Identifying risks to your longevity

‘Balanced’ pathway (some cost & effort) 

There are three important elements in a proper longevity strategy, which we define as your detailed plan and specific, targeted tactics for achieving your lifespan and healthspan goals.

The first element, and common sense starting point, is identifying your longevity risks. This is the best place to start, and the other elements of the longevity strategy follow this exercise quite naturally.

To identify your longevity risks and to guide you on what to do about them, we’ll leverage the principles of risk assessment and management.

The principles of risk management are mature and proven, with established techniques used across a wide variety of industries. They help to avoid negative outcomes wherever possible, and minimise their impact where otherwise.

Longevity Blog can help you apply these proven methods to personal wellness. You’ll begin by identifying areas where you are at elevated risk of age-related diseases - this is called risk assessment.

One you know what your biggest risks are, you can take meaningful action to manage your risk (in collaboration with a healthcare professional).

Genetic testing for longevity risks

Estimated time to completion: <60 minutes

Cost: ~$100 per year + once off start-up cost ($100)

Completing a longevity risk assessment ultimately means compiling a comprehensive a list of health conditions you are at risk for, including how likely they are to occur and their potential consequences.

In the ‘Budget’ pathway, we guide users through a family health history document and online lifestyle questionnaire to approximate their longevity risks. This is a pretty effective ‘free’ option.

However, given you’re willing to spend a bit of your hard-earned money, using genome sequencing will provide a much more comprehensive approach to your personalised longevity risk assessment, saving you time & energy.

Genome Sequencing Technology & Costs

Over the past few years, genome sequencing technology and genetic analytics have advanced incredibly quickly.

Of particular note is the rapid expansion of the medical literature and genetic risk models which can equate the structure of your individual genome with specific disease risks.

The combination of the growth in the medical literature and the falling cost of genomic testing have now made it possible to comprehensively assess your unique longevity risk very affordably.

It is not necessary to complete full genome sequencing. Instead, we can rely on a well-targeted analyses of individual genetic variations known as "SNPs", aka single nucleotide polymorphisms, further reducing the costs involved.

By reviewing a well formulated list of SNPs, your individualised risk for a wide variety of age-related diseases can quickly and efficiently be established.

These of course are not ‘deterministic’, with the majority of the risk still attributed to lifestyle choices.

But that’s the beauty of this approach - you need to know what lifestyle changes to prioritise in your longevity strategy. Genome sequencing can do that for you.

These recent developments are exciting news for the longevity enthusiast (that’s you!), who wants to know where to most effectively apply their limited longevity budget!

Genetic testing for longevity risk: two options

Making an investment in a genomic analysis is really quite a powerful action to take. We’re excited that you’re considering it!

Understanding, analysing and biohacking your individual biology is absolutely key to living your longest, healthiest life - and to do that, you need to become an expert in yourself.

Longevity Blog has comprehensively reviewed, vetted, poked and prodded through nearly all of the available direct to consumer genetic testing services.

We’ve seen their reports, reviewed their privacy policies and even researched their company mission and team members.

As an outcome, we have identified two high quality options for genome sequencing and analytics that you can use to complete your longevity risk assessment.

Top Pick: Self-decode

Self-decode provides some incredible value. Their annual subscription costs less than $100USD, provides you with access to highly personalised guidance and even provides a service for tracking & analysing your blood tests (LabTestAnalyzer).

We love that you can ‘BYOG file’ - meaning Bring Your Own Genome file - from a wide variety of testing services. If you don’t have one, you can purchase one of their kits for only $90USD (trust us, that’s bottom dollar!).

With the annual subscription you can download up to 5 of their ‘wellness reports’.

One of these is a dedicated “Longevity” report.

We’ll be using this report to progress on developing your customised longevity strategy.

More on that shortly, where we’ll provide some guidance on which of the other wellness reports you should access.

Runner-up: Sequencing.com

Everyone likes choices! Sequencing.com is our runner-up selection.

While they don’t offer the added perks of blood test analysis or a full personalised genetics blog, they offer a similar price point with a very large library of genetic reporting options.

Their app marketplace allows you to purchase ‘apps’ and ‘reports’ according to your area of interest.

To proceed with developing your longevity strategy, we’ll leverage the Wellness and Longevity app ($59 USD).

Once again, you can BYOG file, but if purchase their DNA testing kit for $69USD, you get access to 2x free apps.

This makes Sequencing.com slightly more affordable than Self-decode, even if you need to purchase 1-2x extra apps (average price point of ~$39-$59 USD).

What about the other options?

We’re often asked - what about 23andMe? Well, simply put, they sell your data to third parties. That’s not our style - wouldn’t you agree?

If you’d like to see a nice side-by-side comparison of pros & cons of various options, Self-decode offer a very useful table on their homepage (scroll down near the bottom) .

Next: Genetic reports & personalised risk

Let’s Go!