Nutritional Screening with the BTA.

Nutrition is an essential part of good health. I use a number of laboratory tests to measure nutritional status, and my favorite is the Biological Terrain Assessment (BTA) panel.

Disease prevention is a very hot health care topic today. Many of the major diseases today are avoidable by taking action early. Everyone is looking for medical tests that can give them a warning of future health problems. The BTA panel of tests is effective in screening for nutritional deficiencies and patterns of health balance.

I have used the BTA test panel since 1996 and it has helped many people make effective health decisions. The BTA panel measures key nutritional markers, including mineral levels, energy production efficiency, fats and oil levels, acid to alkaline balance, energy production through metabolic type, and protein utilization.

The BTA panel measures chemical values in the urine, saliva, and blood. As well, it measures a number of physical functions, such as blood pressure. Health patterns are determined from the total of forty individual measurements.

Urine is filtered blood and measurements from urine reflect what is happening inside of our cells. Saliva is derived from our lymph, the fluid that surrounds our cells and is an important indicator of health in our digestive, immune and detoxification systems.

Mineral concentrations in our urine help to explain emotional patterns as well as why we may have low energy. Low mineral levels are consistent with anxiety while high mineral levels are often associated with states of aggitation and being quick to anger. Next time you see someone who is making mad hand jestures in traffic think about how much excess salt from processed foods that person has eaten. A high concentration of minerals in the saliva is an indication of lymphatic congestion and the need for more aerobic exercise.

Energy is derived from our food. Sunlight energizes chlorophyll in green plants, which assembles atoms into molecules, which in turn become our foods. The chemical bonds that hold our food molecules together contain sunlight energy. How efficiently we breakdown the molecules of our foods, and capture the energy from the sun, will determine how much energy we have through out our lives. The BTA measurement of electron activity is an indication of how well we are capturing energy from our foods. Problems in this area indicate nutrient deficiencies, such as Co Q 10, or possible lead toxicity.

Many health experts recommend eating more good oils and less hard fats. We are made up of cells, which are essentially bags in fact cells are bags inside of bags. Too many dietary fats, and not enough dietary oils, can make our cells stiff and inefficient. Fats and oils have a similar molecular structure, the difference being fats are solid and oils are liquid at room temperature. A diet high in hard fats, such as lots of French fries, and low in good oils, such as flax seed and olive oil, will stiffen our cell walls. Stiff cell walls limit health by restricting the movement of energy producing and healing nutrients into our cells and the movement of wastes out of our cells. A special urine test in the BTA panel will determine whether you are consuming enough dietary oils.

Relaxation and healing is dependant upon our autonomic, or automatic, nervous system. The autonomic nervous system has two parts, the parasympathetic and sympathetic systems. The parasympathetic system must be turned on for us to digest our food, to read, to go to the bathroom, to sleep, and to heal. The sympathetic system is activated when we are under stress. Unfortunately only the parasympathetic or the sympathetic can be dominant at any one time. This means that the unrelenting stress that many of us live with keeps us in sympathetic mode and limits our ability to heal.

Nutritional minerals contribute to autonomic nervous system balance. An over abundance of the minerals calcium and sodium, and a deficiency of magnesium and potassium will encourage sympathetic nervous dominance, which is towards stress and away from relaxation and healing. The BTA panel assesses your autonomic nervous system dominance, and indirectly your mineral balance.

Health depends upon biochemical efficiency. pH is a measurement of the balance between acidity and alkalinity in your body. pH imbalances may lead to insulin over or under activity, and therefore blood sugar imbalances. pH imbalances may lead to poor digestion, detoxification, and immune function. pH imbalances are an indication of a diet high in proteins and refined grains, and low in fresh fruit and vegetables. As well, pH imbalances are an indication of a cellular imbalance between the minerals calcium, sodium, potassium, and magnesium.

Metabolic typing is an assessment of how well you are metabolizing your fats and carbohydrates. Ideally metabolic balance allows you to access energy from fats and oils on an ongoing basis, and the energy from carbohydrates for bursts of energy. A dependance upon fat metabolism may lead to high blood sugar, and a dependance upon carbohydrate metabolism may lead to low blood sugar.

Digested protein circulates in the blood and is used for many functions, including the support of brain thinking processes, as well as muscle healing. Protein will remain in the blood until used for up to five days, after which time it is converted to nitrate nitrogen. High levels of nitrate nitrogen indicate either an excessive intake of protein or a diet of the wrong protein. Ammonia nitrogen is another protein based marker, and it indicates either a long term over abundance of metabolic acids or fungal overgrowth.

Your BTA results will determine your nutritional supplement program, as well as your ideal diet. Your ideal diet will be computer generated from a list of 250 foods, some are recommended, some are allowed, and some are prohibited. The computer program takes into account your blood type, your BTA test results, and research studies on foods proven useful for your particular health concerns.

Special Offer
Determine Your Ideal Diet From Your BTA Results, and Save Money Doing It.

As a thank-you to all my present patients and as an introduction for all my new patients I am offering a discount on computerized diet plans booked during the week of June 19 to June 23, 2006. Call my office, at 250-762-8900, to book your BTA test panel, and receive a computerized diet plan at no additional cost.

Nutrition provides you with the building blocks and energy that you need for optimal health. While most people will agree that nutrition is important, many disagree on how much is enough, and on the best ways to obtain it.

Nutrition has been a hotly debated health topic since the 1930’s. Some experts feel that a balanced diet is all that is needed for optimal nutrition. Other experts point to declining food nutrient values, modern intense farming practices, and documented farming soil depletion to support their claims that optimal nutrition requires nutritional supplements.

Many of my patients come to me with symptoms of nutritional deficiencies. Typical symptoms include rashes and skin sores that are reluctant to heal, dental problems including bleeding and poorly healing gums, easy bruising, failing eye sight, frequent infections, sore joints, intestinal cramping, … to name a few on a list that often appears to include almost every health concern.

The problem with tracking nutritional deficiencies by watching for symptoms is that symptoms are the last to come and the first to go. The “third generation effect” describes patterns of health decline that may take three generations of a nutritional deficiency to show up as an outward health problem. On the other side, symptoms of nutritional deficiencies quickly disappear when diet changes are made and supplements are taken. This situation may lead to confusion since a person who had nutritional deficiencies, but is now symptom free, may think that their poor diet is just fine when it is not.

Confusion over what is proper nutrition is a situation I see often. People come to me with health concerns and I often recommend treatment programs that include nutritional supplements. After only a month or two their problems seem to be better and they cannot be convinced to continue their health programs. The simple solution to knowing when and how much nutritional support is necessary is to just measure your nutritional status with laboratory tests.

Standard blood tests are usually used as screening tests to determine whether or not a person has a serious health condition. These tests may also be used to determine nutritional status. As an example, MCV is a blood test to determine the average size of your red blood cells. The MCV test is also used as an indicator of Vitamin B status. The normal range for this test is 80 to 100 fL, however a measurement of over 90 fL indicates a Vitamin B 12 deficiency.

Another nutritional test is the Functional Intracellular Status, or FIA test. The FIA test requires a blood sample, which is sent to a laboratory and the levels of vitamins and minerals in the red blood cells determined. The FIA test takes many weeks to complete and is costly, but it is the test of choice to determine your exact levels of vitamins and minerals.

A popular health and nutrition screening test that I have been using for the last ten years is the Biological Terrain Assessment test panel, or BTA. The BTA test panel uses a person’s urine and saliva, as well as a physical examination, to make forty-four separate measurements. These measurements determine health patterns based upon the balance or imbalance of nutrients, including minerals, essential fatty acids, sugars, and proteins. As well, the BTA panel determines your metabolic type and your patterns of energy production. These measurements and patterns are used to determine a program of nutritional supplements, as well as a computerized optimal diet from a selection of two hundred and fifty foods.

Nutrition is an essential part of regaining and maintaining good health. Laboratory tests help us to take the guesswork out of nutrition by identifying deficiencies, which allows us to design and monitor diet and nutritoinal supplementation programs.


Special Offer - Determine Your Nutritional Status and Save Money Doing It.

The BTA is the most important screening test you can order and it is a great value. As a thank-you to all my present patients and as an introduction for all my new patients I am offering a discount on BTA test panels booked during the week of May 29 to June 2, 2006. Call my office, at 250-762-8900, to book your BTA test, and receive a 25% discount off of your next BTA test.

Nutrition is an essential part of a personal health plan. Optimal nutrition at its most basic is eating enough of the right food and not too much of the wrong foods. Determining what are the right and wrong foods, as well as what is too much and not enough, often requires laboratory testing, but there are general guidelines.

From time to time we all crave one or another food. When in biochemical balance we crave foods that feed us structurally and supply accessible energy. When we are out of biochemical balance, when we are exposed to unrelenting stress, we crave nutritionally deficient fast convenience foods. With exposure to stress, often a daily occurance, we need more good nutrients and not less.

Convenience foods are generally devoid of nutrients due to their preparation. Convenience foods are often refined, meaning that they are low in healthful nutrients because they are produced to maximize shelf life. Refined foods with most of their health building nutrients removed will take longer to spoil, last longer in storage allowing larger and cheaper production runs and bulk warehousing.

The guiding principle for you as a consumer is if the bugs don’t want a food product then neither do you. If a food product does not have enough nutrients to spoil then it will not supply your nutritional needs either. A food high in nutritional value is fresh fish, a value recognized by people and bacteria alike. The high nutritional value of fresh fish results in rapid spoilage if the fish is not stored properly.

The big three food cravings are for sugar, fat, and salt. These cravings are rooted in our primordial past and are capitalized upon by fast food marketers everywhere. Sugar is at the top of this list since it provides fast energy. Blood sugar levels are regulated by the hormone insulin. Insulin acts to move sugar from the blood into cells for energy production or into fat cells for storage. Insulin is also a stress hormone, meaning that it is produced under conditions of stress and it moves blood sugars into fat cells and energy producing cells whenever we are under stress. This is why many people constantly crave sugar since they are constantly under stress. Historically the dietary sugars we had access to were seasonal fruits and hard to obtain honey. Limited access to these sugars meant that they were seldom over consumed.

The next commonly craved dietary nutrient is fat. Fats and oils have always been a constant in diets in hot and colder climates, and were rendered from animal sources or pressed from olives, nuts and seeds. Modern refined oils, with an abundance of harmful trans fatty acids, are misinterpreted by our senses of smell and taste as being just as good as naturally processed fats and oils.

Salt is another of the commonly craved modern foods. Dietary salts help us to maintain mineral balance and energy movement in our bodies, as well as supporting digestion. Historically salt was available from mines and from drying ocean water salt flats. Sea salt contains twenty two nutritional minerals, which is in contrast to modern table salt, which contains only three minerals, sodium, chloride, and some times iodine. When we crave salt we are craving the traditional twenty two minerals, not the modern three. Which explains why some people just can’t get enough table salt they simply cannot get enough of it since it only tastes like the sea salt they need.

General rules for good nutrition include:

1. Eat three meals per day and two or more snacks. Eating larger meals, less often, confuses your body into handling food in a famine or starvation mode. This in turn leads to weight gain and health problems.

2. Eat away from stress and excitement. Good nutrition requires good digestion. Stress, such as the six o’clock news, activates your nervous system into an emergency action mode that is not compatible with good digestion.

3. Eat five to ten cup sized servings of fruit and vegetables per day, every day. An acceptable way to get up to this level is to consume a powdered “Greens Product” which is composed of freeze dried fruits and vegetables.

4. Eat whole grains and fiberous vegetables at least once per day, every day.

5. Eat adequate fatty acids such as flax seed and olive oils. One tablespoon, twice per day, with food is generally a good starting point for adults.

6. Eat adequate salts. To determine whether you need to salt your food or not do a taste test with sea salt and water. Start slowly by adding a few grains of sea salt to a glass of drinking water. Then stir and taste the water. Continue adding salt, stirring and tasting until you are able to taste the salt. With adequate minerals you will taste the salt in the water quickly, and with a deficiency of minerals you will only taste the salt when a large amount is added to the water.

Start with these nutritional basics and next week I will discuss specific laboratory tests to determine your nutritional needs.

We are watching the unfolding of a health care crisis. Solving this crisis requires a fundamental shift in how we approach health.

Long waiting lists for elective surgery, hospital beds in hall ways, and now Code Purple temporary hospital admission closures. These developments have come after years of reports of doctor and nurse staffing shortages.

Attempted health care crisis solutions have included increased spending, privatization, and doctor immigration. The B.C. Medical Association has successfully negotiated fee increases for medical doctors with the B.C. government. ICBC and WCB have sent their insurance claimants to private surgical facilities in B.C. for some years now. Immigrant medical doctors from South Africa and other countries with modern medical systems have been welcomed to B.C. In spite of these attempts we are still facing a health care crisis.

Pollution, fast foods, street drugs, and our aging population will all increase the demands on our health care system for many years to come. Respiratory ailments from airborne pollutants are on the rise. As documented by the movie “Super Size Me” a diet dominated by fast foods will increase your risk of developing health concerns. The use of street drugs like crystal met is increasing, and along with it is the expected future need of medical services. The incidence of diseases such as diabetes and heart disease increase in our population as a whole as we age, and we have a large number of aging baby boomers entering the time of their life when age related disease risks increase dramatically.

Our health care crisis may not be solved in the near future. I recently accompanied a private pilot in a small plane on a two hour flight north of Kelowna. He commented on how difficult it would be to get medical care if you were stuck in the wilderness we were flying over. I thought to my self how long it will be before we each face the same health risks in a major city due to our medical services crisis.

Your only option is to fundamentally change your approach to health care by taking personal responsibility for your health. Personal health care responsibility is centered on diet, exercise, managing your emotions, and acting early to prevent the development of lifestyle and age related diseases. Personal health care responsibility requires a personal health plan.

Essential elements of a personal health plan:

1. Assemble a team of personal health care professionals to answer your questions, conduct medical tests, and advise you on your health options.

2. Gather predictive health information. Your personal and family health histories, along with genetic tests, are useful in predicting your future health risks.

3. Use laboratory tests, including blood typing, metabolic typing, urine tests, standard blood tests, and Biological Terrain Assessment (BTA) test results to determine your current supplement needs.

4. Use your BTA test results and health risks to determine your ideal diet.

5. Consume adequate water every day.

6. Exercise. Move your body a minimum of one hour per day, every day. Integrate cardiovascular, weight bearing, and core training exercises into your plan.

7. Manage emotional stress. Determine what “is a life worth living” for you, and work towards having it.

Each of us must accept responsibility for our own health by making lifestyle choices that build rather than diminish health. The best way to personally solve the health care crisis is to stay healthy and avoid using the hospital based health care system.