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Test before you start something new, and again after.

Most people starting a supplement or a new routine go by how they feel. A blood sample before you start and another after gives you numbers you can line up side by side: the Inflammation Compass shows which parts of your inflammation response moved, and by how much.

Reserve your spot What you'll see

Inflammation changes with age.
Lower isn't the goal.

Researchers use the word inflammaging for the slow, low-grade rise in inflammation that tends to come with age.1 Across large populations, inflammation that stays active for years is linked with many long-term health conditions.2 Those are findings about groups of people, and the Inflammation Compass doesn’t assess anyone’s risk.

None of that makes lower better. A hard workout triggers inflammation on purpose, as part of how muscle repairs, and an infection needs a strong response to clear it. The concern in the research is a response that doesn’t end when its work is done.5,6 The goal is an inflammation response that fits the situation and finishes its work, which is why your report shows each result as a position against a reference group, never as a score to push down.

One sample before, one after,
and the numbers side by side.

The Inflammation Compass reads tens of thousands of genes in your immune cells from one blood sample and reports six readings, 38 pathways and your immune cell mix. We don’t sell supplements, and we never sell your data.

  1. Before you start

    Your first sample starts your personal baseline, the point every later result is compared with. Your Bearing shows where each of the six readings sits against a reference group, people whose blood was measured the same way: within its reference range, below it, above it, or at its edge.

  2. After a change

    Your next sample shows which readings moved, by how much, and which stayed about the same. Your Course lays that out reading by reading. Gene activity shifts a little from day to day, so a reading is marked as moved only when the shift is bigger than the usual difference between two samples taken close together.

  3. Over several samples

    Two samples make a comparison, and three or more begin a trend. Your Map plots your Activation Level against your Resolution Level over time, beside the reference group drawn as the galaxy, so you can see the path you’ve taken and where you are now.

The six readings

Three readings cover the signals that start a response and three cover the signals that end it. Each one groups pathways from one broad part of the inflammation system, and there is no overall score.

Activation starts a response

  • Activation Level

    The fast, built-in alarm: signals that raise fever, call in immune cells and get a response started.

  • Targeted Defense

    Signals that show a threat to T cells and power up the cells that kill marked targets.

  • Where the Fast Response Is Working

    Whether the fast response is mainly in the blood or moving cells out into tissue. A balance, not a level.

Resolution ends it

  • Resolution Level

    Early feedback and calming signals that keep a response from running on.

  • Regulatory Cells & Repair Signals

    Regulatory T cells and repair signals that hold a response down over time.

  • Clean-up & Rebuilding

    Spent immune cells are cleared away and the body shifts toward repair.

Your immune cell mix is estimated from the same sample, so you can see whether the mix of cells changed as well as what those cells are doing.

Already started a supplement or a routine?
It isn't too late.

Your first sample becomes your baseline from that point on. It can’t show what changed before you gave it, so it won’t tell you what the supplement or routine has already done. It will show where you stand now, and later samples will show what moves from here, including after you change, pause or add something.

The report shows what changed, not why, so it works best alongside what you know about your own life: your training log, your sleep, what you started and when. You can share it with your clinician, and it includes pages written for them.

Aging clocks and routine labs
measure something else.

Each of these tests reads a different layer of your biology, and they work well together.

  • Epigenetic age tests

    Estimate a biological age from chemical marks on your DNA, called methylation. Some break the estimate down by organ system. The result is a summary number rather than a view of which parts of your inflammation system are active.

  • Routine labs such as hs-CRP

    hs-CRP measures how much of one protein your liver releases. It is well established and inexpensive, and it shows that inflammation changed, but it wasn’t designed to show which part of your inflammation system changed or whether the signals that end a response are at work.

  • The Inflammation Compass

    Reads which genes your immune cells are using, from the signals that start a response to the signals that end it, and shows how every result was calculated. It adds to your other tests and doesn’t replace any of them.

Much of the biology of aging
connects to the inflammation system.

Research on aging describes several processes that feed into inflammation, and many longevity routines aim at one of them.4 This is the research context. The Inflammation Compass doesn’t measure these processes; it reads gene activity in the immune cells in your blood.

  • NAD+ and sirtuins

    SIRT1 · NAMPT · CD38

    NAD+ is a coenzyme every cell uses. Sirtuins are enzymes that need it, and in cell studies SIRT1 can switch off part of NF-κB, a master switch for inflammatory genes. 3

  • Mitochondria

    PPARGC1A · TFAM

    When mitochondria are damaged, fragments of their DNA and reactive oxygen can leak out, and immune sensors read those fragments as a danger signal. 4

  • Senescent cells

    CDKN2A · CDKN1A

    Cells that stop dividing but do not die can release a mix of inflammatory signals into their surroundings, which researchers link to inflammation that rises with age. 4

  • Autophagy

    MTOR · ATG5 · MAP1LC3B

    Cells recycle their own worn-out parts. In immune cells, that recycling is part of how a cell returns to rest after a response. 4

  • DNA damage

    PARP1 · ATM

    Repairing DNA uses up NAD+, and damage that goes unrepaired can set off the same danger sensors that start an inflammation response. 4

How these processes show up in blood immune cells, and how they shift across different people and routines, is still being worked out, by researchers everywhere and by our own team.

What it
can't tell you.

The Inflammation Compass shows what changed and by how much. It can’t show why, because many things move these readings, and it doesn’t show whether a supplement, routine or other change worked or is safe. It doesn’t diagnose, rule out or predict any disease, and it doesn’t estimate biological age or measure NAD+, telomeres or senescent cells.

One sample is one moment. A reading within its range means you are similar to the reference group at that sample, which is not a statement about your health. What a change means is for you, and your clinician if you have one, to weigh.

Read more
about what you're trying.

Start with your baseline.

Your first sample starts your personal baseline. Each later sample shows which readings moved, by how much, and which stayed about the same.

$389 per test, or $365 each when you order 4 or more. Mobile phlebotomy and shipping included.

Reserve your spot
Sources and further reading

References

1. Franceschi C, et al. (2018) — Inflammaging: a new immune-metabolic viewpoint for age-related diseases. Nat Rev Endocrinol. 14(10):576–590. doi:10.1038/s41574-018-0059-4. PMID 30046148.
2. Furman D, et al. (2019) — Chronic inflammation in the etiology of disease across the life span. Nat Med. 25(12):1822–1832. doi:10.1038/s41591-019-0675-0. PMID 31806905.
3. Yeung F, et al. (2004) — Modulation of NF-kappaB-dependent transcription and cell survival by the SIRT1 deacetylase. EMBO J. 23(12):2369–2380. doi:10.1038/sj.emboj.7600244. PMID 15152190.
4. López-Otín C, et al. (2023) — Hallmarks of aging: an expanding universe. Cell. 186(2):243–278. doi:10.1016/j.cell.2022.11.001. PMID 36599349.
5. Serhan CN. (2014) — Pro-resolving lipid mediators are leads for resolution physiology. Nature. 510(7503):92–101. doi:10.1038/nature13479. PMID 24899309.
6. Fullerton JN, Gilroy DW. (2016) — Resolution of inflammation: a new therapeutic frontier. Nat Rev Drug Discov. 15(8):551–567. doi:10.1038/nrd.2016.39. PMID 27020098.