Self testing regime.

Steve Perry has a great list of easy and cheap self administered biomarker assessments here. He believes that doing these things is meaningless unless you've got test results to back it up which I agree with. Additionally I'd suggest it just as a matter of course, already I've got a couple issues to look at based on this testing

First is a question - can anybody think of any other measurements that are worth considering? I have waist circumference (once a week), heart rate., Respiratory Rate

Second is, for data collection if you are on Apple I'd suggest putting everything into iOS Health as an easy management system. If you do this then you want as many measurement devices which connect to your phone. In addition/instead of the ones Steve lists I'd add the following, all of which I use and can vouch for

I'd get all of Steves suggested other devices, which can be easily entered manually into iOS Health. 

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    • Danmoderator
    • skipping my funeral
    • dantheman
    • 5 yrs ago
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    For reference here are the biometrics I'm measuring on a daily basis, along with the LE blood work panels, while I go through Bill's steps for age reversal.

     

    Once a week

    • Height
    • Waist Circumference 
    • Hearing test
    • 11 factor urine test

    Daily, with apps that feed HealthKit directly

    • Weight, Body Fat %, Muscle %, Water %, Bone %, Lean mass
    • Body temp
    • Respiratory Rate
    • BP
    • Heart Rate, resting rate, walking average, workout
    • HRV
    • Forced Expiratory Volume
    • Forced Vital Capacity
    • Peak Expiratory Flow
    • Glucose
    • O2 Saturation
    • PPI
    • EKG (pending, soon ...)
    • Exact food intake (cronometer) with all micro/macro nutrients 

    Entered into a spread sheet manually

    • Balance (close eyes, how many seconds can I stand before falling)
    • Reaction time (mS)
    • Grip strength (lbs)

    Finally measures of mental state, since HRV is quite sensitive to them. I take a few notes on general measures (e.g. "slept well, feeling good"), but I also perform the following measurement.

    • Mental focus EEG - save raw data from Muse EEG headset for 5 runs of the reaction time test (about a minute)
    • Mental relaxation EEG - raw data from one minute of using the "Breath" app on Apple watch. 
    • Electrodermal activity (two sensor USB measuring device of skin electrical activity (conductivity) which is highly influenced by mood - this is used for lie detector tests and is purely a function of the autonomous nervous system)
    • This data feeds into a spread sheet and am working on a equation to estimate focus and agitation. 

    Finally I take a closeup photo (ugh) every morning to measure hair and skin health over time. 

    This is all in addition to the continuous monitoring from the Apple Watch and Oura smart ring. Baseline blood work was the LE Male Elite panel (got it before the testing panel here was available - looking into making up the difference), and a DNA methylation test. 

    Anyhow will collate the data, hopefully factoring out cofactors such as mood/HRV/exercise degree. One difference is I'm doing hormone replacement, AMPK activation (metformin) and NAD treatment at the same time, along with Senolytic activator from LE. Ideally they would be done in stages but practically speaking it worked out this way, and since I'm not running a formal clinical study am not necessarily looking for seeing the effect of each individually. I'm really looking for measuring my bio age and whether I can reverse it. Since I expect many of these things to have subtle effects, piling them on together might magnify the biomarker/blood results, helping with an assurance that it really does work. 

    Finally, this may look annoying and crazy, but it only takes about 10 minutes first thing on waking, and is kind of a pleasant routine. 

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      • BobM
      • BobM
      • 5 yrs ago
      • Reported - view

      DanMcL 

      This is awesome work Dan!

      i have to look into HealthKit

      Thanks for sharing. For me, the most meaningful correlation I have seen has been weight (fat) loss and it’s beneficial impact on cholesterol levels etc. Trying to get my body fat% down below 15% is my primary goal (age 68).

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  • Very Good Dan.   I'm doing just some of that, and cant believe it only takes you 10 minutes/  Where do you get a  health test kit for all this?  How do ou do a 11 factor urine test?  Thanks for any links to help me start this?  bty, me female.

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  • Oh, as I delve into this antiaging lifestyle, it appears it is way over my heard dollar wise.   It is important, but just out of my reach.  All of this is just amazing information.  I agree, the testing is important, it's just thousands way above my income.  I will enjoy following these studies, posts and yes, Dan, your funeral will delayed for a long time.  keep up the great work.

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  • Random grab bag of comments:

    There is no need to track waist size weekly---it doesn't change that fast, and you can generally tell from pants when it has changed enough to take another measurement. I feel that measuring it with precision is difficult too.

    I don't think a hearing test is particularly useful as an aging biomarker (too easily confounded by hearing loss due to loud noise, not clear it will recover as much as other markers on interventions, and it doesn't get at anything life threatening). Certainly wouldn't need to be frequent.

    It's good to measure illness and pharmaceutical use (including antibiotics) through good manual note taking (along with body temp).

    Sleep tracking is important and easy / low-time-required. Some of the sleep trackers like the Emfit QS (which I've had for years and really like) and I think Whoop Strap will even give you morning HRV automatically so you don't have to waste time recording it manually. Don't believe the sleep stage categorization except maybe on the new EEG based headbands like the Dreem & Philips Smartsleep, but even just knowing sleep efficiency (time spent in sleep as % of time trying) is useful.

    In addition to blood tests (see the other thread on blood panels from LE), it's also good to track omega3 blood index.

    Under fitness, in addition to grip strength, I like to track cardio fitness using a chest strap HRM and a simple test done on a track where I run at a constant HR for about 3 miles and note the decreasing speed of each lap at constant HR. It's helpful to have an HRM that gives average HR for a lap, but you can also just look at it frequently. Comparing the speed/lap for fixed HR line on different days longitudinally gives a picture of cardiovascular efficiency/health.

    VO2max estimates are nice to have, but not easy to get and the ones that work you harder and harder have level of effort as a confounder. Some HRMs estimate them from HRV, but not sure if there is much value to that if you are recording HRV too.

    Of course, I think HRV is a bad aging biomarker anyway due to how easily short-term issues confound it (temperature, exercise, short-term infectious illness, etc.).

    I plan to do CGM vs. point glucose tests within 1-4 years. Latest Dexcom is reportedly very good, and tracking response to each meal and time spent above certain thresholds will be very important. Meantime, testing glucose 2hr post meal I've read is more important than fasting level.

    Will be nice when we can have continuous non-squeezing BP like continuous glucose as there is reason to believe it's the spikes that matter not just the levels on calmly taking a reading. But this is probably more years away than common CGM, though Omron has a watch that actually squeezes at the wrist now.

    I have it on my list but haven't researched gut permeability / leaky gut testing, but think it's important and within reach currently. I wonder if specific organ function tests are worthwhile for otherwise healthy people doing aging tracking or self-experiments.

    Bone scans?

    Lastly, CronOMeter is great, but tracking everything you eat with it is hugely time consuming. Much more than everything else discussed in this thread, if you have much of any variation to your diet. Plus it makes eating out or even having friends/relatives cook for you impossible. Dan, I find it surprising that you said 10min/day as your time cost but also said you track all food intake.

    Karl

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    • Karl Pfleger 

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  • what lab tests are abnormal in senile acting people, animals that are normal in same age but not acting senile etc.

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