In brief
| System | How to see it | How often |
|---|---|---|
| Digestion | A hydrogen breath test | if symptoms call for it |
| Blood sugar | A glucose sensor, worn for two weeks | every year or so |
| Thyroid | One blood draw: TSH and TPO antibodies | once a year |
| Heart and vessels | Apolipoprotein B | once a year |
All four of the conditions people come with most often share one trait: they begin long before any complaint and give nothing away for years.
So prevention is not a list of supplements. It is the habit of looking.
Each system has one inexpensive check that moves the problem from invisible to visible.
01 · Digestion
What breaks quietly
The gut rarely hurts until things have gone far. First the stool changes, bloating arrives in the evening, ordinary food sits heavily — and it gets blamed on «something I ate». For years.
Meanwhile absorption fails: iron and B12 go first, and energy, hair and concentration follow. Those are what people come to treat, not the cause.
How to see it
A hydrogen breath test — if there is bloating, irregular stool, discomfort after eating.
Plus two blood tests: ferritin and vitamin B12. A gut that absorbs badly drops those first, long before anything else goes out of range.
What to do routinely
- Gaps between meals. The small intestine needs 3–4 hours without food to run its clearing wave. Constant snacking cancels it.
- Colostrum (Colostrononi) in courses — support for the mucosal barrier.
- Bacteria in courses and with a reason, not as a permanent background.
- Fibre from food, not only from a jar: vegetables, pulses, whole grains.
- Cobra Gut — for an irritated stomach and gut.
An important caveat about bacteria: they are not automatically good. Where overgrowth already exists, adding bacteria can worsen the bloating rather than relieve it. Hence the order — look first, take second.
02 · Blood sugar
What breaks quietly
Between «all fine» and «you have diabetes» lie 10 to 15 years in which fasting tests stay normal.
The body holds the morning number down at the cost of ever more insulin. That excess is what stores fat, raises blood pressure and damages vessels.
The person sees the weight. They do not see why.
How to see it
A glucose sensor, worn for two weeks. It shows not one point in the morning but what your own ordinary food does: which porridge raises sugar and by how much, what a late dinner does, how a walk changes it.
Plus fasting insulin with the HOMA index — it rises before sugar does, often by years.
What to do routinely
- Two weeks with a sensor every year or so. Not «when something hurts» — as a review.
- Your own triggers into habit. Two or three findings usually remove half the spikes.
- Movement after eating, not before. Twenty minutes of walking cuts the peak better than any supplement.
- Insulin and HOMA once a year — even with perfect fasting glucose.
- FreeStyle Libre 3+ or Sibionics SiBio — applied at home, read by phone.
A sensor does not diagnose and does not replace blood tests. Its value is different: it turns the abstract «eat properly» into the concrete «this food raises your sugar».
03 · Thyroid
What breaks quietly
The commonest cause is autoimmune thyroiditis. It runs for years without a single symptom anyone would connect to the thyroid.
Tiredness is blamed on work, weight on age, hair loss on the water, feeling cold on character.
The gland is slowly destroyed, and the moment when help was simple passes unnoticed.
How to see it
One blood draw: TSH and TPO antibodies.
TSH shows whether the gland is coping now. Antibodies show whether a process is running that will one day stop it coping.
For prevention the second matters more: antibodies appear long before TSH leaves the reference range.
What to do routinely
- TSH and TPO antibodies once a year. More often with thyroid disease in the family.
- Ferritin in working range: with iron deficiency thyroid hormones work worse.
- Vitamin D — measured and maintained, not taken blind.
- Selenium and iodine — only on results. Both harm in excess exactly what they are taken for.
- Pregnancy and the year after — a reason to check on its own.
Raised antibodies are not in themselves a disease and not a reason to treat. They are a reason to watch — to know the process is running and not to miss the moment help is needed.
04 · Heart and vessels
What breaks quietly
For half of people the first sign of vascular disease is the heart attack itself. Before it — no pain, no breathlessness, no signal at all.
Plaque grows for decades and does not hurt, because there is nothing in it to hurt.
Blood pressure behaves the same way: a «usual» 145 feels like nothing while it wears out vessels and kidneys every day.
How to see it
Apolipoprotein B — one blood test. It counts not the amount of cholesterol but the number of particles able to lodge in a vessel wall, which makes it sharper than ordinary «bad cholesterol».
Plus a home monitor: three readings morning and evening across a week say more than a yearly visit.
What to do routinely
- ApoB once a year. It can be high even when the standard lipid panel looks fine — that is the case it is measured for.
- A week of home readings every six months, written down.
- Omega-3 — where there is little fish in the diet.
- Magnesium and Q10 — with exertion, arrhythmia, statin use.
- Waist circumference — the cheapest measure there is and one of the most honest.
The numbers at which to act depend on the rest of the risk: age, smoking, blood pressure, sugar, family history. There is no single threshold for everyone — which is why a result is discussed with a doctor, not compared with the range on the form.
Download the guide
The same guide as a single file, laid out for a phone screen — swipe through it or send it to whoever needs it more: download the PDF.
What of this we carry
Below are the items from our catalogue the text refers to. They are not the obligatory part: the checks in this guide work on their own, and supplements make sense once a check has shown something.
- Cobra Gut — digestion
- FreeStyle Libre 3+ — blood sugar
- Sibionics SiBio GSM1 — blood sugar
- Sibionics SiBio Keto — blood sugar
- SiderAL Forte — thyroid
- KRILIFE omega-3 — heart and vessels
- Magnesium citrate + CoQ10 — heart and vessels
In short
Four checks a year: a breath test if symptoms call for it, two weeks with a sensor, TSH with antibodies, ApoB with a week of home readings.
That is less time than one appointment about something that has already happened.
All four have the same point: to see the process while it has broken nothing yet.
This material is for information and does not replace a consultation. Which tests you need, how often, and what to do with the result is decided at an appointment, in the light of your history and current state.
