Nutritional Services in Jefferson City, MO

What is The Link Between Nutrition and Health?


  • Nutrition is foundational for health. 
  • Adequate levels of macronutrients (fats, protein, and carbohydrates) are needed to maintain body structures, energy levels, and biochemical processes that keep us alive. 
  • Micronutrients (vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients) are critical for maintaining biochemical processes, healing, and growth. The presence of toxins, sensitivities, or allergens would also affect the impact of a particular food, potentially leading to harm, despite having otherwise healthful properties. 
  • In addition to thinking of nutrition as simply providing the building blocks for biochemical processes, more complex interactions affect our health on a longer-term basis through dietary choices.
  • For example, dietary choices affect the makeup of our microbiome, which is the ecology of microbes that develop in the gastrointestinal tract after birth. As it turns out, the composition of this ecosystem has profound impacts on health.
  • It is also affected by lifestyle factors, such as stress, quality of diet, and taking antibiotics.
  • Disturbances in the gut microbiome can lead to a condition called dysbiosis and leave long-lasting effects that take time and intentional intervention to bring back into balance.
  • It is not enough to just have a "good" diet anymore, it is the intersection between what you eat, how your body is able to digest and absorb nutrients, and your genetic mutations that affects your overall ability to maintain a healthy nutritional status.
  • The other interaction where nutrition can change the landscape in a lasting way is through interactions with our genetic expression. Programming which genes will be "on" or "off" is called epigenetics. The specific way in which nutrition impacts genetic expression is called nutrigenomics. Through these processes, nutrition, especially in early life, leads to lasting changes in health outcomes.


Common Functional Nutrition Medicine Labs 


In the realm of Functional Nutrition, functional labs may be used to provide additional insight into one's nutritional status, allergies or intolerances, and microbiome health. Testing may also include tests to examine environmental, stress, or genetic factors that affect the microbiome, impacting overall health.


Micronutrient Status


  • Testing micronutrient status is an obvious starting point when considering nutrition, but it would be particularly relevant for certain groups of people. For example, highly active individuals (athletes) or people preparing for pregnancy have additional nutritional needs, and testing can assess if those needs are being met.
  • Those who have gut health issues or poor absorption would benefit from this testing since their consumed nutrients are struggling to enter the bloodstream.
  • Those with inadequate diets, high stress, eating disorders, or chronic illnesses would gain a lot of nutritional insight from this type of testing.
  • We use urine organic acid and some blood testing to assess micronutrient status. 


Food Allergies and Intolerances


  • Food allergies and intolerances, stress, infections, medications, etc. can all lead to damage in the small intestinal lining, leading to intestinal permeability (leaky gut) and allowing for systemic inflammation.
  • Food allergy and intolerance tests can be a very useful to test when initial elimination diet and gut restoration programs have not been enough to restore health.


Microbiome Analysis


  • Looking at the balance of certain helpful and pathogenic microbes in the stool can provide insight into the status of the gut ecosystem.
  • There are several comprehensive stool analysis tests that assess the makeup of the microbiome, including helpful microbes and pathogenic ones.
  • These tests also measure markers of digestion, intestinal inflammation, absorption, and gut lining integrity. 


Pesticides


  • Food quality is also an important factor when linking diet to health. Pesticides likely pose health risks, and some are categorized as endocrine disruptors because of their effect on our hormonal system. Testing for pesticide and other environmental toxin exposures via environmental toxin testing can give great insight into current toxin levels in the body.


Stress


  • Cortisol levels, measured throughout the day, can provide insight into the total stress level and the current ability of the adrenal system to respond to stress. This can be tested with saliva tests for cortisol/cortisone taken throughout one day. Prolonged or severe stress has a negative impact on the microbiome and has also been shown to increase intestinal permeability.


Genetics


  • Multiple options exist for testing for common genetic variants that may increase the risk of certain food sensitivities and nutrient deficiencies. This can be very helpful information to have in personalizing one's diet.



Call us today at 573-636-3995 to ask about Nutritional Services.

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