The best way to get to the root cause of digestive distress is a stool test that looks at the microbiome, inflammation, leaky gut, and malabsorption. The Comprehensive Digestive Analysis panel looks at the strains of bacteria and yeast in the gut (the good, the bad, the neutral) as well as their end products of fermentation as short-chain fatty acids such as butyrate. The stool test also looks at clinical markers of inflammation including calprotectin (the primary disease marker for Inflammatory Bowel Diseases), and elevated immune response with lysozyme, lactoferrin, and white blood cells. Finally, this stool test looks at a marker for leaky gut called secretory IgA as well as malabsorption in stool with enzyme activity and undigested food particles. The add on of parasite assessment with the Comprehensive Digestive Analysis with 3-day Parasitology adds on the opportunity to assess parasite presence living or egg in your intestines and colon as well (this is recommended if digestive distress is associated after travel, time in natural waters, or time spent with food-borne illness). If a pathogenic (bad) bacteria or yeast strain are found in your results, we will also receive guidance on what natural and pharmaceutical agents will have most resistance as well as most success to tailor a cleanse for your body’s needs.
If you test positive for leaky gut with a low secretory IgA, your digestive distress is related to unknown food sensitivity reaction, or you are also dealing with inflammation or autoimmune activity, the Mediator Release Test (MRT) food sensitivity panel is the best entry point. This blood test is the only food sensitivity panel on the market that looks at results based on the inflammatory response in your body. Many food panels look simply at immunological tagging (IgG) that can often yield a false positive, the MRT test looks at 170 foods and chemicals and takes both IgG type 3 and 4 along with the presence of inflammatory chemicals (interleukins, cytokines, prostaglandins, etc.) to assess reactivity response. This panel is used as a GPS of your body where you will remove moderate reactions for 3 months and significant reactions for 6 months while limiting diet to known non-reactive foods, then progressing with an elimination diet reentry approach. As you heal the gut lining with specific supplement regimen and food-as-medicine you will become more resilient and less reactive to foods creating both food freedom and symptom resolution.
