Favorite biomarker of your health?

[Tekward]

With retirement I have more time for exercise and awareness of my health. My weight is fine and I don't follow running distances, exercise durations, max lifts, etc. Doctor visits and blood work is not done often enough for my near term feedback.

The metric that works best for me in Resting Heart Rate. I wear a Fitbit and monitor the RHR daily because I have seen a personal correlation between healthy living (good diet, exercise, regular schedule) and lower RHR. There is some related research below.

What biomarker do others use?

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog...an-reflect-current-future-health-201606179806

 

[steelyman]

The sleep stage analysis that Fitbit provides seems to be a good measure of day-to-day well-being. That may or may not relate to overall health (I wouldn’t know).

https://www.fitbit.com/sleep-better

 

[Sojourner]

The one I pay closest attention to is A1C. I also carefully track cholesterol-HDL ratio.

I'd guess that the "favorite" health biomarkers for most people are the ones that have been problematic or have indicated less-than-optimal health in that area.

 

[davebarnes]

Poop.
After colon cancer, I pay a lot of attention to my poop. And, pooping.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

I don't place too much weight on any single biomarker but do think aerobic physical fitness is a good gauge of my general health status.

If something is amiss, including poor sleep, it will be sure to show up here. RHR gives a decent read of day to day recovery - when I was young I could get readings in the upper 30's, now it is more like low 40's.

 

[Alan]

With retirement I have more time for exercise and awareness of my health. My weight is fine and I don't follow running distances, exercise durations, max lifts, etc. Doctor visits and blood work is not done often enough for my near term feedback.

The metric that works best for me in Resting Heart Rate. I wear a Fitbit and monitor the RHR daily because I have seen a personal correlation between healthy living (good diet, exercise, regular schedule) and lower RHR. There is some related research below.

What biomarker do others use?

https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog...an-reflect-current-future-health-201606179806

I also used to be very pleased with my cardio fitness and my low RHR but as mentioned in the linked article above I ended up with electrical problems at age 60. (A bit ironic since I’m a retired EE)

While a low RHR often suggests greater physical fitness, some situations can make your RHR too low, which may cause occasional dizziness or fatigue. “This may be the result of the electrical nodes of the heart aging, or not transmitting electrical signals correctly,” says Dr. Wasfy. “You should report these symptoms to your health care provider.”

 

[braumeister]

My full length mirror.

 

[skipro33]

My sons. Both approaching 40 and athletic, I'm still able to out ski, mountain bike, swim and hike them. I wait for them at various forks in the trails and soon as they arrive, I take off again. They ask me to wait so they can rest too, but I tell them if they want to rest, get ahead of me like I do them. Ha!

 

[COcheesehead]

Resting heart rate. Low 50’s regularly with an occasional dip into the high 40’s. If it stays in the 60’s, something is wrong with me. Not recovering right. Sick, stressed.

 

[friar1610]

I keep a daily journal of what I did. Normally pretty brief. Among other info, I write in it what I did for a workout that day. At the end of the week, I write down what percentage of days I worked out that week and YTD. My goal is to work out 75% of the days over the course of the year, so if I'm at 70% YTD and trending downward it's a motivator to get my a$$ to the gym or go for a hike.

(Lest you think I'm a fitness fanatic, a "workout" could be as little as a 45 minute walk w/the dog or as much as a spin class + a 1/2 hor weight workout.)

 

[RAE]

Yes, resting heart rate is important, but I do monitor a few other important numbers from my annual blood test:


A1C - very important, since high blood glucose causes all sorts of problems over the long run. Fasting insulin is also something I monitor, just to see how it compares with the A1C.


Triglyceride/HDL ratio - very important, as it predicts heart disease better than virtually any other blood test result you can look at (far better than total cholesterol, which is pretty worthless as a predictor of heart disease/heart attack). If you can keep your Trig./HDL ratio under 1.0, you are doing pretty well.


CRP - good indicator of how much inflammation you have going on in your body, and chronic inflammation can also lead to all sorts of health issues.


Ferritin - I closely monitor this now, ever since I had a health scare a few years ago that turned out to be caused by too much iron in my system. As it turned out, my ferritin (the amount of iron in storage) was WAY too high. Once I got it down through donating blood, my issues were resolved. In my opinion, all males (especially) over age 50 should at least have their ferritin checked occasionally to see how high it is. There is some evidence that excess ferritin/iron in your system can lead to not only heart issues, but also possibly cancer and other serious health problems. If it's too high, you can easily bring it down by donating blood a few times.

 

[mpeirce]

I'm old school. The only "number" I track is weight.

 

[imoldernu]

Waking up alive

 

[RetireAge50]

Body Fat %

 

[mamadogmamacat]

Waking up alive

this

if I can put a check mark by that one, then I may also check weight as I am in the process of losing a significant amouint

 

[ER Eddie]

How I feel.

That's not a flippant answer. I think that's the best indicator, above any one particular lab value.

Do I feel good, healthy, vibrant? Do I feel like I have good energy? Do I feel mentally sharp? Is my mood pretty good and stable? Do I feel a sense of well being? That's my most important gauge.

 

[Animorph]

I'm sort of in that "how I feel" camp. Although it's how I feel while on my stationary bike for 40 minutes. Sometimes it's easy and the RPM's stay up. Sometimes it's hard and I struggle to keep going. Somewhat reflected in the number of calories it thinks I've burned, but it's nice to feel good doing it.

 

[oscar1]

Know your 4 numbers:
Blood Pressure - 120/80 mm Hg or less
Blood Cholesterol - Total blood cholesterol lower than 200 mg/dL
Fasting Blood Glucose - Up to 100 mg/dL
Body Mass Index - Your healthy target: 18.5 to 24.9

You can Google “4 health numbers”.

 

[Jerry1]

Waking up alive

Exactly.

Beyond that, I see a dr twice a year and whatever he looks at is up to him. I guess I’ve outsourced review of my bio markers.

 

[nativenewenglander]

Blood pressure is 118/73 heart rate 47 bpm. I just ran a road race came in 3rd of 60 in my age group(55-60) I'm 57. Eat a LCHF diet and have for more than a year, down 30 lbs. I feel great.

 

[nativenewenglander]

Waking up alive

My dad always said a good day was one when the grass was still growing towards you. He's gone now, but he always had a saying for just about anything. I miss him and his humor.

 

[W2R]

Waking up alive

That's a good one, and I completely agree! I am so thankful for every new day.

That said, part of my morning routine before coffee is to determine my weight, blood glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate.

I can usually tell from how I feel in general plus these four measurements if anything is "off".

 

[donheff]

I'm old school. The only "number" I track is weight.

+1. I lost 35 pounds (~18% of body weight) about 6 years ago and I now track weight daily. If it starts to creep up more than two pounds I cut out the chocolate and any other sweets I have let slip in. I also lift weights and cycle but I don't track any numbers.

 

[MRG]

BMI, BP, and my pace on a mile jog. We were both obese for years. In 2015 we both started dieting and walking. Together we are down a combined 110 pounds and are regularly at the gym.

The first time I walked out to the main road and back was a real treat. I had tachycardia when we started walking that hilly mile. We took several breaks and I really didn't think I'd make it back home. A 48 minute mile. Now I jog a 12 minute mile pace for 20 minutes as my warmup to lifting.

Resting heart rate is useless to me. I experience both tachycardia and bradycardia from time to time. I've seen it in the 40s in the morning and then run 110+ all night.

 

[ER Eddie]

Some people are mentioning cholesterol, so I want to add that most cholesterol labs are fairly useless as indicators of health or cardiovascular risk. There was some very bad science 30 years ago, which was picked up and reinforced by politicians and then the food industry, which resulted in decades of bad advice about nutrition, which many believe is largely responsible for the epidemic in obesity, diabetes, heart disease, etc., over the same period of time.

There are a lot of myths about cholesterol. I've found it very helpful to dig into the issue and get educated myself. It's pretty startling, when you realize how much bad information there is out there. There are plenty of Youtube vids and articles that can be very illuminating.