For Lifeforce co-founder and president Joel Jackson, family is the foundation of his wellness goals. The entrepreneur and tech executive was inspired to co-found Lifeforce after embarking on his own health journey to prevent a diabetes diagnosis that runs in his family. Now, he’s committed to optimizing his healthspan so he can enjoy life with his young daughter for many years to come.
At Lifeforce, Jackson is making that goal accessible and achievable for more people through innovative technology and personalized care. He shares why tech is the future of preventive healthcare — and how Lifeforce is leading the way to support you and your family.
The health-tech landscape is constantly evolving. How is Lifeforce staying ahead of the curve?
Consumer health tech moves quickly, but healthcare technology has often lagged behind. For example, Oura was launched almost a decade ago, yet doctors rarely, if ever, look at their patients’ sleep data.The biggest opportunity to improve health is to take what we already know and make it easy for doctors to use this information with their patients. The deeper you dive into health, the more you realize that the most crucial advice often aligns with what your grandmother would have told you. The difference today is that we can measure many of these health factors in near real-time.
At Lifeforce, we’re taking the best of consumer health tech and empowering our doctors to use it in ways that haven't been possible before. This approach allows us to create lasting health changes by integrating cutting-edge technology with practical, everyday health advice.
How does AI help Lifeforce deliver individualized health insights?
AI has the potential to be a game-changer by allowing us to utilize all the data we have on patients to create comprehensive and personalized care plans. AI solutions can process massive amounts of data in seconds, performing tasks that would take humans hours. It can enhance doctors' capabilities, making them superhuman. Doctors shouldn’t have to spend time analyzing if their patients get quality sleep or deciding the best intervention for poor sleep. Having AI do this in the background allows doctors to do what they do best — working with patients to understand their health and identifying the most important areas for improvement.
At Lifeforce, we believe in the importance of high quality clinician time. We make sure members have access to at least 30 minutes with their doctor every three months. What members see is just a great interaction with a doctor. What’s happening behind the scenes is a continually advancing set of AI tools combined with talented clinicians. What that means is not only do members get 30-45 minutes with their provider, but each of those minutes is more impactful.
What is the most meaningful feedback you’ve heard from members?
I’ve talked to so many members who’ve made changes and improved their lives. Often they don’t fully appreciate the significance of the improvement they’ve made because they can’t always notice metabolic health in their day to day life. When I ask members what markers they optimized and they say, ‘I improved my A1C by 0.4,’ I know that we’ve saved at least a few of those people’s lives over the next decade. And more than that, all of them will have a higher quality of life.
How has your own Lifeforce experience impacted your life — as a leader, a husband, and a father?
Making longevity tangible has changed my perspective. Longevity became much less about ‘Will I water ski at 140?’ which seemed far-fetched and reliant on miracle technological breakthroughs. Instead, I started asking questions like, ‘What is the likelihood I’ll make it to my daughter’s high school graduation?’ That’s something I can put real numbers around, and the risk is much higher than I’d like to accept.
When you think about health this way, most of what you need to do is well within the current reach of science and doesn’t take any magic. This shift in perspective has deepened my commitment to Lifeforce’s mission, making it not just about extending life, but about ensuring a high quality of life for as long as possible.
Co-written with contributor Allie Baker.