Functional Blood Chemistry... Lab testings future, available today

Many of you probably have never heard of "Functional Blood Chemistry".  Nor, did you know there was even a difference in how to interpret lab values.  Functional Blood Chemsitry is a science that has been in practice since about the early-1990s.

Most people are familiar with the process of going to a medical doctor and having your blood drawn for a test.  When the lab comes back, if the test is "out of range" this is not good, if things are in range most people assume "I'm healthy" or "I'm normal".

I will briefly discuss the differences between "conventional" and "functional" lab studies.  Let's use Blood Glucose test as an example and say your test result is 108.

Conventional medical lab ranges for Blood Glucose is 65-110for it to be considered normal.  If you are at or above 126 you have a disease known as diabetes.  In our example, you are "normal".

Simply, conventional medical ranges are often used to search for and/or identify diseases of the body.  The issue with this methodology is your needing to be in a disease state.  This model of care, by definition, is in reality "sick-care", not "health-care".  Thus, by following this method, it can not be truly preventative. 

Functional Blood Chemistry lab range for blood glucose is 85-100.  If you are outside of this range, you are away from normal and it needs to be known why!  In our example at 108, you are outside of "optimal".  Thus, we will begin the process to identify why as well as make action steps to begin the correction process.

As you can see, this process looks for trends away from "normal and/or optimal" states.  The functional model is based on the scientific consensus of what is considered to be an "optimal" or "normal" state of body function (physiology).  So, by definition, functional chemistry is truly a preventative approach as it allows for earlier identification and correction of being "out of range".

At Tierney Chiropractic, we use functional ranges in our interpretations as well as we can order a number of lab tests that can evaluate your functioning state.