Averages are pretty useless—go to a doctor, ask for a full set of blood tests. And when I say “full”, I mean ridiculously all-encompassing, if your doctor is OK with this. The printout of your results should take a couple of dozen pages.
Ask for copies of the lab results. Study them carefully and they will tell you personally what would be a good idea for your health.
Is that working under the assumption that normalizing is better for your health? I don’t think that I would trust myself or my doctor to optimize supplements based simply on what I am low in.
For example, normal vit. D3 levels are often set by the healthy level for Caucasians, with the result that Asians with healthy, normal levels for their genotype are flagged as dangerously low. This is not something that you can assume that your doctor is aware of.
However, the tests would give you some starting points for research. Also, I suspect that most doctors are not likely to offer much more than a chem-20, which I think is pretty useful across populations (IANAD) -- but also is probably not what you are recommending.
Averages are pretty useless—go to a doctor, ask for a full set of blood tests. And when I say “full”, I mean ridiculously all-encompassing, if your doctor is OK with this. The printout of your results should take a couple of dozen pages.
Ask for copies of the lab results. Study them carefully and they will tell you personally what would be a good idea for your health.
Is that working under the assumption that normalizing is better for your health? I don’t think that I would trust myself or my doctor to optimize supplements based simply on what I am low in.
For example, normal vit. D3 levels are often set by the healthy level for Caucasians, with the result that Asians with healthy, normal levels for their genotype are flagged as dangerously low. This is not something that you can assume that your doctor is aware of.
However, the tests would give you some starting points for research. Also, I suspect that most doctors are not likely to offer much more than a chem-20, which I think is pretty useful across populations (IANAD) -- but also is probably not what you are recommending.
No. That’s working under the assumption that more information is better than less information.
I didn’t say “listen to your doctor”. I said “study them carefully”.
Ask for specific, comprehensive panels. Do not go in saying “You think I should maybe get some tests?” :-/