Athlete Blood Test Panel Checker

Commercial “athlete panels” can include a wide range of markers whose clinical value varies.1,8 More tests do not automatically mean more useful information: every extra marker also adds a chance of a result outside the reference range without any disease.1,7 Select the tests in a panel you are looking at, and the tool sorts them the way my article on athlete blood tests does.

Which tests does the panel include?

How the tests are grouped

A useful test measures something reliably, the result changes what is done, and that change leads to a better outcome.1 In my classification, tests with clear clinical value meet all three when the test is indicated.1 Context-dependent tests need standardised timing, a personal baseline or a specific question.1 Tests with limited value rarely change management for healthy athletes.1

Why more tests can mean more confusion

Reference ranges are set so that about 5% of healthy people fall outside them.7 Under a simple independence assumption, a 20-marker panel produces at least one “abnormal” result about 64% of the time, even in a perfectly healthy person (an illustration; real markers are often correlated).1

References

Every figure and statement in this tool is linked to a source: the original study where my article cites one, otherwise my own article on the topic. The small numbers in the text refer to this list.

  1. Dr. Antti Rintanen: Which Blood Tests Do Athletes Actually Need? A Doctor’s Evidence-Based Guide
  2. Harju et al. 2022. Prevalence and novel risk factors for vitamin D insufficiency in elite athletes: systematic review and meta-analysis. Eur J Nutr.
  3. Adam et al. 2017. Diurnal cortisol slopes and mental and physical health outcomes: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Psychoneuroendocrinology.
  4. Mougios 2007. Reference intervals for serum creatine kinase in athletes. Br J Sports Med.
  5. Fiorentini et al. 2021. Magnesium: Biochemistry, Nutrition, Detection, and Social Impact of Diseases Linked to Its Deficiency. Nutrients.
  6. Hernández-Camacho et al. 2020. Zinc at the crossroads of exercise and proteostasis. Redox Biol.
  7. Timbrell 2024. The Role and Limitations of the Reference Interval Within Clinical Chemistry and Its Reliability for Disease Detection. British Journal of Biomedical Science.
  8. Shih et al. 2023. Direct-to-consumer tests advertised online in Australia and their implications for medical overuse: systematic online review and a typology of clinical utility. BMJ Open.

Sources

This tool is based on the articles below and the studies cited in them:

This tool is for general education. It does not interpret your own results, give personal recommendations or replace an assessment by your doctor.