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Biochemical Testing & Metabolic Nutrition

"Everything that man needs for good health and healing is provided in nature… the challenge to science is to find it."
Paracelsus, Father of Pharmacology

Introduction

Vegetarianism, macrobiotics, Zone, Blood type, Atkins, South Beach, etc, etc, etc the list can be exhausting, confusing, and painstaking….and without achieving results, down right depressing. With so many diet and nutrition fads out there it is quite difficult for the average person to know what is best suited for their health. It is the opinion of Dr. Iverson that humans are as diverse chemically as we are physically. This chemical diversity lends to different needs for different people and no single best diet for every person. Hence, what has worked for one person may or may not work for another. No wonder there are so many diets….and they all work….for SOME people!!! Each person's physiological needs differs widely depending on genetic make up, environmental factors, caloric demands from physical activity, and many other potential constraints.

"To eat meat or not to eat meat…that is the question!"

To gain an insight of the proper food needed by a human it is important for us to look towards our closest relatives that have not been indoctrinated into modern habits of Western living. The food intake of wild primates around the world has been observed and some of the findings are listed from this encyclopedia excerpt. 1

The primate order includes a handful of species that live entirely on meat (carnivores) and also a few that are strict vegetarians (herbivores), but it is composed chiefly of animals that have varied diets (omnivores). The carnivorous primates are the four species of tarsiers, which live in Southeast Asia. Using their long back legs, these pocket-sized nocturnal hunters leap on their prey, pinning it down with their hands and then killing it with their needle-sharp teeth. Tarsiers primarily eat insects but will also eat lizards, bats, and snakes.….. This opportunistic approach to feeding is seen in the majority of monkeys and also in chimpanzees. Several species of monkeys, and chimpanzees, but not the other apes, have been known to attack and eat other monkeys. Baboons, the most adept hunters on the ground, often eat meat and sometimes manage to kill small antelope.

Most apes and monkeys eat a range of plant-based foods, but a few specialize in eating leaves. South American howler monkeys and African colobus monkeys eat the leaves of many different trees, but the proboscis monkey on the island of Borneo is more selective, surviving largely on the leaves of mangroves. These leaf-eating monkeys have modified digestive systems, similar to cows, which enable them to break down food that few other monkeys can digest. Other apes and monkeys eat mostly fruit, while some marmosets and lemurs depend on tree gum and sap.

AMAZING! Amazing to see how diverse the food demands can be in an animal so closely related to the human. The animal's environmental conditions and how they've adapted to those conditions is a primary factor in their food choices.

This holds true as well for humans. Observing the traditional diets of societies isolated from western civilization and comparing it with the diets of our cousins the primates, has given the most insightful clues to proper living as nature intended. Modern man's food supply, like the primates, can range from mostly vegetarian to omnivorous and carnivorous. This is dependent on their genetic background, geographical location, ambient temperature, and physical demands.

Photographs taken at the turn of the 20th century illustrating a more
simple time when people ate mostly home grown foods prepared without refinement,
additives, or chemicals.

Traditional Diets and Weston Price

In the 1930's, a dentist by the name of Weston Price, sought out the world's most traditional societies and recorded one of the most famous epidemiological studies of all time. Price and his wife traveled more than 100,000 miles to study the health of isolated communities in Australia, Africa, South America, Polynesia, Europe and northern Canada. He noted the oral health of those on native diets by counting cavities and examining tooth over-crowding and palate size. He related these studies in comparison with those who were eating refined and processed food manufactured from the western world settlers bordering the villages. As to be expected those isolated individuals eating highly mineralized, nutritious, whole, unprocessed foods faired better than any of the people that had introduced refined foods into the diet. The total number of cavities per person was almost zero in the traditional societies compared to rampant decay in those eating refined foods. Also the number of people with small palates resulting in over-crowded crooked teeth was also non existent in the whole foods diet people.

Prior to the turn of this century (1887-1890),
the average consumption of sugar was only 5 lbs. per person
per year and cardiovascular disease and cancer were virtually unknown. Now we have increased sugar consumption in the U.S. to
a whopping 145 pounds of sugar per person per year!

Price observed that northern people (such as Inuit Eskimo) who dieted predominantly on animal products fared as well physically as those who lived in warmer equatorial countries and dieted on a primarily plant-based diet. The traditional native diet for the environment being lived in provided the proper amount of macro and micronutrients ensuring good health and strong stature. Price concluded that vegetarianism was not the answer for every human, but rather the food that proved best for the individual was the food found in its natural environment in the whole, unprocessed form. The observations proved to be a historical breakthrough for advances in human nutrition and the benefits of a traditional foods diet. Using Price's study as a template of proper nutrition, one can infer that a single diet for all humans would not be appropriate because multiple factors determine the specific dietary needs for each individual. To learn more about Dr. Price and see photos of the expedition link here to the Weston Price Foundation.

A Little History of Metabolic Typing

Customizing medicine to the patient is a practice that dates as far back as 4000 years in China. The oldest known form of individualized treatment is Classical Chinese Medicine where practitioners read pulses, tongues, and faces to diagnose the medical needs of a patient. Descriptions like, damp, dry, heat, wind, yin and yang, to name a few, would indicate the pathology present and treatment needed. They would suggest foods and plants that would balance the exacerbation the patient had presented with.

Ayurveda is another form of customized health care originating from India. Ayus meaning "life and longevity" and veda meaning science, or "the science of life and longevity". This method individualizes treatments by classifying a body into three predominant types: vata, pitta, and kapha. The practitioner determines the Ayurvedic constitutional type by observing the body size and shape, temperature, and reading the pulse among other qualities. From this a proper diet and specific medicines can be chosen that would be best suited for the specific person. These ancient forms of diagnosis eventually evolved into body and personality typing like that developed by Kretschmer and expanded upon by his successor Sheldon with the ectomorph, endomorph and mesomorph types. Dr. Abravanel suggested similar body characteristics in his typing of the Adrenal, Gonad, Thyroid and Pituitary types (also known as the A type G, T or P types).

Besides these researchers, there were others way ahead of their time that used chemistry to determine individualized food and medicine protocols. From a the softer science of body typing came scientists highly trained in the fields of chemistry, physics, mathematics, and biology that mastered methods of diagnosing chemistry patterns to determine dietary and nutritional needs. Carey Reams, a biochemist, biophysicist and mathematician who created the Reams Biological Theory of Ionization (RBTI), based his findings on the understanding of pH, or the relative acidity or alkalinity of body fluids along with findings of carbohydrate, electrolyte, and nitrogenous waste metabolism. He was a great pioneer with his early beginnings in soil chemistry and agriculture. With his strong faith he was lead to an equation that he utilized to determine how mass (food) turned into energy within the body. He helped thousands regain health in his fasting retreats and taught numerous others which carry his legacy today. Dr. Iverson is fortunate to have been mentored and befriended by two of Reams' long time students Ken Meadows and June Wiles. Classes in RBTI are still being taught by June Wiles, the founder of NCA (Nutritional Counselors of America), in Tennessee.

Emanuel Revici MD, a successful practitioner from Romania, may one day be honored for his ground breaking work on fatty acids, pH, and their unique application for the treatment of cancer and chronic pain. He put great emphasis on the terms "anabolic" and "catabolic" and their shifts as controlled by specific sterols, fatty acids, and mineral elements. His techniques and beliefs were highly refuted by the American Medical establishment for over 50 years despite the fact he achieved excellent success in patients with cancer and chronic pain.

Metabolic typing was further investigated and developed by George Watson and his observations of fast and slow oxidizers and their relation to common psychiatric illnesses. These oxidation states were later examined and studied further by Rudolf Wiley. They similarly concluded if they provided a diet that was primarily vegetarian to slow oxidizers they would become well while the same diet for fast oxidizers would create poor outcomes

Complementarily Francis Pottenger, who modeled the work of John Beard, developed an understanding of the autonomic nervous system and the dominance of either the Sympathetic or the Parasympathetic branch to determine the appropriate diet for patients. He found that a sympathetic dominant pattern with the increased activity of adrenal hormones faired better on a vegetarian diet than the Parasympathetics who were better balanced with higher fat diets. William Donald Kelley and his successor Nicholas Gonzales later expanded on Pottenger's work and have worked with thousands of cancer patients to regain health through metabolic nutrition and enzyme therapy.

James D' Adamo developed another form of patient specific typing, which was made popular by identifying foods most compatible with specific blood types. It is by no coincidence that the above methodologies and types have many crossovers and similarities. For instance blood type A persons with their tendency to need a predominantly vegetarian diet will often test constitutionally as vata or pitta, A or T-type, Slow oxidizers or Sympathetic. This validates the common trend being found from ancient diagnostic methods and across multiple variants of scientific practices.

TRILIUM Biochemical Testing

So…With all these methods how do you know what is the best fuel for your body? Do you do better with vegetarianism, or Atkins, or a fine balance of the two? Are you in a state of mineral stress or deficiency, and which nutrients are needed to bring balance? Should calcium be taken or another mineral like potassium or magnesium or sodium? Will vitamin-C improve or worsen your health? Is the pH of cells, tissue, and blood tending towards the break down and inflammatory state of acidity or the build up of alkalinity? Is your body's chemistry affecting the endocrine glands and hormones to be over or under active? Biochemical Metabolic testing in combination with diagnostic iridology can be a fine method of helping to answer these questions and create a dietary plan that will restore the natural balance of health.

Since working with metabolic chemistry in 1993, Dr. Iverson has seen diet alone change the health and lives of those using it. Metabolic testing in some patients reveals a tissue breakdown pattern which suggests discontinuing the practice of vegetarianism for a meat based diet. The dietary suggestion consisting of increased eggs, butter, and dark meats improves energy, stabilizes blood pressure, and improves mental acuity. Alternately, others who have adopted a hi-protein, hi-fat diet for weight loss and have suffered from worsening health resulting in increased fatigue, sore joints, weight gain, as well as elevated laboratory tests suggesting increasing cardiac strain. When giving these patients a vegan diet, especially bountiful in low carbohydrate green vegetables, the symptoms begin to clear. Weight drops, energy improves, skin becomes more youthful and lab results come into line. Besides diet, altering the pH and electrolytes with minerals and other nutrients can help balance blood pressure, decrease inflammation of aches and pains, improve sleep and energy, and promote balance throughout the entire body.

It is no wonder that every diet ever developed has been successful…..for some people. Without testing chemistry it is challenging to truly know what the best fuel is from morning to night, from cycle to cycle, from year to year. Metabolic chemistry testing will guide the patient with the necessary nutritional factors to bring their body into balance. Balanced body means healthy body and that can be good news for the prevention of illness. At TRILIUM we use a combination of ALL the fore mentioned types giving us an edge in determining the type that fits the patient most accurately.

At your first visit and evaluation with Dr. Iverson, urine and saliva samples will be taken and a metabolic physical examination and evaluation will be performed. Biochemical testing at TRILIUM will consist of urine and saliva laboratory tests measuring pH, electrolytes, sugars, nitrogenous waste products, surface tension, and markers for determining infections, occult blood, etc. Metabolic physical exam will record several values of blood pressures, pulses, respirations, pulse oximetry, and multiple physical exam findings that will indicate a clearer picture of chemistry and specific metabolic type. A total of 49 different variables are measured and cross-analyzed with mathematical equations and computer programs. Follow-up to discuss lab results is done within one week of the initial evaluation.