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Welcome to this webinar, thank you for being here, well done for making this first step into discovering how you can help your body to better help you.

The world of wellness is a crazy place, there are just so many products, offers and pieces of advice out there, sometimes totally conflicting. 

Many people, presumably you are one of them since you're here, want to improve their health. But, the biggest mistake I see is trying to fix symptoms without questioning what caused them in the first place - this can lead to years of trying to mask symptoms with medications, or blindly reaching for often costly (and potentially damaging) supplements while hoping that their magical marketing promises come true, before accepting their fate of mediocre health. 

FBT reveals what is really going on in your body so that with the help of a functional health professional you can make changes to your nutrition and lifestyle with precision to give your body exactly what it needs, getting to the root cause of dysfunction and promoting vitality and longevity without wasting time or money. 

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Before I introduce myself, I want to start with a question… 

What even is health? This might be different for different people. Often it is thought of as the absence of disease, but should we not strive for more than mediocrity? The World Health Organisation pleasingly defines health as ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well being and not merely the absence of disease of infirmity’. So, how healthy do you feel with this more rounded definition in mind? 

Our health is the most valuable asset we will ever have the privilege to enjoy, and yet so often we take this body for granted. The old saying goes, you don't know what you have until it's gone… Where would you be without your health?

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Welcome, I’m Helena, founder of Nourish&Be. I am an qualified functional nutritionist, biochemist, yoga teacher, chef, neurolinguistic programming coach, and general food/wellness/travel and dog lover. But my key passion is functional blood testing and its use in getting us to be the best physiological versions of ourselves. 

If you are here, you probably want to feel better for some reason. You're not necessarily ill, but something isn’t quite right and you want to feel better. Maybe not just better, you want to feel GREAT. You want your body to be running like a well oiled machine, there to carry you through all the adventures life has to offer. – and I want to congratulate you on that. Our health is the most valuable asset we will ever have. 

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Whats so good about our health? 

Consider this: in England, England Life Expectancy: 78.8 years (male), 82.8 years (female). Meanwhile the healthy life expectancy for a man is 62.4 years, and for a woman is 62.7 years. This means that men are on average spending nearly 17 years, or 21% of their lives, in poor health. While women are spending 20 years, or 24% of their lives ill. 

But it doesn't have to be that way!

The top causes of death in the UK are all what are known as non-communicable diseases: they cannot be transmitted between two individuals, and are often present for years before finally being the reason of death (and likely the reason for no longer being considered ‘in good health’) They are sometimes called lifestyle diseases, and are the result of metabolic dysfunction - something functionally going wrong in the body.  These diseases do not appear overnight: they take years of repeated dysfunction. 

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The Preventative, or functional, Approach to health is the idea of preserving and optimising health before disease even appears. And this isnt restricted to just the big five like dementia and cancer: this approach can also be used for a whole range of dis-ease like IBS, skin conditions, anxiety, to name a few. 

And this is where Functional Blood Testing comes into its own… Functional Blood Testing is essentially the MOT to your incredible biochemical machine of a body: a comprehensive analysis on all the bodily systems, indicating which areas are in need of support to promote the optimal function of you. 

Compared to conventional blood tests, Functional Blood Tests look at a larger number of biomarkers with optimal values in mind (more on this later) allowing for early detection of dysfunctions, often before symptoms have appeared or fully manifested. 

Ideally we want to catch dysfunction as early on as possible… it is far easier to maintain what you have, than to get back what you have lost. 

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What happens when things move out of the functional level? Well, the human body is incredibly resilient. We are bred to survive, whatever the cost. So when things go wrong, the body normally finds a way around it (at least initially). How long we continue to function without symptoms depends on our Metabolic Reserve. 

Think of your Metabolic Reserve as your battery, with its power level determined by your genes, nutrient status, detoxification capacity, as well as other factors. As each of these areas lose power either from poor lifestyle and diet, or in an effort to work around the dysfunction, likeliness of symptoms appearing increases. 

Meanwhile, since the body is losing its Metabolic Reserve, it is more open to further dysfunction from external stimuli. Think back to a time when you were really stressed: your body was under pressure from keeping up with the stress response but you were coping, and then suddenly a cold is going around and you are hit harder by those around you. Your body was lacking its Metabolic Reserve from the stress, and then it didn't have the capacity to appropriately deal with the cold. 

So how do we can we assess our metabolic reserve? Its hard to put a number on it, but Functional Blood Testing is a pretty strong indicator. As well as indicating a root cause of dysfunction, FBT reveals how well your body is coping, or will cope when a dysfunction arises. It gives specific areas to focus on, so you are no longer buying expensive supplements and hoping for the best. It can also be hugely empowering to know your body and its needs, allowing you to take your health into your own hands. 

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Have you ever been to the doctor for a blood test, feeling unwell, only to be told that everything looks normal? 

There are only two states of being in conventional medicine - well,  or unwell. But health is not an either/or state, it is a continuum. A person does not go from being in a perfect state of health one day, to being diagnosed with diabetes, cardiovascular disease or cancer the next. Disease often takes years of bodily dysfunction to get to the state where a diagnosis is made. 

Part of the problem is the ranges considered normal in conventional medicine. Normal ranges for blood biomarkers are based on the data of 95% of the normal population - assuming that the normal population is healthy.  

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Normal ranges are often too broad to detect early signs of dysfunction. 

Take homocysteine, an indicator of cardiovascular disease. Currently anywhere between 0 and 15 umol/L are considered ‘Normal’, but research shows that levels functionally high levels of 10.5umol/L are associated with early signs of cardiovascular disease in otherwise healthy individuals. 

The truth is that many people considered well by conventional standards are somewhere in the middle of being well or unwell, and often a long way from being functionally optimal. Blood tests are an excellent assessment tool, but conventional ranges represent a population of average rather than optimal levels required to maintain good health… and this is why functional blood testing looks only at the optimal ranges, which are highly researched for the physiologically optimal values. 

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So, on top of having very wide ranges, conventional blood tests are limited by the number of biomarkers measured.

Let us consider for a moment that you have an under-active thyroid condition (you're exhausted, low mood, you're constipated, feeling slow and weak). Under the conventional model, the doctor will normally test for one or two markers and if these are out of range, you will likely be offered medication. However, the thyroid system is incredibly complex and measuring only two aspects of it is like trying to see the full picture of a puzzle with only a few of its pieces. Conversely with a Functional Blood Test, more markers are assessed and therefore the specific area of dysfunction can be determined; in the case of the thyroid, it may simply be that you are lacking a particular nutrient,  which can easily be rectified without a lifetime prescription.

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Conventional medicine relies on diagnoses before treatment. This might be wise for infectious or acute disease, but is it the best fit for chronic illness? The health iceberg is a wonderful illustrator of this: on the surface we see diagnoses of disease based on symptoms and measurements, but what is really going on beneath the surface? What has happened to the body’s biochemistry for these symptoms to appear? Whats very interesting to note here is that the root of dysfunction might be totally different for two people with the same diagnosis. 

Functional Nutrition works on a different paradigm. It looks not only at symptoms, but also at how the body is functioning in each system. The Functional Blood Tests offered by Nourish and Be assess over 90 biomarkers, which are then analysed using one of the world’s most advanced interpretation technologies to give predictions on 13 body systems, 7 accessory systems, 7 macronutrient systems and 14 micronutrient statuses. This allows your Functional Nutritionist to direct support straight to the system most in need for maximum positive impact, rather than merely focusing on numbing the symptoms.

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If you are going to do a functional health test, do it right. 

1. - get help . It is so easy to fall into the data hunger trap… this means gathering data, getting a hit of knowing your numbers, but then not really knowing what you are going to do with it. Functional tests are an investment, so dont let that valuable knowledge go to waste! Some companies will offer you a 15 minute GP call or report or maybe some online support - but there is so much more information than that available in your test results!
2. Go for a full system check - think back to the puzzle analogy: knowing just one system is handy, but it doesn't allow you to get to the root cause so easily. Knowing about ALL of them is SO much more useful. Why focus on just your blood sugar, when actually your thyroid or liver is the reason behind your symptoms? Certain brands offering specific tests are actually pretty equal in price to a functional blood test, so testing less symptoms does not mean better value at all. 
3. Avoid at home blood test - these are still costly, but as soon as your blood leaves your body certain biomarkers start to degrade, so sitting in the post for a couple of days in all temperatures is not ideal for accurate results. On top of this, taking your blood at home with a finger prick can be very messy! I do sometimes use at home tests, but only for a select number of biomarkers, and as a monitoring tool rather than something I am going to base a whole intervention off. 
4. Finally, look for functional tests geared towards optimal health. Despite there being a number of health checks available, many are still set on conventional ranges. Good for ensuring you do not currently have a disease, not so good for making sure you aren't about to get one.

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The UK is blessed with free healthcare. The NHS is wonderful, so why should you consider paying for a Functional Blood Test? As already mentioned, conventional medicine has a different goal to Functional Nutrition, which can be boiled down to Don't die, versus Live as well as you can for as long as you can. 

There is no way about it, blood tests outside of the NHS are an investment. Testing your vitamin D status alone can cost £30, but thankfully with scale comes value, and the functional blood tests I provide for clients are MUCH better value than £30 per marker. 

There is no should in this; for some people this will resonate, and for others it wont. Some people are fine ticking along as they are, but if you are still here, this probably isn't you…

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