Hello Health Champions. Today we're going to
talk about how getting some blood work done And understanding how to read it correctly
could actually save your life and blood work Can be life-saving but let me start off with an
analogy regarding automobiles because I know a lot Of people have a car and a lot of people like
to service their cars so here's the question. Is it better to fix your car before it breaks or
after it breaks? And when I ask this in my clinic I always get a giggle and they say of course
it's better to take care of the problem before It breaks because then it may just be a $50 oil
change rather than a $5,000 transmission or engine Overhaul and this is how we think about cars and
expensive property but unfortunately we haven't Learned to think about our own vehicle the most
important vehicle our bodies in quite the same Way we typically just wait until it breaks and
then we do something about it and when it comes To the body it's also not only about the money yes
disease care can get very very expensive but it's More about the suffering and the lack of quality
of life that if we take care of ourselves we Could extend our health span our joyous portion
our quality life probably by 20 30 years imagine You get a phone call from somebody you pick it
up and it's a totally random phone call and the First thing they say is should I turn left or
right I'm out driving and the first thing you Want to know obviously is where are you assuming
that you even talk to this person but you need To know where they are and where they are going
otherwise you can't help them and this is like A lot of questions I get on my Channel people ask
should I do this or that but I don't know anything About them and that's what blood work can do for
us is it can provide a baseline but as great as Baselines and blood work can be it is also useless
if we don't know what we're looking for if we Don't understand what it's telling us now this is
a big topic and in this video video I'm only going To have time to give you a few nuggets we're going
to touch on a few of the most important markers But to really do it justice it would probably be
an 8 to 10 hour video and it's hard enough to get People's attention for 10 minutes if you know
what I mean but if you want to know more than What I can give you in this video I'm going to
let you know later in the video how you can get Your hands on a more comprehensive Deep dive it's
something that I've been wanting to do for years For my fellow Health Champions anemia is one of
the most important things that we can evaluate Not because it is the most common thing out there
but because it is so fundamental anemia means lack Of blood and what they're talking about there is
the oxygen carrying capacity if you're anemic you Don't have the capacity to deliver that oxygen and
if you don't understand how important it is then Just hold your breath for a couple of minutes and
I think the answer will come to you and now think About this that is how important oxygen is but if
you're anemic then it is not getting delivered to The degree that your body needs it so everything
can be affected when you have anemia hemoglobin is By far the most important marker to evaluate when
it comes to anemia because the hemoglobin is what
Carries the oxygen and an adult male should have
somewhere between 14 and 16 gram per deciliter Optimally of hemoglobin women have a little bit
less blood volume per body the weight and size So they can get away with a point or two lower but
then you have all these other different markers on Your tests you have your red blood cell count you
have the hematocrit you have the MCV which is mean Corpuscular volume it's the size of the red blood
cell now these by themselves are not all that Important but if your hemoglobin is high or low
now you use these other markers to start playing Detective and figure out why it's low is it low
because you don't have iron is it low because You're missing some other things some other things
you want to look at is total iron binding capacity That's a marker for a protein that goes to grab
iron so if total iron binding capacity TIBC is High that means the body is looking for iron so
if you have a low hemoglobin you would expect TIBC to be high but what if it isn't then your
hemoglobin is low for some other reason so this Is how you can start using this to to figure it
out and the best marker to figure out your iron Status is called ferritin that represents your
iron reserves and unfortunately is hardly ever Measured and the reason you want ferritin on every
blood test is that it's very inexpensive and it Gives you a lot of information so let's say that
your hemoglobin is normal but your ferritin your Iron reserves are very low that means so far your
body has been able to keep up making hemoglobin And red blood cells but if ferritin is low then
it tells you you're running out so especially for Menstruating women we want to check that ferritin
because if it's trending low then you might just Be a few weeks away from becoming anemic like on
the other hand in men and post-menopausal women Now you want to watch ferritin to see if it gets
too high because that's called iron overload or Hemochromatosis and just like Iron Will rust on
your car it can also kind of make your body rust Inside your liver and your pancreas are the
first to get damaged from excess iron and it Will aggravate and promote insulin resistance
and metabolic syndrome but it's also possible To have a high ferritin and a low hemoglobin so
traditionally anytime we are anemic we assume that We're lacking iron but what if it's something else
we're lacking and we already have too much iron if These people are now given iron when they have too
much that just makes the damage worse and they're Not solving the problem in order to make red blood
cells we also need some B vitamins we need B6 Folate which is also B9 and B12 . so interestingly
we can look now at the MCV the size of the red Blood cell and if it's very small it is usually
iron deficiency but if it's very large then it Is usually a B vitamin deficiency and if we're
anemic but we have plenty of iron it could also Be that we're low in copper and zinc because they
are also necessary to make red blood cells there Are 7 billion blood tests performed in the U.S
alone that's like 20 per person and sometimes they Just look for one specific marker in a hospital
setting but a lot of times it's large panels And there's six big problems that we're going to
go through why a lot of these panels are wasted
First reason is that it is not about health
they're not looking to keep you healthy They're looking for disease they're looking
for after it's already gone wrong most of the Ranges that you see on blood tests are based
on a bell curve they're based on averages and They're based on a 95 percent interval so if
we draw this then we can see the bell curve Like this and what they do then this is a normal
statistical distribution and then they take 95 so They start at two and a half percent and they
cut off the bottom two and a half percent and They cut off the top two and a half percent
and if you're in the middle if you're in the 95 in the middle then you're considered normal
but as I'm sure you can see now all it's really Saying is that you're not in the worst two and
a half percent on either side let's take another Car example imagine you take your car into the
garage and they do their checkups and you ask Think my tires are a little flat and they say no
we check them you have more air than the worst two And a half percent and you're saying yeah but my
manufacturer recommends 35 PSI I want to be here In the Middle where my car drives the best I don't
want to be down here at the worst two percent or The highest two percent that might be 10 or 60
and they say oh don't worry you're not down in The last in the lowest two and a half percent
yet and then they say let's just do this again Next year and see what it looks like then let's
wait till your next car service and then if you Get the blood work next year and you're actually
in the lowest two and a half percent now you get What's called a flag and another problem with this
bell curve distribution is that it changes over Time it's different with different populations a
different in different states and as people get Sicker then the norm changes but it doesn't mean
that normal is optimal the second big problem is That most practitioners the vast majority of
doctors who order blood work only look at the Flag so they get a report back something like
this and their eyes just focus in on wherever It says flag and wherever it's marked high or low
and the rest of the test gets no attention at all So everything here where there's a question mark
what does that mean well all it really means all You really know is that you're not in the worst
five percent and to me that is not very comforting So I think it's great that they're running all
this blood work because it's very inexpensive Relatively speaking but the way they're reading it
they're only using one percent of the information It could give us they're throwing 99 of it away
because they don't understand enough to get the Big picture it's the equivalent of waiting until
the car breaks down in my opinion and then if You say what does this mean am I healthy then the
chances are that most doctors are simply going to Answer you don't have a disease yet and this ties
into the third big problem and that's that a lot Of these ranges are way way way too broad as the
population gets sicker the range is widen to fit The population the 95 percent and one marker
in particular is insulin that I talk a lot About but that rarely gets measured so insulin
reference range goes from about 2 to 25 and 2
Is a healthy level 25 is typically a full-blown
diabetic so again they wait it's normal to wait It until you have that full-blown disease but
imagine instead that this is a dipstick for your Car for your oil check and it's supposed to be
up here that's where they say that's where the Oil gets the the best lubrication for the engine
and you take your car in for a check and they put The dipstick they check the dipstick and they
get a tiny little bit of oil down here at the Bottom and you're asking well shouldn't we fill
it up and they say now we'll wait we'll wait till Next time you come in for service because you're
still better off than two and a half percent of The population so if they were to measure it then
they would allow this entire range to be called Normal but even worse is that there's hardly ever
gets checked and I tell my patients to ask for it If we don't do the test and they have have to
fight with their doctors most of them come back Saying that they refuse to run the test it's not
standard but here is why you absolutely have to Understand what this does and why it could save
your life so if you have the normal measurement Of glucose that would be this high and then you
have the insulin measurement that would be that High they should balance they're different units
but that would be like a normal balance level so If this is in year one and then we wait 10 years
and now we measure again the thing they measure Is glucose that's a standard test and it's a
controlled variable the body is working very Very hard at keeping that variable in control that
glucose level but the way it's working hard to do It is to produce more insulin so if it takes this
much insulin now to keep the glucose down we have Just quadrupled our insulin resistance but it's
still considered normal because it's within this Range and if we wait another 10 years then we
might have still the same glucose or maybe it's Gone up a few points but now it takes 10 times and
we're basically just a few months or it's just a Matter of time before we have that full-blown
diagnosis of diabetes and if we measure for Health and we understand the physiology instead of
just looking for disease and pathology then we can Catch it 10 years earlier we can catch it in its
infancy and that's what prevention is all about Problem number four is that sometimes they're just
using the wrong range altogether and this could Be because of old data old misconceptions that
just take a long long time to get cleared up or It could be where there are Financial interests at
stake and there are certain interest groups that Push for these changes and here they are often
willing then after some pushing to make exceptions To these 95 percent bell curve ranges and the
classic example of course is cholesterol where I Did a video recently and pointed out that there is
massive data suggesting that the best ranges are Between 200 and 250 total cholesterol and if you
control for other factors others like insulin and Blood sugar and triglycerides all of the other
components of metabolic syndrome now you can Probably have 200 to 400 and do perfectly fine and
still the range is published go from 100 to 199 Even though we know that low cholesterol is many
times more dangerous than a higher cholesterol
Problem number five is a lack of Common Sense
they don't question where these ranges come from Or what they mean so one example here is where
triglycerides and LDL cholesterol the range says Zero to 149 and 0 to 99 as if it was okay or even
possible to live with a zero level triglycerides Is the most important fuel in the body we have two
fuels glucose and triglycerides and triglycerides Make up most of the fuel in the body so how would
it be possible to have zero it has never happened You would be long dead before you ever got to zero
triglycerides or zero LDL and yet the range goes To zero and then there are more inconsistencies
because we looked at cholesterol just a second Ago and total cholesterol should be between 100
and 199. so apparently you're allowed to have Some total cholesterol but then we look at the
ratios and this is kind of an important ratio Total cholesterol to HDL it's a good thing to look
at and here they say the range is 0 to 5 which The only way that can happen is if your total
cholesterol is zero so in this ratio now it's Okay for total cholesterol to be zero and it is a
good marker because if your total cholesterol to HDL is five then you're at average risk of heart
disease and obviously you want to do better than Average risk of heart disease so I tell people
that typically I want to be about three and a Half and down but not too low either because an
excessively High HDL can indicate other problems And then based on this number they estimate your
risk for heart disease so if your risk of heart Disease is one then you have the normal risk of
heart disease a hundred percent of normal but Apparently the lower the number the better off you
are all the way down to zero so the lowest risk of Heart disease according to this is when you have
zero cholesterol in your body which of course Means you're already dead but I guess they do have
a point here that you can't develop heart disease If you're already dead so we want to question the
ranges if they don't make sense and if something Is essential for life and the range goes all the
way down to zero then obviously these ranges are Not really thought through problem number six is
that that even though they do measure a lot of Different markers and they run all these blood
tests they often don't measure the stuff that Really matters so here are these markers they're
not the only ones you need to measure they're the Ones in addition to the ones usually measured
and you want to measure your LDL particle count And you want to measure your small LDL particle
count so that you can see the ratio which is an Indication of how much damage is taking place
in your body the third marker related to that Is the LDL size so that you can confirm what
you're finding we talked about ferritin and if It's very low then you're either anemic or you're
close to becoming anemic there's a high risk of It if ferritin is very high you have iron overload
and it's really tragic that this is not a standard Routine marker it's becoming more common but
it's still kind of prayer I find this in a lot of People I send a couple of people every week to go
donate blood and unload some iron hemoglobin A1c Is another marker that's becoming more common but
it's still not totally standard glucose is usually
Always measured but it's the instantaneous glucose
which fluctuates the A1C represents a three-month Average so we can see the long-term Trend it
gives us a whole lot more information for just A few dollars and thyroid is so critical to our
metabolism and healing and overall function and Yet it is very poorly evaluated typically if they
measure anything it's always only TSH like 98 of The time if they measure it's only TSH which is a
pituitary hormone the pituitary tells the thyroid TSH stimulates the thyroid to make thyroid hormone
which is T4 so we don't want to just see what the Pituitary is saying we want to see what is the
thyroid actually putting out but then we also Want to measure T3 because that's the active
form of T4 so it's possible to have a normal TSH and a normal T4 but still a low T3 so we want
to understand where in the range we are not only If it's normal or out of normal so if this is T4
and here is the total Reference Lab range and here Might be optimal let's say that we find ourselves
right in the middle we have a normal TSH normal T4 but then we go measure T3 and now we find out
that we are not in the optimal range but we're Still in the reference range so we wouldn't get
a flag on the regular blood test either way but We would know if we look for the optimal range but
here's the point that now it's a totally different Problem it's the problem is not with the TSH
it's not with the pituitary and it's not with the Thyroid it's the conversion that's not working so
now it's either the liver or the gut that are not Working that are not healthy so the liver converts
about 60 percent of this and the gut does another 20 and another 20 is kind of wasted because it's
flipped around but if we don't have a healthy gut A healthy microbiome we could lose 20 percent
of our active form of thyroid hormone so this Person can have a perfect effect TSH perfect T4
and still be functionally hypothyroid they don't Have enough of the finished product so we need
to understand that if the T4 is here it should Be somewhere in the same relative place in the
T3 range if our conversion is working properly And then there's a couple of more markers called
thyroid peroxidase and thyroglobulin antibodies And these are becoming quite common and they're
not that expensive so I would suggest everyone Regardless of symptoms get that done at least
once and if they're negative then you don't have To test them every time but everyone should
do it just to know if you have an autoimmune Problem if you are having Hashimoto's then you
need to know about that most commonly missing Marker considering 88 of the population is insulin
resistant and we don't measure insulin routinely You can measure insulin or c-peptide they're kind
of the same thing they're built in parallel the C-peptide has a little bit longer Half-Life so
it's maybe a little bit better marker but it's Also a little more expensive so insulin works
fine for usual regular purposes of just getting A baseline but the only time these are typically
measured is if they suspect type 1 diabetes But like I said 88 percent of people have too
much insulin and we need to measure it to see Where they are and then we need a baseline
so we can see where it's going on my panels
I always add homocysteine next to insulin
it's the single strongest independent risk Factor for heart disease if it's high it means
you're not converting you're not getting rid of It because you're low in methylation factors and
B vitamins it's usually a pretty easy fix but we Need to know what it is and the ranges again
are typically way way too big like 0 to 17 And you really want to keep this under six or
seven to keep your inflammation under control And vitamin D is an absolutely critical marker
the more they study it the more they find that Vitamin D participates in just about everything
in the body and it's a simple test that we can Get a precise number and if we're low we just
supplement like I mentioned earlier this video Can only be a brief introduction to blood work
because covering it in detail would probably Be a 10 hour video which doesn't work so well
here so I've created a blood work course that Is more comprehensive and it is for the layperson
to help understand what's going on with them but Let me put that in the frame for you that when
I started this channel when I really started Becoming active with the channel a couple of years
ago I just wanted to get information out there but With because of all of the feedback the positive
feedback of the thousands of lives that have been Changed for the better this interest of mine has
taken on more of a mission more of a calling and Now my job I realize is to change or be part of
the group of people who change the Paradigm of Health on the planet there's so many sick people
who get the wrong information or no information And we we need to have something for them and now
more and more I want to create a movement I want To create a tribe of Health Champions where people
take charge and do something about their health And take pride in doing the right thing for their
health so in order to help people on that Journey A blood work course is the next logical step
so I've created the more comprehensive course And I put a link Down Below in the description
where you can go and find out more about that And now because it's Black Friday I'm going to
do something I've never done before where we're Going to do a big giveaway and the grand price
is a consultation with myself it's going to be One-on-one if you can make it to Georgia then
we're going to sit down face to face at the Clinic if not I understand then we'll just do a
nice video conference and because I don't really Do these anymore it's hard to put a value on it
but I'll make an exception for this Black Friday Last time I did that we charged a thousand dollars
for that consult but then of course we're going to Need to talk about some blood work and we are
going to provide you that blood work panel at a Value of four hundred dollars so all in all that's
a fourteen hundred dollar Grand price and there is No purchase necessary we'll put some information
down below you can go check it out and enter And then I thought that it'd be kind of nice
to sit down and chat so why don't I or offer Three of these so we're going to have not just
one we're going to have three winners who all Get that grand price so the total value here is
going to be about forty two hundred dollars so
Check out the link below for more information
and to enter the giveaway I'm excited to sit Down and meet with you. If you enjoyed this
video, you're gonna love that one, and if you Truly want to master health by understanding how
the body really works make sure you subscribe, Hit that bell and turn on all the notifications
so you never miss a life-saving video.
