#1

And just ate healthy, exercised, took some longevity drugs (i.e cholesterol lowering medications), and supplements to prevent deficiencies.
What would be the differences in expected outcomes from someone who measures often or even once every few years?

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#2

Probably not much different. However you run this risk of overdoing or under-doing your treatments.

But for the case of Rapamycin, where no one knows the target or the target is different for each individual, measuring is really not too useful IMHO.

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#3

I think it comes down to a precision.

Whatever informs you about healthy eating, longevity drugs, and supplements hopefully comes from someone’s or some group’s (hopefully a statistically relevant group’s) measurements.

I an imprecise this forums stands in for a controlled study of rapamycin. Not perfect, but the best we currently have.

In 2011 Andy Grove published an editorial in journal Science that included:

Drug safety would continue to be ensured by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. While safety-focused Phase I trials would continue under their jurisdiction, establishing efficacy would no longer be under their purview. Once safety is proven, patients could access the medicine in question through qualified physicians. Patients’ responses to a drug would be stored in a database, along with their medical histories. Patient identity would be protected by biometric identifiers, and the database would be open to qualified medical researchers as a “commons.” The response of any patient or group of patients to a drug or treatment would be tracked and compared to those of others in the database who were treated in a different manner or not at all. These comparisons would provide insights into the factors that determine real-life efficacy: how individuals or subgroups respond to the drug. This would liberate drugs from the tyranny of the averages that characterize trial information today.

Measuring ourselves just gives us more precise and relevant data.

Many have said it:

You can’t manage what you don’t measure.

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#4

I think you could be fine as long as you are very careful to listen to your body and account for any sudden changes in the way you feel especially when you wake up in the morning. I did my first blood work a month ago and all markers were normal. Actually, a person I know got prostate cancer, out of nowhere and that kind of made me do another blood check, otherwise had no intention as I’ve been feeling great/same for as long as I started keeping track or can remember. Last blood work I did was about 20 years ago. I am very healthy and NEVER been sick and never taken any medication till now for longevity purposes only. I eat average healthy diet, mostly healthy and once in a while Mcdonalds and even donuts. I have taken a lot of different supplements.

I know this will not be advisable for anyone especially for people in high-risk categories, but for most people it will be just ok, so long as you are very careful to listen to your own body. You simply can’t ignore any changes in overall wellbeing as just oh it could be age or this or that. If you feel different than you felt yesterday, or as you usually feel it’s either something caught up with you or could be something you ate or drank in last couple days. You better make sure you run to your nearest clinic and do a thorough check up if you have any sudden changes. Other than that, you’ll be just fine.

A cousin of mine was very health conscious and almost paranoid of somehow, he will be sick and will die soon lol, and went to the doctor and did blood work 2-3 annually still he is a total mess health wise.

BTW, I do intend to keep doing annual checks from now on since the older you get the more prone to one of the ageing diseases. So, from now on I’m trying to keep glucose in check (though it’s normal) LDL in check, and to take care of hormone and prostate health. I think I know everything I need to know to be successful in maintaining my health well into old age, but clearly there isn’t anything that guarantees it 100%. My only fear is that in a quest to have perfect/good markers I might inadvertently screw something else up and all of the sudden it backfires on me. That is why I am weary of many things we are doing including RAPA. My approach at moment is to do very minimal doses in hopes that I get some benefit with very little or no side effect. To that end and given the fact that no one has been able to come up with rational dosing for RAPA, as well as the fact that couple proponents of it are already eating dust (or didn’t get much help), I have lately decided to cut the dose to 1-2mg but do it more frequently i.e. twice per week or every 5 days

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#5

But what if you are measuring the wrong things or only measuring some of the things that matter or if the tests have wide error bars that preclude fine tuning?

Im not counting on blood marker measurement getting me past pretty good. And I don’t use methylation markers at all. I do rely on physical markers which directly connect to my quality of life.

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#6

In medicine, the other side of that coin is “don’t order the test if the results won’t change your management.”

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#7

For food it’s most think it’s not important to be precise, and most people don’t even try to keep track.

It’s crazy because for animal feed it is precise and to have profit and healthy animals most farmers use software or hire somebody to help with rations.

For supplements you’re going to measure just by looking at least, so still measuring. Otherwise you’d have to take random amounts of everything. I expect this would lead to problems. So if you think about it like this everybody measures everything, even animals. You know from experience what you’re getting. And learn what works over time.

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#8

Learning what to measure seems like one of the best things a forum like this can do.

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#9

Check out this site that provides hard data on blood test error bars. It helps to avoid trying to cut a slice of cheese thinner than the knife.

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#10

Yes, those are wise words and have influenced my own choices.

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