THE VITALITY CODE: WHAT GETS MEASURED GETS MANAGED
As always, please use these in accordance with your doctor. These are tests I suggest my clients get for benchmark purposes, so they can witness results on paper, as well as experience results in their bodies.
Could one test save your life?
What if you don’t have symptoms? I believe the best way to take control of our own health is to invest a little time in educating ourselves on key tests. We get to test our own biology — we do not have to completely outsource our health. I get that you might have limited time to learn this stuff, but I can’t think of a better subject area in which to invest time. Blood tests and/or a microbiome test, and/or bio-resonance, or any other form of testing can potentially be life-saving.
There are a number of ways to test blood for systemic inflammation. As always, please check with your doctor for the best tests to take, and discuss with them your results. I also encourage you to understand them yourself. If inflammation markers are elevated, you’ll know it is necessary to bring this down again, and it’s really not as hard as you might imagine. It IS worth knowing. Given chronic inflammation is the underlying cause of most, if not all, illnesses, does it not make sense to test regularly for it? This was extracted from Dr Mark Hyman´s Longevity Roadmap:
- CRP (C-reactive protein) – general inflammatory marker, not specific to any system. It tells you if you have inflammation somewhere in your body.
- HS-CRP (high-sensitivity C Reactive Protein): Cardiac — specific inflammatory marker. If elevated, it suggests increased risk for cardiovascular disease. High C-RP as well as high cholesterol is more concerning, and more useful to know than high cholesterol alone. (Hyman, 2021)
- Homocysteine – similar to CRP, this is another general inflammatory marker. Also a marker of B12 and folate status, and provides indication as to your ability to methylate. It might initiate an investigation of the MTHFR status.
- Explanation of methylation from Healthline: “Your DNA consists of four bases, called cytosine, guanine, adenine, and thymine. A chemical unit called a methyl group, which contains one carbon and three hydrogen atoms, can be added to cytosine. When this happens, that area of the DNA is methylated. When you lose that methyl group, the area becomes demethylated.
- DNA methylation often inhibits the expression of certain genes. For example, the methylation process might stop a tumor-causing gene from “turning on,” preventing cancer.“
- Thyroid peroxidase antibodies — specific to thyroid, this test can indicate that your thyroid disease is a result of an autoimmune disorder.
Non Inflammation-specific marker tests for indications that inflammation is likely present.
There are plenty of other blood tests that can determine your level of health not directly related to inflammation; several to consider are:
- Fasting Insulin — this is an indication that someone is moving towards diabetes. When insulin has been elevated for a prolonged period of time, it then leads to an increase in blood sugar levels. Fasting insulin and an insulin response test is crucial if you are concerned about preventing metabolic dysfunction.
- HbA1C — this measures your blood sugar over the last 6 weeks. A strong indicator of health, given insulin resistance (too much insulin from trans fats, fast carbs, toxins) tends to go hand in hand with chronic inflammation.
- Cholesterol — HDL, LDL, vLDL — total cholesterol is not useful alone. Both HDL and LDL have functions in the body. HDL is regarded as “good” and LDL is regarded as “bad” – but they are both necessary. HDL can be an indicator to protect against heart disease and can be raised with exercise and eating certain health fats (Hyman, 2021). LDL particle number or vLDL is a better indicator for disease. From this it can also be determined if LDL existent is oxidized, and whether it is small and dense (vLDL – very low density lipoprotein), and problematic, or big and fluffy (less problematic).
- Oxidized LDL — this measures how much LDL is damaged, and is a more useful risk factor for heart disease compared to non-oxidised LDL. This is because it forms plaque on the arterial walls and can narrow blood vessels (Hyman, 2021).
- Triglycerides — these are fatty acids that play a pivotal role in fat storage. Elevated triglycerides are associated with carbohydrate intolerance. An elevated level would suggest removing processed carbohydrates from your diet due to not being able to tolerate them.
- Triglyceride to HDL ratio — this is an indicator of insulin sensitivity. Insulin is the hormone responsible for balancing blood sugar levels. In association with fasting insulin, this ratio is useful to determine a reason for symptoms (Hyman, 2021).
- Hormone panel (male or female) — really useful to have a baseline, as where inflammation is present, this tends to affect hormones. For example with men, systemic inflammation will likely cause a decrease in testosterone, and possibly an increase in estrogen.
Gut Microbiome Test
It is key to pay attention to your gut health. Whatever your symptom, it is highly likely that it’s gut-related. There are several ways to test your gut microbiome. One company is called Viome, which analyzes your microbiome (at a snapshot in time) and makes recommendations accordingly. When you order, they’ll send you a kit, in which you’ll send them a stool sample in the post for analysis. Wait for the kit to arrive, don’t be sending them a sample without it! You may not get a good response. This may sound absurd at first. What might sound even more absurd is that fecal transplants are now a way people are supported in reversing illness.
“A fecal transplant is when a doctor transplants feces from a healthy donor into another person to restore the balance of bacteria in their gut. Fecal transplants may help treat gastrointestinal infections and other conditions.”
(Personally, I’d prefer to balance my own gut before I am in a dire position that would require for someone else’s feces to be inserted into me.)
Observing and attending to your warning lights (symptoms), together with these blood tests (and more, as recommended by your doctor), will provide a benchmark against which you can track your progress on your Vitality journey. I honestly believe that we must become our own personal best health advocate in order to live in peak physical health and Vitality. The more you get to know what symptoms mean, and what tests mean, the easier and more fun it will be to take charge of your health, which will, of course, spill over into other key areas of your life. You can then be the mechanic of your own body, or work with a mechanic. When you address each of the four pillars of Vitality, you will most likely witness a change in your benchmark, as well as symptoms easing/disappearing.
When your warning lights stop flashing, you know your car is fine. When your symptoms go away because you saw the mechanic, and you witness positive changes across various tests, you will have a much better indication that your body is in balance again.
Bio-Resonance (Frequency / Energy Medicine Diagnostics
There are a variety of Bio-resonance machines with which you can scan your entire body. Below is a 1.5 minute snippet of a video I filmed recently that might spark your interest. This was using NLS Body Scan, and it deteremines areas of low voltage – and thus, areas requiring attention.
As you’ll have read, or will soon be reading in “body electric” section of The Vitality Code, we are wired up like a house, with different organs on different circuits, and every one of those circuits passes through our teeth. Our teeth act like circuit breakers. Who knew!
If bio-resonance is of interest, I suggest you search for “bio-resononance near me” or “frequency / energy medicine near me” – and see what comes up. Maybe combine with Naturopathic or Functional Medicine practices. Devices I have used over the years include: Sensitiv Imago, AO Scan, Amp Coil, Organotest, and NLS Body Scan.
To your Vitality,
Neil