As a Functional Diagnostic Nutrition® Practitioner, I do not diagnose or treat any specific disease or illness. Instead, I address the body as a whole. FDN® is a system to investigate underlying causal factors and identify healing opportunities. Where the conventional medical model aims to identify sickness and disease, we are focused on identifying factors that are downgrading optimal function and ideal health. I help clients run functional lab work to help identify HIDDEN stressors and dysfunctions that are negatively influencing health and contributing to what we call Metabolic Chaos®. Metabolic Chaos® is a term we use to describe the varied dysfunctions, symptoms, and complaints that can result from subtle dysfunctions in various systems throughout the body. It is basically when your body loses its ability to maintain balance, and it is your body’s attempt to get your attention and prompt you to take action to restore balance. The functional labs we use help us better understand what body systems have been impacted and to what degree. This lab information, along with a client’s medical history and current symptoms, forms the basis for our targeted health rebuilding plans. We help each client apply individualized wellness principles in order to rebuild health and resilience to stressors, while also identifying individual obstacles to health along the way and how to overcome them. With this opt-in model of self-care, we can reasonably expect the body to heal itself when it is given the right conditions, where cells, tissues, and organs are nurtured. Soon you will find symptoms resolve, balance returns, and health, energy and vitality are restored.
Here are some of my favorite functional lab tests…
The Stress and Hormone Profile (SHP):
The SHP is a saliva test that is done in the comfort of your home. Saliva samples are taken at 4 points throughout the day, in order to measure your cortisol levels and how they fluctuate within the course of the day. This information is very helpful because your cortisol pattern is key in establishing your circadian rhythm and it is also important in making sure your body has the energy you need to get up and get going each morning. When people are under stress, this natural cortisol rhythm often gets very out of whack and this can cause all sorts of symptoms, but it can also cascade into other areas affecting the balance of your other hormones, your ability to digest food and also your ability to detoxify, just to name a few. The SHP is also a wonderful test to measure your other hormones, including Estrogen, Progesterone, Testosterone, DHEA, and Melatonin, all of which are supposed to be maintained in a delicate balance.
Even subtle hormone imbalances can cause all sorts of symptoms for both men and women. This client’s SHP shows us that her cortisol is running low much of the day, but her DHEA is too low relative to her cortisol. This can cause all sorts of symptoms such as fatigue, foggy thinking, sleep disruptions, joint pain, headaches and even depression. This client’s SHP shows that his estrogen and progesterone are both elevated. This can cause symptoms of nervousness, irritability, anxiousness, water retention, loss of muscle mass, weight gain, and decreased libido, in both men and women, when out of balance, just to name a few. To add to his issues, his testosterone is low when we compare his value to what we consider a preferred functional range. This would help to explain his complaints of low libido, aches and pains, fatigue, sleep disruptions and difficulty recovering from workouts.
The Metabolic Wellness Profile (MWP):
This is a urine test that is also done in the comfort of your own home. This test gives us an indication of how well a client is digesting protein, how well their liver is functioning to detoxify the body and also how much oxidative stress the body is under. In this example, this client has elevated Indican, which tells us her gut is not doing a good job digesting and absorbing her proteins and amino acids. Her poor protein digestion could be impacted by insufficient stomach acid or digestive enzymes, the presence of leaky gut, an intestinal parasite, an imbalance of her good and bad gut bacteria or even a food sensitivity, just to name some. Thankfully, our further tests will help us narrow down the contributing factors and will also help us create a health protocol to bring her digestion back into balance. People with this problem often complain of mood disorders, IBS, diarrhea, hydration issues and decreased energy.
The second marker on this test is Urinary Bile Acids (UBAs). Her number is high, which indicates that her liver is overburdened and having trouble detoxifying and properly filtering the blood. People with this issue often complain of unstable blood sugar or sugar cravings, inability to lose weight, indigestion, headaches, hormonal imbalances or ever issues with their cholesterol and triglyceride levels. The third marker on this test is 8-OHdG, which is a marker of oxidative stress. Oxidative stress happens when our body naturally creates free radicals through its normal metabolic processes, but there is a lack in adequate antioxidants necessary to neutralize the free radicals. These free radicals actually circulate and damage cells and DNA. This particular marker is a measure of DNA damage. Clients with high oxidative stress markers often complain of difficulty recovering from exercise, hormonal disturbances, gut issues, as well as accelerated aging and degenerative diseases such as CVD or even arthritis.
The Mucosal Barrier Assessment (MBA):
This test is a dried blood spot (finger prick) test that is done at home. This test tells us how well your mucosal barrier in your gut is working to protect your circulation from things such as undigested food particles, viruses, and toxins. It also tells us whether you have inflammation in your gut and whether your mucosal barrier is damaged and allowing unwanted substances to leak through. The first marker is Zonulin, which tells us how well your mucosal barrier is working to prevent particles, toxins, infections, and parasites from passing into your circulation.
When levels are high it tells us that the mucosal barrier is damaged and bad bacteria and other unwanted substances can easily leak through the gut barrier. As in this client’s case, her elevated Zonulin correlates with her symptoms of IBS, headaches, upset stomach and dysbiosis (imbalance of good and bad bacteria). Her second marker, Histamine, is also elevated, indicating that there is a great deal of inflammation in her gut. In addition to her previous symptoms, this is correlated with allergy type symptoms, intestinal gas, cramping and diarrhea. DAO, the third marker, is supposed to help to balance out any elevations in histamine and protect the epithelial cells lining the gut. The DAO marker shows us she is not making enough and this is just exacerbating her gut complaints and symptoms.
The GI-MAP:
This test is a home stool test that looks at your microbiome. There is so much great information to be gathered in this test! It tells us if your good and bad gut bacteria is in balance, if you have any pathogens, active viruses, fungi/yeast, or parasites, how well you are digesting your fats, how the gut immune system is functioning, whether you have a gluten sensitivity, and gives us an overall look at the health and function of the immune, digestive, detoxification and energy systems of the body. When imbalances are present, this sets you up to not only have maldigestion and malabsorption issues, but also it makes it more likely that pathogens will stick around and thrive in your gut when they actually are supposed to be expelled in your poop.
Clients with imbalances on this test often complain of all sorts of gastrointestinal symptoms, but it also sets them up to have food sensitivities, hormone imbalances, detoxification issues, and even autoimmune conditions. The sample test here shows just a portion of this test, highlighting imbalances found in the good and bad bacteria of the gut, as well as the presence of a candida infection.
Through finding these imbalances, dysfunctions and hidden stressors, we can develop an individualized natural health protocol to address each client’s health concerns, optimizing their health and vitality. In fact, I believe that if we take the necessary diet, rest, exercise, stress reduction and supplementation steps to correct the imbalances we find, the body will not only heal itself, but we will be taking great strides to prevent chronic diseases from popping up in the future.
