Alternative Nutritional & Natural Hormone Replacement Therapies
What Basic Labs Do I Need To Make Sure I Have Healthy Youthful Aging?
The Following Labs Are Basic To Good Health & Youthful Aging...
When someone asks about the basic lab tests I recommend to make sure that my patients have longevity and youthful aging this is what I answer.
Staying Healthy By The Numbers- Get Your Labs Tested
For me to know how well my patients are aging I always order the common tests like the comprehensive metabolic profile (CMP) to know the general health of the liver, kidneys, acid/base balance, blood sugar, the blood minerals and proteins.
The acid/base balance is particularly important because healthy individuals tend to eat foods that keep their bodies alkaline, rather than acidic. When you remain acidic for too long it sets up the ideal environment for cells to transform into malignancies or to start to degenerate and to age prematurely.
I also recommend a complete lipid profile, but not just the basic lipid profile. I recommend the more complex tests that looks at the many different fractions of lipids, including measuring the LDL particle size. The LDL lipids are the more atherogenic (plaque causing) lipid fragments, and many of our medical recommendations are based on the levels of LDL found in the bloodstream.
Studies have shown that patients who have LDL cholesterols that are of the small and dense type (type B) have a threefold higher risk of getting coronary heart disease. Other studies have also suggested that determining the number of small, dense particles in the bloodstream is more predictive of the risks of having heart disease than simply measuring a total LDL cholesterol without accounting for size variation.
It is also good to have a thorough thyroid profile done as the thyroid gland is one of the most important glands in your body for regulating metabolism and for maintaining ideal body temperatures. Many of the processes in your body rely on the proper functioning of enzymes, which are proteins that help your body functions run smoothly. The point is that under ideal core body temperatures, these enzymes work their magic but change that temperature a few degrees and the same delicate proteins begin to uncoil or coil up into abnormal configurations that no longer work. This can greatly reduce the available amount of enzymes needed to complete critical steps in your metabolism. I measure the amount of thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH) being released from your pituitary gland, the regulating gland located at the base of your brain. I also draw free T4 and free T3 levels, these two hormones are produced by the thyroid gland. The most important of the two is T3, which is the most active.
I try to make sure that all of my patients know their Vitamin D levels as this is very important to their longevity and to the health of their immune system. Vitamin D deficiency is a prevalent condition despite the amount of sunshine that we have available on most days. The reason I mention the sun is that under ideal conditions, our body can actually make its own Vitamin D which acts more like a hormone than a vitamin within our bodies but we will leave this topic for another article as it is complex and outside of the scope of this discussion. Suffice it to say that Vitamin D deficiency is widespread among many of the patients that I have tested and this can have very serious health effects.
The Importance of Hormone Levels for Longevity and Youthful Aging
Additional recommendations for knowing the health and life expectancy of my patient involves testing their levels of IGF-1 also known as somatomedin C. Somatomedin-C has a very direct connection to the amount of growth hormone (GH) being produced by the body during sleep. If people are not sleeping enough hours, or if they are constantly interrupting their sleep for whatever reason, then they are just not making enough growth hormones during the night. The IGF-1 (Somatomedin C) is produced predominantly in the liver in response to the release of this growth hormone from the pituitary gland. Many of the growth promoting effects of GH are due to its ability to release IGF-1 from the liver, which in turn acts on several different tissues (like muscle and bone) to enhance growth.
In men, I also screen for prostate cancer with the prostate specific antigen (PSA) test, which is a serine protease that is secreted by prostate cells. Elevations in this protein must be examined further by a urologist as this can signal disease or even malignancy within the gland.
I also check my patient’s testosterone levels, both the total and the free fraction. The free fraction is what is actually available to the body at the cellular level because it travels in the bloodstream unbound to proteins like albumin and sex hormone binding globulins. The bound fraction acts more as a reservoir and is unavailable directly to your cells. I also suggest to my patients that they test their salivary hormone levels, as this is more reflective of the available hormone from a tissue level perspective. If I am going to create a regimen of hormone replacement therapy using bioequivalent hormones (identical to your body's own hormones) then I will insist on getting salivary hormone levels so that I can choose the lowest possible dosage and make the therapy much safer for my patient than if I try using blood levels. If I am using blood levels to gauge the proper amount of hormones to give it leads to using much higher doses of hormones because it takes far higher dosages to show a rise in your total hormone levels in the blood stream. This is unsafe and I do not recommend dosages based on blood levels for this reason.
For my female patients, I check the full spectrum of estrogens within the body- their estradiol (E2), estriol (E3), and estrone (E1) levels. Many of my patients had never heard of these before as it is not common practice to discuss the fact that your body does not just make one type of estrogen. Many doctors just lump everything together for simplicity sake or never take time to discuss or consider the effects of assuming that one type of estrogenic hormone is the same as another for all intensive purposes.
The Downstream Hormones- Forgotten Metabolites Critical To Your Good Health
The key to safe and effective bio-equivalent hormone replacement is to check on the downstream pathways of hormone degradation, or elimination. This implies that once a regimen of treatment is begun, we wait about 2-3 months to retest the 24 hour urine for the full effects of how these hormones are actually breaking down in your body in the process of being eliminated. If there is a glitch in the pathway and your female hormones- and this is true even for men as they also produce female hormones- are being eliminated through more cancer potentiating pathways then we have to tweak the therapy and add products that will drive the reactions towards safer pathways of elimination. This is the case whether you are taking natural, bio-equivalent or synthetic hormones but we will cover these differences in another discussion.
Remember that hormone testing is not just for women, nor at the same time is it just for men, either. Every individual should have their hormone levels tested (both male and female hormone levels) because men make more male hormones, and women make more female hormones but we all make the same hormones and it is in the imbalance that conditions are created making us age prematurely or even to start making cancerous cells.
If my patient complains of fatigue for instance, I will do the standard blood work checking their CBC, their CMP and so forth. But I also do not forget to consider testing their testosterone levels, because I also have to think about their energy levels and how this affects their libido. The first complaint from a patient with dropping testosterone levels oftentimes is fatigue. At the same time, there are many other conditions (mostly from nutritional deficiencies) that contribute to the dropping production of their hormones. So everything depends on everything else and oftentimes it takes more than the basic labs the insurance companies are willing to pay for to get to the bottom of why patient are just not feeling their very best.
Subtle Symptoms May Be Caused By Nutritional Deficiencies or Food Snsitivities
I recommend that you stop ignoring these types of complaints if you have been doing so. Never just say, "Oh, I am just getting older." There are very real metabolic reasons for how you are feeling and a good physician can help you find these metabolic reasons and then help you to correct them.
I react and respond to my patients, when they complain about something I make sure to try and understand what they are trying to convey and then I react proactively. When I discover the deficincies I will tell them, "Your level is off, so let’s do something about that." That’s what good medicine is all about.
If I just can not seem to figure out what is wrong with somebody, I re-evaluate and re-investigate, as it never hurts to go back to the basics.
One thing that I like to recommend to most of my patients is to consider the possibility that food allergies, or food sensitivities may be causing their vague and annoying symptoms. If you have been suffering from less than optimal health then I would recommend that you have all of the above testing, and if you think that food sensitivities may be the cause then I take the ALCAT test to try to uncover the hidden cause of your symptoms.
After the basic labs have been drawn, after the hormone levels have been tested and adjusted, and after the food sensitivities have been uncovered using the ALCAT, we go to work creating the ideal program for your body which includes a detoxification program custom tailored to your needs. Our programs boost weight loss by correcting your hormonal imbalances and eliminating the food allergens causing inflammation and weight gain. Get in touch with us today. Don’t suffer with less than optimal health or poor performance. There is a better way.
