Health optimization is one of five dimensions in our program, not the product - and on its own it is the most reliably disappointing of the five. The failure mode is specific and common: measurably healthier, no less lost. Better bloodwork does not answer the question that brought most of our clients to us.
What measurement is genuinely for is design. You cannot build a six-month program for a person you have not measured, and the alternative - applying the same protocol to everyone - is the single decision with the clearest evidence against it.
What do you actually measure?
DNA, gut health, a full hormonal panel, metabolic markers, epigenetic biological age (TruAge), and brain imaging (SPECT) - before the program and again at the end. Alongside that, standard clinical bloodwork, cardiovascular and renal markers, blood pressure, sleep, and a full medication and health history taken by a clinician.
Why measure before designing anything?
Because identical interventions produce very different results in different people, and this is now well demonstrated. In an 800-person study across 46,898 meals, identical meals produced highly variable glycemic responses, leading the authors to conclude that universal dietary recommendations may have limited utility. A protocol designed before measurement is a guess with a schedule attached. Cell, 2015
Is this longevity medicine?
Partly, and we are cautious with the word. We measure and act on the same markers a longevity practice would. We do not claim to extend anyone’s lifespan, because that is not something a six-month program can demonstrate and anyone claiming otherwise is describing a hope, not a result.
Can I do only this part?
No, and that is deliberate rather than commercial. Working on the physiological alone is the failure mode described above. If health optimization is the only thing you want, a dedicated longevity clinic is the more direct route, and considerably cheaper.
What does the brain imaging actually tell you?
How your brain is functioning now, and what has changed six months later. SPECT measures regional cerebral blood flow - where activity is higher and lower - and we take it twice: once before anything is designed, once at the end.
We do not use it to diagnose you, and it does not produce a label.
What it is for is narrower and more useful: understanding how you actually run. Most people arrive with a story about themselves built from habit and self-report. A functional measurement is a second opinion on that story - and a baseline to measure against.
What we measure, and what it is for
Measured
Why it is measured
What it changes
DNA
Variants relevant to metabolism, detoxification and nutrient handling
Nutrition and supplementation design, not prediction of disease.
Gut health
Microbiome composition and markers of intestinal function
Nutrition protocol; a common hidden contributor to fatigue and mood.
Hormones
Full panel including thyroid and, where relevant, testosterone
Something exhaustion can sit on top of - worth ruling out before anything psychological.
Metabolic markers
Glucose regulation, lipids, inflammatory markers
Energy, cognition and cardiovascular risk.
Biological age
TruAge - an epigenetic clock based on DNA methylation, read against chronological age
A tracking measure across the six months, not a diagnosis.
Brain imaging (SPECT)
Regional cerebral blood flow patterns
Baseline and end-of-program comparison - your own function measured twice, not a diagnosis.
Cardiovascular and renal
Blood pressure, cardiac and kidney function
Eligibility for psychedelic-assisted sessions.
Everything on this list is measured twice - once before the program is designed, once at the end. The second measurement is the part most programs skip, and it is the only way to know whether what you designed did anything.
The argument for measuring first
This is the part of our model with the clearest independent evidence behind it, and it comes from outside longevity medicine entirely.
Different people, same intervention, different results. Zeevi et al. monitored 800 people across 46,898 meals and found that identical meals produced highly variable responses. A blinded randomized trial using their personalized predictions then outperformed the standard approach. Cell, 2015
Matching matters roughly as much as treating. In a randomized comparison of two psychological treatments, a Personalized Advantage Index built from five pre-treatment variables predicted a clinically meaningful advantage for one treatment over the other in 60% of patients, at an effect size of d = 0.58 - which the authors note would rival the difference between an active treatment and a control. PLoS One, 2014
Measuring once is not enough. A meta-analysis of 88 tailored health-behavior interventions found that programs which reassess and adjust over time outperformed those tailored from a single assessment. Prev Med, 2010
Read together, those three say the same thing: a fixed protocol applied to everyone leaves something significant on the table, and re-measuring is worth more than measuring well once.
A protocol that works on average is still wrong for someone. Until I have measured you, I have no way of knowing whether that someone is you.
Monika Jakobson, Co-Founder, Health & Science Director
Where the evidence for this model of care sits
The largest study of the functional medicine model of care compared 7,252 patients at the Cleveland Clinic Center for Functional Medicine against propensity-matched primary care patients. At six months, the functional medicine group showed significantly greater improvement in patient-reported physical health. JAMA Netw Open, 2019
The caveats are real and we state them. It is a retrospective cohort, not a randomized trial. The twelve-month between-group comparison did not reach significance in the main analysis. The authors themselves conclude that prospective studies are warranted. It is the strongest available evidence for this model of care, and it is not proof.
On the somatic side the evidence is stronger than most people expect. A meta-analysis of 24 studies found heart-rate-variability biofeedback produced a large effect on self-reported stress and anxiety - Hedges’ g = 0.81 within-group and 0.83 versus control. Psychol Med, 2017
One finding worth watching - and worth reading carefully.
In July 2025 a team at Emory reported that psilocin, the active metabolite of psilocybin, extended the lifespan of cultured human cells, and that psilocybin improved survival in aged mice. The authors describe it as the first experimental evidence that psilocybin may act as a geroprotective agent. npj Aging, 2025
The subjects were mice and cells in a dish. Nothing in that paper has been shown in a human being, and the distance between a mouse survival study and a clinical claim is enormous.
We mention it because it is genuinely interesting and because people ask about it. It is not part of the case for anything we do.
What we do not claim
We do not claim to extend your life. No six-month program can demonstrate that, and the studies that could would take decades.
Biological age is a tracking measure, not a verdict. An epigenetic clock is useful for watching a direction of travel across a program. It is not a validated clinical endpoint and should not be treated as one.
A DNA panel is not a prediction. It informs how we design nutrition and supplementation. It does not tell you what you will get.
Better numbers are not the outcome. They are a precondition. A person can improve every marker on the list above and be exactly as unhappy as when they started - which is the whole reason this is one dimension of five rather than the program itself. See what integral self-actualization means.
Hardi Põder, Co-Founder, CEO
Sources
Zeevi D. et al. - Personalized Nutrition by Prediction of Glycemic Responses, Cell, 2015 -
Krebs P., Prochaska J., Rossi J. - A meta-analysis of computer-tailored interventions for health behavior change, Prev Med, 2010 -
Beidelschies M. et al. - Association of the Functional Medicine Model of Care with Patient-Reported Outcomes, JAMA Netw Open, 2019 -
Goessl V., Curtiss J., Hofmann S. - The effect of heart rate variability biofeedback training on stress and anxiety, Psychol Med, 2017 -
Kato K. et al. - Psilocybin treatment extends cellular lifespan and improves survival of aged mice, npj Aging, 2025;11(1):55 -
cell culture and mice, not humans.
In one sentence
We measure before we design, we design for the individual rather than the protocol, and we measure again at the end - and none of that is the point on its own.