Hi Dr. Baluch,
That’s a great question and actually one we get from many patients when they’re first starting treatment with us.
We do sometimes see certain lab values shift over time, but what we really care most about is how the patient is feeling and what they’re noticing in their day-to-day life, i.e. energy, recovery, focus, sleep, muscle growth, etc. While labs can provide useful data, they’re ultimately just a snapshot of one moment in time. What matters most is how the patient is feeling and functioning overall, as that tells us far more about how their body is truly responding. For patient populations who may not be able to communicate how they’re feeling, we rely on feedback from their caregivers to gauge progress and overall well-being.
For specific peptides like CJC/Ipamorelin or other GHRH/GHRPs, you can follow hormones such as:
- IGF-1, which tends to increase as growth hormone production improves
- Testosterone in males, since growth hormone is a master hormone that can help boost natural levels
- We also recommend tracking body composition through InBody or DEXA scans once a quarter to follow the changes in visceral fat mass vs. lean muscle mass (and many other important measurements).
Depending on the peptides you are using and the area you are focusing on, here are some other markers that can be helpful to follow:
- If you’re focusing on inflammation, following homocysteine and CRP can be helpful.
- For thyroid support, you can monitor thyroid antibodies to look for positive trends.
- If you’re working on immune mechanisms, especially in patients with low blood counts, checking a CBC with differential can provide insight into white cell activity and overall immune function.
- With GLP-1s, markers like fasting glucose, insulin, and A1C are good indicators of improvement.
- And if mitochondrial health is your focus, the Prodrome blood test is a great way to assess mitochondrial efficiency over time.
Beyond lab markers, depending on the patient population you’re working with, functional and behavioral changes can also be meaningful indicators of progress. For example, in patients with seizure disorders, tracking whether seizure frequency has decreased can be helpful or if they are bouncing back quicker after their seizures if they are still having them. In developmentally delayed children, parents may begin noticing new milestones being reached. For autistic children, improvements such as increased eye contact or fewer outbursts can be strong signs of progress. And in TBI patients, you might observe greater engagement in conversation or a reduction in seizure activity if present.
Tests that we try to avoid at our practice are the biological “age predictor” tests. We’ve seen patients who feel younger, stronger, and are clearly recovering faster, yet those tests come back showing them as two years older than before which then leaves the patient feeling defeated because they feel fantastic but in their eyes, they are doing worse than they were before. We just then educate the patient that based on what we know about how peptides work on cellular pathways, we know that’s simply not accurate, their cells are functioning better and more efficiently than before treatment and we remind them those test have no standardization, which is a reason why we don’t order them for our patients.
Overall, labs can help support the story, but the most meaningful data often comes from how our patients feel because that’s where we see the biggest transformation or what the caretakers are reporting they are seeing!
Presbyopia:
Haha, we wish we had a guaranteed fix for that one! While we can’t promise this will completely prevent you from needing reading glasses one day, these steps can definitely support long-term eye health and work in your favor.
One of the simplest and most effective things you can do is take a fish oil supplement that contains phospholipids. Phospholipid-bound omega-3s have better absorption and provide more direct support to cell membranes, helping protect against age-related changes in the ocular tissues. Resolvin is a great example of a phospholipid-bound fish oil, and most krill oils fall into this category as well.
Another option that has shown promising results in animal models for age-related visual decline is the mitochondrial peptide SS-31, which helps protect retinal cells and may slow visual impairment as we age. While neither of these can guarantee you’ll skip the reading glasses altogether, both can help preserve and protect your eye health over time.
I hope this information is helpful! @abaluchmdgmail-com
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