How to Use Functional Labwork, Supplements, and Structured Eating Plans to Achieve Health Goals

There are several reasons that I’ve chosen to go this route! The biggest is that we now live in an era of information availability, and patients can and do go online and research their symptoms and issues. It may be just Googling symptoms, or it can be as in-depth as doing literature searches in the National Library of Medicine to see what published research is available on a topic. 

While a practitioner such as myself has education and experience, patients close to the same access to data as I do. I can offer my help to get past certain points, and sometimes to help choose what direction to go in. For many patients, the only thing they need from me is access to a test that they would like to do. Gluten sensitivity is a good example, as many mainstream medical providers have a binary way of thinking that’s essentially “either you have Celiac Disease, or you should be OK with gluten consumption” despite the plethora of research articles from researchers documenting the realities of non-celiac gluten sensitivity. So, it’s quite common that a patient wants to do a detailed, peptide-level gluten sensitivity test and their provider won’t order it. Now, the patient can get that answer easily! 

Another reason for my decision to “open source” test/supplement/consultation availability is that I believe that it’s the next wave of healthcare. After 2020, Covid lockdowns, and clinics not booking appointments until months in the future, patient care evolved and it may never return to the “controlled by the doctor” model. Personally I think that’s not entirely bad, and as long as serious conditions don’t get overlooked, patients have access to enough information in many cases.

 I also firmly believe that the future of healthcare, from diagnostics to treatment and even surgery, will evolve into the realm of AI and robotics. But, that is a subject for a different day! I think patient-directed care, and patient access to diagnostics and natural interventions, is an in-between that holds significant promise.

 The need for supplements as part of a plan to meet any of the goals mentioned earlier really needs to be emphasized. Food supplements are useful in several different scenarios:

A. Filling “gaps” in your diet, preventing nutrient deficiencies that result from your diet lacking sufficient bio-available nutrients of one type or another, or possibly poor absorption as you digest said foods.

B. Altering some aspect of your physiology to help achieve a goal. For example, the amino acid Arginine is useful in that it has vasodilatory properties. That means it helps relax your blood vessels. Why would you want to do that? Relaxing blood vessels can help reduce your blood pressure. It can also help with erectile dysfunction, working as a less potent and far more accessible version of Viagra. Dilating blood vessels can also improve some types of headaches. 

As another example, the herb Tribulus terrestris can raise Testosterone levels, which makes it easier to gain muscle mass and bone density. So, the point is that supplements can be used to “hack” our physiology to improve something.

It's important to also realize that the modern diet is quite likely to be deficient in some nutrients, due to farming practices or poor food choices. If you don’t believe that, check on what commercial fertilizer is made of and you’ll see that it adds three minerals. Three. What about all of the other minerals and biologics in fertile soil? What about the microbiome of fertile soil that helps plants to incorporate important nutrients? Well, you’re not going to get that from most purchased food, unless you’re at an organic farm stand.  

We are also at a point in time where there actually is not a consensus opinion on what the ideal diet is for the human organism. We have people claiming that the ideal diet is vegan, and people claiming the ideal diet is carnivore, and many opinions someplace in between those two. 

As a way of moving forward toward health, I believe in looking to the body and sometimes labwork for answers. If you can find a diet that makes you feel amazing and your physiology echoes that feeling in appearance and lab values, that’s likely a good diet for you! But beware that there are also fundamental differences of opinion about some items, such as…cholesterol. 

The opinions are evolving, and as a functional practitioner I try to stay as up-to-date as possible on what scientists and researchers are learning-and I recommend that to patients as well. 

I’ve found it’s best to not go into a period of learning when burdened with the belief that one already knows the answers! In this regard, some labwork, some knowledge, and a little help from an experienced functional practitioner can go a long way toward meeting health goals. 

Your eating program can be used as yet another tool to help you achieve your health goals. I may choose some silly examples but I think you’ll get my drift. 

If your goal is anti-aging, and your diet consists of a lot of sweets, donuts, and sugary breakfast cereal…you’re not likely to live as long as your genetics could allow you to. 

Similarly, if you want to be a competitive bodybuilder or weightlifter and your diet is protein deficient because you only eat salads and smoothies with little protein content, you’re unlikely to succeed as much as would be possible with a high enough protein intake. 

There are several factors to potentially consider when looking at what your “ideal eating plan” might be:

1. You have to be able to digest the foods you’re eating, or they won’t do you much good.

2. Your foods should provide the fuel and nutrients your body requires to both get through the day and rebuild or heal, while creating all needed hormones and other proteins required for peak function.

3. Your foods should feed your beneficial gut bacteria, while not feeding non-beneficial bacteria. Some categories of foods consistently feed bad bacteria-most notably sweet foods. Beneficial bacteria require certain nutrients. How would you know? A combination of observations (how is your bathroom experience, for example!) and labwork, such as looking at your gut bacteria with labwork that identifies all the relevant microorganisms and provides dietary guidance as well as advice on probiotics (yes, that’s available). 

An Example:

A common example that I’ve seen countless times in clinic as well as in my circle of friends and family: a person who is somewhat overweight, cannot go without eating for very long without feeling weak or “hangry” (hungry + angry), and whose blood pressure is rising. Physicians might be telling this person that their triglycerides and cholesterol are high and they should be on statin drugs. While society may be accepting of the “Dad Bod”, physiology is far less forgiving and these characteristics are the highway to heart disease. 

The elements of this journey are insulin resistance, weight gain, elevating blood pressure, and inflammation as they work together to cause atherosclerosis and eventually a heart attack. A stop along the way involves insulin resistance, “pre-diabetes”, and then Type II Diabetes. Today’s research authors are considering atherosclerosis as “type III diabetes”, as insulin resistance is such a big part of what triggers heart disease.

This Dad Bod person, whom we’ll call Jim for purposes of this example, has some goals:

1. To not have a heart attack down the road
2. To be able to walk with his wife, play with his kids or grandkids 
3. To move more easily, for practical reasons like cleaning the gutters while on a ladder, or entering/exiting his vehicle without sounding like he’s in labor. 

How this plan might come together for Jim:

1. He keeps track of his A1c, which is a decent indicator of how often his blood sugar shoots upward between tests.
2. Jim might take a hard look at his diet, and adopt an eating plan that is low carbohydrate and higher fat. 
3. Jim could alter the timing of his feedings, incorporating intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast, thereby forcing his body to learn how to burn fats for fuel instead of carbohydrates. This results in less fats being left in the bloodstream where they can cause problems. 
4. Labwork could include an inflammatory panel and a gut bacteria panel, and perhaps a gluten sensitivity panel
5. If Jim finds out he is gluten sensitive, going on a gluten-free eating plan will reduce his inflammation. This can help his body to respond better to insulin, and move him away from becoming a Type II diabetic. 
6. A gut bacteria panel can show what bacteria Jim needs less or more of. Supplements can be used to thin out the harmful bacteria, and probiotics can be used to add more of the beneficial ones or feed the beneficial ones. 
7. If Jim identifies excessive inflammation, there are supplements that can be used to reduce that inflammation, while his eating plan/gut bacteria/ timing changes are taking effect.
8. A program of exercise, movement, will certainly help raise Jim’s HDL cholesterol, further reducing his risk of problems in the future.
9. Jim books an appointment with a functional doctor to confirm what changes need to be made, or to get the doctor to tell him what he should do.
10. This combination will change Jim’s whole metabolism so that he drops the extra weight and his body starts to use energy more effectively, providing Jim with better mobility and enough energy to either get more work done or play harder! And he will probably enjoy more years of those benefits than if he stayed on the same road where this story started.

To review, Jim put these strategies into place:

1. Testing: he obtained some data to better understand what his body was doing
2. Supplements: to reduce his inflammation and improve his gut bacteria
3. Structured Eating Plan: to alter the way that his body utilizes carbohydrates vs. fats as fuel
4. Professional guidance: Jim got some advice and help to put together a logical plan
5. Movement: Jim slowly and progressively increased the amount of exercise he did every day, to raise his metabolism while helping his body manage fuel reserves in a healthy way.

Hopefully this example shows how these different pieces fit together. It’s just an example though, and different situations might have more of one of these issues than another. Some tests are easier to interpret than others, and some patients have more of a science background than others.

 It’s OK as help is available when it is wanted or needed!

If this makes sense to you and you’re ready to take control of your health and make changes, here are the steps to take:

1. Make a list of your goals, and of the problems you already know you have (like if you’re already a Type II diabetic, or have already had one or more heart attacks).    
2. Click on the "Click Here" buttons, or go to my website at https://neurodoc4u.wellproz.com/patient/signinand click on the right side, where it says “Create” below “Don’t Have An Account?” It’s important to do this first, because if you jump into the site without creating a login, many of the available items do not show up. This is because of licensing agreements with the companies offering those products. So, please create a login first. It’s easy, and no credit card is needed.
3. If you need more detailed help, go here: Detailed Help with Pictures
4. After you create a login, you’ll have to go ahead and login, and then you should see the website. If you have trouble, please call me at 888-516-1533 and I’ll help you! 
5. At the top, you can select Supplement Functions to narrow down the visible supplements to those addressing your goals, and you can also narrow down the Test Products to categories in a similar way. 

1.  On the left, you’ll see green check-boxes, which you can un-check to further filter what you’re looking at and make it easier to find things.  
2. When you see a test that you’d like to do, you can purchase it directly on the website. The lab will send you the test kit for at-home collection. If there is a blood draw required other than fingerstick (most blood tests are fingerstick) help is available to schedule a mobile phlebotomist. When the results show up in my portal, I will email them to you, or in some cases the lab will notify you and provide a portal link to view the results. 
3. Most tests are done in less than 2 weeks, but Gut Zoomer (my favorite gut bacteria test) is consistently around a month.  
4. If you’d like help, whether to decide which test or to review your test results and make a plan, or to follow-up later, those consultations are available on the store as well, with a link provided to scheduling the session. Initial consultations are really for if you want to review your whole situation and choose a direction; those visits are usually at least an hour long. 
5. You’ll be able to see what days/times are available before paying if you choose to, so that you don’t get any surprises. As I write this, I’m usually available with the next two weeks, but of course that can vary over time.  If you have a simple question and need a simple answer, you can call 888-516-1533 or email me at doc@neurodoc4u.com and I’ll do my best! 

What we've discussed so far:

1. Functional Medicine is a different kind of healthcare, where we work to identify body systems not functioning correctly, and help!
2. Unlike conventional care, you're now able to view available tests, supplements, and services. You can see all the pricing and make your own decisions, or ask for help with that. 
3. Your eating plan matters! But, to find the best plan requires some answers. For this we have labwork and consultation time. Your ideal food choices are digestible for you, provide the right amount of fuel and nutrients, while feeding good gut bacteria.
4. Signup on my functional website is easy. There's also more signup help by clicking here.
5. Test kits are mailed to you for at-home collection in almost all cases.
6. Results are often about 2 weeks from when you mail your kit in the included prepaid mailer. A few of the tests are closer to 1 month.
7. Results will be emailed to you when available.
8. Supplements are all visible and available on the website.
9. Lab results or consultations help to determine which supplements are best for your goals
10. You now have more control over your health than ever before! If you ever need more information, schedule a consultation and send me an email with your questions. I'll look up research and have a complete answer for you.