Nutritional Therapy uses whole foods and, where necessary, supplementation, to encourage the body’s natural healing abilities and regain balance within the body. The purpose of this therapy is to guide our patients toward optimal health by correcting vitamin and mineral deficiencies; restoring healthy digestion; detoxifying the body as it is ready; as well as conduct discussions around issues that may be influencing optimal health.
We ask questions concerning medical history, dietary history, family history, endocrine problems, digestion, energy levels, and exercise. We also use additional tests such as functional blood chemistry analysis, saliva panel analysis, hair mineral analysis, food intolerance tests and nutritional symptom survey form to complete the patient’s assessment. When the imbalances are properly identified, nutritional therapy provides the building blocks to improve healing. After a full assessment, a protocol is developed to meet the specific needs of each patient. Nutritional Therapy has proven very effective in resolving the following health issues:
• Acid Reflux • IBS • Intestinal Disorders
• Gall Bladder Issues • Detoxification • Inflammation
• Fibromyalgia • Adrenal Fatigue • Blood Sugar Regulation
• Immune Challenges • Food Allergies • Hormone Imbalances
• Infertility • Skin Problems • ADD, ADHD, Autism
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Assessment
Functional blood chemistry analysis
Blood chemistry analysis is fundamentally about identifying patterns and relationships between tests to ascertain probabilities. Blood chemistry analysis should always be used in conjunction with a comprehensive medical history that includes past and present illnesses, medication usage, alcohol consumption, herbal and nutritional usage and adequate hydration.
It is important for the healthcare provider to understand the identification of patterns and whether any follow-up testing is needed to determine the appropriate diagnosis. Blood chemistry analysis should be analyzed in conjunction with a detailed medical history and physical examination.
Functional blood chemistry analysis is about difference between pathological and functional ranges. A pathological range is used to diagnose disease. A functional range is used to assess risk for disease before disease develops. The main difference between the functional and pathological range is the degree deviation allowed within their normal ranges. For example, the functional range for glucose is 85-100, the pathological range is 65-110. Levels above the pathological range may indicate diabetes. Levels above the functional range, but before they reach the extremes of the pathological range, may indicate insulin resistance and future risk for developing diabetes.
Conventional medical training is concerned with the diagnosis of disease and rarely preventative medicine. Healthcare providers that practice preventive medicine are those most inclined to incorporate consulting patients when their levels register outside of the functional range. If biomarkers can be managed before they fall within the pathological range, preventive medicine can be practiced. Traditional healthcare providers usually do not embrace the concept of a functional range. Practitioners who embrace the importance of functional ranges usually are also concerned about diet, nutrition and lifestyle changes.
Saliva Testing
Saliva testing measures the levels of circulating hormones available to body tissues in men and women. Saliva is considered to be a better indicator of biologically active hormone levels than blood – more accurately reflecting the body’s functional hormone status. Blood hormone assays reflect both bound and free forms of hormones and do not provide information about the bioavailable fraction of hormone, which can vary depending on the level of blood hormone binding proteins.
Simply put, hormone saliva testing tells us the amount of hormones in our body that are actually usable by our cells; where as blood testing evaluates all circulating hormones regardless of their availability to our cells - and most importantly anyone can do this easy test. Saliva collection is simple, non-invasive and can be performed in the privacy of one’s home. The sample is sent by mail to the laboratory. The results will be sent to the individual or the referring practitioner within 10 to 14 working days following receipt of the sample. The hormones are stable at room temperature for 5 days and require no special handling for shipment.
Hair Mineral Analysis (requires only a snip of hair)
What can hair analysis reveal?
- A Window Into The Cells
- Glucose Tolerance
- Detecting Toxic Metals
- Assessing Organ and Gland Activity
- Measuring The Energy Level
- Determining The Oxidation Type
- Identifying Disease Trends
- Reducing the Guesswork In Nutritional Therapy
- Monitoring Progress
- Understanding Behavior
- Replacing Less-preferred Minerals
- Improving Energy Efficiency
- Hair tests versus blood tests
WHY USE HAIR ANALYSIS TO DESIGN NUTRITIONAL BALANCING PROGRAMS?
By Lawrence Wilson, MD
Hair tissue mineral analysis is screening test to measure the levels of 21 or more minerals in the hair tissue. Hair is used for testing because it is a rapidly-growing soft tissue of the body that can be sampled easily and safely.
Hair is also a storage tissue and a tissue that the body uses for excreting excessive amounts of toxic metals and other substances such as illegal drugs to help rid them from the body. Therefore it is an excellent place to measure these items. Hair provides a unique, biopsy type of reading of metabolic activity.
The test is performed by burning the sample of hair at a high temperature in a mass spectrometer The technique has been used in laboratories for about 80 years. Computer-controlled instruments have improved the accuracy and reduced the cost of mineral analysis.
Minerals tested include the electrolytes - calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium and phosphorus. Trace minerals tested include copper, manganese, chromium, selenium, iron, molybdenum, lithium, cobalt, zinc and others. Toxic metals tested include lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, nickel, aluminum and others.
NUTRITIONAL BALANCING
Nutritional balancing science employs hair mineral analysis along with other material submitted by the client to inform the practitioner of their situation. By interpreting the hair mineral test properly, one can construct a biochemical picture of the way the body is responding to stress.
Based upon this picture, deep correction can be initiated. Progress can be monitored with repeat hair mineral tests. The science incorporates and integrates many disciplines including physiological chemistry, biochemistry, natural healing theory and the theory of the oxidation types. It is a method of healing that also utilizes the most modern stress theory of disease, general systems theory and cybernetics. The latter is the study of self-regulating systems.
Many physicians offer mineral analysis, but use the test symptomatically, supplementing only those minerals that read low. This is called replacement therapy and is not effective. Others use the test just to detect toxic metals. This is not the best use of the test, as often the heavy metals are not revealed on the first test. Proper test interpretation takes several years to learn, and this is work that I love to teach to practitioners.
WHAT CAN A HAIR ANALYSIS REVEAL?
A Window Into The Cells. Hair analysis provides information directly about metabolism at the level of the cells the main site of many nutritional processes.
Glucose Tolerance. Many minerals are involved in the metabolism of carbohydrates including manganese, zinc, chromium and vanadium. Ratios of sodium to potassium and calcium to magnesium also provide information about glucose tolerance. Toxic metals interfere with glucose metabolism. Inefficient carbohydrate metabolism drastically reduces cellular energy production, leading to many serious health conditions.
Detecting Toxic Metals. Hair mineral analysis is one of the few accepted methods to detect chronic toxic metal poisoning in the body. Toxic metals may contribute to heart disease, cancer, diabetes, fatigue, depression, anxiety, infections and many other conditions. Metals that are deeply buried may require a year or more before they are revealed on repeated mineral analyses.
Assessing Organ and Gland Activity. Mineral levels and ratios reflect the activity of glands such as the thyroid and adrenal glands. By calculating these ratios on a tissue mineral test, organ and glandular activity can be assessed.
Measuring The Energy Level. Energy is a common denominator of health. Many minerals are required for the production of energy within the cells. ¬Hair analysis can help assess and guide the enhancement of the energy level. When energy efficiency is low, many body systems break down. When cellular energy production improves, many symptoms and conditions resolve by themselves. This is a basic principle of many natural healing methods.
Determining The Oxidation Type. Some people metabolize carbohydrates and fats at a more rapid rate than others. The rate at which food is burned has been designated the oxidation rate. Each chemical reaction in the body has an ideal rate of reaction. Hair analysis can help determine this rate, and identify which foods and supplements would be most helpful to optimize the oxidation rate.
Identifying Disease Trends. Prediction and prevention are important concepts in health care. Over thirty disease trends can be identified from a properly interpreted tissue mineral analysis. Tendencies are often revealed long before they show up on x rays and blood tests.
Reducing the Guesswork In Nutritional Therapy. The precision nature of hair mineral analysis offers a method of reducing the guesswork in recommending diets and supplement dosages. For instance, very low hair calcium and magnesium levels indicate an alarm stage of stress in which the body excretes these minerals as part of the fight-or-flight response. In this stage of stress, one needs more calcium, magnesium, copper, zinc, choline, inositol and vitamin A. These will help balance the body chemistry. Other vitamins may be detrimental in this stage of stress. Excessive vitamin C, for example, can lower copper and worsen this stage. Amino acids, herbs and other nutrients may also be recommended based on the mineral ratios.
Monitoring Progress. Comparing the results of repeated tissue mineral tests over a period of months is an excellent way to monitor subtle changes in body chemistry, regardless of which type of therapy is used.
Understanding Behavior. Tissue mineral analysis is a powerful tool to identify and correct biochemical causes of mental and behavioral conditions. Minerals control neurotransmitters and other neuroactive chemicals. All the toxic metals are neurotoxic. Conditions that often respond include depression, anxiety, epilepsy, phobias, insomnia, fatigue, mood swings, attention-deficit disorder and learning disorders.
Replacing Less-preferred Minerals. When mineral deficiencies occur, toxic metals replace the missing vital minerals in enzyme binding sites. This allows the body to survive in the face of nutrient deficiencies. Nutritional balancing science involves reversing this process, replacing the toxic metals with the preferred vital minerals.
Improving Energy Efficiency. When the metabolic rate is too slow or too fast, energy efficiency declines. This is analogous to pedaling a bicycle too fast or too slow. Restoring health to the biochemical system allows thousands of chemical reactions to proceed at their optimum rate.
Hair tests versus blood tests. Blood tests do not provide the same information as a properly performed hair analysis. Hair analysis measures a different body compartment. Minerals are shifted from the tissues to maintain blood levels. This means that deficiencies or excesses often show up earlier in the hair than the blood.
Toxic metals rarely remain in the blood for long, but often deposit in the hair where they can be measured. Blood levels of minerals vary very little, while hair values may vary 10-fold, providing information not available from the blood.
Blood tests give an instantaneous reading that may be affected by many factors. Hair analysis gives a long term reading that is unaffected by recent meals, activities such as exercise, or emotional states. These and other differences make blood and tissue testing very different, with each providing valuable information.
SUMMARY
Trace mineral analysis is an inexpensive, accurate screening method that can be of great help to understand body chemistry and design individualized diet and supplement programs. These can relieve biochemical stress to help restore and maintain optimum health.
By correcting tissue mineral levels and ratios with proper diet, supplementary nutrients and lifestyle modifications, many physical and behavioral health conditions, including those of long standing, will improve.
Discovering Nutritional Therapy
Nutritional therapy is a system of healing based on the belief that food, as nature intended, provides the medicine we need to obtain and maintain a state of health: our food is our medicine and our medicine is our food. Although some health problems require specific medication, many conditions can be relieved effectively with nutritional therapy. These include disorders ranging from chronic fatigue, energy loss, insomnia and depression, to backache, skin complaints, asthma, and headaches.
Nutritional therapy will also benefit you if you have no specific illness, but want to maintain a state of optimum health. It is safe for babies and children as well as adults, and the change of eating patterns that is typically prescribed usually has far fewer side effects than synthetic medicines.
Nutritional therapy is a holistic discipline; nutrition as the key to good health is the all-embracing fundamental principle used since the time of the famous Greek doctor and founder of western medicine, Hippocrates, to help people of all ages to stay at their personal peak of energy and vitality. Today, new insights of food scientists play a significant role in the practice of nutritional therapy as preventative medicine.
During the last fifty years, many wonderful breakthroughs have improved our understanding of the role of food in our lives. But at the same time, many of us are realizing that food is the cornerstone which, in our modern lifestyle, has been rejected by the builder.
The speed at which we live and work — the pressure of the deadline — pushes us into a fast-eating culture, where quality of food becomes secondary. Eating on the job, on the run, under pressure, denies us the experience, the purpose, and the role of food. Eventually it denies us our very lifestyle. Modern supermarkets are stocked with many instant meals, but more often than not, these meals are far lower in nutritional value than those prepared at home with fresh organically grown ingredients.
For all the benefits agribusiness has brought the people of the Western world, the disadvantages of the modern food industry include extensive use of chemicals in food production. There is also a loss of the vitality intrinsic in newly harvested food because many products are transported vast distances before they reach their destination. Of course, this is the case with many of the so-called “fresh” foods on our supermarket shelves, as well as with those dishes that have been pre-cooked and packaged before reaching the supermarkets.
Lifestyle and nutrition are intimately linked, and our lifestyle defines itself partly from the tradition of the country we live in, and partly from our attitudes. How do you really want to live? Given the choice, would you prefer to eat well every day, to exercise, to breathe clean air as often as possible, to drink a reasonable amount of water in order to keep your bloodstream clean and able to wash out toxins? This choice is available to all of us, but to exercise it we need to understand the impact on our well-being of different foods and learn from direct experience what kind of eating pattern best suits our lifestyle.
DISCLAIMER
The information outlined here is not intended as a substitute for personalized medical advice The information written here should not be construed as a claim or representation that any procedure or product mentioned constitutes a specific cure, palliative or ameliorative. Procedures and products described should be considered as adjunctive to other accepted procedures, deemed necessary by the attending, licensed doctor