Helixspan estimates your projected healthspan — the years you'll likely live in good health — from a handful of modifiable inputs. Move the sliders and watch your score update in real time.
Helixspan is intentionally simple. A handful of inputs you can verify, weights derived from longitudinal cohorts, and a score that's open about its assumptions.
We anchor on WHO's Healthy Life Expectancy (HALE) at birth for high-income populations — roughly 70 years for men and 73 for women — and adjust from there. HALE is the share of life spent in good health, not total lifespan.
Weights are derived from cohort studies of behaviour-attributable mortality (Li et al. 2018, GBD 2019, UK Biobank meta-analyses). Lifestyle factors plausibly explain a 10–14 year range in healthy life expectancy.
The 100-point score is a rescaled version of the same modifiers, centred at 72. It's a comparative readout, not a clinical risk number. Bands: at risk → fair → strong → excellent.
| Factor | Plausible range (years) | Relative weight | Direction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoking | −8 to 0 | negative | |
| BMI | −7 to 0 | U-shaped | |
| Alcohol | −5 to 0 | negative | |
| Exercise | −4 to +3 | positive | |
| Sleep | −4 to +2 | U-shaped | |
| Diet quality | −3 to +2 | positive | |
| Stress | −2 to +1 | positive |
Helixspan is a simplification of population research. The studies below are where the weights and ranges come from. They are imperfect — observational, mostly Western cohorts — and the score is a guide, not a diagnosis.