The Business of Promoting Longevity and Healthspan

A crop of new consumer-facing companies with unconventional data collection

Over the past couple of years we’re seeing several new companies in the business to consumer space for promoting lifespan, healthspan, and generally the use of extensive testing to achieve early detection or prevent diseases. Here’s a group of 12 that I’ve zoomed in on, will take you through, and contextualize in this edition of Ground Truths.

Below is a Table I’ve made summarizing these companies, the tests they conduct, costs, and current membership data when available. If you’re interested in any of them, I’ve provided their websites in the discussion below.

Human Longevity Inc, the Front Runner

Back in 2015, Human Longevity Inc, a company founded 2 years earlier by J. Craig Venter, launched Health Nucleus which provided a comprehensive assessment that included total body MRI, whole genome sequencing, CT heart calcium score, echocardiogram, 2-week heart rhythm recording, metabolic profiling (Metabolon), gut microbiome testing, a DEXA scan, cognitive testing, and extensive bloodwork with 120 assays. The cost initially was $50,000, but later dropped to $25,000 (which can now be partitioned into two modules $7500 and $19,000). A 2018 paper that summarized the data for 209 participants, with an age range from 20 to 98 years, was published in PNAS that led to diagnosing risk or conditions in some individuals (Figure below, much could have been detected without extensive testing), including some cancer risk genes and heart rhythm disorders (not shown in the Figure, reviewed in the paper). The concept and results of this pan-body assessment in healthy people were considered controversial (as seen here, here, and here)

I commented for each of these pieces; in the Science coverage I said: "This is a study that is going to remain controversial… Don't do a bunch of tests unless there is a good reason; otherwise you get a bunch of false positives.…Maybe it is futuristic, but I think most people in medicine who understand the history of this will know that this is potentially engendering trouble and doing all sorts of tests that don't have any basis." Others were “massively skeptical,” one citing "the absence of the slightest shred of evidence that any benefit will accrue to anyone," but some were excited to see such an offering. There certainly were anecdotes of some participants being helped, including Craig Venter who said his prostate cancer was diagnosed via the screening.

It turns out that Health Nucleus was the first one out, but now there are several other entries to this space which I’ll collectively refer to as the descendants. Like Human Longevity, you’ll note from the Table that one thing is in common—they are expensive.

The Descendants

Below are the tests that are assessed by Function Health. The long list includes a multi-cancer early detection test (MCED; see my previous review of the problems with these tests), hormones, biological age, heavy metals, autoimmune disease screens, nutrient tests, exposure to Lyme disease, sexual health tests, and many more. The company has over 50,000 members with a waitlist, cost of $499/year, and currently has a valuation of $2.5 billion as of February 2025.

Lifeforce (“Your Longevity Partner”) relies on at-home diagnostic tests for 48 biomarkers at an initial cost of $349 and $149/month. It claims a membership of over 20,000, and provides a discount for supplements it sells based on your biomarkers. Superpower is more like Health Longevity with total body MRI, genetics, >60 biomarkers including hormones, MCED, and gut microbiome. Biograph (“Act Now, Live Longer”) is “Peter Attia’s New Preventative Health Clinic” with total body MRI and extensive blood testing. Neko Health has a unique body sensor scan with millions of data points. Parsley Health offers advanced testing on gut health, hormones, genetics, and discounts on supplements. Life Extension, Oxford Health and Thorne offer supplements and vitamins some of which align with their advanced health testing panels. Below are a couple of examples of what you will see on their websites.

Thanks to Erik Brynjolfsson for reminding about Fountain Life after reading the initial post. It charges a whopping $19,500 per year for its APEX membership that includes total body MI, CT coronary angiography, DEXA, multi-cancer early detection (MCED) along with clinical consultation and selling supplements.

I’ve also learned about Inside Tracker which also fits into this group of companies, with its 48 blood biomarkers, wearable sensors, gene chip array (from other companies, such as 23andMe), A.I. analytics, use of supplements, at a cost of $489/ year.

Let me point out that the above companies are not just offering lots of tests. Many do also provide support by clinicians, some involving Telehealth visits, along with longitudinal assessment for the monthly fees.

The list of such companies with unconventional testing doesn’t include the 2 leading total body MRI offerings, Prenuvo and Ezra, for about $2,500. For Ezra you can add on a CT Scan for lungs and heart calcium score for $2,695. As you’ve seen, total body MRI is a component of the extensive testing that some of the 10 companies include.

The Context

The companies I’ve touched on here need to be differentiated from the anti-aging companies like Altos Labs, working on partial epigenetic reprogramming, or Unity Biotechnology focused on senolytics, and various putative age slowing drugs or supplements like rapamycin or NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) that are involved in cellular metabolism. There are over 50 companies that are developing or testing potential interventions to modulate the body-wide aging process.

But there’s one important thing in common: lack of data. Coincidentally, this week’s Economist cover story by Natasha Loder was on the rise of superhumans and highlighted the void of supportive data for any of the interventions proposed to promote human longevity or healthspan.

As is the case with the companies attempting to reverse aging, the ones marketing longevity, healthspan and advanced prevention to consumers have not yet provided any evidence for benefit. The only peer-review published paper that I’m aware of was the one by Human Longevity which is still in the realm of anecdotal evidence. You are aware of the potential for harm, such as chasing down a lesion on a scan with the complication of the biopsy (e.g. liver bleeding or a collapsed lung) for what turned out to be benign.

That is not to say the concept behind these companies—a much broader collection of data— is wrong. My contention is that it is flawed because it is indiscriminate as to who undergoes testing and what tests (such as total body MRI or multi-cancer early detection) and when they are performed. Ironically, despite what might be thought of as a “kitchen sink” approach, many tests that could be particularly useful have not been incorporated by these companies. There is also the lack of state-of-the-art analytics, such as set point determinations, a topic I recently discussed whereby trends of lab values in the normal range can be especially informative about one’s health risk.

That takes us back to Bayes’ theorem, the mathematical formula for calculating conditional probabilities. In this case, we’re referring to the prior—need to identify high-risk— because if the pre-test probability is low, the accuracy of the test is substantially reduced. Furthermore, getting hundreds of biomarker results and imaging tests in an individual greatly increases the likelihood of false-positive results.

In my new book Super Agers: An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity (out May 6th) I lay out an approach for primary prevention of the 3 major age-related diseases: cancer, cardiovascular, and neurodegenerative. It’s about using the remarkable progress in the science of aging, which includes organ clocks (via high-throughput proteomics), epigenetic clocks, a dynamic (modifiable) blood biomarker protein for the brain that is as accurate as a PET scan, better inflammation markers, the need to comprehensively track our immune system (the immunome) and other layers of data I’ve been emphasizing in these Ground Truth essays to define high-risk. With multimodal A.I. we can now determine which person is vulnerable for one of these age-related diseases and when it will likely manifest. The when is important. If you’re at risk for developing Alzheimer’s at age 97 it’s much less concerning than age 67.

We’re entering an era of precision medical forecasting, as I recently reviewed in Science. That will only get more precise and accurate with improved A.I. models, such as the large reasoning models (like Gemini 2.0 Flash, DeepSeek R1, Claude 3.7 Sonnet, OpenAI o3) that have recently cropped up (succinctly reviewed here). Each of the three major age-related diseases takes at least two decades to incubate, giving us a long runway to prevent or markedly delay their appearance. We’ve got extraordinary data on lifestyle factors that are of no or minimal cost and relate to each of the principal age-related diseases. No less exquisite capabilities for surveillance of a person at high-risk for use of advanced imaging and biomarker tracking, and aligned with specific interventions. We may look back someday to see the companies reviewed here as the precursor to a more bespoke and sequential strategy at a much reduced cost that achieves the goal of extending healthspan.

A quick poll:

As you can imagine, I’m excited to get my new book out. I've worked with my publisher, Simon & Schuster, to share an exclusive offer just for Ground Truths subscribers. Through May 5, you can pre-order a hardcover copy of the book at Bookshop.org and get 15% off with code SUPERAGERS15. It’s notable that Bookshop.org supports independent bookstores across the country. Of course there’s also Amazon which currently offers a discount on the book, but it’s certainly not helping these bookstores.

In this post, I’ve only scratched the surface about the content of the book. Here’s the back cover to give you an idea of what some people had to say about it.

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