Huberman says 'get blood work.' Here's what that actually means

Andrew Huberman says it in almost every episode. Before you start a supplement protocol, get blood work. Before you change your stack, get blood work. Before you draw conclusions about whether something is working, get blood work.

He's right. And the advice is almost universally ignored.

Not because people disagree with it. Because "get blood work" sounds simple and turns out to be complicated. Which markers? From where? Interpreted against what standard? A standard GP panel covers a fraction of what a serious supplement protocol touches. A direct-to-consumer test gives you numbers without clinical interpretation. And most people end up doing neither, defaulting to the protocol itself and hoping for the best.

This article maps Huberman's most commonly discussed supplement categories to the specific blood markers that make them safe and effective. Not as an endorsement or criticism of any supplement. As a guide to what "get blood work" actually means in practice.

The principle Huberman keeps repeating

Huberman's position on supplements is more conservative than his audience typically realises. He's stated repeatedly that supplements are "optional tools layered on top of foundational habits." That no amount of supplementation can compensate for poor nutrition. That he tests his blood twice a year. That individual response varies enough that what works for one person may do nothing for another.

The core principle: measure, intervene, remeasure. Supplements without measurement are guesswork. Measurement without retesting is a snapshot that tells you where you started but not whether anything changed.

This is exactly the clinical approach VitalYOU's doctors take. The alignment isn't coincidental. Measure first, intervene based on data, track whether the intervention is working. The difference is in the depth of the measurement and the clinical interpretation that sits around it.

Testosterone support protocols

Huberman has discussed Tongkat Ali (Eurycyclia longifolia) and Fadogia agrestis as supplements that may support testosterone levels. His consistent caveat: get blood work before and after.

The markers that matter for anyone considering a testosterone-support protocol:

Free testosterone is the fraction your body can actually use. Total testosterone, the number most panels report, includes the portion bound to SHBG (sex hormone-binding globulin) and albumin. You can have "normal" total testosterone while your free testosterone is genuinely low. Free testosterone is what determines whether you feel the effect.

SHBG tells you why free testosterone might be low even when total is adequate. SHBG rises with age, with certain medications, with thyroid dysfunction, and with caloric restriction. A high SHBG binds more testosterone, reducing the free fraction. Without measuring SHBG, free testosterone can't be accurately interpreted.

LH (luteinising hormone) tells you whether the signal from the brain to the testes is working properly. Low LH with low testosterone suggests a central problem (the brain isn't sending the signal). Normal or high LH with low testosterone suggests a testicular production problem. The intervention differs based on which pattern is present.

Oestradiol in men tells you whether testosterone is being converted to oestrogen via aromatisation, a process that increases with body fat. Elevated oestradiol with declining testosterone is a specific pattern that changes the clinical conversation.

A standard GP panel may include total testosterone if specifically requested. It rarely includes free testosterone, SHBG, LH, or male oestradiol. VitalYOU's assessment includes all of these alongside cortisol (which suppresses testosterone when chronically elevated), DHEA-S (the adrenal precursor that feeds testosterone production), and thyroid markers (hypothyroidism suppresses testosterone independently).

Without this full picture, "get blood work" before a testosterone protocol means getting a fraction of the information you need to make the protocol safe and effective.

Sleep support protocols

Huberman's sleep stack has evolved over time but has consistently included magnesium (typically threonate or bisglycinate), apigenin, and theanine, with inositol and glycine as occasional additions. His recommendation: use these to improve sleep architecture, not to force sleep.

The markers that matter:

Magnesium modulates NMDA receptors and influences sleep quality at the neurological level. Serum magnesium is the standard blood measure, but it poorly reflects intracellular and brain magnesium status. It underreports depletion. However, when serum magnesium is low, intracellular levels are almost certainly lower, making it clinically actionable. VitalYOU's optimal range (0.85 to 1.0 mmol/L) sits above most standard laboratory lower limits.

Cortisol should follow a diurnal rhythm: peak in the morning, trough at night. Chronic stress can flatten this curve, leaving cortisol elevated into the evening. When that happens, no sleep supplement will override the cortisol signal. You'll stay activated when you should be winding down. Measuring cortisol (even a single morning draw, which VitalYOU includes) establishes a baseline and can identify significant abnormalities in morning cortisol levels. Assessing whether the cortisol curve remains elevated into the evening typically requires symptom correlation or additional testing.

IGF-1 is a downstream measure of overnight growth hormone pulsatility. Growth hormone is released primarily during deep slow-wave sleep. While influenced by age and nutrition, low IGF-1 combined with reported poor sleep, strongly suggests restorative deep sleep phases are compromised at the restoration level, not just the duration level. It's a confirmatory marker: it tells you whether the deep sleep phases that matter most are actually happening.

Vitamin D acts as a neurosteroid precursor and has been associated with sleep quality in multiple studies. Deficiency (which affects 23% of Australian adults below 50 nmol/L, rising to 49% in southern states during winter) is one of the more common and correctable contributors to poor sleep.

A sleep protocol without these markers is supplementing blind. You might be addressing magnesium when the problem is cortisol. Or supplementing theanine when the underlying issue is vitamin D deficiency. The supplements may be individually reasonable. Without blood work, you can't know which ones are addressing your specific biology.

Foundational supplements

Huberman's foundational tier includes vitamin D3, omega-3 fatty acids (EPA/DHA), and a general approach to ensuring adequate micronutrient intake. His framing: these are the baseline before any performance-specific supplementation.

The markers that matter:

Vitamin D is the most straightforward: measure it, supplement to target. VitalYOU's optimal range is 100 to 150 nmol/L, well above the standard deficiency threshold of 50. A 2012 Australian study found 73% of adults fell below 75 nmol/L. You can't dose vitamin D accurately without knowing where you start.

Triglycerides and hs-CRP together provide a picture of whether omega-3 supplementation is doing what it's supposed to. Omega-3s reduce triglycerides and have anti-inflammatory properties. If you're supplementing and your triglycerides remain elevated or your hs-CRP hasn't shifted, the dose may be insufficient, the form may not be absorbing, or the inflammatory driver is coming from elsewhere.

Fasting insulin and HOMA-IR reveal metabolic health at a level that fasting glucose and HbA1c don't reach until years later. Huberman has discussed the importance of metabolic health as the foundation for everything else. Fasting insulin is the early marker. Most standard panels don't include it because fasting glucose is cheaper and catches diabetes. It doesn't catch the insulin resistance that precedes diabetes by a decade.

What a 20-marker panel misses

Huberman tests his blood twice a year. He's mentioned using comprehensive panels. But he's never specified exactly which markers, and most of his audience defaults to whatever their GP offers or whatever a direct-to-consumer service includes.

A standard GP panel typically covers: full blood count, fasting glucose, HbA1c, lipids (total cholesterol, LDL, HDL, triglycerides), liver function (ALT, AST, GGT), kidney function (creatinine, eGFR), and thyroid screening (TSH). That's roughly 20 markers. It's designed to screen for disease.

What it doesn't include, and what any serious supplement protocol requires: free testosterone, SHBG, oestradiol, LH, DHEA-S, cortisol, fasting insulin, HOMA-IR, hs-CRP, IGF-1, homocysteine, vitamin D, magnesium, iron studies (including ferritin and transferrin saturation), and vitamin B12. These are the markers that tell you whether your biology is performing, not just whether it's diseased. And they're the markers that determine whether a supplement protocol is working, misdirected, or unnecessary.

VitalYOU's assessment includes more than 80 biomarkers across six biological systems. It covers every marker listed above and interprets them in context with each other, because testosterone interacts with cortisol, which interacts with sleep, which interacts with inflammation, which interacts with metabolic function. A panel that tests them in isolation misses the interactions that determine how your biology actually works.

What this article is and isn't

This is not an endorsement of Huberman's protocols or any specific supplement. VitalYOU does not comment on supplement efficacy in its public content. What individual supplements do or don't do is a question for peer-reviewed research and clinical consultation, not a blog post.

This is a guide to what "get blood work" actually means when you take the advice seriously. The markers. The context. The interpretation. Huberman's core principle, measure before you intervene, is one VitalYOU's doctors agree with completely. The gap is that most people hear the advice and don't know how to act on it.

If you're spending money on a protocol, the blood work to assess whether it's working costs less than a month of supplements. And it tells you something the supplements never will: whether your body actually needed them in the first place.