech Week - a cohort of Australian healthtech founders selected to participate in a market expansion program in the UK. What followed was one of the most clarifying, energising, and genuinely eye-opening experiences of our Health Hunter journey. Not just because of the conversations we had at Australia House or the remarkable evening at the Old Bailey, or the partnerships forming on the horizon - but because of what we saw when we went looking for longevity medicine being lived in practice.
We came home from London via Portugal and then the UAE. Three countries. Three very different approaches to the same fundamental question: what does it actually look like when the healthcare system starts taking prevention seriously?
This is what we found.
Why Now? The Global Longevity Shift
Before we dive into the facilities and the practitioners we met, it's worth pausing on why this moment matters.
Longevity medicine - the science and practice of extending not just lifespan, but healthspan, the years of life lived in genuine good health - has moved from the fringe to the mainstream at extraordinary speed. A decade ago, talking about biological age testing, personalised regenerative protocols, or root-cause diagnostics outside of elite research settings felt niche. Today, it is one of the fastest-growing sectors in global healthcare.
The Global Wellness Institute named Australia the world's top wellness tourism destination in 2025. The global wellness economy is now valued at over USD $5.6 trillion. And at the pointy end of that shift, a new category of health facility is emerging - one that doesn't sit neatly in the traditional 'spa retreat' or 'hospital' bucket, but somewhere more interesting: a precision medicine meets lived-experience space, where diagnostics, therapeutics and genuine human connection converge.
"What struck us immediately in every facility we visited was how operational all of this already is," says Sarah Mullens, Health Hunter co-founder. "These aren't concepts or prototypes. They are open, seeing patients, producing outcomes - and they are absolutely redefining what preventative healthcare looks and feels like. We came home with a very clear sense of where this is all heading."
What we encountered across London, Portugal, and the UAE was a constellation of facilities doing exactly that. And as we build Health Hunter's longevity ecosystem for Australian audiences, we want to share what we saw.
London: Where Preventative Medicine Gets Serious
London is having a longevity moment. Across the city, a new generation of private health clinics has quietly established itself - not as gyms with added extras, but as medically supervised, technology-forward environments offering the kind of personalised diagnostics and whole-person care that goes far beyond what most people have experienced in a clinical setting.
The standout for us was HOOKE London - a preventative healthcare clinic that describes its mission simply and compellingly: to add life to your years, not just years to your life.
HOOKE is built on a premise that will feel immediately familiar to anyone who has used Health Hunter. It brings together doctors, scientists, nutritionists, fitness specialists and emotional health professionals to work as one coordinated team around each individual - something HOOKE calls "the only clinic in the world" to operate this way. Rather than siloed specialists who never speak to each other, HOOKE's model places the client at the centre of an integrated team, working from a shared understanding of that person's complete health picture.
The process starts with precision assessment - state-of-the-art biomarker analysis, advanced imaging, and functional testing that gives both the clinical team and the client a genuine baseline to work from. From there, a personalised plan is built: not just a course of treatments, but a roadmap that integrates medical care with nutrition, movement and emotional wellbeing. And critically, it doesn't end at the consultation - HOOKE's membership model means the team monitors progress, adapts the care plan, and manages the details on the client's behalf on an ongoing basis.
The assessments available span from full health investigations through to HOOKE Clarity - a targeted cognitive and brain health assessment - and everything in between. For those who want continuous partnership with a world-class health team, HOOKE offers four tiers of membership, each designed around a different level of engagement and support.
"Walking into HOOKE, the thing that hit me most wasn't the technology, as impressive as it is," says Brianna Vidal. "It was how the entire model was built around continuity. Your team actually knows you. They track your data over time, they anticipate what's coming, and they coordinate everything. That is a completely different experience from the fragmented, reactive healthcare most of us are used to. And it's the standard we want Australians to expect."
HOOKE also runs a fitness arm - HOOKE Fit - that extends the same philosophy into physical training, allowing members to build and track their fitness within the same integrated health ecosystem. The coherence of the model across every touchpoint is striking.
London's broader health innovation ecosystem was equally energising. At London Tech Week, we spent time alongside Australian founders navigating the UK's rapidly evolving private healthcare landscape - a market being reshaped by NHS waiting list pressures and a growing appetite among Britons for faster, more personalised access to care. The parallels to Australia's own healthcare pressures, and the opportunity for technology to bridge the access gap, were hard to miss.
The events hosted by London & Partners - including that evening at the Old Bailey and the Tech Australia 2025 finale at Australia House with the Australia-United Kingdom Chamber of Commerce - brought together investors, health innovators, and policymakers in conversations about where digital preventative health is heading. Steve Vamos delivered a keynote that resonated deeply with what we are building: that healthcare's most important frontier is not treatment, but the space before treatment becomes necessary.
Portugal: A Quiet Longevity Revolution on the Atlantic Coast
From London, we travelled to Portugal - and found ourselves in a country that is quietly becoming one of Europe's most compelling destinations for health and wellness tourism.
The Algarve in particular has emerged as a hub for a new kind of health offering: facilities that blend medical-grade diagnostics and therapeutic programs with the kind of restorative, beautiful environment that makes healing feel effortless. This is not a story about sunscreen and sangria. Portugal has made a deliberate national investment in positioning itself as a destination for healthy ageing - and the quality of what is being built there reflects that ambition.
Longevity Alvor sits at the more clinical end of the spectrum, and it is extraordinary for it. This health and wellness hotel in the Algarve integrates advanced medical diagnostics with personalised holistic programs across detox, metabolic health, weight management, and healthy ageing. Guests arrive with a health concern, or simply with a desire to understand their biology better, and leave with a personalised program they can actually implement at home.
What distinguishes Longevity Alvor from a traditional wellness retreat - however beautiful - is the depth of the clinical picture they build. Biomarker panels, advanced diagnostics, nutritional medicine, metabolic profiling: this is medicine, not pampering. And yet the experience of receiving that medicine, in that setting, with that level of care and personalisation, feels like the opposite of a clinical environment.
"Longevity Alvor showed us something we keep coming back to," says Sarah. "The assumption that medical precision and genuine human warmth are in tension with each other is simply wrong. The facilities doing this best have figured out how to hold both - rigorously science-backed and genuinely nurturing at the same time. That combination is what excellent preventative health looks like. It's the standard we're working toward."
We also spent time with Naia Retreats - a women's wellness sanctuary in the Algarve offering restorative escapes that blend nourishing whole food, Ayurvedic holistic practices, and relaxed luxury designed specifically to address the stress, burnout, and particular health pressures that women navigate across the full arc of life.
Naia is different in scope from Longevity Alvor - more intimate, more retreat-oriented, less clinical - but it addresses something equally important. Burnout, chronic stress, hormonal disruption, and the relentless depletion of modern life are significant health risks that often go unaddressed until they become crises. Naia creates a container for women to stop, recover, and genuinely reconnect with what their bodies need.
"Women's health remains one of the most under-served areas in preventative medicine globally," says Bri. "Naia is doing important work in creating spaces where that gap gets filled - not just with treatments, but with genuine understanding of what women's bodies go through, and what they actually need to thrive. We left Portugal inspired and with a renewed sense of what's possible when you design a health experience around the person rather than the service."
Portugal reminded us that the longevity movement is not only about the cutting edge of biohacking and regenerative medicine. It is also about creating the conditions for rest, repair, and genuine nourishment - and doing that extraordinarily well.
Dubai: Where Longevity Science Meets the Vertical Resort
The UAE leg of the trip brought perhaps the biggest surprise of the journey.
Dubai and Abu Dhabi have been widely discussed as luxury lifestyle destinations. What is less widely understood outside the region is the pace and seriousness with which the UAE is positioning itself as a global centre for longevity medicine and lifestyle health. The infrastructure is significant, the investment appetite is extraordinary, and the calibre of the medical minds working within it is world-class.
The centrepiece of our Dubai experience was one of the most remarkable wellness facilities we have encountered anywhere in the world: the Longevity Hub by Clinique La Prairie, housed within the extraordinary One&Only One Za'abeel resort.
One&Only One Za'abeel is something genuinely new in hospitality: a vertical urban resort as tall as the Eiffel Tower, designed by legendary architect Jean-Michel Gathy, with 229 rooms and suites, Michelin-starred restaurants, a spectacular rooftop infinity pool, and a sky concourse called The Link connecting its twin towers above the Dubai skyline. It is bold, beautiful, and designed at every level around the idea that luxury and wellbeing are not separate things.
At its heart, across three full floors totalling 3,800 square metres, sits the Longevity Hub by Clinique La Prairie - the Swiss brand's first UAE presence, and one of just five Longevity Hubs operating globally (alongside Doha, Madrid, Bangkok, and Taipei).
Clinique La Prairie has been at the forefront of longevity science for over 90 years, originating from its flagship clinic in Montreux, Switzerland. The Dubai Hub distils that deep science and clinical heritage into an urban setting - bringing the same precision, the same methodology, and the same standards to guests in the Gulf who want access to it without travelling to Europe.
The Hub operates across three interconnected pillars: Longevity, Wellbeing, and Aesthetics. The clinical offering is genuinely comprehensive: 29 treatment rooms, a full medical team including a dermatologist, GP, physiotherapist and longevity coach, and a suite of advanced diagnostics anchored by the Clinique La Prairie Longevity Index - a state-of-the-art assessment that scores your biological age across energy, immunity, beauty, and more, then maps a treatment protocol from that baseline.
The thermal and recovery facilities are equally impressive: Finnish sauna, herbal steam room, hydrotherapy bath, hammam, full moon shower, infrared sauna, and an ice pod. The Movement Studio is equipped by Technogym and Senaptec - the same technology used by elite athletes. There is a Longevity Bar offering health-focused nutritional elixirs. And the entire experience, from first consultation to ongoing program, is designed to function as an extension of the Montreux mothership - so a guest who does a week-long program in Switzerland can continue their protocol at the Dubai Hub when they return home.
"Standing in the Longevity Hub felt like looking at the future of what the highest-end preventative health experience can be," says Sarah. "But what was most meaningful for us wasn't the scale or the luxury - it was how clearly every detail was in service of one thing: helping each person genuinely understand their health and take meaningful action. That clarity of purpose is what separates the best facilities in this space from everything else."
We also spent time with Dr Mishkat Shehata of PureHealth Abu Dhabi, one of the leading longevity and lifestyle medicine practitioners in the Gulf. Dr Shehata's work spans metabolic health, hormonal optimisation, nutritional medicine, and the integration of lifestyle interventions with advanced clinical care - the full preventative medicine brief, delivered with exceptional rigour.
Dr Shehata introduced us to the vision behind the upcoming inaugural Lifestyle and Longevity Medicine Conference being planned in the UAE - a significant event that will bring together regional and international leaders in longevity science. The breadth of her clinical work, and the pipeline of innovation she described, reinforced everything we'd seen across the trip: that longevity medicine is no longer a niche pursuit. It is becoming mainstream medicine, and the Gulf is investing seriously in leading it.
"Dr Shehata's work reminded us of something important," says Bri. "The most powerful preventative health interventions don't have to be the most complex. What changes health outcomes is when a practitioner genuinely understands a patient's full picture - their biology, their lifestyle, their goals - and meets them there with expertise and care. That human element is irreplaceable. It's what we're building Health Hunter to help Australians access."
What It All Adds Up To
We came back from this trip full. Full of ideas, full of energy, and full of a very specific kind of clarity that only comes from seeing the future in practice.
The global longevity and preventative health movement is not slowing down. The gap between what is available at the frontier - in London's integrated health clinics, in Portugal's wellness hotels, in Dubai's extraordinary Longevity Hubs - and what most people can actually access in their own lives is exactly the gap that Health Hunter exists to close.
The model for what's possible already exists. HOOKE London is demonstrating what a genuinely integrated, proactive health team looks and feels like. Longevity Alvor and Naia Retreats are showing what it means to build a health experience around the whole person, not just a symptom or a service. The Longevity Hub by Clinique La Prairie at One&Only One Za'abeel is setting a new benchmark for what a world-class longevity facility can be when science, hospitality and human experience converge.
And in every conversation we had - with practitioners, founders, investors, and the people working every day in these spaces - the common thread was this: the people who will live longer, healthier lives are the ones who start before they have to.
That is the mission. That is why we built Health Hunter. And this trip showed us, more clearly than ever, the enormous opportunity ahead.
The Facilities We Visited
HOOKE London - London, UK An integrated preventative healthcare clinic bringing together doctors, scientists, nutritionists, fitness specialists and emotional health professionals as a single coordinated team around each client. Offers full health investigations (biomarker analysis, advanced imaging, functional testing), HOOKE Clarity cognitive assessments, and four tiers of ongoing membership for continuous health partnership. Also operates HOOKE Fit for integrated physical training. hooke.london
Longevity Alvor - Algarve, Portugal A health and wellness hotel offering personalised medical wellness programs integrating advanced diagnostics with holistic therapies across detox, metabolic health, weight management and healthy ageing. A benchmark for the combination of clinical rigour and restorative environment. longevity-alvor.com
Naia Retreats - Algarve, Portugal A women's wellness sanctuary in the Algarve offering restorative escapes for women navigating stress, burnout and hormonal health challenges. Combines nourishing whole food, Ayurvedic practices, and relaxed luxury in a deeply supportive environment. naiaretreats.com
Longevity Hub by Clinique La Prairie at One&Only One Za'abeel - Dubai, UAE A three-storey, 3,800 sqm longevity facility within One&Only One Za'abeel, Dubai's landmark vertical resort. Backed by Clinique La Prairie's 90-plus years of longevity science, the Hub operates across Longevity, Wellbeing and Aesthetics pillars, with 29 treatment rooms, a full medical team, Longevity Index assessment, Movement Studio, Longevity Bar, and full thermal facilities. The first Clinique La Prairie Longevity Hub in the UAE. longevity-hub.cliniquelaprairie.com/dubai
PureHealth - Abu Dhabi, UAE The UAE's largest integrated healthcare network. Dr Mishkat Shehata's work in longevity and lifestyle medicine is setting a new standard for precision preventative care in the Gulf region. purehealth.ae
What's Next for Health Hunter
This trip reinforced everything we believe about where preventative health is heading - and about the opportunity for Health Hunter to be the platform that makes it navigable for Australians.
We are actively building out our Longevity section to feature the practitioners, programs, retreats and clinics - in Australia and globally - that are doing this work at the highest level. If you are a longevity-focused practitioner, a health retreat operator, or a preventative health clinic looking to connect with Health Hunter's growing community, we'd love to hear from you.
In the meantime, explore our growing directory of Australian preventative health practitioners at healthhunter.com.au, and subscribe to the Health Hunter Longevity Journal to stay across the best of what's emerging in this space.
Brianna Vidal and Sarah Mullens are the co-founders of Health Hunter, an Australian preventative health platform connecting people with the practitioners, programs and resources they need to stay healthy for longer.
