Functional Nutrition Blood Testing

Why do I feel sick if my lab tests are normal?

Are your blood tests normal even though you suffer with a chronic health condition? Reading blood tests using a functional model can detect health issues most doctors miss.

A blood test can be a powerful tool to explain symptoms and identify health problems, such as anemia, diabetes, hypothyroidism, and other metabolic disorders.

A normal blood test doesn’t always reflect reality

Normal may sound like a desirable result, but for the person struggling with a chronic health issue, it is the worst response possible on a blood test. It means the health condition technically doesn’t exist and a doctor can do nothing to help.


Functional ranges reveal hidden illnesses

As a naturopathic physician, I look at blood tests differently than the average doctor—I interpret standard blood tests using a functional model.

What does functional mean?  

Lab ranges catch only advanced disease states

Take a look at the top graph. In conventional medicine, your lab results are normal until you are sick to the point where you need medication or surgery. For example, your blood sugar may be too high, but your physician won't prescribe a drug to help lower it until you cross that disease threshold.

Lab ranges based on population averages, not good health

Also, a normal value is based on the average of all the people who visited that lab in one year, many of them suffering from a health condition. Is your blood sugar really within normal range? Or is everyone else’s simply too high?

In functional medicine we identify a health problem before it becomes a disease. This often allows you to reverse the condition without the use of medications or surgery.

Functional ranges allow you to reverse disease before too late

For example, if we see blood sugar climb out of the optimal range and into the functional disease range (see graph), we can intervene with natural remedies and diet and lifestyle changes to restore normal function.

This is important because it is easier to return you to optimal health at this point than waiting until a conventional doctor considers you sick.

Functional ranges catch undiagnosed parasite infection

Here's a real life example:

This is the blood panel of a patient who is tired all the time and whose thyroid hormones won't normalize.

The report shows a functional range and a lab range. According to the lab ranges, nothing is wrong with this patient.

However the functional ranges show abnormal results for the majority of the markers.

In particular:

  1. Total white blood cells (WBC), or immune cells, are low: This indicates chronic infection.
  2. Eosinophils (a type of WBC) are high: This indicates acute allergies or a parasite infection.  


Could this patient’s symptoms stem from a parasitic infection? It’s not uncommon.

Functional ranges show whether more testing is necessary

To answer that question a specialized stool test is necessary; general parasite tests are notoriously insensitive. Therefore, I use a lab that has developed a DNA screening technique to identify parasites.  

Parasite infections are not just a third-world problem. Intestinal parasite infections are much more common in the United States that previously thought, and the symptoms they create are incredibly diverse. In fact, this patient didn't have many digestive symptoms.

The results of the stool test:  Positive for parasites. (see below)

By interpreting the blood panel from a functional perspective and then following up with a sensitive DNA stool test, we successfully identified a chronic parasite infection that contributed to this patient’s fatigue and erratic thyroid function. Aggressively treating this infection played a major role in returning this patient to optimal health.

Without a functional analysis of her screening blood work, the infection could have degenerated into a more serious condition.

Would You Like a Functional Analysis of Your Own Blood Work?

Please click here for a functional nutrition worksheet that you can apply to your own bloodwork. Non-optimal values may be important to have analyzed.

A functional analysis like this can help identify: 

  1. Vitamin and mineral deficiencies 
  2. Liver, kidney, heart, and skeletal problems 
  3. Insulin resistance and hypoglycemia—risk factors for diabetes
  4. Adrenal fatigue
  5. Stomach acid abnormalities and poor protein digestion
  6. Anemias
  7. And much more


If you would like help in evaluating the significance of your results, please call my office for an appointment.