Abundant Living Medical requires blood testing on all patients before any form of treatment or diagnosis is provided. An initial blood-panel examines 38 different issues in women and 37 in men. Abundant Living Medical employs a full-time Phlebotomist and draws all blood tests on site. We then send all materials out to Quests Diagnostics for all processing and lab results.
The Problem with Saliva Tests
Many online companies and consumer marketers have been pushing saliva testing to measure hormone levels. Saliva tests are convenient and easy to use, but how accurate are they? Most reputable doctors stopped using saliva testing over 10 years ago because they found the tests weren’t reliable. Many variables can affect the amount and quality of saliva and/or hormones present in the mouth: medications can drastically alter the amount of bound vs. free hormones in the saliva, antihistamines or dehydration will decrease the amount of saliva in the mouth available for testing, and other elements such as foods or supplements can also throw off the saliva test results.
The major drawback to saliva testing is that it can only measure the free hormones circulating in the body. Hormones are carried in the body in 3 ways: strongly bound to globulin, weakly bound to albumin, and unbound or “free”.
Research has shown that both the hormones bound to albumin and the free hormones activate the steroid receptors, making them both “bio-available” and available to the body for use. Relying on saliva tests, which only register part of the bio-available hormones, could cause your doctor to prescribe the wrong strengths of hormones for you. For these reasons, treatments that rely on saliva testing often fail to relieve symptoms, and in some cases, can cause other symptoms.
