Functional Blood
Chemistry Analysis
Labs tests normal but you still don’t feel well?
Compare your results to ‘optimal levels’ from healthy subjects, NOT from conventional ranges calculated from sick people who most often visit commercial labs.
Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis(FBCA)
is one of the most effective and reliable methods of spotting imbalances and trends towards disease. Before ordering any deeper functional medicine testing, there is a ton of information that can be gained from properly interpreting lab work.
Why bother with blood testing? My doctor already checked it.
This is precisely why it’s reliable. Physicians and other allopathic medical professionals in the world are already running blood chemistry, in fact, millions per day to help diagnose disease. A complete metabolic panel (CMP) and blood count (CBC) are hands down the most frequently ordered tests around the world
FBCA is not focused on disease or diagnosing, but rather picking up slight dysfunctions & trends in a person’s health. So much more can be uncovered when doing a ‘functional analysis’ of the same labs physicians run. The truth is that many practitioners are unaware or not trained When one fully understands how to spot fluctuations of blood markers and takes the time to interpret them ( beyond just spotting the hight’s & low’s). FBCA also takes into account how other markers influence each other. What this means is that these tests have withsood the test of time and are scientifically validated in research. If you are reading this, you have likely already had these tests drawn many times in the past
Blood testing has been the gold standard for screening and health assessment. Your provider is already running this. The only difference is they are not applying a ‘functional analysis’ to adequately interpret the results to pick up minor deviations and often will not until your labs are far beyond normal limits. By the time this happens, illness & symptoms have already developed.
So what makes Functional Blood Chemistry Interpretation any different?
Wouldn’t it be amazing if minor deviations & imbalances could be spotted before you become symptomatic?
When trained in FBCA, we can use the same exact test that allopathic providers run everyday, with a much deeper dive and understanding of how …
In my practice, standard blood chemistry testing is one of the most valualble tools to pick up on minor dysfunctions, imbalances and health trends.
Looking at individual markers by themselves, without considering how they impact eachother is grossly deficient. If you bought tickets to a concert and only the drummer showed up, it wouldn’t be enough to create the effect and sound you are looking for.
There time to properly interpret blood chemistry often falls short with the time constraints many medical professional have with their patients
Rather than using blood chemistry for disease management, a complete functional analysis of your blood work aids in spotting the underlying causes of many ailments and chronic diseases.
FBCA is less about ‘diagnosing disease’ and more about promoting health, detecting imbalances in a person’s heatlh and catching trends before they manifest into full blown disease states. Being able to spot (and correct!) these imbalances is vital, as opposed to waiting for illness & symptoms to develop
What is ‘normal’ is not OPTIMAL!
If your lab results fall on either the low end or high end of the ‘normal range’, you have most likely been dealing with dysfunction for some time and nearing a state of disease that needs to be addressed. Functional Nutrition and Medicine Practitioners like myself, are trained interpreting blood chemistry using optimal values. This helps us to recognize slight deviations, dysfunctions and ‘subclinical’ imbalances in health to be able to identifiy the root cause behind your symptoms. This allows me to put together a personalized approach and preventive treatment plan to help you get back within the optimal range, allowing you to regain energy, health & vitality!
One thing I learned studying FBCA was that the traditional lab reference ranges we are used to seeing, are NOT based on scientifically calculated optimal ranges. Research is not used to caculate these often too wide (or too narrow) ranges. Rather, ranges that most labs (and providers) use, are simply an average of the millions of labs drawn each day. So you have to ask yourself, who goes to the doctor to get their blood work drawn?
If you said sick people, you are right! Are these parameters the same one’s you want to be compared to or would you rather use evidenced-based ranges from research and studies?
By the time your levels get into the red range, you are already sick!
Aside from using optimal reference ranges, FBCA also looks at ALL the lab markers together and considers how one may influencing another. Understanding the interplay between them and the various factors that can influence your results.
Many times in my practice, I’ve seen abnormal results be missed because most providers only have the time to look at what’s been flagged as ‘high’ or ‘low’. When in actuality, some results have been skewed due to nutrient deficiencies, dehydration and even inflammation.
For example, one’s albumin levels are often elevated with dehydration, but that’s only spotted if all the labs are assessed and dehydration is considered as a factor.
Similarly, albumin levels drop when immunnne dysfunction and inflammation are present.
So what if someone has dealing with BOTH inflammation and dehydration? One will pull the albumin levels up, while the other pulls them down. This results in a ‘normal range’ results which is often missed when these factors aren’t taken into account.
I’ve met with plenty of patients who have been prematurely put on statins for even moderately high cholesterol without exploring other influences. This can be problematic since statins can lead to many vitamin, hormone and nutrient deficienes.
Imbalances such as high insulin (due to high blood sugar) increase cholesterol production. This is why nutritional education is paramount since many people on statins, also have metabolic issues which tend to elevate insulin, essentially counteracting the effect of the medication.
Why aren’t these other imbalances also addressed? Similarly, low thyroid function can reduce the removal of cholesterol, leading to elevated levels. If only cholesterol is considered without looking at these other markers, you’re not getting the whole picture and risking not addressing the root cause of the cause of the high cholesterol.
This is precisely why I diligently scrutinize lab results, looking at every marker (not just the one’s they flag) and consider any factors that might be impacting them with every person I work with. It is so vital and provides me with many answers I normally wouldn’t see. Along with the Cell Blueprint, these both allow me to understand what imbalances each person is dealing with.