December 11, 2020
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Your blood fat responses after eating are one of the best indicators of your risk of developing heart disease, making them an essential factor in your health.
After you eat, the fats in your food (known as triglycerides) are absorbed in your gut and are transported in special packages called chylomicrons. These molecules move the fats in your foods to the cells in your body, where they are used for energy or stored for later.
If these triglycerides hang around in your blood for too long and your fat response peak stays high for hours after you eat, it can set off a chain reaction of increased oxidative stress and inflammation, which stops the linings of your arteries from functioning correctly.
High blood triglyceride levels also lead to lipoprotein remodeling, where the fat particles in your blood change size, shape, or composition, making them more likely to cause damage to your arteries.
Over time, repeated unhealthy blood fat responses can cause damage to the linings of your arteries, increasing your risk of conditions like heart disease or stroke and impacting your overall long-term health.
Our PREDICT studies have shown that blood fat responses after eating vary widely between people.
Your blood fat responses depend on a wide range of factors, including your meal composition, things that are going on in your life like stress and exercise, and your unique biology.
Our at-home ZOE test kit measures what happens to your blood fat levels after eating, so we can give you personalized recommendations for food choices that will help you to reach your healthiest weight and improve your health.
If you were in a clinic, we would measure your blood fat responses by taking small blood samples before and after eating standardized meals
This isn’t a very practical option, so we developed a new way to accurately measure blood fat responses from the comfort of your own home that needs nothing more than a few drops of blood.
In your ZOE at-home test kit, you’ll receive specially prepared, standardized meals in the form of muffins with carefully balanced levels of different macronutrients. You will also receive a pack that includes a finger-prick blood test and a special collection card.
At particular points during the test - before and after eating your ZOE test muffins - you will prick your finger and place a drop of blood onto the card.
At the end of the test, you mail the card back to us, and we send them off to our partner laboratory to be analyzed. Looking at how the fats in your blood change in response to different muffin meals and how long they stay high after you eat help us understand how your body processes the fats in your food.
On average it takes 6 hours for fats to be removed from your bloodstream after a single meal, but our ability to process blood fats varies immensely. Some people can eat large amounts of fat and have almost no rise in blood fat levels, while others may have dramatic rises that last many hours after eating that same meal.
After analyzing your unique fat responses, you will receive an insights report that includes your blood fat score. This score describes how well your body can handle the fats found in your food and is based on your results compared with data from more than a thousand participants in our groundbreaking PREDICT studies.
This score is integrated with your blood sugar and gut health insights and incorporated into your personalized ZOE scores, which are shared through the ZOE Insights app to help you work with your body and keep your blood fat levels in healthy ranges.
Avoiding repeated high blood fat responses by choosing foods that suit your unique biology may help you reduce dietary inflammation and take back control of your health and weight.
Check out our ZOE test kit to learn about your responses to food and discover thousands of foods that work for, not against, your body.
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