Which Health Biomarkers and Tests Dr. Rhonda Patrick Tracks

Sorry if I butchered that name. Asked, hi Rhonda, for the average healthy person, what diagnostic tests would you suggest for managing health as you age? You have recommended some tests like the omegas or microbiome tests in the past. Could you give a list of which types of tests could be done periodically to inform, you know, preventive actions? Yeah, so the caveat being that I am not a medical doctor, obviously. I can mention some of these clinical markers that I, you know, time and time again with my discussions with the experts, in my own research scholarly pursuits I've come across. I think there's something that I try to keep an eye on in collaboration, of course, with my, you know, qualified medical professional. So just keeping that in mind.

Obviously, we've talked about this a lot and I think one of the most important things is the basic lipid panel. Maybe I shouldn't call it basic because there's a lot of things that aren't generally measured that you kind of have to ask. But like you can ask your general practitioner to measure a lot of these things and they will do it for a fraction of the cost that you will find on some of these other consumer-available tests. So some of the things I think are important, obviously, you'll— so you'll get total cholesterol and all that, but HDL particle number and size, LDL particle number and size, triglycerides. VLDL, HDL to the triglyceride ratio. Like when you get all that stuff, you can get all these ratios.

The triglyceride to the HDL ratio, the VLDL to the triglyceride ratio, non-HDL, the percent of small dense LDL. So when you get the particle size, you get all the particle sizes. ApoB particle number, the ApoA-1. ApoB particle number. ApoB to ApoA-1 ratio, Lp(a). You know, these are some of the just basic, I think, lipids that are important. You know, obviously cardiovascular disease is the number one killer globally, at least in all the developed countries. And so those are the— these lipid, you know, biomarkers are things to keep an eye on. And, um, of course, in addition to that, you know, doing the homocysteine. So it's an amino acid in the blood that might be linked to heart disease if levels are too high. So homocysteine kind of included in that.

It's not necessarily lipid but cardiovascular health panel. Obviously the basic metabolic panel. So like you're measuring things like glucose, calcium, electrolytes. This is giving information about kidney function, muscle function, heart function to some degree. Hemoglobin A1c, so HbA1c, that really shows the average blood sugar levels or blood glucose levels over the last 2 to 3 months. So that's important. Fasting insulin level, that's usually used to look at insulin resistance, which obviously is a precursor to type 2 diabetes. Then there's inflammatory biomarkers that can be done, obviously including high-sensitivity C-reactive protein. Fibrinogen is another one that can be done. Thyroid function tests.

So you want to do the TSH, free T4, T3, and possibly the thyroid antibodies to assess thyroid health. Complete blood cell count. You want to just look at all the different types of blood cells in the blood like red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets. Vitamin D, obviously measuring that is important. The Omega-3 Index test, sex hormones, so testosterone, estradiol, for example, and perhaps even IGF-1 could be something interesting as well. So I would say those are kind of ones that you could even just get your general practitioner to do. You know, for like your— I don't know how often they're willing to do it, but like you could talk to them and see, can we do it quarterly? Can we do it, you know, semi-annually or something like that?

And those are— I think those are pretty standard ones to do. And then there's the— we talked about, you said, the Omega-3 Index test. OmegaQuant is like the leader in that. And then there's the Genova Diagnostics. They do the gut test is really good for them and that's like for anyone sort of optimizing their gut health, I think is good. It also does some inflammatory markers as well and markers of gut permeability, which I think are important. So I think that is also another sort of good test to do alongside as well with the just general sort of lipids and metabolic and omega-3 tests. Do you have any online labs that can fill the gap after WellnessFX closed? Yeah, so WellnessFX, they have 2 of their tests, Performance or Premium, that are now being sold through Thorne.

So Thorne owned WellnessFX. So they're still going to be providing a couple of the main, most popular tests if you're still interested in having, you know, the same sort of panels that were done with like the performance tests, which I like. I used them as well. Life Extension is another one that I also use, and that's kind of one where you— they've got like a cardiovascular panel and then you can like add stuff or like you can just like mix and like you can choose like Like you can create your own sort of panel that you want to do as well. They're a little pricey, but it is another option. So again, WellnessFX, a couple of their tests are still being offered from Thorne. And then I think Life Extension is the other one that I use as well. And then, I mean, again, just going to your physician and using You know, it's so much cheaper if you can do it through them as well. It's another possibility.