I searched the archives but could not find a thread…
Has anybody used companies such as Wellness FX, AthleteBloodTest, Direct Labs, etc?
Did you gain anything? Was it Worth it? Would you recommend one?
Thank you,
Dan
I’ve used directlabs and healthlabs a few times. There is some good information to be learned, but like many things “worth it” is subjective, and how well you can read/interpret the results will be a big portion of that. A lot of the services like Wellnessfx, abt,etc you are basically paying for the same test you will buy at directlabs, but paying a premium for someone’s advice/help deciphering the results. That can be (very) valuable, or nearly worthless. Same with googling your results. For someone new to it, it’s probably worth it to have an “expert eye” looking over them with you.
I’m a sports medicine doctor I looked at a couple of these websites. Mostly athlete blood test. The tests are done through a typical lab I would order blood tests - lab core, which is a national chain. So the tests should be valid.
I’m as into data, analytics and nerding our on power etc as anyone out there. But I’d really caution people on using these services. I can see very little reason most of tests would be helpful for performance. A couple may be debatable but are at best supported by little evidence.
There’s a lot of potential for harm for various reasons. I did notice that athlete blood test says you can send them test results of tests your doctor has already done. If you’re really interested you might take some of their suggested tests to you annual check up and review them with you doctor and see which one you doctor thinks would be good to do. He/she could order them and interpret them and then you could also submit them to that service if you like.
Yes I work with AthleteBloodTest a bit. It is a great service as far as I am concerned. Here is a link to all my blood test posts in chronological order. I share my actual results as well so you can see real results and I discuss what I did to work with blood labs a little and you can see how it affects the future blood labs.
There are definitely athlete specific benefits…
- Am I too low in something specific like Vitamin D, Iron, Magnesium, B12 - catch that earlier.
- Am I creating too much sex binding hormone globulin levels that is binding to me free-T and making me recover sub-optimally?
- Am I too high in something specific that could be dangerous - Zinc, Iron, Vitamin A
There are also general benefits where you might catch something early that could be more serious. Maybe it isn’t, but it is good to be aware of it. Maybe your WBC is extremely low for example. Maybe it is diabetes, renal failure, whatever. But by and large, if you are like me and a bit of a DIYer, you have way better conscious awareness of your blood labs and knowledge is power. I highly suggest getting one and maybe a second later on. Hopefully you have some things that are sub-optimal and then you can see if you improved them in the next round. That is where the most value is. If you don’t get value after that fine by me. Scrap it.
I think there is a lot of value upfront too in getting proactive blood tests because it is too easy to go to doctor later and complain and for your general to say, of course, your Vitamin D is off, this is it!!! When your Vitamin D has been chronically low for years.
As for companies. ABT works with thousands of professional athletes and their reading and analysis are for athletes to perform optimally as opposed to general recommendation for health which may be more lax. Any triathlete, whatever level is a serious athlete compared to the general public.
If you’re really interested you might take some of their suggested tests to you annual check up and review them with you doctor and see which one you doctor thinks would be good to do. He/she could order them and interpret them and then you could also submit them to that service if you like. //
Well you are a sports medicine doc, probably hang out with similar folks. But I can tell you from mine, and everyone I know, that normal doctors are the last ones to interpret these types of tests. Basically when you get a blood test for your annual check up, they look down the line to see if there is any red. No red, you are fine, do what you are doing…But what if you are .1% above the low end on magnesium, or sodium, or that same amount from the high side of potassium? They just send you home being normal, nothing to see here. But you are one workout away from going into the red zone, possibly way into it. Same goes for the other measurements. A lot of docs these days look at a normal /lowT count age graded, but offer to top it up. Almost none of them will take into consideration that you may have trained 20+ hours that week and artificially lowered it, and by a lot.
I had one of the best doctors I could ever have hoped for, nearly 35 years, he was in your field, but retired about 10 years ago. I have had 5 since then(move a lot) and every single one of them I have to educate on the physiology of an athlete, and have to pull information out of them when I see something worth considering. And that’s if they actually know that information.
I have not taken these tests, mostly because I know as much as most anyone about what is what on bloodwork. But I could suppose there are experts there who see a lot of different athletes and profiles, so if I had an out of the box problem, that is where I would go. GP’s these days are pretty much useless for this kind of stuff, still have to tell them not to panic when they see my 31 heart rate… (-;
Question around the Athlete Blood Test site. One of their offerings cites helping to refine which nutrients your body processes most efficiently. While more dietary based, I would be curious to know if anyone has experience for using these test to help fine tune diet and fueling…If not, any other suggestions?
Thanks!