Nutritional
A Nutritional Blood and Hair Analysis involves blood samples, hair samples, possible urine samples and possible stool samples. An extensive patient questionnaire with an extensive interview helps to tie in loose ends and helps assure all current symptoms are identified. The blood test usually has 60 individual lab tests and the hair 37 tests.
I make this test very easy for the average lay person to read. In the left column I record my patient’s lab test results. To determine if my patient’s lab results represent optimal heath or not, I have two other columns for reference. In the middle column are the “healthy” ranges used by Naturopathic and other Alternative care physicians. In the right column are the “clinical” ranges used by conventional medicine.
The “healthy”ranges used by Naturopathic Doctors are much narrower than conventional medicine’s “clinical” ranges. Our “healthy” ranges are based upon optimal health. Their “clinical” ranges are based on population averages. As the population as a whole is getting sicker and sicker, generation to generation; conventional medicine’s “clinical” ranges are becoming wider.
When a blood test is ordered, it is not just “one single generic blood test”. Each blood test is made up of individual components which have to be specifically ordered. Conventional medicine usually orders a small number of components. Their standard hovers between 13 to 18.
This is what a common conventional medicine blood test amounts to: Maybe 13 components, based on their wide “clinical” value system. If all of those 13 test results are within their “clinical” value ranges, then their patient is told, “all of your test results are in the normal range.” This can be confusing because it does not necessarily mean you are healthy, as many people incorrectly believe. It just means your averages are like the rest of the population who is getting sicker and sicker with each generation. Example: Adult onset diabetes is becoming an epidemic, yet, it is becoming more and more “common.”
My patients are analyzed differently. If my patient’s lab values are inside the Naturopathic “healthy” range, I do not add any additional color coding. If their values are outside the “healthy” ranges but still inside the “clinical” ranges, I highlight those unhealthy ranges in yellow, as in “warning” at a traffic signal. If outside the “clinical” ranges, those values are highlighted in red, as in “stop” at a traffic signal. If their values are far outside the “clinical” ranges, then the color blue is used, as in “code blue” in hospital TV shows.
Lab values in the “yellow” zone are indicative that a disease process has already begun, but has not yet reached the level where drug therapy and/or hospitalization is required. This is why Naturopathic Doctors like to begin work right away, before our patients are in “dire” (dying) need.
The human body is a remarkable biochemical entity. If health is beginning to slip downwards (“yellow values”), our bodies will begin compensatory measures to keep our bodies going without any symptoms or hindrances. This is the optimal time to be tested and is the reason so many tests are ordered, resulting in 97 lab values in which a more thorough analysis can be performed.
All tests are combined into one overall summary analysis. Then “therapeutic” grade supplements are prescribed as one “large recipe” because there are so many cross-correlations in biochemistry and physiology. Meaning, one organ system will affect another organ system, which affects a third system, which affects something else, which affects something else.
If lab values are already in either the “red” or “blue” zones, the same “therapeutic grade nutritional therapy” can usually be implemented without the need for drug intervention. However the patient will have to be very diligent with their supplementations and diet. The road back to health will be steeper, but can still be achieved, as in the medical examples listed below.
The primary goal of a Naturopathic Physician is “first do no harm.” This means avoidance of drug therapy if possible. Every drug known to man has negative side effects. The Naturopathic Physician tries their best to both restore and elevate their patient’s health during therapy, so after the disease processes have been helped or corrected, that patient is in overall better health. A simple example to illustrate this could be in chemotherapy. Chemotherapy works by destroying cancer cells, but also ends up destroying other health functions as well. Ever notice when a patient has undergone a series of chemotherapy treatments, their head is bald and their immune system is extremely weak?
The following medical conditions are taken from case studies, testing the effectiveness of this approach to medicine. In all of these case studies the patients did improve.
Note: Naturopathic and other Alternative care physicians are prohibited by the FDA to treat cancer. In the cancer patients below, their cancer cells were not treated for cancer. Instead, their body was treated to become healthier and the resulting cancer markers from follow-up lab tests demonstrated patient improvement.
- Alzheimer’s Disease
- Ankylosing Spondylitis
- Anxiety & Poor Concentration
- Breast Cancer
- Chelation – Heavy Metal Toxicity
- Chronic Skin Rash
- Crohn’s Disease
- Diabetes & High Blood Pressure
- Fibromyalgia/Chronic Fatigue
- Gout & Poor Memory
- Kidney Cancer
- Liver Cancer
- Lung Cancer
- Menopause & Insomnia
- Methicillin Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus (MRSA)
- Multiple Sclerosis
- Parasites
- Parkinsons Disease
- PSA/High Cholesterol
- Rosacea, Chronic Fatigue & Poor Digestion
- Viral Warts