I’m back again to talk about Function Health. I first mentioned this data-driven, health-tech company over a year ago. Read my original review here. I wanted to offer a follow up now that I’ve been using their services for almost 2 years now and am able to see the benefit of how easy they make it to track health data over time.
A quick disclaimer that they gift me a membership, and we pay for David’s. I would hands down continue paying for mine as well because I feel the value of the service far outweighs the cost. Let’s jump in!
What is Function Health?
Function Health offers a membership-based service that gives you access to a large panel of lab tests—much broader than what you’d typically get at an annual physical. Additionally is includes explanations of results and allows you to easily track trends over time.
What’s Included in the Membership?
They test 100+ biomarkers (blood, hormones, nutrients, inflammation, etc), present the results in a clean and easy to navigate dashboard. The results help you focus on early detection and health optimization, as well as calculate a biological age.
My Experience After 2 Years
I’ve had three blood draws with Function Health. A one year membership includes two blood draws, about six months apart. They have dropped the price and now it’s only $365 for the year (including all the blood work) and this friends and family link will save you $25 off the cost.
I love this service. I feel empowered in understanding and navigating my personal health needs (and David’s too!). I think the best way to share how much I like this service is by showing you. The dashboard is intuitive and simple to navigate, making all the health data easy to track over time. The clinician notes help you make sense of the data and they offer suggestions for foods to eat and avoid, as well as supplements. If something is worrisome, they tell you to follow up with your own doctor.
What the Dashboard Looks Like
Ok, let me share with you a peek at what you’ll see in your dashboard. First, you make your blood draw appointment through the Function Health dashboard. The cost of all the tests is covered in your membership. Membership includes 100+ lab tests across every major organ system. It also includes the 60+ tests halfway through the year to see what’s changed. Hormones, heart, thyroid, nutrients, metals, metabolism, autoimmunity, liver, and inflammation.
While you are making your appointment Function Health will offer you a plethora of optional add on tests (for extra price) which I appreciate as an option if you are looking to knock out other tests, like MTHFR gene mutation, Galleri, and many more.
Once you get your blood draw, results will start coming in as soon as the next day. After a few weeks all the results will be in and you will receive the clinician notes, a detailed breakdown of your results, and your biological age. Here are a few screen shots from my most recent results.
First, from the main screen- an overview of all results. And then broken down into category.
From there you can click on a category to see the tests and details of your results. You can see from the connected dots along the right, the trend of your results since your last blood lab work.
Nobody asked, but I feel the need to explain my CRP (inflammation in the body). Look next to the metric below and you will see three connected dots showing the data point over time. The first one is green (in range), the next two orange (out of range).
This was from blood work taken the day after I had a mole removal and stitches. I had no idea it would greatly impact my CRP number, but now I do. The still elevated reading from my last blood draw was apparently because I was fighting a cold when I had blood work. The elevated CRP is the reason my biological age went from 25 to 30.
I share this to remind you to do you blood work when you are feeling healthy and not after having a minor (or major) surgeries to get your most accurate results. You can easily adjust blood draw appointments through your dashboard. I am already looking forward to my late summer blood draw to see that CRP number get back in normal range!
Once you read through your results, you can read the personalized breakdown from your clinician as I am sharing below. You also get a summary, causes, associated conditions, foods to eat, foods to limit, supplement suggestions, symptoms to look out for, and more. I find the level of explanation incredibly helpful.
This is just a glimpse of the detail in a single section, but it goes into this depth for all the data collected. There is an option to download it all in a simple PDF to be able to forward along to your doctor as well.
This is truly one of my favorite things we do for our health. The ease of use and the ability to watch trends over time really empowers me to understand my health data and make decisions to positively impact it, like the improvement in my LDL particle size to watching my vitamin D (always a struggle for me) continue to increase. No blind supplementation; I know exactly what I need.
Is Function Health a good fit for you?
This service is a great fit if you like data, want to be proactive about your health, and appreciate seeing trends over time. If you prefer to rely solely on your primary care doctor for labs, it may not feel necessary to have a service like this.
I fan girl hard for Function Health because I truly feel like it puts you in the driver seat of your health data and empowers you to make real improvements and see results. If you’ve been curious about getting more insight into your health, I really think this is worth looking into. And if you have questions, feel free to ask—I’m always happy to share more.
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