Key takeaways
- Americans now live to 79 on average, but spend about 12 of those years in poor health. That is the widest gap between lifespan and healthspan of any country studied.
- The biggest returns come from a handful of areas: fitness, strength, metabolic health, sleep, connection and nutrition. Five healthy habits were linked to a projected 12 to 14 more years of life at age 50.
- You can't improve what you don't measure. In recent national data, fewer than 7 in 100 American adults had optimal cardiometabolic health, and millions don't know where they stand.
- Our approach is simple: Measure. Build. Improve. Know your baseline, build a plan around your own numbers, and retest so you can see what's changing.
I talk with people every week who take great care of their money. They have a retirement plan. They rebalance their portfolio. They know their numbers.
Then I ask when they last looked at their own numbers, meaning their blood work, their strength, their sleep. The answer is usually a shrug.
So I'll make the case I make in my office: your health is the most important long-term investment you'll ever make. Like any good investment, it rewards starting early, tracking your numbers, and putting your effort where the returns are highest.
The 12-year gap nobody plans for
Here's the good news. U.S. life expectancy reached 79.0 years in 2024, up from 78.4 the year before, according to the CDC.
Here's the part we don't talk about enough. A 2024 Mayo Clinic analysis of 183 countries found that Americans spend about 12.4 years of life in poor health, the largest gap between lifespan and healthspan in the world. The global average is 9.6 years.
In other words, we've gotten good at adding years. We haven't gotten as good at making those years good.
The money follows the same pattern. The U.S. spent $5.3 trillion on health care in 2024, about $15,474 per person. The CDC reports that 90% of that spending goes to care for people with chronic and mental health conditions. Most of our health spending goes to people who are already living with chronic conditions, rather than to building health before problems start.
Why "investing" is the right word
Investing means putting in effort now that keeps paying off later. The research on health behaves the same way.
In one of my favorite studies, researchers measured the fitness of nearly 20,000 adults in their late 40s. Then they followed their Medicare costs about two decades later. The fittest men averaged $7,569 a year in later-life health care costs. The least fit averaged $12,811. Women showed the same pattern: $6,065 versus $10,029.
People who were fit at 49 had lower health care costs in their 70s. That looks a lot like compounding.
The returns also show up in years of life. A Harvard study of more than 120,000 adults looked at five low-risk habits:
- never smoking
- staying active at least 30 minutes a day
- keeping a healthy weight
- eating well
- drinking only moderately
People with all five had a projected life expectancy at age 50 that was about 14 years longer for women and about 12 years longer for men than people with none.
None of these habits requires anything exotic. The return comes from doing them consistently, and that starts with knowing where you are.
Where your health investment pays the biggest dividends
If I were building a "health portfolio" from the research, these are the six holdings I'd weight most heavily.
1. Cardiorespiratory fitness: the strongest single predictor
In a study of more than 750,000 U.S. veterans, the least-fit adults had about four times the risk of death of the most fit. Each step up in fitness (one MET, a standard unit of exercise capacity) was linked to about 14% lower risk.
In a separate Cleveland Clinic study of 122,000 adults, being unfit carried a mortality risk comparable to or greater than smoking. The researchers found no level of fitness above which the benefit stopped.
What it means for you: you don't need to become an athlete. Small, steady gains in fitness are linked to meaningfully lower risk.
2. Strength and muscle: your insurance policy for later life
Research reviews estimate that muscle mass declines about 3–8% per decade after age 30, and faster after 60. That loss is linked to frailty, falls and lost independence later in life.
The data on strength are striking:
- Grip strength predicted death better than systolic blood pressure in a study of nearly 140,000 adults across 17 countries. Each 5 kg drop in grip strength was linked to a 16% higher risk of death.
- Just 30–60 minutes a week of strength training was linked to 10–17% lower risk of death from all causes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Combined with aerobic exercise, the lower risk reached about 40%.
- In adults in their 70s, leg strength mattered more than muscle size. Stronger muscle, not just bigger muscle, tracked with longer life.
What it means for you: strength is something you can build at any age, and it's one of the highest-return habits there is.
This is also where technology can help. Emsculpt NEO® is FDA-cleared to strengthen and tone muscle. We use it alongside regular strength training, not as a replacement for it.
3. Metabolic health: the most common hidden risk
This one surprises people. A 2022 study in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology found that only 6.8% of U.S. adults had optimal cardiometabolic health in 2017–2018. That study looked at blood pressure, blood sugar, cholesterol, weight and heart disease.
The CDC estimates that 115 million American adults have prediabetes, and more than a quarter of people with diabetes haven't been diagnosed.
What it means for you: feeling fine and being metabolically healthy aren't the same thing. The only way to know is to measure.
4. Sleep: the free performance enhancer
A large analysis of more than 1.3 million people found that regularly sleeping under 7 hours was linked to a 12% higher risk of death. Unusually long sleep was also a warning sign, often of something else going on underneath.
The American Heart Association now counts sleep among its "Life's Essential 8" measures of heart health, with a target of 7–9 hours a night for adults.
What it means for you: protecting your sleep is one of the cheapest health investments you can make.
5. Connection: the factor people forget
A review of 148 studies found that people with stronger social relationships had 50% better odds of survival over the study period. The U.S. Surgeon General's 2023 advisory reported that social isolation is linked to a 29% higher risk of premature death.
What it means for you: time with people you care about isn't a luxury. The research treats it like a health behavior, because it is one.
6. Nutrition: food first, then fill the gaps
Poor diet was linked to about one in five deaths worldwide in a major Lancet analysis. On the positive side, eating about five servings of fruits and vegetables a day (two fruit, three vegetable) was linked to 13% lower risk of death compared with two servings.
What it means for you: a plate built mostly from whole foods is the foundation. Supplements come second, and only where your labs show a need. More on that below.
Measure: you can't improve what you don't measure
No financial advisor would build your plan without first looking at your accounts. Yet most people make health decisions without ever seeing their numbers. That's why everything we do at Kennedy Wellness Labs starts with a baseline.
Three of the AHA's eight core measures of heart health (cholesterol, blood sugar and blood pressure) are numbers you can only get by measuring. A comprehensive panel goes further. It can show you markers a basic physical often skips:
- ApoB, which European guidelines describe as a more accurate measure of cardiovascular risk than LDL cholesterol
- hs-CRP, a marker of inflammation. In a 30-year study of nearly 28,000 women, high levels were linked to 70% higher risk of major cardiovascular events.
- your omega-3 index
- vitamin D
- fasting insulin
Our Foundation panel measures 79 biomarkers, and Total Wellness measures 109.
We also calculate your Kennedy BioAge. It uses a published research formula (the PhenoAge method, Levine et al., 2018) that combines nine routine blood markers with your age. In the original research, each year of higher "phenotypic age" was linked to about 9% higher mortality risk.
I want to be clear about what BioAge is: an estimate, not a diagnosis. It's a useful single number to track over time, a bit like checking your portfolio's overall balance rather than every individual holding.
Build: a plan built on your numbers, not on trends
Your numbers tell us where your effort will pay off most. That's what we map out together at your first visit.
Your Live Healthier blueprint is a written plan covering:
- nutrition
- movement and strength
- sleep and stress
- connection
- a supplement plan matched to your biomarkers
I'm careful with that last part, and I think you should be too.
The large VITAL trial gave more than 25,000 adults without heart disease or cancer vitamin D, omega-3s or both. It found that neither supplement reduced major heart events or cancer overall, and most participants weren't deficient to begin with. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force also says there isn't enough evidence to recommend multivitamins for healthy adults.
That's exactly why we test first and recommend second. If your vitamin D is low, correcting it makes sense. If your omega-3 index is low, we can address it. If a marker is already where it should be, you don't need a supplement for it.
Our whole-food formulas are made in our own lab, and many start on our Colorado urban farm. They're matched to your results rather than to the latest trend.
Your blueprint then points you to the program that fits your goals. That might be strength and mobility, healthy aging, sleep and stress, body composition, or pelvic-floor health. Pelvic-floor health is more common than most people realize: in national survey data, about six in ten U.S. adult women reported some urinary leakage, and about one in four had moderate or more severe symptoms. For that, Emsella® is an FDA-cleared option for incontinence.
Improve: retest, refine, keep building
Good investors review their statements. At six months, your Progress retest (51 biomarkers) and a new Kennedy BioAge show what's changing.
The research says even modest gains count:
- One step up in fitness was linked to about 14% lower risk.
- Five kilograms of grip strength was linked to a 16% difference in risk.
From there, we refine your formulas and your plan, and you keep building.
The best time to start
There's an old saying about trees: the best time to plant one was 20 years ago, and the second-best time is today. Health works the same way. People who were fit at 49 had lower health care costs in their 70s. The habits you build this year are an investment in the version of you who's still hiking, golfing, traveling and playing with grandkids decades from now.
You already know how to invest. This is just the most important account you'll ever manage.
Ready to invest in yourself? Your first step is a $100 first visit with the Kennedy Wellness Labs care team. We'll look at where you are, talk about where you want to be, and start building your blueprint.