LifeOmic app – can it prevent disease and monitor healthspan at a click of a button?
Digital health apps have nearly doubled in the past few years and have a projected value of $28 billion by the year 2023. With over 318,000 health apps currently on the market differentiation is difficult, however, a new addition has recently been added by LifeOmic with their new Life Extend app.
Longevity.Technology: The new platform aims to increase lifespan by preventing disease and promoting healthspan. As we have become more reliant on phones – using them to catalogue our events and habits – the use of apps to predict and monitor health has grown. While measuring heart rate and step counts promotes health and Longevity, the new Life Extend app goes further.
The TRL score for this Longevity.Technology domain is currently set at: ‘Technology has completed initial trials and demonstrates preliminary safety data.’
The TRL score for the technology addressed in this article is: ‘Technology completes late stage trials and has all evidence to prove safety and efficacy.’
LifeOmic was founded in 2016 in Indianapolis by CEO Dr Don Brown ‘aka’ the most successful serial software entrepreneur in the Midwest. With a team of engineers, security specialists and scientists the company is built on the premise of providing precision health to better healthspans through technology – particularly mobile applications [1]. Dr Brown states, “We’ve created an app for people who want to take control of their health rather than wait until they get sick and hope a doctor can figure it out.” [2]
The app features the ability to access a digital library of health information, daily to-do lists, customised health recommendations and the collection of Life Points. The Life Extend is based on the concept of the five pillars of health: nutrition, exercise, mindfulness, sleep and the newest trend: intermediate fasting. The aim of the app is to encourage consumers by the game-like set-up of having to gain LIFE Points by tracking their health and being able to redeem them for various rewards [2].
While the ability to track your food and exercise with your phone may seem to be old news now. The app also allows the user to store data from genetic and blood analysis and be linked to upload data from other digital health devices to give the most comprehensive view of your health.
The app uses the same artificial intelligence of LifeOmic Precision Health Cloud to help track health data as is used in numerous medical centres. However, this is not the company’s first health app, the first one focused on users monitoring their intermediate fasting. This predecessor’s success with over three quarters of a million consumers spurred on the creation of the Extend Life app.
However, with so many health-apps appearing in an already saturated market so the question needs to be asked: how is this new app different from all the rest? LifeOmic are clear about this, the killer innovation is its social network. The app supports users in forming in-app social groups, creating support systems that encourage positive behavioural change. Anyone who knows the difference between going to the gym alone and going with a friend can attest to how much power this could have.
But then there is the more nefarious side of social networks to contend with, how safe is consumer data? The application is designed by a series of software engineers and cloud experts, and claims to use the same security technology as medical records. The say that user data is stored in LifeOmic’s secure, HIPAA compliant, Precision Health Cloud. This might not fully convince everyone, nor should it, but it shows that companies of this kind are at-least considering modern privacy scandals that have rocked larger Internet 2.0 companies, and even states, in recent times.
The Life Extend app is very new, so its quality and its place in the market are still uncertain. However, with 41 customers already rating the product as 5 out of 5 stars, it is already showing some promise, not only as a new staple for the digital health market but as an easy and effective way to increase Longevity.
