Functional Blood Chemistry
Most people are familiar with general blood lab tests and have them done when they visit their doctor for an annual physical examination. These tests are reported as normal or abnormal, i.e. in the reference range or out of the reference range. Most conventional doctors are trained to simply look down the list for tests out of the reference range. What if your results come back as "normal," but you do not feel "normal"? The problem is that once your results are out of the reference range, you are officially diagnosed with a disease.
What most people do not know is that the "reference ranges" used by each lab are not standardized. They represent the average individual who comes to the lab. Since people who use these services may not be healthy, these values are representative of poor health. The ranges are used to diagnose disease.
For example, when determining whether or not a patient has diabetes, two tests are typically reviewed: blood glucose and Hemoglobin A1c. On the Virginia Mason Medical Center website, it says that that the target fasting blood sugar level for diagnosing diabetes is equal to or greater than 126 mg/dl. And for A1c it should be equal to or less than 6.5%. And they go on to say that "pre-diabetes" is diagnosed when your blood glucose is 100 - 125 ng/dl and your A1c is between 5.7 and 6.4%.
Think about that. Is there even such a thing as "pre-diabetes?" No! It is simply "diagnosing" that there is a problem in your body and you are almost at the "official" levels needed to "officially" diagnose diabetes. So, what if your blood sugar is 98 and your A1c is 5.5%. Does this mean that everything is just fine. No again.
Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis looks at things completely differently. It looks at health, more specifically the ranges for each test that are in the optimal health range. If test results are not in the optimal range, we immediately know there is a process that has started in your body that can ultimately lead to a "disease." These optimal ranges are more narrow with the goal being to find “hidden” biochemical abnormalities that might otherwise be “lost” within the far wider reference range. The entire point of this analysis is to catch things as early as possible, well before an "official diagnosis" of disease has been made.
The other feature of a Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis is the relationship of one test to another. Conventional medicine frequently uses this algorithm: one test result out of the reference range equals a disease equals a prescription for a drug. However, this is not the way human physiology works. Many parameters must be examined to make a proper determination of a treatment program.
In Achalasia, blood work is simply not part of the diagnostic process and this is a shame. So much can be gleaned from complete blood work. Here is a sample Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis report: Click here.
If you are interested in Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis, contact me at drstevenhorwitz@gmail.com
