Far 2 Fabulous

Crafting Your Wellness Journey with Private Diagnostic Tools

March 28, 2024 • Julie Clark & Catherine Chapman • Episode 11

Share episode

**DISCLAIMER: The information provided on this podcast is intended for general informational purposes only. It is not a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your GP with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.**

Imagine taking the reins on your health journey with cutting-edge private testing—no more guesswork, just clear insights and actionable steps. That's exactly what we're unpacking today on Far 2 Fabulous, with an array of private tests that light up the darker corners of your wellness path. From vitamin D levels to comprehensive blood panels, we're guiding you through the maze of options. Services like MediChecks and Thriva are bringing lab work right to your doorstep, proving that optimal health is both accessible and personal. With these tools at your disposal, you'll be equipped to tailor your lifestyle and supplementation with laser-like precision.

But it's not just about bloodwork; we're talking strands of hair that can tell stories of mineral balance and potential toxic exposure. I'll share my experiences with hair testing from Minerals State and how it's opened up new avenues for addressing health concerns holistically. We'll also navigate the complex world of gut health, with stool tests that serve as your internal health detectives, uncovering the mysteries of your microbiome. And if you've ever wondered about the impact of food intolerances on your body, our discussion will shed light on how identifying them can be a game-changer for your wellbeing.

Rounding off, we delve into the personalized frontier of hormone and genetic testing. Understanding your body's unique signals can revolutionize how you address hormonal imbalances and optimize your health. It's like having a roadmap that lets you navigate your body's intricacies with confidence. Moreover, we set the stage for future explorations into metabolic health, microbiome analysis, and strategic supplementation, ensuring that you're not just following a path to better health—you're leading the way. Join me, Julie, as we empower ourselves with knowledge and transform our health narratives.

Got a question or comment? Send us a text message here!

Thank you for listening.

You can continue the conversation with us in the Far 2 Fabulous Facebook group. Come and connect with other women on a journey to empowered health.


For more information about Julie Clark Nutrition, click HERE
For more information about Catherine Chapman, click HERE

We look forward to you joining us on the next episode.

Julie:

Welcome to Far 2 Fabulous, hosted by Julie and Catherine, join us on a mission to embrace your fabulousness and redefine wellness. Get ready for some feistyness, inspiration, candid chats and humour as we journey together towards empowered wellbeing. Let's dive in.

Speaker 2:

Hello, this is a slightly different episode today because I'm on my own. My trusted sidekick is not joining me today for the subject that I'm talking about, because I'm going to be talking about private testing. It is a question that I get asked about a lot and it's certainly something that I do in my clinic. So the main reason why I will carry out testing is to find out more about that individual person. But there is an opportunity for you to use testing and there are a lot of opportunities now for private testing. It's not as expensive as you may think.

Speaker 2:

There's definitely been an explosion of the availability of testing, I think, since Covid. There are a lot of labs now and technologies moved on, so you can get a lot of help with your health by going into the kind of preventative side of health rather than just relying on, when things go wrong getting tests. So we tend to think about testing from a GP's perspective. So we might go to our doctor with symptoms and then they may well run some tests to see what is going on, because at the end of the day, tests are at all for the person whether it's a doctor or a nutritionist or a therapist who's trying to help you. It gives them more information about how your body is personally working. So, with regards to testing in my clinic and with my clients, like I said, I use testing a lot, but I also use testing on myself as a preventative measure, because it's much better to know what's going on in your body and put some things in place to support your body rather than wait until you've got symptoms and then need to go to the doctors. Now, since the pandemic, I think it's fair to say that the NHS has been under a great deal of pressure and trying to get a blood test done these days often takes a few weeks and then it's going to be analysed and sometimes that takes a while to come back and then in most cases, if you don't hear from your doctor, you kind of assume well, that test was okay. But I think it's important to actually get a copy of your test results because they can provide insights into how your body is working. So the NHS or your standard doctor test will in some cases be relatively basic to what we can get privately, especially when we're looking at things like stool testing. The test that the doctors do will obviously provide a great deal of information, but the ranges that they use aren't necessarily looking at optimal health. That's another thing that we've got to talk about. When we're looking at testing, we want to know if you're at optimal levels for certain things, especially when we're looking at something like vitamin D, for example.

Speaker 2:

Now I believe that we should all know what our vitamin D levels are. For a start, in the UK, in the winter period, we're all pretty vulnerable to vitamin D. Vitamin D is a crucial hormone, like substance in the body that helps support our immune system, but it also has other roles. It's very important for how your body absorbs calcium and utilises it in the bones. It's got an association with the thyroid, and the immune system is the one that we tend to consider. So, post pandemic, a lot of people would have taken on board the advice to take vitamin D, which is great, but I know from looking at my clients' results that some of you are taking a high dose of vitamin D when you don't necessarily need it. Like most vitamins and minerals and anything in life, really, we don't want to put too much in and we don't want too little. So having those optimal levels can be really, really useful, and when we're looking at something like vitamin D, that can be incredibly useful. If we know, okay, my level is suboptimal, then I need to supplement.

Speaker 2:

So vitamin D test if you just do vitamin D on its own, it's typically a pimp rate blood test. So you just pimp rate your finger, you put the blood in the device that's in the test kit, you send it back to the lab and in a few days you'll get a result that tells you what your actual levels of vitamin D are. And then you can look at that and relate it to the range Are you in optimal levels? Do you need to supplement, or actually are your levels good and you don't need to, or do you need to maintain levels? So, given that vitamin D is such a crucial nutrient and the availability of vitamin D testing, there's a lot of availability and it's relatively cheap. I think this is the thing a lot of the time when we're looking at private testing, we might think it's horrendously expensive or we might not even know what's out there and what's available. But with something like vitamin D, it's dead easy to get tested pimp rate blood test, send it back to the lab, get your results within a couple of days and then at least you know where you're at because it is an important marker.

Speaker 2:

Now, one of the things that I always do for myself every year is I do a blood test to a company called MediChex. Medichex is very well known for private blood testing. We've also got another company called Driver. Both of those will take an order directly from a client. So you could go to MediChex and you could click on their menu and have a look at their reports that they do, and then you could decide to go ahead depending on what your requirements are.

Speaker 2:

The one that I personally like, and I use a lot with my clients, is something called the ultimate performance test. Just to give you an idea, that is a blood draw. So you do need to arrange to have the blood draw done as well, which MediChex can do for you. Sometimes you can get your nurse at your GP practice to do that for you, or you can get a flabotomist that is, a mobile flabotomist that you can make an appointment for someone to come to your home and do a blood draw. But an ultimate performance test will look at 56 biomarkers in the body. And when you want to look at preventative health which myself and Catherine are all about looking after your health and sometimes it's good to know exactly what's going on in your body. Like I said, I run this test on myself once a year to check, so it tests 56 biomarkers. Just to give you an idea of what that involves. It looks at your adrenal hormones Well, we spoke about the adrenals with regard to stress, so it's going to look at things like your cortisol levels.

Speaker 2:

It looks at all time unity. So it will look at antibodies. It will look at your cholesterol. It will look at clotting status, diabetes check, get your gout risk, hormone levels, inflammation markers, your iron panel, your kidney and your liver health. Here we'll look at proteins in your body, red blood cells, your thyroid, your vitamins, including folate, b12 and vitamin D so that's included on that test and your white blood cells. So it's a very, very comprehensive test there for less than 200 pounds. So just to give you an idea of what's available out there.

Speaker 2:

The good thing about medichecks is that, or thriver, is that when you do a test with them, they you also get a doctor's report alongside, so you can understand and the reports are really, really clear. So if I've got a client in my clinic that has come with some complex issues, I will always run this test, because we're looking at how the body's working on a blood level. I also will run some other tests which I will come on to, but for you it could just be a good check. You know how am I doing with my cholesterol, because we don't wanna find that out later and then be told right well, you've got high cholesterol, so now you need to go on to statins. You don't wanna find out that you're pre-diabetic and just be oblivious to it. So I think it's important to use testing to your advantage and give you that empowerment for your health, so that you can be more in that preventative side of things rather than that reactive side. So the other tests that I would look at doing with my clients and on myself include the hair test. So this might sound a little bit odd to you and you may not have heard of this, but a couple of years ago I got the opportunity to actually take over one of the hair testing companies in this country.

Speaker 2:

I've used hair testing for many years, so if you're listening and you're a client, the chances are that I've run a hair test on you. The hair test is really lovely to do because it's dead easy. For a start, you don't have to go through having a blood draw done. I can do a hair test on children over the age of one, so it's non-invasive and it gives a hell of a lot of information about the body. So our hair is a window into what's happening in our tissues in our body. So we have our minerals and also heavy metals that can build up in the body and it shows up in the hair. The hair testing company that I took over is called Minerals Stay. You can find that on the internet, of course, and, like I said, I've used this test for many years, and then the lady that was running the company asked me if I wanted to take it over, and it's been amazing to do that because I have such a love and passion for this test.

Speaker 2:

Like I said, it's really easy to do because you literally just cut a small section of your hair and send it off. Now we use a full lab analysis for this hair test. So you'll see lots of hair tests out there, but a lot of them will use a bio resonance machine. So this is not that. This is completely different. So we've got a full lab that we analyze the hair in, and what it tells you is it tells you what is happening with the minerals in your body and if you've got any toxins. So toxins might be important for things like fertility. It might be important for helping children that they're on the autistic spectrum or have been diagnosed with things like ADHD.

Speaker 2:

And then we look at the minerals and the relationships between those minerals, because they play a very, very vital role in the body, the minerals that are essential to how our system works. So, to give you an example, one of the mineral relationships that I will look at is zinc and copper. So zinc and copper are involved in the sex hormones, estrogen and progesterone, so they can give me a really good indication on how someone's hormonal system is working, if it's in balance or not. Zinc and copper are also involved in the pathways for the neurotransmitters, so I can have a look there. We also look at the relationship between minerals such as sodium and potassium, which gives us an indication of how well the body is coping with stress, and other minerals that look at how the body is metabolizing and using glucose and how the thyroid is working. So it can give an awful lot of information and it's a very simple test.

Speaker 2:

So, like I said, you just take your hair, you put it in the envelope, provided it gets sent to our lab, and then three weeks later you get a report. The report is really good. It breaks down exactly what is going on in your body, what you need to do, there's some dietary assistance there, and it also gives you an idea of what supplements you need to take. So I really really like the hair testing because it can just give you economical way to look at how your body is working and then know some things to some actions to take. Basically, another test that I will use a lot is a stool test. There might be many reasons why someone would have a stool test. They might have symptoms. That points me towards needing to look at that area.

Speaker 2:

But don't forget that your digestive system and your gut play a key role in your entire health. The vast majority of your immune system is in your gut. Of course, how you digest and break down and absorb your food is going to have an impact on your nutritional status. And then we've got to look at the center of the emotion is in the gut, so that's where we produce our feel good hormone, serotonin. And then we want to look at what is happening with the microbiome in that area because, as I'm sure you've all heard by now, the microbiome is a big subject. With things like the ZoE study going on, we know that the microbiome the good and bad bacteria that might be present in our digestive tracts play a very, very key role in, again, our health how we metabolize things, how we absorb nutrients, our inflammatory response, how our immune systems work in how we detoxify. So so important.

Speaker 2:

And years and years ago, when I was studying for my nutrition degree, my professor who was very naturopathic we always went back to the gut. Everything was back to the gut. I mean, he was so ahead of his time when I think about it now because this was, you know, over 25 years ago now being told about probiotics and prebiotics and the importance of the gut microbiome, and nowadays those terms are used a lot and they're quite common, aren't they? I'm sure you would have heard of that term. So the gut can really give us a window into how our body is working. And, of course, if we've got digestive symptoms happening, then we want to have a look and see what's going on in the gut anyway. And then the other thing to point out is that the skin is also a reflection of the gut. So anybody who's having skin issues, I would definitely want to look at the gut. Anybody who's having allergic histamine type reactions, I would definitely want to look at the gut. Autoimmunity again, I would want to look at the gut. And definitely anything to do with the nervous system, anything to do with anxiety or depression, I would definitely want to go look at the gut.

Speaker 2:

So a stool test is as you would expect. It's a sample of your stool. Again, this is a private home test that you get sent. Your sample collection kit gives you all the instructions. You take your sample and you send it back to the lab and then it is fully analyzed in the lab and then results come back and then you get to find out a lot. So there's a few different companies that I use for stool testing.

Speaker 2:

I wouldn't recommend going for a stool test without having some therapist support, because you're going to need help to interpret that and understand what to do with it. But a stool test unlike the Medi-Chex test where we're looking at under 200 pounds the hair test, by the way, is less than 100 pounds. That's given you a lot of information, which I think is very good value for money. I appreciate that not everyone has access to these things, but if you are able to invest a bit of money into these types of tests, then you're doing a lot to support your health and prevent issues further down the line. If you can get in early because you know what's going on and what's changing, then that can be really amazing. So with the stool test. The prices vary between three to 400 pounds, so a little bit more expensive, but again it can give an awful lot of information and you don't necessarily have to do a stool test every year, but it would be good to know where you're at at least a couple of times, especially if you have got symptoms. Like I said, the stool test can really give you a window into your health, because the gut is everything really as far as health is concerned. We can't be healthy if we haven't got a healthy gut, and lots of people are very compromised because of stress, which we've spoken about. So a stool test is something that would tend to be arranged through someone like myself, and then you would have some support and help in interpreting the results and then understanding what to do to get your gut back into balance.

Speaker 2:

There's another test that I like to use in my clinic. It's called the Oats test and that is a little bit more complex, but it's looking at. It's a urine test, so it takes a sample of your urine and then what it's looking at is the organic acids in your body. Now these are the metabolites, the breakdown and the end process of the chemical reactions that happen. So it can give us an indication of what is happening with things like your detoxification, how your hormones are being broken down, how you're utilizing your vitamins. So I tend to use this on cases that are a little bit more complex, but again, it can give you a lot of information with the support of a therapist who knows how to read and interpret these results. But an organic acids test is gonna cost you a couple of hundred pounds to do so. Again, it's something that you could look into if you're getting some support from a nutritionist or someone like me, just to give you that extra kind of level of interpretation, a level of understanding in your body about how your body is actually operating.

Speaker 2:

It's interesting to note that when we look at blood tests, a lot of the time we're looking at a snapshot in time and the body's very clever. It likes to keep the blood within certain parameters and if we've got anything in the blood that shouldn't be there, the body will tend to try and clear it out. So if you've got symptoms but your blood tests are all coming back normal this is something I see in my clinic a lot of the time then you've gotta look further downstream. Basically, this is where the other tests can really play an important role. So the OATS test is a urine test and it's looking at all these processes in the body on how you're actually metabolizing all of these things that you need to to maintain your health.

Speaker 2:

Now, one of the tests I get asked to do a lot is food intolerance testing. Now, this is a little bit more complex and there's quite a lot of controversy around it. I would say, with regards to food intolerance testing, I think it's a little bit misunderstood. It's definitely not understood by the NHS generally and I don't mean that in a rude way, just in the fact that it's not one of the tests that they generally look at. They might look at intolerance testing for lactose, for example, but they will mostly look at allergic reactions, which is slightly different from the body's perspective to a food intolerance. So food intolerance is can really really help you.

Speaker 2:

If you've got lots of symptoms again and all your blood tests have come back normal, the GP doesn't know quite what to do with you. But you know, something isn't quite right. Now we can do an elimination diet, but that takes a little bit of time and effort, which I know a lot of people don't like to do because it's quite laborious, but a food intolerance test again will take a sample of your blood and then it goes to the lab and it will be exposed to the list of allergens that we've got, and it could be over 200 food spices, the protein inside food we might look at. Depending on your budget and your symptoms. We can look at a lot of different foods and see is there something in your diet that's causing you an issue? And that issue could be digestive related. It could be skin related. Like I said, the gut is a direct or the skin is a direct reflection of the gut a lot of the time. So the skin actually as far as the body's concerned, is the largest organ but it's the least important organ and it's a great place for the body to detoxify. So skin issues we can often see relating to gut problems.

Speaker 2:

But intolerance testing can really help. I've seen it help lots of my clients. It can really allow you to take the pressure off the body whilst you're dealing with the gut healing. So intolerance testing generally well, the results from intolerance testing is generally due to the fact that the body is struggling to deal with that food and it's flagging up an immune response. It's often a delayed onset response, which is why the doctors don't necessarily recognise it. If you think about it, if you're constantly eating something that the body is struggling with and it's having to flag up the immune system to get involved, then you are going to struggle with symptoms, you are going to feel tired and irritable and have problems going to the toilet or going to the toilet too much, and when you take those foods out and do some work on the gut, most of the time you can reintroduce those foods and everything settles down because we're really looking at the environment there. So a stool test and a food intolerance test will often go together.

Speaker 2:

Another test that I do a lot is hormone testing. So hormone testing is, I think, is absolutely essential for you to understand how your body is working, because my understanding and I'll be corrected if I'm wrong, my understanding just from my clients is that at the moment when you go to the doctor and you suspect that you've got hormone changes due to your age and you're looking to be prescribed HRT, there isn't necessarily any testing that's done. It's done on symptoms alone, which I find a little bit concerning, because if we know exactly what's going on with the hormones in the body. Then we know what stage you're at, which stage of perimenopause you're at because there are different stages and then you can use HRT to help you when you know exactly what the numbers are. I would say that I, in my clinic, I see a lot of clients that come to me with perimenopausal symptoms, but, as I've said on previous episodes, a lot of the time it's down to stress and that adrenal response, the adrenals being the boss of the endocrine system.

Speaker 2:

But there's no two ways about it. You know, I'm in my 50s and as we get older, hormone levels are going to change, progesterone is going to go down, estrogen is going to become erratic and we are going to have at some point an imbalance in those hormones, which is completely natural. So when I'm looking at hormone testing, I never want to do not never, because that's actually not true. I tend not to do blood testing for hormones unless I'm looking at a specific goal. For example, I might want to know if I'm working with a fertility client. I might want to know what the estrogen level is on day three of the cycle, for example, but most of the time I will run a test that will cover someone's entire cycle or look at the metabolites of the hormones. So the types of testing I will use will use either saliva or urim, and then we are looking at taking certain samples over the period of a cycle if you've got a cycle still or we will look at the metabolites based on a certain day of the cycle and then we get a lot more information as to how the body's utilizing those hormones.

Speaker 2:

So I use the Dutch test, so some of you might be aware of that. It's a gold standard for hormone testing. Really, it's absolutely brilliant. It's around £250 to have that done at the time of broadcasting this, which is in 2024, of course, prices do change. But to give you an idea, I think if you're going through perimenopause and you're struggling with symptoms like brain fog and mental health issues, fatigue, you can't sleep, you're gaining weight and you haven't changed anything, it's such good value to fully understand how your body's working. Another test I use, which is by a company called Genova, looks at taking a saliva sample over your entire cycle again, so you can see exactly what's happening.

Speaker 2:

So, generally speaking, we should have estrogen in the first half of our cycle and it should gradually climb and then decline and then progesterone kicks in in the second half of our cycle. We want to know exactly. There's a nice curve that happens. We want to know are we within that curve or are we spiking and then dropping? Because a lot of the times when I go through these results with my clients, they will know exactly when that drop happens because they can see it on the test report and they can confirm it with their symptoms and they might say that, yeah, after ovulation I have a total crash. A few days before my period. I am like some kind of crazy woman and they can see that relating to their test results.

Speaker 2:

And then there's so much you can do to help support the hormones once you know exactly what you're dealing with. So I think hormone testing is so, so important and, like I said there, it seems to me and I'm happy to be corrected if need be is that if you go to the GP and you're concerned about your hormones, they will either run the very basic blood tests, which will just look at what's happening in that moment in time, or no testing is done and it's just gone on symptoms. And yeah, unfortunately I've seen a lot of clients that are really struggling, have no idea what's happening with their hormones or have been put on HRT and they just can't get the balance right. And again, this goes back to being empowered with the knowledge of how your body is actually working. So I think it's incredibly important to understand your hormones. Remember your hormones are always trying to help you. I don't mean to cause you all these issues. They're just trying to do their thing and sometimes they need a bit of support from us to help them do what they're supposed to do. And once we know the information from a test, then we can know exactly how to help them. Maybe estrogen is high and we don't need to worry about that, but progesterone is crashing and there are lots of ways that we can help the body to support progesterone levels.

Speaker 2:

The other test that I will do is genetic testing. I absolutely love genetic testing. A few years ago I was able to do some qualifications in genetic testing. It's very important that your therapist is qualified in interpreting genetic testing, because it's very, very complicated and can easily end up being used in the wrong way, I think. But genetic testing I absolutely love because understanding the blueprint of your body or a roadmap, as I like to call it and understanding how various pathways work in your system. Again, I think it's really important. I've had so many clients that have said to me I now understand myself. You know, when you see a pathway that is supposed to be producing progesterone and then you see what an impact stress has on that, or drinking alcohol and you can see that in front of you because your pathway to produce progesterone is really difficult to get down but your stress pathway is really happy, then at least you can understand what's been happening and again, it's empowering because you can then put things in place to help support that pathway.

Speaker 2:

With genetics, there are lots of things that we can do with our diet and our lifestyle and environment to influence the genetics. So I think sometimes it gets a bit confusing and people think well, just because I've got the gene for it means that's that. It's not that. That's not the case at all. You know we tend to say that you can load the gum, you don't have to pull the trigger when we're talking about genetics. But I think understanding how some of the processes in the body work, especially around hormones, the neurotransmitters, how your body detoxifies, lots of things like how your body utilizes, transports and absorbs vitamin D there's a test that I use, called Metabolics. I love talking about metabolic health I think I will have to do a separate episode on that one but it really gives you an amazing amount of information about how your body's working in terms of using food, how it breaks it down, how it makes your energy, how it stores fats, how it deals with sugars, how inflammation works for you, how good your anti-aging is going to be working, your longevity there's a lot of talk around genetics and longevity at the moment, so genetic testing isn't cheap. You're looking at a few hundred pounds for that, but you only need to do that once because your genetics never change, so your genes would be the same from when you were born to whenever you take the test. It's a swab inside your mouth. That's really simple to do and, like I said, I think in my experience working with my clients looking at how their body works, when I'm working with clients, I'm looking at a very personalized plan really, so I want to know exactly how their body's working and of course, that has to include genetics.

Speaker 2:

I need to understand what their blueprint is, their roadmap, and then we use other testing, like the blood tests, like I mentioned first of all, the hair testing, the stool testing. If we need to add other tests, there are a lot of tests available. But I think when you're looking at your overall health and you want to have an understanding of, okay, how am I doing, just having things like your blood pressure checked at the doctor is not really the answer. I think looking at things in a bit more detail can really really help. So looking at something like the Medi-Chex test, looking at the hair test because those are easy things that you could do. You get a report back, you've got an idea. Then if anything comes up on that, you can make an appointment to see someone like me and get some help.

Speaker 2:

I love the idea of looking at the gut. So a stool test to understand your microbiome level, because, again, the gut is the key to most things when we're looking at health. I think it just empowers you with some extra tools to really understand your body and how best to support your health, because at the end of the day, we're all individual and we can guess certain things might help support us. But I think, as a prevention side of things, we've got tools available that will allow us to really look at our health and then enable us to take some action. So if you're someone that's aiming to eat a healthy diet, you're exercising, you're doing all the things, it could be really helpful.

Speaker 2:

I'm going to do another episode on supplements actually and whether you should take them and what to look out for, and it ties in with this really. So if you're someone that's taking supplements, do you need to take those supplements? Are you taking too many or are you not taking enough of a certain nutrient? Everything will really help you to understand what your body actually needs and therefore you can help support your health going forward, and that's the most important thing really. So I hope that's been helpful. It's a little bit different for me talking on my own today so, as I said, I will do another episode looking at supplements, but if you've got any questions or you're interested in testing, then just contact me via the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening.

Julie:

Thank you for keeping us company today. If you enjoyed the podcast, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. Your support helps us on our mission to reach a thousand women in our first year, so share with your friends and family. You might just change your life. Connect with us on social media and make your life easier by joining our podcast link in the list. You'll find the links in the show notes. Your weekly episode will be delivered straight to your inbox every Thursday morning. Make it a fabulous week and we'll catch you in the next episode. Thanks for watching.