Doctor's Office Biomarkers
Biomarkers done at your doctor's office are key to determining your GDF11 program's efficacy
We call the more sophisticated biomarkers "doctor's office biomarkers" since most people do not have this type of equipment at home.
The easiest way to have your biomarkers done is to go to an anti-aging doctor. If you can get to New York City, we highly recommend visiting Dr. Joe Raffaele of Raffaele Medical. Dr. Raffaele developed the sophisticated "Biomarkers of Aging" report which is featured/discussed many times on this site. The BOA report is unquestionably the gold standard of age biomarker reporting.
Dr. Raffaele also has Physioage affiliate doctors that use the BOA software. These Physioage doctors/affiliates can do the biomarkers for you and run the BOA report for you.
If none of these are near you, try Googling “Anti-aging doctor <your city name>”.
Note that if you go to Raffaele Medical in New York, or a Physioage Affiliate, they will do the following six biomarkers for you: UCLA Immune Panel, Sphygmocor, CIMT, CNS Vital Signs, spirometry, skin elasticity and body composition. After they enter your biomarker data, they will produce a Biomarkers of Aging report which gives you your overall “Physioage” plus cardioage, neuroage, etc. .
The above biomarkers are around $1000 and you need to do baselines before you start on GDF11. We will inform you well into your GDF11 program when we think you are ready for 2nd round biomarkers.
Note that we now provide baseline and post CNS Vital Signs tests as well as the Renpho body composition scale to all GDF11 cohort members. Though it is better to take the computer based CNS Vital Signs tests and body composition test at your doctor's office since we prefer data given us by neutral third parties.
If you have any blood tests done by Physioage, a consultation with the doctor is usually required to review the baseline blood tests/biomarkers for any issues. The consultation typically runs $1000.
If you are not near NYC and can't find an anti aging doc near you
If you can’t find an anti-aging doctor near you, you can probably do most of them yourself with a little resourcefulness. Remember, you need to do these biomarkers before GDF11 supplementation and again after 3 months of GDF11 supplementation. Let’s go through each one:
Life Extension Blood Panel - Comprehensive blood panel at a reasonable cost. Men click here and women click here. GDF11 typically will improve C-reactive protein, eGFR, total cholesterol, A1C and ferritin. We do have spreadsheet based age calculators that use solely CBC data.
Sphygmocor and CIMT - One of GDF11’s strongest suits is cardiac and endothelial repair and I strongly recommend you get both of these tests before and after GDF11 supplementation. Once again, most anti aging docs will have these machines as well as most cardiologists.
Skin Elasticity – The best machine to measure this is known as a Cutometer. Most anti aging docs and dermatologists have a Cutometer. Another way to do skin biomarkers is to get before and after Visias done of your face: Most dermatologists have Visia machines and they will typically run a Visia for you for about $200.