May 23, 2024

From podcast:https://bengreenfieldlife.com/podcast/testingpodcast/

[00:00:00] Introduction

[00:00:28] Ben’s recommended tests

[00:02:16] Categorization of Ben’s recommended tests 

[00:04:54] Basic Blood Panel test

[00:13:13] Gut Testing

[00:19:28] Thyroid panel

[00:21:32] DUTCH test 

[00:24:51] Oxidative stress 2.0 test

[00:26:41] Omega-3 index report

[00:29:08] Cyrex Panel food allergy test and 88 food dried blood spot test 

[00:32:50] Mold & mycotoxins tests

[00:36:43] DNA and genetic testing

[00:40:54] Summarizing the Podcast

[00:44:49] End of Podcast

[00:45:43] Legal Disclaimer

Ben:  In this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast, the official guide to testing your body. My recommended blood, saliva, urine, poop, gene, micronutrient, hormone, food allergy tests, and a whole lot more.

Fitness, nutrition, biohacking, longevity, life optimization, spirituality, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the Ben Greenfield Life show. Are you ready to hack your life? Let's do this.

Welcome to a pretty special episode of the show. I've been getting so many questions from people about how to actually decode the process of poking and prodding the body to figure out what's going on with your blood, with your biomarkers, with your gut, with your hormones, your food allergy, food intolerances, even your genes, and a whole lot more. And, of course, in this era of readily available self-quantification, I'll admit there are a lot of different tests out there. I mean, probably, thousands at this point. I could think of just a dozen-plus genetic tests alone. 

I've been working pretty hard behind the scenes to put together a page, that has all of my gold standard recommended tests on it, that I come back to over and over again is kind of the test that would be at the top of the totem pole, so to speak, when it comes to deciphering what's going on in your body. Giving you actionable information that allows you to actually make targeted nutrition changes, supplementation choices, exercise modifications, lifestyle modifications, biohacks, and beyond. And so, that's what I want to get into on today's show.

Now, the shownotes are going to be pretty juicy. They'll be at BenGreenfieldLife.com/testingpodcast. And, if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/testingpodcast, you'll get access to all of the different tests that I mentioned; resources, additional podcasts, et cetera. So, that being said, I figured we should dive right in.

So, if you were to go to the page that'll link to in the shownotes, you'll see a whole range of tests. Categorized under gut health, hormone health, DNA, general health and longevity, food intolerance and allergy testing, and metals, molds, and toxins. That's kind of all the different categories that I chunk things into. And, I just want to walk you through what some of these tests are and what they involve, because I realize this can be confusing to a lot of folks. The actual interpretation of many of these tests, by the way, it's actually becoming a lot easier than it used to be.

I mean, I recently had a podcast with Dr. Matt Dawson at Wild Health, and I'll release that podcast soon. But he's been working on AI behind the scenes that will really take a lot of the guesswork out of lab interpretation, and they're already rolling that out with some of their clients at Wild Health. I spend typically 10 to 15 hours a week on the phone with people reviewing their lab results, walking them through their reports, giving them recommendations. Not that I'm a doctor, I don't give out medical advice, but I basically tell people what I would do if I were looking at the same labs that they're holding in their hands or looking at on their computers or their screens. But if you're pretty self-motivated and you like to learn, you're a little bit autodidactic. I believe that word means self-learning, or something like that. That or you’re really good car repairman or repair woman, as the case may be, an autodidact. That's the only joke you're going to get the whole podcast. You can actually read through the PDFs that you typically get in the email within a few weeks after you do tests like this. And, a lot of times, the PDF or the dashboard, via which you view the test, gives you pretty targeted and really helpful recommendations. 

Sometimes, those need to be taken with a grain of salt, you know. A lot of times, reference ranges are not as accurate as I think they should be. Say, take like, you know, vitamin D reference ranges, in my opinion, tend to be a little bit low. Thyroid stimulating hormone reference ranges tend to not be accurate enough to actually dictate or tell you if something is actually wrong with your thyroid; when in fact, a lot of times, there is something wrong with your thyroid. If you're just paying attention to the TSH of, say something that is below 4. I like a value below 2, for example. Those just a couple of examples. I won't go on and on. But the general idea is that, you do want to take the whole reference range thing with a grain of salt. And, sometimes, the reference ranges are for absence of disease and not the actual personal optimization.

So, anyways, that all being said, that aside, let's jump into what some of these tests are. So, the first test would be just a basic blood panel that will tell you a little bit more than the average panel that your doctor might order for you. Now, as I go through all these tests, know that most of them can be ordered directly to your home, and are a lot of times done via a basic blood spot. So, this first one, this advanced health panel, I like the one by LabCorp. 

This is one of the few tests that you actually do have to go to the lab for a blood draw for, or have a phlebotomist come to your home to actually do a blood draw. For most of the other tests I'm going to talk to you about, they can be done from the comfort of your own home. But this basic blood panel, or as the case may be, advanced health panel goes over C-reactive proteins, the same comprehensive metabolic panel, and what's called complete blood count; like red blood cells, white blood cells, et cetera, that your doctor might order for you. But then, a whole bunch of other things: vitamin D, vitamin B12, a full thyroid panel, a reverse T3, which is important when you're looking at thyroid to see how much of the thyroid is actually not being made active. Omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids, full lipid panel, fasting insulin, homocysteine iron, and total iron binding capacity. GGT, other markers of liver and kidney function, cortisol, cystatin C, another good marker of kidney function. DHEA, as related to hormones. 

So. this is kind of like what your doctor would normally order on a blood panel, but way fancier. So, just so you have your head wrapped around what a test like that would actually cost, it is typically around 540 bucks or so. Now, some of that stuff can be billed to insurance. But many people are now ordering these tests out of pocket because, frankly, when you order them online, you can get pretty good deals. But this would be a full blood panel that I would typically recommend someone run on anywhere from a quarterly to an annual basis. It's called an advanced health panel. And, if you did not want to do the advanced health panel on a regular basis because it is, you know, 500 plus bucks, you could look at another more basic panel that I have on that testing page called a cardiometabolic profile. A cardiometabolic profile. And this is less expensive. I believe that one's under $200 for the cardiometabolic profile, $180. And this just looks at some of the things that are most related to red flags when it comes to cardiovascular health or metabolism. Namely insulin, HSCRP or mark of inflammation, hemoglobin, A1C, a 3-month snapshot of your blood sugar levels, triglycerides, cholesterol, HDL, LDL, and VLDL. 

And then, the other thing that it looks into is your hormone balances like estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, DHEA, and testosterone. It's called a cardiometabolic profile. And as you can imagine, for the 180 bucks, it's a little bit easier to or easier on the pocketbook, I should say to order on a monthly basis — or I'm sorry, on a quarterly basis without having to eat, you know, rice and beans all year long. But the cardiometabolic profile is kind of like a stripped-down baby version of that advanced health panel that I talked about. 

The only thing I don't like about the cardiometabolic panel is it doesn't measure something that I think is pretty low-hanging fruit when it comes to paying attention to your health, and that's vitamin D. And that's why if you go to my lab testing page — and I do all my labs for this company called Rupa, by the way. You'll notice that I have the option for a vitamin D panel. And the basic blood test that I have on that page is basically just the cardiometabolic profile. Plus, the vitamin D. It's 199 bucks. So, the vitamin D tax on about $20 onto it. But I think that's pretty smart to measure vitamin D, along with some of these other cardiometabolic profiles. Okay. 

So, those are like the basics for blood, but there's a lot more that you can do when it comes to what I would categorize as nutritional biomarkers or micronutrients. When you're getting these blood panels, it's important to understand, sometimes, they aren't going to tell you things like micronutrients, fatty acids, amino acids, and other important nutritional biomarkers. Now, I like to pair those with about an annual basis of a urine test to actually — this whole profile. It's a urine test, mixed with a blood spot, mixed with a buckle swab, which is a fancy term for basically taking a Q-tip-like object on the inside of your cheeks, can all be done at home in this same test wasn't even available at home up until a couple years ago. Now, it's pretty cool. Turnaround time is two weeks, and it tells you a ton. So, it's called a Metabolomix. I did a whole podcast on it, by the way. I'll link to it in the shownotes. If you get a BenGreenfieldLife.com/testingpodcast.

But what it looks at are oxidative stress, biomarkers, mitochondrial function, your Omega balance, your toxic exposure; like lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, et cetera. And then, any indications of a methylation imbalance. Now, it's not a genetic test for methylation. It looks at things like arginine, glycine, serine, creatinine, methionine, something called methylmalonic acid. And a lot of these markers would indicate, even if you do have a genetic methylation issue, whether any of this is actually manifesting biologically in your body. So, it tests for all of this, all your essential and metabolic fatty acids. But if you want to kind of in addition to a blood panel, look at oxidative stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, omega balances, toxic exposure, and methylation status, this Metabolomix profile is the bee's knees. I mean, I do it on a yearly basis. I learn a ton and it kind of can give you clues about things that a basic blood panel is not going to tell you.

So, again, it's called Metabolomix, with an X. And, it's just a small spot of blood little bit of urine and a buckle swab. The other cool thing about this test is it can tell you neurotransmitter metabolites; meaning, it'll measure epinephrine, norepinephrine, serotonin, and dopamine. So, it can tell you a lot about your brain. You know, especially for somebody who has brain fog or poor sleep. It looks at bacterial and yeast markers. So, you could know if you might have a yeast or fungal infection. It looks at these metabolites produced by your gastrointestinal microbiome. Like I mentioned, look at toxins. You look at oxalates. You can see if you're oxalates sensitive, if you have a risk for kidney stone formation, metabolic dysfunction related to oxalates, et cetera.

Then, it'll measure all your amino acids, all your essential amino acids. So, you can see what essential and non-essential amino acids that you have that are being synthesized by your body or derived from dietary sources. So, let's say you're having a difficult time putting on muscle, or recovering, or you get injured frequently. You could literally check in and see, “Hey, are my histidine levels low? Are my leucine levels low or my methionine levels low?” It'll also look at all the fatty acids, omega-3, omega-6, omega-9, saturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fats, fatty acids. Something called D6, desaturates activity, which assesses the efficiency of the enzyme that turns omega 6s into 3s. And if you do the cheek swab part of it, it'll also do genetic testing for four basic, very important genetic markers, MTHFR, COMT, TNF-Alpha, and APOE. So, you're looking at brain health, inflammation, methylation status, and dopamine metabolism, when you're kind of combining all of those. 

So, it's a pretty cool, as you can imagine, pretty comprehensive test. It is a little spendier than some of those other tests that I talked about. And I actually need to go pull the price up here. So, I remember that, yeah. That one's 399. It's a lot of information. Three ninety-nine is not bad, considering that a test like this used to be like 2,000 bucks a few years ago. But considering you can get all of that, within the comfort of your own home, is definitely one of those ones that I tend to recommend pretty frequently. 

Okay. So then, we move on and we go to what I would consider to be another very important test. Now, this is related to the gut. It's important to understand that there are a lot of gut testing companies out there that look at the DNA of your gut; like say, Vitract, or Viome, or Thorne. And these are actually assessing the genetic profile of the biome in your gut. Those are helpful. They can look at bacterial imbalances. They can predict the amount of metabolites that your gut is producing. They can look at the type of foods that you should or should not be eating. But what I like about a test that actually goes in and analyzes, not just the DNA but the actual metabolites in the gut, is that you can get a really, really good picture of yeast, fungus, bacteria. Even, as nasty as this is to think about, parasites. And I'll admit it, this test is not pleasant. It's a three-day Genova Diagnostics stool profile. And yes, that involves pooping into like the equivalent of a hotdog tray for three days. Taking a little spoon that it comes with, putting in the little tubes that it comes with, shaking them up, taking your poop, putting in the refrigerator, rinsing, washing, and repeating for three days; especially that rinsing part, folks. Wash your hands. 

And then, once all of that poop is collected for three days, you take the prepaid FedEx shipping package out of the refrigerator, where your family has been having to stare at your poop, or at least your package poop, for the past three days, and you ship it off. But it's worth it, in my opinion. It is definitely worth it. 

So, the cost of a test like that, the Genova Diagnostics gut panel, is let me make sure I've got this one pulled up for you. It's 495. Okay. So, I don't do this test frequently. Obviously, I'd be spending like, you know, thousands of dollars a month or a quarter if I were to do all these tests. But this is another one I'll do annually. Or if I come back from hefty travel and my guts just feeling messed up, and I don't know if I've had a parasite, or I don't know if I have a fungal infection, or you know, if I'm symptomatic and it's concerning me, I'll do a test like this.

But, basically, it tells you inflammation. So, to look at things like blood in the stool, cow protectant, eosinophil protein, secretory IGA. It'll look at male digesting, meaning your pancreatic enzyme production, how well you're doing breaking down proteins. Fecal fats, which is, yes, how much fat is in your stool. Are you a floater or sinker? Dysbiosis, meaning the actual balance of the bacteria in your gut. The need for prebiotic or probiotic support. The need for antimicrobial support even. Like, which parasites, little critters you have in your gut, and which herbs or pharmaceuticals those might be sensitive to for an eradication profile. 

So, as you can imagine, you can learn a ton from a test like this. And the other thing that I like is that it will go in and basically give you a profiling of all of these different bacteria, so you can see what's balanced, what's imbalanced, how you might need to adjust your diet, whether you need to take a probiotic, food you might want to avoid, food you might want to include, et cetera. 

Like the profile I was recently looking at last week for a client, they showed a 10 for inflammation; high need for inflammation modulation in the gut. And the actual report itself said, “use slippery elm bark, use aloe, use DGL,” which is a form of like a licorice acid, zinc L-carnosine, glutamine, carcin, turmeric, omega 3s, “and then, do a food sensitivity test to ensure that there were no food allergies in the diet.” And I'll tell you what my favorite food sensitivity test is here shortly. But as you can imagine, that's a ton of super useful advice by just looking at the report. And it ranks things on a 1 to 10 scale in terms of how much support you would need for different areas of your gut. So, again, that's the Genova Diagnostics, GI Effects panel, fantastic test for the gut. 

Now, in addition to that, I would say the second most important thing to realize with the gut is a ton of people have small intestine bacterial overgrowth; small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Now, in a nutshell, that is a syndrome that's characterized by an increase in the number or the presence of atypical microbiota in the small intestine. It's kind of nasty to think about, but it's basically all the stuff that's supposed to be in the large intestine, or a lot of it winds up in the small intestine. You get gas, you get bloating, you get constipation from the gas buildup. And you typically have a real sensitivity to foods like wheat, garlic, onions, apples, stone fruits, melons, a lot of these fermentable — not fermented, but fermentable carbohydrates, so-called FODMAPs, fermentable — what's it stands for? Oligosaccharides, disaccharides, monosaccharides, and polyols. I think I got that right. Some gastroenterologist is probably going to slap me on the wrist for mispronunciation.

But the SIBO test is a breath test in which you get this kit sent to you, and you breathe into these tubes, like every 20 minutes or so for a couple of hours. And it measures the rise of hydrogen gases that occur over time that would indicate that you might have SIBO. It'll also measure the methane that's produced over time, the CH4; carbon with four hydrogens, methane. Following the ingestion of a little drink that you drink right before you start all these breaths. So, you're actually drinking lactulose. And yes, that will break your fast. For those of you concerned about doing a SIBO test in a fasted state but it's worth it. Because you, actually, if you have gas or bloating, this is an important test to take and it tells you some things that that other test I was talking about, the GI Effects test, can only give you clues about. But the SIBO test can give you a much, much more targeted evaluation. 

So, it's a breath test. It's mailed straight to your home. Takes about 90 minutes to do. When I do it, you know, I'm just going about and do my regular things. And when the timer goes off to do my next breath, I breathe, and then it gets shipped off and that's it. So, that's a SIBO test. Super useful. It's very, very insightful for a lot of people. It's about $260, and it'll include recommendations on which foods to eliminate and which foods that you can keep eating based on the methane and the hydrogen that you're producing during that test.

Okay. Next up is a thyroid panel. Now, the reason I have this included as an available test — and again, I'll link to all these at BenGreenfieldLife.com/testingpodcast, is because sometimes, you don't want to pay all the money for a blood test because all you're wanting to do is just track the thyroid. And in this case, the test that I've chosen for the thyroid is not that fancy. It's not that expensive. It's about $175. And it looks at your TSH. So, your thyroid stimulating hormone; how good a job of is your brain doing, telling your thyroid to produce hormones, and is it being upregulated or downregulated by the response of your thyroid gland. Your free T3 levels, your free T4 levels, and then your thyroid antibodies. And the thyroid antibodies are important because a lot of disorders of the thyroid gland are frequently caused by autoimmune reactions to certain foods; like say, wheat, or nuts, or dairy, or soy, or eggs, sometimes, nightshades. 

So, a lot of times, if I see that the thyroid is dysregulated, but I see elevated thyroid antibodies, they're called thyroperoxidase, TPO antibodies, then I can tell that person, “Hey, your thyroid appears to be dysregulated by something that you're eating. So, let's go out and do an actual food allergy panel to see if or what foods are aggravating the thyroid.” And sometimes, TPO antibodies are down, but say T4 is high but T3 is low. So, there's a conversion issue. Or sometimes, both are low indicating a need for micronutrients, like iodine or selenium. So, there's a whole bunch of clues that this particular test can give you, but I like to have the option of just a standalone thyroid panel. This is another one that's at home. It's a blood spot test, right? So, we're not talking about a bunch of tubes and, you know, looking like you're vampiring it over your kitchen table. Just a little blood spot test and it can tell you a ton about your thyroid gland. And I will include, by the way, on the shownotes, a link to the testing page where you can even look at sample reports to see what your report would actually look like when you were to get a test like this.

So, I talked briefly about a blood test that, in the very beginning of this podcast, could measure your hormones. The problem with the blood test for hormones is it's a one-time snapshot of what's going on with your hormones. And as you probably know, your hormones fluctuate all day long. I mean, they're up and down and up and down. It's like all of us are having the equivalent of like a menstrual cycle all day. All right. That was unfair. I realized that us guys aren't having a menstrual cycle all day. But our testosterone is going up and down, and women's estrogen and progesterone are fluctuating. And this is where a urine test, an at-home urine test. In which you're peeing multiple times during a 24-hour cycle, can give you a much, much better idea of what's going on with cortisol, with estrogen, with progesterone, with testosterone. And this DUTCH test, this dried urine test by a company called Precision Analytical, utilizes as the name implies, these dried urine samples that are collected over a 24-hour period. 

Now, what I like about this test is it's not just going to look at major hormones like estrogen or cortisol or testosterone, but it also will look at the upstream and downstream metabolites of those hormones. So, let's say, I don't know, let me think of a good example. Your cortisol is high, and you could do a blood test and find out that your cortisol is high. But is it high because you're producing too much cortisol, and the precursors to cortisol are elevated? Is it high because you have poor thyroid function and you're clearing the cortisol inadequately? You know, is it high because there's some kind of a low count of something else; like low testosterone or low DHEA or something like that? Is it low because you have low levels of progesterone or pregnenolone or something like that? So, this DUTCH test can just tell you a whole lot more than what a basic blood panel will tell you. 

And anybody who is struggling with energy levels, with libido, with sexual function, with erectile function, with workout recovery, with building strength, losing fat, getting a really, really thorough and timely view of what's going on with the hormones, and the upstream and downstream metabolites of those hormones, is a reason why I really like the DUTCH test as one of the main tests for hormones that I feature on this testing page. And you can just learn so much. I mean, it'll even delve into neurotransmitters. And I will admit that urinary neurotransmitters aren't a wonderful corollary to what's actually going on in the brain, but they can give you a lot of clues. You know, like if you have a ton of homovanillic acid or vanilla mandelic acid, that could give you clues about your dopamine production, or your serotonin production, or enzymes that function in hormone processing; like your COMT enzyme for dopamine. 

So, anyways, this DUTCH test, it is super useful for hormones. It's about $370, this DUTCH test. But as you can imagine, if you are concerned about your hormones and you want to track them, it's a really, really great test to have in your back pocket; or suppose in your front pocket, so to speak, because it's a urine test. 

Okay. So, the next one is also a urine test, also an at-home test. And this one is for oxidative stress, which can really give you clues into your mitochondrial function and mitochondrial health. It will measure what are called lipid peroxides. And then, this other thing that kind of flies on the radar called 8-OHdG; 8-OHdG. That's reflective of oxidative damage to the DNA. Whereas, the lipid peroxides are reflective of oxidative damage to fatty acids in your body. So, if you're concerned about inflammation, if you don't want to test anything, but you just want to see, “Hey, does my body have a high level of toxic peroxide in it that could damage cells, proteins, lipids, and DNAs?” I suppose I should say “DNA”? I don't think there is a “DNAs.” “Or do I have some sort of oxidative stress that might be causing excess aging? Or some other form of inflammation that could predispose me to cardiovascular disease, or chronic pain, or poor recovery?” That's where this oxidative stress profile comes in. Because, cut straight to the chase, you're not measuring anything, except “Am I inflamed? Am I inflamed? And if so, what's going on that will cause that to happen?”

It is surprisingly, in my opinion, a little bit expensive for urinary test, considering you're just looking at a couple of things. It's about $360.00. But it is a little bit difficult to analyze these two parameters, which is why it's a little bit more expensive test. It can also give you good information about your antioxidant reserve, right? Do I need more vitamin C, or vitamin E, or polyphenols, or someone formed antioxidants? So, it's an interesting test. It's one that I really like to use for athletes, or people who have been traveling a lot, or people who want to know if they should up regulate their antioxidant intake, or people who are just curious if they're inflamed or under a lot of oxidative stress and they don't want to do all the other blood panels. So, that one's called the oxidative stress 2.0 test.

Now, related to inflammation. Also, as you probably know, is your omega fatty acid count. Now I've done a few podcasts on this. One, quite notably with Bill and Christina Harris, where we talk about how — back to reference ranges, a lot of reference ranges for what year omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acid count should be. They're surprisingly low. As a matter of fact, during the podcast that I did with them, they mentioned that if you get a test of your omega index, it should be above 8%. And the reference range value tells you you're fine if you're like 5%. But what this next test is, is called an omega-3 index report. Or also known as an omega-3 index. And what it looks at is the amount of EPA and DHA that you have, the omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acid balance, or the omega-3 to omega-6 ratio. And then, it will also look at trans fatty acids. It will look at your monounsaturated fatty acids, your saturated fatty acids, the ratio of arachidonic acid to EPA. Again, like I mentioned, the omega-3 to omega-6 fatty acids. 

You can basically see, “Hey, am I eating too much olive oil compared to saturated fats? Do I need to take more fish oil? Is the fish oil I'm taking even raising my Omega index in any appreciable way?” And it's a really, really good way to just see if you're getting the right type of fats, and if those fats that you're eating are in the right balance. Now, of course, you could — you know there are food, what do you call them? Food tracking systems, like chronometer is one, right? A dietary intake tracker that will tell you how much you're getting from your diet; in terms of omegas and vitamins and micronutrients and minerals. But that doesn't necessarily show you what's going on the body as far, as the actual conversion and bioavailability of those. So, I think it is a good idea to track your food. Especially, on a short-term basis. If you just want to know how many calories you're eating, or the dietary composition of your average meal intake during the week. But this omega index test would be one — you know, for example, I would do something like that yearly. Now, I think that if you were to get the Metabolomix test, you might be able to skip on the omega test. The Omega test does take a deeper dive into fatty acids and fatty acid balances, then the metabolomics, and it's just 84 bucks, right? So, it's a lot less expensive than the Metabolomix. Considering the amount of information that you get from it; I think it's a pretty valuable test. 

Okay. I briefly mentioned food allergy testing. There are a lot of food allergy tests out there, but the problem with them is many tend to give you a laundry list of false positives. They don't test the food; raw protein versus cooked protein, in terms of the white blood cell’s immune reaction to that. They don't really give you a complete gold standard profiling of whether or not you're truly allergic to a food, or whether say, you have elevated antibodies because you've just been eating a lot of that food. You don't know how many times someone gets a substandard food allergy test, and they're super stressed out that they're now allergic to eggs when it turns out the only reason those antibodies are appearing elevated on the test is because they've been having an omelet every morning, not because they're allergic to eggs. 

So, anyways, a Cyrex Panel is my favorite panel for food allergy testing. And Cyrex can be a little bit confusing. If you were to go to their website — I've basically just taken the test that I recommend from their website, and put them on my testing page, because there's really only three that I tend to repeat over and over again. The Array 4, which basically tests for all of your gluten sensitivities; gliadin cross reactivity, gluten-containing foods, rye, barley, spelt, wheat, Polish wheat, rice, corn, quinoa, you name it. It'll also throw in a couple of common antigenic foods; egg, and soy. So, it's kind of like a stripped-down version of their more comprehensive food allergy tests. And that one's 340 bucks. I like it because it can tell you a ton about foods that a lot of people consume. And it does throw in chocolate, and milk, and oats, and a few others on there. 

The Cyrex Array 10 is way more complete. So, the Cyrex Array 10 includes, basically, all your beans and legumes, your dairy, your eggs, your grains, your nuts, your seeds, your vegetables and fruits, fish, seafood, meat, herbs, spices. I mean, it'll tell you if you're freaking allergic to green tea or locust bean gum. I mean, it's that comprehensive. And it gives you a good color-coded range of, “Hey, you're fine; Hey, moderate these foods; or You should probably avoid these foods,” And that's the Cyrex 10 test. The Cyrex 10C just combines the four and the 10. So, you get really, really good wheat sensitivity testing and gluten sensitivity testing, and then all these other foods as well. And so, it's a full food immune reactivity screen. I think it is one of the best ones out there. The problem with the Cyrex test is they are expensive. Like, if you're going to do that full Cyrex test, it is 1,165 bucks, right? So, it's pretty expensive.

If you want what I would consider to be kind of like a test that gives you, I would say 70% of the value of that test, there is another one that I've listed on the page. If you can't afford the Cyrex, you don't want to take that deep of a dive. It's called the 88 Food Dried Blood Spot Test. Looks at IgE, IgG4, IgG, and something called C3b/d. It identifies food sensitivities, intolerances, and allergies. It's $420.00, compared to being over $1,000 for the Cyrex. And it does tell you a lot. I mean, like, you know, eggs, coffee, cranberry, garlic, ginger, walnuts, cocoa, you know, grapes, squash. Most of the foods you'd commonly consume. If you're just like looking for the best of the best and expense is not an issue, get the Cyrex 10C. But if you want something that's just going to give you a pretty good idea, the 88 Food Dried Blood Spot Test is a good option. So, when it comes to food sensitivity and food allergy testing, those are some of my preferred go-to tests.

Then, we get to the next issue that a lot of people are concerned about these days, and that is mold and mycotoxins. Well, it turns out that you can test mold and mycotoxins from the comfort of your own home. Oh, and I forgot to tell you about the Cyrex test. As far as whether that's an at-home test, that one is a lab test. It's a lab test. So, you either have to have a phlebotomist come to your home, or you have to go to a lab to get that one done. So, just an FYI, whereas the infinite allergies test, that other food allergy test that I talked about, that one is, I remember, that one at-home. It's a blood spot test at-home. So, a little bit more convenience with that at-home blood spot test versus going to the lab, too, when we're looking at food allergies.

But anyways, urine at-home mold and mycotoxin test incredibly helpful. It is called a MycoTOX profile. It looks an aflatoxin, gliotoxin, mycophenolic acid, all the different molds and mycotoxins that can cause oxidative stress. Eleven of the most common. And then, it will give you a rundown in the report about what to do about those. Like, let's say you test high for trichothecenes, right? And you'll find out as you read the test that those are found in board, and wood, and wallpaper, and water-damaged buildings.  They can be found in corn and popcorn, wheat flour, buckwheat, sorghum, and oats, and breakfast cereals as well. And they can cause inhibition of protein synthesis because of the reactive oxygen species that are produced by them. And then, it will give you clinical insights. It will give you recommendations, and I'll just basically give you an idea of where you might have gotten exposed to this mold or mycotoxin and what to do about it. And so, I really like this as something for anybody who's suspected they've been exposed to mold and wants to actually check and see if that's really the case to get. It is 335 bucks for the mold and mycotoxin panel. 

Now, that of course, is not going to test for metals, right? The other kind of component that you want to bear in mind. And, well, you can certainly get something as simple as like a hair tissue mineral analysis. If you really want to assess a little bit more completely what's going on with metals, there's one called the Mercury Tri-test. The one to be the most concerned about is mercury. And the thing is, when you look at mercury, there's two different types of mercury. There's methyl mercury, which you mostly get from seafood or amalgams. Basically, in the mouth. And then, there's inorganic mercury, which is a much more toxic form, which you might get from, I don't know, like a broken light bulb in the garage, or brake dust, or God forbid, you know, tainted water. So, this Mercury Tri-test, which was developed by Quicksilver Scientific, it'll look at methyl mercury and inorganic mercury, give you a full, super accurate account of those, and then tell you what you need to do as far as the type of things you can do to get rid of that mercury. It's urine. It's hair. It's blood. And because it's a pretty complicated test, the urine and the hair, you do at home. And then, the blood, you have to go to a lab to do or have a phlebotomist come to your house to do. 

This is not a test I recommend for everybody. This is the test that I'll recommend for people who are showing symptoms of metal toxicity, or some of the other labs are coming back indicating that there might be high mercury. This test can give you a really good rundown of what kind of mercury it is, and then what you can do about it. So, it's called a Mercury Tri-test. And this is, again, one that you'd get if you're really concerned about mercury. It's $275. But that, and the mold and mycotoxin test that I mentioned, those are kind of like the two that I recommend if you actually want to see how toxic your body is so to speak. 

Okay. So, almost done here. But then, we get to the DNA and genetic piece. So, I mentioned Dr. Matt Dawson earlier, and he and I had a really great discussion recently. That podcast might come out before this one. If it does, I'll link to it in the shownotes, if you go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/testingpodcast. But we talked about TruAge Diagnostic to at-home blood spot test that is based on big data. Meaning, following thousands and thousands of people over a long period of time, and then drawing corollaries to the genetic profile that they determined from the blood spot that you sent in, and the genetic profile of thousands and thousands of people, to then turn around and give you everything from your immune system age, to your overall biological age, to your risk for diabetes, to your fitness age, to your alcohol consumption risk, to your methylation status. It is a very insightful report. 

And, as a matter of fact, based on what's called a large predictive data model, you can actually, eventually, imagine that this test might be one of the only tests that you actually need to get, which is kind of exciting and we're probably years down the road from that. But the science is moving pretty quickly in this TruAge Diagnostics test. You hear about all these different biological aging tests, and all the different ways of measuring rate of aging and pace of aging. This is the top of the totem pole. 

This is the best, most verified test based on what's called DunedinPACE data, and it's the one that they're using in the Rejuvenation Olympics. It's the one of the big biohackers tech entrepreneurs and billionaires are using to monitor their biological pace of aging. It is a $500-test. If you go to the TruDiagnostics website, I think we have a code that I believe is “BenVIP,” that knocks not a whole lot off of that. I think like 10% off of this. So, you save 50 bucks. But, basically, the TruAge test is I would consider to be the best test if you want to find out what your true pace of aging is based on what are called epigenetic biomarker proxies. I'm not going to spend the hour that would take right now on this podcast explaining to the epigenetic biomarker proxy that drives biological age, but it's basically predictive model, as the word “proxy” implies. And if you listen to my podcast with Dr. Matt Dawson, we spent about 45 minutes explaining that and how this test was developed. But the main thing I want to get across you right now is if you want to know your biological age, and you want to cut through all the crap and confusion, the TruAge test is the way to do it. 

And then, finally, we get to the 3X4 Genetic tests. Okay. So, you've heard about these tests that will tell you, you know, are you a better responder to power versus endurance training? What's your methylation status? What is your histamine tolerance? Your sulfate tolerance? How good a job do you do producing nitric oxide? What's your collagen and joint health, and how long a period of time do you probably need to recover after exercise? What's your risk of lactose intolerance? What's your need for vitamin B and antioxidants? All of these based on genetic testing.

Well, I really like this company called 3X4. 3X4 is named after the three main areas that they focus on: health, traits, and ancestry. So, we'll be able to give you ancestral data as well. And what I like is the report, it's like colored, it's cartoonish. As you read through the report, it tells you all about your inflammation risk, and your methylation status, and the beneficial genes that you have, and the genes that you should pay a lot of attention to. Like, methylation or inflammation, versus genes that you might not be as at much of a risk for; like glucose, or insulin, or blood clotting. Super simple report to read. I mean, it's a salivary test. And within just, basically, I would say 30 minutes of reading, after doing this cheek swab, on your PDF, you will have your head wrapped around all of your genetics. I mean, it's really like reading a comic book to go through the report. So, they did a really good job making the information and the recommendations palatable. All the way down to, should you train with more of endurance or power, you have high risk of injury, low risk of injury. So, that one's called a 3X4; 3X4 Genetic report. It's about $375. Okay.

So, I mean, if you're doing the math as I went through all this, yeah, I mean, you could spend probably close to what, $8,000? A little less than that. On all of these tests, if you get all of them. But again, most of these tests for me, I'll get on a yearly basis. Like, I'll do a gut test once a year. I'll do the fancy blood test once a year. The genetics test is like once in a lifetime. The other one-off test I'll do if I'm symptomatic. The food allergy test is kind of sort of a once-in-a-lifetime one. The mold and mycotoxin mercury would be if you're concerned that you're exposed. So, I would say my own total outlay on testing expense, probably comes out to around 800 bucks a quarter; 800 bucks a quarter. And considering, like I would easily spend tens of thousands of dollars, you know, years ago at the Princeton Longevity Institute or some fancy health executive screening getting all of those, it's a pretty good deal. And I think more of the expense would be spent on, I won't lie, like hiring a guy like me to walk you through the results, or working with a doctor, you know, via teleconsulting, or you know, visiting to the doctor's office to go over everything. Like, really, I think more of the expense is in the interpretation than the actual testing. 

But again, like a lot of these tests, I mean, they maybe it's just because I like to read and I like to look up new words that I don't know on my Kindle and Google them and see what they mean, and then come back. What was I reading last night? It was the word “uniformitarianism.” And I'm reading a book with my sons, and I thought, “Gosh, I don't even know what that means. I'm going to have to look it up.” This doctrine that states the physical, chemical, and biological processes that are currently at work on and within the Earth have appeared with general uniformity over a period of time. That's uniformitarianism. And honestly, it's kind of related to this podcast because the absence of uniformitarianism in the human body is why we test. There you have it. The biggest word I'll use all day.

So, anyways, that's really what I wanted to do in this show, is just decode all these tests for you and walk you through why I recommend certain tests and why certain tests do or do not appear on my own recommended lab testing page of Ben Greenfield Life. If you have questions, if you have comments, if you have feedback, you can go to BenGreenfieldLife.com/testingpodcast, and leave your notes there. I'll link to the lab shop where you can check out all these tests. If you have questions, you know, my coaching team is very helpful at BenGreenfieldCoaching.com. Most of the clients I work with get these kinds of tests, and then I walk them through the results. I spend a lot of time on the phone with people who will get consults at BenGreenfieldCoaching.com to go over the results of tests like this. But, anyways, I just want to give you a real good overview to decode this sometimes-complex world of self-quantification. 

And so, in addition to that, I'm working on a brand-new updated version of my book “Boundless.” It will be out in January of 2025. And I've got some deep, deep dives into tracking; stress tracking, sleep tracking, fitness parameters tracking, a whole lot that I didn't even talk about in this podcast. All the way down to like lung CT scans, and retinal scans, and AI-powered skin cancer screens, and balance tracking, and neurocognitive testing. Like, that book takes a deep dive. I'm literally writing for like two or three hours of the morning right now. Just trying to finish up that bad boy on deadline that the publisher has given me. So, anyways, there'll be plenty in there as well when that book gets republished. And in the current version, honestly, Chapter 16 of the current version has a ton on self-quantification as well. So, that's the book “Boundless.” So, anyway, I'm going to wrap it up.

Shownotes are at BenGreenfieldLife.com/testingpodcast. Bonus points, drinking game, if you can use the word “uniformitarianism” in a conversation today. And until next time, I'm Ben Greenfield, signing out. Have an amazing look.

Do you want free access to comprehensive shownotes, my weekly roundup newsletter, cutting-edge research and articles, top recommendations from me for everything that you need to hack your life, and a whole lot more? Check out BenGreenfieldLife.com. It's all there. BenGreenfieldLife.com. See you over there. 

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