I help people understand what actually moves longevity and health optimization forward — beyond trends and marketing claims.

Most people feel lost in a space full of bold promises and weak evidence. They want to improve long-term health but don’t know which diagnostics, interventions, or frameworks genuinely make a difference.

That’s where my work comes in.

I break down how prevention, data, and systems thinking can raise health outcomes at scale. I track signals across science, funding, clinical innovation, and policy; then turn them into useful insights for operators, founders, and anyone serious about long-term health.

My background mixes data science, strategy, and hands-on work inside the longevity ecosystem. I’m not a doctor, and I don’t act like one. Instead, I work closely with researchers, clinicians, and builders to translate early developments into clear, practical steps.

Over the past years:
• Built content and frameworks followed by 15,000+ people
• Helped shape prevention programs and health communication used by operators and clinics
• Featured as one of Germany’s most followed voices in longevity and prevention

My focus is simple: raise the signal, cut the noise, and support a shift toward prevention that works for more people. Not just early adopters.

Want structured insights you can actually use?

🧠 Get my free 5-day longevity course: https://beyondthehype.kit.com/niko

🔍 More at: www.nikohems.de

Blood testing startups are everywhere right now.

Function. Superpower. Lucis. Aware. And dozens more.

Same pitch: "Get your blood tested. See your biomarkers. Optimize your health."

But here's what I keep thinking about:

What happens after the first test?

You get your results. Maybe some are flagged. You feel informed for a week.

Then what?

Most people don't know what to do with the data. They don't change anything meaningful. And they then often don't come back for test #2 or 3.

This is the retention problem almost no one is talking about.

Blood testing alone is a one-time curiosity, not a habit.

Here's why I think most of these companies will struggle long-term:

𝟭. 𝗧𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘄𝗶𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘂𝘁 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗶𝘀 𝗷𝘂𝘀𝘁 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝘅𝗶𝗲𝘁𝘆

→ You see your apoB is high. Now what?

↳ Generic advice doesn't cut it.

↳ People need actually personalized protocols, not templated suggestions based on broad ranges.

𝟮. 𝗡𝗼 𝗮𝗱𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝗹𝗮𝘆𝗲𝗿

→ Even good recommendations fail without follow-through systems.

↳ Who's checking if you actually changed your diet?

↳ Who's tracking if the intervention worked?

𝟯. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗱𝘂𝗰𝘁 𝘀𝘁𝗼𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁

→ If your biomarkers suggest you need Vitamin D or magnesium, why am I going to Amazon?

↳ Evidence-based products tied to results = obvious integration.

↳ But most platforms don't offer it.

𝟰. 𝗢𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗶𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗮 𝗵𝗲𝗮𝗹𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗴𝘆

→ Real optimization requires longitudinal data.

↳ Test → intervene → retest → adjust.

↳ Without this loop built in, you're selling snapshots, not outcomes.

My prediction: The companies that survive will be all-in-one platforms:

- Truly personalized protocols (not just "eat more vegetables")
- Adherence tracking and accountability
- Curated, evidence-based products
- Integrated retesting to close the loop

Testing is the entry point. Not the entire product.

Which blood testing company do you think is actually getting this right?

Niko Hems

Longevity | Cutting through noise in health and longevity to give people clear, science-based guidance that actually works | Favikon #2 Aging & Longevity Germany | 👇 Join 15k+ readers

Ever noticed how everyone loves to hate the pharma industry, but nobody really questions the wellness industry?

It’s a weird double standard that’s never made sense to me.

People will:

→ Spend hours ranting about Big Pharma.

→ Refuse prescription meds because “they make money off sickness.”

→ Then blindly buy the latest supplement or detox powder from a shiny new brand.

But the same people forget this:

→ The global wellness industry is 4x bigger than pharma.

→ That’s billions spent on supplements, devices, and promises.

→ And a lot of it is, honestly, nonsense.

If you think pharma is just profitdriven, why trust wellness brands that are even more profitable?

If you’re worried about hidden motives, why take a random influencer’s advice on what to swallow next?

If you demand clinical trials for meds, why ignore the lack of real evidence for most supplements?

I get it: There are (very) valid criticisms of pharma.

→ Pricing, access, incentives and transparency are real issues.

→ Some medicines are pushed (way) too hard.

But:

→ A lot of wellness products have ZERO research behind them.

→ Many supplements are sold on nothing but hope and marketing.

→ The “natural” label is slapped on everything, but natural doesn’t always mean safe or effective.

What’s even stranger:

→ The argument that pharma profits by keeping people sick is repeated everywhere.

→ But the wellness industry is literally built on convincing people they’re not healthy enough.

→ If everyone felt great, who would buy their endless powders, pills, and patches?

Why do we trust a supplement brand with a cool Instagram more than a regulated prescription?

→ Because it feels natural?

→ Because it’s marketed as “cuttingedge”?

→ Or simply because everyone else is doing it?

Here’s what I’ve learned after years in health and longevity:

→ There ARE good supplements (Creatin, Vitamin D, Omega3 if you need it, etc.)

→ But most of the industry is selling hype, not health.

→ A lot of “biohacking” is just expensive urine.

If you want real longevity, the basics still win.

You can’t buy your way to health with a magic pill. No matter who’s selling it.

Curious: Do you see the same contradiction?

Share your experience below.

We all want solid evidence before making health decisions.

But is evidence based medicine always the full story?

Doctors rely on proven data to guide treatment. That's great. It's how we avoid guesswork and protect patient safety.

But sometimes, "waiting for the perfect study" means missing out on real-world wins.

This hit home for me recently listening to Dr. Martin Picard on the Huberman Lab. He said, "Nobody is the average," and that line stuck with me.

Should we ignore small case studies or clinical experience because they're not meta-analyses of RCT's, in big guidelines or published in top journals? Or is there room for structured, low-risk experimentation when the downside is limited, like a specific diet for example, and the upside could potentially be life-changing?

What if, instead of all-or-nothing thinking, we decided:

- Yes, follow the evidence when it's there
- But when options are limited (and safe!), maybe try something new, systematically, with guidance, and honest follow-up

Evidence matters. So does being stuck with "business as usual" when patients are desperate for options.

Maybe the future is both: rigorous science, smart, guided n=1 trials. If it's safe, reversible, and monitored, why not try? 

Every clinical breakthrough started with someone willing to experiment, carefully.

What am I missing?

Forward Health raised $660M → shut down.
Babylon Health hit a $4B valuation → collapsed.
Olive AI raised $850M → sold for parts.

But these weren’t edge cases.

They were signals.

Over the last decade, healthcare absorbed tens of billions in venture capital. 

Many of the most celebrated companies quietly failed, stalled, or got dismantled:

→ IBM Watson Health
Promised AI-driven oncology decisions → couldn’t survive clinical complexity → sold off piece by piece.

→ Babylon Health
AI-first primary care → explosive utilization → collapsing margins.

→ Forward Health
Stunning clinics + heavy automation → burn outran patient density.

→ Olive AI
Automation at scale → workflows pushed back harder than expected.

→ Pear Therapeutics
FDA-approved software as medicine → still bankrupt.

Different products.

Same outcome.

So what actually went wrong?

Most of these companies didn’t fail because of regulation.

They failed because healthcare doesn’t follow venture physics.

A few uncomfortable realities pitch decks tend to gloss over:

→ Care doesn’t scale like software
Every human in the loop compresses margins. Remove humans → outcomes suffer.

→ Demand is infinite, revenue is not
The sicker users are → the worse your unit economics become.

→ Adoption ≠ trust
Doctors may test tools → they abandon anything that adds cognitive load.

→ Reimbursement always wins
If you don’t fit existing payment logic → you burn until you pivot or die.

→ Prevention breaks VC timelines
Outcomes take years → investors want growth in quarters.

Healthcare rewards:
→ Narrow scope
→ Operational depth
→ Density before scale
→ Patience

Venture capital rewards:
→ Speed
→ Breadth
→ Narrative
→ The promise of scale

That tension hasn’t been resolved yet - has it?

The companies that will survive the next will look boring and human-heavy in the right places.

And that might be the lesson this industry still hasn’t fully internalized.

What do you think is the most misunderstood assumption investors bring into healthcare?

Three things I learned after spending most of my time last year obsessing with longevity and health

Everyone chases the next big health hack. But after diving deep in data, experiments, and real-world results, here's what actually matters - and what I'll never recommend again.

1) Basics win, every time.

Sleep, daily movement, real food, community and managing stress. It's not flashy. But nothing else comes close for results. Fixing bedtime, getting steps in, and hitting protein targets make more impact than any supplement or gadget.

What I'll never recommend again: Trying to "stack" your way out of bad habits. No pill undoes bad sleep. No tech replaces movement. You can't out-hack the fundamentals.

2) Data is useful, until it's not.

Labs and wearables reveal blind spots and track real change. But chasing random test results just to "know more" often builds anxiety, not clarity.

What I'll never recommend again: Obsessing over isolated random biomarkers. One number out of range most of the time isn't the story. Trends matter more, not snapshots.

3) Health is individual and evidence only goes so far.

Fasting helps one person, harms another. Same with cold plunges and keto. What works at the population level is a guide, not a rulebook. 

What I'll never recommend again: Copy-pasting someone else's routine. Their "miracle" might be your setback. Test, track, adjust. Stop if it's not working for you.

Bottom line:

Nail the basics first. Use data with purpose, not anxiety. Look at evidence and experiment in a safe way.

It's not complicated. And it's not that flashy. But it works.

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You can optimize every biomarker and still age faster than someone who doesn't.

Here's the uncomfortable truth:

Chronic stress undoes your health work from the inside out.

You can eat clean, track your sleep, take every supplement.

None of it matters if your stress is constantly elevated.

Here's what stress actually does to your biology:

→ Your cells can lose repair capacity over time. DNA damage accumulates faster.

→ Your immune system becomes dysregulated. Defense weakens, inflammation rises, chronic disease risk increases.

→ Your brain shows structural and functional changes, especially in memory and focus centers.

→ Your skin repairs more slowly. Collagen production drops. You can look older than your biological age.

→ Your cardiovascular risk rises quietly. Heart attacks and strokes often arrive without warning.

But high performers have been sold three myths:

1. "Stress is the price of success."
↳ No. Chronic stress is the price of a broken system.

2. "A vacation will fix it."
↳ If you need a vacation to recover, your daily life is the problem.

3. "Toughness makes you immune."
↳ Your biology doesn't care about your mindset. Cortisol doesn't negotiate.

What truly helps:

→ Sleep: 7-8 hours is non-negotiable. This is where your body repairs itself.

→ Movement as a reset, not punishment. 20-minute walks daily beat a 2-hour gym session once a week.

→ Real relationships, not just networking. Strong social ties significantly reduce all-cause mortality.

→ Saying no. Not every opportunity is worth the cost to your healthspan.

→ Deliberate calm: breathwork, silence, or mindfulness. Daily hygiene for your nervous system.

True strength isn't how much you can endure.

It's how healthy you can stay while performing at your best.

What's your biggest barrier to managing stress - time, awareness, or something else?

It takes one sentence to mislead millions. It often takes years of science to clean it up.

Peter Attia shared a Frédéric Bastiat quote that nails something I deal with constantly:

"They need only a few words to set forth a half-truth; whereas, in order to show that it is a half-truth, we have to resort to long and arid dissertations."

This is the asymmetry nobody talks about.

Health influencer posts "Cholesterol is a pharma conspiracy" with a flashy graphic. Gets 5,000 likes in 24 hours.

Meanwhile, explaining why decades of clinical trials, Mendelian randomization studies, and consistent evidence support the causal role of apoB in cardiovascular disease? That takes paragraphs. Context. Nuance. Caveats.

Nobody shares caveats.

The pattern repeats almost endlessly:

→ Context gets ignored
→ Sensational claim goes viral
→ Flawed study gets cherry-picked
→ Scientists spend weeks writing rebuttals
→ Rebuttals reach 1% of the original audience

And we're left fighting uphill. Every single time.

The frustrating part? The people spreading misinformation don't need to understand the science. They just need a confident tone and a provocative headline.

Those of us trying to share accurate information? We need to understand the methodology, acknowledge the limitations, explain the mechanisms, and somehow make it engaging enough that people actually read it.

Complexity doesn't fit in a tweet. But that's where the truth usually lives.

I don't have a solution. Just recognition that this battle is structurally unfair.

And respect for people like Peter Attia who keep fighting it anyway.

What's the worst health misinformation you've seen spread faster than the correction?

♻️ Repost if you think nuance deserves more attention than clickbait.

Everyone’s chasing the next big thing in longevity tech.

But pause for a second.

Are we actually living better, or just collecting more data?

Look around:

→ Wearables on every wrist.

→ Home blood test kits stacking up.

→ AI apps promising to predict your future.

We tell ourselves we’re making progress.

But most of us are just drowning in numbers.

Let’s get brutally honest.

Wearables?

Great for reminders.

But how many people actually change their routine after seeing their step count?

Home diagnostics?

You get a new set of numbers every month.

But do you know what to do with them?

Or just stress about what they mean?

AI driven health?

Cool tech, big claims.
But most of these algorithms are built on tiny data sets.

Impressive in a demo - rarely gamechanging in real life.

So here’s the real question:

Are these tools helping us live longer and healthier?

Or are they just selling us the illusion of control?

If you want to know whether a health tool is worth your time, ask yourself:

→ Does it prompt real action, or just give me more data to worry about?

Because more info isn’t always better.

Share your thoughts: Is tech making your health better, or just noisier?

I thought I was doing everything right.  

I trained at the gym five, sometimes six times a week.  

My diet was dialed in.  

Sleep? 7-8 hours, every night.  

Supplements? Only the best, and always after careful research.  

If someone had asked for a model of 'healthy living,' I would have probably been the poster child.  

But then my body hit a wall I never saw coming.  

It started quietly.  

A sense of unease that crept into my mornings.  

Panic attacks that hijacked my days.  

Racing heartbeat, dizziness, a chest so tight it felt like someone was sitting on it.  

I kept pushing.  

More discipline, I thought.  

Harder work.  

I made sure to never miss a workout.  

My meals were flawless.  

But none of it mattered.  

The panic disorder worsened.  

Doctors told me my blood work was solid.  

But I felt like my body was breaking down.  

The problem is:

→ Chronic stress doesn’t care about your routines.

→ It doesn’t care about your protein intake or your PRs.

→ It will wear you down, quietly, until there’s nothing left to push.  

I had missed the biggest lever for longevity.  

Stress was the main culprit.  

Years of ‘pushing through’ had caught up with me.  

It affected my entire body.  

Looking back, I wish someone had told me:  

→ No routine can outwork relentless stress.

→ No supplement can fix a nervous system that never gets to rest.  

If this sounds familiar, know this:  

You’re not weak if you need to slow down.  

You’re not failing if you need to rest.  

Sometimes, the bravest thing you can do is stop chasing perfection and start healing from the inside out.  

Who else has learned this lesson the hard way?

Most “breakthroughs” in longevity aren’t innovation. They’re noise. 

It’s time to stop pretending every new molecule or device is a revolution. 

If you’re in health or longevity, you need a filter. 

Here’s how I separate the real from the hype every day: 

1. Start with the problem, not the product.

→ Real innovation solves a clear, unmet need.

↳ Is there a measurable consequence if we ignore it?

↳ Or are we just excited about a shiny technology? 

2. Demand a causal link.

→ Can you draw a straight line from the intervention to the outcome?

↳ Or is the mechanism just handwaving and wishful thinking?

↳ Look for intermediate steps you can actually measure. 

3. Outcomes: Not all results are created equal.

→ Are we talking symptom relief, a blip in a biomarker, or actual reduction in longterm risk?

↳ Don’t let someone swap out a temporary effect for the real goal. 

4. Show your evidence tier.

→ Is it cell cultures? Mice? Observational human data?

↳ Or do we have a real intervention trial?

↳ Surrogate markers must be justified, not just assumed to matter. 

5. Incentives matter more than you think.

→ Who benefits? Who pays?

↳ If the risk is spread thin and the profits are concentrated, raise your standards. 

6. Incremental progress beats moonshots.

→ Most longevity gains come from doing the basics better: measure, monitor, integrate.

↳ Beware the miracle cure—more often than not it’s just marketing 

7. Experiment like a scientist, not an influencer.

→ Early trials should be reversible, closely tracked, and limited in scope.

↳ The wilder the claims, the tighter your process should be. 

8. Update or get outdated.

→ If the data changes and your protocol doesn’t, you’re not doing science—you’re selling a story. 

Most “innovations” in health are just noise dressed as progress. 

If you want to do real work in longevity, start by asking harder questions. 

Which of these filters do you see ignored most often? 

Let’s call out the noise together.

Last week I wrote about Big Wellness.

But there’s an older, more powerful force doing far more damage. And it’s not Big Pharma.

"Big Food."

The industrial food system that learned how to bend science, guidelines, and public trust - at scale.

Here’s one example that still blows my mind:

Sugar-loaded breakfast cereals carrying a “heart healthy” label.

Carrying the American Heart Association’s Heart-Check mark.

Cereals with double-digit grams of added sugar per serving. Marketed to parents. Framed as prevention.

That didn’t happen by accident.

It happened because:

→ Industry money funded nutrition research with clear conflicts of interest
→ Endpoints were selectively emphasized
→ Surrogate markers were often prioritized over long-term clinical outcomes
→ Dissenting scientists were sidelined or labeled “controversial”

For decades, dietary fat - particularly saturated fat - was framed as the primary villain in public health messaging.

Meanwhile, refined carbs and added sugar quietly took over the food supply.

The result?

→ Rising rates of insulin resistance
→ Earlier onset metabolic disease and higher lifetime cardiometabolic risk
→ Kids starting life metabolically behind

This wasn’t a simple mistake.

Internal documents, historical analyses, and retrospective reviews show documented efforts by parts of the food and sugar industry to shift blame away from sugar and toward fat - while products got sweeter, more processed, and more profitable.

Big Food didn’t even need to lie loudly.

They just needed to fund enough uncertainty.

A half-truth wrapped in a guideline is far more powerful than an Instagram scam.

Today we argue about seed oils, saturated fat, keto vs vegan.

But zoom out.

The real constant is this:

Ultra-processed food, engineered for margin and shelf life, now makes up the majority of calories in the modern diet.

And we’re surprised chronic disease keeps rising?

If we want to talk honestly about health, prevention, and trust in science, we can’t stop at influencers or fringe wellness.

We have to look upstream.

At incentives.
At who funded the evidence.
At who benefited when guidelines were written.

Question worth sitting with:

What else do we still call “healthy” because it once passed through an industry filter?

I’ll keep pulling these threads.

Everyone's celebrating the new US food pyramid.

But here's what nobody's saying:

The old pyramid wasn't the problem. The problem is nobody followed it.

Almost no Americans met all dietary guidelines in recent years. That's a staggering figure.

They didn't fail because the advice was wrong. They failed because they ignored it.

Yes, the new pyramid has issues. Let me be clear about that:

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝗮𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗳𝗮𝘁 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗶𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
Written guidance says keep saturated fat under 10%. 
Yet the visual shows red meat, butter, and beef tallow front and center. 
You can't preach limits while promoting the opposite. Pick one.

𝗠𝗶𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗹𝗲𝗴𝘂𝗺𝗲𝘀
Beans, lentils, chickpeas are excellent protein sources, high in fiber, cheap, and sustainable. 
They are nowhere on the pyramid. 

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘄𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝗿𝗶𝘀𝗼𝗻
Everyone compares this to the 1990 pyramid. 
But the 2020 guidelines already pushed real foods over processed junk. Comparing to 30-year-old guidance makes anything look revolutionary when it's not.

𝗙𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗼𝘄 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘆
Meat and dairy industry funding shaped this pyramid. 
We call out Big Pharma for conflicts of interest. 
"Big Meat" and "Big Dairy" deserve the same scrutiny.

The truth is that none of these flaws matter as much as the compliance problem.

You can design the perfect pyramid. If people don't follow it, it's just a poster.

The real failure was implementation - not the pyramid itself. 

This might be progress, but it's no revolution until people actually follow it.

What do you think is the real barrier - the guidelines or the follow-through?

♻️ Repost if you think nutrition policy deserves the same scrutiny as pharma.

Every scroll is an emotional lottery ticket.

One second you're laughing at a dog video. The next you're watching someone's trauma unfold. Then a rage-bait political clip. Then a crying child. Then an ad for something you didn't know you wanted.

Your nervous system doesn't get to choose. It just reacts.

We've built a system where our emotional state is determined by an algorithm optimized for engagement, not wellbeing.

And we're handing our kids the same ticket.

The mental health crisis isn't that mysterious if you look deeper. 

We're exposing developing brains to emotional whiplash hundreds of times per day. 

Dopamine spikes. Cortisol floods. Anxiety. Depression. Attention fragmentation. All of that every day.

Just look at the data:
→ Teen depression rates have doubled since 2010
→ Anxiety disorders are now the most common mental health issue in adolescents
→ Some sources even suggest that average attention span has dropped below that of a goldfish.. 

We wouldn't let our children eat whatever random food appeared in front of them. We wouldn't let them watch unfiltered news for 4 hours straight.

But we hand them devices that do exactly that, emotionally.

What actually helps:

→ Audit the type of content, not just screen time
→ Ask: Is this feeding curiosity or hijacking emotions?
→ Create friction between impulse and consumption
→ Protect mornings and evenings from the scroll

Short-form content isn't inherently evil. But unfiltered, algorithm-driven emotional exposure is a real risk.

Be cautious about what information you consume.

Be even more cautious about what type.

And be most cautious when it comes to your children.

Their nervous systems are still under construction.

What boundaries have you set around content consumption in your household?

♻️ Repost if you think we need to talk more about content quality, not just quantity.

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