Our team of practitioners at The A Life are passionate about holistic care. This means that we want to know everything about you and get to the root of your health issue so that you can bounce back into thriving health as soon as possible.
In this process, we will most likely send you for some important blood tests to get an overview of your metabolic, nutritional and detoxification parameters. These simple GP tests can tell us about your baseline health and alert us to any concerns that need further investigation with more specialised tests.
The following tests are those that we find most useful in clinic…

Full Blood Count

This gives us a run-down of all your red and white blood cells, liver enzymes, kidney function markers, immune activity, electrolytes and hydration status. This is where we can start to identify kidney problems, infections, liver inflammation and anaemia.

Iron Studies

Your iron storage, free iron levels and the proteins that carry iron are measured. We can pick up iron deficiency anaemia or iron storage disorders, liver inflammation and infection.

Vitamin D

With our slip, slop, slap culture and indoor lifestyles, most Australian’s are deficient in vitamin D. This is so important to test to prevent osteoporosis, pregnancy complications, seasonal affective disorder and cancer.

Active B12

Vitamin B12 is one of our important vitamins for our nervous system, detoxification and methylation. Low levels present with fatigue and mood changes. Deficiency can contribute to anaemia. Poor dietary intake and poor absorption of this important nutrient are very common.

RBC folate

Folate is necessary for so many complex systems such as DNA expression, cell division, neonatal development, detoxification and methylation. Low levels can impact mental health and fertility.

Thyroid Studies (TSH, T3, T4, rT3, TPOAb, TAb)

Who isn’t tired from time to time? But if it’s all the time or maybe you fluctuate between wired and tired, perhaps your thyroid is playing havoc with your health. A hypo-functioning thyroid can cause hair loss, dry skin, stubborn weight gain, irregular menstrual cycles and significant fatigue. Hyper- thyroid presents as hyper-activity, anxiety, heart palpitations and sudden weight loss.

Fasting homocysteine

How well we methylate determines how well we deal with oxidative stress, inflammation, detoxification, hormone balance and neurotransmitter (serotonin, dopamine, melatonin etc) production. Homocysteine is an important marker of how well some important methylation pathways are working and the level of inflammation and oxidative stress we are under.

Fasting glucose & insulin

Knowing your baseline blood sugar and insulin responses is important to pick up hypo or hyperglycemia and pre-diabetic states. It is particularly valuable to understand the underlying drivers of hormonal conditions such as Poly-Cystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS).

Post prandial insulin

Measuring insulin after a meal can provide a more accurate indication of how you tolerate glucose load.

Lipid studies

Knowing your cholesterol levels give us as physicians, a good idea about your liver and gall bladder function, digestive health and your diet.

Celiac antibodies & celiac gene

In our clinical experience measuring celiac antibodies in the blood is not enough. Some people have one or both genes for Celiac Disease that predispose them to developing the condition but it’s not yet active in the blood. This is still something we need to know about! We want to know if you’re likely to develop intestinal damage, malabsorption and be at risk for intestinal cancers. Approximately 40% of the population have one or two genes predisposing them to this disease. Often, clients report having no symptoms when eating gluten but come back positive.

If you have a health complaint, feel like you are not thriving or have a cluster of symptoms that have never been looked into thoroughly, it may be time to do some investigating with us. The first step to health is knowing what health looks like now, then we can work as a team, putting the pieces of the puzzle together so that treatment targets the root cause rather than just the symptoms.