We test-drive an AI-powered blood analysis ‘health tool’ made in NZ
Sunday, 4 January 2026
Amberleigh Jack is a freelance lifestyle writer. She tries out the latest health and wellbeing trends in a monthly feature for the Sunday Star-Times.
OPINION: I’m tired. I’m yet to have the first coffee of the day and a slightly confused phlebotomist looks at the extensive list of privately ordered blood tests I’ve handed her.
I’ve been invited to test a new “innovative health tool”, created by nutritionist Vinka Wong and chartered accountant Sheree Hart. Its website claims it conducts a “more comprehensive analysis of your blood markers than a GP traditionally would” and turns blood test results into “practical, easy-to-understand strategies to optimise your health and wellness”.
The trend
Marko is a New Zealand app that, using AI, that claims to evaluate blood markers and generates an action plan of lifestyle and supplement changes in an effort to bring you closer to that elusive optimal wellness everyone seems to be chasing of late.
The top-tier subscription will see you $1599 out of pocket to use the app for the year. With that you get a test of up to 55 blood markers and receive a “detailed action plan” based on the results. For $249 you get a less comprehensive BYO test results analysis. You can browse recipes, book a nutritionist consult for an additional cost and can purchase supplements from the site.
Curious as to how Marko’s AI-element works and how sensitive data is stored I scour the privacy policy, which states personal information and “in particular blood marker information” is processed “using our bespoke AI model”.
It continues that the AI model isn’t trained with client data and is hosted on, “a secure cloud infrastructure maintained by Digital Ocean. This platform maintains SOC 2 Type II certification and follows HIPAA compliant practices. Member data is encrypted both in transmission and at rest using industry standard encryption protocols.”
Sidenote: Digital Ocean is a US-owned cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) platform. HIPAA is the US law protecting patient privacy. Healthcare providers in New Zealand are bound by the separate Health Information Privacy Code.
The Experience
My tendency to sit in the office with the blinds drawn for days on end comes back to bite me, and test results reveal low vitamin D levels. A quick call to my GP for a prescription and advice is sorted before I enter my results on the Marko site.
Within a few days I log in to Marko and am met with a colourful display of pie charts showing my less-than-optimal wellness score of 76 out of 100. My action plan proudly proclaims I have “significant potential for improvement”.
A consult with nutritionist and founder, Wong, is friendly and interesting enough. We chat a little about inflammation, diet and chronic illness, I’m sent B12 and folate supplements and we part ways. It’s back to me and my Marko action plan.
It includes “7 carefully selected supplements, 17 nutrition strategies, and 11 lifestyle modifications designed to support your key focus areas”.
For those keeping count, that’s 35 recommendations to implement. Many are straightforward, safe and commonsense enough. There’s hydration, healthy fats and proteins, exercise and veggies. Plenty were also easily discarded either because they weren’t for me (as a non-drinker, eliminating alcohol was pretty easy, but not overly helpful) or they didn’t feel quite right (as much as I enjoy putting my body on the line for the sake of a wellness column, I’m not about to add zinc supplements to my diet unless it’s advised by more tests and my medical professional).
What the site does well is remind me I’ve been less focussed on many wellness basics in recent months, and reminds me to pay more attention to simple and boring stuff like water, greens and movement.
As a conveniently timed nuisance, I open my letterbox to find a letter from a healthcare provider advising me that some of my medical data was compromised in a hack last year.
Knowing some scan results may wind up on a dark web leak somewhere is annoying, sure, but is a risk we take by existing these days. Still, is adding more personal data to the mix in that elusive search for promises of optimal health really worth it?
I ask Australian-born cybersecurity expert and founder of Bugcrowd, Casey Ellis, about those risks and he tells me although he sees a “genuine utility” in services that “improve healthcare accessibility”, “PII (personally identifiable information) doesn't really get more intimate than health data”.
“As is true for most things, the onus is on the individual to measure risk (‘Am I comfortable with this information being public if there is a breach’) and reward (‘Is this service going to materially improve my health’).”
What the experts say
I fire my results, analysis and action plan off to Auckland-based clinical nutritionist, Dr Cliff Harvey, who says that while my review includes plenty of “good”, “solid” and “evidence-based” advice, he did note some inaccuracies.
The “red flags” included terminology like “significantly low” for folate levels that he says would be worth looking at as a nutritionist but were on “the low side of normal”, flagging what he says are “perfect” triglyceride levels (1.0 mmol/L) as “elevated” and recommending zinc supplements before further testing.
In response to those comments, Wong tells me the tool is designed to “interpret blood results using both conventional laboratory reference ranges and evidence-based ‘optimal’ ranges, rather than relying solely on whether a marker falls inside a broad population-based normal range”.
In response to folate levels being termed “significantly low”, she tells me my levels “may be classified as normal by most labs, but it sits at the lower end of the range” and flagging it as “sub-optimal rather than ideal” was to “prompt consideration and context, not alarm”.
As for Harvey’s comment about my triglycerides, Wong agreed they were “not clinically high” but Marko ”highlights values that are trending upward or outside optimal cardiometabolic targets, even if they remain technically ‘normal’.”
But it’s fair to say Harvey isn’t a fan. “The rush to more data initially and then just spitting out a whole bunch of solutions based on the data, doesn’t take into account the person. It misses a lot of the questions that need to be asked in that sort of intervening time before you actually prescribe something to somebody,” he says.
It’s important to note Marko is not “prescribing” anything. It is not a registered health service under the HPAA and has plenty of disclosure statements around accuracy and the fact it doesn’t replace medical advice. But Harvey says some people will still see their plan and think, “yep, this is what I need to do, bangbangbangbang.”
Often, he says, if you get the “big rocks” like sleep, nutrition tweaks, a few key supplements and a bit of sun sorted, clients don’t need further tests or supplements.
“You approach it in that hierarchy fashion because that’s what saves the person’s sanity and it saves their dough.”
Terry Taylor, past president of the New Zealand Institute of Medical Laboratory Science, is open about his frustration over wellness services that aren’t regulated in New Zealand.
“My big take home message is do your homework. If it looks too good to be true and they’re going to solve everything that’s wrong with you, sorry, keep your money in your pocket,” he says.
Taylor suggests people in New Zealand can speak about health or wellness concerns to their primary health professionals about concerns and can get blood tests, analysis and medical advice.
Once those test results are sent to the lab, says Taylor, “we look at all of those things”.
“We can add on extra tests and talk to the primary health referrer if there are concerns.”
The verdict
While I’m pleased the months of testing out this latest “innovative health tool” made me aware I really need to stop channeling my inner Dracula and embrace some sun, I’m also confident enough in my nutrition knowledge to discard any advice that doesn’t serve me best as a person.
I’m personally of the old-fashioned view that other personal aspects matter when devising a “comprehensive” wellness plan. Like the fact that on busy weeks I’ll spend enough time in the office that I forget the sun exists. I find it hard to get inspired by walking, but love lifting heavy things. I’ll never give up my morning coffee on a hunt for wellness.
Also, I think green tea tastes like dirt.
If you have the cash and think more blood data and a wellness plan will help, have at it. But if you’re lost in an over-saturated maze of wellness trends, influencers and marketing that makes you feel like you need to spend significant money on the newest innovative way to hunt optimal health? I can’t help but think that maybe the boring route of a face-to-face conversation and a couple of actionable lifestyle tweaks could also be worth considering.
You won’t get a colourful pie graph, but you may just find that you do alright without it.
What do you think? Email sundayletters@stuff.co.nz. Please include your full name and address.