The importance of personalised blood tests
If you’re making a change, you want to know whether that change is working, and that you are getting closer to your goals. This is why it's important that your blood testing is personalised based on your own body, lifestyle, and health goals.
Personalising our health tests to each user
Everyone requires different information to understand and improve their health, so we all need to test different biomarkers.
Biomarkers are measurable characteristics in your blood, such as iron or Vitamin D, that can tell us about your current - and future - health.
Thriva offers each user a recommended selection of blood tests based on what you tell us about your health goals, lifestyle and medical information.
We’ve studied just how a person’s age and biological sex relate to test results using our own data (collected between 2021 and 2023). This means we can guide users to the tests that they might be interested in based on the results of other users.
Applying user data to help us improve
It’s important that Thriva knows your age and biological sex, because these often determine the risk of getting a result that’s abnormal (i.e. out of the normal range).
Female users are almost twice as likely to receive an abnormal result for testosterone compared to male users (16% vs 28%), while the likelihood of getting an abnormal result for HbA1C (which suggests a higher diabetes risk) rises more than tenfold with age - from 1% of users between 18 and 29, to 13% of users over 60.
Some of the patterns we found are less obvious. For example, Thriva users between the ages of 18 and 29 are twice as likely to find abnormal Vitamin D results compared to users over 60 (28% vs 15%).
Some biomarkers are relatively unaffected by age and sex, so it’s a good idea for everyone to test them. For instance, about half of our users across all age groups and sexes who tested their total B12 found abnormal results.
Get your own personalised test recommendations
Learn more about optimising your health in our Health Hub.
To see your own recommended blood tests, complete our free recommendations quiz. This will build you a personalised test package based on factors like your age, weight, biological sex, activity levels, diet, and health goals.