Optimal Result:
0 - 1.8 ppb.
Ochratoxins are metabolites of Aspergillus, Fusarium, and Penicillium species. The most commonly implicated species are A. ochraceus and ostianus, P. viridicatum, griseofulvum and possibly solitum and Eurotium amstelodami (Ochratoxin, 2002).
Recent evidence shows that these mycotoxins are present in a variety of foods (cereals, pork, poultry, coffee, beer, wine, grape juice and milk). Analyses of these food products demonstrated that Ochratoxins are also produced by P. vercucosum and A. niger and carbonarius. (Abarca et al, 2001); Pitt, 2000; Bukelskiene et al, 2006).
There are three generally recognized Ochratoxins, designated A, B and C.
Ochratoxin A (OTA) is chlorinated and is the most toxic, followed by OTB and OTC. Chemically, they are described as 3,4-dihydro-methylisocoumarin derivative linked with an amide bond to the amino group of L-b-phenylalanine (Hussein et al, 2001).
The role and risk assessment of OTA in animal and human disease has been reviewed. The estimated tolerable dosage in humans was estimated at 0.2 to 4.2 ng/kg body weight based upon NTP carcinogenicity study in rats. OTA is mutagenic, immunosuppressive and teratogenic in several species of animals. Its target organs are the kidneys (nephropathy) and the developing nervous system (Kuiper-Goodman & Scott, 1989; Krogh, 1992).
Following intravenous administration, OTA is eliminated with a half-life from body in vervet monkeys in 19-21 days (Stander et al, 2001). There is no reason to suspect that the elimination half-life would be significantly different in humans.
Ochratoxin A has a number of toxic effects in animals. It is immunosuppressive, teratogenic, carcinogenic, nephrotoxic and neurotoxic. It inhibits protein synthesis, followed by inhibition of RNA synthesis. OTA lowers the level of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase, a key enzyme in gluconeogenesis. The toxin also enhances lipid peroxidation both in vivo and in vitro, which is probably responsible for its adverse affects on mitochondrial function. OTA also forms DNA adducts in the kidney, liver and spleen that results in single-strand breaks (OTA, 2002).
There is inadequate evidence that OTA is carcinogenic in humans. However, there is sufficient evidence in experimental animals. Overall, OTA is possibly carcinogenic to humans and is a Group 2B carcinogen.
Balkan endemic neuropathy (BEN) associated with OTA occurs in Europe (Bulgaria, Croatia, Turkey, Egypt, and Yugoslavia) where OTA is relatively high in the diet. Individuals with BEN were surveyed for the presence of urinary tract tumors. The incidence of tumors in the urinary system was elevated in both men and women. Furthermore, the observations suggested that individuals with urinary tract tumors had elevated levels of OTA in the blood and urine. Approximately one-third of patients dying from BEN have papillomas and/or carcinomas of the renal pelvis, ureter or bladder (Ochratoxin, 2002; Radovanovic et al, 1991;, Wafa et al, 1997; Radic et al, 1997; Ozcelik et al, 2001; Pfohl-Leszkowicz et al, 2002).
Recently, it has been suggested that OTA can cause testicular cancer in humans (Schwartz, 2002). The hypothesis that consumption of foods contaminated with OTA causes testicular cancer was tested. The incidence of rates of testicular cancer in 20 countries was significantly correlated with the per-capita consumption of coffee and pig meat.
Schwartz concluded: "Thus, OTA is a biologically plausible cause of testicular cancer. Future epidemiologic studies of testicular cancer should focus on the consumption of OTA-containing foods such as cereals, pork products, milk and coffee by mothers and their male children."
- Several lines of experimental observations demonstrate that OTA effects mitochondrial function and causes mitochondrial damage. The reader is referred to Wallace (1997) for background information on mitochondrial DNA in aging and disease in chicks and quail.
- OTA causes pathological changes in the ultra structure of mitochondria in proximal convoluted tubules and glomeruli of kidneys and liver. These changes include abnormal shapes, enlarged mitochondrial matrix and excessive lipid droplets (Brown et al, 1986; Dwivedi et al, 1984; Maxwell et al, 1981).
- OTA causes oxidative stress and production of free radicals in rat hepatocytes and proximal tubules of the kidneys. Lipid peroxidation preceded cell death in cells of the proximal tubules (Gautier et al, 2002; Hoehler et al, 1997).
- OTA is a nonoompetitive inhibitor of both succinate-cytochrome C reductase and succi nate dehydrogenase. It impairs mitochondrial respiration and oxidative phorphorylation through impairment of the mitochondrial membrane and by inhibition of suoci nature-supported electron transfer activities of the respiratory chain (Wei et al, 1985). It also inhibits glutamateimalate substrate respiration of Site I and causes lipid peroxidation leading to cell death (Alec et al, 1991.
- Another mechanism appears to be the activation of mitochondrial NHE interfering with Ca2+ homeostasis. This induces extracellular acidification leading to cell death in renal proximal tubules (Eder et al, 2000; Rodeheaver & Schnellman, 1993).
- OTA is mutagenic and carcinogenic (Ochratoxin A, 2002). It causes DNA single-stranded breaks and DNA adducts in the DNA of spleen, liver and kidney in OTA treated mice (Pfohl-Leszkowicz et al, 1991; Creppy et al, 1985).
- OTA inhibits bacterial, yeast and liver phenylalanyl-tRNA synthetases. The inhibition is competitive to phenylalanine and is reversed by an excess of this amino acid. It also inhibits phenylalanine hydroxylase and lowers the concentration of phosphoenolpyruvate carboxykinase. It appears that an inhibition of protein and RNA synthesis is the end result of these toxic effects (Dirheimer & Creppy, 1991). Inhibition of protein and RNA synthesis is considered one of the toxic effects of OTA (Ochratoxin A, 2002).
- OTA induces apoptosis (programmed cell death) in a variety of cell types in vivo and in vitro. The mechanisms include caspase 3 activation, mitogen-activated protein kinases (MAPK) family, and c-jun amino-terminal kinase (JNK). The apoptosis is also mediated through cellular processes involved in the degradation of DNA. Finally, the mechanisms leading to cell death may be inhibited by various antioxidants (Atroshi et al, 2000; Gekle et al, 2000; Schwerdt et al, 1999; Seegers et al, 1994).
- OTA is nephrotoxic in all animals studied and has been implicated in the etiology of Balkan endemic nephropathy (BEN) (Ochratoxin A, 2002). The clinical picture of BEN is that of a slowly progressing tubulo-interstitial chronic nephritis and urethral tumors are frequent, occurring in 2-47 % of cases (Radonic & Radosevic, 1992). The proximal tubule cells are the primary target for OTA toxicity. BEN is an end-stage renal disease.
- Epidemiological investigations have shown that BEN and dietary exposure are associated, leading to the conclusion that OTA is one of the causative agents in the identification of DNA-ochratoxin A adducts in urinary tract tumors in patients from areas with BEN add support to this conclusion (Puntaric et al, 2002; Stoev et al, 1998; Pfohl-Leszkowicz et al, 1993b; Mikolov et al, 1996).
An elevated OTA level in your test suggests recent or ongoing exposure to this mycotoxin through:
Contaminated food (especially grains, coffee, dried fruit, or spices)
Mold-contaminated indoor environments
Exposure to moldy feed or hay (for individuals living on farms or with livestock)
This may or may not mean you have symptoms right now, but chronic exposure can increase your risk for:
Kidney stress or damage
Immune dysfunction
Hormonal imbalance
Fatigue, headaches, or increased infections
Long-term risk of urinary tract tumors and neurological issues
1. Identify and Eliminate the Source
Assess your diet: Reduce intake of stored grains, coffee, wine, and dried fruits unless they are certified mold-free.
Inspect your living or working environment: Water-damaged buildings, musty odors, or visible mold may indicate mold contamination.
Consider environmental testing for airborne or surface mold, especially if multiple family members or pets have symptoms.
2. Support Detoxification
Stay hydrated to help your kidneys flush out toxins.
Consider mycotoxin binders (such as activated charcoal, bentonite clay, or cholestyramine), but only under medical guidance.
Boost antioxidant intake: Vitamins A, C, and E, selenium, and glutathione may help reduce oxidative stress from OTA.
Liver and kidney support: Milk thistle, NAC, and dandelion root may aid in detox, but again should be used under guidance.
3. Retest Over Time
If your levels were only slightly elevated or equivocal, retesting in a few months can help confirm whether exposure is ongoing or resolving.
4. Consult a Healthcare Professional
Especially if you're immunocompromised, pregnant, or experiencing unexplained symptoms. An integrative or environmental medicine practitioner may be especially helpful.
Import lab results from multiple providers, track changes over time, customize your reference ranges, and get clear explanations for each result. Everything is stored securely, exportable in one organized file, and shareable with your doctor—or anyone you choose.
Cancel or upgrade anytime
Laboratories
We accept reports from any lab, so you can easily collect and organize all your health information in one secure spot.
Pricing Table
Choose the plan that fits you — and turn scattered lab reports into clear insights you can finally use.
Pick a plan that fits you — and turn scattered lab reports into clarity.
Personal plans
Professional plan
$15/ month
Access your lab reports, explanations, and tracking tools.
$250/ once
Pay once, access everything—no monthly fees, no limits.
Professional plan
$45/ month
Designed for professionals managing their clients' lab reports
About membership
Import Lab Results from Any Source
Easily upload lab results from any provider, whether it's a hospital, independent lab, or home testing service. We support PDFs, scanned documents, and JPEGs from patient portals. No need to log in to multiple platforms — everything is centralized in one secure space.
Easily upload lab results from any provider — we support PDFs, scans, and images. Keep all your reports organized in one secure place.
See Your Health Timeline
Every lab result is automatically organized on a chronological timeline, giving you a complete picture of your health journey. Whether you're tracking a condition, managing treatments, or staying proactive, the timeline helps you and your doctor understand how things progress over time.
Every lab result is automatically organized on a chronological timeline, giving you a complete picture of your health journey.
Understand What Your Results Mean
Whether it's a blood test, GI panel, urinalysis, or something else, lab reports measure numerous biomarkers that reveal what's happening inside your body. Our extensive database covers over 10,000 biomarkers, providing clear, simple explanations of what each result means and how you can take action—no matter your membership level. Say goodbye to confusion and get the insights you need to better understand your health.
Our database covers over 10,000 biomarkers with clear, simple explanations—so you can finally understand your results and what to do next.
Enter Your Lab Reports Yourself — Always Free
Enter Your Lab Reports — Always Free
If you'd like to handle inputting your health data into your account, you can do so with our easy-to-use data entry forms. Our user-friendly form is designed to guide you through the quick and easy submission process, making it simple to keep track of your health metrics. This is available to both Complete plan and Unlimited plan members.
Our user-friendly form guides you through a quick, simple submission process, making it easy to enter your health metrics.
Add your results anytime with our easy entry form. It's quick, guided, and helps you stay organized — free for all members.
Visualize Your Results
View your lab data through easy-to-read graphs and tables. Quickly spot patterns, track changes, and compare results across different dates — all without digging through multiple reports. You can also select and compare graphs of specific biomarkers side-by-side to better understand how they relate and change over time.
See your lab reports in clear graphs and tables. Spot patterns, track changes, and compare results over time — all in one place.
Export Your Complete Lab History in a Single File
Export Your Complete Lab History
After collecting lab results from different providers, you can download your entire history combined into a single file. Choose from PDF, Excel, or CSV formats to easily review, share, or get a second opinion—no more juggling multiple reports.
After collecting lab results from different providers, you can download your entire history combined into a single file.
Comprehensive Data Entry Service for Your Reports
Data Entry Service for Your Reports
Our inclusive service handles the data entry for your lab reports. Just submit your information and we'll take care of the rest. Complete plan members receive one report entered for free, then $15 per report after that. Unlimited plan members receive ten report entries for free, then $15 per report after that.
Our inclusive service handles the data entry for your lab reports. Just submit your information and we'll take care of the rest.
Securely Share With Anyone You Trust
Whether you're working with a doctor, nutritionist, caregiver, or wellness coach, you can securely share your complete lab history by sending an invite link to anyone you trust. You have full control over who sees your information and for how long, ensuring your privacy and peace of mind at every step.
Share your full lab history with your doctor, nutritionist, or coach using a secure invite link.
Discover
I have been using Healthmatters.io since 2021. I travel all over the world and use different doctors and health facilities. This site has allowed me to consolidate all my various test results over 14 years in one place. And every doctor that I show this to has been impressed. Because with any health professional I talk to, I can pull up historical results in seconds. It is invaluable. Even going back to the same doctor, they usually do not have the historical results from their facility in a graph format. That has been very helpful.
Anthony
Unlimited Plan Member since 2021
What fantastic service and great, easy-to-follow layouts! I love your website; it makes it so helpful to see patterns in my health data. It's truly a pleasure to use. I only wish the NHS was as organized and quick as Healthmatters.io. You've set a new standard for health tracking!
Karin
Advanced Plan Member since 2020
As a PRO member and medical practitioner, Healthmatters.io has been an invaluable tool for tracking my clients' data. The layout is intuitive, making it easy to monitor trends and spot patterns over time. The ability to customize reports and charts helps me present information clearly to my clients, improving communication and outcomes. It's streamlined my workflow, saving me time and providing insights at a glance. Highly recommended for any practitioner looking for a comprehensive and user-friendly solution to track patient labs!
Paul
Healthmatters Pro Member since 2024
Healthmatters is a personal health dashboard that helps you organize and understand your lab results. It collects and displays your medical test data from any lab in one secure, easy-to-use platform.
With a Healthmatters account, you can:
Professionals can also analyze client data more efficiently and save time managing lab reports.
Healthmatters.io personal account provides in-depth research on 4000+ biomarkers, including information and suggestions for test panels such as, but not limited to:
You can combine all test reports inside your Healthmatters account and keep them in one place. It gives you an excellent overview of all your health data. Once you retest, you can add new results and compare them.
If you are still determining whether Healthmatters support your lab results, the rule is that if you can test it, you can upload it to Healthmatters.
While we work with many popular labs, we welcome reports from lots of other places too.
It's as simple as this: if you can get a test done, you can upload it to Healthmatters and we can interpret results from any lab out there. If laboratories can analyze it, we can interpret it.
If you're on the hunt for a specific biomarker, contact us and we'll add it to our database. Anything from blood, urine, saliva, or stool can be uploaded, understood, and tracked with your Healthmatters account.
The Complete Plan ($15/month) is perfect for individuals who want ongoing access to their health data. It includes unlimited lab imports, visual tracking, custom ranges, result explanations, full account exports, and secure sharing — all with a simple monthly subscription. You can cancel anytime and restart your plan whenever you're ready — your data will still be there waiting for you. You can also upgrade to the Unlimited Plan at any time, with the cost prorated based on what you've already paid.
The Unlimited Plan ($250 one-time) is also designed for individuals but offers lifetime access with no ongoing subscription. You'll get all the same features as the Complete Plan, plus a larger initial data entry allowance (10 reports), making it a great choice if you prefer a one-time payment and long-term use without monthly fees.
In short:
There are two ways to add your test reports to your Healthmatters account. One option is to input the data using the data entry forms. The other method is to utilize our "Data entry service."
Our data entry forms offer an easy, fast, and free way for you to input the reports yourself. Self-entry allows you to add an unlimited number of reports at no cost. We make the self-entry process user-friendly, providing dozens of templates that pre-populate the most popular laboratory panels and offering instant feedback on entered values.
For those who prefer assistance, we offer a "Data entry service" to help you input your data. Simply attach an image or file of your lab test results, and a qualified team member from our data entry team will add the results for you.
We support various file types, including PDFs, JPGs, or Excel. This service is particularly useful if you have many reports to upload or if you're too busy to handle the data entry yourself.
Our Data Entry Service is for when you don't want to manually type in your lab results yourself. You simply upload your report (PDF, image, or screenshot), and our trained team enters the information into your Healthmatters account for you — accurately and neatly organized, ready to view in graphs, tables, and timelines.
The $15 per report covers the time and care it takes for a real person to review your file, make sure each result is entered correctly, and double-check for accuracy. This ensures your health data is precise and easy to work with — without you having to spend the time doing it yourself.
Prefer to do it yourself? You can always use our free self-entry tool to add results manually — it just takes a bit more time and attention.
For users on the Complete monthly plan, the first report is entered free of charge, and each additional report incurs a fee of $15.
Unlimited account holders enjoy the entry of ten reports without charge. Subsequent reports are subject to a $15 fee per report.
Additionally, users on the Complete plan can upgrade to a yearly subscription from the account settings. The annual subscription includes a data entry service for five reports.
All professional accounts allow you to import and onboard an unlimited number of clients and their lab results. The distinction between professional plans lies solely in the data entry service.
The Pro Monthly Plus plan is priced at $75 per month and includes a data entry service for five reports each month. Additional reports can be self-entered at no extra cost or, if preferred, you can use our data entry service for an additional fee of $15 per report.
The Pro Monthly plan is priced at $45 per month and does not include a data entry service. Self-entry is free for an unlimited number of reports, and you can opt for the data entry service at a fee of $15 per report.
You also have the option to upgrade to higher monthly or to annual plans, which come with substantial discounts. All upgrades can be done directly from your account.
Simply log in and navigate to your account settings to cancel your subscription. Scroll down to locate the 'Cancel' button at the bottom of the page. Ensure you cancel at least one day before the renewal date to prevent any charges. Once cancellation is requested, the subscription remains active until the conclusion of the current billing cycle.
Our goal has been to make your Healthmatters account as intuitive as possible.
We've crafted multiple ways for you to navigate your data, whether you're glancing at a single report or delving into your historical test reports.
1. Graph View:Dive into a visual journey with our biomarker graphs, showcasing over 40 data points. Combining years of results unveils trends, empowering you to make informed decisions. Our visualization tools make it a breeze to compare and understand changes over time, even if your results are from different labs. A search function and filters simplify the exploration of extensive data, allowing you to focus on what needs attention.
2. All Tests ViewExplore neatly organized reports on a timeline, highlighting crucial details like dates, critical results, and lab/panel names. Each report opens up to reveal in-depth descriptions and additional recommendations for each biomarker. The history of previous results is just a click away, and you can download a comprehensive report for deeper insights. Color-coded and user-friendly, it's designed for easy reading, understanding, and navigation.
3. Table View:For a holistic view of all biomarkers side by side, our table view is your go-to. Results are neatly displayed in a categorized and dated table, ideal for those with an extensive test history. Utilize sorting, filters, and color-coding to enhance your analysis and gain extra insights.
Yes, you can download your information anytime. We offer two easy ways to export your lab data:
This makes it simple to save, back up, or share your health data whenever you need.
Yes, you can print your report. To do so, navigate to "All tests" and open the report you wish to print. You'll find a print button in the right corner of the report. Click on it, and your browser's print window will open. If you prefer to print in a bigger typeface, adjust the scale using the print window settings.
Yes, you can! We highly recommend activating Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) for your account. To do so, please navigate to the "Profile and Security" section of your account, where you will find instructions for activating 2FA.
Yes, you can. When entering values for the biomarker, you will see an "Edit Range" button. Click this button, and you'll have the option to enter a custom range.
A personal account is all about keeping your own lab test results in check. It's just for you and your personal use.
The professional account is designed for health professionals who wish to track and organize their clients' laboratory results.
To learn more about Healthmatters Pro, please refer to the professional page.
At HealthMatters, we're committed to maintaining the security and confidentiality of your personal information. We've put industry-leading security standards in place to help protect against the loss, misuse, or alteration of the information under our control. We use procedural, physical, and electronic security methods designed to prevent unauthorized people from getting access to this information. Our internal code of conduct adds additional privacy protection. All data is backed up multiple times a day and encrypted using SSL certificates. See our Privacy Policy for more details.
