These new tests can tell you just how healthy you are

Tech 2023-11-08 09:04:37 Source: Network

Today's PerspectiveReporter Liu Xia from our newspaperIn a report on November 3rd, the website of New Scientist in the UK pointed out that is a person healthy? How healthy is it? The information that conventional indicators such as blood pressure and body mass index can provide is limited. Testing the microbiome, metabolites, and even "immune levels" may allow people to gain a deeper understanding of their health status

Today's Perspective

Reporter Liu Xia from our newspaper

In a report on November 3rd, the website of New Scientist in the UK pointed out that is a person healthy? How healthy is it? The information that conventional indicators such as blood pressure and body mass index can provide is limited. Testing the microbiome, metabolites, and even "immune levels" may allow people to gain a deeper understanding of their health status.

Blood pressure and BMI

When people go to the hospital for a physical examination or medical treatment, doctors usually start by measuring blood pressure and checking the 'Body Mass Index' (BMI), but these indicators are not perfect in evaluating human health.

In most high-income countries, a BMI value between 18.5 and 24.9 is considered healthy. A BMI of more than 25 is considered overweight, and more than 30 is classified as obesity. Obesity is related to cardiovascular disease, stroke, type II diabetes and other diseases.

But there is increasing controversy over using BMI to assess a person's health status. A study in 2005 showed that people with BMI values between 25-30 had lower mortality rates than those with BMI values within the so-called healthy range. In July of this year, a large-scale study targeting American adults further raised doubts. This study shows that individuals with BMI values ranging from 25 to 29.9 have a 5-7% lower risk of death compared to those with supposedly healthier BMI values ranging from 22.5 to 24.9.

Blood pressure can only tell the tester some information. Margaret Harris, an epidemiologist at the World Health Organization, said that despite this, measuring blood pressure is still a good start as it can tell testers if they have any signs of heart disease or anemia. Regular age appropriate screening is also important for detecting hidden diseases such as cervical cancer.

Microbiome

Tim Specter, a geneticist at King's College London, spent most of his career tracking people's microbial communities, which have a huge impact on people's ability to digest food, immune health, heart health, and emotions.

Specter stated that the first thing to do if you want to know your health status is to test your microbiome, as it reflects the health status of most systems in the body.

In October of this year, the Specter team analyzed over 100000 microbial communities and announced the identification of 50 "good" bacteria and 50 "bad" bacteria, with a balance between them appearing to be a good indicator of health.

Some studies suggest that the microbiome is closely related to many chronic and acute diseases. Intestinal bacteria can undergo significant changes due to infection, diet, or chronic diseases, and testing for intestinal bacteria can reflect a person's current health status.

Even so, testing microbiomes has its limitations because specific microbiome compositions are not beneficial for everyone. It is widely believed that having bacteria that can produce butyrate in the body is beneficial for the body because they participate in brain health, glucose tolerance, and wound healing, and can even prevent the proliferation of some cancer cells. However, if there is an ulcer, butyrate can hinder ulcer healing.

Metabolomics and physiological age

Specter's second suggestion is to test the "metabolome", which is the product of metabolic processes (chemical reactions within the body's cells), as certain combinations of metabolites can serve as indicators of the current condition and future risk of developing certain diseases in the human body.

Earlier this year, an international research team combined metabolite data with blood lipid data from over 118000 participants at the UK's Biobank to create an association map between metabolites and over 700 common diseases. Research has shown that although there are astonishing similarities in certain biomarker patterns among different diseases that may pose problems in detecting specific situations, metabolites are an ideal choice to inform someone of their overall health status.

Specter also suggests testing for biological age. Biological age is a method of evaluating an individual's physiological age and health status by measuring and analyzing the state of specific indicators or physiological processes within the organism.

People's aging rate is not the same. Some people appear older than their actual age, while others are the opposite. Biological age can better determine a person's health status and lifespan than their true age. Methylation age and vulnerability index are currently the most reliable and accurate indicators for measuring biological age.

Immune resilience

The findings of Sunil Ahuja's team at the University of Texas Health Science Center in the United States indicate that human health depends to some extent on immune resilience, which is the performance of the immune system in responding to daily challenges.

By studying the blood cells of over 40000 people, Ahuja's team found that the balance between two types of immune cells called T cells can affect the body's response to viruses or cancer. Among them, the best-performing T cells, CD4 (related to immune recovery), have higher levels, while CD8 (related to inflammation) has lower levels. They also studied two sets of genes related to immune recovery and inflammation.

Researchers gave immune levels to participants based on these indicators: level 1 had the highest immune recovery ability; Level 4 has the lowest immune recovery ability. They found that patients with immune grade 1 are more likely to avoid infection with influenza, AIDS and other viruses, and survive sepsis and COVID-19 infection, with a longer overall life span. In addition, the immune recovery ability of women may be higher than that of men; And although infection or other diseases can weaken a person's immune recovery as they age, some people even maintain good immune recovery in their 90s.

A simple blood test can reveal immune levels, and exercise can help restore immunity.

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