The 3 numbers that matter more than your age

DAILY RHYTHM · 4 MIN READ

Three blood markers that tell you more than your birth year ever could.

Your age is a fact. How your body is aging is a different question, and three specific numbers come closer to answering it than anything else I've found in 15 years of running health clinics. These are the ones I actually track in myself.

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1. 01Fasting insulin. Not glucose. Insulin. Most standard panels skip this one, which is odd because it catches metabolic dysfunction years before blood sugar tips into the prediabetic range. My own fasting insulin was creeping up quietly when my glucose still looked fine. Optimal is usually below 6 uIU/mL. If yours is above 10 and nobody has flagged it, that is worth a conversation with your doctor. We look at this routinely in our longevity assessments.
2. 02hs-CRP (high-sensitivity C-reactive protein). This is a measure of systemic inflammation, and inflammation is probably the single biggest driver of how fast you age at a cellular level. The reference range on most lab reports is generous. What you actually want is below 0.5 mg/L. When I was sleeping badly and training too hard, mine sat around 2.1. Diet, sleep, and stress reduction brought it down. The number gave me something concrete to work with rather than vague advice to "reduce stress."
3. 03GlycanAge or biological age via glycan analysis. This one changed how I think about health tracking entirely. When I got my first result three years ago it showed my biological age was significantly older than my calendar age. That single number made everything else feel urgent and actionable in a way that generic wellness advice never did. Unlike most biomarkers, glycan age responds to lifestyle changes over months, so it doubles as a feedback loop on whether what you are doing is actually working.

OUR VIEW

Most people go years between blood tests and only see them when something has already gone wrong. The three markers above are not exotic or expensive. They are just underused. When you know your fasting insulin, your hs-CRP, and your biological age, you have a real picture of where your body is right now and enough signal to make changes that are measurable, not just theoretical. That is what data-driven healthspan actually looks like in practice.

P.S. Of the three markers above, which one have you never had tested? Hit reply and let me know. I read every response and it shapes what we cover next.

— Emilian