Regular readers of my blog – thank-you! – will have noticed me commenting on my terrible diet a lot recent. My diet has been far from ideal since the start of the year. I’ve been drinking too much alcohol and eating too much junk food. One day last month, after yet another evening of excessive alcohol consumption, I woke up feeling and looking particularly peaky. I suspect my body was telling me it could no longer cope with my unhealthy lifestyle.
Rather fortuitously, my friend Anna shared her most recent set of Thriva test results on social media on the same day. I had never heard of Thriva so went away and did some research.
What is Thriva?
To put it simply, Thriva is a smart, finger-prick blood test that you can use at home. Once you’ve taken the home test, you post your blood sample back to one of Thriva’s accredited partner laboratories. Your blood sample is analysed to provide data on how your lifestyle is impacting your health. The results of these analyses are then uploaded onto Thriva, where you receive a bespoke report and recommendations from a GP with guidance on how to improve your lifestyle if required.
Thriva currently produce six different individual tests:
- Lifestyle
- Energy
- Thyroid check
- Advanced thyroid check
- Testosterone
- Vitamin B12
In addition, Thriva have produced a baseline subscription kit which enables people to track their health over time by receiving a test kit every three months.
The Lifestyle test is designed to help you find out how your lifestyle might be impacting your health. Just what I needed. I wanted to know if my slightly dubious lifestyle had negatively impacted my health.
What’s tested?
Cholesterol – High cholesterol is increasingly common in the UK and impacts your risk of developing heart disease, stroke and related illnesses.
- LDL Cholesterol
- Cholesterol
- Triglycerides
- HDL Cholesterol
- Cholesterol Ratio
Liver function – This includes a full check of the key liver enzymes which, if raised, indicate poor liver health. Excessive alcohol, over eating and drug use can cause problems with your liver. Liver damage is often linked to chronic fatigue and other serious symptoms.
- Alkaline Phosphatase
- Gamma GT
- Albumin
- Globulin
- Alanine Transferase
- Bilirubin
- Total Protein
I set up an account on Thriva, answered a few basic lifestyle questions and parted with my money. Two days later my Thriva kit arrived. I opened the box, read through the instructions, took one look at one of the lancets provided and bottled out of collecting my blood sample.
A week later I received a friendly reminder from Thriva and decided that it was time to be brave!
What was included in the Lifestyle test kit?
The Thriva Lifestyle test kit included everything I required to take my finger-prick blood test, including detailed, easy-to-follow instructions.
My kit also included:
- 1x sample collection tube
- 1x alcohol swab
- 1x moist wipe
- 2x plasters
- Spring loaded lancets (2 spares)
- 1x plastic protective casing
- Return form and envelope
Performing the test
After reading through the instructions for the fifth time and checking that I’d got everything set up, I finally felt brave enough to perform my test. Looking back, I’ve no idea how or why I managed to get myself so worked up. Although using the lancet was a little painful, the whole process took under five minutes. I placed my labelled sample in the pre-paid envelope and put it in the post.
My personalised health report
Less than 24 hours after I’d sent off my sample, Thriva sent me an email to inform me my sample had arrived at the lab. Later on the same day my personalised health report arrived.
I actually felt quite nervous when I accessed my report and results…
“Hi Emma, I am pleased to say your test results are all with normal limits. You have a healthy BMI and you seem to be following a regular exercise regime as much as you can taking into account your ankle injury, well done and please keep it up, however please see my advice on diet. Thanks”
Although all of my results appear to be in the green (healthy) range, I think that my Cholesterol is probably a lot closer to the orange (not so healthy!) zone than it should be. In addition, the GP who reviewed my results recommended that in order to improve my diet, I should aim to reduce saturated fats in my diet.
As a result of this recommendation I’ve made several changes to my diet.
The Verdict
Thriva really impressed me and I would be happy to recommend the Lifestyle test to anyone who wants to find out if their lifestyle might be impacting their health. The whole process was quick and simple. The instructions provided were detailed and very easy to follow. As soon as I can afford to I’ll definitely be subscribing to the 3-monthly baseline subscription kit.
More information on Thriva is available on their website. The Thriva Lifestyle test kit has a RRP of £39.00 (I tracked down a discount code and managed to purchase the kit for £29.00).
**Full disclosure: I bought the Thriva Lifestyle test kit myself. I was not asked to review the Lifestyle kit, but decided to share my honest thoughts on something I personally found useful. As always, all opinions and dodgy photographs are my own**
Sounds like an interesting testing kit. I kind of fear these types of things (e.g. 23 and me DNA genealogy kits), because I fear that the data could get into the wrong hands. Maybe, I’m just really paranoid.
At least, your results are in the normal range. I get nervous after my year physical with my liver enzymes test, because I love to sin with gin (vodka, whiskey, red wine, champagne, and tequila). However, they have come back in the acceptable range. Fingers crossed that I will get the same results this year.
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Hi SWOSEI12BLOG, Josh here from Thriva.
We take a really strong view on data because we’re all super conscious about it ourselves. For your health data, in the future, we may use an anonymised data to be able to draw insights: for example longer term trends might be available to discover based on the health sets, but we won’t ever sell or use individual data there.
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Thanks for taking the time to comment Josh!
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I’m not sure I’d ever complete a DNA home genealogy kit because like you I’d be worried about my data getting into the wrong hands. The price of some of the kits is also a bit excessive. I’m not sure the data from the lifestyle test would be that desirable to dodgy people! To be honest, I was amazed that after spending six months eating rubbish food and drinking too much my results all came back as ‘normal’. Fingers crossed your results this year will all come back in the acceptable range. P.S. I love the expression sin with gin!
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It sounds more useful than the things that check your DNA and tell you that you can’t eat potatoes or whatever. But I do not think I could do the pin prick to get a blood sample!
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Hi Maria,
Josh here from Thriva – you’d be surprised at how little it hurts. The first time is the scariest – but it gets easier every time.
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Thanks Josh. Hopefully it will be easier next time!
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Thanks Maria. It took me a few attempts to pluck up the courage to take a sample of my own blood. I suspect the only reason the pin prick hurt was because of my poor technique. When the nurses do the same test before I give blood, it doesn’t hurt at all.
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This sounds really interesting! I’ve always eaten plenty of fruits and veggies, I started upping my protein levels when I became a runner and I’ve improved my dinner choices since my baby started eating meals with us, but every so often I find myself in the car on the way home from work with a giant slice of cake, or big bar of chocolate in my hand! It would be nice to know that I was still doing OK and any recommendations (other than completely removing chocolate from my diet!) to help me improve further.
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Thanks Mary. To be honest I didn’t even realise thriva and these sort of home kits existed until I spotted my GP friend sharing her results on social media. After six months of unhealthy eating, I wanted the reassurance the lifestyle kit provides. As a runner, I definitely need to look at increasing my protein levels.
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Really interesting! I do love stuff like this. I think my diet is IN GENERAL pretty good, but having it confirmed (or not!) with something like this is always very tempting!
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Thanks Anna! Like you I love stuff like this, and found the post you wrote about the DNAFit test you did really interesting. In the end I think the price put me off sending off for my own DNAFit kit. Unlike you my diet has been terrible recently, so it was good to have some reassurance I hadn’t caused any long-term damage.
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