Most advice about uric acid is written for gout, which is a crystal-formation problem at much higher levels. If you are here because the number is in the 6s rather than because a joint is on fire, the useful targets are different — and they are mostly metabolic rather than purine-related.
Target2.5–5 mg/dL
The longevity-optimised range used by the inflammatory dial. See what uric acid measures for the reasoning.
What to expect, and when
Two to four weeks for dietary change, particularly removal of liquid fructose and alcohol. Retest after about six weeks of a sustained change. Improvements in insulin sensitivity take longer and matter more.
What works, in order of leverage
1. Remove sugar-sweetened drinks
Fructose metabolism generates uric acid directly and rapidly — a more concentrated exposure than any purine-rich food. The highest-yield change for most people, and whole fruit is not the problem.
2. Cut beer specifically
High in purines and alcohol impairs renal urate excretion, so it works through two mechanisms at once. Spirits raise it less; beer is the outlier.
3. Improve insulin sensitivity
Insulin resistance reduces renal urate excretion. Fixing it lowers uric acid without any change in purine intake, and addresses what the number is usually signalling.
4. Review diuretics with your prescriber
Thiazides and loop diuretics raise uric acid substantially, and this is a common, entirely overlooked cause of a result that looks dietary.
5. Drink coffee
Consistently associated with lower uric acid and lower gout risk across large cohorts, including decaffeinated.
6. Stay hydrated
Dehydration raises the measured value by concentration alone and genuinely raises crystallisation risk.
What does not work
Worth knowing before spending effort on it.
Strict low-purine diets
The classic advice to avoid organ meats, anchovies and shellfish produces a far smaller reduction than removing fructose and alcohol. It is restrictive, unpleasant and largely beside the point.
Avoiding vegetables high in purines
Purine-rich vegetables — spinach, asparagus, legumes — do not raise gout risk in cohort data. Animal and fructose sources behave differently.
Testing during a flare
Uric acid falls during an acute gout attack, so a normal result mid-flare does not exclude gout.
Ignoring a rise during weight loss
Fasting, rapid weight loss and ketogenic diets raise uric acid transiently, because ketones compete for renal excretion. Expected, usually temporary, and not a reason to stop.
When to involve a clinician
Acute joint pain, redness and swelling need clinical assessment rather than dietary change. Recurrent gout is treated with urate-lowering medication, and kidney stones or reduced kidney function change the approach substantially.
Not medical advice. These are longevity-optimised reference ranges, which are deliberately stricter than standard clinical "normal" values. A value outside them does not mean you have a disease. Speak to a qualified healthcare professional before changing medication, supplements or training. Full disclaimer.
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What is biological age?
Chronological age counts birthdays. Biological age estimates how old your body appears to be functioning, based on measurable biomarkers. Two people born the same year can differ by a decade or more in vascular stiffness, insulin signalling or cardiorespiratory fitness. Biological age makes that gap explicit — and unlike your birthday, it can move in either direction.
How is the Longevity Score calculated?
Each biomarker you enter is scored against longevity-optimised reference ranges and grouped into one of eight dials. Every dial produces its own biological age, and those are combined using fixed weights into a single composite, then expressed as a Longevity Score from 0 to 100. The weighting reflects how strongly each system predicts healthspan: structural and vascular carry the most, hormonal the least.
Do I need all 53 biomarkers?
No. The short form contains a subset of scoring inputs plus context-only fields, and you can leave any of them blank. It is not a recommendation to obtain tests. Missing values are excluded from the calculation — never treated as zero or as 'normal'. A dial with no scored data is dropped entirely and the remaining weights renormalise.
What can I measure without a blood test?
Some inputs can be measured without bloodwork. Blood pressure needs a home cuff and waist-to-height needs a tape measure. Wearable estimates vary; the floor-based sitting-rising test carries a fall risk and should only be attempted if safe.
Is this an anti-aging calculator? Is it a healthspan calculator?
Both terms describe what this tool does, and which one fits depends on what you are asking. "Anti-aging" is the term most people search, and loosely means anything aimed at slowing or reversing age-related decline — this tool fits that description if you score your dials and act on what you find. "Healthspan calculator" is the more precise term: healthspan is the number of years lived without serious chronic disease or disability, and that cannot be measured directly, so this tool scores eight systems that each function as an early-warning proxy for it. Either way, the method is the same: real biomarkers, published thresholds, no vanity-metric framing.
Why don't you have a quick quiz that skips biomarkers entirely?
Several popular tools ask only about habits — exercise days, sleep hours, smoking, diet quality — and return a single precise-looking age. We looked at the research behind that approach and chose not to build it. Published studies do show real, individually-measured links between specific habits and epigenetic age acceleration, but those effect sizes come from different study populations, different DNA-methylation clocks and different measurement units. Adding them together into one number is not something the underlying research actually supports — it produces a precise-looking result built on an imprecise method. Our dials use direct physiological measurements instead: a real blood pressure reading, a real VO₂ max, a real ApoB value. Several dials score from home-measurable data alone with no quiz-guessing involved — see what you can measure without a blood test, above.
Why are your 'optimal' ranges stricter than my lab's normal range?
Standard reference ranges describe what is common in a general population, which now includes a great deal of metabolic dysfunction. They are tuned to flag disease, not to identify what is optimal for a long healthspan. A fasting insulin of 20 µIU/mL sits inside most labs' normal range and is strongly associated with insulin resistance. This tool uses longevity-optimised thresholds instead, so a flag here means room for optimisation — not a diagnosis.
Why not just upload my labs to ChatGPT?
For understanding a single result, do — a frontier chat model is genuinely good at that, often clearer than most medical sites, and it handles markers no fixed tool covers. The limitation is different from the one most people assume. A language model produces a plausible response rather than a computed one, so the same panel can score differently on different days. That is fine when exploring an idea and disqualifying when measuring change, because you cannot tell how much of a difference is you and how much is the method. Use both: a chat model to understand, a fixed instrument to track.
Is my health data private?
Biomarker values, assessment history and visit-preparation drafts are stored in your browser. The visit draft is separate from assessment exports and share links; copying or printing it can leave a copy outside the browser. There are no user accounts or third-party tracking. We keep anonymous usage totals on our own server, such as how many people reached a results screen on a given day; browsers sending Do Not Track or Global Privacy Control are not counted. Optional lab-report upload and AI coach features send data to Anthropic. Optional retest reminders send an email address, date and reminder label to our service and email provider. See our privacy policy for details.
Is this a medical diagnosis?
No. It is an educational and personal-tracking tool. The estimates are not clinically validated and must not replace evaluation by a qualified healthcare professional. If a result concerns you — particularly kidney markers, blood pressure or ApoB — take it to a doctor rather than acting on it alone.