Category: Liver

Before certain rheumatoid arthritis treatments begin, infection screening helps the care team plan safer treatment. Someone can feel well and still have evidence of a past infection that matters when the immune system is altered. […]

Methotrexate monitoring checks treatment safety as well as the condition being treated. Your joints may feel better while a blood-count, liver, or kidney result still needs attention. That is why scheduled laboratory follow-up remains important […]

Unexplained elevations in ALT and AST can be a reason to consider celiac disease, even without prominent digestive symptoms. These enzymes can rise in untreated celiac disease, but they also rise for many other reasons. […]

Calculate the score correctly, apply age-appropriate thresholds, and understand when another assessment is needed. A FIB-4 score estimates the probability of advanced liver fibrosis using age, AST, ALT, and platelet count. It is a risk-stratification […]

Connect liver chemistry with glucose, lipids, blood counts, kidney findings, and clinical history to understand the whole pattern. Liver health lab tests become more useful when each result is connected to the question it can […]

Understand fatty liver terminology, the purpose of initial blood tests, and when imaging or further assessment may be needed. MASLD blood tests help evaluate liver injury, metabolic risk, and possible alternative causes, but they cannot […]

How AST, ALT, platelets, A1C, lipids, and secondary fibrosis tests work together to guide evaluation and follow-up. MASLD fibrosis risk can be present even when liver enzymes fall within the laboratory reference interval. Metabolic dysfunction-associated […]

Hepatitis testing uses virus-specific blood tests to look for infection, past exposure, or immunity. The right test depends on the question: hepatitis A IgM helps evaluate suspected recent illness; hepatitis B screening combines three markers; […]

Chronic hepatitis C tests help answer several questions: Is hepatitis C virus present now? Has the liver developed scarring? What needs checking before treatment? Did treatment achieve cure? An antibody result, viral load, or liver […]

Chronic hepatitis B tests answer different questions: Is infection present? How much virus is circulating? Is liver-cell injury occurring? Has scarring developed? HBV DNA, ALT, and fibrosis findings must be interpreted together and followed over […]

Hemochromatosis follow-up continues after iron-removal treatment begins—and after ferritin reaches the intended range. The most useful results answer three questions: Are excess iron stores decreasing? Is blood removal being tolerated safely? What ongoing care is […]

Editorial status: Draft for named medical and laboratory review. Product URLs are supported by current Ulta Lab Tests search and internal-link evidence but still require a final in-site canonical check before publication. Obesity is a […]

Heart failure blood tests help answer different parts of the diagnostic puzzle. BNP or NT-proBNP can show that the heart is under increased wall stress, while kidney, electrolyte, blood-count, iron, thyroid, glucose, lipid, and liver […]

Originally published May 10, 2026. Updated August 26, 2026. Iron status is not one laboratory number. A serum iron result can change with meals, supplements, time of day, illness, and ordinary biological variation. Ferritin estimates […]

What blood tests are used for metabolic health, weight loss, and GLP-1 monitoring? Metabolic health blood tests can help evaluate glucose regulation, cardiovascular risk, liver and kidney function, thyroid function, blood-cell patterns, and selected nutrient […]

What Do Liver Function Tests Show? Liver function tests are blood tests used to look for liver-cell injury, altered bile flow, bilirubin-processing problems, reduced protein or clotting-factor production, viral hepatitis, and risk of advanced fibrosis. […]

Infectious disease testing is not one universal blood test. The right choice depends on the suspected organism, exposure date, symptoms, body site, vaccination history, and whether the goal is screening, diagnosing a current infection, confirming […]

Digestive health lab tests use blood, stool, and sometimes breath samples to look for objective clues related to anemia, dehydration, inflammation, infection, celiac disease, nutrient malabsorption, pancreatic enzyme problems, hidden blood in stool, and selected […]

Does High Ferritin Mean Hereditary Hemochromatosis? Not by itself. Ferritin reflects stored iron, but it also rises with inflammation, infection, metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease (MASLD), alcohol-related liver injury, other liver disease, kidney disease, malignancy, […]

Vitamin D tests do not all measure the same form of vitamin D. Learn which blood test is generally used to evaluate vitamin D status, when D2 and D3 fractions may add context, and why […]

A laboratory result usually answers a straightforward question: How much of a substance is present? A biomarker ratio asks a second question: How does that result relate to another part of the same biological system? […]

Obstructive sleep apnea, commonly called OSA, is a sleep-related breathing disorder in which the upper airway repeatedly narrows or closes during sleep. Each event may reduce airflow, lower blood oxygen, interrupt normal sleep, and activate […]

Rapid weight loss with medications such as semaglutide and tirzepatide can lead to meaningful changes in body weight, appetite, blood sugar, and cardiometabolic health. Semaglutide is a glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, commonly called a GLP-1 […]

Digestive symptoms do not always remain limited to the stomach or intestines. When a digestive disorder interferes with the breakdown or absorption of food, the effects may appear throughout the body as fatigue, anemia, brain […]

Managing a chronic condition often involves much more than responding to symptoms. It may require regular medical visits, medication review, lifestyle support, home measurements, and laboratory testing that shows how the body is functioning over […]