The SHA Wellness Clinic in Alicante, Spain has acquired an anti-ageing medicine doctor and professor – Dr Gloria M Sabater – to lead its genetic testing programmes.

After becoming a licenced doctor in 1988, Dr Sabater received a pharmaceutical doctorate from the University of Barcelona, then specialised in drug analysis before becoming an expert in anti-ageing at the University of Charleroi in 2005. She obtained a diploma in genetics in the field of personalised preventative medicine from the European Institute of Personalised Prevention in 2008.

The SHA Wellness Clinic has developed a range of anti-ageing programmes which are designed to delay the process of cellular degeneration. This is achieved by genetic testing to identify health risks, according to the clinic.

The genetic tests allow Dr Sabater, professor of the masters degree of anti-ageing at the Autonomous University of Barcelona, to identify guests’ possible predispositions to diseases such as osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease and cognitive impairment.

Genetics influences 30 per cent of our future health, but the remaining 70 per cent depends on your lifestyle, according to the SHA wellness clinic.

The clinic provides guests with a personal lifestyle approach based upon factors identified via telomere analysis. Telomeres – DNA structures on the end of chromosomes – can be worn down in length through an unhealthy and stressful lifestyle, according to spa consultant for Telome Health, Jay Williams, in an article for Spa Business 2013 Issue 1, page 54.

Testing an adult’s telomeres, via a blood sample, can help medics determine a person’s biological age, show disease risk and provide a health evaluation.