There are two main ways to use lab tests.
The first is likely the one you know best: lab tests as a diagnostic tool. The doctor tests your blood and uses the results to diagnose a problem—say, diabetes. From there, the doctor formulates a treatment plan.
This is an important—and potentially life-saving—use of lab testing.
The second approach is to use testing as a prevention tool. The doctor tests your blood at regular intervals, and uses the change in results to see a problem coming.
The second approach feels a little like magic. Like we’re seeing into the future.
But it isn’t magic. The signs of diabetes show up in annual blood work long before the disease does.
An inexpensive blood test done once a year can help prevent the disease before it happens.
So What’s the Problem?
Like many of our patients, you may have had trouble getting the second kind of lab work done. And you may have been tempted to blame your doctor.
But the conventional system is overrun and overwhelmed. They barely have time to help those who already have diabetes. There isn’t enough time, space, or money in the system to put prevention first.
What’s more: with an aging population, an enormous chronic disease burden, and challenges to human resources in health care, this is unlikely to change.
If you’re interested in prevention, it will be up to you to make it happen.
Where do you start? With this idea: lab tests generally cost less than you think.
A “healthy living panel” costs $170, and it tells us a lot—blood sugar, cholesterol, liver and kidney function, thyroid function, iron levels, and inflammatory markers. Want to add a little more information about nutrients like Vitamin D, and fasting insulin? That’s $295. Well worth it for a once-a-year expense.
For less than a dollar a day, we can get the information you need to see the biggest health threats on the planet before they happen.
Chronic diseases—the ones responsible for the vast majority of early death and disability—are hard to manage. But they are easy to see coming.
And that choice is up to you.
Interested in your future health? Visit www.stonetreeclinic.com to arrange your preventive lab tests.