Home health testing and proactive health management

Why does health testing matter?

With ever-increasing demands from work, family, and everyday responsibilities, proactively assessing your health is vitally important. Healthcare systems are under growing pressure, often reducing contact opportunities with doctors and other medical professionals. However, the quality, diversity, and accessibility of home health testing have never been better. 

Testing for vitamins, hormones, intolerances and allergies, stress, fertility, menopause, and more gives you the data required to make better, more informed decisions about your health and wellbeing. Health testing is the first step towards a happier, healthier lifestyle and improved quality of living.  

What is home health testing?

Home health testing is a convenient, straightforward process that allows you to test for multiple health considerations and receive bespoke results, all from the comfort of your own home and without having to book a clinic or hospital appointment.  

You simply order the test you’re interested in, follow the instructions once it arrives to provide a finger-prick blood sample with a sterilised lancet, which takes 2-3 drops of blood, and send your sample back for testing. Trained professionals in a clinical laboratory setting then run tests on your sample and provide results. 

The YorkTest range of health testing delivers bespoke, confidential results via an online wellness hub within 7 days. There is also a follow-up service for some of its tests. For food intolerance testing, for example, aftercare is provided by a team of qualified nutritional therapists to help you understand your results and make changes to your lifestyle and diet accordingly. 

YorkTest’s products have a 98% rate of reproducibility, which means that multiple separate results of the same person’s sample will match 49 times out 50, ensuring that your results have a high degree of accuracy.  

Types of home health checks available

Home testing offers opportunities to test for multiple conditions, hormones, vitamins, allergies, intolerances, and more. These are just some of the things home health checks can test for: 

• Cholesterol: Useful for those with a family history of high cholesterol or heart disease, cholesterol level testing can help inform your diet. 

• Fertility: Female and male fertility tests measure ovarian reserve (how many eggs you have remaining) and testosterone levels respectively to help with family planning.  

• Food and environmental allergies: Allergy tests check for IgE reactions to 23 foods and 19 environmental allergens to help avoid allergic reactions. 

• Food intolerances: Different to food allergy testing, food intolerance testing measures digestive system sensitivity to 200 food and drink ingredients.  

• Hormones: Hormone testing measures 6 key hormone markers for women and 8 for men, which helps determine a wide variety of hormonal excesses, deficiencies, and imbalances. Individual hormone tests are also available.  

• Inflammation: This testing identifies inflammation inside the body, and is a good risk marker for heart disease, strokes, and other chronic conditions.  

• Liver function: Identifying adverse effects from diet and alcohol, liver function testing checks 7 different markers for good liver health. 

• Menopause: Menopause testing specifically checks for luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone (FSH) levels to identify signs of menopause. 

• Stress: This test measures levels of cortisol, the stress hormone, to help you understand the impact of stress on your life and health.  

• Thyroid: Thyroid testing checks for free thyroxine (FT4) and thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) to identify thyroid issues that could be affecting your energy levels, weight, or mood. 

• Vitamins and minerals: Vitamin and mineral health checks test for levels of different substances, including vitamin D (for bone, muscle, and teeth health), vitamin B12 (for red blood cell production and releasing energy from food), and iron (also for red blood cell production). 

• Overall health: General home health testing kits or combination kits are available, which test for multiple of the above.

Benefits of home health testing

Home health testing has multiple benefits, including but not limited to the following: 

• Convenience: One of the top benefits of home health checks is convenience, as you can order, test, and receive results from the comfort of your home, without having to navigate the process of booking appointments and tests with your GP or at a clinic or hospital.  

• Speed: The process of home health testing is extremely fast, with next day delivery available on the YorkTest products we stock. Results are available just a week after testing to browse on a clear, secure online platform. 

• Accuracy: YorkTest products have a 98% reproducibility rate, and tests are carried out in UKAS-accredited and CQC-compliant laboratories by trained medical professionals. 

• Privacy: Home testing is a private way to get bespoke, discreet results, which are securely stored in an online wellness account that is personal to you. 

• Range of options: As illustrated by the list in the previous section, there are now home health tests available for a wide variety of conditions and substances. 

• Early detection: With such quick and convenient service, home health checks are a great way to flag up health concerns at an early stage. Your results will indicate any potential issues, which you can then take to your GP or a healthcare professional to address. 

• Empowering lifestyle choices: Home health testing provides valuable insight into multiple areas of your health and wellbeing, allowing you make proactive, informed decisions about your lifestyle moving forward. 

How to interpret your home health check results

Understanding your home health check results couldn’t be simpler. Once you have returned your blood sample, you will receive a bespoke set of results that you can access at any time in a personalised wellness hub.  

These results will be hospital-standard and displayed in an easily readable traffic light format. Results, including intolerances, allergies, and substance deficiencies, excesses, or imbalances, will be colour signposted for your convenience as follows: 

• Red: Contact your GP to discuss 

• Amber: Consider lifestyle changes 

• Green: Acceptable level 

Certain tests, such as the YorkTest Premium Food Intolerance Test, include additional support. In the case of this example, a 30-minute consultation with a trained nutritional therapist to discuss next steps and diet changes is included. 

It’s important to note that, while these tests can be a fantastic starting point for identifying issues, they are not a substitute for professional medical advice. All significant results and subsequent lifestyle or diet changes should be discussed with a GP or medical professional.

Proactive health management

Home health testing is the first step towards proactive health management. Getting a comprehensive picture of your health means you can identify potential issues early on and take proactive steps to address them.  

Whether you make changes to your diet, exercise routine, or general lifestyle, start taking vitamin supplements to address deficiencies, or flag an issue with your GP to initiate further treatment, you can consciously improve your health. 

Taking a “test and learn” approach to your health, where you make adjustments in line with discussions with a healthcare professional, allows you to make small changes that could dramatically improve your quality of life. Browse our selection of some of the best home health testing kits today and start your health improvement journey. 

FAQs

What is home health testing? 

Home health testing is a way to check up on various aspects of your health and wellbeing, all from the comfort of your own home. It is a quick and convenient method of identifying potential issues, as well as excesses, deficiencies, and imbalances of substances in your body with a simple blood test. 

Why does home health testing matter? 

With healthcare systems under growing pressure and access to doctors and other healthcare professionals often limited, home health testing provides a solution that is fast, accurate, and convenient for you and your loved ones. While it is not a substitute for medical advice, it can flag issues that you can then follow up on with a trained professional. 

What are the benefits of home health checks? 

Home health testing is convenient, discreet, and fast, with tests delivered to your door and secure results provided within a week. There are also a wide variety of test types, so you can pick one that is most suitable for you. Home health checks are a great way to detect issues early and empower you to make healthy, sustainable lifestyle choices. 

What do my home health check results mean?  

Understanding your home health test results couldn’t be simpler. Results are graded in a traffic light system, with red results indicating you should speak to your GP about the issue in question, amber meaning you should consider making lifestyle changes, and green indicating that everything is normal and no action is needed.