The InsideOut Challenge: Using At-Home Blood Tests To Power Self-Health Management
A powerful combination of technologies is ushering in a new self-health management era - empowering individuals to proactively gain insights they can easily understand and act upon to improve their wellbeing and prevent disease.
The WellBeing At-Home Test overlays lifestyle with blood-biomarker insights and tracks how both assessments change over time, empowering people to zero in and focus on the habit changes that have the most material impact on their blood tests, affecting their current and future health. It also provides a highly engaging and easy- to-digest measure of the results daily habits have on the body, allowing users to visualise the outcome of their efforts.
In April 2023, Drop Bio Health added an extra layer of hyper-focused and high-touch online coaching to the wellbeing user experience with the launch of an exclusive 8-week health challenge with Nutritionist and Exercise Scientist Amelia Phillips.
The journey included one WellBeing Test at the beginning of the program to help a group of 124 participants identify which core health areas need more attention, followed by an 8-week online coaching program including sleep, stress, mental wellbeing, nutrition and exercise modules. At the end of the program, the participants took their second WellBeing Test to assess how their bodies have responded to the lifestyle adjustments.
The challenge delivered an end-to-end at-home experience, making it easier for participants to fully engage with the program.
Group Results
Participants ages ranged from mid-30s to mid-70s, 89% female and 11% male.
The most significant median lifestyle improvements were in the physical activity (109%) and Nutrition (22%) categories. These lifestyle changes were followed by significant improvements in the blood test results for inflammation (22%) and stress (15%).
The most significant lifestyle improvements adopted by the challenge participants to achieve these outstanding blood biomarker results were increasing the minutes of vigorous exercise from 60 to 90 minutes per week and decreasing confectionery consumption.
In summary, the coaching program, combined with the lifestyle and blood test insights, drove significant improvements in blood biomarkers associated with longevity in the group.
Results indicate small changes stack up and do make a difference. Considering the challenge was only 8 weeks long and has positively impacted core health biomarkers so significantly, it makes us wonder how transformative the long-term effects of these habit changes can be.
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The Biggest Movers
The group's biggest movers in terms of weight loss (25% of participants) - experienced even more positive results. Improving their median Physical Activity scores by 700% and their self-reported stress levels by 100%. The blood test result improvements were even more impressive, displaying a median 30% improvement in stress biomarkers, 24% in Body Fat Composition Biomarkers, and 20% in inflammation biomarkers.
When it comes to the lifestyle changes driving these results for the high-performing cohort, the most significant habit improvements in terms of nutrition were improving servings of proteins, legumes and vegetables from 1 to 3 servings per day and reducing the frequency of processed meats, fast food and confectionary consumption. Exercise improvements were significant, with minutes of moderate exercise per week improving from 210 to 300 minutes per week, vigorous exercise from 0 to 90 minutes per week and strength training from 0 to 2 times per week.
The challenge provided us with a small sample of the positive long-term outcomes people can independently achieve by regularly tracking their health through convenient, at-home blood tests overlayed with lifestyle data and online recommendations and coaching. Initiatives like this illustrate the transformative power of preventative health, providing a strong sense of agency and control over our bodies, a fundamental requirement for maintaining good health.
Understanding the impact of achievable habit adjustments on our future quality of life is the key to unlocking action.
