Have you ever had obvious symptoms, but your lab tests came back normal? Many patients, the majority of them women, are told that it’s simply just stress, aging, or depression. The problem is most doctors rely on lab ranges on blood test. Functional ranges used in functional medicine provide many more clues that explain what is going on in your body and why you are having symptoms.
The lab ranges on a blood test look for diseases, while functional medicine ranges look for patterns and markers that spot trends toward disease that can still be reversed or halted. For instance, the lab ranges for diabetes are quite high, but a functional range can let you know that your blood sugar is in the danger zone well before you need pharmaceutical treatment and have caused considerable inflammatory damage to your body.
In another example, many people with clear and obvious symptoms of low thyroid function are told they are fine for years, while autoimmune destruction of the thyroid gland continues unchecked.
Functional blood ranges can help you stop the progression toward disease
Functional medicine addresses the underlying physiological mechanisms causing symptoms. In conventional medicine, a condition must have progressed far enough to be diagnosed and treated with drugs or surgery.
In other words, functional ranges define the parameters of good health while lab ranges define the parameters of disease.
Additionally, lab ranges are determined by a bell-curve analysis of all patients who had their blood drawn at that center, healthy or sick. As the health of Americans continues to decline, so do the ranges for what qualifies as healthy. For some markers, we don’t know what qualifies as healthy, just average.
Functional ranges look for patterns in the markers
Functional medicine doesn’t just look at individual markers, but also for patterns among various different blood markers. All systems in the body are inter-related and a problem in one area of the body can show up as an out-of-range marker in another area.
This can help identify different types of anemia, whether your high blood sugar is raising your risk of heart disease, or whether a hormone imbalance might be affecting your thyroid.
Another example involves looking at markers to determine whether or not activated or depressed immunity is related to a virus, bacterial infection, allergies, or even parasites.
A functional blood test includes many more markers
Another difference between functional and conventional blood tests isn’t just the ranges used, but also the markers ordered. A conventional blood test will typically include far fewer markers than a functional one. In my office I will typically three times as many tests as a typical Kaiser annual screening blood panel.
We can especially see this in testing for hypothyroidism. Standard tests only look at thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) even though about 90 percent of cases of hypothyroidism are caused by an autoimmune disease called Hashimoto’s. This is because knowing whether a person has Hashimoto’s does not change the standard of care in conventional medicine.
However, a functional test will include markers to identify autoimmune Hashimoto’s and other causes of low thyroid function. Knowing what is causing the thyroid to under function determines the best way to manage it and improve thyroid health.
A good functional medicine blood panel is an important tool in the functional medicine evaluation. Fortunately, I am a member of a professional coop. So my panel are usually 1/4 of the usual cost. Give me a call for more information. 415-898-0889