Dr. Casey Means

So this is key is that every single person listening, I hope, after this episode will go to their health record or send their doctor a message and at least get the following test.

And the first seven that I'll mention are very basic and people might take umbrage to them because obviously there's a lot of debate about like what's everyone's favorite lab test.

But I think about it as like what are the basics that everyone should know and then what's like the next tier up that are easy to access and are cheap that will give you a lot more richness but which you still might have to kind of fight your doctor for.

So the first few that you will not have to fight your doctor for and are often free on an annual physical and literally define metabolic syndrome are fasting glucose, fasting triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, hemoglobin A1c, total cholesterol, waist circumference, and blood pressure.

And I will say, first of all, the reason I'm choosing these, it's not even my own choice, really.

It's two reasons.

One is that the two studies

over the past five years that have shown us in large populations that the vast majority of american adults are metabolically dysfunctional use those biomarkers so i think because of that it's important to know them and the two studies that i'm referring to are one from unc in 2018 which showed that based on those biomarkers 88 of american adults are have suboptimal metabolism

And then a follow-up study from the Journal of the American College of Cardiology from last year showed that that number has gone to 93.2% of American adults are suboptimal in their metabolism.

And these are the metrics that they use, and they're very basic.

If you had to pay out of pocket, they would be less than $100.

Let's talk through them.

Why they're great is because together they give you kind of like a tapestry of what's actually happening inside the cell if you choose to look at them that way, if you read the tea leaves of them.

The doctors often, if they see all these lab tests, it'll be in an electronic health record.

We've all been through this experience.

They'll come up on the screen and there'll either be like a green, orange, or red color next to it.

Like it's high, it's low, it's borderline.

And the doctor will basically, it's very algorithmic.

You know, your LDL is high, we need to bring it down.

Oh, your glucose is high, we need to bring it down.