7 essential lab tests to help shape your longevity journey

What is the elixir of youth? How can we live right into our old age without any mental or physical disabilities? We’ve all seen our loved ones progressively become frail and how this impacts everyone around them. We aspire to choose a healthier path. A path which allows us to enjoy our lives right into the last decade without encumbrances.

Welcome to the world of longevity medicine. The core fundamentals of lifestyle need to be in place before you consider any longevity testing to optimise your health. You can’t out-supplement a poor diet, late sleeping patterns, or a sedentary lifestyle. So, my recommendations for lifestyle are:

1. Following a low-carb diet 80% of the time. This keeps your insulin and blood glucose control optimal, which is critical for stable energy.
2. 7-8 hours restful sleep a night. Aim for an optimal sleep pattern, such as getting to bed by 10 pm and waking up at 6 am without interruption. Having an overactive bladder, or an overactive mind, needs to be minimised using clinical and personalised solutions.
3. Regular exercise. 2-3 strength training sessions and 150 minutes of Zone 2 exercise or 2×30 minutes high-intensity training sessions. This basic schedule is a good guide to maximising your cardio-respiratory fitness as well as your strength. These are two key parameters which determine your longevity.

So, when it comes to lab testing, key markers have been identified to determine your longevity:

1. Fasting insulin – An elevated insulin level above 7 milliunits indicates an insulin-resistant state. This indicates that there’s excessive glucose to be cleared from the blood and your pancreas is secreting more insulin to control the glucose rise. Insulin resistance is linked to more chronic diseases than any other hormonal imbalance, including cancer, heart disease, and dementia. Keep it low for long-term protection.
2. hs-CRP – CRP is an inflammatory marker produced by the liver. It’s produced in response to an acute infection but also a chronic inflammatory response; this can be related to a chronic disease like heart disease, dementia, or cancer. Inflammation drives ageing. Find out the cause if it’s elevated and get it to below 1.0mg/L.
3. Vitamin D3 – This vitamin is critical to so many functions in the body. Sub-optimal levels are linked to greater risk of mental disorders, dementia, and cancers of the prostate, breast, colon, and blood (multiple myeloma). It is also linked to higher blood pressure and diabetes, which increases the risk of heart disease. Get a blood check and ensure your vitamin D3 is at the optimal range of 60-90ng/dl. Intakes can range from 4000-10,000 iu depending on your age, ethnicity, and body fat composition.
4. Vitamin B12 and Folate test – These vitamin tests are critical to determine if you have enough ‘methylation’ activity in your body. Methylation is a process that happens every millisecond of every day in nearly every cell. It’s a process of moderating gene expression inside cells so that they transcribe properly. Methylation is also a form of detoxification, supporting the immune system and neurological function by regulating neurotransmitters. You need optimal levels of B12 and B9, among other nutrients, to have good methylation activity. I’d also combine this with optimal choline consumption, which comes from eggs and liver, to ensure smooth regulation of the methylation cycle.
5. Triglycerides on a cholesterol panel – We’ve been looking at the wrong risk factor for heart disease for a long time on the cholesterol panel. LDL cholesterol, although relevant to heart disease when it becomes oxidised, cannot be determined on a typical cholesterol profile. In a 2009 study of 136,000 hospitalised patients with a heart attack, the biggest risk factor for a heart attack was high triglycerides. So, getting your triglycerides below 80mg/dl will put you at a much lower risk of heart disease. In fact, the people with the lowest triglyceride level have a very low risk of heart disease. Combine that with a high HDL, and this reinforces a much stronger lower risk for heart disease in general.
6. Liver function test: GGT – Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT) is a great predictor of longevity on the liver function test. What it measures is the degree of toxic burden in the liver due to a variety of conditions. These conditions could be due to alcohol, excess carbohydrates leading to fatty liver, environmental toxins, pollutants, or low levels of antioxidant protection in the liver. Either way, high levels mean a greater toxic demand on the liver. Two key studies have linked high GGT levels to greater risk of all-cause mortality, including heart disease, dementia, and cancer. Optimal levels should be below 16u/L. Modifying your lifestyle to minimise alcohol and carbohydrate consumption seems to be the best approach. Specific liver supplements may be helpful.
7. Iron Panel: Serum Iron, Ferritin, Transferrin Saturation – Iron is an essential element for health. It’s essential for building haemoglobin in the blood and for carrying oxygen into all tissues. However, too much iron can be oxidising to the body, which essentially ‘rusts’ the body and accelerates ageing. Iron is a reactive element which needs to be kept under control. This is done by an enzyme called ceruloplasmin, a copper-dependent enzyme that it is critical to keep optimal to manage iron transport. The carrier protein of iron is ferritin. It is elevated when there’s too much iron in the body and is critically linked to greater stroke and heart disease risk. Iron levels increase in men and post-menopausal women. Optimal levels should be around 15 umol/L.

Understanding how to optimise your health for longevity is about taking responsibility for your lifestyle and looking at your biomarkers more critically to identify optimal statuses, not just statuses that are “within the range”. This will go a long way to helping you live well beyond 70 and into your 90s with robust health.

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