Full Transcript Intro and how to review your blood work 0:02 Hey there everybody. 0:04 Wanted to do something a little different today and grab your recent blood work. 0:09 We'll go over it together on what it all means, what the intricacies are of each of these markers and how you can use that information for your own health. 0:20 So take a moment, pause the video, go grab you recent flood work and we'll through this together. 0:25 I'm gonna share my screen so we can go through line by line. 0:33 Okay, now this is my own blood work. 0:34 So HIPAA safe, but there is a program that I love to use where you put your bloodwork into the program and it will show you optimal. 0:45 What's optimal versus what's just normal. 0:50 Some of the blood markers that you have on your test might be a little bit different than what I ran for myself, But we can go through them all together anyways. 1:00 So first one, I did a D-dimer because this is a blood clot test. 1:07 Blood clots are something that you never wanna mess with. 1:09 If you suspect you have a block clot, you should get a d-timer. 1:13 Thankfully, it didn't have blood clot, but I was wondering if I didn.
D-dimer and vitamin D basics 1:17 So I do a test, D dimer is great test for looking for a blot clot. 1:21 Thankfully, everything was normal. 1:24 Hey, let's get into the more normal ones, more things that might have on your blood panel. 1:29 Vitamin D now vitamin D there. 1:31 This is a controversial thing. 1:33 Some people and most blood tests will say if you have less than 30, that's not good. 1:40 But if You have 30 that fine. 1:42 That's perfect. 1:43 I disagree. 1:45 Optimal vitamin d is between 50 and 80. So that 50 and 80 is when the body can use vitamin D as a signaler for healthy immune system, 1:57 healthy heart, and also keeping the immune systems balanced, especially with autoimmune. 2:04 Lipids, also known as cholesterol. 2:08 This is a little bit vulnerable for me because you're seeing some of my things that I need to work on, but this is good. 2:14 So this a good learning place. 2:17 So cholesterol panel, first thing you look for is total cholesterol. 2:21 Total cholesterol is the big marker for heart health and making sure that you are staying healthy from strokes. 2:30 Optimal is below 200. It's the first place to look. 2:33 Now total cholesterol is a combination of the different types of cholesterol. 2:39 The math isn't going to add up perfectly, but it's looking for the types different of densities. 2:44 So we've got low density cholesterol, very low-density cholesterol and high- density.
Cholesterol panel and triglycerides 2:50 Low-Density Cholesterol is also called LDL and I like to remember that as the quote-unquote lousy cholesterol so L-lousie. 3:01 It's not completely lousy, we definitely need it, it's very good for hormones, but we don't want it to be too high. 3:08 So ideally, this is less than 100. Now, if this was over 100, you can see minus 107, If this over a 100 this can mean one of two things that you could 3:19 do lifestyle wise. 3:21 Increasing fiber and increasing higher intensity exercise. 3:26 Uh, please consult with your doctor before you take on any of these for yourself. 3:31 This is more of an education piece and then ask your Dr. 3:34 About these things, if they would help. 3:35 I'm also happy to help too. 3:38 With the fiber and high intensity, higher intensity exercise, this helps to bind the excess cholesterol and help it leave the body. 3:49 That's what the Fiber does. 3:51 Fibre binds the cholesterol. 3:52 And then you, it leaves through the bowel movement. 3:55 You poop it out. 3:57 Higher intensity exercise depends on, of course, your own unique history. 4:04 But a general thought is 20 minutes of higher intensity exercises three times per week. 4:11 Now, this doesn't necessarily mean a HIIT workout, but it can be in cardio where your heart rate gets up to a certain point. 4:17 The general calculation is 80% of your max heartrate. 4:22 calculation there we're getting really nerdy in this video the calculation is 220 minus your age so however old you are in years 220, minus, 4:29 your, age then take that number Take 80% of that. 4:38 80 percent of number is considered 80 of your maximum heart rate. 4:43 20 minutes, three times a week at that heart is very helpful for heart health and it's helpful higher cholesterol numbers. 4:52 Again, please consult with your doctor on if that's a good move for you. 4:57 The via LDL, the very low density cholesterol, this is also considered things that we want to be quite low. 5:05 It's not optimal for this to high. 5:07 So lower, lower the better, but at least five is good. 5:13 HDL, the high density cholesterol, also known as the happy cholesterol. 5:17 So the H happy, cholesterol this is the good cholesterol the higher density means that the liver doesn't have to work so hard for it to pass through high-density 5:27 cholesterol is considered a marker, a good marker of heart health. 5:30 Now to note, Some lab tests on the generic labs will have this as the high being 50. And if it's over 50, they say that's bad. 5:40 That's not necessarily true. 5:42 We want to look at the whole picture. 5:44 But typically, the HDL cholesterol higher is good for carb health. 5:50 Last piece on cholesterol is triglycerides. 5:53 Now, triglicerides are a marker for How much sugar you're eating can also be how much alcohol you are eating. 6:01 So this is kind of a test to see, okay, how is this person really doing with their food scene? 6:08 Now, less than 150 is considered ideal. 6:12 But when you're looking at this, you do have to be fasting for this number to accurate. 6:18 Most of these cholesterol numbers best with fasting, but especially triglycerides. 6:23 So if you had even just a granola bar before your blood draw, this will probably be high. 6:31 Or if he didn't have a full fast before you blood, draw this probably high as well. 6:35 Take that with a grain of salt. 6:37 But ideally, this number is less than 150. If it's higher than one 50, that typically means you might be having more sugar than your body's needing. 6:45 And it is getting converted into these fats, into this triglycerides. 6:49 Okay, let's go into thyroid. 6:55 This one, oftentimes people don't run the full panel. 6:59 I am super picky about thyroid and I like to see at least five markers. 7:04 There are more than five that we can do, but atleast five. 7:07 Most conventional blood scenes only do two, maybe only one. 7:11 The one that you'll likely see is this one your TSH, thyroid stimulating hormone. 7:18 Now this is actually a marker in your brain. 7:20 Your brain signals down to your thyroid and says either make more or make less. 7:27 So ideally the brain stimulating hormones, the T SH is between 1.8 and three.
Thyroid markers and optimal ranges 7:33 There are different schools of thought on this one. 7:35 And I think that they all have their merit. 7:38 It's all individualized. 7:40 The 1 .8 to three is what we'll use for today. 7:42 1.8 to three. 7:45 And if the TSH is a little low, like mine's a bit low right here, that means the brain is telling the thyroid, hey, pump the brakes, 7:54 slow down, we don't need that anymore. 7:57 If the TSH is high, it's giving the opposite signal. 8:01 It's saying, Hey, pick up production, and we need a lit bit more hormone here. 8:05 So this T SH marker is actually in your brain. 8:08 it is not measuring your thyroid output at all, only measuring brain The thyroid output is with these numbers, these free T4, 8:17 free, T3, and then T 4 and T 3. Sometimes T four is the other one that can be run in conventional medical scene. 8:28 Ideally, we have all five. 8:30 These are the actual thyroid outputs. 8:33 So T-4 ideally between 6.8 to 11.5 is nice. 8:41 You could even bump it up to between 6 and 12 as a general optimal. 8:46 This is exactly how much thyroid hormone of the T4 type that we want. 8:52 Now, T3 is actually the most active type of thyroid. 8:57 And T 3 is the one that's not measured very much unless you're going to a functional medicine provider. 9:02 T3, being that it's the most active, it is really important to see what's going on here. 9:07 The range is a bit wider for this one. 9:10 For today's purposes, we can say between 83 and 116, but you could even let it go up a little bit higher to 180 because it so active. 9:20 Oh, T3 and T4 are good to see on their own because that's the full hormone amount. 9:27 But then the free T three and free to four means that they're unbound. 9:31 They're not bound to any hormone. 9:32 So they are also really good see. 9:35 The range for these is much more narrow. 9:38 Free T four, ideally it's between one and 1.5, a very small window. 9:44 This is how much hormone your body is producing and then how is circulating. 9:50 Free T3 being this is the active form of T-3 and how much of that is actively circulating between three and four is considered optimal for that. 10:01 The other markers that I didn't run on myself, but that you can run or can ask your provider to run are TPO, which is a thyroid antibody, 10:11 TSI, Which is another thyroid, antibody. 10:14 Those are really good if you have autoimmune thyroid conditions. 10:17 So I think Hashimoto's or Graves' disease. 10:22 Let me go a little bit further into the metabolism. 10:26 So hemoglobin A1c is a measure of your blood sugar over a 90 day period. 10:32 This is an average of bloodsugar over three months. 10:34 5.2 is my number, and this is considered optimal. 10:40 Anything below 5,6 is consider very healthy. 10:42 anything above 5.,6, is pre-diabetes or diabetes once it gets into the higher numbers above 6.4. So always good to look at and keep in mind that usually 10:59 you only want to run these three months at a time because it's an average of three month. 11:03 So you can do every three to see how you're scaling and projecting if that is part of your process. 11:10 And something that we offer at the clinic is more continuous glucose monitoring, which is honestly one of the best things because you see your numbers 11:18 on a day to day basis. 11:21 Ferritin is the storage form of iron. 11:25 We'll see some iron markers and you can do an iron panel, but ferritine is storage. 11:31 So this is how much extra iron do you have in the tank? 11:34 This is really good to see for athletes, especially female athletes and then people who are having periods because your body loses iron with every monthly bleed. 11:46 So if you have ferritin in the tank and gas, iron storage and the gas tank, that can be really helpful for keeping energy levels high, 11:54 keeping oxygen levels, high as well and healthy. 11:58 So ideally similar with vitamin D, you will see on regular panels that about 30 is considered normal. 12:07 I completely disagree with that. 12:09 If you're having periods up to a hundred is considered healthy.
Blood sugar, ferritin, and metabolic overview 12:13 And ideally I'd like to see it over 50 between 70 and a 100 is excellent for people who are having. 12:22 Now take a pause, take your breath because we're about to get into the meat here. 12:27 So a comprehensive metabolic panel looking at metabolism and then immune system. 12:32 On your blood panel, this will be called CMP, a complete metabolic, you might also have a BNP, basic metabolic. 12:40 This will probably be in a different order for you. 12:43 On this program, it puts the things that are out of range first and then the rest of the thing's in subsequent order. 12:49 So you might have to bump around a little bit. 12:50 Feel free to pause and find your markers as you need to. 12:56 So alkaline phosphatase, this is an interesting marker because most of the time it's an inflammatory marker, and it will show if you're having inflammation 13:04 in your liver, your kidneys, you gut, or your bones. 13:08 It doesn't specify which one unless you do a fractionated alkalin phosphates, but alkalines phosphate generally is inflammatory. 13:18 Now, if it's high, that means you have too much inflammation. 13:22 If it is low, like mine is, it means something totally different. 13:25 It can mean that you're not getting enough of an inflammation signal. 13:29 And this can be one of two things. 13:32 Either your immune system is a little depleted, or you are not mounting enough an inflammatory response and enough immune response when you need it. 13:42 So with mine being a little low, this is something that I actually started after I got this blood work, is I started taking vitamin C and zinc. 13:50 Vitamin C, and Zinc are one of the things that can help the immune system most. 13:54 And when the alkaline phosphatase is low it can bolster the system so that you have a more appropriate inflammatory response. 14:04 When you're looking at these numbers, I like to see this one less than 90. So between 44 and 90 is considered ideal. 14:12 For a couple of these we're going to cluster them together because they tell a story. 14:15 A story that I look for with protein is find your albumin, your total protein, and your globulin, which you'll see on the next page. 14:29 So these are all protein byproducts or protein markers. 14:33 We can look at total protein first. 14:35 And if you're having too much total, protein, or let's say it's above 7.4, ideally it is between 6.9 and 7 .4. Then that means that your body is not getting
CMP basics: alkaline phosphatase and protein markers 14:47 the protein into the cells. 14:49 It's circulating through the blood, but it isn't getting absorbed in. 14:53 Similar with albumin. 14:54 Ideally that's between four and five. 14:57 That can mean that there's too much circulating around, it's not getting absorbed in, and you could use some digestive support. 15:04 Now, when we're talking about BUN, B1 is first and foremost a kidney marker, but it can also be a measure of protein because the kidneys and protein are 15:15 so intimately connected. 15:17 So BUN, ideally, I like to see it between 13 and 18. And if it's low, this can mean something similar, where either you're not getting enough protein, 15:26 you might not be eating enough proteins, or the protein that you are eating is not being absorbed into the cells. 15:34 So this was a good picture for me to see where I need some more digestive supports even when I'm eating protein. 15:42 Some of you might know I prefer to be vegetarian most of the time, but my body really does do well with a little bit of meat. 15:49 However, when they eat meat, I do need help digesting it. 15:52 So I have some of this digest and support when i'm going to eat protein Fasting glucose, this is your blood sugar out of snapshot in time. 16:01 So it's not an average like the A1C, but a snapshot time, less than a hundred is considered ideal for fasting. 16:08 But even a little bit lower than that between 80 and 89 is consider nice or below 80 is fine to a point that you don't want it to be too low. 16:18 Sodium, a lot of people think of this as, oh no, I'm eating too much sodium. 16:23 This can often be an adrenal marker. 16:25 Sodion and potassium can be adrenal markers because they're salts. 16:29 They're electrolytes that the body's making. 16:31 And if the bodies making so much, that can mean the kid, it's giving me the adrenals are stressed out. 16:36 So the adrenals being our sweet little hats that live on top of the kidneys, they fuel us for stressful situations, They wake us up in the morning. 16:48 And if you're under constant amount of stress, the kidney, excuse me, The kidneys and the adrenal can be under stress as well. 16:58 So let's look a little bit more at some of kidney markers. 17:03 GFR is glomerular filtration rate. 17:06 This is how well your kidneys are filtering. 17:09 And ideally, it's above 60. Oh, this marker, I actually disagree with a little bit, saying that 93 is above optimal, because anything above sixty is considered 17:18 really good. 17:19 Your kidneys, they're just filtering well. 17:20 Below 60 is when we really want to be mindful, triggering some action. 17:29 Some high ticket ones here. 17:30 So we talked about the liver a little bit. 17:33 There are two markers that we want to look for on your blood work for liver. 17:37 They are ALT and AST. 17:41 ALD and ASD are ideally between 10 and 26. This for most people. 17:48 This is looking at how if your liver is stressed out, if you're coming into contact with things that your lover does not like, 17:55 they will be irritated, and they'll be high.
Kidney, liver, and electrolyte markers 17:58 So keep those markers in mind. 18:01 We talked about globulin on the previous page and potassium. 18:05 So potassium is that other adrenal marker. 18:08 If it's high, that might mean your adrenals are a little bit stressed out. 18:13 And then globilin is a protein byproduct. 18:16 We want it to be ideally between 1.9 and 2.8. You can even give a bit more margin for that. 18:23 But if it is low, you might not be getting enough protein. 18:30 Bu and creatinine ratio. 18:32 This is the final. 18:34 kidney marker where we're looking at the BUN and the creatinine. 18:39 So this is, the BU and creatine ratio is really a top-notch test for looking your kidneys. 18:48 And it can show if you're in kidney stress or in something called renal failure. 18:54 and it could also show us if your tending towards that direction. 18:58 so definitely keep that one in mind. 19:01 Ideally, it's less than 20 for these numbers. 19:04 When it gets above 20, that can show how stressed the kidneys are. 19:10 Creatinine, similar, BUN and creatinines, both are kidney markers, but creatine does have an extra bonus piece of what it shows for how much your body 19:23 is using muscles as its own fuel. 19:25 So let's say you're not getting enough protein in your diet, the body will use muscles, as fuel instead. 19:31 So creatinine is something that you can test with that number. 19:36 So it can show, are you eating enough protein or is your body starting to use fuel? 19:40 I like to think of this as protein is what's available in your wallet. 19:44 And then if there's nothing available on your wall, then it will start to dip into your savings, which is you're your muscles. 19:49 We don't want to deep into savings. 19:50 But getting enough, protein, making sure your creatinein is healthy and normal. 19:53 It's a really good, good piece. 19:57 The last piece for this video and then we'll do the immune system in the second video because there's so much in there and I want you to have the mental 20:05 juice to stick with it. 20:06 So last one here, calcium. 20:09 A lot of times people think, oh no, if this is too low, that means I'm not eating enough calcium, not the case because Cal, 20:18 the body will prioritize calcium and the blood instead of in the bones. 20:23 The heart uses calcium so much and we need it on a day-to-day regular basis for just regular heartbeat and healthy signaling. 20:31 So the buddy will always put calcium in blood before it puts it in bones, so if your calcium is low, definitely look into that a little bit more of is your, 20:43 are your bones healthy doing a DEXA scan, doing Further test on parathyroid if your calcium is high. 20:52 That can be more beneficial than looking at this number. 20:56 And chloride, this cycles back into stomach acid and protein digestion. 21:02 So protein is digested in the stomach. 21:05 Chloride, think of the base of hydrochloric acid. 21:09 Hydrochloric acid has chloride in it. 21:12 So if this number is high, if it's over 106, that means the body's trying to make more stomach acid and it needs some help. 21:22 Keep that in mind when you're looking at your chloride. 21:26 We'll pause right here. 21:28 and then we'll do your complete blood count, your immune system in the next video. 21:33 That one also looks at your iron and B vitamins as well. 21:36 So go grab your CBC, Your Complete Blood Count, and we will see you in next videos.
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