Thriva Home Health Test – How Healthy Are You Really?
If you’ve ever had a blood test at your GP’s then you’ll know that this sort of health test is only usually given when symptoms suggest something in your body is amiss.
But “Everyone knows prevention is better than cure. In reality though, getting access to some of the most impactful and motivating information there is — data about how you’re really doing on the inside — is broken,” Thriva co-founder Hamish Grierson says, quite rightly.
So why do we leave it until symptoms arise to ‘deal with’ any issues?
The NHS does a great job at providing free health care and saving lives, but limited funds need to be reserved for those who really need it.
In step Thriva – a revolutionary new home health test kit which does not require an appointment at the doctors’, and quantifies what’s really going on in your body by testing for important functions of your body’s main systems.
Perhaps (and hopefully) your test results will come back normal in which case awesome.
But in the instance there’s a result that’s out of range you now have the knowledge to do something about it or seek further advice or treatment before problems have a chance to escalate.
This is important as many issues don’t result in actual symptoms until a problem is much more advanced and therefore more complicated to treat.
And all this for less than the price of a meal out, and certainly less expensive (in time and stress as well as money) than more invasive treatments should medical conditions be allowed to progress.
Thriva currently offers three main tests – Essential, Baseline and Advanced.
Plus the Thyroid test (there are basic and advanced versions) checks for all the various chemicals and hormones related to thyroid function (more than the energy test checks), which is a big player in metabolism.
There’s also one for stress and a female hormone and menopause ones which I tried out here.
I’ve had my vitamin and thyroid levels tested before and generally have really good energy levels, but liver and kidneys are something that I thought could be interesting since they’re involved in water and salt levels and I’m always thirsty, and I don’t think I’ve ever had my cholesterol checked. The exact test I took is no longer available but you can see what you get tested with each of the core tests on the website.
I eat a fairly high protein diet with lots of meat and eggs, so since some people are still insisting saturated fat causes high cholesterol levels this should give some indication, at least in my body.
How It Works
After filling out a short lifestyle survey online my test was dispatched and arrived within a couple of days. The step by step instructions which come with the finger prick test are very easy to follow, and even came with a plaster to put on my finger afterwards, what a thoughtful touch!
I’m notoriously difficult to get blood from, but their advice to warm my hands under warm water first worked a dream and I filled the vial first time with no mess.
It’s important to send back your sample in the pre-paid envelope included on the same day as you take the test, especially on warm days, and preferably in the morning. I took my test right after a hot morning workout – and made a note that I did this on the box in case having just done an intense workout would make a difference to any of the results.
Samples are tested in a lab and interpreted by a GP, so anything that needs explaining does indeed, get explained.
My Results
Cholesterol levels were all perfect – yay I can continue to eat pancakes and steak in abundance!
The only liver marker that was slightly high was liver Albumin, but the GP noted here that in the context of the rest of my markers being perfect this was nothing to be concerned about.
In fact remember I said I took the test right after an intense workout (in August)? That would have very easily dehydrated me a bit.
In the kidney tests Creatinine was on the higher end of normal, and this is interesting for someone like me who works out a lot. Creatinine is a waste product made by muscles, so raised levels are more common in people who workout intensely and/or have higher muscle to fat ratios on their body. In other words, I’m fairly muscly and lean and strong – yay!
Urea, again on the higher end of normal, is quite possibly an indication of dehydration, see previous note about exercising right before taking the test.
Your Results
Taking a Thriva test was fascinating and at such good value compared to other comparable private health tests I don’t see any reason to not double check that everything in your body is as it should be.
Plus get 15% 0ff Thriva tests with discount code FITMUM15 here!