Your body keeps perfect records. Every choice you make, what you eat, how you sleep, how hard you train, how stressed you are, gets written in your blood chemistry within days or weeks. Unlike symptoms (which can be vague) or scales (which can be misleading), blood biomarkers are objective, measurable truth.

The screening bloodwork in most annual exams are limited to a basic 10–15 markers. This is like reading only the table of contents of a 150-page book. It does catch blatant disease, but it completely misses the early, reversible signals that matter most to women after 40: the slow rise in thyroid conversion, the first signs of insulin resistance, the shift in bone remodeling, the quiet rise in vascular inflammation, the drop in progesterone relative to estradiol, and the nutrient depletions that accelerate every aging process.

These changes rarely announce themselves with dramatic symptoms. Instead, they leave precise footprints in the blood, often as many as 5 to 15 years before a diagnosis appears on a chart.

Bloodwork comes in two different forms: blood measures and calculated scores.

A blood measure is a general term for any quantifiable value obtained from a blood test, such as the count of red blood cells or the level of glucose.

A calculated scores apply math calculations to blood measures to provide interpretations that provide a clearer picture of health.

HOMA-IR (Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance) is the most widely used calculated score for detecting insulin resistance years before blood sugar or HbA1c becomes abnormal.

              HOMA-IR = (fasting glucose in mg/dL × fasting insulin in µIU/mL) ÷ 405

A result of 1.5 or less means excellent insulin sensitivity. Anything greater means it’s time to act.

Technology is fueling unprecedented advances in health sciences. For example, Remnant Cholesterol (RC), calculated on standard lipid panel values, was recently validated as being the most accurate for assessing atherosclerosis (heart attack and stroke) risk. 

Health insurance will not cover comprehensive blood panels. Most cover the standard CBC, CMP, Fasting Lipid, and optional Thyroid tests or those deemed essential for diagnosing or managing an active condition. Practitioners who know the system can help you get coverage for the most comprehensive panel possible.

Practitioners rarely have time to keep current. As you become an expert on your own health, you are likely to become a better expert than they are. This is something that’s important to keep in mind when you’re planning the bloodwork or results you would like to discuss with them.