All Disease Begins in the Gut: The Importance of Gut Health Tests
Much of the body's immune response depends upon a healthy balance of the gastrointestinal microbiome, home to over 100 trillion bacteria. These bacteria interact with the body by sending chemical messages on molecules carried in the blood and with the nervous system through the enteric nervous system (based in the gut) and the central nervous system, which communicates with the brain.
The best way to support your patients' microbiome is to perform gut health tests to create a personalized therapeutic plan to address underlying inflammation.
How Does the Gut Become Inflamed?
Inflammation is part of the body's normal defense mechanism. It is the process by which the immune system recognizes and tries to remove harmful stimuli to begin the healing process. But when your body has to continuously attack a foreign stimulus, such as processed foods, chronic systemic inflammation kicks in. The gut becomes unbalanced, a condition called dysbiosis, and the body eventually develops food sensitivities as a defense mechanism to fight off the inflammation, ultimately leading to other chronic ailments.
As a healthcare practitioner, your role in controlling gut inflammation is pivotal to patient care, regardless of your specialty. Consider incorporating these two gut health tests into your practice to enhance your ability to diagnose and treat gut-related conditions.
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GI Health Tests: A Comprehensive Microbiome Analysis
A GI health stool test is one of the best ways to get an overview of what is going on in the gut. These lab tests for gut health are comprehensive microbiome analyses that give practitioners a lot of information for just one test.
GI health tests narrow down dysbiosis and screen for bacterial pathogens, worms, parasites, yeast, viruses, digestion, absorption, inflammation, metabolic health, antibiotic resistance, and immune function.
With such detailed results, practitioners can create personalized nutrition, probiotics, and supplement protocols to address gut dysfunction. Most of these gut health tests offer follow-up tests based on results that would be useful for confirming other diagnoses.
If you had to choose just one type of gut health test to get a lot of information, this would be a good place to start.
Top 2 GI Health Tests Ordered by Rupa Health Practitioners:
Food Sensitivity Tests: Identifying Inflammatory Triggers
Food sensitivities can create an inflammatory response, causing long-term health issues. However, the good news is that once you have identified and removed the trigger foods, patients often experience rapid healing, offering a beacon of hope in their journey to better health.
Food sensitivities are very common today due to processed and GMO foods, additives, and fillers. The body sees these as foreign invaders and starts attacking the diet's inflammatory components and everyday foods with similar chemical elements.
Common symptoms associated with food sensitivities are leaky gut, unexplained loose stools or constipation, gas, cramps, and bloating. Skin conditions include eczema, acne, psoriasis, and dermatitis. Headaches, brain fog, joint pain, vitamin and mineral deficiencies.
Top 2 Food Sensitivity Tests Ordered by Rupa Health Practitioners:
Micronutrient Testing: Assessing Nutrient Absorption
While not every practitioner tests for micronutrients, seeing how well your patients can absorb these vital nutrients is important. Micronutrients are vitamins and minerals the body needs, and their impact on health is critical. They perform various functions, including enabling the body to produce enzymes, hormones, and other substances needed for normal growth and development.
Micronutrient deficiencies can lead to symptoms that affect a patient's everyday life, such as insomnia, abnormal heart rhythms, mood disorders, and reductions in energy level and mental clarity.
These deficiencies are preventable through nutrition education, a healthy diet containing diverse foods, and food fortification and supplementation. Still, if you have patients, you play a crucial role in ensuring they are absorbing these vital nutrients as they should be.
Top 2 Micronutrient Tests Ordered by Rupa Health Practitioners:
Summary
The fundamental truth is that gut health is not just a part but a cornerstone of overall health. Whether just beginning your journey with functional medicine or updating your current knowledge, incorporating gut health tests into your practice is crucial to understanding and improving your patient's health.
Hopefully, this article helped you feel more confident about gut health functional medicine labs. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out. Keep checking back for more articles, case studies, and live classes.
Lab Tests in This Article
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