Rythm VS Quest blood tests

[Tbagger]

I was curious how legit Rythm Health blood tests were so I decided to try them side by side with my annual physical and blood test. Rythm seemed too good to be true with the tiny vial you fill then send in and it hit like 30 biomarkers for $100 after shipping. But I figured it was worth a shot. I took the blood draws less than an hour apart. Here are the results I got.

Total Testosterone ng/dl

Quest: 370 Rythm: 472


Free T3 pg/ml

Quest: 3.5 Rythm: 2.6


HDL mg/dl

Quest: 37 Rythm: 38


LDL mg/dl

Quest: 104 Rythm:112


Total Cholesterol mg/dl

Quest: 157 Rythm: 161


HDLC Ratio

Quest: 4.2 Rythm: 4.2


Triglycerides mg/dl

Quest: 69 Rythm: 55


Thyroid Stimulating Hormone mlU/ml

Quest: 1.4 Rythm:1.9


Albumin g/dl

Quest: 4.6 Rythm: 3.8

There were a bunch of other tests on both sides that didn’t overlap covering many different biomarkers. The great thing about quest is that my insurance covers a lot of tests and I can get anything else I want tested if I have the money. But scheduling the tests and getting them approved can be a PITA sometimes.

I like that Rythm is easy and convenient. Other than the Testosterone, it seems to be fairly accurate compared to Quest. And it’s fairly cheap. The biggest downside for me is that it’s a set panel of tests and you cant customize the it. I hear they are working on being able to add tests that you want like IGF-1, but who knows when it will be implemented.

In conclusion, I’m pretty happy with the results of Rythm. I will probably continue the subscription on a quarterly basis or more frequently as needed. I like their set panel of tests but look forward to having the option to add-on more tests that I want.

 

[lessthanhalf]

I am probably just nitpicking here, for most practical purposes the differences between the two sets of test results do not matter, but I would want to be sure which set of tests are correct before using any of the numbers to make decisions about hormone treatment in particular, or anything where the differences were more than a few percent.

Laboratories testing human blood generally have to be accurate, their equipment calibrated and checked and tested against known references to make certain of accuracy. People's lives depend on that accuracy.

A lot of the results are quite similar, differences of a few percent seem pretty reasonable, but the hormone tests show differences of 20+%, that is a lot , and I find it very hard to believe a test should show that much difference in results between 2 different labs, even if using slightly different equipment or different tests. That degree of difference is more than enough to make a difference to clinical decision making to increase or decrease doses of a hormone therapy or to treat or not treat a problem based on those levels.

I know very little about the organisation of the US health system. I am guessing that Quest is a more standard blood testing service. And I would hope that the standard blood testing services in the US are fairly reliable. It is something the FDA is responsible for, but I doubt it's recent damage would prevent it from doing basic services like maintaining standards for testing.

Looking at Rythm's website they state

"How accurate is at-home testing?
The rythm collection device demonstrates excellent concordance with traditional lab venipuncture collection, with concordance correlation coefficients (CCC’s) ranging from 95-99%, ensuring reliable and accurate results.
How is rythm different to theranos?
Rythm is built on transparency, validated methods, and established science. We use FDA-cleared devices for blood collection, and CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited labs for analysis to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and reliability. We also acknowledge the limitations of small sample volumes, which is why we focus on tracking a carefully selected panel of high-signal markers."

Their claim of 95-99% accuracy, does not seem to be the case with the above results, and if their process is as validated and certified as they say then there should not be 20 percent differences in results. If the small sample of blood used for the tests is causing the difference in results , then that also does not fit with their "carefully selected panel" of tests argument.

 

[Calm Logic]

Which testosterone was taken earlier?

Testosterone is ideally taken before 10 AM, but I think that is overrated.

How fast was the turnaround for results? Quest is taking a while on my testosterone results. If I get them today, that will be six days. But for simple tests, they can be next day sometimes.

I think of Rythm everytime I am waiting room for lab work.

 

[Tbagger]

Which testosterone was taken earlier?

Testosterone is ideally taken before 10 AM, but I think that is overrated.

How fast was the turnaround for results? Quest is taking a while on my testosterone results. If I get them today, that will be six days. But for simple tests, they can be next day sometimes.

I think of Rythm everytime I am waiting room for lab work.

Rythm was taken at approx 8:30am and Quest was taken at just before 9:30am. But I am a graveyard worker so that is at the end of my day. I was still fasted and skipped my workout that day. But I'm sure having it so late affected the results. This test wasn't about getting the most accurate results, it was more to see if the results were similar. And for the testosterone, one failed. I tend to trust Quest more so I am going to go ahead and say that failure is with Rythm. But if just following trends, I think that can be used as a tool. And I got the results 4 days after I sent off the sample.

 

[Tbagger]

I am probably just nitpicking here, for most practical purposes the differences between the two sets of test results do not matter, but I would want to be sure which set of tests are correct before using any of the numbers to make decisions about hormone treatment in particular, or anything where the differences were more than a few percent.

Laboratories testing human blood generally have to be accurate, their equipment calibrated and checked and tested against known references to make certain of accuracy. People's lives depend on that accuracy.

A lot of the results are quite similar, differences of a few percent seem pretty reasonable, but the hormone tests show differences of 20+%, that is a lot , and I find it very hard to believe a test should show that much difference in results between 2 different labs, even if using slightly different equipment or different tests. That degree of difference is more than enough to make a difference to clinical decision making to increase or decrease doses of a hormone therapy or to treat or not treat a problem based on those levels.

I know very little about the organisation of the US health system. I am guessing that Quest is a more standard blood testing service. And I would hope that the standard blood testing services in the US are fairly reliable. It is something the FDA is responsible for, but I doubt it's recent damage would prevent it from doing basic services like maintaining standards for testing.

Looking at Rythm's website they state

"How accurate is at-home testing?
The rythm collection device demonstrates excellent concordance with traditional lab venipuncture collection, with concordance correlation coefficients (CCC’s) ranging from 95-99%, ensuring reliable and accurate results.
How is rythm different to theranos?
Rythm is built on transparency, validated methods, and established science. We use FDA-cleared devices for blood collection, and CLIA-certified, CAP-accredited labs for analysis to ensure the highest standards of accuracy and reliability. We also acknowledge the limitations of small sample volumes, which is why we focus on tracking a carefully selected panel of high-signal markers."

Their claim of 95-99% accuracy, does not seem to be the case with the above results, and if their process is as validated and certified as they say then there should not be 20 percent differences in results. If the small sample of blood used for the tests is causing the difference in results , then that also does not fit with their "carefully selected panel" of tests argument.

I definitely trust Quest more than Rythm. And I agree that I would not trust medical decisions off of their testosterone results. Variations will exist between labs and methods, but a 20% difference is unacceptable to guide medical decisions. I was suspicious of them to begin with which led me to try this comparison. I was surprised that they were as close with the rest of the results though. I think I will use them as a tool to track trends, but will stick with Quest for making any major medical decisions.

 

[Calm Logic]

Gemini:

The higher result (472) was taken at an earlier time point, which supports the higher reading, but the sheer size of the difference is almost certainly a matter of different lab methods and assay accuracy.

The other concern I have with Rythm is they don't do ALT (or AST) values and no hematocrit or hemoglobin.