Examples of Changing Biomarker Patterns
Blood biomarkers change on all timescales. We observe changes occurring over hours, days, weeks, months, and years. Here are a few examples of the benefits of tracking certain biomarkers over time.
How about a week of Olympic-level beach volleyball training?
Olympic-level training regimens
The two athletes in this Brazilian Olympic beach volleyball team (orange and blue lines) show decreases in the blood protein haptoglobin during four very intense training sessions (grey bars) during a week at training camp, with recovery between and after sessions.
recovery after surgery
Hip replacement surgery causes a large jump in several inflammation markers.
Recovery is interrupted by two tissue strain events (with recurrence of pain) but by day 50 inflammation markers stabilize at ~50% of pre-surgical levels (showing the benefit of removing the arthritic joint).
A subsequent nose cold generates short-term response with amplitude ~10% as large as surgery
What happens during recovery from surgery?
What happens during pregnancy?
Tracking pregnancy biomarkers
Many changes occur during pregnancy as the mother’s body adapts, and this causes many protein biomarkers to change significantly in a complicated program. After delivery, the biomarker levels gradually return to the mother’s original baseline.
Crohn’s disease
Flares in symptoms of a serious intestinal condition like Crohn’s cause spikes in the amount of inflammation proteins not seen in the steady baseline of other people.
What happens if you have Crohn’s disease?
What happens during an infection?
Infection tracking
A series of choreographed changes occur in the blood biomarkers as the body reacts to the start of an infection and finally fights it off, slowly returning to normal. Different sorts of infection, and different people, show different responses.
Does your body adapt to the climate?
Climate adaptation
Biomarker AT-III (purple) tracks with the outside temperature in this user’s location (blue) over the course of 4 years