How frequently do you track your blood markers?

For most people, the answer would be once a year, likely during their annual checkup with their healthcare provider.

While yearly check-ins on certain markers may be sufficient, consistent blood work is crucial if you really want to track how your lifestyle is impacting your physiology.

Blood tests can provide critical information, but they're only snapshots in time. If we want to track changes in our biology, we need a consistent touchpoint with our blood work to make sure we're moving in the right direction.

In this article, we'll discuss the benefits of consistent blood work monitoring, which markers you may want to monitor, and how to optimize your tracking and results.

The Importance of Consistent Blood Test Tracking

If you want to feel your best, reverse your biological age, and enhance your longevity, your first step is to examine your lifestyle. Changes in diet, sleep, supplements, stress management, and exercise can all produce significant shifts in your biology.

But how do you know if the lifestyle changes you're making are right for your body? That's where blood tests come in.

Below are four benefits you'll find from consistently tracking your blood markers.

#1 Identify Positive Patterns

This one may be the most obvious, but tracking your blood work can help you determine if your chosen lifestyle interventions are moving you toward your health goals. For instance, if you've decided to increase fiber in your diet because your lab work shows that you have high cholesterol, the only way to truly know if changes are happening to your cholesterol levels over time is to take a look at your blood work.

Similarly, if your goal is to regulate glucose levels, you can switch up your diet, but the only real way to know what's happening in your body is to check your HbA1c.

By monitoring your blood work, you can determine which interventions are moving the needle in the right direction and double down on those efforts.

#2 Identify Negative Patterns

Not all lifestyle interventions are right for everyone. For instance, you could have a friend who does really well managing their stress markers by increasing high-intensity exercise, but for you, high-intensity workouts are pushing your stress levels to the limit.

The same goes for food. While you may know people who have been able to get their metabolic health on track by increasing their protein intake, perhaps your body is craving more high-quality fat.

The list could go on, but the key takeaway is that even our "healthiest" lifestyle interventions may not always be what our bodies need at this time. By consistently looking at your blood markers, you can keep a finger on the pulse of what's truly working for your body. You can also identify which lifestyle factors may be pushing you in the opposite direction of your goals.

#3 Detect Early Warning Signs

One of the most powerful benefits of consistent tracking is getting ahead of slipping biomarkers. Year-to-year blood work can help us identify patterns over time, but when we really know our biology, we can begin to notice subtle shifts. You don't have to wait for markers to be fully out of range before taking steps to manage them.

For example, many people struggle to keep their vitamin D levels in range, which can result in poor immune health when not addressed. By regularly checking in on this marker, you can avoid potential downstream issues with low vitamin D.

#4 Target Markers For Optimal Health

While annual blood work can give you a snapshot of your health, consistently looking at your data will help you get more targeted in areas you want to improve. This allows you to hone in and try more techniques to improve different markers.

For example, hormones can fluctuate significantly from month to month, which means that a yearly hormone panel may not do the trick if you want to optimize hormone health. Many women find that the status of their estrogen and progesterone can impact their health and wellbeing in myriad ways, which means that keeping a close eye on these markers (especially as they get closer to menopause) is vital.

Targeting estrogen and progesterone for optimization can impact almost every other area of female health—energy, fertility, mood, sleep, etc. Once you know which markers you're targeting, consistently checking in on them is critical to ensure your efforts keep them in range.

Which Tests Should You Prioritize?

So which tests should you prioritize exactly?

Well, that depends on your goals, current health status, family genetics, and any other specifics you have in mind. That said, here are a handful of markers that almost anyone can benefit from tracking:

Comprehensive Metabolic Panel (CMP)

A comprehensive metabolic panel measures 14 different blood markers related to metabolic health, including[1]:

• Blood glucose (blood sugar).
• Calcium
• Electrolytes: sodium, potassium, bicarbonate, and chloride
• Albumin (the main protein in your blood, made in the liver)
• Total protein (total amount of protein in your blood)
• Liver enzymes: ALP (alkaline phosphatase), ALT (alanine transaminase), and AST (aspartate aminotransferase).
• Bilirubin (a waste product your body makes when it breaks down old red blood cells)
• BUN (blood urea nitrogen) and creatinine (waste products that your kidneys filter out of your blood and remove from your body through urine).

A CMP will give you information about your overall and general health but can also be critical in helping you stay ahead of health conditions related to your liver, kidneys, and metabolic function.

ApoB (apolipoprotein B) and Lp(a) (lipoprotein (a))

Both ApoB and Lp(a) are markers related to heart health, with high levels of either signifying increased risk for heart disease.

ApoB is a protein that contributes to plaque in your arteries, acting as a shuttle for LDL and VLDL cholesterol. Some health professionals feel that testing for ApoB is a more accurate measure of heart disease risk than testing for cholesterol alone, as this protein plays a central role in plaque formation[2].

Lp(a), also known as lipoprotein (a), is a type of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) that carries cholesterol in your blood. High levels of Lp(a) may be an indicator of heart disease or stroke as these types of lipoproteins are "stickier" than other forms, meaning that they are more likely to contribute to atherosclerotic plaques[3].

Hormone Panels

While both men and women can benefit from monitoring their hormones, sex hormone monitoring is crucial for women. Regular hormone panels, including estrogen (both estrone and estradiol), progesterone, and testosterone, can provide vital information that can make a woman's hormonal cycle much more pleasant and regular.

Symptoms associated with dysregulated sex hormones in women can include anything from fatigue and brain fog to digestive disturbances, depression, anxiety, and insomnia.

While it's commonplace to have a sex hormone panel done about once a year, keeping regular tabs on your hormones, especially as you enter your late 30s to early 40s, can make a significant difference in how you feel day to day as your body will naturally begin to experience fluctuations in hormone homeostasis.

Thyroid function is also a critical component of metabolic health for both men and women. If your thyroid is either high or low, be sure to monitor this marker with tests that include T3, reverse T3, TSH, and T4.

Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA)

PSA tests are specific to men and are helpful in screening for prostate cancer. PSA is a protein that's produced by the prostate gland and is typically found in the blood at moderate levels. As men age, the risk for prostate cancer increases, and elevated levels of PSA can be a key indicator that something may be going on[4].

That said, PSA can also indicate an infection or some other form of inflammation in the prostate. Therefore, it is a helpful marker for general prostate health at any age.

How To Optimize Your Tracking And Results

Now that you understand the importance of tracking, let's discuss how to optimize the tracking process to ensure you're getting the results you want.

Use a Tracking App

Consistent blood test monitoring is really only useful if you take your blood test results and collect the data they offer to make lifestyle changes. But in order to know which direction to go in with your health, you first need to be able to track your changes—that's where tracking apps like Sage come in.

Once you've collected your data, you need a place to store it so you can look at trends over time. Sage allows you to collect your results and provides you with a simple, easy-to-use tool to visualize your trends and track them over the long term. The app will also give you information about what each blood marker and test result means so that you can grasp a full understanding of the data you're collecting.

Hone In On Specific Markers

While overall health is critical, honing in on specific markers that you want to optimize will help you stay focused on a goal. In the big picture, if you're working on enhancing your cardiovascular function, it will likely positively impact overall metabolic health. And improving your nervous system markers will also support cardiovascular health and organ function.

Nothing in your body happens in a vacuum, so as you begin to work on your weakest link, other areas of your body will also start to improve.

By strategically determining which markers you want to prioritize, you'll naturally be able to develop a plan of action, which brings us to our next tip.

Make A Plan And Stick To It

Once you know which markers you'll be watching closely, make an action plan involving your lifestyle interventions and stick to it. For example, if you want to see your insulin and blood sugar levels improve, decide on your lifestyle interventions (for example, cutting out refined carbs and starting to walk three miles a day).

Now, here's the important part: once you make a plan, stick to it. Keep your lifestyle changes as consistent as possible until your next blood draw. Give yourself time before adding anything new or switching up your diet, exercise, supplements, etc.

Only with this level of consistency can you really determine what's working and what isn't.

Keep A Journal

Keeping a health journal can be incredibly helpful as it allows you to revisit and see what interventions you've engaged with. This may look like a food diary, a daily wellbeing journal (tracking your emotional state), or any other form of daily check-in you can refer back to.

In addition to writing down your lifestyle intervention with the journal, make note of how you feel. Are you more or less energized? How's your sleep? Are you feeling mental clarity? How about your mood? Any change you notice is worth jotting down.

As you continue to gather data from your blood work, you may find that certain lifestyle changes result in physical and symptomatic shifts that you would have otherwise overlooked—this data is invaluable.

Track Blood Markers Consistently

How often you need to get bloodwork done depends on your specific goals, but for most people getting blood work every three to six months is ideal. If you're starting a new regimen of supplements or making big dietary or physical activity changes, you likely want to begin tracking blood work every three months once you've established your baseline. As your markers become more dialed in and your lab tests show that you're moving in the right direction, you can cut back to every six months.

That said, there's no harm in keeping pace with quarterly tracking, particularly for those pesky markers that like to swing up and down.

Takeaway

While annual blood work is helpful in keeping us informed about the overall state of our health and wellness, consistent testing is crucial if we want to optimize specific markers, stay ahead of health concerns, or bring our bodies back into balance when we're off track.

Blood markers can shift significantly month to month, especially if you're trying new interventions, so keeping a steady eye on what's happening in your body will help to accelerate your progress.

While you can order labs on your own, if you find abnormal results, be sure to follow up with a healthcare professional who can help you get those numbers back into a normal range and address any health problems. This is particularly important if you already have health issues you're concerned about.

References

1. https://medlineplus.gov/lab-tests/comprehensive-metabolic-panel-cmp/
2. https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/diagnostics/24992-apolipoprotein-b-test
3. Lipoprotein (a) Blood Test: MedlinePlus Medical Test
4. Prostate-Specific Antigen (PSA) Test

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