FUNCTIONAL LAB TESTING
At NWHS, we offer Functional Lab Testing for our existing clients looking to enhance their health as well as for preventative health purposes. Functional Lab Testing is another form of testing to help dive deeper and gather information about your health and body to assist in determining: the root causes to your symptoms, toxicities, organ dysfunction, pathogens, nutritional deficiencies and more. This form of testing is offered in a series of: blood, saliva, urine as well as stool lab testing to help determine the underlying causes of ill or non-optimal health to help bring your body and mind back into a state of balance and harmony.
NWHS Functional Lab Tests:
*Comprehensive Blood Work
*GI Map Stool Test
*MRT Food Sensitivity Test
*Saliva + Urine Hormone Testing
*SIBO Testing
Functional Lab Tests details:
Comprehensive Blood Work Testing: This comprehensive blood work panel provides an expansive marker list providing crucial details about your health and well-being. Markers and blood work results will include key data regarding your: blood sugar handling, immune system, cardiovascular disease, liver/gallbladder function, kidney function, thyroid function, anemia, vitamin D, as well as key nutritional deficiencies.
Blood work markers tested include:
• C-Reactive Protein (CRP)
• CBC (includes Differential and Platelets)
• Comprehensive Metabolic Panel
• Ferritin
• Gamma Glutamyl Transferase (GGT)
• Hemoglobin A1c
• Homocysteine
• hs-CRP
• Insulin
• Iron, Total and Total Iron Binding Capacity
• Lactate Dehydrogenase (LD)
• Lipid Panel
• Magnesium
• Phosphate
• T3, Free (FT3)
• T3, Reverse, LC/MS/MS
• T4, Free (FT4)
• THYROID PANEL & TSH;Includes TSH ; PROFILE - T4* ; Total T3
• Thyroid Peroxidase and Thyroglobulin Antibodies
• Uric Acid
• Vitamin D, 25-Hydroxy, Total, Immunoassay
GI Map Stool Test: great for those dealing with chronic digestive or health issues, hormonal imbalances, and more. The health of your gut impacts the health of your entire body and hormone levels. Other key health challenges that can greatly benefit from the GI Map Testing are autoimmune diseases, brain fog, skin problems like acne and psoriasis, mood disorders, depression and anxiety, diabetes and weight loss issues. This is an at home stool test you can purchase at NWHS or can be shipped to you. Once the at-home stool test is complete, specimen is to be Fedexed to the lab for testing (test kit comes with pre-paid for Fedex shipping bag). You will receive a call from our office when your results are in to set up a consultation to review your results and go over a treatment plan that will include dietary, lifestyle as well as supplemental recommendations as needed. We highly recommend doing the GI Map + MRT Blood Food Testing together at the same time for optimal results. The GI Map and MRT Food Sensitivity Test should be completed within a few weeks or less of each other.
Who is the G.I Map Stool Test for?
The G.I. Map stool test can be performed at any age and be used for those suffering from an array of health issues and medical conditions. Examples include: digestion problems like constipation, bloating, diarrhea, gas, acid reflux, irritable bowel disease or “IBS”, heart disease, thyroid issues, hormone imbalances and autoimmune diseases.
The G.I Map Test measures:
Viruses, bacteria, inflammation, fungi, parasites, pancreatic function, immune function, zonulin, elastase, occult blood, SIgA, secretory IgA, anti-gliadin IgA, fat absorption and B-glucuronidase.
The benefits of the G.I. Map Test
What’s good about the G.I. Map Stool Test is that it is something that you can do at home and has a higher accuracy rate compared to conventional stool testing due to its innovative technology. In addition, this test gives a big picture view of what is occurring in the gut microbiome while also assessing other health markers making it possible to also analyze inflammation and immunity. With the help of this at home test, your stool will be used in determining if there are certain pathogenic organisms within your body that might cause you to suffer from illnesses linked to digestive conditions, hormonal imbalances, autoimmune problems, and most chronic conditions can be influenced by your gut bacteria.
MRT Food Sensitivity Testing: this is a blood test you can purchase at NWHS and get your blood drawn at your nearest Carewell Center located all throughout New England. This test shows in detail the response of the top foods and chemicals in your body. You can be allergic or sensitive to healthy foods, not just the known top food allergens. This test is key for customizing what you should and should not be eating for optimal health and wellness. When your body is sensitive to a food or chemical, your body will produce an inflammatory response that you either feel symptomatically or it can go on internally with no warning signals. This can dramatically negatively impact your overall health by negatively affecting your energy, mood, digestive tract, hormones and weight. We highly recommend doing the GI Map + MRT Blood Testing together at the same time for optimal results. The GI Map and MRT Food Sensitivity Test should be completed within a few weeks or less of each other.
Hormone Testing: these are at home saliva and urine hormone testing kits you can purchase at NWHS to assess your overall hormonal and endocrine system. The first step in achieving hormonal balance is through diet and lifestyle changes (proper exercise, sleep, managing stress as well as fueling your body with the proper foods), and to truly balance your hormones we recommend doing the GI Map + MRT Blood Tests first as the majority of our hormones are synthesized in the gut. Fixing your gut can many times balance your hormones and then there is no need for further hormone testing. There are a variety of hormone tests that can be performed based on whether you are a male and or female who is cycling, menopausal or post-menopausal.
When inquiring about hormone testing: please send an email and include your age, sex, current symptoms, whether you are cycling, menopausal or post-menopausal as well as your current symptoms. You will receive an email back on which hormone testing is best for you as well as associated costs.
SIBO Testing: SIBO testing is offered through a breath test to help determine if Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth is present. GI Map + MRT Food Sensitivity Testing is always recommended first before any SIBO testing. SIBO Profiles are non-invasive breath tests which capture exhaled hydrogen (H2) and methane (CH4) gases following patient ingestion of a lactulose solution to evaluate bacterial overgrowth of the small intestine. Symptoms of SIBO are non-specific, encompassing abdominal pain/distention, diarrhea, and flatulence.
Conditions commonly associated with SIBO include:
IBS
IBD
Celiac Disease
Diabetes
Fibromyalgia
Rosacea
Parkinson's Disease
Obesity
See Below For More gi map and mrt food sensitivity Information + Instructions
GI-MAP Testing
The Gastrointestinal Microbial Assay Plus or “GI-MAP test”, is an at home testing kit and is one of the newest advances to the list of the most sought-after medical tests today. The chief goal of this test is to use one stool sample to examine your overall digestive function which is a key factor in our overall health as many diseases and medical conditions today originate in the gut.
G.I.-Map Instructions
Please review all instructions carefully before collecting your at home stool sample. For payment, please leave blank as you already purchased this test through NWHS and check off the first box “GI-MAP (includes GI Pathogens and H. Pylori).”
Please stop all probiotics 2 weeks prior to testing and all other supplements 1 week prior to testing. If antibiotics have been taken, wait two weeks before doing the test.
Ingest 70-100 grams of fat each day for three days prior to collection. This would be 2-3 tablespoons of added fat or oil to each meal in the day. For example, a salad with 1/2 an avocado, a small handful of nuts, and a salad dressing with at least 1 tbsp. olive oil in it would be 2-3 tablespoons of added fat.
If you want to know if you have a reaction to gluten, be sure to have at least three servings of bread, pasta or other gluten-containing grains during the week before collecting your stool specimen.
All prescription medications should be continued as normal during the collection process.
Do not collect your sample while menstruating as blood is a contaminant that will void the test. Be sure to write your name and date of birth on all vials.
Please plan the timing so that you mail it to the lab on a Monday or Tuesday. This ensures the specimen is viable when it reaches the lab.
If you need to take something in order to defecate, you can drink senna tea.
You will find a prepaid FedEx sticker inside the kit to mail to mail the specimen to the lab. Simply drop it at any FedEx pick up facility.
Please see instructions inside testing kit for more information.
Mrt food sensitivity testing
MRT® is a functional measurement of diet-induced sensitivity pathways. MRT® simplifies a highly complex reaction and translates that into the most useable clinical information you can get – quantifying the inflammatory response to foods and food-chemicals.
Not only does MRT® give insight into inflammation provoking foods and food-chemicals, but more importantly MRT® identifies the BEST foods you should be eating.
Simply put, MRT® gives you information you can’t get any other way, and that information directly translates into targeted therapy that matters.
MRT® is the foundation of fully addressing food sensitivities and achieving the maximum outcomes in the shortest period of time.
Medical Conditions Where Food Sensitivities Can Play a Primary or Secondary Role:
Gastrointestinal
Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Functional Diarrhea
GERD
Crohn’s Disease
Ulcerative Colitis
Microscopic Colitis
Lymphocytic Colitis
Cyclic Vomiting Syndrome
Neurological
Migraine
ADD/ADHD
Autism Spectrum Disorders
Epilepsy
Depression
Insomnia
Restless Leg Syndrome
Musculoskeletal
Figromyalgia
Inflammatory Arthritis
Dermatological
Atopic Dermatitis
Urticaria
Psoriasis
Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Urological
Interstitial Cystitis
Endocrine
Obesity
Gynecological
Polycystic Ovary Syndrome
MRT Instructions:
For the MRT food testing, please read the directions in the box carefully and fill out all requested information. For payment, please leave blank as you already purchased this test through NWHS. Under “Select MRT Profile,” please check off “MRT 170.” Please go to www.nowleap.com/draw-locator to find a lab near you who draws blood specifically for MRT testing. You can walk in or set up an appointment ahead of time. You may want to call to verify that they provide phlebotomy services before you go, as sometimes policies can change, and we are not notified.
As directed in the instructions, bring your MRT kit with you and plan on getting your blood drawn preferably on a Monday or Tuesday to ensure it gets to the lab before the weekend. You do NOT need to be fasting for this test and can eat normally prior. For a local location, we use Carewell in Lexington, MA. There is a small co-payment of usually $20 - $40 for them to draw your blood and then they FedEx it out for you after they draw your blood.
For the best results, we always recommend doing the MRT + the GI MAP tests together to help identify the reactive foods and the specific gut issues for optimal healing.
Our goal is to remove the food triggers and immediately heal the intestinal terrain so you do not develop new adverse food reactions. Here’s the opposite scenario: if all we did was a GI stool test, we may get some resolution but we would be entirely missing the foods that are causing inflammation, irritating that gut lining and exacerbating the situation. At best this would slow down the healing process significantly and prevent full healing; at worse it would block our ability to fully help.
Mediator Release Test “MRT”
Testing offered to NWHS clients only. Test kit sold at NWHS and blood drawn outside of NWHS. To find a local lab to have your blood drawn, please click here: www.nowleap.com/draw-locator.
Why MRT® is the Most Complete Blood Test for Food Sensitivities:
Despite all of the clinical and immunologic complexities associated with food sensitivities, the single common component of all diet-induced inflammatory reactions is proinflammatory and proalgesic mediator release from white cells. It’s the release of cytokines, histamine, leukotrienes, prostaglandins, etc., from neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils and lymphocytes that lead to all the negative clinical effects a food sensitivity sufferer endures. This is true under all of the numerous immunologic circumstances and clinical circumstances associated with food sensitivities. Because of the vast array of potential mediators and reacting cells, measuring volumetric changes in all circulating white cells after antigen challenge is the most logical, direct, comprehensive and functional measure of food sensitivity reactions. It simply makes the most sense.
Research on MRT® confirms this. Studies with the University of Miami and research presented at major medical conferences show that MRT® is able to distinguish between symptomatic and asymptomatic populations, that MRT® correlates with inflammation and symptoms, that diets based on MRT® show significant symptom reduction, and that MRT® has excellent real-world reproducibility.
Conversely, a large body of research has shown that elevated mechanisms in food sensitivity, such as food-specific IgG or immune complexes, do not reliably correlate with inflammation or symptoms.
Mediator release is the key event that leads to every negative effect people suffer from. What matters clinically is that mediator release, and thus an inflammatory response has occurred – not that a potential mechanism is elevated.
This is the clinical value of MRT®. MRT® is a functional measurement of diet-induced sensitivity pathways. MRT® simplifies a highly complex reaction and translates that into the most useable clinical information you can get – quantifying the inflammatory response to foods and food-chemicals.
Not only does MRT® give insight into inflammation provoking foods and food-chemicals, but more importantly MRT® identifies the BEST foods you should be eating.
Simply put, MRT® gives you information you can’t get any other way, and that information directly translates into targeted therapy that matters.
MRT® is the foundation of fully addressing food sensitivities and achieving the maximum outcomes in the shortest period of time.
Understanding Food Sensitivity
There are 3 categories of diet-induced inflammatory reactions: Food Allergy, Food-Induced Autoimmune Disease, and Food Sensitivities. Of the 3, food sensitivities are the most prevalent.
Food and food-chemical sensitivities are highly complex non-allergic (non-IgE), non-celiac inflammatory reactions. They follow multiple inflammatory pathways and may be governed by either innate or adaptive immune mechanisms. They’re one of the most important sources of inflammation and symptoms across a wide range of chronic inflammatory conditions. They are also one of the most clinically challenging.
Due to their inherent clinical and immunologic complexities, as well as a lack of general knowledge within conventional medicine of their role as a source of inflammation in IBS, migraine, fibromyalgia, arthritis, GERD, obesity, metabolic syndrome, ADD/ADHD, autism, etc., food and food-chemical sensitivities remain one of the most under addressed areas of conventional medicine.
Clinical Complexities
Food and food-chemical sensitivities have clinical characteristics that make it very challenging to identify trigger foods. For example, symptom manifestation may be delayed by many hours after ingestion; reactions may be dose dependent; because of a breakdown of oral tolerance mechanisms, there are often many reactive foods and food-chemicals; even so-called anti-inflammatory foods, such as salmon, parsley, turmeric, ginger, blueberry, and any “healthy” food can be reactive.
Immunologic Complexities
Recent research into adverse reactions to gluten has uncovered a new form of diet-induced inflammation termed “non-celiac gluten sensitivity” (or GS). Gluten sensitivity is 6-8 times more prevalent than celiac disease, can provoke a wide range of clinical symptoms, and has been proven to activate the innate immune system, a branch of the immune system that has been almost completely neglected for years by researchers as a source of diet-induced inflammation and symptoms. But gluten is just one potential piece of the puzzle. As stated previously, any food can trigger an inflammatory response, even so-called anti-inflammatory foods. The key is to know which specific foods and food-chemicals are triggering reactions in each specific patient. That’s the beginning of the best way to design an eating plan that will produce the maximum clinical benefit.
Common Feature of Food Sensitivities
The single common feature of all diet-induced inflammatory reactions is that they ultimately cause mediator release (cytokines, leukotrienes, prostaglandins, etc.) from various white blood cells (neutrophils, monocytes, eosinophils, lymphocytes). This is true whether reactions are immediate or delayed, whether dose dependent or not, whether governed by the innate or adaptive immune systems, whether cell-mediated or humorally-mediated, and whether inflammation remains at a sub-clinical level or becomes clinically symptom-provoking. All food-induced inflammatory reactions involve mediator release, which is the single most important event leading to all the negative effects people suffer from, including symptom generation. Information from: https://nowleap.com/the-patented-mediator-release-test-mrt/