Diagnostic testing
What tests do I really need?
One of the things that has always set me apart is that I see my clients and their issues through a unique, Nutritionist lens, plus… something more.
Before you get expensive testing, read this then visit my other article here. There is much to be seen when we look through a Functional Medicine lens. Lab reference ranges include 95% of all test results. Look around; are 95% of us healthy and vibrant? You don’t feel yourself, but your labs are “in range”? A Functional Medicine approach is, well, how do you feel? The range is much tighter.
After seeing multiple doctors, having multiple tests… (expensive)… I finally found Marie. She understands the tests. Moreover, she looks at them holistically and functionally (everything is connected to everything and functional is tighter than the broad “reference range”. If your labs are normal but you don’t feel right. Go see Marie.Too many expensive tests; Nutrition Response Testing works!
Western medicine tends to name the ailment (diagnose) and, based on the name, next prescribe a treatment (drugs, surgery, sometimes vitamins…) Yes, I’m familiar with the many ailments my clients suffer from. Although I was taught, like most nutritionists, to give certain supplements and adjust diet based on the name of the ailment, I don’t believe these diagnoses always lead to “appropriate” treatments.
Personally, I think that’s robotic.
To illustrate, Claire is a 34-year-old female client with moderate hypertension, high cholesterol and triglycerides, abnormal and painful menstrual cycles, and moderate depression. Her blood tests are all within normal range. Her doctor’s office called to say “everything is fine”, but she didn’t feel fine.
Sadly, it is considered poor medical practice if she wasn’t prescribed anti-hypertensive medications, anti-cholesterol medications, birth control pills, and an antidepressant. Claire arrived in my care on all of those medications—still feeling miserable and having gained 20 pounds.
A functional look at those same “normal” blood tests indicated Claire was burning up anti-oxidants and was likely low in B vitamins, possibly iron and copper. Those same “normal” tests open the door to a solution IF you understand how the body works.
Then, using Nutrition Response Testing, we create a precise care plan. Is this a pattern caused by inflammation? poor nutrient absorption? poor diet? some combination? Do we need to assist gut dysbiosis with probiotics (or fermented foods)? Provide B vitamins that aren’t in the diet or stop the inflammatory processes that are using them up too quickly?
Practicing Functionally is NOT about matching a symptom to its remedy. It is much more.
Rote memorizing X supplement at Y dose for Z symptom causes healthcare professionals to hold way too much information in their head and miss the patterns that really tell what is going on.
There is a better way.
Read this article to understand my recommended labs and what they tell you (even if they are “in range”)
Harmony…Let food meet physiology
Symbiosis is the concept of mutually beneficial interactions between two organisms living in close proximity. For example, yellow tang fish clean sea turtles in the warm waters of Hawai’i that might hinder movement or even create infection. If we don’t have enough yellow tang fish, our sea turtles become sick.
Humans have symbiotic relationships with certain bacteria in the gut—the microbes that help us digest certain foods, produce nutrients like vitamin K that is vital to get calcium into bones, and butyric acid that feeds the liver and brain. If we don’t have the right bacteria, we can’t feed our body.
Harmony is the arrangement of notes and rhythm. Every hour, day, month and throughout the year our bodies cycle through various tasks. To the extent we understand and respect our cycles, we can maintain balanced health.
Our symbiotic relationships and cycles, both, need to be understood in order to resolve unwanted symptoms—this is the relationship between food, lifestyle, and physiology. Or, more specifically, reaction of your unique physiology.
We are all different!
Functional—Getting to “THE WHY”
WHY do my joints ache?
WHY don’t I have energy?
WHY am I feeling so bloated? Not pooping? Pooping too much?
WHY am I overweight, have high blood pressure, have high blood sugar?
In order to practice Functionally, and to find the true roots of your suffering, a practitioner must understand not only that a client has eczema, but also why she has eczema.
Is her unique body rejecting the supposedly innocuous (and supposedly healing) avocado she’s been eating?
Is her recent divorce causing a spike in cortisol that’s wreaking havoc on her hormones and showing up on her skin? (And if so, is there a way to use food as medicine to guide her back to balance?)
Is something in his environment spiking his blood pressure as part of the body’s stress response?
To answer those questions, and to be able to feel better—we need to understand the relationship between food and physiology; the relationship between organs and systems; will herbs help or hinder, essential oils…
We need to understand not just what nutrients do, but how they do it, because that leads to where and why they will behave in any one unique individual.
This is me.
Mary has always been tired. She came to me with a report from her doctor that she’s anemic yet she eats an ancestral diet high in animal protein and lots of leafy greens—the two greatest sources of iron. How could she be anemic when her diet should provide the iron that her body needs. In a case like this, supplementing iron most likely won’t help—although that is the standard “solution”. Why not? Because iron has to absorbed, transported, made into hemoglobin, and then the hemoglobin packed into red blood cells. BASIC blood tests indicate the likely dysfunction. Nutrition Response Testing tells which nutrients are needed, at what dose, to correct the dysfunctional step.
Can your healthcare professional answer WHY by evaluating BASIC tests?
Routine testing should remain simple
A deeper look into the body involves relationships. Western medicine teaches us to get expensive and complicated tests. Do we really need them?
To absorb iron we need a functional digestive tract, we need vitamin C and other nutrients. To iron into hemoglobin we need B vitamins. A copper deficiency can masquerade as an iron deficiency. Sure, I could request $1000’s in specialized testing and I was taught how to do that. BUT…
EXPENSIVE TESTS ARE OFTEN UNNECESSARY!
Start with these routine and basic tests:
- Comprehensive Metabolic Panel,
- Complete Blood Count,
- Lipid Profile and please add vitamin D, Uric Acid, and GGT.
That tells the story, for starters—if you want a little more info, go for the Urinary Organic Acids test. Maybe a complete Thyroid Panel (Please don’t ever evaluate—or let anyone else—evaluate thyroid function on TSH alone!).
Only a Functional Nutritionist knows how to look at relationships to “read between” the in-range / out of range lines and mine the valuable data in these basic tests. And doing so is important!
The only reason to test any further is if the natural remedies and diet changes aren’t working and it gets complicated.
If your doctor calls and says “everything is fine”, but you don’t feel fine, let’s take a look. Take a different point of view.
Even better news
If you are married to naming the disease (diagnosis) get the fancy tests. That’s why we have 77,000 names for disease.
If you want results, keep it simple. Please. The most basic blood tests hold a wealth of data for the professional who truly knows how to look beyond “high” or “low” and “everything is fine”. A true professional understands relationships.
Even those just show “what” is imbalanced; and that is a good start.
With Nutrition Response Testing® we can find out WHY the body is imbalanced and complaining (symptoms). Then we can understand the sources of stress on the body. We can create a specific whole foods, herbal, and/or homeopathic remedy to restore balance and health.
YOU will feel immensely better, quickly.