We’ve all had a pretty tough last year — to the point that reading another diatribe about working from home and juggling the madness of everyone in your household (or coping with the loneliness of not having anyone there at all) sounds pretty unbearable in and of itself. One thing is clear: having a little extra help or insight is especially valuable — and that might count for double when it comes to your health.
Everyone deals with stress differently, whether you’ve found yourself up late on sleepless nights or more consistently find yourself struggling to focus during your Zoom meetings. Luckily, there’s Base, a groundbreaking at-home service and app that helps you take some of the guesswork out of what you can do to improve your health, using insights driven from data and science.
How Base Works
Since the pandemic, there’s been an increase in at-home lab tests, virtual consultations and digitally-driven prescriptions to make getting healthy more accessible and safe. Meanwhile, fitness trackers and wellness apps were always appealing to a wide audience for the way they delivered intel about daily habits in a digestible, intuitive way. Base improves on these two concepts and helps you get answers to some of the most common health-related questions you’ve had — from why you’ve been experiencing lower energy levels to what’s interfering with your ability to lose weight.
This is done through self-administered tests (you do your own blood and saliva samples to be sent to the certified Base labs) and monitoring and tracking your results through their app. There are a few benefits to the targeted system that Base offers: you can address the issues that are your top-of-mind concerns and not have to deal with the usual copays and multiple doctor’s visits — on top of the hours of research it would usually take you to decipher your results.
Base’s founder, Lola Priego, explains why she developed Base: “I knew there had to be an easier, and faster way for me to understand what was going on in my body. At Base, we are helping consumers find the best diet and lifestyle to fit their bodies by using traditional lab tests. We find answers to everyday issues like fatigue, stomach sensitivities, irritability, sleep quality, brain fog, weight loss, and more to help consumers live a healthier, happier life.”
Users can choose from different tracks — whether that’s diet, energy, stress, sleep or sex drive — usually based on a symptom you want to specifically monitor and improve. There’s also the option to do multiple tracks and take various tests — Base will help you monitor and keep track of your results all through their app. Once you’ve selected your track, you’ll download the Base app and build your profile, where you can see your area(s) of focus and select your testing frequency and optimization routes based on your goals.
My Experience
Of all the different tracks, the stress test interested me the most and seemed to cover a lot of the issues I wanted to address comprehensively. Like many people, I found myself dealing with some extra anxiety and tension that affected my body (hello, bloat) despite exercising consistently and maintaining a fairly clean diet. Since my diet stayed pretty steady and the quality of my sleep wasn’t too bad, the stress track was the best fit for me by process of elimination. Base also breaks down different symptoms in different testing areas if you’re ever wondering which test is right for you.
Once the test was ordered, I received two small boxes for gathering both saliva and blood samples, with detailed instructions on how to get them. I set aside a full day to gather the samples, since you need to collect saliva in the morning, afternoon and evening (before you eat and before you sleep, respectively). Once the samples were gathered, they just spent a short night in my fridge before I used the prepaid mailers to send them off to Base’s labs.
There was the option to find a testing center for walk-in testing, but I found it way more convenient to just gather the samples at home myself; yes, you do need to poke yourself with a lancet for the blood samples but the whole process was quick and relatively painless. Since I live close to a post office, I also didn’t need to schedule a pick-up for my samples (although the app offers you the opportunity to do that, too).
From there, all I had to do was wait for my results to come in (5–10 business days later): one for my thyroid hormones (blood samples) and another for my cortisol panel (saliva samples). In the Base app, there’s an explanation for how cortisol and your thyroid function and the significance of what is being measured. For example, my T4 and TSH levels were both measured; T4 (along with T3) helps regulate your body’s temperature, metabolism and heart rate, while TSH is a pituitary hormone that helps regulate how your body uses energy.
My Results
There’s always something validating about seeing your data match up with your experience. I received an average cortisol score taken from my morning, afternoon and evening results, with a breakdown of my score insights at each level. The explanation of my levels really did line up with the symptoms I was having (lack of concentration, wandering mind before bedtime and trouble falling asleep) — and to improve, there were different supplement, diet and lifestyle recommendations to help me stay energized and speed up my metabolism.
Once you select these recommendations, the Base app helps you track them so you can see improvements over time (with 30-, 60- and 90-day tracks). You can also schedule a quick 15-minute call with a Base expert to go over your results and decide if you want to subscribe to membership options for additional testing so you can continue to see developments over time.
Final Takeaways
If you’re looking to proactively monitor your health and use data to make better decisions, Base is for you. As Priego notes, “I think that at-home testing will become a commodity where it will become the norm for consumers to regularly monitor their biomarkers from home to adjust their routines and prevent health issues.”
Beyond just testing, Base is a way to take your health journey into your own hands — and for a limited time, Base tests are 20% off. Select your track at Base and start improving your health today.
Prices subject to change.
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