A Functional Approach to Testing

One of the best ways to understand how your body is functioning on a biochemical level is through testing. A simple blood test can tell us a lot about your health, but it comes down to which markers were tested and how that information was interpreted. Conventional medicine is geared towards diagnosing disease rather than identifying dysfunction. There's no denying the importance of a proper diagnosis, but typically if your results don't fall within a disease range, you're classified as "healthy." But health exists on a spectrum and symptoms are your body's way of telling you that something is out of balance.

Naturopaths take a functional approach to health, recognising and addressing any imbalances before they build into something much bigger. This is the ultimate way to preserve your health and prevent future illness. The reference ranges used by labs are based on 95% of a "healthy" population’s pathology results. The problem is that a huge portion of the general population are not optimally healthy. Naturopaths instead, use optimal ranges which are narrower and more reflective of someone who is healthy.

We also use specific functional tests to investigate your body’s biochemical, nutritional, metabolic and hormonal status. This testing helps us find the underlying cause of what’s going on and monitor treatment progress. Some examples of functional tests include hair tissue mineral analysis, microbiome mapping, genetic profiling, DUTCH test, urinary pyrroles, & a methylation profile.

If you’ve been told that your blood tests are “fine” but you don’t feel fine, quite often there are things in there that have been missed. The best thing you can do is have a naturopath look over them. Please contact me if you’d like to learn how I can help with this.