Home Lab Testing 101: Your Guide to Great Results

You're listening to the Human Upgrade with Dave Asprey. All right. Our guest today is actually someone that I've entered a business partnership with. And I reached out to my friend Dulce Conde, who runs Knowing Labs. And I'm an advisor of Knowing Labs and she provides very high quality lab work. You can also go to Knowing Labs and get a broad spectrum of panels. Dulce, welcome to the show. You are our expert to talk about lab testing in general. And of course we're going to talk about your labs, but you're an industry veteran, so you're going to talk about the industry at large.

Thank you so much, Dave. It's an honor to be here. We started doing laboratory testing back in 2012 and it has been a huge change over the past few years on how the industry is moving. And definitely we have a lot of big laboratories nationwide, international that are covering the most of the testing. But the type of testing that they provide is very different to what we are doing under Knowing Labs. Just to give you some perspective, when we start working in the lab, we were having a lot of clients through the physicians, through clinics, we work with nursing homes. And it was very challenging because health care, the healthcare system in this amazing country works in a very unique way. We were getting order from physicians, a lot of lab testing that have a lot of restrictions. For example, a lipid panel. Insurances authorize the people to run a lipid panel only three times per year. Or tests like the hemoglobin A1C, you can run it only three times per year. So the doctors were sending us a lot of laboratory testing and the insurance were declining for that test and we were stuck in the middle. Like, the doctor wants to know this, but insurance wants something different. The other challenges that we were facing is that every time that we get a sample from a patient, it was because the patient had already some symptomatology of a potential disease. So it was more like reactive. It was a different way to run lab testing. Back in the day, many of the.

Anti aging doctors I work with have started saying, no, no, no, I want to always make sure that my patient samples go to exactly the same lab. Because if you send your vitamin D test to lab number one operations center versus lab number two, operation center, you can have a variability in your results, right? And so if you're trying to say, you know, that might be okay for a broad population, but if you're going to send the same sample in three times to see if your vitamin D supplements are raising your levels the way you want them to. Wouldn't you want to get the same lab to do the same test with the same lab techs on the same equipment? So you get a reliable number that's for you versus an average reliable number. And I think that's a big problem right now.

Correct. And also, even if you are even in the doctors or is they're using exactly the same brand, the same one laboratory, these one big laboratories have facilities all over the country. So your sample may go to Dallas this time, but maybe go to a different state next time. So it's not inaccurate, but it's more a lack of consistency on the results. And there are other companies who are doing something similar to what we are doing, but they don't own the laboratory. So they are sending not just to these two big companies brands laboratory, but they are using probably 20 different laboratories. So when the clients order a test, the client doesn't really know if it will be sent where. And then again, the problem is the consistency of the results.

Okay, so I'm going to just say that we have a bit of a problem with consistency. And this is not just for the main kind of labs that are used by doctors and hospitals all over the place. Even some of the genetic testing companies, there are people who sent their genes out like the same sample the same day to two different genetic companies and gotten different results. Now I work with the DNA company. I'm, I'm very happy with what they do because these problems have been ironed out. So what I, I think is going to help solve this problem is certainly what we're doing with, together with knowing labs is to say, okay, what if you just, since you can now send your sample directly from your house to a lab, you can have the same lab do it. So I said, all right, this seems like the right way to do it for boutique lab testing that's also relatively affordable because there's been some changes. When I started on my journey 25 years ago, there was no spot testing at home. There was no little pipette stuff. You literally had to go to a doctor. You had to beg for a lab test. The doctor would say, I don't really think you need it. And you'd say, but I want it. And they'd say no. And literally this would happen. And it still happens if you go to a normal provider because they're worried about being yelled at by an insurance company. So then you could say, well, what if I'm willing to pay? And they go, all right, fine, if you're willing to pay Whatever, and then you go do it. So the world has shifted, but you still have to go to the doctor and maybe the doctor will draw. And if you've ever gone to have your labs drawn at a major lab company, you're. You're kind of going through a very standard process that's just not very nice. So if you can do that instead at home, it's different. What happened with technology that let us suddenly get all of this stuff from home that used to require a big old vial of blood? Like what was the shifts over the.

Last 10 years, it has been thanks to the effort of other companies who start before us and, and they were trying to provide an alternative and a solution where people can be really making the decision and being empowered to take care of their information, the data, so they can monitor how their hormones or how their biomarkers are moving and are shifting. So the technology has also improved. Back in the day, the only way to get a laboratory test is through acne puncture, which is you need a phlebotomist to actually draw blood from your veins. And as science has progressed and it has been a better quality of their cells to, to have access to, actually you take the sample yourself. Is usually in a finger prick whenever it's blood. There are other things that we can run that are based on saliva or based on urine. But speaking about blood, there are the alternative to be able to do a fingerprint collect the sample in a very easy, convenient, non painful way. It's not really very invasive. And you can do it in a what we call a dbs, which is a dry blood spot car. And you can also do it with a capillary tube, which is like a little small tube where you put the same amount of blood into the tube and ship it back to us. So it is very convenient.

And it's like one drop of blood just for Some people always have weird things about blood. But it's literally, you prick your finger, there's a little tiny drop and you hold this thing up and it sucks the blood into a little tiny vial. And that's what we're talking about. So this is not a traumatic thing. It's minor to the point you can do it with kids and they'll be okay.

Yeah, actually I have done some tests to my kids and they are like totally okay with that Is not really painful. It's not one drop of blood. I wanted to clarify that there is like multiple, you know, drops.

The capillary tube is like several drops, but it's. It's One drop at a time. It's not like going into a vein. It's pricking a finger and squeezing in a couple times. It's. It's a minor thing, correct.

Whether they put it on the dry spot car and there are different, different spots that they can need to fill out. Some cars are from five spots or some other cars are from five or 15 spots, or they do it with a, with a little tube. They call it about the same amount of blood, but yeah, it's a drop at a time. And it's not, it's not invasive. And you can perform it yourself. You don't need to do anything about phlebotomy work. And it's convenient. It's convenient when you can do it from the comfort of your home or your work. You don't have to go to a clinic, be on a waiting room, you know, hoping that somebody will take the sample from you. Especially nowadays that there are many doctors offices still close or there is like the concern about don't get too close to other people. This is an amazing alternative.

I just value people's time. I have always been kind of angered by the fact I have to go wait in one waiting room to get a permission slip to go wait in another waiting room to get some goddamn blood pulled out of my arm. And you're saying, oh, here you go, it arrived in the mail, or you picked it up at an upgrade labs, you stuck your finger, you dropped it in the mail, and you got your results. I think that it's great. But what I don't know is the level of accuracy between a dried blood spot between a capillary tube, and between actually pulling blood in a vial with preservative the way you would with a phlebotomist. But tell me, like, should I go wait in line to get the full vial if I really want good results? What's the difference in lab processing between these three different methods?

The actual lab processing in the equipment at the lab is exactly the same, believe it or not. It's actually the same. We use a different type of technology, of course, because whenever we use a phlebotomy with the belly puncture, the type of equipment is different than what we are using a capillary tube or we're using the dry spot car, but is really accurate if I have a preference, If I can recommend a preference, like, honestly, the capillary tube is as reliable as any benipuncture, but the dry blood make it very, very, very convenient because the stability of the sample is longer. And we can also service our international clients so there is no conflict with crossing the border. But you are going to try to transfer plasma, you know, like or like the actual blood from one country to another. It has a different type of regulations, but it is very reliable though Will.

Knowing labs, then are you allowed to send the dried test cards anywhere on the planet? Right.

Correct.

Okay, you guys understand what this means? This means that if you live in any country anywhere and you can't get a lab test in your country, but New York state has very strange laws that prevent most lab tests from being shipped there. Can you ship the cards to New York?

You are absolutely correct. We cannot ship the cars to New York and we want to ship to New York, but we are not allowed to do it. There are particular regulations in the state that we are prevented from doing so. We are actually believer, not looking for an alternative and a solution. And. And I think we're going to be able to do that in the next few months. But for right now we cannot do it. It's easier for me to work with people in Germany or England than to work with people in New York.

So you can't do it yet. But if you lived in New York and you got something forwarded from a P.O. box or something, you could easily draw the stuff and then send it. And because it's dried blood, at least in some of what you do is dried blood, it doesn't have to be in ziploc baggies and like biohazard and all that stuff. Like it's an innocuous thing. Right, Compared to the pipettes.

Well, we still protect the quality of the sample. So even in the dry blood car, we put a steel on a biohazard bag just for standard precautions and we provide all that supplies. So they can just put it in an envelope and ship it back to us.

It's in a normal envelope though, that doesn't have to be like a live blood with stickers all over it. And all that stuff that when you like insulated containers, all the stuff that you might imagine for that, that doesn't.

Require another important thing, Dave, it doesn't require a particular temperature. Some samples in a traditional way to run in laboratory testing require to have an ice pack so you can preserve the quality of the sample. In this particular case, it's not needed. Not even with the capital capillary tube. Like you don't need to do that. So it's very convenient.

Okay. So even for little tubes you don't. All right, so this is something that is is striking a blow for your right to know what's going on in your body without needing a permission slip. Right. And this is a big deal. And it's also remarkably affordable now compared to where lab testing used to be. Now, if someone was to send in to knowing labs a dried blood spot and the little micro capillary, little tiny little tubes, it's both the same amount of shipping. Right. Like they're little envelopes. It's very easy to do which one gives you better results.

They both get very good results. We are highly regulated by clia. We're a highly complexity CLIA licensed laboratory. We're audited all the time. And both methodologies are, have passed the audits because they are both reliable. The equipment that we use and the methodology that we use is very, very, very important. However, there are some difference on the time that it takes to process the test. So with the capillary tube is faster to run the test than with the dry blood spot car. So that's something that changes because the dry blood car requires a different type of process where we need to use different type of chemicals to convert, call it piece of paper that car into blood again. And it requires a longer process for processing.

Okay, I, I like that. So you, you can get equivalent results from those. And is that true for everything? Even like hormones or lipids? It, it's really identical results.

It is identical results. Maybe there's a variant probably of 1 or 2%. So let's say that one is going to give you like 99% accuracy and that is going to give you 98% accuracy. So they are both very accurate. But, but it just the, the way that we run the test is changes is what makes the difference.

Okay, it changes on your end at the labs, it changes. But from a consumer perspective, if you're looking to get between 70 and 90 for your vitamin D levels, the way I recommend, whether you do a dried blood spot or a capillary, you're going to get the same number, but the capillary results will arrive faster.

Correct. The other difference as well is there are some people that, that is still more into the traditional way. The laboratory testing has been run for, for many, many, many years. And when they choose the test, they choose to have the capillary too, because it gives them some peace of mind and they prefer that. And other clients, they prefer to do the dry blood, the dry blood car. And when we work with functional medicine doctors, they have a tendency to prefer to use the capillary tube as well. So we had seen it. You know, everybody has a personal preference and is their choice.

Okay. That that makes a lot of sense. And so you like the pipettes as well as a lab company because you don't have to rehydrate the dried blood spot cards which saves you chemical use.

Manpower as well. Like definitely. But we have seen still there are some. I just wanted to also mention there are some biomarkers we're still wrong with saliva. So sometimes in the kids that we send, we send whether it's the dry car or the capillary tube and we also send a tube for saliva. So there are some. Whenever we are measuring particular biomarkers we have seen better consistency, a better quality of the results with saliva over blood, believe it or not.

Wow. Okay. So that means that we could do an environmental analysis. You use more chemicals with a piece of paper, the dried spot card, but you use more plastic and materials with the capillary cards. Which one's better for the environment, would you guess? We're not going to know for sure.

I really don't know. I think the card it would be better for the environment than the capillary tooth. But that's just my one guess.

Okay. I think the card would be too. And if we're going to increase say by 5 or 10x the number of lab tests we do, there's a pretty clear argument that dried blood spot is a good way to do it. But I don't think that Dulce has actually gone through and looked at the amount of chemical stuff that has to be done on the back end. The production of that may be environmentally really expensive, but it's a good thing.

I'll check into that.

All right. Yeah, and that's kind of a random question. People oftentimes don't think about it. One of the reasons that I want you to get your vitamin D levels up into that range that's recommended by most of the anti aging doctors I've worked with and certainly that's the number in my anti aging book. It's that if your vitamin D levels are higher, your risk of almost every large like major category of disease goes down. Your risk of all cause mortality goes down. Your risk of being hospitalized for any reason, even the most popular media reasons, it all goes down. And if you care about the environment, how about you don't go to the hospital and you can actually drive a gas powered car. And if you avoid three hospital trips, you probably evened out the value of you driving that sports car with explosions under the hood. It's that big of a deal. No one ever talks about that stuff. So get your labs, just get the main labs that reduce your risk. The number one lab that matters the most is vitamin D. I want everyone in the country to know their levels. If they're not where you want them to be, then you can either choose to get more sunshine, which probably won't work well enough, or you can take supplements which can be very, very widely available. This alone would shift the entire health of the country or of a. Of the entire planet if we just got people to get their levels up. It's not that hard. And it's. It's actually quite affordable for everyone.

Yeah, well, knowledge is power, right? But we need to do something about it to be able to get that knowledge. So this is a very efficient, convenient, discreet and affordable way to do it. And I think that this initiative that you have about the remedy test is going to bring a lot of good things to the people. So I think it's an amazing idea.

If you go to knowinglabs.com Dave, use code Dave, and they'll give you 20% off every test.

Absolutely. We're very excited to support the community, your community. So, yeah, go to their website, code Dave. 20% on all the panel. We have a lot of really good panels on the website.

What about Canada? I mean, you can ship those spot cards anywhere. Are you allowed to ship to other countries?

Yes, we can. The challenge that we have right now with Canada and Mexico, actually, is that we. Whenever somebody orders a kit from our website, we send free freight both ways. You know, whenever we send the kit for collecting and whenever they send the sample back. Whenever we work with international clients, we cannot cover the freight. I mean, the shipping and handling, just because there are different type of regulations. So we right now are shipping it, but we don't cover the freight. Very, very, very soon we're going to have an office in Canada and we're going to have an office in Mexico. Our neighbors. So we can. They can ship it free to that particular location. And then for the location we can bring that. It just, it takes a little bit longer lead time just for the transportation. Not because running the test takes longer, just because it takes longer to be able to. To handle the logistics.

Okay. And people globally who want to do it. You can send them the spot cards which are legal for them to send back because it's not a liquid plasma kind of thing, it's not infectious. But they have to cover shipping because if you live in Switzerland and you want to get this done, Then there's no way, Dulce, and knowing labs could possibly know what shipping would be. So you're going to have to handle shipping. But this opens us up also to the Middle East. I have so many friends in Dubai now and they're like, I want to get access to this stuff, but they can't. So this lets you do it. And let's talk for a minute about vitamin D levels. Whether you're in Dubai or somewhere else, the levels are between 70 and 90 are the levels that, that I recommend and that most anti aging doctors recommend. Some people want to go up to 100. Above 100 you can actually have pro inflammatory things that happen when it's too high. So it's not like, oh, it's good, do you want to have it higher, higher, higher. And when it's below 70, it's a problem. And a lot of people are in the 10s and 20s. But my question for you, Dulce, is.

What'S your vitamin D level actually deficient? I run a test last week and I was like, wow, I need to get a better vitamin D. Like vitamins, I mean, I need to start getting more vitamins. Because I think most of the population in, I want to say in America, but in the world, every sample that we get into the lab, they are deficient. They are so deficient.

Yeah. So one set of arguments would be, oh, your vitamin D should be, well, if everyone has it that way, then clearly we're just expecting something that's not reasonable. There's just one problem. We used to be matched with our mitochondrial DNA and our nuclear DNA. So guys, if you remember, your mitochondrial DNA is kind of the power plant electrical wiring set up for your body and the environmental sensor set up. And then the other part of this, your, your nuclear DNA is sort of what are the walls and other structures. If your body was a building, the problem is that your ancestors probably moved around and mixed around. So you are no longer set up genetically from a mitochondrial, a nuclear DNA perspective to actually be in the environment where your people came from. Especially if half your people are from Africa and half your people are from northern Europe. Good God. What's the right amount of sunlight for you? Well, it's determined in large part by these vitamin D receptor genes. And when I got mine looked at and I've struggled for years to get my vitamin D levels up, I would take 5 or 8,000 IUs of vitamin D. I couldn't get my levels up. Finally, with genetic testing, I figured out, oh, I have the vitamin D receptors of someone who should live on a tropical island. But I have but white skin, which means if I get enough sunlight that I get advanced aging on my skin and it's actually not good for me. And my levels still won't go above 40 even after six weeks in Hawaii. And, you know, getting wrinkly skin from it, it doesn't work. So what that means is you measure your vitamin D levels and you take some vitamin D and you, and you go, oh, wow, it didn't work. My number, I take between 15 and 20,000 IUs of vitamin D every single day for my body weight, my skin tone, my vitamin D receptors. Right? So you don't know unless you test. And this is why testing is important. I would love to tell you everyone should take a 5,000 IUs of vitamin D, but it probably isn't the right amount for you. It's just the most likely right amount for you. That's why we're partnering on this test. It's that important. You get your vitamin D numbers because you don't know how much to take.

It is very important because, well, you know this very well. It's affecting so many areas of our health. Right. A low level of vitamin D is going to be compromised in different areas in our body. And I just want to give you credit, Dave, because when we were developing the panels for knowing labs, the work that you have been doing inspired many of the panels that we put together. We were always thinking, a person who is proactively checking their health and wants to improve their health and their performance in all areas of their life, what they will be asking for, what do they need to know? So your work has inspired many of the panels that we have. We're very grateful to be working with you. Now.

I thank you for that and thank you for having me on as an advisor to help figure out some of this stuff. For knowing labs, I just think we can do a lot better. And lab testing is a part of this stuff. Some people are asking from the Upgrade Collective just about units of measure. Vitamin D in North America is usually done in nanograms per milliliter, and that 70 to 90 is what I'm talking about there. There are some international measures where other countries will use different units. So 70 to 90, you'd have to convert that to your country's measure in order for that to make sense. And what I think is going to happen when people globally order order tests and get a result from knowing labs, they're going to end up getting these reported with the units right There. So if you look at it, go, that doesn't make sense compared to my doctor. Either you or your doctor can easily use a conversion tool online to, to tell you whatever the levels are correct.

And also we are also going to mention that we're adding new panels all the time. So you want to be constantly checking the website for more, for more resources.

Okay, got it. So you're constantly upgrading it. And so I'm kind of feeling liberated. I can get a spot test, send it in, or a little capillary test, send it in and get a broad swath of laboratory results. And then the big question is, what do you want to go with? You know, how do you know when you're working with your functional medicine practitioner, with your health coach, or you're just working yourself? There's plenty of knowledge and information out there. You can go and you can say, you know, I want this detailed test and you can get it. So I'm working on my hormones. My doctor wanted to just say, give me a TSH for my thyroid, but I already know from reading one of the Dave books I need my advanced thyroid panel. So then you can go to knowing labs and say, I'm going to get my advanced thyroid panel. And you can literally walk into your doctor and say, this, this is why I have a thyroid problem. I'm fat, I'm tired, my skin is flaky, and you told me my TSH levels were numbered, but see, my T3 is off. You have the right to do that. And ideally, most doctors would order an advanced thyroid panel, but if they do, they might charge a lot more money for it because it's going to run through your insurance. And then your insurance is going to call you and say, oh, we didn't really want to pay for it. And after you've received 74 bills from your insurance company in varying amounts and you've spent 60 hours of your life, you'll get your lab test paid for. I would like to end that. Let's disrupt the insurance companies by just making your data, your data without their permission or your doctor's permission. That's why I care about this so much.

We have made the prices for the lab testing so affordable that I can like hundred percent assure that the price of pay for one of these lab tests is going to be less than the CO pays and the insurance. So it is. And they can also use the HSA or FSA account, by the way. So if they have an FSA or HSA account, they can use it to buy the kids from us.

So that's important. Guys, if you're in North America, or at least I should say in the US specifically, not just North America, then you have the flexible spending accounts and health spending accounts. You can use HSAs but not FSAs on this.

Both. They can use both.

Okay.

We have to legally. Right. Say that they need to check with their FSA and HSA rules. They need to check into that. But we haven't seen any problem with our clients. All the equipment that we use is being approved by government. Every methodology that we use has been approved. So we're totally regulated by CLIA. 100% general peace of mind.

Well, that's why I'm an advisor, you know, I'm an equity owner and knowing labs and why I'm partnering with you because I do my diligence on that stuff as well. You're using real lab testing stuff. That's well understood.

Yeah. We're not inventing a new piece of equipment. No, no. We are using equipment that is a standard in the laboratory industry. And I just want to say that we're so proud of our tired panel. You mentioned tired a few minutes ago. We're so proud of that panel because we really put the panic together. We were very thoughtful about what biomarkers were important to have the full picture for the thyroid. So to me, the thyroid is like the second brain in our body. I think thyroid regulates so many functions in our body that I was very thoughtful about putting a good panel for.

For our clients where you have T3 and T4 and reverse 3, T3 and all that stuff. Thyroid, it's one of those things. Anyone listening? If you're saying, God, I just run out of energy, my brain doesn't work very well and I'm getting fat even though I'm exercising like I used to and all that. Seriously, look at thyroid first. I honestly think about everyone over 45ish. Unless you have high functioning thyroid, above average. If you take a super tiny amount of thyroid, like an eighth of a grain, it's an anti aging replacement hormone because your thyroid function declines with age. And if you have a younger functioning level of thyroid, you'll feel a lot better and you won't get some of the weight that comes on with aging and your brain works better. So I think this is one of those things that should be replaced as often as we replace sex hormones. It's an energy hormone and we're going to get there. Just give it another 10 years. That'll be standard of care for anti aging medicine.

One of our slogans that we have used for promoting our laboratory testing is you deserve to know. Because we truly believe the people deserve serve to know what is inside of their body rather than waiting for a physician to tell them what they should be checking or not checking. I mean, we have the right to know what is inside our body so we can make better decisions.

There you go. So we talked about blood, but we didn't talk about saliva or urine very much. So do you do saliva testing with knowing labs?

We do saliva, we do urine. There are amazing panels that we have based on urine. We have a toxicology panel that we usually work more with drugs of abuse, rehab centers, those are our main clients. We have a polypharmacy panel as well, which is a big deal in today's healthcare system because sometimes if the cardiologist is prescribing something to the patient, but the main doctor doctor is not aware that what the cardiologist prescribing is prescribing something else and then another specialist is prescribing something to the patient and there might be a risk of contraindications of those 2, 3, 20 medications together. So I think it's important for physicians to be proactive and be ordering a polypharmacy test so whenever they see the patient, they know exactly what the patient is taking or not taking, or they prescribe, let's say, an antidepressant and the patient goes back to the doctor again and they are still not improving. And the doctor prescribed a higher dose or a different brand. But reality might be not working because the patient is not taking it. So this removes the guesswork and provides physicians with actual data where they can see if the patient is taking something or not. It's also checking for over the counter medication, some herbals, and it is a very robust panel for polypharmacy that's usually ordered more by functional medicine doctors or even traditional doctors. We are the only laboratory in the country who has this panel. It's something that we develop ourselves and it's very cool. It really can save lives.

That is really cool. Polypharmacy is something that's just emerging. It's a part of the system's pharmacology line of thinking, which is also leading to systems nutritional supplementation. So who knows, maybe at some point we'll end up with a panel around that. I'd be happy to chat with you about it, but I think there's, you know, there's a lot of development to be to be done. But the idea of polypharmacy guys is that if you're taking multiple medications that are interacting, you can probably see it in your metabolites. So we talked about how you get a lot of urine stuff, but how do you, how do you collect urine and then send that? This isn't a spot test, right? I can't like pee on a, on a spot. You still have to send liquid there.

Actually, we send the kid a cup where they can pee on the cup and then from the cup they transfer to an actual tube a little bit larger than the capillary tube. And then that little tube is the one that is sent back to the.

Laboratory through the mail or does it have to be all wrapped in, you know, a whole bunch of stuff?

Through the mail? Through the mail. Now those tests, we're only providing it right now in America, in North America, in United States. We are not shipping those international just yet because the regulation are different. So we're working on developing the panels with dry urine so we'll be able to transport international. But for now those are. Those two tests are only in the country.

Got it. It's. It makes sense that you would only be able to do in country, but it is better to be able to send that through the normal mail than the old way. You used to have to do it where there's a big styrofoam box and all sorts of stuff. And can you do things like metal analysis in urine as well to look for toxic metals?

We don't have the capability to do that in this particular moment. And so sadly enough it was because in our market research there was not a lot of volume the panels with dry urine. So we'll be able to transport international, but for now those two tests are only in the country.

Got makes sense that you would only be able to in country, but it is better to be able to send that through the normal mail than the old way.

You have to justify to get that test done. Right now we have priority in other tests. We are have launching a very robust line of STD STI related test which we use with blood, we use with vaginal swab and we use also with urine. So there is a very good have.

To do it where there's a big styrofoam box and all sorts of stuff. And.

And on STD panels it's about information and I think that it's also about being proactive. So most usually STD is a big topic and actually I have the opportunity to speak about it in your last biohacking conference in Orlando and It is a big deal because usually people don't get tested by STD because they are too shy, they are scared, they don't want to go and talk to their doctors about it until they have some, some symptoms. And whenever they can order in, the privacy of their home is discreet, it's convenient, they are the ones receiving the results. Then they can do something about that and they can be proactively monitoring their sexual health. And I think sexual health is as important as our health overall.

Can you do things like metal, metal analysis in urine as well to look for toxic metals?

We don't have the capability to do that in this particular moment. And sadly enough it was because in our market research there was not a lot of volume justified to get that test done. Right now we have priority in other tests. We are launching a very robust line of STD STI related tests which we use with blood, we use in any part of our body.

It is important and something we don't talk about a lot. But if you're young and dating or old and dating, it doesn't really matter. If you're dating and you're active and you're not getting a test once a year, honestly you could be missing out on something that has a really long term effect on your brain and other stuff like that. So it's one of those, one of those things you should just, you should just do. And I highly support that unless you're completely in a monogamous situation, in which case you have to worry about it.

And the other, the other line of panels that we're developing is for food sensitivity, which is something very much needed. I think we have been asked a lot about releasing those panels so we're working on that right now as well. Very exciting.

What would you recommend lab test wise for people who are having a hard time losing weight? We talked about thyroid, but what else would you do on like your weight panel?

We have a weight and energy panel that we did a vaginal swab and we use also with urine. So there is a very good line on STD panel. It's about information and I think that it's also about being proactive. So most usually STD is a big topic and actually I have the opportunity to commend everybody's also basic chicken, their hormones. But what I do recommend everybody is to get the full panel. There's a female hormone profile and a male wellness panel which is all hormones as well. And we recommend everybody to start with that because it gives you a clear picture of what is happening in your body. So sometimes people is easy to speak about it in your last biohacking conference in Orlando. And it is not, you know, managing their weight properly despite the effort that they are doing. Because there is some something with a tyrant or there is something with their hormones. So it is better to check that. If they just want to pinpoint that, well, the weight and energy panel will be perfect for it. We have another panel that is asleep and stress. And sometimes people is not sleep big deal. Because usually people don't get tested by STD because they are too shy, they are scared, they are don't want to go and talk to their doctors about it until they have some symptoms. And whenever they can improperly because their level of stress is very high and that's affecting also the weight of the person. So I think it's better to get a full panel because they are going to get all those biomarkers check.

Okay. What about cortisol? Can you guys get cortisol normally? You need like a cortisol daily kind of.

Or they're in the privacy of their home. Is discrete. Is convenient. They are the ones.

The ones I've seen are saliva that you're getting. Are you getting blood cortisol? Are you getting saliva cortisol? How does that work?

We have saliva. We have some biomarkers on saliva and cortisol is one of them. We can do cortisol AM and pm. And I felt that it was better for somebody to be, you know, using a saliva tube than to be doing a finger prick. Seeing the results. Then they can do something about that and they can be product two times a day. So that's what we did on saliva to make it convenient for the. For monitoring their sexual health. And I think sexual health is as important as our health overall in a part of our body.

Okay. It is important and something we don't talk about a lot. But if you're young and dating or.

Old and dating patient for the clients to be able to collect the sample. And we have had some physicians or requesting to be checked four times a day. So we have the capability to do that as well. But our standard panel either checks for. For once a day or for twice a day.

Okay, got it. And I think cortisol is very important because we have this weird relationship with cortisol where cortisol is the stress hormone. Therefore it's bad. People don't know that bodybuilders actually take bioidentical cortisol in some situations when they're over training to help them Recover faster. How does that work? It doesn't really matter. If you're dating and you're active and you're not getting a test once a year, honestly, you could be missing out on something that has a really long term effect on your brain and other stuff like that. So it's one of those. Oh, it's because cortisol actually gives you power. Cortisol is quite useful. One of those things you should just. You should just do. And I highly support that. Chronically elevated cortisol is bad. Your ability to turn on cortisol when it's necessary, unless you're completely in a monogamous situation, in which case you have to worry about it. And the other is important. Cortisol is a circadian hormone, which means it should spike in the morning. Oh, right. When you drink your coffee, that helps it spike and then helps you. Oh, wow. You mean all that happens with cortisol? So it's fascinating, but you've got to know what your levels are if you're having a hard time with weight gain, because chronically elevated equals. I have a problem with weight gain. And if it's too low, which is something that I've had for much of my life, it's a genetic thing, man. Low cortisol is actually worse than high cortisol in terms of cognitive function, in terms of resistance to infection.

The other line of panels that we're developing is for food sensitivity, which is something very much needed. I think we have been asked a lot about releasing those panels. So we're working on that right now as well. Very exciting.

What would you recommend, lab test wise, for people who are having a hard time losing weight? We talked about thyroid, but what else? So if you're walking around right now and you have low cortisol and then you get exposed to whatever is going around, your odds of getting sick from it go up and you go, oh, gee, was I the perfect storm? Yeah. I lived in a house that had toxic mold, which increases your risk of respiratory illnesses. And I had low cortisol, which meant I got strep throat. Every detail on, like your weight panel.

We have a weight and energy panel that we recommend. Everybody is also basicling their hormones. But what I do recommend, everybody single.

Freaking month for more than 10 years. Right. Because of this. Had I known my cortisol numbers or known about the toxic mold thing, I could have raised my cortisol the way I do now to normal levels and I would have been very, very resilient to infections the way I am now. That leads me to the inflammation panel. Does it?

To get the full panel, there's a female hormone profile and a male wellness panel, which is all hormones as well. And we recommend everybody to start with that because it gives you a.

That have interleuk 6. Can you tell me about individual cytokines? What can I get there?

Well, we have a inflammation palette, actually, at the same time was inspired by you.

Yeah, that's what I'm asking.