Functional Testing

As part of your plan I may suggest some functional or nutritional health tests through your doctor or completed with private laboratory. Tests may require a sample of blood, urine, hair, saliva or your stools. Most tests can be conducted from the comfort of your own home, others will require you to visit a clinic such as for phlebotomy.

What is functional testing? 

Functional testing and interpretation focus on using physiological tests to measure how the body is functioning and to evaluate the health of an individual.  This differs from the more traditional practice of using physiological markers merely as an indicator of disease.

How many times have you been to the doctor to find that your test results, especially bloods, have come back ‘normal’ but you don’t feel normal? NHS testing typically has a very wide ‘normal’ range when assessing markers, which means that the majority of people do not get supported until they tip over into the above or below normal range. Whereas functional testing reviews optimal levels for bodily function, often revealing what is missed in conventional testing. Functional tests are invaluable tools in identifying contributing factors to health issues, they aid in understanding the root causes of imbalance within the body, and can indicate health trends that could progress into more serious conditions if left.

Functional tests can aid the development of individualised nutritional therapy programmes and can produce speedier more effective outcomes. I will only recommend testing if their results would significantly change the recommended nutritional therapy programme. If I can refer you back to the NHS for testing I will, but some tests are not available on the NHS. If this is the case, I use a number of quality, medical laboratories, including; Functional Dx, Invivo, Genova Diagnostics, BioLab and Lifecode Gx.

Please note that test results are often complex and hence are not available without a consultation. A consultation is required to help explain the results and to discuss the impact of the results on your health and create a dietary, lifestyle and supplement plan which takes the results into account. Tests fees are extra to consultation fees and range from £45 to £750 depending on the test.

There are many different types of tests that can be recommended, depending on your health objective
but the following is a selection of the tests available: