The Case for a Broader View of Your Biology

Why the value of testing 125+ biomarkers is not simply the number, but what becomes visible when you look at them together.

Aden's first blood test measures more than 125 biomarkers, covering cardiovascular and metabolic health, hormones, thyroid function, inflammation, immunity, liver and kidney function, nutrients, blood cells and more.

The number gives a sense of the breadth of the test. But on its own, 125+ tells you very little about why the panel is useful.

We could add more biomarkers and make the number bigger. That would not necessarily make the test better. What matters is what is being measured, why it is being measured, and what becomes possible to understand when those results are considered together.

Human biology does not divide itself neatly into the sections of a blood report. Metabolism interacts with cardiovascular health. Thyroid hormones are involved in energy metabolism. The liver plays important roles in glucose, lipid and hormone metabolism. Inflammation can even change how other results should be interpreted. Ferritin is a good example: the World Health Organization recommends accounting for inflammation when interpreting it, because inflammation itself can raise ferritin concentrations. Iris

A useful panel therefore needs enough breadth to provide context. That is the thinking behind Aden's 125+ biomarkers.

Explore the full list of biomarkers Aden tests.

One question can involve many different systems

Consider something as ordinary as wanting more energy.

There is no single blood test for energy. How someone feels can be related to red blood cells and iron status, thyroid function, glucose regulation, vitamin B12 and folate, inflammation, hormones, sleep, nutrition and many other factors.

A haemoglobin result or TSH measurement can provide useful information, but neither can answer that broader question alone. A wider panel lets iron be considered alongside ferritin, transferrin saturation and red blood cell indices, or fasting glucose alongside HbA1c rather than as an isolated measurement.

Those distinctions matter. Fasting glucose reflects glucose at a particular point in time, while HbA1c reflects average blood glucose over approximately the previous three months. NIDDK The American Diabetes Association notes that fasting glucose and HbA1c reflect different aspects of glucose metabolism and do not always identify the same people. Diabetes Journals

A broad blood test cannot explain every case of low energy, nor should it pretend to. What it can do is give you more of the relevant biology to examine.

The same principle applies to questions about metabolic health, cardiovascular risk, hormones, performance or simply how your health is changing as you get older.

The relationship between markers matters

Cardiovascular health provides one of the clearest examples.

A conventional lipid panel is valuable, but Aden also measures ApoB and Lp(a). These measurements provide different information.

LDL-C measures the cholesterol contained within LDL particles. ApoB reflects the concentration of atherogenic lipoprotein particles in circulation. The National Lipid Association's expert consensus notes that ApoB can add information beyond a standard lipid profile, particularly when ApoB and LDL-C are discordant. Lipid Journal

Lp(a) adds another dimension. Its concentration is largely genetically determined and tends to remain relatively stable through life. The 2026 ACC/AHA guideline on dyslipidaemia now recommends measuring Lp(a) at least once in adulthood to help identify people at higher risk of atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease. professional.heart.org

None of this makes LDL-C less useful. It shows why one measurement rarely represents an entire biological system.

Kidney function offers another example. Creatinine is widely used to estimate kidney filtration, but it can be affected by factors such as muscle mass. Cystatin C provides another filtration marker with different limitations. The US National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases notes that using creatinine and cystatin C together generally produces a more accurate estimate of GFR than creatinine alone. NIDDK

This is the point of breadth. Additional biomarkers are useful when they add information or context, not simply because they make the test longer.

Different people will find value in different parts of the panel

Most people do not want to improve their biomarkers for the sake of improving biomarkers. They want to feel better, stay healthy for longer, understand something about their body or know whether the effort they are putting into their health is changing anything.

Someone interested in long-term health may pay particular attention to cardiovascular and metabolic markers, inflammation, kidney and liver function and nutritional status. Someone focused on metabolic health may be more interested in fasting glucose, HbA1c, insulin and triglycerides.

For hormonal health, the relevant picture can extend beyond a single hormone measurement. Depending on the person and the question, binding proteins such as SHBG and signalling hormones such as LH and FSH can provide additional context. This is also an area where individual results need to be treated carefully. The Endocrine Society, for example, recommends that testosterone deficiency in men only be diagnosed when symptoms are accompanied by consistently low testosterone measurements, confirmed with repeat testing. Endocrine Society

Someone interested in training and recovery may find relevant information across blood cells, iron status, hormones, nutrients, inflammation and metabolic markers.

The panel is the same. Which parts of it become most relevant depends on the person.

You can explore all 125+ biomarkers and the systems they sit within here.

More data should lead to greater clarity

There is an obvious downside to measuring 125+ biomarkers: you now have 125+ results.

For most people, that is not particularly useful in its raw form.

A laboratory report can contain pages of abbreviations, values, units and reference ranges while still leaving you with the same basic question: what does any of this mean for me?

Aden is designed around that problem. Results are organised across body systems and considered together, helping identify what deserves attention and providing the context behind it. Those results then inform personalised recommendations across nutrition, supplements and lifestyle.

The point of collecting more information is not to give the member more information to interpret. It is to create a clearer picture from it.

A broad baseline becomes more useful when you measure again

Even a comprehensive blood test captures a moment in time.

Some biomarkers are relatively stable. Others can move with changes in nutrition, body composition, training, illness, medication, hormones and other parts of everyday life.

That is why Aden tests again.

The first panel establishes a broad baseline. Around six months later, members complete a smaller follow-up panel so relevant results can be compared with their previous data.

This adds another dimension to the picture. Instead of only asking where a result sits today, you can begin to see how it is changing over time.

That principle is well established in medicine. For kidney function, for example, the NIDDK notes that trends in eGFR are often more informative than a single point estimate. NIDDK

For an Aden member, repeat measurement can help put changes in nutrition, exercise, supplements, body composition or other health behaviours into context. It does not prove that a particular intervention caused a change, but it gives you something more useful than another isolated snapshot: your own data over time.

So, why 125+?

Because building a useful picture of health requires enough breadth to see beyond individual numbers.

That does not mean every biomarker will be equally important to every member. For one person, ApoB and Lp(a) may provide particularly useful information. For another, the interesting pattern may sit across glucose, HbA1c and insulin. For someone else, it may emerge from iron, thyroid or hormonal markers.

The aim is to start with enough of the picture to understand which parts deserve attention.

125+ tells you how much we measure. What matters is what that breadth allows you to see. Explore the 125+ biomarkers Aden tests and what each one can tell you

Ready to build a clearer picture of your health? Get started with Aden.

Aden provides health analysis and information and does not provide medical diagnosis or treatment.