Chrissy's Q&A is a bi-weekly feature from Apex Performance Integration's assistant coach, Chrissy Mangold. If you have a question, feel free to submit it in the comments below!
Why do we need better bloodwork?
Firstly, I want to start with what our blood work can tell us because it tells us a lot!
If something is wrong with you, or if you’re going for a yearly checkup, the doctor will typically order blood work. I’m sure you all have had blood work done at some point even if nothing is wrong. This will assess your general state of health, check if you have an infection, see how well your organs are working, and more. It will also screen for genetic conditions and the prevalence of disease.
However, we don’t get all we need to know from the typical blood panel most doctors order. Take me for example. A few years ago, I had my usual yearly blood work done with my doctor and everything came back fine and in normal range. At that time, I was hearing a lot of things from some companies offering a more extensive blood panel so I decided to check it out for myself. After some research and recommendations from colleagues, I decided to give InsideTracker a try. I came to find out my ferritin levels were very low. Initially, I thought, “What the heck is ferritin?” Ferritin measures the amount of stored iron in your body and transferrin tells how well your body transports iron in your blood. When my doctor checked my iron, that was the extent of it. Iron levels were in the healthy range so no need to look further, right? Yet, there are different parts to iron. My doctor checked serum which measures iron in your blood and mine was fine. I had enough iron so that read as normal, but they didn’t check my ferritin or the others I mentioned. For the record, I'm not knocking doctors; I'm just showing you that they order a typical blood panel and there is more to it. Companies like InsideTracker dive deeper. They test 48 different biomarkers, whereas the basic metabolic panel from your doctor usually only tests 8-14. Unfortunately, a lot of the time is because insurance companies don't deem these biomarkers to be important so they're not covered.
If you don’t measure and track as much as you can to get as detailed of a picture as possible, then how do you optimize your internal health? If you were going to buy a car you would look at the body of the car of course, but the really important stuff is under the hood. The same goes for humans! Our outer shell doesn’t tell us everything. To understand our bodies, we need to look under the hood, and as detailed as possible.
To improve your overall health, get your blood work done. See where you are lacking and where you are excelling. This is the prevention of sickness.
As InsideTracker says: "The blood don't lie."
So many people I know use supplements and I am one of them. But, why are we taking them? Most of the time we are supplementing because we think we need to because of something we read or heard from a friend. What if you don't need it? What if you need more? This is the wonderful thing about bloodwork, it will let you know what you need or don’t need.
Genes are also a factor, but genetics are only 10-20% of your health. The rest is how you live.
InsideTracker offers nutritional advice. This will help you adjust your blood work where needed. Not just by supplementing, but with real food recommendations. This will help you fine-tune and optimize your wellness.
Just like cars need oil changes and inspections to see what needs to be fixed and what doesn’t, the same goes for us. Give your body a proper inspection. This is how we
change things, with knowledge of our blood work. Let's all be proactive! Don’t wait until the car breaks down and it costs you way more. Make yourself a priority.
Have a great weekend!
Love,
Chrissy
P.S.
If you'd like to dig deeper into your bloodwork, I can't recommend InsideTracker enough! We know it can be an investment, which is why we were able to work with them and create a discount code for anything on their website! Use the code 'API' at checkout to save 20% off your entire order! Not just your first order. Not for only a limited time. 20 percent off any time, as many times as you want. What's better than investing in your health?
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