Dr. Dan Henderson on How We Developed WHOOP Advanced Labs

WHOOP Advanced Labs combines clinician-reviewed lab results with 100,000 WHOOP data points to deliver personalized recommendations that help you improve your results over time. We spoke with Dr. Dan Henderson, member of the WHOOP Medical Advisory Board and Primary Care Physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, about the science and development process behind WHOOP Advanced Labs — and why it represents a breakthrough in connecting daily behaviors with long-term health.

Closing the Gap Between Habits and What’s Happening Inside

You’ve been able to track your recovery, sleep, and stress for years. But until now, there’s been no easy way to connect those daily choices to what’s happening inside your body.

“WHOOP is already the best biometric health-habits tracking platform,” says Dr. Henderson. “But there’s never been a true counterpart in the diagnostic world. You could measure your strain or sleep, but it was hard to tell what that meant for your biomarkers.”

Traditional lab results, he explains, often lack context. “They tell you your numbers are ‘okay’ but that doesn’t help you understand how your lifestyle is shaping them — or how to improve.”

WHOOP Advanced Labs changes that. By integrating clinician-reviewed results with continuous WHOOP data, it creates a feedback loop between your behaviors and your biology. “You can make a change — sleep more consistently, manage stress better, train smarter — and actually see the short-term effects in your biometrics and the longer-term effects in your lab results. It’s a virtuous cycle that helps people make progress they can see.”

Building WHOOP Advanced Labs

“The most fun, and at least for me, the most challenging part of this project was choosing the list of biomarkers and deciding what ranges made sense for our users.” 

The team’s goal was ambitious: build a panel that delivers the greatest benefit to WHOOP members. They drew from the science of preventive medicine and the best of primary care, functional medicine, and longevity medicine.

“I was amazed by how much we were able to get into the panel. At my hospital, this set of tests costs $3,000-5,000. I’ve seen the bills.”

Redefining What “Normal” Means

From there, the team had to redefine how to interpret results — moving beyond “normal” to identify what’s optimal. “The standard reference ranges tell you where 95% of people without disease fall. That’s useful, but it doesn’t show where you can make changes to improve long-term health,” says Dr. Henderson. “We didn’t want people to just hear, ‘you’re normal, have a great year.’ We wanted to show them opportunities. Instead of saying ‘your blood sugar is OK,’ the message is more like, ‘your blood sugar is OK, but your insulin is struggling a bit. Based on your data, if you shift your workouts slightly, you can fix this 10 years before it becomes a problem, like diabetes.’”

It’s a more proactive approach to health designed to help members stay ahead of potential issues rather than react to them once they appear. The ranges in WHOOP Advanced Labs are intentionally more ambitious because they’re built for a healthy, engaged population that wants to optimize performance and longevity — not just maintain what’s “normal.” That approach is already surfacing meaningful insights: based on aggregated, de-identified member data, nearly a quarter of members could be diagnosed with insulin resistance based on their results.

Personalizing for Every Member

To make results even more personal, WHOOP Advanced Labs includes ranges specified by gender and age for select biomarkers — ensuring results are interpreted in the right physiological context for each member. More biomarker range personalization is coming soon based on hormonal and menstrual cycle phase.

This required developing proprietary reference ranges. According to Dr. Henderson, these were based on population percentiles and condition-specific targets. 

“We think everyone should be thinking about heart health, metabolic health, inflammation, and other key drivers of wellness. Our targets for ‘optimal’ are intentionally ambitious. That’s what a focus on longevity and healthspan looks like.”

When Dr. Henderson joined the project, he already believed in lifestyle medicine. But the experience of seeing the WHOOP data engine and clinical model in action exceeded expectations.

“The engineering and AI are far more powerful than I imagined,” he says. “We’ve trained the system to connect all the data we get from WHOOP with past and current lab results. It can integrate information faster and more comprehensively than any human could — and the insights are remarkable.”

WHOOP Advanced Labs includes 65 biomarkers chosen for their proven relevance to health, longevity, and performance. “We’re giving people access to markers many never get tested in primary care — and often when they do, it’s after something’s already gone wrong. Combining that depth with continuous context is what makes this so powerful.”

Turning Complex Science Into Clear, Actionable Guidance

The team faced a challenge: how to make complicated data meaningful, safe, and motivating for members. To solve this, WHOOP Product, Clinical, and Data Science teams worked together to translate each biomarker into practical guidance — deciding what should be visualized, what should trigger education or outreach, and what should inform coaching recommendations. Dr. Henderson broke down some examples:

• ApoB (Heart Health): “ApoB is a strong predictor of cardiovascular risk, and it’s something you can change. We set an ambitious but safe target — around the 10th percentile — because most people benefit from lowering it.”
• Testosterone: “Higher supports energy and metabolism, but it’s not ‘the higher the better.’ We set the target at the 50th percentile to encourage healthy behaviors without driving unnecessary treatment.”
• Markers Without an ‘Optimal’: “Some measures, like certain cell counts or electrolytes, just need to stay in range. For those, we keep standard ranges and focus coaching on healthy habits.”

Each result appears alongside relevant WHOOP metrics for perspective. “The goal is not to manage disease,” he says, “but to help people understand and optimize their health in ways that are safe and sustainable.”

Why Constant Context Changes Everything

Most people see their test results once a year. WHOOP Advanced Labs makes that information part of your everyday health awareness.

“You might be brushing your teeth or walking the dog and wonder, Why am I so tired? Now, you can open the app and see trends over time,” says Henderson. “The design and clarity are night-and-day compared with traditional portals.”

That continuous access also helps connect the dots between patterns. “Migraines, for example, often track with periods, stress, sleep, hydration, caffeine, alcohol, or weather changes — all things WHOOP already helps you monitor. If you were building something to understand migraines, it would look a lot like this.”

Built for Real Life, Not Just Appointments

“The app and interfaces are there when the moment is right for you — which is almost never during an appointment,” says Henderson.

Members can schedule test collection, get clinician-reviewed results, and get a personalized Action Plan that integrates into your Weekly Plan and Journal to help you take control of your health and performance. If something needs follow-up, clinicians review every result and reach out when necessary.

“We have thresholds for when someone gets a call. In the event results show critical health concerns, Members are contacted by a clinician immediately with follow up care directions.” Henderson explains. No matter your results, you’ll get added context from WHOOP that connects your results to your daily recovery, strain, and sleep data.

The Future of Health Data

“One of my friends let me run a test while we were piloting the development of WHOOP Advanced Labs,” Henderson recalls. “We measure Lp(a) — a marker many doctors never check — and his result came back 409, the highest I’ve ever seen. He’s fit, does everything right, the last guy you’d expect. I called him and said, We just saved your life.”

His friend went on to receive a full cardiac workup and begin preventive treatment. “That single test likely added decades to his life,” Henderson says. “That’s the kind of impact WHOOP Advanced Labs can have.” Henderson sees WHOOP Advanced Labs as the beginning of a new kind of personalized health experience — one that could help reshape the relationship between people and medicine.

“This is personalized medicine that’s never existed before,” he says. “It can make healthcare more human — fewer unnecessary visits for healthy people, and more time for meaningful conversations when they matter.” “It’s a better operating system for health. If the system embraces it, everyone wins: members, clinicians, and payers.”

How to Get Started

You can connect your existing lab results to WHOOP at no cost, or subscribe to WHOOP Advanced Labs to order and schedule testing with Quest®, receive clinician-reviewed results on 65 biomarkers, and get a personalized Action Plan that integrates directly into your WHOOP coaching experience.

Disclaimers: WHOOP Membership required to access WHOOP Advanced Labs. Regional restrictions apply. Not for under 18 or pregnant members. WHOOP is not a laboratory or a healthcare provider. Lab testing and clinical advice are provided by Quest Diagnostics and SteadyMD. WHOOP Coach and the Action Plan are not medical advice.