Why I started LiveLong

A few years ago, I wanted something that seemed straightforward: a blood test to better understand my health.

I wasn’t ill, and I wasn’t looking for a diagnosis. I wanted to establish a baseline: to see what was happening beneath the surface and make more informed choices about my health.

What I discovered was that without symptoms or a clear medical indication, preventive blood testing was difficult to access through regular healthcare.

That experience stayed with me. I could track my sleep, exercise and heart rate every day, yet getting access to fundamental information about my own body was surprisingly difficult. I began to wonder why a medically responsible, self-directed option did not exist.

That question became the starting point for LiveLong.

I am building LiveLong because I am convinced that people should have a reliable way to understand more about their health before something necessarily feels wrong.

The system is built to treat illness

The Netherlands has a strong healthcare system. When you become ill, you can rely on highly trained professionals and evidence-based care.

But the system is primarily designed to investigate symptoms and treat disease. It is not built around people who feel well and want to understand their health proactively.

That distinction matters. GPs are not doing anything wrong when they decline a test without a medical indication. They work within a system that has to prioritise medical necessity. But from my perspective, an important need remained unanswered.

Many of us already take an active role in our wellbeing. We think about nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress. But when it comes to blood values, the choice can feel binary: either there is a medical reason to test, or you wait.

I believed there should be a responsible way to close that gap, one that complements regular healthcare instead of pretending to replace it.

Access to data is only the beginning

The more I learned, the clearer it became that access to a blood test alone would not be enough.

A blood test is not a crystal ball. It cannot rule out every condition, predict exactly what will happen or replace a medical assessment when someone has symptoms. A result without context can create unnecessary concern or false reassurance.

That is why medical interpretation became central to the way I wanted to build LiveLong.

I did not want to create a service that simply sends people a complicated laboratory report and leaves them to search the internet for answers. The goal is to make health information understandable, secure and medically guided.

With LiveLong, customers can choose a blood test without first needing a GP referral, visit an accredited Dutch laboratory and receive their results digitally. Every result includes a written review by a BIG-registered doctor, helping customers understand what their values may mean and what a sensible next step could be.

More agency, without replacing your doctor

The principle behind LiveLong is simple: I believe people should have more agency over their own health.

That does not mean replacing the GP or positioning blood testing as the answer to every health question. If you have symptoms, urgent concerns or need treatment, regular medical care remains essential.

LiveLong serves a different purpose. It is for people who want to establish a baseline, follow relevant changes over time or gain a clearer picture of their health before a problem necessarily presents itself.

I see this need especially clearly among people who moved to the Netherlands from countries where an annual blood check is more common. Many are surprised to discover that the preventive testing they were used to is not easily available here. But the need extends beyond expats. More and more people want to take an active role in their health and make decisions based on reliable information rather than guesswork.

What I want LiveLong to achieve

My ambition is to make medically responsible health insight more accessible.

In practical terms, I want LiveLong to offer an experience that is:

• Accessible: no GP referral is required to order a test.
• Reliable: blood analysis is performed by an accredited laboratory.
• Medically guided: results are reviewed by a BIG-registered doctor.
• Understandable: customers receive clear explanations, not just raw data.
• Private: personal and medical information is handled with the care it deserves.
• Useful over time: people should eventually be able to follow relevant trends instead of seeing each test as an isolated snapshot.

Over time, I want LiveLong to become more than a place where you order a blood test. My aim is to help people build a clearer, longer-term understanding of their health and make it easier to use that information in conversations with healthcare professionals when appropriate.

I am building this carefully with a team of doctors, technology specialists and laboratory partners. In healthcare, trust matters more than speed. That means listening to customers and being honest about both what blood testing can show and what it cannot.

LiveLong is now live

LiveLong is now open to everyone. Reaching this point is an important milestone, but it is only the beginning.

I want to keep improving the experience based on what customers tell us: what they want to understand, where the process could be clearer and how LiveLong can make results even more useful without compromising medical quality.

If you believe you should not have to wait until you feel ill to understand your health, you can now take the first step with LiveLong.

Choose the blood test that suits you and start building a clearer picture of your health.