[00:00:00] Vesna: Welcome to the Peak Revival Podcast. My name is Vesna Hrsto and today we're going to talk about key pathology tests to mastering your mood, your energy, and stress. Let's dive in. So first of all, why is it important to even have your pathology test or your lab test done regularly? So firstly, the number thing, one thing that I see is that most people don't notice that their health is slipping.
[00:00:24] So they may feel more tired. Their mood is low. They may suffer more anxiety or other health complaints, but we don't tend to notice when it's happening slowly. So having a regular pathology check is really good to make sure that If anything is changing in your health, you're picking up on it quite quickly.
[00:00:42] And then the other thing is, is that we may have imbalances that are causing us to feel low energy low moods and anxiety and all of those symptoms and poor detoxification, poor balance in our blood glucose levels, poor insulin regulation, and so many other things which are going to affect the way we feel and the way that we show up and what we can do each day.
[00:01:05] So when should you get tested? I recommend getting tested every six months. If something shows up in your pathology test as being out of balance, then you want to be able to do it every three months to just keep on track and, and track the improvements and the changes. what to get tested? So this is what I really recommend for high performing women who, uh, probably doing a lot, pushing themselves, have a lot of responsibilities, and maybe at times burning the candle at both ends.
[00:01:33] And if you're noticing that you just don't feel like yourself at the moment, then these tests are also really important to identify what could be causing it. So number one, you will go to the GP or to your primary physician and ask for, you know, a blood test, a follow up, Full blood count and including a white blood cell count is what they look at.
[00:01:52] So that is to detect any kind of abnormalities in the blood cells and blood cell count, but also in your white blood cells, you're looking [00:02:00] for if there's any chronic infection there, whether it be bacterial or viral, if there's any allergic response that's creating a lot of inflammation that will also show up here.
[00:02:09] The second thing that's really important is a thyroid panel. So one of the main things that I see for women is that they have all the symptoms of low thyroid. They go and get their tests done and everything comes back as normal. But they kind of tick off all the symptoms, right? So the typical symptoms are fatigue, low moods and brain fog and also weight gain.
[00:02:31] So they're kind of the typical low thyroid symptoms or thyroid disruption. when you get your tests, what I recommend is TSH is always a standard that they do. So it should be between one and two. Then you're looking at free T4. So it's the T4 thyroid hormone. So this is your stored thyroid hormone, and then it needs to be converted into its active form.
[00:02:54] So in Australia, we're looking at about 14 to 18 in the US. It's around above 1. 4. Then you want to check your free T3. So basically you've got TSH, 3T4, 3T3, and that's your active thyroid hormone. That's the one that energizes your body, gives you mental clarity, helps the metabolism, helps with detoxification inside every cell, so it's really, really important.
[00:03:17] And this needs to be sitting at around 5 6 for those in Australia, and then US pathology markers are a little bit different, so you want to have it above 3. 7. Now you may have all these tests done, and everything comes back as normal. So, this is not uncommon. And again, still having the signs and the symptoms of potentially thyroid disruption.
[00:03:39] So the thing that I always recommend all of my clients and the women in our community is to always have your thyroid antibodies checked. The reason being is that you can have elevated thyroid antibodies before it shows up on any of the other blood tests, the TSH, the T4 or the T3, right? And so that is because [00:04:00] Thyroid antibodies represents that there's some kind of immune activation of the thyroid or an autoimmune issue causing a disrupted, thyroid hormone or thyroid, maintenance, right?
[00:04:10] Thyroid balance. And this can be coming from any different factors, but as the body tries to maintain thyroid levels, your hormones may look okay, but actually there's a lot of inflammation to the gland. And so there's a lot of disruption there. So we need to have them tested together.
[00:04:25] The other thing that I look at is cortisol levels. So this is not always an easy test to get. But it is a really good snapshot to have a look at, particularly morning cortisol, to have a look at where your kind of stress response system is, your HPA axis. So if it's really high, or if it's really low, it does tell us about how much stress you've had, How well your body is able to cope with stress and actually if there's a knock on effect to other systems and areas in the body like the thyroid or like the gut that because of this long term stress how much of an effect it's having on the body.
[00:05:01] So cortisol is a really good one. You want to have it done first thing in the morning without caffeine, without rushing around to get the pathology test done either. So really kind of calm and get it done first thing in the morning. The other important test is iron study. So having a look at your stored iron and your iron levels.
[00:05:19] This is one of the most common deficiencies that I see in women. it will make you feel tired, dizzy, headaches, cravings for a lot of sugar. it can be low due to a number of reasons. Obviously dietary intake can be low. But we're also looking at gut function plays a huge role in iron absorption and there can also be Inflammation in the system whereby the body is kind of blocking that iron because iron can exacerbate the inflammation So there's many things to look at but definitely get it checked because it will make you very tired and it will Make concentration very difficult.
[00:05:53] So it's a really really important one to check
[00:05:54] The other ones I look at are B vitamins, particularly B12, which is really important for a healthy kind of [00:06:00] mood regulation and stress response. We're looking at glucose and insulin. Glucose is your blood glucose levels, how much you have say in the morning when you get tested on a fasting level. You can also go a little bit further and have a look at insulin levels.
[00:06:14] One thing that I see more commonly in high performing women is that when we've been stressed for a long time, The food choices aren't the best and women can tend to go for lots of carbs and sugars or alcohol and there can be a buildup of insulin resistance. And so when we do our glucose test, we're not always going to pick up on that, but we're going to pick it up on it if we do a fasting insulin test.
[00:06:38] So that's another important one to make sure that there's no fat, excess fat being placed around the belly, which means it's around our organs, which could lead to fatty liver and disrupt thyroid hormones and more.
[00:06:49] And lastly, but not least, your cholesterol level. So, cholesterol is an important nutrient, for hormone production. Right, so we need cholesterol, it makes our hormones. But obviously we want the good cholesterol, not the bad cholesterol. And we need to make sure that if the LDL or triglycerides are too high, that we have to look at our diet.
[00:07:07] to see where it could be coming from. So those are the main tests that I would look at. That seems like a quite an extensive test, but they're all really important to have a look at. Is there anything impacting your energy, your mood, your ability to handle stress, anything that's impacting your metabolism to maintain a healthy weight and healthy muscle, amount of muscle tone in your body as well.
[00:07:30] One of the objections that I hear is if you were to go to the GP or your primary physician with this list, you may not get all of these blood tests. And so what I encourage my clients, women in my community is to, you know, show up at your doctor. And let them know that you're being really proactive about your health, that you're, you're taking responsibility of your health.
[00:07:50] These are the tests that you want to have done. And if there's anything on that list that they can't put through for you, that you are willing to pay for it and really show [00:08:00] that you are taking responsibility. And, you know, doctors love it. They love that you're taking care of yourself, that you're, you're, taking ownership of your journey for your health.
[00:08:09] So if you can't get them all done with the GP, then pay for the excess. tests that they can't test for you. The other option is to order the tests yourself online. So you've got places like iMedical, iScreen in Australia. You've got True Labs in the US, which you can just order these tests online and they will send you the results.
[00:08:31] So when you're looking at the results, quite often, If you've been to the, to your doctor or if you, order the tests online, a lot of the ranges are quite broad. So you're going to sit in the, healthy range, which means that it's not going to alarm the doctor that anything's out of range for you. But even though you're feeling all of these symptoms, you're not feeling a hundred percent, you're not feeling your best.
[00:08:53] You know, something's going on, but everything comes back as normal, which is very frustrating. But the reason being is that the ranges for our pathology markers are based on the average of the people in the community that come in and get their blood tested. So when we go to see a doctor, most people are feeling unwell.
[00:09:12] So it's the average of people who are unwell. And so it's not optimal level. We can really fall into the suboptimal level you know, nothing will be flagged on the pathology reports, but it's draining our energy. We're having limited detoxification or our metabolism is not where it should be. So what you want to look at just for yourself, if you're doing this yourself, make sure it's not right down the lower end or at the higher end, but it's sitting nicely in the middle and this is a very generalized kind of way to assess I'm giving you, but it does give you an idea, is you want it somewhere in the middle zone.
[00:09:46] Okay, and that's kind of more your optimal level. Anything on the higher end or the lower end is going to be suboptimal, but it won't be flagged on the pathology. So you can already know that there is some impact to that system or to that hormone that is [00:10:00] causing you to feel tired or to feel stressed or feel anxious or just not feeling your best.
[00:10:04] So I would really encourage you to have these tests done. Either go to your GP or doctor and get them yourself or order them online and let me know how you go in the comments below.
Having worked in Pathology i cannot stress enough about being pro active in asking for particular tests . Drs often don’t request ones that are importantly missed and it can be that they don’t think you will pay the extra . This is great advice Vesna 🌸