A blog to help you optimize your full-body and life performance

The liver is the main “chemist” in our body. It is the primary location for the conversion of one compound to another. Because of this, the liver can be thought of as the body’s detoxifier. If you have a liver, there is no need to “detox” through juice cleanses or lengthy fasts. Your liver does that for you every day.

We all know how the commercials go: 1) a pair of bathtubs face the sunset (which we have so many questions about), 2) a deep voice-over warns us about erectile dysfunction’s ability to ruin the perfect moment, 3) you pray that you won’t end up a slave to the blue pill. But you don’t have to be a silver fox like the ones on TV to suffer from erectile dysfunction (ED). In fact, it’s more common in younger men than you’d expect.

A study from 2013 found that 1-in-4 men seeking treatment for ED were under the age of 40.¹ We're guessing you don’t want to be on the wrong side of that statistic, so keep reading – we’ve gathered some valuable information about how to avoid and/or counteract its onset.

Have you ever wished you could sleep all day without judgement from others, or even worse, yourself? We’ll admit – it’s certainly crossed our minds once or twice. With the fast-paced, dog-eat-dog world out there, restful nights can be few and far between. 

So to help combat the imbalance between hours spent awake and those spent sleeping, we’ve created our “Sleep Better” goal. No, we didn’t quite figure out how to add hours to the day or turn ourselves into cats. But we did put together a comprehensive list of research-tested remedies. So all you self-diagnosed insomniacs, light sleepers, and chronic nappers, read on.

Craving that mid-afternoon coffee? Hitting your coworker’s candy bowl come 3:00PM? Too tired for that evening gym session? You’re not alone!

Even the InsideTracker office struggles with the dreaded afternoon slump sometimes. So, as usual, we took matters into our own hands and did some digging into easy ways to boost energy – besides coffee, of course. 

Want to banish fatigue, keep your afternoon productive, and maybe even save a few bucks? InsideTracker customers will find these recommendations and more in our "Boost Energy" goal.

It's that time of year. The days are getting shorter, the nights longer, and the temperatures are steadily dropping. Before you know it, fall will be here and the North American triathlon season will be coming to an end. Whether you've already accomplished your main race, or preparing for the end of season, recovery time is just around the corner! 

This past weekend, our very own, Ross and Ashley competed and crushed their goals of racing Ironman® Maine 70.3 (more on that to come). We selfishly want them back to the top of their game as quickly as possible, we've put together a few ways to help them recover post-race. So here you go, colleagues: a few quick, strain-free triathlon recovery nutrition tips...

We're often asked if hormonal contraceptives can affect female biomarkers. The answer? Yes. It makes sense then, that women begin to wonder how they are affected, and to what extent.

Like any other medication, hormonal contraceptives (pills, patches, rings, IUDs, implants, and injections) interfere with the normal functioning of the body. Naturally, there can be some unintended residual effects. Therefore, some out-of-range biomarkers may be attributed to your contraceptive use, while others may be a combination of factors. It's important to note that throughout this blog post, we will refer to all hormonal contraceptives (pills, patches, rings, IUDs, implants, and injections), as OC – aka oral contraceptives. This may seem a misnomer, but in the current scientific literature, "OC" is used to characterize all hormonal contraceptives, unless indicated otherwise. We hope this post will help you better understand how your OC could be affecting some of your biomarker levels.

How much coffee do you think you drink in a week? How about in a day? If the thought of calculating your weekly coffee bill inspires feelings of fear and anxiety, don’t worry, you’re not alone. Many Americans struggle to keep their energy levels up throughout the day, and convince themselves they need caffeine to fight the dreaded “two o’clock slump."

If you're looking to kick caffeine to the curb (or just looking to keep it to one cup a day), here are some fantastic foods that help fight fatigue.

The Boston Marathon. The most storied marathon there is, and it just so happens to be in my backyard. I grew up watching it, and had ran it once before. But this time was different. I trained for a specific goal. A lofty goal of sub 3:00. A goal I thought was well within reach.

I was feeling great about my fitness. My strategy was honed. I was on the right track. So what happened?

Keeping our focus on nutrition this month, we decided to take a look at some of our most popular recommendations. One that stuck out? Increasing your intake of nuts – it’s right up there with oatmeal. Based on the nutrition questionnaire each of our customers must complete, nuts may be your ticket to improvements in many biomarkers.

As you may know, we link each of our recommendations to the scientific literature that supports it. But, we’ve gone one step farther… we can now see how our recommendations are actually affecting InsideTracker users! Here, we compare the typical intakes of nuts for our users with their biomarker levels. The results speak for themselves – it’s time to go nuts!

To get detailed portrait of the human body’s internal biochemistry, it is helpful to understand how biomarkers impact each other. In this article we investigate recent scientific literature looking at how testosterone levels are affected by a commonly overlooked biomarker: the mineral magnesium. Read below to learn the importance of each biomarker and how monitoring magnesium can boost testosterone and improve muscle growth, sex drive, and overall health and wellness in both men and women.