As an oncology provider, I don’t wait for cancer to show up on imaging before paying attention. I look for patterns in blood work that often appear years before a diagnosis. Most routine labs are read as: “normal” or “abnormal” But cancer risk lives in the trends, ranges, and relationships between markers — not a single flagged value. Some of the things I pay close attention to: • metabolic markers (fasting insulin, insulin resistance) • chronic inflammation (hs-CRP) • iron balance (ferritin iro