Don’t Wait for Symptoms: The Benefits of Regular Blood Lab Testing

We are officially into spring in the northern hemisphere, and while many people like to do spring cleaning, it’s a good time to do some lab testing. If you get your annual check-up once a year, you may have already gotten your labs. If not, this is a gentle reminder. My reminder came from Dr. Peter Attia’s new book Outlive: The Science & Art of Longevity.

Dr. Attia classifies our current medical delivery system as Medicine 2.0, highlighted by the discovery of penicillin and effective treatments for acute diseases and injuries. Unfortunately, Medicine 2.0 has been far less successful against long-term diseases like the Four Horsemen that are the most likely killers of a majority of people worldwide: heart disease, cancer, neurodegenerative disease, and type 2 diabetes and related metabolic dysfunction. These diseases develop over decades, with many symptoms not showing up until the conditions become more challenging to reverse/treat.

Here’s a simple example. Suppose you are driving your car and run over something. That object punctured a small hole in your oil pan. Unless you notice the pool of oil in a parking lot or your driveway or garage, you’ll have no idea that you are slowly losing oil. You’ll be on the freeway one day, and suddenly the oil light comes on. That’s terrible news, and you need to get it…