The longevity blood panel: which markers and why

A plain-English tour of the markers people track for healthspan — and the published targets attached to each.

Educational reference — not medical advice.

This article describes published reference targets and what each marker measures. It does not diagnose anything, interpret your results, or tell you what to do about them. Lab values are for your physician to read in context. Consult your doctor.

"Standard" bloodwork is built to flag disease — it asks "is this person sick?" The longevity panel asks a different question: "is this person on the trajectory they want for the next forty years?" That shift changes which markers get attention and, often, what counts as a good number. Here are the markers that show up again and again, what each one is, and the published targets named authors cite for them.

Cardiovascular markers

Marker	What it is	Published target
ApoB	One particle of ApoB rides on every artery-clogging lipoprotein, so it counts the actual particles — a sharper risk measure than LDL cholesterol alone.	<60 mg/dL (Attia, aggressive)
Lp(a)	A largely genetic, lifelong-stable particle; elevated in roughly 1 in 5 people and an independent heart-risk factor.	<50 mg/dL (≈<75 nmol/L)
Triglycerides	Circulating fat; high levels track with metabolic dysfunction.	<100 mg/dL optimal (vs <150 "normal")
hsCRP	A high-sensitivity inflammation marker; the "hs" version resolves the low end where cardiovascular risk lives.	<1.0 mg/L (low-risk band)

ApoB is the one the longevity literature tends to put first. Peter Attia, in Outlive, argues for driving it well below standard "normal" — his stated target is under 60 mg/dL, lower still for people with a family history or elevated Lp(a). That is his published position, not a universal guideline.

Metabolic markers

Marker	What it is	Published target
HbA1c	Your average blood sugar over ~3 months, read from glycated hemoglobin.	<5.7% (non-diabetic, ADA)
Fasting glucose	Blood sugar after an overnight fast.	<100 mg/dL (ADA)
Fasting insulin	How hard the pancreas is working to hold glucose steady — often rises years before glucose does.	~<5–8 µIU/mL (Attia)

The metabolic group is where the "trajectory vs disease" gap is widest: fasting insulin can drift upward long before glucose or HbA1c cross any clinical line, which is exactly why the longevity crowd watches it.

Inflammation, lipids of the cell, and the rest

Marker	What it is	Published target
Omega-3 index	The share of EPA + DHA in your red-blood-cell membranes — a stable read on long-term omega-3 status.	>8% optimal; <4% deficient (OmegaQuant/Harris)
Homocysteine	An amino acid tied to B-vitamin status and vascular risk when elevated.	<9–10 µmol/L
Vitamin D (25-OH)	Circulating vitamin D status.	40–60 ng/mL (optimal-leaning view)

Why the targets differ from your lab report. Many of these numbers sit below the "normal" range your lab prints. That isn't a contradiction — a reference range describes where most of the population falls, while an optimal target describes where a given author argues risk is lowest. The next guide covers that distinction in full.

Marker logs your panel against these cited bands

Enter a blood draw and Marker plots each value over time with its target band shaded behind the line — and shows the named source for every band (e.g. "ApoB <60 mg/dL — Attia, Outlive"), not an unsourced "normal." Position on a range, never a verdict. No account, offline, pay once.

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Sources

General education about published reference targets. Not a diagnosis, not medical advice, and not a substitute for your physician's reading of your labs.