One of my favorite things about my job is that I get to ask the question “why” all day long. I’m a naturally curious person, and when I look back at my career path-first a journalist, then working in human resources, and now in nutrition, I can clearly see that the common threads are 1) I like working with people and 2) I’m nosy.
One of the things that intrigues me about functional medicine and nutrition in general, is that we get to figure out the root cause of something and there are a lot of “whys” throughout that journey. Why is it hard for you to lose weight? Why are you getting acid reflux? Why are you so tired? Why are you only going to the bathroom every two days? Only after we figure out the root cause, does it become a lot easier to treat the condition. But clients aren’t always able to give answers to the questions I ask because they honestly don’t know—if they could, then they probably wouldn’t come see me.
I talk a lot with clients who have an overall health goal (for example weight loss) about all the potholes in the road that need to be fixed before we can drive on it (aka lose weight) and one of the potholes that I’ve been noticing in many people’s roadways are micronutrient deficiencies. The fact of the matter is that I can ask a ton of questions and I can make an educated guess on what I think it going on but sometimes it turns out that I only have half (or sometimes none) of the missing puzzle pieces. This is where I love nutrient testing. Let’s say someone comes in for weight loss and they mention they are tired all the time. Your body is the ultimate machine and if one piece is off, it can’t run efficiently. So, I will ask a lot of background and lifestyle questions and may ask about thyroid and iron levels but then they tell me that they just had all their levels checked and they came back normal. Now I’m thinking it may be magnesium or the B vitamins like B3 and folate (these things aren’t normally checked), but before I recommend someone goes out and spends money on a supplement, I want them to get their micros checked so they can know a) if they are supplementing with the right thing and b) what dose should they be taking?
I’ll use myself as an example. When I first started with the testing company I’m using, I obviously wanted to test myself first so I could know how it would work for clients. I take a good quality multivitamin and overall eat pretty well and try to be balanced, but I had been tired lately and my skin had started to break out in the recent months, so I was anxious to see what the test said. Turns out, I was deficient in zinc, coQ10 and some of the B vitamins—which are fairly common deficiencies but specific enough that they hadn’t been on my radar to look for. And although I take a multivitamin, it wasn’t giving me the levels I needed. Within a month of supplementation, my energy came back and my skin hasn’t broken out since-pretty cool!
Don’t get me wrong, in no way is micronutrient testing essential, but I think it’s a great place to start for many people. And if you are someone who is spending lots of money each month on supplements, I think it’s a really smart idea because you could be wasting money on stuff you don’t need.
And because I love my transportation analogies, I’ll leave you with one more. I tell people to look at micronutrient testing like this. When you come to see me, you are usually at a health journey crossroads. Can I get you to where you want to go? Yes, but sometimes we may have to backtrack down one road and go down another before we reach your goal and may have to do that several times. Not a big deal, we will still get there. But micronutrient testing often enables us to know which road to take first and also how to fill in the potholes on that road. Will you still have to take a journey to reach your goal? Of course you will, because most things are a process and take time. But you sure can travel on your journey a whole lot faster with a smooth road in front of you.
