ColumnGadgetsScienceThey want your bloodHealth tech companies want data from your blood in return for a vague promise of a longer life.by Victoria SongOct 21, 2026, 5:00 PM UTCShareGiftYour blood, for “immortality.” | Image: Cath Virgina / The Verge, Getty ImagesVictoria Song is a senior reporter and author of the Optimizer newsletter. She has more than 13 years of experience reporting on wearables, health tech, and more. Before coming to The Verge, she worked for Gizmodo and PC Magazine.This is Optimizer, a weekly newsletter sent from Verge senior reviewer Victoria Song that dissects and discusses the latest gizmos and potions that swear they’re going to change your life. Opt in for Optimizer here.It’s an overcast Saturday morning when I give my 12th vial of blood for testing in six weeks.
It’s my 24th this year. At this point, I feel like a pro. I schedule these blood draws first thing in the morning so I don’t get hangry, download the requisition papers ahead of time, avoid strenuous exercise for the 24 hours prior, and make sure to drink a glass of water beforehand so my teeny veins are easier for the phlebotomist to find.In fairness, 12 of the 24 vials were ordered by my doctor to monitor ongoing treatment for a few metabolic issues. Eight were to feed my experimental digital twin.
The last four are to test an app called Death Clock, which estimates when you’ll die based on your current health. Currently, the app says I’m going to die at 97 years old on Friday, October 5th, 2085.For greatest accuracy, and to calculate my biological age, Death Clock offers a “free” blood panel with its $69 annual subscription. The app also offers various other optional, upsell panels recommended based on the health history you upload during onboarding. It suggested that I add on tests for thyroid function, heart and artery health, and liver function.
On top of the blood panels, the app also recommended I try a continuous glucose monitor, buy a smart scale, buy a blood pressure monitor, get a professional VO2 max evaluation, schedule a liver ultrasound, screen for cervical cancer, start taking daily creatine monohydrate, schedule an annual full-body skin cancer exam, get a baseline coronary CT angiography, consider getting APOE testing for Alzheimer’s risk, and get a colonoscopy.I was getting a vampiric promise of longevity. My blood was the roadmap to a long life. If I did everything the app’s “life lab” proposed, I could get an extra 17 years, dying at the ripe old age of 114 on September 12th, 2102.Even so, watching my blood flow into yet another test tube, I thought of my parents. Blood is more than just a mix of plasma, iron, water, and nutrients.
Metaphorically, it’s also a history of the family that came before you — and sometimes, though not always, clues to how they died.You’re all invited to my death day party on October 5th, 2085. Screenshot: Death ClockDeath Clock is a provocative name, but it’s hardly alone in wanting my blood. Oura and Whoop have already added partnerships with Quest Diagnostics, so their users can hand over their blood too. Google recently announced an integration with Function Health, a startup that makes it easy for people to order these kinds of lab tests.
When Apple’s new Health app launches, that too will come with a Quest Diagnostics partnership. Blood is in, and more of these partnerships are undoubtedly on the way.It’s not hard to guess why. Blood contains data — the thing that keeps health tech companies fed. In this age of personalized tech, what could be more personal than the stuff literally flowing through your veins?
But as with any highly valuable, highly private data source, the user has to get something equally valuable in return. Right now, that seems to be a vague promise to live longer.“The reality is life is precious, life is short, and we’re all going to die. The question is when, and I think culturally, we are in denial about death,” Brent Franson, founder and CEO of Death Clock, tells me. “Our view is we want to shake people and say, ‘Hey, the only thing that matters most in your life is whether or not you exist,’ and you want to take your health seriously so you can exist as long as possible.”Franson says that to help people understand their own health and the changes they need to make, they have to know what’s going on in their bodies — that’s where the blood comes in. It feels like a hyper-literal take on the idea of looking inside oneself to find the answers to life.It’s an alluring premise, but there’s a limit to what any one person can learn from any quantity of blood.
Later in our conversation, Franson acknowledged that the greatest predictor of longevity is socioeconomic status. The rich live longer because they can afford better healthcare — and your blood says nothing about what your income bracket will be.RelatedMy AI doppelganger tells me what to eatYour ‘health age’ is fakeThose limits are sobering to witness firsthand. In April 2021, I got a phone call from my cousin in the middle of the night. My mom was struggling to breathe and had been rushed to the hospital.
Something had been wrong with her for a while. Her speech had been slurred for a whole month, and she was struggling with phlegm that just wouldn’t go away. My mom insisted it was a stubborn cold. This cousin, a doctor, suspected my mom had a series of mini strokes and was now suffering from a potential combination of both a stroke and heart attack — a cardiocerebral infarction.In the ER, my mom loudly protested that everyone was worried over nothing.
Her father had lived to 101. Her mother was alive and doing well at 94. Her blood, our family blood, was destined for a long life, and we had no history of cardiovascular issues. (Never mind that my uncle had nearly died from a stroke the year prior.) She yelled at the top of her lungs that at 72, she was entirely too young to die.The doctors didn’t find what was wrong with her that night. Over the next few months, we ran her through a gauntlet of tests, many of which involved blood draws and machines of all types.
It turned out, my cousin was also wrong. My mom didn’t have a mini stroke and her cardiovascular function was perfectly fine. Instead, she died six months later from spontaneous bulbar amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which has nothing to do with blood. It was in her body that April, but no blood test would’ve found it.
ALS wasn’t in our family history — and as genetic testing later revealed, she didn’t carry the gene for it either. There was nothing she could’ve done to prevent it.The other proposition is that running your blood through a health tech app’s algorithm and AI chatbots will tell you more about yourself. It’s presented as a democratizing move that empowers you to take action outside of the 15 minutes you might get with a doctor — or at the very least, helps you to make the most of an appointment.I’ve uploaded my various blood tests to multiple apps, asking their accompanying AI chatbots to analyze my data. The big-picture interpretations are similar.
My tests invariably point to an inflamed but improving liver. I had high cholesterol, but medication seems to be working. My cardiovascular labs have begun to look pretty optimal, according to every app. The combination of good fasting glucose and HbA1c alongside improving but mildly elevated fasting insulin suggests I have “managed” insulin resistance.
In other words, I have learned that going to the doctor and addressing my myriad metabolic issues is working. I could have told you that without any of this extra data.A very weird thing to be eating breakfast and then get this notification. Photo: Victoria Song / The VergeI’ve also learned that doctors, health tech features, and AI can look at the same tests and arrive at different conclusions. For instance, absolutely no one agrees about my most recent fasting insuli
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