Blood Work to get YEARLY

Like I explained in my Health Freedom Program, prevention & awareness are key when it comes to long term health.

From what myself, my family & my clients have experienced, doctors don’t usually want to run any bloodwork if symptoms are not present that correlate to said blood markers.

But wouldn’t it be great to know if you had cancer before it expressed outwardly & became a big problem?

Wouldn’t it be nice to track & understand cholesterol before it got too high?

Wouldn’t it be awesome to do something about a health issue when it’s in an acute stage vs. when it’s in a diagnostic stage?

That’s my mentality on the subject. I’d rather track my numbers over the whole length of my life & work preventatively on my health - so I can truly enjoy my life worry free, symptom free & catch anything serious years in advance.

Here a list of what your primary care practitioner will probably run at your yearly physical:

CBC w/ differential
Metabolic Panel
Lipid Panel
TSH ( & maybe T4 if you get lucky)

It’s rare that docs will order more unless some of the markers on those above panels are out of range… which takes more time & requires more blood draws.

At a minimum, I do recommend seeing your primary care doc once a year & getting some standard blood work done. Utilize your health insurance if you have it!

The Problem w/ standard lab ranges

Another problem with mainstream healthcare & standard testing is that the medical system is using very wide lab ranges. These lab ranges consist of the average of all the people that year that did the blood test. The sicker people get, the lower the “average” becomes. Average does not equal healthy. Isn’t it totally wild that their lab ranges are not based off of healthy people?! This info was a major wake up call to me.

I illustrate the lab ranges below.

What we need to do is use functional lab ranges to find what optimal for yourself is! When we see blood markers start to dip out of the optimal range & into the sub optimal ranges is when we can best do something about it. Waiting for your blood markers to get out of the lab ranges & into the alarm stages for a diagnosis is often times too late to do something holistic about the situation.

I’ve even seen clients blood work come back in the high alarm range & their doctor still says “everything is fine”. Has this happened to you as well?

As you can see from the example above, you can usually start to see some trending patterns before things get much worse & into a diagnostic state. A doctor would most likely not do anything for a score of 115, even though it’s technically high for this clients average over the past decade of time. A doctor would want her number to get above 140 (the technical lab range) before taking action. In my practice, a score of 115 would be outside the functional range & would warrant a deeper look into what the root cause may be.

This is the benefit of paying out of pocket for your labs & working with a professional to get your data into a functional analysis.

There is SO much to be extracted from your old labwork & looking for underlying patterns of dysfunction before they grow into a diagnosis.

Functional Analysis & Gathering More Data

The labwork I listed above that your doctor will typically do is just the beginning. My personal preference is to do a full comprehensive analysis (at least ONCE in your life but yearly is key to finding & knowing your personal optimal ranges). It includes all that I previously listed plus an iron panel, full thyroid panel, copper panel & more.

You can see my full list of markers that I consider a comprehenisve panel by clicking the button below. This is where you can also order your own bloodwork! Right now, this offer is only for those in the United States who have a Labcorp near them. You can search to see if you have a Labcorp near you by clicking here.

This comprehensive panel is what we call “extracellular bloodwork”. This type of bloodwork looks outside of the cells at what is currently inside your blood stream. This is technically a “snapshot in time” at what is going on inside your body.

There is also “intrcellular bloodwork” which looks insdie your cells at what is getting absorbed from the blood into the cells- which is where these nutrients go to do their job! There is a lot of nuance to the blood work analysis & I always recommend getting both extracellular & intracellular bloodwork for a full viewpoint as to what is happening inside your body.

If you want to learn more about functional lab testing & the blood work I mentioned here, I encourage you to watch my Health Freedom Blueprint video which explains it all in a bit more detail!

My Favorite Prenatal Supplement

One of the most common questions I get is “What is the best prenatal to take” or “Is there a multivitamin that you think everyone should be on?”

If you’ve been around a while, you know that I despise a one-size-fits-all supplement routine for all people. After running hundreds of functional labs of clients, it’s clear that everyone has different deficiencies, root causes & different needs. I’ve stayed away from giving blanket advice because frankly, it just hasn’t met the needs of all people.

Now I know that running labwork can be expensive & might not be for everyone in their current season, so I’ve been searching for a product that I could recommend to the masses to support micronutrient balance & overall health.

Many multivitamins or prenatals contain copper & iron, which I am not a fan of as those 2 micronutrients are technically also metals & are frequently high in most labwork I see. Going overboard on these 2 minerals/metals can wreak havoc on your liver, brain & other internal organs. We do need them, just not in high amounts….and many multi-vitamins have them at too high of amounts for my liking. You can read more about copper overload & testing your levels here.

Especially when it comes to pregnancy, these two micronutrients need to be supplemented with separately IF (big if there!) they actually need to be. That should be checked via bloodwork before supplementing. During pregnancy, copper actually doubles naturally so I find that most pregnant women do not need extra. You can get plenty from foods like avocado, mushrooms, cacao, nuts & seeds!

All that to say, I have finally found a multi-vitamin that checks off all my necessary boxes & would be great for the majority of people to keep up with any inadequacies in their diet.

The Female Formulations Prenatal is not only a top-notch prenatal vitamin for women in the pre-conception, pregnancy & breastfeeding phases, it would also make a great multi-vitamin for women not in that season of life and men as well! I actually also give a lower dose to my 6 year old daughter too! If you child can handle swallowing vitamins, a half dose might be great for them as well.

Dr. Natalie (founder of the Female Formulations brand) specializes in fertility health & preconception, as well as hormone imbalances like PCOS. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting her in person & she is a very wise & down to earth doctor. I’m happy to support her & share this amazing brand she created with you!

Since she specialized in hormone health, she also has a plethora of other amazing products geared toward other imbalances in the body. I’ve personally used her Omegas & NAC - both of which are actually pair well with the Prenatal & complete what she calls the “Prenatal Bundle”. This is the bundle I orignally purchase & still use as daily support!

If you are one of those pregnant women who acutally do need iron support, the Iron Chelate might be a good one fro you.

If you are someone who experiences blood sugar imbalances or high glucose/insulin, the Glucose Support might be something that could benefit you.

Another one I’ve recommended frequenly in my practice is the Androgen Balance. This is designed for those with PCOS or hormone imbalances including high androgens like testosterone or problems eliminating excess estrogen. This is something you absolutely want to test for prior to taking (because who wants to take something they have no idea if they actually need or not!)

As always, please consult with your health care provider before starting a new supplement routine. I still stand by the idea that there is no one-size-fits-all routine for everyone - and frequently supplements should be rotated & changed up depending on the season of life, dietary changes, infections occurring & so many more things. Click the button above if you want to learn more about getting proper testing done to know precisely what you need at this stage of life. I’m happy to help!

Cheers to your health,
Leah B

Holistic Health as a Christian

Oh boy, will this ruffle some feathers! This topic is not for everyone & I encourage you to have an open mind when listening.

If you’re a Christian who has been confused about how to properly steward your body & mind, then this is for you.

If you’ve struggled with mental health imbalances, depression, anxiety, etc, then this is for you.

If you want to live your best life & learn to balance your biochemistry from a scientific & strategic perspective without any New Age practices- then this is for you!

This is what I’ve learned over the years when it comes to “holistic health” & how the New Age movement has infiltrated many health topics in our modern world… & how to get well & stay well for good so you can “run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”

Overall, we have great authority over our bodies & the Bible says it’s a temple. It’s literally where the Holy Spirit resides! What a blessing it is to have this dominion over God’s temple.

When studying the human body & how it operates, there is no doubt that we are divinely made. How does such a complicated & perfect machine just form spontaneously from microscopic sperm & egg?! I truly believe that science is just trying to prove that God exists. I LOVE using science & biochemistry to understand the body on a deeper, cellular level. It’s changed my life & the lives of thousands of others.

Enjoy my interview with Angela as we chat about all things health & how it relates to how God says we should be taking care of our bodies.

How and Why Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Works

The body functions in a phenomenal orchestration of metabolic processes involving cells, tissues, organs, systems, fluids, gases, chemistry and energy - including interactions with other people and a variety of other organisms.

This impressively complex metabolic orchestration is the result of a detailed set of instructions or innate intelligence at work on every particle of every cell. Our innate intelligence is analogous to the operating system of a computer. An operating system is designed to accomplish or manage a specific set of purposes.

Our potential to survive and thrive is largely determined by how well matched our operating systems are to the complex metabolic challenges we face in our world.

Innate intelligence has long been revered in the healing arts, but often its limits have been mistaken or overlooked. One prevalent idea is that of vitalism or the thought that the operating system is perfectly purposed and fully capable of adapting to all that modern life could throw at it. It shouldn’t take long in considering either natural poisons or deadly man-made chemicals to realize that such a position is wishful thinking. Likewise, there are such a variety of “inborn errors” affecting individual metabolisms that the old adage “one man’s food is another man’s poison” takes on great clinical significance.

We can imagine the day will come when it is possible to fully map out an individual’s operating system, along with the knowledge of the optimal operating environment as well as specific obstacles that might critically impair an individual’s well-being. For now however, those boundaries are still largely hidden from view.

Our innate intelligence can be a two-edged sword. It is ultimately what we must rely on for treatment success even as we investigate ways that it may have become unreliable. It is a sound principle to seek the “underlying cause” of an individual’s lack of well-being, but that is still more of an ongoing process between discovery and intervention than it is the sum of a group of objective measures.

Metabolic pathways are intermingled in complex ways and the origin of an individual’s symptomatic signal from a disruption of homeostasis can sometimes only be hinted at by an indirect measurement. We truly participate in the art of healing by applying time honored principles, such as embodied by D.R.E.S.S. for Health Success®, while taking advantage of every available insight that can be gleaned through carefully considered testing. In some cases, only a great intuitive leap (or an almost exhaustive set of tests) would give a direct measurement of the cause.

Healing opportunities are identified through taking careful histories and correlating them with the results from well-chosen labs. This approach has proven to be very beneficial, even though it is always proven by hindsight, since it relies on non-specific findings to fashion a very individualized solution. This process of applying wellness principles and exploring individual limitations leads us on a journey of ever deepening insights about individual obstacles to health and opportunities for overcoming those obstacles. The honest pursuit of these healing opportunities and creatively working towards their resolution is the basis upon which FDN works.

Testing Your Copper Levels: What you need to know!

Copper has been a hot topic in the wellness world lately & I’m seeing a lot of people promote very high copper foods & supplements to the masses. I fell for it too- taking the “recommended dose” of daily beef liver & unknowingly increasing my anxiety and mental health issues in the process.

Copper is a necessary element to our bodies (the RDA is 900mcg - 2mg/day) but are we making sure the amounts of this metal/mineral in foods match up to our own biological needs at a cellular level?

Foods like beef liver or animal organ blends have been highly glamorized as an “ancestral” food that is high in vitamins/minerals. While I do believe our ancestors ate organ meats, I’m not so sure they were taking several a day in capsules for months & years on end like many now are doing…. Doing anything in abundance is going to throw homeostasis off. Many are overloading on this.

In my practice, I’ve seen a trend of taking these things long term & resulting in it being retained at high levels in the tissues (brain, liver, adrenals, uterus etc). Add in the fact that we’re also eating lots of “superfoods” (like avocado, cacao, teas, leafy greens) & many are eating soy or going vegetarian/vegan- which are high copper diets.

Food is one area of exposure but so are copper pipes (drinking water), copper IUD & birth control use, organic produce sprays & swimming pool chemicals.

Understanding your copper utilization is an essential aspect of the health of your hormonal, mental, emotional & skin systems.

Mentally: Symptoms of high copper in the brain are anxiety, racing mind, rage, depression, moodiness, insomnia, brain fog, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, excessive weepiness, Alzheimers, Parkinson’s, Autism, ADHD, insomnia, OCD, etc.

Hormonally: Symptoms include fibroids, PMS, abnormal menstrual cycles, PMDD, migraines, infertility, estrogen dominance, endometriosis, PCOS, progesterone deficiency, adrenal fatigue, hypothyroidism, etc.

Physically: Symptoms can show up as nausea, fatigue, tumor formation, cancer, chronic fight/flight response, cellular oxidation & methylation problems, weight gain, migraines, jaundice, fatty liver, panic attacks, bloating, prostatitis, tinnitus, heart palpitations, hypertension, anorexia, ovarian cysts, miscarriage, hair loss, skin problems, yeast infections, joint aches/pains, etc.

Test, Don’t Guess

Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis

Testing the hair is a useful tool in examining what is being excreted from the body. It’s the least invasive & gives you a tracking of what is happening in your system of the past 3-4 months.  At times, when metabolism is low and the body is exhausted, excess copper (like other metals) won't show up in a hair test (though other indirect indicators can at least be used in the HTMA to determine the copper status). This needs to be utilized with bloodwork to get a full picture of your body utilization & status.

Blood Testing: Extracellular

The bloodwork you’re used to doing with a doctor tests for what is happening outside of your cells (extracellularly) & is currently being transported through your body. See my post on Free Copper Percentage to learn more about utilizing this tool.

Blood Testing: Intracellular

One of my favorite types of bloodwork is specific to looking at what is happening inside the cell. This checks your status over the past 4-6 months. Is it getting through the cell membrane to do it’s job? Is it in balance with the other Vitamins, Minerals, Amino Acids & Antioxidants? Let’s find out!

Restoring The Body From High Free Copper

Copper “detox” is not a do-it-yourself solution & is honestly needs to be a gentler, longer-term process based on balancing other organ systems & balancing other deficiencies or overloads.

If you do struggle with high free copper, the first step is to assess & know your numbers. I prefer to have both an intracellular view & extracellular view. Balancing all the other cofactor micronutrients is vitally important to balancing the full mineral & cellular metabolism.

To get one-on-one help, check out my Health Freedom Blueprint to see how to restore the full body in a customized & strategic way.