Optimizing your health and longevity requires more than just a snapshot of your health—it warrants ever-evolving monitoring and refinement. That’s why regularly tracking key biomarkers related to vital areas like heart health, metabolism, endurance, and overall vitality is so crucial. By getting comprehensive bloodwork done every 3-6 months through InsideTracker, you can closely follow how these critical markers fluctuate over time in response to your lifestyle choices.
Consistent biomarker testing allows you to identify positive trends to validate and tweak your health regimen while catching any negative changes early before they potentially spiral into more serious issues. With this data-driven approach, you can make informed decisions to feel your best, physically and mentally, today and down the road.
Why is testing over time important?
Consistent biomarker testing through InsideTracker is crucial for understanding the long-term impacts of your health habits. While a single test provides a valuable snapshot, tracking your trends over multiple data points allows you to identify patterns that may not be apparent from a single blood draw. Consistent retesting means more data points to identify correlations between biomarkers, and how you’re feeling physically.
Testing over time allows you to catch any negative biomarker changes early—before they potentially develop into more clinical issues. It also enables you to assess the effectiveness of new supplements, foods, exercise regimens, and lifestyle adjustments. With this information, you can make targeted adjustments if certain biomarkers aren’t improving as expected. For example, if food changes alone aren’t moving the needle on cholesterol, it may be time to try implementing a new supplement like psyllium husk or ALA.
Through a concept known as biofeedback, seeing positive trends in your biomarker levels can provide motivating feedback to continue implementing health habits that may begin to feel cumbersome. And it’s not just the numbers that you can watch improve—but how you feel physically and mentally as well.
Remembering what improving these biomarkers feels like, whether that’s increased energy, less fatigue, stronger workouts, relief of lowering cholesterol, pride in being mistaken for being much younger can serve as powerful motivators.
Think of routine blood testing as an upfront investment that pays dividends down the road. This investment allows you to save time and money on impersonal approaches that aren’t right for your body, not to mention the cost savings down the road, like maintaining muscle mass and mobility that reduce your risk of costly falls and fractures. 
What can you expect when you test with InsideTracker over time?
Feel the benefits of improved biomarkers
According to a recent analysis of InsideTracker customers, 80% of people optimize one or more previously unoptimized biomarkers when they retest with InsideTracker. And this equates to more than just a number moving on a chart—improving biomarker levels changes how you feel physically and mentally. For perspective, 4 out of 5 people experience benefits like having more energy, sleeping more soundly, and feeling relief and autonomy over their health and lives.
Target your areas of improvement
When you get your results back from InsideTracker, you can see how you score across 10 key areas closely linked to healthspan, like heart health, metabolism, and cognition. These simple scores help you to determine where your health habits are working for you and where you need to focus your efforts. The best way to know if your health habits are working for you is to monitor your category score trends over time.
InsideTracker customers are able to improve certain healthspan categories at higher rates than others. For example, 75% of InsideTracker customers are able to improve a suboptimal recovery category score between tests, compared to only 57% who improve suboptimal metabolism category scores between tests. Knowing exactly where you need to focus your efforts can help you take precise action.
Age slower biologically than chronologically
One of the most remarkable benefits of routinely retesting with InsideTracker is the potential actually to slow your biological aging process. InnerAge, a scientific calculation of your body’s biological age, is based on an analysis of your bloodwork biomarkers.
Remarkably, data shows that 60% of InsideTracker customers with an elevated InnerAge lowered it on their next test through guided optimization strategies. With each subsequent retest, you can track whether your concerted efforts are succeeding at reducing your biological age over time.
Having trouble optimizing certain biomarkers? Here’s what you can do
InsideTracker’s data scientists scoured the data to understand some of the key factors of customers who are able to optimize their biomarkers. Here are a few things that our successful customers do:
Note that certain biomarkers are easier to optimize than others
If you feel like you are doing everything right for your health, but you still aren’t moving the needle on certain markers, don’t panic. Certain biomarkers are easier to optimize than others. For example, the rate of optimization for vitamin D is nearly triple that of total cholesterol. This is because vitamin D from food, supplements, and the sun are readily absorbed by the body and can move the needle on blood levels of vitamin D quite easily. Markers like cholesterol are a different story—they require consistent changes to nutrition, exercise, and lifestyle to improve notably.
Create an Action Plan
One of the key factors for successfully optimizing your biomarkers is creating an Action Plan through the InsideTracker app. Data shows that customers who create an Action Plan are more likely to see improvements in their biomarker levels on their next test. When creating your Action Plan, focus on implementing 3-5 simple actions that you can incorporate into your routine sustainably. Start with the recommendations with the highest impact score, as these will provide the “biggest bang for your buck” regarding potential improvements. However, having up-to-date bloodwork results is essential to ensure your Action Plan addresses your body’s current needs. Creating an Action Plan based on old results can lead to wasted effort on strategies that may no longer be relevant.
Connect a wearable device to the app
Connecting a wearable device to the InsideTracker app is another factor that can contribute to improved biomarker levels. Data shows that customers who connect a wearable are more likely to see positive changes in their biomarkers on subsequent tests. Integrating a wearable allows you to visualize the connection between your daily activity metrics and biomarker data within the app. For example, VO2max—an indicator of aerobic fitness, athletic performance, heart health, and longevity—is correlated with nearly every biomarker that InsideTracker measures. By tracking VO2max alongside your bloodwork, you can understand how improving this metric through exercise can help optimize multiple biomarkers simultaneously and vice versa. Connecting your health data points can provide motivation and insights to guide your health strategies.
Get your DNA tested
Getting your DNA tested through InsideTracker provides invaluable insights to guide your health strategies precisely. Your genetic code is fixed, so understanding your predispositions allows you to make informed decisions about what to prioritize based on your body’s biology. Instead of stressing about potential genetic risks like high cholesterol, DNA testing empowers you to get ahead of the curve by quantifying how your genes may impact your health. While your genetic risks don’t change, there are modifiable biomarkers that can indicate whether your lifestyle is helping you to beat your genetic odds.
This is where InsideTracker’s blood plan and DNA Kit provide value. Your DNA, in combination with measurable and modifiable markers like your blood biomarkers, helps provide context to fine-tune your routines and overcome genetic odds through sustainable habit changes. Ultimately, DNA testing helps save time and energy by allowing you to strategically prioritize the actions that matter most for your genetic blueprint.
Calculate your InnerAge
Calculating your InnerAge through InsideTracker can provide a powerful motivator for optimizing your health. InnerAge is a biological age score based on an analysis of your blood biomarkers. It’s compared against your chronological age to determine if your body is aging faster or slower than your calendar years. Data shows that customers who know their InnerAge tend to be more successful at improving suboptimal biomarker levels over time.
There’s something catalyzing about having a precise metric that encapsulates your overall biological aging. Knowing if your InnerAge is higher than your chronological age can spur you to take corrective actions through diet, exercise, supplementation, and lifestyle changes. Conversely, an InnerAge lower than your actual age provides validation that your healthy habits are keeping you biologically younger. Either way, incorporating this powerful age measurement into your InsideTracker journey can provide added perspective and motivation for maximizing your vitality.
Work with a coach
For an added level of guidance and accountability, consider working with a health professional. Health coaches provide personalized expertise, developing tailored plans to help you efficiently progress toward your specific needs and goals. Beyond creating a customized regimen, coaches serve as vital accountability partners through regular check-ins to keep you consistent and motivated over the long haul. This collaborative, supportive dynamic has been shown to improve health outcomes and behavioral change. Coaches can also help you comprehensively track metrics like force gains alongside your bloodwork, making sense of the multidimensional data to refine your health strategies. With their in-depth knowledge, coaches ensure you understand how to apply your InsideTracker insights, serving as an expert resource to navigate your personal path to optimized biomarkers and overall wellness.
Key takeaways:
- Routine biomarker testing every 3-6 months through InsideTracker allows you to track trends over time and understand how your lifestyle impacts your health biomarkers.
- Testing consistently enables catching negative changes early, assessing if new health strategies are working, and increasing motivation from seeing improvements.
- Creating an Action Plan in the app, connecting a wearable device, getting a DNA test, and working with a health coach are key ways to make notable biomarker improvements.
- Around 80% of people optimize at least one biomarker when retesting, translating to real benefits like more energy and better sleep.
- Consistent testing provides insights to focus your efforts on key areas needing improvement for your unique biology.