Labs for Weight Loss, Heart Dx, Dehydration, and more! | Episode 101

Tonight I’ve got several great clinical insights to start out with. A 74 year old female we’ll call Ms. M comes and sees me every two months like clockwork. Seeing me is just one of the many things she does to stack her health. She walks 4-5 miles per day 7 days a week. On top of that, she exercises with weights 4-5 times a week. She is strong! Inevitably, I have to ask her why she continues to do this.

First, she tells me, it just feels good! And second, she’s well aware, if she doesn’t do this, she’ll die sooner. There’s only two real reasons to do anything like this. It’s to increase pleasure or reduce pain. She uses both as motivating factors, and if you can harness both, there’s a high likelihood you’ll take action and sustain it. Clinically, she has pretty significant scoliosis which many people would consider a very limiting factor. However, as long as you keep moving, there’s no difference between your spine and mine. You don’t have to succumb to anything you perceive as a limitation. 

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The second patient, who we’ll call Ms. Carol, is 71. She’s been suffering from Post-Viral Syndrome (PVS) also known as Long-Hauler Syndrome. She had Covid and though she had a more “mild” case, her symptoms afterward were much more severe. She has serious fatigue, and depression, and her immune system has broken down which has led to ER visits for serious UTIs. There are four main reasons people get long hauler syndrome:

• Their immune system wasn’t ready
• They have some type of auto-immune condition
• They have stealth pathogens
• They have blood sugar dysregulation

Anybody out there with PVS has to work on their adrenal health and gut health. You need to find a functional medicine practitioner who can take you in that direction. With Ms. Carol, she’s had three straight rounds of antibiotics for UTIs on top of everything else she’s dealing with. Especially with older patients, too often some of these issues get blamed on “age” when they’re really the result of a serious battle the body has been through. 

Our third clinical insight is two cases doing the exact same thing, one in her 70s and one in her 30s. Both symptoms are sinus infections that led to chronic ear issues. They both came in thinking they were responding to allergies, which is easy to blame for something that’s really going on inside of you. The younger patient had taken multiple rounds of antibiotics and was recommended for surgery.

The question for both of them, at its core, is, why isn’t your immune system handling the histamine? We go back to the basics, are you sleeping, are you pooping, are you drinking enough water? If you don’t have enough water in your body, everything backs up and clogs in the liver. That’s the biggest reason we get congestion in our sinuses. The older patient told me that she didn’t drink water because she pees her pants. We have protocols for that! The other component is the number of fatty acids you have in your body. You need to know your Omega 3 levels not just for brain function, but also for skin health and immune health. Get the foundation work right and you’ll clear up so many symptoms. 

Today, I also want to talk about lab testing. Labs can give us great data and help us better develop strategies. There are a lot of labs out there and a lot of discussion around them, but there are important foundations. There are four primary reasons why people don’t run labs. First, people are unaware of what they could learn through labs. The three primary killers in our world are heart disease, diabetes, and cancer.

Labs can tell us two of those three immediately. Another part of this problem is that some people are running the wrong tests as part of a “once a year” standard lab work. Secondly, people don’t really know who runs labs? This is where you need to do your homework. Find people who are doing functional medicine work well. I can send labs all over the country, you can go to your local lab and get them done and send me the results. Thirdly, some people just don’t want to know. You need to be prepared emotionally for what you may learn through testing.

There could be a potential worst-case scenario and you need a support system to help you navigate what’s next. Lastly, people don’t want to incur the cost. Too often, insurance companies require a diagnosis before they’ll pay for tests. That’s not what we do, We want to get you into optimal function and the best starting point is knowing where you’re starting from. 

Here’s the three tests I would run.

1. Cardiovascular Panel. That includes all your cholesterols (HDLs, LDLs, and Triglycerides). If you have high triglycerides and you’re not eating bad, it can be indicative of insulin resistance and thyroid dysfunction. If you’re just seeing high cholesterols without understanding what’s high and why, you could be misdiagnosing the cause of your high cholesterol.

2. Diabetes Markers. This is where you’d do your Hemoglobin A1C, a fasting insulin and your regular blood glucose. My favorite to run here is your insulin resistance markers. This can drive your hormones up and down, your cholesterol up and down, and it can prevent any weight loss or fat burning. 

3. Hormone Panel. Hormones don’t choose to get out of whack, our lifestyle choices forces them out of whack. A robust amount of testosterone in your body is key to living long and living well. I saw a patient in his 30s with testosterone levels low by about 300, but because the rest of his labs looked good, his previous doctor told him he was fine. We need to see total testosterone and free testosterone and another mark called DHEA. When you combine this with the cholesterol levels, we can see and understand what stress is causing in your life. For women, we also want to see progesterone levels and the sex hormone binding globulin. If that globulin is low, it can indicate you’re heading towards hyperthyroidism, even if your thyroid levels look decent on paper. 

Last but not least, this week’s action to become superhuman is…

Just Keep Going For It

Don’t give up early. No matter what your age is, where you’re at with your health, or how many times you’ve tried. Just keep swinging and eventually, you’ll hit it. 

Dr. Bart Precourt

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