What is Functional Testing?
I use professional laboratory tests to assess function and risk, but not to diagnose.
For many clients, your case history and food diary will be sufficient to allow me to provide you with an effective and achievable plan without testing. For others, your case history will inform me of where I need to dig further to find out what is behind your health issue. Functional testing is an effective and scientific means of getting to root causes and I am a firm believer of the benefits if this is affordable to you. Testing is of course down to your resources and your choice and we can still achieve a good deal without testing, but it may take longer to get results.
Below are a few examples of the tests that I know to be effective at giving us a clearer picture
Stool tests
These tests gives me clinically useful information about your health; is there inflammation or digestive or absorption issues? Immune issues in the mucosal layer of intestine ? (can indicate food allergies or reactions to bacteria) Or it will tell me if there is an imbalance in the microbiome. For instance, we would see for example, not only that you have a low percentage of bacteria which produce the incredibly necessary short chain fatty acids, but we could see that your short chain fatty acid percentage is also low.
Advanced Well woman /Well man tests: Medichecks
These tests are excellent as they give us a great deal of information from your vitamin D level, to your risk of diabetes, your risk of heart disease, iron status, kidney health, liver health and thyroid health.
I like to think of this as an MOT which sometimes throws things up which we would not have found otherwise. For instance when I first started these annual tests for myself I had no reason to suspect that my iron levels would be exceedingly high. High iron levels are very damaging to the body warranted a trip to the GP to test for haemochromatosis.
Dutch Testing
If you are experiencing PMS, fertility issues, low testosterone, premature baldingreduced tolerance to stress, or have an increased risk of breast cancer this test uses dried urine and is sent to America.
The test tells us a great deal about how you are processing your hormones and we can make sure we are tweaking the right pathways to ensure hormone balancing and reducing risk of prostrate, breast and other cancers.
Cardiovascular Health
Maybe your cholesterol is high, and you have some other risk factors for cardiovascular disease. This test is a great way to either allay any worries you may have, or to make it worthwhile sacrificing some of those foods that you know you have a weakness for because now you know you have to be proactive in safeguarding your heart health
DNA Testing
Your genes determine your health to the extent to which they are expressed. It is our external environment and our lifestyle which will switch them on or off. Some people have what we call
snps (pronounced snips) which means that we may have a variation in our genes that can either confer an advantage or, not so desirably, make us more prone to certain conditions.
Your personal genetic profile tells me for instance whether you have an increased need for a particular nutrient, or that you have diminished scope to detoxify your hormones or environmental pollutants putting you at risk. It can tell me if we need to target brain health because of certain genes which increase risk of Alzheimer’s disease.
Every single gene that we test is only tested because there is scientific evidence that food and lifestyle changes can impact this gene for the better.
A diagnosis would need to be made by your GP.