Blood tests were originally envisaged as a way of helping to diagnose diseases. Since their inception, the number of ailments tested for has risen dramatically, along with the volume of ‘routine’ tests we’re exposed to.
The latter are typically carried out when there is nothing actually wrong with the patient. While these may be slightly unpleasant, they’re viewed as a necessary evil because they’re only minimally invasive and can yield supposedly valuable information about our health.
A phrase that’s often used to justify these blood tests is ‘better safe than sorry. However, while these may seem like only a minor inconvenience, it’s easy to lose sight of the enormous amount these tests cost the National Health Service each year.
The way we justify this expense is by looking at blood tests as a preventative measure; as the only way of ensuring that we are, in fact, as healthy as we appear. However, we’re not avoiding any sort of disastrous outcome if we are in fact healthy to begin with!
Even where these results say we’re healthy, though, how can we be certain we actually are? We rarely stop to question the validity of these findings, but can it perhaps be dangerous to accept what we’re told - and, ergo, the standard way of doing things - without any wider questions being raised?
That’s what we’ll explore in this discussion piece.
How are blood test results interpreted?
When you have a blood test, the results of that test are compared to the normal and accepted range for healthy individuals. These numbers indicate the lower and upper limits, and if your results fall outside of them, you’re considered to have an issue.
However, there is no ‘manual of life’ to tell us where these figures should fall. Medical professionals have invented these ranges by taking the results of lots of seemingly healthy individuals and creating an average.
So how did we manage before blood tests were invented? If we look at medical case history, taking naturopathy and other forms of early medicine into account, it becomes clear that we were able to assess the health of individuals long before we developed these methods.
This raises obvious questions. Firstly, if we can evaluate someone’s health without a blood test, why is it necessary to carry them out on such a frequent basis? Secondly, if a person looks and feels healthy but their blood tests disagree, are they unhealthy or not? Thirdly, if a person feels unwell but blood tests as being healthy, is the blood test correct or their lived experience?
This is a major issue with modern medicine. We have decided that the blood test is more important than any other diagnostic tool and that it overrides what we actually feel. This becomes problematic once we realise that an industry that benefits from us being ill is the one deciding on whether or not we’re healthy.
This can thus cause us to question ourselves. We may feel perfectly well, but if a test tells us otherwise, we’re expected to take action. The medical establishment suggests we must act immediately, undergoing costly treatments to make ourselves ‘well’ again i.e. to make numbers on paper align.
These blood tests are meant to provide a clear picture of how our bodies and their internal systems are operating. This means flagging up any organs that are being overworked or coming under strain. For example, if high levels of a particular hormone are detected, the assumption is that the gland producing these has become overactive. Similarly, if low levels of nutrients are uncovered, medical professionals suggest we should be supplementing these.
We, therefore, view these results as an accurate indicator of how our bodies are working, using these results to guess which organs or glands are working at a less than optimal level, what activity we ought to suppress, and which we should be supporting. However, there are certain issues with such an approach.
Veins versus arteries
When medical professionals take blood, this comes from a vein rather than an artery. The two perform different functions, with the latter taking oxygen and nutrients to the cells and the former returning used blood, which is low in oxygen and high in waste products.
This has three important consequences.
1. Blood tests only show us the nutrients in our blood after our cells have already taken what they require. This means that where high levels are detected, only a small amount has been taken, and where low levels are found, the cells have satiated themselves to a greater extent.
As a result, it’s impossible to say whether low levels are simply a reflection of the cells having taken what they need, in the way a plate is more likely to be empty when a diner is hungry than when they’re full.
2. When high levels of waste products are found, an assumption is made that a related organ is not performing its role properly. However, veins are designed to take waste products away from cells, so when organs are working hard, they naturally produce more of this.
Ergo, this doesn’t necessarily mean the organ isn’t working properly; it could simply be the case that they're doing a good job. An assumption to the contrary is like suggesting that a factory is inefficient and/or not working well because it produces a large amount of waste.
3. The level of hormones found in a single blood sample is not the same as the amount of hormones being produced by a gland and carried to cells for operational purposes. Rather, it only shows what a person’s blood looks like once the cells have taken what they need from it.
To put that a different way, the hormones in a blood sample are nothing more than an indication of the hormones produced by the cells themselves. These come directly from the cells as this is where the blood is being transported from when the test is performed.
This casts the validity of blood tests in a very different light to the one we’re used to.
Deficiency or productivity?
One of the questions this raises is whether deficiency may in fact be evidence of productivity i.e. whether what looks like overproduction is instead a deliberate and natural slow-down in activity.
Could this be possible? In fact, researchers have known since the early 80s that cells produce what they need when they need it. There is no centralised production unit or complex distribution system to keep us alive; rather, our body’s communication system is based on waste management.
This means each cell is individually responsible for producing what it requires, whether this be fat, hormones, minerals, proteins, vitamins, or water. The stimulus that passes on these messages is a vibrational impulse i.e. an energy wave. This takes information from the outside world and other cells and uses it to ensure that our cells are operating effectively.
Our cells respond to these vibrational impulses, turning them into physical activity. This ultimately results in the production of waste, which is removed from our bodies via lymphatic fluid and the blood that’s found in our veins and capillaries.
To put it simply, this means the blood we test is simply the end result of cellular activity. What it provides is an insight into this. Where levels are high, we know there has been a lot of this kind of activity in the cells.
For example:
• Raised glucose indicates our cells have been using a lot of energy.
• Raised thyroid hormones show our cells have been very active.
• Raised liver markers indicate liver activity within the cells has been high, rather than that the liver cannot cope with its workload.
Depleted levels, on the other hand, tell us cellular activity has been low. This might be because this particular function hasn’t been needed, or because the cells are no longer able to perform it.
If a period of very low activity follows on from a period of very high activity, and the stimulus level is unchanged, this is when we should be concerned. This is when we know the cells are struggling to cope with demand and can no longer perform their function properly.
In the same vein, when we expect to see a high level of a particular cellular activity but discover low levels instead, we know the individual is in trouble. For so long as cells are still responding to stimuli, recuperation tends to be possible, but when this stops, we ought to worry.
So, how do we encourage the system to heal itself? By reducing the energetic pressure on it.
The impact of body parts on results
What’s also interesting to note is that the results of blood tests can vary depending on the body part they’re taken from. Think of it this way: the veins carry the cell’s waste products, so these naturally vary throughout the body because not all of the cells perform the same task at the same time.
Usually, blood is taken from the wrist or elbow. The blood in these veins carries waste away from the fingers, hand, and forearm. The results of such a blood sample will thus tell us how the cells in these parts of the body are doing.
What they’re less likely to provide an insight into is how the cells in your abdomen, legs, or pelvic region are coping. This means that this type of blood test is unlikely to deliver accurate results if a doctor wants to study your liver or kidney function, for example.
As a rule, the cells in our bodies derive information from two sources: general and local. The former tells the body about the environment it lives in and how it should respond. Therefore, all the cells will display a certain level of this type of activity. If we wanted to study it, it wouldn’t matter overmuch which vein blood was taken from. If a person lived in high pressure conditions, for example, all of the cells would show this.
If we were interested in finding out local information, however, the specific levels of waste would be influenced by the area of the body the sample came from. That’s because local traumas can impact cellular activity, making specific and localised demands on various biological regions.
Where the disease process was a local affair, blood taken from the elbow would therefore be unlikely to show signs of it. This might result in your doctor deeming you perfectly healthy, even though you may be anything but.
This is particularly problematic if the aim is early intervention and treatment, as, by the time a localised illness begins to affect the cells in your wrist or elbow, the disease would have spread to your entire system, and the opportunity to contain it would be lost. By this point, the whole energetic system would be at risk of failing.
How methods and interpretations vary
The very way we perform blood tests is proof of how our cells provide for their needs. The variations that are often seen in cellular activity indicate that energetic impulses drive this. While high or low levels of elements may provide an insight into what cells have been doing, the judgement of how “appropriate” or “healthy” these levels are is an entirely man-made concept.
Indeed, from the perspective of our cells, the levels are always correct and as they should be. That’s because these levels are a direct effect of stimuli, in the form of energetic impulses that pass messages to our body. These levels are therefore no more than an indicator of what our cells have been up to – there is nothing inherently “right” or “wrong” about them.
We only decide that these levels are thus when a human compares them to the level they would like them to be, and which that individual has deemed as appropriate. However, nature does not play by the laws of men – it simply does what it needs to keep a system functional. If this is the case, is it not better to allow the cell to do as it will without interfering?
Are blood tests leading us down a dangerous path?
The way laboratories measure these levels can have a marked impact on the result. As Einstein shared, the interpretation of a measurement is simply another variable. The thoughts and analysis we attach to those figures are detached from reality. They mean nothing to the cells in our body or how they work.
According to some medical professionals, we should not use these results to interfere with the function of the cells, which are reactive, but there are ways we can support them. For example, Hering’s law of cure suggests that to rid the body of toxicity – i.e. disease or inflammation – illness needs to leave from top to bottom, from the greater organs to the lesser. This treatment should be based not on empty results, however, but on symptoms and case history.
When we rely instead on blood tests, it creates a concerning paradigm. Modern-day nutritionists can fall into the trap of being led by these pseudo-medical tests, rather than relying on their own naturopathic observation. This can lead to expensive recommendations that require constant tinkering to maintain these optimum levels.
Perhaps what we ought to be doing instead is addressing the problems that are quite literally staring is in the face: the need to eliminate toxins from the body to rid it of disease, as many would suggest less is in fact more. This follows the teaching of renowned naturopath Arnold Ehret, who believed that all illness was fundamentally down to consumption.
The takeaway
While blood tests are frequently used by modern-day medical professionals and nutritionists, we should not always accept their results unquestioningly. We need to look at why they’re being run in the first place and ask ourselves whether seemingly healthy individuals really require such a degree of intervention.
This works the other way around too: where someone is displaying obvious symptoms of illness, we should not claim they are healthy simply because their blood results tell us so. Instead, we ought to look at their case history and what ails them to help improve their overall health and well-being.
Costly, often erroneous, and failing to provide a complete picture of what is happening in our bodies, blood tests should not be our first port of call regarding diagnostics and treatment. Instead, it can be far better to treat symptoms rather than some perceived illness that may never manifest.
To learn more about taking accountability for your own health, why not take a look through our extensive archives? Filled with useful information on nutrition and supplementation, these are filled with knowledge to help you make better lifestyle choices moving forward.
