Is Live Blood Analysis a Valid Health Screening Tool?

Firstly, why is Blood so important?

Blood is the most complex biological fluid. Not only does it contain the RBCs, WBCs and the essential clotting factors - thrombocytes - but the majority of blood (55%) is plasma.

Plasma is the fluid which carries the nutrients, the wastes, proteins, electrolytes and hormones. Basically, the plasma is like a postal system that receives and delivers the chemical messages produced by the body’s cells, organs and tissues.

Blood has been extracted, examined and tested as a barometer of health throughout the history of medicine, and these days laboratory medicine continually discovers new ways of testing blood and new things to test for.

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What is the difference between a Doctor’s blood test and Live Blood Analysis?

The various terms used to describe the different blood cells seen under the microscope are the same – whether they are used in a medical context or as part of an LBA assessment.  The main difference between the medical blood tests and Live Blood Analysis is the preparation of the blood sample, and the purpose.

Medical Blood Tests

Only medical professionals – medical doctors – can diagnose disease. They use a variety of blood tests to be able to detect the levels and presence of various blood elements, which allows them to eliminate certain diseases and/or affirm the possibility of others; however a single blood test in itself is not definitively diagnostic.

The blood sample they take is mixed with anticoagulant so that it does not clot and is sent to a laboratory. Blood is then processed in a machine where they break it up into its components and then measure the various elements. They may also take a drop of blood and stain it to be able to pick up various types of cells and look at it under the microscope.

They grade the blood based on a statistical range of measurements to determine what a normal level is and what isn’t. The results will flag up areas of concern depending on which elements are beyond the range they consider normal and healthy.

From there they will either determine that you need more diagnostics or they will make a judgement, based on your symptoms and your blood results, that there is no cause for concern.

The problem is, just because we fit into the statistical range that is considered ’normal’ doesn’t mean that we feel well.

Clients often choose LBA because they have been to the Doctor and had normal blood test results, yet they still feel unwell. They know something is wrong and despite going to the Doctor they have no answers as to why they feel the way they do.

Live Blood Analysis

Live Blood Analysis is used in the field of complementary medicine, often in conjunction with nutrition, naturopathy, homeopathy, acupuncture or herbalism.

A drop of the client’s blood is examined under a microscope and the information gained is used to check for signs of many issues relating to health. We are able to use it to bring a new dimension to our ability to understand what is happening at a cellular level within our clients. 

Why is it called ‘live’ blood analysis?

An LBA blood sample is not stained or treated with chemicals - it is mounted onto the microscope as soon as possible after being extracted to be able to view it in its ‘live’ state.

This enables us to see how the blood moves, how the blood cells react to each other and how they respond to the environment they float in – the plasma.

By magnifying the blood 1000 times, we can see the health of each individual cell and are able to assess how many cells are normal and functional and how many cells are not. Abnormal cells are obvious and their presence will indicate a variety of issues.

What can a Live Blood Analysis show?

One drop of blood contains 5 million cells. The proportions and amounts of the different cells distributed throughout that one drop is representative of what is contained in all of a person’s blood. 

From this one drop of blood we can:

• Determine if there are specific deficiencies of nutrients such as B12, folate, zinc, Vitamin C, or EFAs.

• Check if the cell membranes are damaged or whether they are healthy.

• Assess immune system cell activation and whether there are enough/too many white blood cells - this can show the presence of inflammation, autoimmune issues, infection, allergies or parasites.

• Check for elements in the plasma that can indicate liver issues or circulatory challenges, such as thrombocytes, uric acid crystals or fat crystals.

• Assess the integrity of the digestive tract and screen for problems such as ‘leaky gut’.

• Make an assessment of the charge of the red blood cell membranes – the zeta potential – which is indicative of the pH of the fluids/tissues of the body as a whole.

What is the Purpose of Live Blood Analysis?

The ultimate goal of a blood test is to find out if there is anything in the blood that can answer the question “what is wrong with me?”.

There are many ways to test blood but Live Blood Analysis enables the complementary health professional to:

• assess a client’s blood immediately in their own clinic.

• educate and motivate clients by identifying how their lifestyle habits are reflected in their blood.

• use the results to generate a bespoke protocol that focuses on the root causes of a client’s health symptoms.

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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Dried Blood Analysis – a Holistic-Medical Blood Test

Blood is the most complex human biological fluid. It contains a huge variety of molecules, ions and cells; we can tell a lot about our health from what is in our blood and the way it behaves.

As medical science has progressed it seems we have discovered even more that the blood can offer and this is why it is so frequently tested by medical professionals to monitor health.

Nutritionists, naturopaths, and functional medical practitioners often use a variety of blood tests too, in order to assess various nutrient levels, inflammatory markers or liver enzymes for example. Rather than to prescribe medicine or diagnose disease the results of these tests are used to generate protocols that focus on supplements as well as dietary advice.

By relying on these types of tests, however, there is a danger that the therapist loses the holistic perspective and instead uses an allopathic approach to health - there can be a temptation to prescribe individual supplements to try to address specific test results directly.

There is a blood test that began as a medical application but has developed as a fantastic holistic health assessment tool. It has a wealth of science and research behind it which validates its use in the context of health screening and it can be used as part of a holistic health approach by the complementary therapist.

That test is called Dry Blood Analysis (sometimes known as the Oxidative Stress Test).

Medical and Scientific History of
Dry Blood Analysis (DBA)

Originally DBA was developed as a simple, quick health assessment of very sick patients that could be performed at the bedside. It was a solution to the difficulty of extracting enough blood from very sick patients in order to run tests. It was developed in 1939 by a New York Doctor called Emanuel Goldberger and he called it a blood film diagnostic test.

It involved puncturing the patient’s fingertip and allowing a bead of blood to surface. A microscope glass slide was then pressed onto the finger in order to take up the blood. This was repeated three times resulting in three circular ‘puddles’ of blood on the slide. The slide was then left for 20 minutes, allowing the blood sample to dry.

Once dry the blood films produce distinct patterns depending on the contents and the condition of the patients’ blood. Diseases left distinct patterns in these dry blood films and could indicate how serious the state of health in the patient was. By holding the slide up to the light the doctor was then able to evaluate the patterns with the naked eye.

This test was further developed in 1942 by Dr Bolen and was used as a screening tool for cancer. The cancer disease process creates a large amount of oxidative stress/free radical damage from the breakdown of tissue which produced specific patterns in the dry blood films. In reality, however, the test was not as specific as this; it could detect the presence of any chronic disease - not just cancer - that would cause the oxidation and breakdown of tissue, including all inflammatory processes.

In 1979 the Bradford Research Institute determined what was causing the distinctive patterns that appeared in the dry blood layers. They proposed a theory – The Reactive Oxygen Toxic Species (ROTS) theory of degenerative disease - which mapped the blood’s highly complex clotting cascade and determined how various chronic and acute disease processes interrupted this delicate homeostasis.

They proved that the metabolic by-products of disease processes (ROTS) would damage cells, tissues and organs and that this damage to health could be assessed via the ‘HLB’ test – a name derived from the initials of the researchers.

The test was essentially revealing the levels of inflammation in the body that was caused by free radical damage.

Current Scientific Research on Dry Blood Analysis

There is ongoing scientific research into biological fluids by research institutions continually mapping the diagnostic markers available from a single drop of blood. They have been able to confirm that the presence of certain disease processes do indeed generate specific characteristic patterns within dried drop of blood. 

Researchers from the department of Chemical Engineering in Monash University, Australia have been studying the cracking patterns that appear in a drop of dried blood. Their method of blood sampling and drying is slightly different but the theory as to why and how certain patterns appear is similar.

The Russian Scientific Research Institute of Gerontology in Moscow has also been developing a dry blood analysis test which they call “cuneform dehydration of biological fluids”. They believe that the body’s biological fluids are just as indicative of morphological changes in the body as the body’s cells and yet medical research has really only been focussing on cellular abnormalities.

The Dry Blood Analysis Test
- The Holistic Approach

As a Live & Dry Blood Analyst this new research is exciting and can offer theoretical and scientific weight behind our method of health screening, despite the differences between our testing processes.

Our testing method is similar to the Goldberger, Bolen and HLB method except we take eight blood films, or layers, per sample rather than three, we look at the dry blood under the microscope to view it in more detail and of course we are not conducting our test in controlled laboratory conditions but rather in our own clinic.

The core of our approach to Dry Blood Analysis is based on -

• The ROTS theory of disease which states that free radical damage, oxidative stress and inflammation are the cause and by-product of all disease processes.

• The understanding that ROTS by-products circulate in the blood and affect the clotting cascade.

• The fluid dynamics of a drying drop of biological fluid – the blood.

• The distinctive patterns that are generated by various disease states.

• The effect that the presence of various toxic elements that circulate within the blood can have on the dry blood patterns

The Dry Blood Analysis procedure involves puncturing a client’s fingertip and allowing a bead of blood to form. This is left on the finger for 30 seconds to allow the clotting cascade to develop. A microscope slide is then pressed onto the drop of blood eight times. The slide is left to dry, which takes about 15 minutes, and in that time the eight blood layers will go through an extraordinary transformation.

Dry Blood Analysis Sample

As blood is a biological fluid - it behaves like a non-Newtonian fluid. This means that as the water evaporates from layers of blood it generates currents within the fluid. This moves the contents of the layer around and creates the distinctive patterns.

How the contents move and where they end up within the layer is determined by the electro-biochemical properties of the red blood cells, the quantity of the various clotting factors in the plasma, toxins that have been circulating within the blood, by-products of pathogens, by-products of oxidation, free radical damage and degenerative disease processes. This is what generates the distinctive patterns within the dry blood layers that are indicative of various issues going on within the body.

Blood Drop Evaporation

Dry Blood Analysis can:

• Detect the presence of inflammation

• Assess the progression of inflammatory processes - chronic or acute

• Determine the location of the inflammatory process – organ, tissue or system specific

• Monitor the progression or reduction of the inflammatory process

• Detect heavy metal toxicity

• Reveal the presence of parasites

• Show mineral and vitamin imbalances

• Show antibiotic damage

• Detect bowel inflammation

• Assess the lymphatic burden

• Assess protein metabolism

Heavy Metals

Parasites

Bowel Inflammation

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Learning Live & Dry Blood Analysis Together
– Our Approach -

At Naturecure Academy we teach Dry Blood Analysis alongside Live Blood Analysis enabling you to conduct a well-rounded blood assessment on your clients, in your own clinic.

Not only can Dry Blood Analysis offer immediate confirmation of many issues that may be at play within your client’s state of health – but you can also use Live Blood Analysis alongside it to expand your understanding of your client’s health picture. The two work extremely well together……

Example

You may suspect a client has a heavy metal issue because they have several amalgam fillings or they have had them removed recently. Heavy metals can disrupt biological processes, encourage bacterial and parasitic infection, settle in neurological tissue etc.

You would not want to start forcing the body’s tissues to release heavy metals, however, if the kidneys, the liver, the blood brain barrier or the bowel could not handle it.

Dry Blood Analysis can confirm the presence of heavy metals and indicate whether there is evidence of parasites as well.

Live Blood Analysis can reveal liver, kidney or digestive stress. It can also reveal nutrient deficiencies that may hamper the body’s ability to detox.

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Our clients’ Live & Dry blood patterns, indications and findings are unique - by being able to understand and verify these findings we can create bespoke protocols that get to the root cause of their issues effectively.

Taking this approach can also mean less cost for your clients, as they can avoid paying for further laboratory testing if it is not necessary. This can add extraordinary value to what you can offer as a practitioner and set you apart from your competitors.

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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Does Your Client Really Have An Allergy or Intolerance?

Food intolerance testing is big business for online laboratories and the number of people believing they have a food allergy or intolerance is growing.

Are people really intolerant to certain foods - are they having a true allergic response - or does the problem lie in the health of their digestive tracts?

One of the most common questions I get asked from the general public is “Can Live Blood Analysis test for food allergies or intolerances?”

Food allergies and intolerances are of huge concern for many people I encounter in my practice. Understandably so as it appears that many children are being born with severe allergies. Often just a tiny particle of an allergen is enough to induce a potentially fatal anaphylactic shock in those people with a true acute allergy.

Along with those who have life threatening allergies, there are many having a variety of uncomfortable symptoms who believe that they are becoming allergic or are intolerant to a variety of foods/environmental chemicals. 

In an attempt to eliminate the symptoms they buy into the many allergy tests that are now available. The burgeoning “gluten free” and “dairy free” food industry is capitalising on this and now shops are full of “free from” options. When whole isles of supermarkets are dedicated to these foods you know that the demand is great.

So, if your clients suffer from bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, IBS, skin rashes, lots of mucous production, big dips in energy, breathing problems, hayfever, asthma, watery eyes, runny nose and brain fog after eating etc - does this mean that they could be allergic or intolerant to certain foods?

Should you initiate a raft of tests, and a big bill, to determine the truth? Or does Live & Dry Blood Analysis (LDBA) offer an alternative?

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The Allergic Response

Firstly let’s look more closely at what an allergy is.

Allergic reactions are a result of an immune system reaction to an allergen and there are different scales of allergic reactions.

The most severe are the types of allergic responses that cause anaphylactic shock. Scientists are still working out why this happens and they do have some ideas – some people are born with an immune system that is primed to produce a certain differentiation of immune cell that produces a particular chemical, an immunoglobin (IgE), which initiates a massive release of histamine from the body’s mast cells.

Mast cells are immune cells that contain histamine (and enzymes, cytokines, oxidative chemicals, proteoglycans) and they release these chemicals when triggered.

These chemicals are thought to have several functions:

• They help generate new blood vessels, assist in wound healing, defend against pathogens and play a role in protecting the brain.

• They also affect the surrounding tissues, increasing blood flow, increasing fluids in the area, attracting more white blood cells, triggering muscle cells to contract and irritating nerve cells.

Mast cells are stationed in all tissues that are exposed to the outside world – the skin, the mucosal linings of the respiratory tract, the blood-brain barrier and the lining of the digestive tract.

They can be triggered to release their chemical contents in a localised area as a normal response to an allergen/pathogen or other trigger of some sort.

Or it can be a systemic, almost simultaneous, release of chemicals throughout the whole body causing a severe allergic response. The body cannot survive or overcome the release of these chemicals and it can result in anaphylactic shock which if left untreated will be fatal. This is not a normal immune response.

So – If someone asks me can you test for allergies? – I ask them –

• Do you have itchy skin, rashes, welts, hives?

• Do you have difficulty breathing, runny nose, streaming eyes?

• Do you have blood in your stools, do you vomit or have acute diarrhea?

• And – do these symptoms occur rapidly, with little warning?

If the answer is ‘yes’ I advise them to go straight to the doctor and get checked for severe allergies.

Food Intolerances

The next question I ask is – what sorts of symptoms are you having that lead you to believe you are reacting to foods?

The answer to this is usually that they are experiencing a lot of digestive discomfort. It is true that there are certain foods, mostly types of sugars, that some people cannot digest properly such as lactose or foods that contain FODMAPS.

The sugars contained in these foods are undigested and travel through the digestive tract being fermented by intestinal bacteria leading to very uncomfortable symptoms like, gas, bloating, IBS etc.

Lectins are another substance that can cause these issues too.

As a nutritionist or naturopath looking to help clients - do food sensitivity testing kits help?

There are many types of food sensitivity testing kits that can be bought online. Typically they send you a kit that directs you to prick a fingertip and extract some drops of blood directly into a tube which is then sealed and sent off in the post to a laboratory for processing. You receive your results with a report that shows you which foods you are supposedly sensitive to and they advise you to avoid.

HOWEVER – these tests are for IgG antibodies not IgE. IgG antibodies are produced when you are exposed to a food, not because of an allergy response. They are generated by circulating immune cells - plasma cells - when we are exposed to certain foods and they are there to protect us against the naturally present allergens in these foods.

For the most part they actually prevent us from having an abnormal reaction; we become desensitised by these immunoglobins so that we can harmonise with our environment (our diet).  Each of us has our own distinct repertoire of circulating IgG antibodies.

AND – the story so far in terms of immunoglobins (all of them), cytokines and T helper cells, B cells and plasma cells is nowhere near complete.

The way the immune system works, how it is primed from early life within the womb through infancy to adulthood, the genetic influences, the inherited traits and the environmental exposure to allergens, foods, chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs creates a very complex picture. We do not have all the pieces of the puzzle in order to see it clearly, yet.

Does avoiding problematic foods actually solve the problem?

By eliminating the foods you are supposedly sensitive to as laid out in the IgG food sensitivity testing, or by following a low FODMAP or low lectin diet in an attempt to resolve your health issues, you may not be getting to the root cause.

When you look at the list of foods that contain FODMAPS or lectins – the list is huge and you cannot possibly avoid them all nor should you. It can be dangerous to start cutting out foods and food groups from the diet for any length of time, as it can lead to nutrient deficiencies and ultimately may be totally unnecessary.

There can be a placebo effect from this process which can be powerful, however, I am not convinced it will override an underlying health issue for long and may end up causing further problems.

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How Live Blood Analysis Can Help

In my experience as a nutritionist the root cause of these sensitivities and digestive issues needs to be uncovered in order for them to be resolved.

Firstly, as a holistic practitioner I believe that the influences on a person’s health come from many angles. My role is to investigate thoroughly to be able to generate as complete a picture of their health as I can.

I take their case history – this includes a list of all the symptoms they are currently experiencing, a complete list of foods and drinks they consume, a run through of their entire health history going back to birth to present day, the health history of parents grandparents, a list of medications and supplements they are taking, a breakdown of lifestyle habits, levels and sources of stress and an understanding the environments they spend their time in.

Then I conduct a Live and Dry Blood Analysis to uncover the possible root causes of their issues.

Here are just a few examples of how LDBA can assess a client to find the root cause of their symptoms:

1)      Assessment of gut permeability

Most of the symptoms experienced by those looking for food sensitivity testing are digestive in nature. They range from acid-reflux, indigestion, nausea, cravings, bloating, IBS, constipation, diarrhoea, pains in the belly/stomach.

Chylous particles in live blood

I ask clients to fast for 5 hours before the blood analysis so that when I take their blood sample (only a drop from the finger tip) there should be no food particles floating around in the plasma. However, if I do see bright particles in their sample as in the image, it tells me that there is gut permeability also known as leaky gut - this can be contributing to their symptoms.

Particles leaking from the digestive tract will be either undigested or partly digested, covered in bacteria, or may even be fragments of bacteria or fungus. This will put pressure on the immune system – it has to cope with these ‘foreign particles’ in the blood and decide how to deal with them.

This can lead to higher production or activation of immune cells, by products of which can generate a lot of acidity, oxidative stress and use up lots of nutrients and energy.

The leaky gut needs to be addressed as part of their root cause protocol.

2)      Digestive capacity

In order to have a happy, normally functioning digestive tract we need to have a good level of stomach acid. Without that we cannot kill off microbes or digest protein properly which can lead to all kinds of issues like bacterial overgrowth in the stomach (helicobator pylori), bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine (SIBO) and deficiency of B12.

We need stomach acid (and ‘intrinsic factor’) for the digestive tract to extract, breakdown and absorb B12. Learn more in our post ‘To B12 or not to B12’.

Signs of B12 Deficiency

Some clients’ blood samples show that they have a low level of B12 which is reflected by the appearance of certain red blood cells and white blood cells. We are not measuring the B12 in the blood here - we seeing an actual functional deficiency of B12 (and folate) that has impaired the DNA synthesis and results in abnormal cells.

This can be an indicator of digestive capacity and it is vital to catch a B12 deficiency early so that it can be corrected as it is one of the most vital nutrients for health. Possible indications are:

• Macrocytes - Red blood cells that are too big due to lack of B12 at point of production in the bone marrow. They cannot travel into the capillaries and so are not able to carry oxygen or carbon dioxide.

A macrocyte (enlarged RBC)

• Hypersegmented neutrophils – the nucleus of this white blood cell is divided into many lobes indicating a deficiency of B12.

A Hypersegmented Neutrophil


3)      Bowel inflammation

Dry Blood Sample showing indication of bowel inflammation

Digestive disturbances can be caused by the overgrowth of bacteria creating gas and bloating. They can also be caused by inflammation in the bowel which may have been caused by antibiotic damage, allowing an overgrowth of ‘bad’ bacteria or it can be a condition such as IBD.

Whatever the cause, bowel inflammation can be seen in dry blood analysis. In the image above you can see a dark central area – which represents toxicity building up in the bowel (possibly from an inflammatory process, but also could be from toxicity in general). You can also see white circular areas which are puddles of the metabolic breakdown products from inflammation.

4)      Immune System Assessment

If a client does have allergies or intolerances which are related to an immune system response, then there will be some obvious signs in the both the live and the dry blood analysis. 

• Basophils - If there are several of these cells in a live blood sample then we can deduce that the immune system is reacting to an allergen or an irritation of some sort.

  They contain histamine granules just like mast cells, and can be the cause of inflammatory reactions, acute and chronic allergies and are present when there are ectoparasite infections such as tick bites (basophils migrate to the infected tissues).

Basophil

• Eosinophils – these are another type of white blood cell that if found in certain levels in the blood sample can indicate that there may be a parasite infection. They are part of the inflammatory response, are specifically related to helminths and other multicellular parasites, asthma and viral diseases.

Eosinophils

• Evidence of parasites – The blood contains chemicals that can either be the product of cellular processes, ingested toxins, cellular degradation products or toxins produced by parasites.

When the blood sample is allowed to  ‘dry’ it goes through the clotting cascade and the various substances in the blood will disrupt the clotting and create distinctive patterns in the dry blood layer.

Dry Blood Sample showing indication of parasites

One of those patterns is the appearance of black bulges within the black fibrin web that overlays the blood layer. This happens because of the products of exogenous parasites interfering with the fibrin production and is a clear indicator of an active parasitic infection.

Parasitic infections can disrupt many of the body’s processes and trigger immune response, digestive issues and alter the pH of the body’s tissues. 

5)      Ability to detox

Another issue that can hamper a client’s health, cause allergic reactions or disrupt the digestion is the level of toxicity being held within the body.

Liver stress – the liver is the primary organ that filters toxicity from the blood. If it is overburdened by toxicity, it has difficulty with other functions such as the creation of certain proteins responsible for the blood’s clotting process.

Indications of liver stress in a live blood sample

When the liver is stressed it has difficulty producing the right level of pro-clotting and anti-clotting proteins. These are both necessary for the homeostasis of the blood because we need both proteins circulating in pure blood, at the ready.

If the liver is stressed it can produce too much fibrin – pro-clotting factors. This causes congestion in the blood, prevents optimum oxygenation of the tissues and can lead to all kinds of symptoms. It is important to catch this liver stress early on so that it doesn’t lead to more complicates issues.

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LDBA Takeaway

A holistic perspective dictates that everyone is unique. A client’s path to ill health is unique and so it follows that the client’s path back to health also needs to be unique to them.

By assessing the blood alongside a detailed case history a practitioner can build a map of the client’s health status. It is a full-colour map that has a wide perspective taking into account what is reflected in their biological fluid - the blood.

The examples I have shown you above are just a small sample of what can be seen from a Live and Dry Blood Analysis. This type of blood test can be performed in your clinic, with your client present and you can share the results with them immediately.

Integrating this form of biological medical testing into your practice offers you and your clients many benefits. It can be much cheaper than the outsourced laboratory tests for your clients, the results are immediate, and you can retest them and check progress more frequently, adapting your protocols as you go.

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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FREE email mini-series when you join our Mailing List

Laboratory Blood Tests - The Best Way To Help Your Clients?

We all know that blood is vital to life. It courses through our veins and is pumped around our body day in, day out from the beginning to the end of our lives.

It has been known to be a special fluid throughout the history of medicine, from the ancient times to present day, and despite the advances in medical knowledge we are still learning about it.

The invention of the microscope in the 1600s enabled us to finally see what blood was made of. We could identify red blood cells – the cells responsible for carrying oxygen and removing carbon dioxide - and the white blood cells – the cells of our immune system responsible for protecting us from pathogens. We could also more closely examine the contents of the plasma, the watery fluid that transports the cells through our circulatory system.

We have since discovered that blood is a very complex fluid. It contains many substances that are produced by our body’s trillions of cells or produced by the pathogenic organisms that reside or invade our body.

We can count up the cells within a sample of blood in a laboratory to be able to assess whether the levels are normal or abnormal. We can also test for the most sensitive of molecules in a sample, to uncover specific antibodies, antigens, products of inflammation, pathogenic compounds, liver enzymes, minerals and vitamin levels ……… the list goes on.

The more we learn about the body and understand our own biology and disease processes, the larger the menu of available blood tests becomes.

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Do these blood tests lead to reduced disease, or just more complex diagnoses and more prescribing - whether it is pharmaceuticals or nutritional supplements? 

There is no doubt that for practitioners of modern medicine, being able to test the blood for clues as to what is happening inside their patients can be extremely useful in determining a diagnosis and pharmaceutical prescription.

Functional medical practitioners also use blood tests to be able to help understand their clients’ complex health issues, that have not been or cannot be resolved medically.

For those of us who believe in a holistic approach, we take a wider view in order to create a complete picture of what is influencing a client’s health.

The solution to our client’s health issues encompasses more than a supplement prescription. It often also includes dietary advice, emotional and mental support, lifestyle changes that mean changes in habits and a movement/exercise prescription.  

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Why are these complex and nuanced blood test results problematic for a holistic health model?

Time – When you work in the alternative/complementary health field, you spend a lot of time on each client.  Whether it is collecting a client’s case history, researching a client’s health conditions or medications, or undertaking an appointment and creating a health plan, it all takes time.

You must then add to this workload the extra time it takes to organise the tests, wait for and then read and interpret the results (if you can) and then explain them to your client.

Results – Tests are being developed and invented all the time - it is hard to keep up with the latest understanding on how they should be used. Tests have varying degrees of accuracy and some tests may return false positives or false negatives.

We can end up putting our faith in tests without really understanding how accurate they are (after all we are not medically trained), what else can influence the results and what the results actually mean in terms of how we make our recommendations to our clients.

We give our power away as knowledgeable practitioners, taking advice from laboratory analysts instead.

Cost –the fact that these tests cost a lot of money cannot be ignored. Clients that are desperate to improve their health will put their faith in these tests if you recommend them, and will believe the cost will be worth it. In some cases it will be.

BUT - this is very important to understand - there is little point in testing just the once. The body is a living organism in constant flux. The blood can change from day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment. If tests are going to be used to map a client’s health you need more than one reference point.

If clients are going to change their diet, take supplements or follow detox regimes – in time you will need to test again in order to check that the protocol is working. Are clients ready to accept this? Are you?

Allopathic or holistic - There is a danger, for the holistic therapist, in entering into the world of blood testing because we can easily end up in a doctor-like relationship with our clients; working in an allopathic model consisting of tests, results and prescription – rather than a holistic one. We become the middle man between customer and product.

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Live & Dry Blood Analysis is the modern holistic solution to allopathic blood testing.

There are other ways to use blood to assess health; ways that allow us to gauge a person’s overall health – to see it from many angles and create a broader picture of what is happening within the body, the cells and the organs.

This is because blood affects every cell in our body. It flows through all of our organs and affects all our body’s systems.

Our blood’s plasma is a nutrient delivery system as well as a carrier of wastes.  Vital nutrients and water are extracted from our digestive tract and deposited in the blood stream. From there they travel within the blood’s plasma, around the body and diffuse out of the circulatory system and into the tissues.

This is how our cells receive nutrients so that they can function.  Additionally, cells release their wastes into the extracellular fluid which diffuses back into the circulation.

Normal blood with clear plasma

Let’s look at some of the blood components seen during Live Blood Analysis, which make it such an incredibly powerful tool for the holistic health practitioner:

Crystals

When looking at a person’s blood sample under the darkfield microscope, we are able to assess the contents of the plasma. You can see aggregations of waste products – called crystals – which can enter the circulation for various reasons.

Uric acid for example, a by-product of the metabolism of purine which mostly comes from certain foods in the diet, is usually filtered out as the blood passes through the kidneys. Uric acid crystals can be found in the blood, which can signal several things:

• The kidneys are not working well, or

• The digestion and metabolism of protein is not working well or

• The diet contains too much protein.

Uric Acid Crystal

Fibrin

Fibrin is a clotting cascade protein produced by the liver and circulates in a dormant form ready to be activated in case it is needed to maintain circulatory homeostasis. If it appears in its activated form when analysing live blood it can indicate:

• That there is damage in the linings of the circulatory system, or

• The liver is stressed and is producing too much fibrin/too little fibrinogen, or

• The client is prone to cardiovascular injury

Whatever the reason for the appearance of fibrin in the blood, possible consequence of it are impaired blood circulation, a tendency to create thrombosis and a lack of oxygen reaching cells, tissues and organs. This can affect the health of the whole body!

Fibrin Web

Blood Cells

The blood’s red blood cells do not leave the circulatory system. They spend their whole 120 days of life travelling through the veins, arteries, capillaries and organs – being squeezed, pushed and pulled.

The quantity, shape, size and quality of the red blood cells can reveal a myriad of issues - even whether any damage to them is caused during circulation or whether they were produced abnormally during their production in the bone marrow. Some of the things revealed in live blood analysis are:

• Lack of specific nutrients – B12, folate, iron, essential fatty acids

• Stress in certain organs like the spleen, the kidneys and the liver

• Protein metabolism issues

• Lack of oxygen in the tissues

Acanthocytes (distorted RBC)

The white blood cells of the immune system travel in and out of circulation and they can all be found in a live blood sample.  The quantity, quality, shape and size can indicate several things about our immune system:

·         Lack of nutrients – B12, folate, vitamin c, zinc and EFAs

·         Allergies, parasites, pollution

·         Evidence of pathogens – viruses, bacteria, fungus

·         Evidence of possible autoimmune issues and inflammation

Cytotoxic WBC

As you can see, viewing the blood in its live state can reveal so much - without having to mix it with chemicals, put it through a machine, stain the cells and separate them out!

The above are just a few examples of issues that you can find in a person’s live blood sample, there are more indications found in the dry blood which I will discuss in another blog post! 

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Using the results of a client’s LBA effectively

The results of blood analysis can be included in a holistic health practitioner’s assessment of the client, taking into account the detailed case history and the blood analysis.

This enables them to build a more thorough picture of their client’s health, which is based not just on theory but also based on their clients’ own cellular health and the state of their blood’s plasma.

Live and dry blood analysis can assess the state of a client’s blood to determine possible root causes of any of their health symptoms, assess whether their routes of elimination are blocked, whether their digestive system is working correctly, the level of burden on the immune system, stress on the liver or kidneys and so much more.

The sensitive and knowledgeable holistic practitioner will know that simply supplementing missing nutrients will not fix the root cause. The results of blood analysis will help the practitioner devise a bespoke protocol for their client that will address the root causes of any nutrient deficiencies, for example, so the body can heal itself.

The holistic health model believes that everyone is unique and this applies to blood too – every client’s blood is a reflection of their uniqueness.

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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