What is a Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis?
Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis is a clinician’s journey inside a patient’s physiology. It reflects organ function, electrolyte balance, metabolic efficiency, and more. It is an indispensable tool for assessing a patient’s health and is done at least once per year in a healthy individual.
Results may come back “within normal range” but can fail to indicate if a patient’s physiology is trending toward dysfunction. Clues to early dysfunction are easily missed because standard reference ranges are wide, usually reflecting 2 standard deviations from the mean.
Statistically speaking, 95.4% of the distribution falls between 2 standard deviations above and below the mean.[1] Utilizing tighter reference ranges allows the clinician to address early signs of dysfunction before results progress into the overt disease range and early damage has already been done.
Functional blood chemistry analysis (FBCA) provides a more targeted and comprehensive assessment. The FBCA compares results to tighter optimal ranges that better reflect where a patient may lie on the spectrum of physiological function.
A functional approach to blood chemistry analysis can also provide clues to why a patient may feel unwell despite available blood chemistries coming back “completely normal.” It can reveal early trends in blood sugar dysfunction, inflammation, hormone imbalance, nutrient insufficiency, liver dysfunction, chronic immune dysfunction, anemia, etc..
Functional Blood Chemistry Analysis:
- Is an indispensable tool for disease mitigation and prevention
- Reveals early trends toward dysfunction that are overlooked by standard blood chemistry ranges
- Incorporates the latest research into defining optimal ranges and clinical goals
- Evaluates ratios and patterns between biomarkers to best reflect the metabolism of an individual as a whole
- Offers comparison of current and past blood chemistry results to assist in fine-tuning treatment protocols over time
- Includes blood reference and clinical conditions guides to support comprehensive analysis of biomarkers
- Recommends additional blood work to further assess organ function and physiology
- Provides guidance for developing individualized protocols designed to bring biomarkers into the optimal range
- Includes comprehensive patient and practitioner reports that include descriptions of biomarkers and evaluation of individual results
- Provides motivation for patients to follow up regularly in order to monitor their FBCA changes
