If you ask any practitioner, they will tell you that the more data they can gather on a client, the better of a picture they can build of their overall health, thus the more effective and personalised the protocols will be.
That’s in a perfect world, of course. In the real world, we want to use as few tests as feasible, so the client can invest their finite resources into other aspects of the health-building program, such as high-quality food and supplements, and various other lifestyle and environment enhancements (e.g. shower filters, air purifiers, etc.)
Since gastrointestinal (GI) imbalances are extremely common in autism, evaluating gut function is one of the most critical parts of the health consulting process. Understanding the state of the gut removes guessing and trial-and-error, which can be costly and frustrating.
If we can get the gut working well, a lot of other functions work better in the body.
As I write in my book Autism Wellbeing Plan: How to Get Your Child Healthy, research has shown gut dysfunction in autistic children can manifest as sleep problems, anxiety, irritability, aggression, tics, and even self-injurious behaviour.
As one study put it:
The strong correlation of gastrointestinal symptoms with autism severity indicates that children with more severe autism are likely to have more severe gastrointestinal symptoms and vice versa. It is possible that autism symptoms are exacerbated or even partially due to the underlying gastrointestinal problems.
Below are the two best tests to use to evaluate gut function in autistic children and those with gut dysfunction that do not have a diagnosis.
The GI-MAP stool test
The GI-MAP (Gastrointestinal Microbial Assay Plus) is a comprehensive stool test that provides useful insights into the gut microbiome and gastrointestinal (GI) health. This test analyzes the DNA of pathogens, bacteria (including comensal “friendly” species , fungi, and parasites, present in the gut, offering detailed information about the microbial balance and potential infections. It also includes several markers for GI health.
The GI-MAP is easy to collect at home, which makes it especially convenient with younger children where collecting a urine sample can be cumbersome. The test is delivered to your door and picked up by courier.
Organic Acids Test
The Organic Acids Test (OAT) is a comprehensive metabolic test that provides valuable insights into various aspects of health, including gut health, nutrient status (e.g. B-vitamins) detoxification capacity, oxalates, and neurotransmitter metabolism. This test analyzes the levels of organic acids in urine, which are metabolic byproducts produced in the body’s biochemical pathways.
The OAT can reveal imbalances in gut flora, markers of yeast (e.g. Candida) and fungal overgrowth, bacterial markers (including various Clostridia species) nutritional deficiencies, indicators of detoxification capacity, neurotransmitter metabolism, oxalate metabolites, and mitochondrial markers.
If you need help
If you would like to work with me to improve your child’s gut function, please schedule a free intro call to discuss your situation and see how I can help you.
On this episode of the Connecting Minds podcast we welcome Dr Amber Krogsrud.
She shares a TON of her insights on women’s health and using peptides and other supplements such as NAD to address health issues and optimize wellness.
This episode is obviously super-informative for women but is also essential listening for guys who have women in their lives and they care about their health!
Dr Amber’s Bio:
Since 2017, Dr. Amber has been a member of MindShare an esteemed business network created by JJ Virgin, based in San Diego. To give back of her knowledge, she also serves as a Professional TA at Bastyr University teaching IV therapy classes to students. Apart of her passion is formulating new products for medical use. As so, Dr. Amber is serves as a Chief Science Officer (CSO) and medical advisor to Culture For Good, a company that is creating medical-grade, therapeutically dosed CBD products for skincare and internal use. She offers consults on CBD and emphasizes therapeutic dosing.
Regenerative medicine also became a passion during medical training. She has trained with some of the top doctors in the field of regenerative medicine such as Dr. Matthew Caviola and Dr. Tyna Moore. She’s had every major joint in her body injected with prolotherapy, administered PRP intraarticularly and using a PRP facial rejuvenation pen.
Dr. Amber uses a unique, personalized medicine approach with her patients. She views each patient as a whole person rather than a set of symptoms and diagnoses. The human body has an innate ability to heal itself when given the right circumstances. Dr. Amber uses a blend of naturopathic treatments to facilitate robust health including nutritional counseling, targeted supplementation, detoxification, bio-identical hormone replacement therapy, intramuscular injections, and intravenous (IV) therapy. She welcomes men and women of all ages into her practice. Dr. Amber has a passion for teaching and takes her time to ensure that each patients fully understands her approach and the treatment plans. Her areas of expertise include anxiety, ADHD, skin conditions, migraines, digestive disorders, hormone imbalances, and allergic conditions of all kinds.
On this episode of Connecting Minds I have a chat with Reed Davis, founder and CEO of Functional Diagnostic Nutrition – one of the most advanced health coaching certifications in the world.
We talk about what Functional Diagnostic Nutrition (FDN) is, it’s philosophy and methodology, and how to use functional lab testing to identify hidden metabolic imbalances and health challenges that can lead to all kinds of health problems.
I can wholeheartedly say that learning and using FDN made a DRAMATIC improvement in my health… Join us to hear more about it!
In this episode of Connecting Minds I had the honour to chat with Brendan Vermiere.
Brendan is a Functional Medicine Consultant, Board Certified Holistic Health Practitioner, Master Nutrition Coach, Master Personal Trainer, USAW Sports Performance Coach, and Crossfit Certified Trainer.
He began his career as a personal trainer and nutrition coach at the age of 19 after disappointingly being medically discharged from the United States Navy Seal training pipeline due to an injury. After being exposed to the power of functional lab testing in the start of his career, he began intensely pursuing that as a career path which has led him to be widely regarded as one of the top leading experts in Metabolic Health and Holistic Education.
In our discussion we cover a number of topics related to health and mental well-being as well the functional health paradigm.
The need for a sense of purpose and how it can affect our mental health.
Brendan’s personal struggles with mental health and how he overcame them.
The psychological and physical sides of mental health.
Every condition has a physiological component.
The poor management of mental health issues by conventional health care.
Inflammation drives a lot of mental health issues including depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, , bipolar, and neurodegenerative disorders
Our lifestyle and environment is a major factor driving inflammation.
Our thoughts become proteins – physiology follows our psychology. Stress in our mind triggers stress hormones and other molecules that can contribute to (or even trigger) health issues.
Reframing our belief systems, focusing on positive thoughts, and thus influencing neuroplasticity and neurogenesis results in our physiology following suit in positive ways.
Focusing on psychology will only take you so far. No amount of mental work will address unidentified metabolic and and health imbalances such as food sensitivities, or gut pathogens/infections that cause inflammation.
Inflammation and oxidative stress are the two major drivers to pathology. They cause damage and degeneration in the body that may lead to a myriad of symptoms and illnesses.
Our current environment is highly conducive to excess oxidative stress – heavy metals, toxic chemicals and infections can contribute to it.
Many of us are not consuming enough of the nutrients needed to combat excess oxidation reactions in the body.
EMFs such as Wi-Fi can increase oxidative reactions.
The functional paradigm focuses on reducing inflammation and oxidative stress.
Over time, chronic low-grade inflammation contributes to faster ageing and gradual immune system suppression.
I can now run an at-home stool-collection test for my clients that measures levels of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
While this test is a great response to a market need from a highly reputable lab (Diagnostic Solutions Lab), I would argue that very few people, if any, would need to run it.
Why? Because at ~$160, there are a TON of other useful tests that you could run that will have infinitely more value to you.
In this post, I will go over a couple of them and show you that most of us are fearing extremely low-probability problems while we remain ignorant of extremely prevalent, high-probability issues that affect large swathes of the population.
And they could be causing you health distress as we speak, without you knowing it.
Let’s go over a few of them right now.
(Non-viral) Pathogens
Ever hear of a little yeast called Candida? Of course you have.
We all live with them, and they are not a problem if our immune defences are in order. Unfortunately, Candida overgrowth is highly prevalent, and it causes subtle, but nonetheless serious, health issues over time.
Heck, even I have the bastards running rampant. This is from a stool test I did in April 2019:
Here’s the crazy part: yeasts are difficult to detect, even on the high-quality test I ran (read more about stool testing and the GI-MAP here).
This means that I had a BOATLOAD of Candida for it even show up on the test.
So, I did a lengthy pathogen eradication protocol after that stool test with various herbs and probiotics.
Fast-forward 10 months. Here is part of a food sensitivity test I ran in February 2020. It shows detected levels of IgG antibodies to various foods, as well as a few yeasts:
As you can see, Candida Albicans is in the yellow, which is low, relatively speaking.
However, most of the markers on that test were extremely low for me, indicating a very low immune response to the foods tested.
This is great, of course, it means the gut barrier is healthy and the immune system is not over-activated.
But it seems like Candida is still around and doing it’s thing, though probably not as much as before.
Now, imagine what it must be like for others who are not even aware that yeast overgrowth could be an issue for them? They haven’t even considered doing any herbal protocols to reduce Candida numbers.
Of course, yeasts are only one of many other virulent organisms that are damaging countless people’s health. Other common pathogens we live with include bacteria, protozoa, and parasites.
These little critters will undermine your health, often without you knowing it, for a long time unless you identify and oust them.
That stool test I ran in April 2019 also showed two parasites and several pathogenic and opportunistic bacteria to be present in my gut. Interestingly, I felt fine at the time I took the sample.
What does that tell us? It means that you won’t necessarily have gut symptoms if you have a pathogenic infection or overgrowth. But it doesn’t mean that your immune system isn’t fighting a silent war that will
For a more in-depth look into the topic, see my article Testing for Gut Pathogens 101. In there I have a list of factors that can help inform your decision whether running a gut pathogen screening is right for you.
Hormonal Imbalances
Can you imagine a 32-year-old man having lower testosterone than a 60-year-old?
I don’t have to imagine it, because that was me in March 2019:
My testosterone was lower than the bottom of the range for men twice my age.
Crazy, right?
At the time of the test, I didn’t feel bad, per se. In fact, after seeing the test results, I called up the lab asking whether it could be a mistake. It wasn’t.
I couldn’t get it. I was eating only high-quality organic food. Going to bed at a reasonable hour. Had low levels of perceived stress. I was feeling OK. Certainly not what I thought “lower than the range for sixty-year-olds” would feel like.
In hindsight, though, I remember that I was going to bed earlier than usual. My energy levels were not great. I felt like I was forcing myself to exercise – it was a struggle, certainly not fun. And I was drinking a lot more coffee than usual.
It wasn’t just my testosterone that was rock bottom – all my androgens and estrogens were low on that test. But my stress hormone cortisol was way high:
Remember, I had low levels of perceived stress at the time. So what the heck was causing the high cortisol output?
This goes back to our previous discussion of pathogens. They cause internal stress in the body. Inflammation, immune reactivity, poor sleep, low energy levels, and many other issues can be attributed to nasty bugs running rampant in your gut, including hormonal imbalances.
In fact, running that hormone test is what prompted me to test for gut pathogens in the first place.
Think for a moment. How many people are living like this right now? How many of us are propping ourselves up with stimulants? Self-medicating. Ignoring subtle, and sometimes not-so-subtle, warning signs our bodies are sending us.
I hope that I can at least educate you about these all-too-common issues, so that you’re better able to spot and address them, if they are a problem for you.
Check out my article on Advanced Hormone Testing for more information on testing your sex and adrenal hormones.
Heavy Metal and Chemical Toxicity
Here is another ubiquitous problem. If you think you are not harbouring substantial amounts of heavy metals and chemical toxins in your body, I’m afraid I have news for you.
Every single person whose hair I’ve had tested, between the ages of two to 58, has at the very least had significant amounts of aluminium and mercury coming out of them.
What’s more, the less-healthy folks had less toxic metal excretion than the healthier ones. This is evidently because their bodies’ detoxification capacities are less able to deal with the onslaught.
And as people get healthier, I see them excrete more and more toxic metals, which is of course a good thing.
Here are my results over March to September 2019, where I was actively working on boosting my detoxification pathways:
As you can see, each hair test show higher levels of aluminium and mercury excretion.
It started to dip around December, which may be because my body had dumped a significant amount of metals, or maybe because I took the foot off the pedal in terms of actively working to detox metals.
What’s the moral of the story?
You need to:
Not bury your head in the sand – acknowledge that we live in the most polluted time of human existence.
Work to reduce your exposures to toxic compounds (future articles will cover that).
Improve your body’s detoxification capacities using nutritional strategies (will also be covered in future articles).
Use a sauna to aid detoxification as often as feasible for you.
I won’t even go into all the horrors of my last chemical toxicity test. Let’s just say that living in a small town by the ocean, away from big city pollution, and trying to minimise use of plastics wasn’t enough. There were still a number of nasty chemical toxins detected in my urine.
Here is a taster.
Petrol additives:
Toxins from plastics manufacture and car exhaust fumes:
Organic solvents (off the charts!):
On the other hand, here is proof that an all-organic diet is worth the extra cost:
Conclusion
To sum up this post, I would argue that we need to put a LOT more emphasis on cleaning up our diet and environment, making sure our guts are free from pathogens, and balancing our hormones.
This is the real pandemic. Look at the current health statistics if you doubt that statement.
Instead of running frivolous tests for things that are extremely unlikely to affect them, people need to learn the value of functional lab tests that can actually give them data on how to truly improve their health, longevity, and mental performance.
If you want to learn more about how I can help you reach unprecedented levels of wellbeing, I offer limited weekly 30-minute consultations. Book yours below:
If your sex or adrenal hormones are out of whack, you’re not going to be at your optimal.
But if you wait until you feel like crap to do something about it (what 99% of people do), significant dysfunction and damage has already been occurring deeper down in your body for months and years.
I teach my clients to be proactive about their health. This is the key to long-lasting mental faculties and vitality. You want to identify hidden metabolic problems as soon as possible and balance them.
The analogy is: you don’t wait for your car to break down before you have it checked, do you? No! You get it inspected every year, without fail!
Isn’t it a sad state of affairs? Most people take better care of their cars than their bodies. Then they chalk up their health problems to genetics (“oh, it runs in my family”) or their age (“what do you expect, I’m X years old…”).
No, you just have not been taught a better way. Yet.
When Would You Test Your Hormones?
Your hormones affect every aspect of your life, and imbalances can cause you minor or major health issues. Getting them balanced is key to optimal health and mental performance.
Most often people have their hormones tested when they are experiencing some sort of complaint:
Fatigue
Stress
Insomnia
Low libido
Mood swings
PMS (women)
Erectile issues (men)
Fertility issues
Low motivation
In these instances, the information provided by hormone testing is, of course, invaluable. Other instances where sex and adrenal hormone testing is useful include:
But as I already said, you shouldn’t necessarily wait until you have significant symptoms or complaints before you take positive actions to improve your health.
You may be entering a new phase of life, or simply may not be feeling at your best. Or you may want to go from good to great and are seeking ways to optimise your health.
Whatever your motivation is for looking deeper into your physiology, I’m about to show you the best way to go about it.
Testing Your Hormones with the DUTCH Test
The DUTCH Complete Test (Dried Urine Test For Comprehensive Hormones) is the most advanced hormone test on the market.
With it, we can glean insights into your androgens and estrogens (sex hormones), and stress hormones such as cortisol. There are even markers on the test for DNA damage, melatonin (the sleep-inducing hormone), vitamin B6 and B12, and a couple of neurotransmitters.
You take the test samples at home by urinating on a strip of paper four or five times in a 24-hour period, after which you send them to the lab for analysis. As convenient as it gets.
Let me take you on a quick tour of the most interesting parts of the test.
Adrenals – Cortisol and DHEA-S
Diurnal Cortisol Pattern
Let’s start with your adrenals. Your cortisol (one of your primary stress hormones) follows a daily pattern. It is highest in the morning (to “get you going”), peaking about an hour after you wake up. It then gradually tapers down during the day, with the lowest levels occurring between 3 to 5 hours after you fall asleep.
You want to maintain this rhythm as much as possible, but naturally, life stresses can disrupt it. The DUTCH test maps your daily free cortisol pattern (see picture) and shows where you are in the range for your age.
If your daily free cortisol pattern is irregular (too high or low at the wrong times), it’s worth investigating further because often times there are lifestyle tweaks we can use to improve it.
If your cortisol is too low in the morning, you will have trouble waking up and having a productive day. If it’s too high in the evening, you’ll have trouble falling asleep, or staying asleep. And we know how that can turn into a vicious cycle.
Metabolised Cortisol
Your metabolised cortisol amounts to about 80% of your total cortisol production. Why is this useful? Knowing your total cortisol output and correlating it to your current and past stress levels can tell us a lot about the state of your adrenal glands, as you’ll see below.
Some basic examples where this data is useful:
If your free cortisol is elevated, it signals that you are under stress, of course. However, when your own perceived levels of stress are not very high, it could signal a hidden stressor (e.g. an infection or inflammation).
If you’re under considerable stress but your total and free cortisol output are low – it could signal that you are burning out or have dysfunction with your Hypothalamus-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) axis.
If your free cortisol is elevated in the evening, it could be due to a stressor (internal or external) which may also cause disrupted sleep. These stressors could include things like food sensitivities, gut pathogens, blood-sugar imbalances, chemical or heavy metal toxicity, or lifestyle factors such as work or relationship stresses.
If your free cortisol rises during the night, it could signal a gut infection (e.g. parasites) or potential blood-sugar regulation issues.
DHEA-S
DHEA (dehydroepiandrosterone) is the most abundant anabolic hormone in your body and is mainly produced in your adrenal glands. It is a counter-regulatory hormone of sorts to cortisol, which is catabolic in nature (it breaks down tissue including muscle to raise blood sugar). Low levels of DHEA-S are an early warning of HPA axis/adrenal dysfunction (which leads to or contributes to many, if not most, disorders and diseases). It’s often very low in people with chronic stress and may lead to further chronic stress-related disorders if left unchecked.
Sex Hormones and Metabolites
Your androgens are your anabolic hormones – they signal your body to build tissue and stimulate growth. While they are much higher in men, both sexes need to maintain adequate levels of androgenic hormones.
The 5α/5ß-Reductase Pathways and their Preference in Your Body
The DUTCH Complete shows you whether there is a preference for the “5α-reductase” or “5ß-reductase” pathway in your body. The 5α pathway is known to be more androgenic.
Why is that important?
In women, a 5α-reductase preference can cause side effects such as hair loss, hirsutism (hair growth in places you don’t want e.g. chin or chest), acne, mood swings, and PCOS.
In men, too much preference for the 5α pathway in the body can cause male pattern baldness, mood swings, and prostate issues.
The key is balance. Knowing which side of the pendulum your body is in can be helpful for your practitioner to guide you in balancing your androgens.
Estrogens and their Metabolism
Testosterone gets aromatised into the estrogens, the primary ones being:
Estrone (E1)
Estradiol (E2)
Estriol (E3)
Your normal hormone metabolism requires estrogens to be metabolised and detoxified through certain pathways, some of which are considered healthy. Other pathways are not-so-healthy, therefore knowing how you’re metabolising your hormones will allow you to take preemptive action when you see significant imbalances in their metabolism.
The DUTCH Complete report shows you your estrogen levels, as well as which pathways are used to detoxify them.
E1 and E2 both go through Phase 1 detoxification. Phase 1 detoxification has three pathways it can go through (2-OH-E1, 4-OH-E1, 16-OH-E1). You can see them mapped out below.
The 4-OH-E1 pathway (red arrows), if over-used and not properly detoxified, can lead to DNA damage (which can be carcinogenic). This is something we want to avoid if we can help it.
Phase 2 detoxification goes through the 2-Methoxy-E1 pathway where the COMT enzyme plays a role. If your COMT gene is slowed down due to genetic variations or other environmental factors, your ability to complete the detoxification pathway may be impaired. Again, having this information is helpful for your practitioner, as it will allow them to address any imbalances like this.
Other Valuable Data from the DUTCH Complete
The data provided by the DUTCH Complete so far is already incredible, especially for a test you can do at home. But the folks at Precision Analytical didn’t stop there. The also decided to include some organic acids which can give you information about some of your neurotransmitters, status of certain vitamins, and more.
Briefly, these markers are for:
Methylmalonate (MMA) – A vitamin B12 marker. When elevated, it signals a vitamin B12 deficiency.
Xanthurenate – A vitamin B6 marker. When elevated, it signals a vitamin B6 deficiency.
Pyroglutamate – A marker for your Glutathione status. Glutathione is your primary cellular antioxidant, involved detoxification, immunity and keeping you alive and healthy. Extremely important, to say the least.
Homovanillate (HVA) / Vanilmandelate (VMA) – These are metabolites of the neurotransmitters dopamine and adrenaline/noradrenaline respectively.
Melatonin – Your primary sleep hormone, as you probably know. Low levels will often correlate with sleep problems and/or gut dysfunction.
8OHdG – This is a marker for oxidative stress and DNA damage. Naturally, you’d want this to be low. When it is elevated, it warrants further investigation with your practitioner.
Conclusion
This concludes our relatively brief overview of the DUTCH Complete. I’m sure that you’re starting to see the incredible value this test can provide in assessing your adrenal and sex hormone systems.
Let me say it again, because it must stressed repeatedly:
By the time you experience noticeable symptoms, significant dysfunction and damage has been occurring deeper down in your body.
Take a proactive approach to your health today. Your future “you” will thank you.
If you would like to run this test, or are interested learning more about others, get in touch with me. Click the button below to book your free 15-minute discovery session so that we can discuss your health goals and needs.
Harmful organism (pathogens) in the gut are linked to a myriad of health problems.
But, like many of the health issues I help my clients investigate and address, pathogenic infections or overgrowths can remain hidden for many years. All the while causing you distress.
In this brief article, I’ll go over:
How bad bacteria, yeasts, and parasites can undermine your health.
When you’d want to consider running a test to screen for pathogens
My favourite stool test for such purposes, the GI-MAP.
How Pathogens Harm You
Some of the ways in which pathogens wreak havoc in the body include:
Keep the body in a state of chronic stress (which can contribute to other dysfunction)
Promote inflammation
Promote autoimmunity
Damage the intestinal lining
Increase oxidative stress levels
Contribute to liver congestion and dysfunction
Produce a variety of harmful products
Contribute to decreased beneficial bacteria
Cause malnutrition or nutrient deficiencies
Weaken the immune system
Increase food sensitivities
Create an environment conducive to proliferation of secondary overgrowths, biofilms, and further infestation
If that doesn’t sound fun to you, I can attest that it’s not. All the test results below are mine, and as you’ll see, I’ve had a bunch of parasites, bacteria, and yeasts roaming around in my gut.
I was ignorant to the fact for a long time, and it took a hormone test with shocking results (testosterone lower than a 60-year old man’s) to prompt me to investigate further.
What is Dysbiosis?
Dysbiosis is a term we use for a disruption or imbalance in the microbiota (the community of microbes in your gut), that has a negative effect on your health. It generally means that the good microbes have decreased and the bad ones have increased in numbers.
Dysbiosis can be caused by a combination of factors such as the following:
Toxin exposure (chemicals, pesticides, heavy metals)
Food sensitivities
Leaky gut / intestinal permeability
It’s not always bad bugs that cause the dysbiosis – sometimes poor lifestyle choices can create the ripe conditions for harmful organisms to take hold in the gut.
That’s why “fixing the gut” is much more than just eradicating the pathogens.
We can generally observe three types of dysbiosis:
Insufficiency dysbiosis: This where the numbers of your beneficial bacteria have been reduced. These beneficial bacteria provide support for healthy intestinal and immune function, and when their numbers decrease your risk of infection, inflammation, immune dysfunction, and leaky gut increases dramatically.
Inflammatory dysbiosis: In this type of dysbiosis we can often see a proliferation of pathogens (e.g. Giardia, C. Difficile, Campylobacter) and opportunistic organisms including Citrobacter, Klebsiella, Morganella and Candida. A lot of these produce toxic by-products that are inflammatory in nature.
Digestive dysfunction dysbiosis: This is where we see digestive issues such as low stomach acid, digestive enzyme insufficiencies, poor absorption, and altered intestinal motility.
The good news is that all of the above can usually be improved in unison with the right approach.
The first step in doing something about a gut infection is knowing what organisms have made a cosy little home in your intestines. To do that, you need to run a gastrointestinal (GI) pathogen screening, or stool test for short.
When to Run a Stool Test
You should consider running a GI pathogen screening test when you have:
Gastrointestinal issues (heartburn, cramping, bloating, constipation, diarrhea, excessive gas etc.)
Had food poisoning in the past
Numerous food sensitivities
A history of foreign travel
Leaky gut / intestinal permeability
Suspected heavy metal toxicity (or shown on a test)
The lab uses DNA analysis technology (qPCR) that has very high accuracy and high specificity. This greatly reduces errors and false negatives (testing negative for a pathogen that you do have) that are often seen with traditional culture-based stools tests.
Below are some areas the test covers.
Pathogens
These are bacterial, parasitic, and viral pathogens you generally don’t want inhabiting your GI tract.
Parasites
Other than the above three parasites, the GI-MAP also screens for various protozoa and worms.
Fungi / Yeast
Several fungal species are tested for:
Opportunistic Bacteria
These guys are everywhere in our environment – on our food, in our water, in the soil, and even in our gut. Usually they only become a problem when your immune system is compromised or you have dysbiosis. They can then take hold, or if already present in the GI tract, they can begin to overgrow and cause you problems.
Potential Autoimmune Triggers
Opportunistic bacteria that have been associated with autoimmunity. For example, Citrobacter freundii, Klebsiella pneumoniae, and Proteus mirabilis are associated with rheumatoid arthritis.
Normal Bacterial Flora
Beneficial intestinal flora do the following for us:
Keep pathogenic and opportunistic organisms in check
Promote a healthy intestinal barrier
Contribute to immune balance
Support the ecology of the gut
Create beneficial compounds through their own metabolism such as vitamins and short-chain fatty scids (SCFAs) such as butyrate.
Butyrate is the principal fuel for gut and immune cells, and promotes healthy intestinal barrier function. SCFAs like butyrate have positive immune-regulating, anti-inflammatory, and other properties.
Intestinal Health Markers (Digestion, GI Markers, Immune Response, Inflammation)
Elastase-1 is a marker for pancreatic enzyme production. It is not affected if you take digestive enzymes as they would never contain it. Low levels of Elastase-1 can cause malasbsorption of your food.
Steatocrit is a measure of fat absorption. High levels may indicate malasbsorption or even pancreatic insufficiency.
b-Glucuronidase: You don’t want your b-Glucuronidase levels to get too high as it can disrupt the body’s ability to detoxify hormones and toxins. It is naturally produced by your liver, kidneys and intestinal epithelium but can also be produced by certain bacteria such as Bacteroides fragilis, Escherichia coli, and Staphylococcus.
Secretory IgA (SigA) is your first line of immune defence in the gut. It forms complexes with allergens and pathogens to prevent them from crossing the intestinal barrier. If SigA is low it may increase your risk of infection and inflammation. Chronic stress affects SigA negatively.
Anti-gliadin IgA: Gliadin is the protein found in gluten that is most commonly problematic for people. If the anti-gliadin IgA marker is elevated, it points to an immune response to gluten.
Calprotectin is the most studied marker of GI inflammation. Levels between 50-150 may indicate inflammation due to pathogen infection or food sensitivities, whereas levels higher than that would likely require the attention of a GI specialist doctor.
Sample collection and shipping
Once your provider orders the GI-MAP for you, the kit should arrive in a couple of business days. The day before sample collection, you would need to call the courier to schedule a pickup. Then on the day of pickup, you simply poop on some paper included in the kit which slots over your toilet seat, then use the spork in the sample collection bottle to fill it up with your specimen. Close the bottle, shake it and you’re done!
You can be in and out in under 5 minutes – not the most pleasant thing in the world to do, but the data it provides you is well worth the few minutes of discomfort.
Conclusion
I hope you found this article helpful. Stool testing has come a long way in the last decade and Diagnostic Solutions Lab and their GI-MAP are at the forefront of innovation and advancement. The data provided by the GI-MAP is invaluable when seeking to build-up or optimise your health.
If you need personalised advice, based on your individual circumstances, please do not hesitate to schedule a free 15-minute discovery session.