The juice cleanse era is over. Honestly, it was always kind of dumb.
You can’t optimize human biology with celery water and wishful thinking. That’s not how cellular metabolism works. It’s like trying to send a rocket to Mars using a hot air balloon. Wrong physics. Wrong approach. Embarrassingly inefficient.
The people who actually understand systems—the ones building companies, running empires, making decisions that affect millions—they figured this out years ago. While everyone else was Instagramming their green smoothies, the serious players were quietly upgrading their wetware.
Here’s what’s actually happening in the Hamptons this season. And I’m not talking about the performative wellness stuff you see at beach clubs. I’m talking about real biological optimization. First principles thinking applied to the human operating system.
Let’s dig in.
THE PROBLEM WITH CONVENTIONAL WELLNESS (IT’S THEATER)
Most “wellness” is cargo cult science. People see successful, healthy people doing things, so they copy the behavior without understanding the mechanism. Meditation apps. Vitamin gummies. Detox teas that don’t actually detox anything because your liver already does that job and doesn’t need help from $40 powder.
The fundamental question nobody asks: What are we actually optimizing for?
If the goal is longevity—actual extension of healthspan, not just lifespan—then we need to address the root causes of aging at the cellular level. That means:
- Mitochondrial function (your cells’ power plants)
- NAD+ levels (the coenzyme that declines ~50% by age 40)
- Telomere length (the protective caps on chromosomes)
- Cellular senescence (zombie cells that need to be cleared)
- Oxygen utilization efficiency (how effectively you use what you breathe)
Juice cleanses address exactly zero of these. Which is why smart people stopped doing them.
THE NEW PROTOCOLS (WHAT’S ACTUALLY WORKING)
NAD+ Therapy: Upgrading Your Cellular Energy Grid
NAD+ is basically the energy currency of your cells. Every metabolic process needs it. DNA repair needs it. Your mitochondria need it to produce ATP. By age 50, you’ve lost half of it.
Solution? Direct supplementation.
The wealthy figured this out fast. NAD+ IV infusions. Intramuscular injections. Sublingual precursors like NMN and NR. They’re bypassing the digestive system entirely because oral bioavailability is trash.
Bloomberg just covered this in September. When financial media starts paying attention, you know the early adopters are already three years ahead.
The protocol: 500mg-1000mg NAD+ IV, 1-2x per week. Costs about $400-600 per session. Annual investment: ~$20K-50K depending on frequency.
Is it worth it? If you value cognitive function, energy levels, and potentially adding functional years to your life—objectively yes. If you think that’s expensive, consider what brain fog and metabolic decline cost you in lost productivity. Do the math.
Peptide Therapy: Precision Targeting for Specific Outcomes
Peptides are short chains of amino acids. Think of them as biological software updates. Each one has a specific function:
- BPC-157: Accelerated tissue repair. Useful if you’re physically active or recovering from injury.
- Epitalon: Telomere lengthening. Literally targeting one of the primary mechanisms of aging.
- Thymosin Beta-4: Enhanced tissue regeneration and wound healing.
- GHK-Cu: Collagen production, skin repair, anti-inflammatory effects.
This isn’t pseudoscience. These are clinically studied compounds with measurable effects. The issue is they’re not FDA-approved for anti-aging purposes, which means you need a progressive physician who understands the research and is willing to prescribe off-label.
Hamptons has those. Multiple practices. The smart money is already there.
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy: Maximizing Oxygen Delivery
Your body runs on oxygen. But atmospheric oxygen at sea level (21%) isn’t optimal for healing and regeneration.
HBOT puts you in a pressurized chamber breathing 100% medical-grade oxygen at 1.5-3.0 atmospheres. Physics forces more oxygen into your bloodstream, which then dissolves directly into tissues, including areas with poor circulation.
Benefits:
- Mitochondrial biogenesis (more power plants per cell)
- Reduced inflammation
- Enhanced stem cell mobilization
- Faster recovery from literally everything
Hamptons BioMed has been doing this for 25 years. The protocol: 60-90 minute sessions, 2-3x weekly. Cost: ~$200-300 per session.
Elite athletes figured this out decades ago. Now it’s gone mainstream among people optimizing for longevity.
Red Light Therapy: Photobiomodulation at Scale
Red and near-infrared light (630-850nm wavelength) penetrates tissue and directly stimulates mitochondrial function. It increases ATP production without requiring additional oxygen or nutrients.
Think of it as a software update that makes your existing hardware run more efficiently.
The science: Light photons hit cytochrome c oxidase in the mitochondrial electron transport chain, increasing electron flow and ATP synthesis. Also triggers beneficial gene expression changes related to collagen production and inflammation reduction.
The application: Full-body panels, 10-20 minutes daily. Some people combine it with HBOT for synergistic effects. The logic is sound—more oxygen delivery + enhanced oxygen utilization = compounding returns.
Cost: ~$3K-8K for home units. Or pay $50-100 per session at facilities.
ROI: Better skin, faster recovery, improved energy. Measurable within weeks.
Cryotherapy: Controlled Cold Stress
Whole-body cryotherapy at -200°F for 3 minutes triggers hormetic stress response. Your body thinks it’s dying, activates survival mechanisms, then realizes it’s fine and retains the adaptive benefits.
Effects include:
- Reduced systemic inflammation
- Enhanced mitochondrial efficiency
- Norepinephrine release (focus and alertness)
- Accelerated muscle recovery
Is it comfortable? No. Is it effective? Yes.
WAVE Wellness in Southampton just opened with cold plunge suites as a “social wellness destination.” Translation: biohacking is now a networking activity. You’re optimizing your biology while making connections with other people who care about optimization.
That’s actually brilliant. Makes the compliance easier when it’s socially reinforced.
THE STACKING PROTOCOL (HOW THE TOP 1% ACTUALLY DO THIS)
Here’s the thing nobody talks about: None of these work in isolation as well as they work together.
Elite protocol looks like this:
Morning:
- Red light therapy (20 min)
- Peptide injection (BPC-157 + Thymosin Beta-4)
- NAD+ precursors (NMN sublingual)
- Cold exposure (3 min cryotherapy)
Afternoon:
- HBOT session (90 min, 2-3x weekly)
Evening:
- Red light therapy (20 min)
- Sleep optimization stack (magnesium threonate, glycine, apigenin)
Weekly:
- NAD+ IV infusion
- Blood panel analysis (tracking biomarkers)
Monthly:
- DEXA scan (body composition)
- Telomere testing
- Metabolic panel
Total monthly investment: ~$5K-10K depending on protocols and frequency.
Total time investment: ~60-90 minutes daily.
Is this excessive? Depends on your goals. If you’re trying to maintain peak cognitive and physical performance into your 60s, 70s, 80s—this is what optimization actually looks like.
THE BRYAN JOHNSON STANDARD
There’s a guy spending $2M annually on longevity protocols. Hundreds of daily measurements. Algorithmic optimization. Complete biological monitoring.
Netflix made a documentary about it called “Don’t Die.”
Most people think he’s insane. I think he’s running the most important n=1 experiment in human history.
He’s not guessing. He’s measuring everything. Iterating based on data. Publishing results. Open-sourcing the protocols.
Is he extreme? Yes. Is he wrong? Unclear. But I’ll tell you what—he’s asking better questions than people doing juice cleanses.
And the Hamptons crowd? They’re not spending $2M, but they’re absolutely following his lead. Custom protocols. Quarterly blood work. Continuous optimization.
They’re treating their bodies like high-performance machines that require maintenance, monitoring, and upgrades.
Because that’s what they are.
THE ACTUAL COST (LET’S DO THE MATH)
Conservative annual investment for legitimate longevity optimization:
- NAD+ therapy: $25K
- Peptide protocols: $8K
- HBOT sessions: $15K
- Red light therapy: $2K (amortized home unit)
- Cryotherapy: $6K
- Blood work & monitoring: $5K
- Supplements (quality stack): $3K
Total: ~$64K annually
That’s more than median household income in the US.
Which means this is, objectively, a luxury only accessible to a tiny percentage of the population.
Is that fair? No. Is it reality? Yes.
The good news: Costs are dropping. What cost $100K five years ago costs $60K now. In five more years, it’ll probably be $30K. In ten years, maybe $10K.
Technology gets cheaper over time. Access expands. Today’s billionaire protocols become tomorrow’s middle-class options.
But right now, in 2025, if you’re in the Hamptons and you care about longevity, you’re spending something close to these numbers.
Or you’re not actually serious about it.
THE UNCOMFORTABLE TRUTH (BIOLOGY IS UNFAIR)
Here’s what nobody wants to say: Money buys time.
Not just in the metaphorical sense. In the literal, biological sense.
The people with resources can afford to experiment with cutting-edge protocols. They can access doctors who prescribe off-label. They can build home HBOT chambers. They can afford to fail, iterate, and optimize.
Everyone else gets generic medical advice from doctors who haven’t updated their knowledge since medical school. “Eat less, move more, maybe try a multivitamin.”
That’s not optimization. That’s maintenance at best.
The gap between what’s possible for the wealthy versus what’s accessible to everyone else is widening. Not because of malice. Just because that’s how technology adoption curves work. Early adopters pay premium prices. Mass adoption comes later.
The question is: How much later?
And what do we do in the meantime?
WHAT THIS ACTUALLY MEANS (THE META-GAME)
If you strip away all the specific therapies and protocols, here’s the core insight:
Aging is an engineering problem.
It has identifiable mechanisms. Those mechanisms can be measured. And if they can be measured, they can be modified.
That’s the paradigm shift happening right now.
Not in academic journals. Not in government health agencies. In private clinics, concierge medical practices, and wealthy enclaves like the Hamptons where people have the resources to fund their own R&D.
They’re treating longevity like a startup. Hypothesis. Test. Iterate. Scale what works.
Juice cleanses were feel-good theater. This is actual systems optimization.
And once the data proves what works—which it will, because biology is ultimately just applied chemistry and physics—it’ll scale down-market.
Maybe not fast enough for most people. But eventually.
THE BOTTOM LINE
Hamptons insiders aren’t doing juice cleanses because juice cleanses are ineffective garbage.
They’re doing NAD+ infusions, peptide therapy, HBOT, red light, and cryotherapy because these interventions have mechanistic basis, measurable outcomes, and compounding returns over time.
They’re spending $50K-100K annually because they’ve done the math on what declining health costs in terms of quality of life, medical expenses, and lost productive years.
They’re treating their bodies like high-performance assets that require investment, maintenance, and continuous upgrades.
Is this accessible to everyone? No.
Will it be eventually? Probably.
Should you care? If you value longevity, objectively yes.
What you do about it depends entirely on your resources, risk tolerance, and how much you actually care about extending your healthspan.
But the era of pretending that kombucha and hot yoga are longevity interventions is over.
The people who understand systems have moved on.
The only question is whether you’re coming with them.