This is what Ilfirin coaches toward. It isn't built around any one expert — it's a synthesis of large prospective cohorts, meta-analyses, and causal (Mendelian-randomization) evidence. Where the research is strong, we say so. Where it's thin, we say that too — and we don't anchor there.
Every number below traces to a named, dated, peer-reviewed source. We'd rather under-claim than overstate.
Not all evidence is equal. Every recommendation on this page carries a tier so you know what's rock-solid versus what's still emerging. Most coaches just say they're "research-backed" — we show you which research, and how strong it is, including when something popular (NMN, cold plunges, fasting) is still unproven. We prioritize Tier 1, and we don't promote interventions above the tier their evidence supports.
Large prospective cohorts (≥100k participants), meta-analyses that converge across populations, Mendelian-randomization causal evidence, or consistent RCTs. These are the things to prioritize. Most of this page is here.
Multiple cohort studies, smaller but consistent meta-analyses, mechanistic plausibility. Worth following — just less certain than Tier 1.
Limited cohorts, conflicting findings, or a strong mechanism but little human-outcome data. Worth tracking; weak commitment. We tell you it's emerging.
Heavily promoted online but weak human evidence. We do not anchor here — and we name the things that live here so you can spot the hype.
Exercise is necessary but not sufficient. The framework ranks domains by the magnitude of their mortality and healthspan impact in the strongest available evidence — and each carries its receipts.
Cardiorespiratory fitness, muscular strength, daily activity, and balance. The single highest-leverage domain in the strongest evidence — and most of it is captured automatically by your wearable.
In a head-to-head, cardiorespiratory fitness predicts mortality more powerfully than smoking, hypertension, or diabetes — with no observed upper limit of benefit. The curve never flattens; fitter is better, even past elite-for-age.
Independent of cardiovascular fitness. The dose-response is a smooth gradient, not a cliff: each 5 kg less grip is associated with ~16% higher all-cause mortality across 17 countries.
Strength training cuts all-cause, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality on a J-shaped curve. Maximum benefit lands at just 30–60 minutes per week. More is not categorically better; past ~60 min/week the benefit plateaus.
Mortality drops steeply with more daily activity — but the benefit largely flattens by ~7,000–9,000 steps. The famous 10,000 isn't magic; it adds little beyond the sweet spot.
Less direct mortality data than the above, but simple field tests of balance and floor-transfer predict it — most relevant in adults 50+, where falls drive major morbidity.
Sleep duration and consistency, autonomic regulation, and how well you bounce back. Mostly captured by your wearable — with one self-rated check-in that, surprisingly, often beats the sensors.
Mortality is lowest near ~7 hours; both short and long sleep climb from there. But day-to-day regularity is a stronger predictor than duration in recent data — the top quintile of sleep-regularity saw 20–48% lower mortality even after adjusting for how long people slept.
Both predict mortality beyond resting heart rate. We render them carefully: HRV as a rolling z-score against your own baseline (single-day numbers invite panic), and we flag when a workout's recovery profile makes the HRR target invalid rather than scoring it wrong.
A counterintuitive finding worth honoring: a simple morning rating of sleep, soreness, and energy is more sensitive to training-load change than HRV or submaximal heart rate. So a ~30-second check-in is a real signal, not a formality.
Untreated moderate-to-severe obstructive sleep apnea independently raises all-cause and cardiovascular mortality, and it's fixable. We treat our wearable oxygen-variation reading as a screening flag, never a diagnosis.
Diet quality, protein adequacy, fiber, ultra-processed share, and alcohol. We track what you actually eat and show you the evidence. We don't moralize — pattern beats perfection.
One of the few dietary patterns tested in a hard-outcome randomized trial: it cut major cardiovascular events ~30% in a high-risk population. Vegetables, legumes, whole grains, nuts, olive oil, fish; little red and processed meat.
Each extra 8 g/day of fiber is associated with ~19% lower all-cause mortality. On the other side, higher ultra-processed intake tracks ~21% higher all-cause mortality — and a controlled inpatient trial showed it drives spontaneous overeating.
The right target depends on your goal state, so we hold a range rather than a dogma. Per-meal dose matters as much as the daily total.
The "moderate drinking is protective" story has largely been retracted; the old benefit was an artifact of sick people quitting. The level that minimizes health loss is zero. Honestly, though: below ~25 g/day the data are methodologically contested — the load-bearing harm is well above that, for cancer, and is causal.
Insulin resistance shows up in the data long before a diabetes diagnosis. Our primary anchor is the TyG index — computable from any standard lipid + glucose panel, and more reproducible than fasting insulin.
The biomarkers from your bloodwork. Upload your annual physical or longevity panel and Ilfirin reads it, compares to evidence-based targets, and computes the markers most labs don't surface for you.
By Mendelian randomization, ApoB-bearing particles cause atherosclerotic heart disease; cumulative lifetime exposure is what matters. It's a more accurate risk marker than LDL-C because every atherogenic particle counts roughly equally.
Modern guidelines stopped treating anything under 130/80 as fine. The 2024 European guideline created an "elevated" band (120–139 / 70–89) that calls for lifestyle change for everyone and treatment if it stays up in higher-risk people.
From a standard CBC + lipid panel we derive several validated inflammation and lipid-risk markers at no extra cost — the kind of signal buried in a printout you'd otherwise file away.
PhenoAge estimates biological age from ten standard lab values and predicts mortality well. But it's responsive to a passing illness or a hard training block, so a single reading can mislead by years. We show it as a glanceable trend and won't hang decisions on one number. No $300 epigenetic "aging clock" required.
The conditions you live in — social connection, air, light, noise, purpose, your senses. The most-overlooked domain, and several of its anchors rival the physical ones in size.
One of the strongest non-physical longevity signals there is — the mortality impact of social isolation is comparable to smoking ~15 cigarettes a day. We use the validated 3-item UCLA scale, not a vague mood rating, and you self-report — we don't surveil your social life.
Fine-particle (PM2.5) exposure raises mortality on a straight line all the way down — there's no clean cutoff below which it's "safe," just lower-is-better. Indoor air dominates total dose for most adults.
Bright nights and dark days each independently predict higher mortality in large actigraphy data; chronic environmental noise is causally linked to cardiovascular death. Cheap to address, easy to ignore.
Self-rated purpose independently predicts lower mortality. Untreated hearing and vision loss are linked to cognitive decline. And some screenings cut mortality directly through early detection — so we keep an age-appropriate calendar.
These get heavy airtime in longevity influencer space, but the human-outcome evidence isn't there yet. Saying so is part of the product. If you enjoy any of them and they're safe, that's your call — we just won't dress them up as foundational.
A recent meta-analysis found a brief stress dip and a short-lived quality-of-life bump that was gone by 90 days — plus a small rise in acute inflammation right after. No mortality data. Marketing has outrun the evidence.
Cain 2025, PLOS One (11 RCTs, n=3,177).Mechanistically plausible, but the human data are mixed — a controlled trial found no body-composition advantage over normal eating when calories were matched. A fine strategy if it suits you; not a pillar.
Lowe 2020, JAMA Intern Med.Real model-organism and mechanistic data — but no human mortality or healthspan-RCT outcomes for any of them. Rapamycin's recent human trial missed its primary endpoint; metformin may blunt exercise gains in non-diabetics; NAD⁺ precursors raise NAD⁺ without a demonstrated functional benefit. We'll revisit each as outcomes land.
PEARL 2024/25 (rapamycin); Konopka 2019, Aging Cell (metformin); 2025 NAD⁺-precursor meta-analysis.Strong association with lower mortality — but from a single Finnish, single-sex, sauna-normalized cohort, with limited replication elsewhere. Worth including if you have access and enjoy it; not foundational.
Laukkanen 2015, JAMA Intern Med (Kuopio, n=2,315 men).Tier 1 cardiovascular-outcome evidence — but only in the population it was tested in: people who are overweight or obese with established or high cardiovascular risk, where it cut major cardiac events ~20%. There is no evidence, and no indication, for lean, metabolically healthy people taking it for "longevity." And because a third or more of the weight lost is lean mass, anyone on one should treat protein and resistance training as more important, not less.
Lincoff 2023, NEJM (SELECT, n=17,604); Wilding 2021, NEJM (lean-mass loss 45.2%).The cheapest, most-studied, safest training adjunct — Tier 1–2 for strength and lean mass, working through the proven strength→longevity pathway (not as a longevity drug in itself; there's no direct mortality data). The popular cognitive claim is Tier 3: the signal shows up mostly in older, sleep-deprived, or stressed people, not healthy young adults. We won't promote it above its tier.
Chilibeck 2017 (strength/lean mass); Prokopidis 2023 & EFSA 2024 (cognition — unproven in healthy adults).If you'd want a longevity coach that cites every claim, names its evidence tiers, and tells you plainly when something is hype — that's the whole idea. It runs on your own computer, and your records stay in files you own.
An early beta — not a finished product, and not pretending to be.