Lab Testing Facts

• No Lab result is absolute

• Lab testing is about probabilities

• A cholesterol level of 201 doesn’t mean you are at immediate risk of a heart attack

• It means that people with elevated cholesterol have more heart attacks

• The farther over 200 a person is, the greater the risk

• Different tests tell Different things

§         Must balance cost and benefit from test

§         Healthcare provider must decide which test will provide the information they are looking for.

Deciding what Lab test to do

There are two reasons to do lab testing:

• Confirmation

  • Confirms the probabilities of the symptoms

    • Doesn’t tell what caused the problem

• Possible Causes

  • Requires knowledge of the way the body works

  • Looks for cause of the problem

Functional Medicine involves understanding a complex series of vicious cycles occurring in our body’s that feed each other. Then identify and provide support and counseling to unlock these vicious cycles to prevent their reoccurrence.

 Commonly Used Lab Tests

These tests all provide different information. It must be decided which will provide the information that is desired when ordering a lab test.

Functional Medicine Lab Tests

The Metabolic Assessment is used initially to determine a starting point. After the initial 30 day treatment protocol, the Metabolic Assessment is used to assess your progress. At that time a decision will be made on what the next treatment phase of your return to health would be.  

Your body’s response to the treatment may indicate a need to do lab testing, i.e. if you have had issues with anemia. A Comprehensive Wellness Panel would be ordered on the first consultation to determine if you were still anemic.

It is not possible to improve adrenal/blood sugar patterns if you are anemic. If a person is anemic, they will not be able to deliver oxygen to the mitochondria for ATP production and become dependent upon glycolysis for energy production. Glycolyis is an inefficient ATP pathway and will place great demands upon the blood sugar/adrenal stabilizing system.

 Iron supplementation in the presence of inflammation will increase free radicals enhancing the inflammatory processes. The inflammation must be eliminated before iron supplementation.

My Lab Numbers are “Normal”.
Why do I feel like I do?

How Do They Come Up With those Lab Values?

• Numbers are derived from a statistical average of the total population getting their blood drawn.

• Including sick people and everyone else getting their blood drawn!

• Normal is based on a Bell Curve.

• If your numbers are within 4-97% of the bell curve – you are normal.

Pathological versus Functional Ranges
Why do they use those values?

 There are two main types of ranges in the field of blood chemistry analysis:

• Pathological range

• The pathological range is used to diagnose disease

  • They are looking for disease, cancer, etc.

  • Not maintaining or returning you to Optimal Health.

• Functional range

  • The functional range is used to assess risk for disease before disease develops.

  • The functional range is used in Critical Point Analysis to determine where to support your body to repair and restore your health.

What Values does Functional Healthcare use?
How Do They Come Up With those Lab Values?

• Numbers are derived from a statistical average of the Healthy population.

• Optimal Values are based on those of healthy people.

• In order for us to restore you to Optimal

• We must know what Optimal is!

Why do we use Functional values?

 We are looking for optimal health.

Then we know what to:

n      Restore

n      Rebalance

n      Repair

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