Has Blood Changed Since the Covid Pandemic?

A new world

There is no doubt that the world as we knew it pre-pandemic no longer exists. Travelling, working, relationships and families have all been affected - we have been through a collective trauma caused by a virus.

Not everyone and not every country has had the same experience though. The differences in resources, in infrastructure, in government and health care between countries around the world have created different outcomes.

The measures taken by the dominant Western countries have created chaos that has rippled throughout the world, touching everyone. Mask wearing, vaccine mandates, lockdowns and restrictions in medical treatments to name but a few.

I am a Live and Dry Blood Analyst and I have been looking at blood through a microscope for over 11 years. Since the pandemic, I have seen some changes in the blood and in this blog post I am going to share some of my observations and my understanding of how this virus and how the vaccine has affected my clients’ blood.

What Live Blood Analysis is not

At this point I feel that I should state that live blood analysis is not diagnostic of any kind of disease, condition or syndrome. It is a tool for observing a sample of living blood and as such it provides a unique insight into how this biological fluid is functioning.

Of course, the blood sample is no longer being regulated by the body and so this is taken into account. However, how quickly the blood ages and the effect this has on the cells is still relevant.

You also take into account the impact of the sampling technique, whether it is fasted blood or not and the health history of the person whose blood it is and how that may affect the blood (including medications, supplements, lifestyle etc).

Finally you must also be aware of artefacts – these are not in the blood or of the blood but rather contaminants in the sample and/or manufacturing defects on the slides and coverslips.

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What have I seen under the microscope in my clinic since the pandemic?

The clients that come to see me are varied and diverse.

Some are interested in maintaining and monitoring health in order to prevent illness. Some suffer from a variety of health issues and are looking at alternatives to pharmaceutical interventions in order to do as much as they can to maintain or gain health.

Some have even been to their doctor and had a multitude of tests carried out but have been told that there is nothing out of the ordinary in the results and so, cannot be given treatment.

After the first lockdown finished and we were allowed to do face to face consultations once more, I was able to observe blood and build a body of documentation – blood after the pandemic.

What the blood tells us

In my career as an analyst I have seen the blood of hundreds of people. I have seen millions of blood cells under the microscope.

I have looked at the blood of people with all kinds of diseases including diabetes, AIDS, CVD, leukaemia, MS, cancer, those with many symptoms such as IBS, migraine, allergies and many, many others.

Each of them had a unique blood picture - there are usually no specific blood analysis indications for each disease or symptom.

The blood reflects the person’s terrain – the inner environment that supports the cells. The appearance of the cells in the blood tells a story of the health/balance of the inner terrain.

As an analyst you are trying to read the story by putting together all of the pieces of the health puzzle. It is not enough to use the blood alone - it holds clues as does the patient’s case history.

The blood will alert you to a B12 deficiency for example, but why it is deficient needs further thought. Does the diet contain adequate B12? Is the digestion optimal and capable of breaking down the food to obtain the B12 and also absorb it? What lifestyle choices could be depleting B12? Are there any symptoms reflecting B12 deficiency? Do they have issues with methylation? Are there other blood tests that correlate B12 issues? It is not as simple as just supplementing with B12.

However, in my experience, during the pandemic and after it, the blood of those who either had had COVID or had the injection to innoculate against COVID (or both), had several distinct indications.

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Indications in the blood

The following pictures are from my clinic and are taken from clients who have a variety of health issues related to COVID. They are either suffering with Long Covid symptoms or have been injured by the vaccine.

In many cases the vaccine injury is actually confirmed in their NHS health records. Some have been able to get compensation, some are having to fight very hard to get support.

Only a very few have been able to get any effective treatment from their NHS doctor and despite having multiple tests from a variety of consultants they are often told that “everything is normal”. As a result of their experiences, they have turned to private health care.

Please note: These indications are not diagnostic and they existed before the pandemic. However, they were most commonly found in those with metabolic disorders such as Diabetes or cardiovascular issues. What has changed is the prevalence of them in people who appeared to be healthy before the pandemic.

Fibrin

In nearly every single case I have found fibrin in their blood samples.

Fibrin is a long protein that is produced to create a clot in the circulatory system. Fibrin is formed from fibrinogen which is produced in the liver in response to inflammatory chemicals released by white blood cells. It is also part of the coagulation cascade as it creates clots which prevent bleeding and protects the linings of the circulatory system.

Fibrin in the live blood can be indicative of liver stress, circulatory stress, inflammation, pathogenic infections, toxicity and/or leaky gut. When looking at a sample and assessing the fibrin I am also looking at other indications, symptoms and health history that can help pinpoint the cause of the fibrin presence.

Fibrin in the circulatory system will be congestive to circulation, preventing the optimal flow of red blood cells to the micro circulation, creating a lack of oxygen to all cells, tissues and organs throughout the body.

Rouleaux & Aggregation

Red blood cells are supposed to bounce around in the plasma as separate cells. They only bunch up and stick together when the balance of ions inside the cells and outside the cells has altered.

Red blood cells repel each other in circulation because of the charge on the cell membrane. This charge is only created when the membranes are composed of the right mix of lipids and proteins AND the surrounding environment is also balanced with the correct ions.

This balance of charges across membranes is known as zeta potential – the difference between the charge on the inside of the cell and the charge on the outside of the membrane are strongly opposed creating a “potential” which enables the cells to flow freely and provide optimum oxygenation throughout the body.

Cells lose this potential when their membranes are coated with proteins that change the charge. These proteins are inflammatory chemicals that attract to the surface of the red blood cells. This is yet another indication of inflammation and it can lead to a lack of oxygen in the cells, tissues and organs.

Thrombocyte Aggregations

Thrombocytes are cell fragments that are about a quarter of the size of a red blood cell. They circulate within the blood and secrete clotting factors when they are activated by other cellular chemical signals.

Once they are activated, they release chemicals, become sticky and aggregate with other thrombocytes to form larger masses. They are part of the clotting cascade and are often found in the blood along with fibrin because they are both activated/formed by the same chemicals.

The chemicals that the activated thrombocytes release are inflammatory themselves and can cause the aggregations to grow further, generating more chemicals which are released in vesicles, becoming hypersecretory aggregations.

These are congestive to the circulation and can block the microcirculation. The larger they are, the more dangerous they are to health. Our blood’s homeostatic mechanisms normally down regulate thrombocyte aggregation but when the body is out of balance this may not happen. The root cause is an inflammatory trigger and until that is switched off, the aggregations will continue to happen.

As with the fibrin and the rouleau, oxygen delivery to cells, tissues and organs is disrupted in the presence of thrombocyte aggregations. Symptoms such as cold hands and feet may be common, but also brain fog, all kinds of aches and pains anywhere in the body, dizziness and balance issues, and heart palpitations can be experienced.

Immune cell changes

Our largest white blood cell (wbc) is a monocyte. It is a phagocyte – it ingests pathogens, toxins and dead cells. It cleans up our inner terrain and literally digests bacteria, fungi, parasites and viruses.

All our immune cells communicate with each other to share information about what sort of things they have found. They are like an army with walky-talkies, warning each other of threats so that they can become primed with the right weapons or charge towards a threat and work together to neutralise it!

In patients with long Covid a rise in the number of monocytes found in the blood has been observed. They are also activated monocytes - this means that they have been triggered by the presence of a toxin/pathogen and have been actively ingesting and fighting this trigger.

Activated white blood cells all produce inflammatory chemicals and often where you see one type of wbc activated you will see other types activated too, because of this communication they have between them.

This in turn produces more inflammation which can activate thrombocytes and make fibrin form too. The excess inflammatory chemicals will also change the zeta potential on the red blood cell membranes, causing rouleaux formation.

It is a perfect storm for the coagulation cascade, formation of micro clots and a host of symptoms.

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Why are these indications problematic for health?

All of the above symptoms are congestive to the delivery of oxygen to cells, tissues and organs. Oxygen is vital for every cell in our body.

It is why our red blood cells have no nucleus – there is no room in the cell for organelles, it can only fit in 4 massive protein molecules, haemoglobin. These molecules are responsible for carrying oxygen.

It is why our bone marrow produces 2 million red blood cells per second and why 2 million red blood cells are culled from circulation per second too. Our red blood cells do not reproduce, they live for 120 days on average and then their parts are recycled to produce new ones.

A lack of healthy, viable, free floating red blood cells will affect our health on all levels, especially if it continues for prolonged periods. It can accelerate aging and bring us closer to chronic disease.

This is why there are so many symptoms associated with Long Covid/vaccine damage because the most prominent features of these syndromes is the lack of oxygen availability to cells.

How do we stop this perfect storm?

You have to find the root cause - the trigger - and switch it off!

 To be continued…….

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Coming Soon

I will be discussing this topic in more detail in an online masterclass soon.

This masterclass is open to analysts, medical practitioners, complementary practitioners and those interested in becoming analysts themselves.

To be sent more information when the masterclass becomes available, please email us at info@naturecureacademy.com

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Learn More About Live & Dry Blood Analysis

If you would like to find out how you can use Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training to assess your clients’ health, then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

FREE email mini-series when you join our Mailing List

The Truth about Boosting the Immune System (& what can Live Blood Analysis tell us?)

A Very Relevant Controversy

A few months ago, the press in the UK had a field day with headlines about boosting the immune system in the light of the coronavirus pandemic.

Why?

Recently, a company that were advertising their (prescription only) vitamin injections as “immune boosting” were banned by the Advertising Standards Agency (ASA).

They actually broke the advertising laws and regulations because you can’t promote prescription-only supplements like this in the UK. They were accused of suggesting their product could be used as a strategy to prevent viral infections which exploited the anxieties people have about contracting coronavirus.

However, the message that the ASA sent out to the media and to the public was essentially that no-one is allowed to promote a product as “immune boosting”.

A flurry of articles and TV news reports ensued – talking about whether you can or can’t boost the immune system.

Many social media posts that linked peer reviewed science studies showing how deficient nutrient levels adversely affect immune function – or – that supplementing certain nutrients have been shown to improve patient outcomes, such as shortening illness duration, limiting symptoms or improving recovery post illness were removed as “fake-news”.

So, what is the truth? Can we “boost” our immune system with nutrition?

If your immune system is running perfectly smoothly and you have no nutrient deficiencies or health problems then you can’t actually “boost” it beyond its normal level of functionality.

However, there is no doubt that you can influence the health of your immune system with nutrients - through diet and supplementation - especially if things aren’t at 100%.

Our immune systems rely on being fed with a variety of vitamins and minerals that are essential to its proper functioning. These nutrients need to be consumed through the diet or through supplementation – the body simply doesn’t manufacture them itself.

In this blog post I am going to present to you

• A brief summary of the immune system – how it works and which cells/organs are involved.

I will show you the actual cells of the immune system – from my clinic’s live blood analysis pictures.

• The essential nutrients your immune system needs in order to function properly.

Live and Dry Blood Analysis (LDBA) can assess the client’s immune system and identify the nutrients that may be deficient. I will show you what abnormal immune cells look like and what nutrients are indicated.

• The best ways you can improve your levels of these nutrients and maintain immune health.

There may be multiple factors involved as to why clients are deficient in nutrients. I discuss the main areas to focus on and which recommendations may be relevant to improve a client’s immune system.

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Lets briefly break down what the immune system is, how it works and what it looks like under the microscope

There are three layers to the immune system’s defence strategy:

1 – Physical barriers and biochemical barriers

The barriers of our immune system are:

• the skin - which defends our body from environmental pathogens.

• the respiratory tract - which is lined with mucous membranes designed to protect us from the pathogens that we breathe in.

• the acid in our stomach - which kills any bacteria we may ingest.

• the lining of our digestive tract - which is a barrier to stop pathogens, such as parasites and bacteria, entering our internal circulation.

2 – Immune System Cells such as monocytes, granulocytes, and lymphocytes (B and T cells)

These are all white blood cells. They are created in the bone marrow from blood stem cells and are released into the circulation where they travel to their destination to fight infection.  

3 – Antibodies or immunoglobins – products of the immune cells that actively affect invading microbes and infected cells

These are the biochemical products of the immune cells that can trigger an attack on pathogens, stimulate immune cell production and actively kill bacteria or infected cells.

The immune system is divided into different pathways:

1 – The Innate Immune System

The cells of the innate immune response are the white blood cells such as neutrophils, basophils, eosinophils and monocytes.

These white blood cells can be seen in the blood when conducting a Live Blood Analysis.

Neutrophils are the most numerous and they roam the blood, ready to engulf (phagocytose) pathogens and/or migrate out of the circulation into the tissue if called on to do their work there. They contain granules that can literally digest the pathogens they engulf.

In blood analysis you can see if there are not enough of these in the sample – indicating immune suppression. Or you may see too many of them, indicating an immune response. Both need to be addressed.

In a healthy blood sample neutrophils should comprise 60% of all the white blood cells in a live blood sample.

healthy neutrophil

Eosinophils – these are most commonly found in the mucous membranes of the respiratory and digestive tract. They release chemicals as a defence against pathogens - specifically parasites - and in response to allergens in chronic allergic issues.

When you see them in the blood in numbers (they are rare wbcs) it means that there may be an active allergic response or a parasite infection.

In healthy blood sample eosinophils comprise 2 to 4 % of all white blood cells.

healthy eosinophil

Basophils – also called mast cells - these are rare to see in the blood unless they have been triggered to respond.

They release heparin to prevent clotting in inflamed tissues and they release histamine as a first response to an allergen.

If you see several in a blood sample it indicates a possible inflammatory response or allergic response. For more information about how LDBA can reveal allergies see this previous blog post.

In a healthy blood sample basophils should comprise only 0.5 to 1% of all white blood cells.

healthy basophil

2 – The Adaptive Immune System

This is a very specific targeting system that has evolved to protect us against viruses. It literally adapts to defend against specific invaders.

This system involves antigen responses - antibodies - that are produced by the T and B lymphocyte cells when they are activated by exposure to the pathogen.

T-cells – Initially, T-cells leave the bone marrow, travel via the blood to the thymus gland where they mature. They develop receptors for antigens and then circulate within the lymphoid organs until activated.

• Once an antigen is picked up by the T-cell it becomes a helper T-cell and proliferates, triggering other immune cells to attack by releasing cytokines and helping B-cells produce antibodies.

• T-cells can also become cytotoxic T-cells which actively seek out cells that are infected with viruses or bacteria - and kill them. They even kill cancerous cells. (see picture below of cytotoxic lymphocyte)

• After infection, T-cells can become memory T-cells, which are antigen-specific and long-lived cells. These can quickly proliferate upon re-exposure to even the smallest amount of the antigen.

B-cells – These lymphocytes remain in the bone marrow to mature then they migrate to the spleen and lymphoid tissue. Here they wait – in the mucosa and linings of the colon, respiratory tract for example - to be triggered by a pathogen/antigen.

• Once activated (by antigens or by T-cells) B-cells enlarge and produce specialised complex proteins called antibodies to specific antigens. (see picture below of activated lymphocytes)

• Memory B-cells are long lived cells that circulate in case of re-infection and will proliferate, with the help of T-cells, to deal with a re-infection before it takes hold.

Normal, Activated & Cytotoxic Lymphocytes

In a healthy blood sample lymphocytes comprise around 35% of all white blood cells.

Increased numbers can indicate viral infection or acute/chronic inflammatory processes, overload of toxicity or chronic infection.

Low levels can indicate lengthy chronic viral infection leading to lymphocyte exhaustion or nutrient deficiencies such as B12, B6, folic acid.

3 – The Complement System – this works with both the innate and the adaptive immune system.

As the name suggests this part of the immune system complements the actions of the others. It doesn’t include cells but it stimulates the other white blood cells into action by the production of specific proteins – chemical messengers that

• Stimulate phagocytes to clear pathogens and damaged cells.

• Instigate inflammation to attract more phagocytes.

• Activate a membrane attack complex to kill bacterial cells.

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Why is good nutrition important?

Adequate nutrition is crucial to supply the immune system with energy and the building blocks of its biochemical defence products

The immune system is complex for good reason; it is responsible for keeping us alive! You can imagine that it needs a lot of fuel and a constant supply of diverse nutrients to keep it functioning optimally.

Below is a brief summary of the most vital nutrients required along with how a possible deficiency of these nutrients can be picked up via LDBA.

Firstly – The Macronutrients – protein and lipids.

Protein -

• is vital for our immune system to be able to manufacture cytokines and complement proteins.

• is crucial to the mucosal barriers which are vital barrier protection.

• deficiency affects the thymus gland, which matures and produces our T cells.

Protein deficiency – moderate, mild or severe - can be surprisingly common especially amongst vegetarians, vegans, dieters and those with digestive disorders. Alongside protein deficiency there are likely to be other micronutrient deficiencies as well.

LDBA can reveal protein issues – such as “protein linkage” (ineffective protein digestion, inadequate protein intake) and “lack of fibrin web” (same).

Cross-referencing other indications in the blood analysis - along with examination of diet and other symptoms, especially digestive - will help to find the root cause of any protein issues.

Protein Linkage

Essential fatty acids are another macronutrient essential for immune function. They are incorporated in the membrane phospholipids in immune cells where:

• they modulate immune cell signalling and inflammatory processes.

• they regulate T and B cells by taking long-chain fatty acids (arachidonic and EPA) from the membranes and transform them with enzymes to create prostaglandins and other immune cell products.

• deficiency of EFAs and/or too many omega 6 fats can lead to imbalances in inflammatory responses such as pro-inflammatory issues.

Live Blood Analysis can assess the health of the cell membranes of all the blood cells – red and white – which will give an indication of lipid status.

A lack of integrity of cell membranes can be seen in cells that literally break apart, or “lyse” (see image below) in the sample. This indicates that the lipids that are incorporated in the membrane are composed of the wrong proportions and/or types of lipids.

lysed ghost cells

Secondly – but just as vital – the micronutrients

The micronutrients used in the immune system are Vitamin A, C, D, E, B2, B6 and B12, folic acid, beta carotene, iron, selenium and zinc.

Zinc

Zinc is one of the most important minerals for immune function. It is not stored in the body so it needs to be constantly supplied by the diet:

• A lack of zinc will:

  • decrease the numbers of lymphocytes

  • lower production of antibodies and make them less effective

  • disable neutrophils’ ability to move towards pathogens

  • increase levels of oxidative stress

• Macrocytes are the biggest phagocytic cells of the immune system – they physically ingest pathogens and kill them. They cannot do this without zinc.

• Pro-inflammatory cytokines are increased in zinc deficiency.

In zinc deficiency, Live Blood Analysis will show neutrophils that are non-motile, there will be low levels of lymphocytes and the Dry Blood Analysis will show high levels of oxidative stress.

Vitamin C

This is one of the most famous of the vitamins known to support the immune system.

Vitamin C is not stored in the body and so we need to have a constant supply in the diet. It is especially needed during stress and any kind of infection, because Vitamin C:

• stimulates the production and function of white blood cells

• stimulates motility of white blood cells

• increases production of antibodies

• protects white blood cells from autointoxication from the pathogen-killing chemicals they produce

• regenerates vitamin E, a fat-soluble vital antioxidant that oxidises easily

• is needed to help prevent the oxidative stress from damaging tissues and killing our own cells

Lack of neutrophil motility (same as above) or increased numbers of wbcs (picture) seen in Live Blood Analysis indicate a need for vitamin C.

High levels of oxidative stress as seen in the Dry Blood Analysis would also indicate a need for vitamin C.

These following micronutrients are fat soluble - they require healthy fats in order to be digested and absorbed properly - so efficient fat digestion is also key to getting enough of them into your cells.



Vitamin D

There are thousands of vitamin D receptors within the human genome and Vitamin D is thought to directly or indirectly regulate 100 to 1250 genes.

• Vitamin D receptors are expressed in several types of immune system cells and vitamin D3 is now recognized to be a potent modulator of the immune system.

• Vitamin D regulates antimicrobial proteins, which are critical components of the innate immune system because they directly kill pathogens, especially bacteria, and thereby enhance immunity.

  These proteins also modulate immune functions through cell-signalling effects.

• Vitamin D has also been shown to stimulate immune cell proliferation and cytokine production. Through these roles, vitamin D helps protect against infections caused by pathogens.

In blood analysis you can observe general immune system status through the presence, quality and levels of the white blood cells. Any indications of infection or inflammation – either in elevated levels of certain white blood cells or high levels of oxidative stress in dry blood analysis – can indicate possible vitamin D deficiency.

Vitamin A

Vitamin A is hugely important for the immune system; deficiency is surprisingly common. It is vital for protecting us on all levels against infections.

• Vitamin A is crucial to the health of the immune system’s barrier protection such as the skin, mucosal cells of the eye, lining of the respiratory system and gastrointestinal tract.

• Healthy neutrophils and lymphocytes require adequate vitamin A.

• T and B lymphocytes need vitamin A to generate antibody responses to specific antigens.

In Live Blood Analysis we are able to make an assessment of the integrity of the gastrointestinal barrier by the appearance of “chylous” in the blood sample.

Clients fast for 5 hours before the test and so there should be no evidence of food particles in the blood – they will have all been absorbed. Chylous indicates that there may be a leak in the digestive tract – leaky gut – which can be a big indicator of Vitamin A status.

Chylous

Other nutrients that need mentioning –

B12 – Cobalamin - crucial as a coenzyme that helps to build DNA synthesis. Deficiency is known to decrease the numbers of circulating lymphocytes and suppress their ability to kill infected cells.

Folate - crucial for DNA replication and normal proliferation of white blood cells.

Both B12 and Folate deficiencies can be assessed with Live Blood Analysis. Here is a link to a previous blog post for more information.

Iron – needed for proliferation of T-cells and the creation of oxidative pathogen-killing chemicals.

However, iron supplementation can “feed” pathogens and help them replicate. Which is why free iron levels are automatically stored by the body as a response to infection or inflammation.

Live Blood Analysis can show iron deficiency. The presence of high levels of microcytes (small red blood cells) and codocytes (red blood cells appear like targets) are clear indicators of low iron levels.  

Selenium – several important selenium-dependent enzymes function as important antioxidants. Selenium deficiency affects antibody production, and can enhance the progression of viral infections.

Any increase in lymphocytes and other white blood cells seen in Live Blood Analysis could indicate a need for selenium. Dry Blood Analysis will show high levels of oxidative stress.   

Vitamin E – powerful antioxidant, promotes cell membrane health.

B6 – Pyridoxine – part of the building blocks of the immune system proteins like cytokines and antibodies. 

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Eight problem areas to address in order to improve immune system function

The reason for a possible deficiency in any macro or micronutrient is likely to be multifactorial and so questions need to be asked in order to get to the root cause of a deficiency, so that the appropriate recommendations can be made.

Diet – does the diet contain the necessary nutrients?

Make sure to take a deep look at the contents of the diet. Does it contain the vitamins and minerals that the immune system requires? Are there appropriate protein levels? Which fats are being consumed and in what quantity? https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17726308/

Digestion – are there any symptoms of digestive issues, dysbiosis, inadequate stomach acid and/or stress?

All of the above factors will affect whether vital nutrients can actually be broken down, digested and absorbed. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4513829/

Exercise – too much or too little?

Over-exercising can burden the body with excess oxidative stress which uses up precious antioxidants, conversely exercise can stimulate the immune system and help it function. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18522619/

Stress – how much emotional or/and mental stress is there?

Stress diverts energy away from digestive processes and the stress hormone actually reduces the number of lymphocytes. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4465119/

Medication – check for medication that affects the immune system.

Medicines for illnesses such as rheumatoid arthritis, crohns disease, cancer, inflammation and treatment for transplant patients all affect the immune system. They are all designed to suppress the immune system to prevent inflammation and auto-immune reactions.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4706827/

Alcohol – how much is being consumed?

Too much alcohol will suppress the immune system, whereas it has been shown that small amounts can improve it.  https://www.nature.com/articles/1601486.pdf

Pollution and toxicity – what levels of exposure are there?

This is a huge problem for people living in polluted areas. Assessing toxicity sources and eliminating where possible is essential for the immune system function.  https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Multivitamin-Supplementation-Supports-Immune-By-Air-Haryanto-Suksmasari/72892c93510d261d3e9e05770782c2ddb6cf4056

Sleep – This really matters for the immune system.

Getting the right amount of sleep will regulate the immune system as it has been shown that the wake/sleep cycle synchronises with immune activity. Release of various cellular signalling products and can regulate inflammation.  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3256323/

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The immune system is complex and if it is nourished with all the necessary nutrients and given the right conditions it will always act to protect us.

We can use LDBA to monitor the immune system and keep an eye on any signs of immune stress and possible deficiencies.

LDBA is not a definitive diagnostic blood test. It is used to help reach a deeper level of understanding of health at a cellular level by assessing the most valuable biological fluid, the blood.

Indications can help make correlations between clients’ symptoms, their diet and lifestyle so that any recommendations can be truly individualised.

For further nutrition information, here is a great article called Important Diet Habits To Implement For A Healthy Immune System written by Fitness Volt which gives detailed advice as to what whole foods are most effective for maintaining the health of the immune system.

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Learn More About Live & Dry Blood Analysis

If you would like to find out how you can use Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training to assess your clients’ health, then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

FREE email mini-series when you join our Mailing List

Good Fat, Bad Fat, Healthy Fat, Low Fat! Insights From LBA

My grandmother used to save the dripping from the Sunday roast and ceremoniously offer it up to us when we visited. We would dunk a chunk of bread in the solid white fat; it would crack like ice on a pond to reveal the jelly like rich gravy underneath and the bread soaked it up. Delicious!

Most people will shudder at the thought of eating the dripping now because for decades we’ve been led to believe that saturated fat is bad for our health, especially animal fat. We’ve been taught that eating fat will make us fat and could cause heart disease.  

But fat is a vital nutrient that our body requires in order to be healthy.

As a nutritionist, I often need to inform my clients of the science around dietary fats and the role they play in health and disease to be able to persuade them that:

“Yes, you can eat fat – even saturated fat - and be healthy”.

But often clients are not so easily convinced, until they see their blood during an analysis session!

Considering how important to health our red blood cells are, it is vital that they are able to withstand the pressures they are under during circulation in order for them to deliver the essential-to-life oxygen to all our cells, tissues and organs.

If clients are consuming high levels of refined and processed fats, eating a diet of predominantly polyunsaturated fats and have little to no animal fats in their diet - it will show up in the blood in various ways:

• If the membranes are not formed properly – the red blood cells will lose their integrity in circulation.

Hemolysed Red Blood Cell

• The rbc membranes will also oxidise easily creating red blood cells that are unable to carry out their functions.

Echinocytes

• If the rbc membrane is deformed due to lack of appropriate fats they break under circulatory pressure. (picture of acanthocytes)

Acanthocytes

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Is fat essential to health?

Yes! Healthy fats are essential for healthy cell membranes, especially red blood cells, and unhealthy fats can create unhealthy cell membranes which, if not corrected, can be responsible for many health issues:

• Dietary fats are a source of energy – double the energy content of protein or carbohydrate.

• They function as structural building blocks of the body –providing every cell with a membrane which contains a combination of different fats that together create stability and flexibility for the cells.

• Fats carry fat-soluble vitamins, A, D, E and K, and support their absorption in the intestine. Consuming sufficient amounts of fatty foods that contain these vitamins is essential for adequate intake of these vital micronutrients.

• Fats are indispensable for a number of important biological functions including growth and development.

• The brain is very rich in fat (60%) and has a unique fatty acid composition; docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) is the major brain fatty acid. The lipids of the retina also contain very high concentrations of DHA.

• Essential fatty acids, which are derived from dietary polyunsaturated fats via a very complex and sensitive biological conversion – are necessary for brain and eye health, hormonal balance, inflammatory response regulation, blood clotting and wound healing.

Considering this long, but by no means exhaustive list of the benefits of fat, when did fat become associated with bad health and why?

“Fat makes you Fat”

Just before the turn of the 19th century food started to be measured in calories. Of the three macromolecules of nutrition – fat, carbohydrate and protein – fat contains the most calories. By the 1920s the desired shape and size of women’s bodies changed from plump and voluptuous, which indicated wealth and health -  to stick thin and flat chested being the in vogue female image.

The word calorie became associated with dieting and soon women were counting calories and seeking to eat less and less of them in an effort to maintain the fashion industry’s promoted skinny ideal.

And so began the dieting culture.

This led to eating habits that aimed to reduce calories, but paid little attention to the nutrient values of the foods. Diets evolved to contain less fat, more carbohydrates and foods rich in sugar.

But – we’ve reduced our fat calorie intake and yet today one in 3 of us is obese?

“Fats are bad for your heart”

In the 1920s clogged arteries were a rarity and only a small branch of medicine was concerned with coronary heart disease. A few heart specialists would meet occasionally to discuss their few cases and formed the American Heart Association in 1924.

A researcher called Ancel Keys presented the Lipid Hypothesis in the late 1950s. It stated that there was a direct relationship between the amount of saturated fat and cholesterol in the diet – specifically the traditional animal fats - and the incidence of coronary heart disease.

Around the same time the cotton industry discovered a processing technique that turned a waste product, cotton seed oil, into a fat that can be used as a replacement for butter, lard and in commercial baking and sold as a food ingredient known as ‘Crisco’. This product soon became a household staple around the world.

However, there were no safety tests done to make sure this was a product fit for human consumption.  Despite this, the lipid hypothesis took hold and research bodies, such as the American Heart Association enjoyed huge financial support from the burgeoning refined food oil industry.

The fats that made up our diet changed quite drastically due to the advice given by medical institutions to cut down on the traditional butter and lard and consume refined vegetable oil instead, in an effort to reduce the rising heart disease epidemic.

But – we’ve cut out our saturated animal fat and yet today heart disease is the number one killer in the world?

Between 1920 and the year 2000 -

• The proportion of traditional animal fats in diet declined from 83% to 62%

• Consumption of sugar and processed foods increased by 60%

• Yet dietary vegetable oils intake increased by 400%!

• Within just 80 years heart disease went from a few rare cases to one in three deaths globally!

Our diets have changed, we are consuming fewer calories as fat, and we are consuming massively increased levels of processed vegetable fats and refined carbohydrates.

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Could plant-based fats be bad for our health?

Humans have always consumed polyunsaturated fats as part of the diet in the form of legumes, grains, nuts, green vegetables, fish, olive oil and animal fats – but not as processed and refined vegetable oils. Modern diets typically contain around 30% of its calories as polyunsaturated fat from soy, corn, safflower and canola oils.

Yet the evidence from scientific research supporting the lipid hypothesis is not conclusive. In fact it indicates that we should not be consuming more than 4%.

These volatile polyunsaturated oils are damaged by the heat and pressure they are put under in order to extract the oil from the raw product. It changes the molecular structure of the delicate oils.  

In order to make the finished product palatable it is treated with deodorants, bleach and chemical preservatives, flavourings and colours.

All of this refining and processing may lead to a convenient palatable product that can be used in cooking and food product manufacturing but it has caused so much damage to our health that today, the levels of these dangerous fats – known as trans-fat - allowed in food has been reduced enormously, in some countries even banned.

We now know just how unhealthy trans-fats are, causing:

• Oxidation and free radical damage to all cells

• Cell membrane oxidation and abnormalities

• Damage DNA/RNA causing mutations in cell reproduction

• Premature aging of the skin

• Damage to tissues and organs

• Damage to blood vessels which can lead to a build-up of plaque

Trans fats can also:

• Block the use of essential fatty acids –affecting the central nervous and endocrine systems

• Increase blood cholesterol levels

• Raise inflammatory responses and trigger autoimmune diseases

Consumption of these oils in this quantity has been shown to contribute to disease conditions such as cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, damage to liver, reproductive organs and lungs, digestive disorders, learning and growth impairment and weight gain.

Free radical damage that can be triggered by consuming damaged fats is associated with premature aging, autoimmune diseases, inflammatory responses that are linked to heart disease, stroke, diabetes, contributes to insulin resistance.

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How to improve your diet and use Live & Dry Blood Analysis to monitor progress

You can use Live & Dry Blood Analysis to check the levels of oxidative stress and lipid peroxidation of your red blood cell membranes. 

We all have damaged fats in our organs, tissues and cells. If you change the fats you consume, in time, your body will replace the damaged fats with the healthy ones.

Top tips for ensuring you eat plenty of healthy fats

1. The best thing you can do for your health is to eliminate processed, refined oils and fat - no margarine, odourless golden vegetable oil liquid, foods cooked in those oils (crisps), or food products produced using those oils (pastry, cakes, biscuits etc).

2. Include healthy fats in all your meals - make sure you eat a range of different fats throughout your week to get the benefits:

   You need unrefined, cold pressed nut and seed oils such as EVOO, flaxseed/linseed oil – these will be full of antioxidants and unspoiled by processing, contained in dark glass bottles and kept cool, sealed and away from light.

   Plant based healthy fats - coconut oil, avocados, raw and soaked nuts and seeds, green leafy vegetables, fermented nut cheese, nut and seed milks and yoghurts, chia seeds and even cacao nibs!

3. Other healthy fats – if you consume animal products it is essential that you choose the highest welfare producers and check the provenance of the product.

   Grass fed, unpasteurised, organic butter, milk and cheese contain very important healthy fats. Unprocessed, grass fed, naturally raised organic meat, cooked slowly to break down the fast and enrich the meal with minerals from the bones. Organ meats are very high in healthy fats too.

Make the necessary dietary changes and after 120 days, when all of your blood cells have been replaced with new ones, you can check the blood again under the microscope and see the difference.

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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Should We All Go 'Plant-Based'? Changing Diets Using LBA

The term “plant-based” is everywhere! It is very much in vogue due to the environmental impacts of meat production and the growing vegetarian/vegan movement.

Most nutritionists and those of us interested in regaining health know that increasing the amount of vegetables, fruits and wholefoods in the diet will inevitably lead to some improvement in health.

It really is a “no-brainer”. Right?

What is “plant-based”?

A plant-based diet means eating a diet that is derived either wholly or mostly from plants - specifically vegetables, fruits, pulses, legumes, nuts, seeds and wholegrains.

Doing so ensures you are consuming a huge variety of nutrients, all-important fibre, prebiotics (essential food encouraging a healthy microbiome) as well as a myriad of micro nutrients yet to be discovered.

In many ways it is eating as nature intended. However, eating a plant-based diet doesn’t always lead to good health.

Can a plant-based diet make health worse not better?

Short answer – yes, but how?

The plant-based movement is a huge emerging market and there are plenty of food producers looking to supply the demand. Growing plants and processing them into convenience foods in the cheapest way possible is the drive behind many of the new plant-based products that are filling the supermarket shelves.

These foods may be convenient and plant based but that does not mean that they are healthy. It is important that this distinction is understood.

Meatless meat products  

• Quorn is made from fermenting a strain of the soil mould Fusarium venenatum, then adding glucose, fixed nitrogen, vitamins and minerals, and heat-treating it to remove certain toxins. It is a highly processed food, low in protein, higher in fat than lentils, for example, and is high in sodium.

  This product is far from a health food. It has been responsible for allergic reactions, contains few essential nutrients and in fact is not vegan.

• Textured vegetable protein – another plant based meat substitute that is also highly processed. It is made from defatted soya protein which creates a denatured protein, providing very little usable protein for the body.

• There are also pea protein-based meat products which are often loaded with fillers, additives, flavouring and preservatives.

For some people consuming these products can provide very little nutrition - you do not consume the amount of protein you need if you rely on meatless meat substitutes and can become deficient or malnourished.

Also your body may not be able to digest and eliminate the denatured, highly processed proteins/fats/by-products which can lead to health issues or exacerbate current symptoms.

Removing meat and dairy but adding more processed foods

Another pitfall of becoming more plant-based is that people remove the meat and replace it with unhealthy refined carbohydrate products that are often loaded with sugar and damaged fats.

Refined and processed convenience foods can increase the possibility of blood sugar issues and obesity. Processed and chemically altered plant fats, known as trans fats, are damaging to health and have been banned because they are known to promote systemic inflammation and increase your risk of heart disease.

In many ways meat, fish and dairy are convenience foods. Eating a healthy plant-based diet takes time – sourcing, shopping and preparing foods – and it is NOT convenient and this is the reason that most people will fall into the trap of using plant-based convenience foods. This can cause nutrient deficiencies over time, however, and for some could make existing health issues worse or even bring about symptoms that they previously did not suffer from.

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How do you go “plant-based” healthily?

I have worked with hundreds of clients with a huge variety of health issues and dietary habits. One aspect that most of my clients have in common when they first come to me is that they consume a diet of few plant wholefoods but with many processed convenience foods.

Before blindly advocating a plant-based diet change, or offering any dietary changes, I use Live and Dry Blood Analysis to screen my clients’ blood for signs of imbalances and clues to the root causes of their symptoms.

It is vital to get a clear picture of current nutrient status – deficiencies of nutrients such as iron, B12 or folate, as well as an understanding of any disruption to the body’s many biological systems responsible for health – such as the digestive system, eliminatory system or the circulatory system. If they are already deficient in certain nutrients like B12 or they aren’t digesting protein efficiently, then a plant-based diet may make things worse.

The most common issues amongst my plant-based diet clients are signs of B12 deficiency, protein digestion issues and cell membrane weakness. Why?

• B12 is such a vital nutrient for the health of our bodies and it is more or less absent in a plant-based diet.

  Blood cells require B12 in order to develop normally and so the body has a store of it in the liver. But over time this store is depleted, even one night of binge drinking (alcohol) will eliminate a years’ worth of B12. If this is not replenished, through diet and a healthy digestive process, you can soon become B12 deficient.

  Symptoms of B12 deficiency often do not appear until the body is quite depleted and normal cell reproduction has been affected for some time. I have written about B12 extensively in this blog post.

  Live blood analysis can clearly show if B12 is lacking by the presence and quantity of abnormal cells:

Macrocytes

Hypersegmented Neutrophils

• PROTEIN is another vital nutrient for the health of our body. The quality of protein as well as our ability to digest and metabolise it determines whether we are giving our body what it needs.

• You can definitely consume plenty of healthy protein in a plant-based diet (see this blog post I wrote about vegan protein). However, digesting protein and breaking it down into the amino acid building blocks that our body relies on depends on not only diet but the health of the digestive tract.

  It is vital to get the digestive tract healthy and functioning efficiently, especially if animal protein is off the menu.

  Here are some examples of issues of protein digestion as seen in Live and Dry Blood Analysis:

Weak Fibrin Web

Protein Linkage

• CELL MEMBRANES are made up mostly of lipids or fats. Essential fats such as Omega 3 and 6 fatty acids are vital for healthy membrane and are hugely important to health. We need to consume them in our diet as the body does not synthesize them.

  Plant-based fats are predominantly Omega 6 fats which are known to increase the possibility of inflammatory diseases, autoimmune conditions and incidence or severity of allergic reactions.

  Additionally the Omega 3 fats available in plant-based foods are actually very hard for the body to metabolise. It involves a complex enzyme pathway that is easily disrupted, causing a lack of the EPA/DHA that the cell membranes are so desperate for. It is estimated that over 90% of the Omega 3 oil consumed in a plant based diet is lost via the digestive process.

  Trans fats are fats that have been damaged or denatured and are used in plant-based foods such as margarines, baked/fried/cooked goods and dairy-like food replacements. They are extremely bad for health because they replace the healthy lipids of the cell membranes, especially in the brain, and will disrupt cellular communication and proper normal functioning of the cell.

  They also increase levels of “bad” cholesterol and because they are hard to metabolise they end up being pocketed by the body, where they cause damage to tissues and processes.

  Live Blood Analysis can assess the health of the cell membranes as well as screen for fat metabolism issues by checking for fat aggregations in the blood’s plasma:

Lysed RBCs

Crystals

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Potential pitfalls of a plant based diet are -

1. Lack of quality protein

2. Reduction of B12 intake

3. Increase of trans fats

4. Imbalance between omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids

Top tips for ensuring a healthy transition to plant-based diet.

1. Get the blood analysed to screen for deficiencies and imbalances before cutting out food groups.

2. Tone up the digestive tract and ensure good stomach acid production.

3. Make sure the routes of elimination are open – to be able to process the additional vegetable and fruit fibre as well as eliminate the toxin release.

4. Do it gradually and plan the diet. Make shopping lists, print off recipes, ensure adequate nutrients especially protein and fats and don’t rely on vegan plant-based meat substitutes or processed convenience foods!

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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"Do You Check Your Own Blood?" - Being a Live Blood Analyst

“Do you check your own blood?”        

I often get asked this question by my clients and the answer, of course, is “yes”!

In fact, I am extremely grateful for my microscope, it has helped me to gain a deeper understanding about how the human body reacts and responds to the stresses of life.

After looking at my own blood under the microscope over the last 8 years I have witnessed how it has changed throughout the ups and downs in my own health. I believe this has helped me become a much more informed nutritionist and now, I cannot imagine life without my microscope.

The Truth is in Your Blood

When I first trained in LDBA I remember sitting in class along with about 12 other nutritionists, herbalists, naturopaths and health practitioners feeling very apprehensive when asked by our tutor – “Who would like to have their blood taken so we can all look at it under the microscope together?” There was no rush of hands; instead there was hesitation and reluctance.

We were fearful of what our own blood would reveal – “Will our cells show that even though we believed we were doing all the right things to be healthy – we were not healthy on the inside? Had we got it all wrong?”

We soon got used to putting ourselves under the microscope and became completely fascinated by this amazing tool for assessing our health. Once I was in the privacy of my own home with my own microscope, I could see my blood as often as I liked, This is when I really began to realise it’s worth, not only to my own health but also to my family’s and my clients.

Healer Heal Thyself

I became a nutritionist because changing my diet literally changed my life. I had ME/CFS twenty five years ago and I recovered within two years due to a massive diet change, taking a variety of supplements and using naturopathic techniques.

I still need to be cautious with my own health and being able to analyse my blood has helped me understand some of the root causes of the symptoms I still suffered from.

Lingering colds, weak immune system.

One of the biggest health issues that had continued to linger since recovering from ME/CFS was my seemingly sluggish immune system. I could feel a cold coming over a period of weeks; I would eventually get some symptoms such as blocked sinuses, foggy head, achy body and headaches but they would take months to clear completely.

To understand why this was happening I decided to analyse my blood when I next felt I was coming down with a cold. I discovered that my white blood cells, specifically my neutrophils, were very small, there were not as many as there should be and that their nuclear lobes were undefined and “cloudy”.

Comparison between normal and small/cloudy Neutrophils

All of this indicated that my white blood cells were deficient in certain nutrients – they needed minerals and vitamins to help them be produced normally in the bone marrow, and they needed fuel in the form of antioxidants in order to be viable immune cells.

• I created a bespoke protocol that would aim to boost the immune system, replenish the antioxidants – such as vitamin C, zinc, selenium – to encourage healthier neutrophils.

• I boosted my B12 and folate levels with supplements but also checked my diet for the right foods, and supported the digestive system to make sure the nutrients could be digested and absorbed.

I saw my neutrophils improve over a period of a few months and after six months of following my protocol my body had a proper cold! I had a real fever and chills, lots of mucous and these acute symptoms only lasted for three days. I recovered within a week rather than a few months.

Helping the Ones I Love

The most valuable thing to me is health, not just my own but also my family’s. When you love someone you do whatever you can to help them.

When my husband became sick five years ago, it was the biggest challenge of my career.

He had many diagnostic tests issued by both his Dr and functional medical practitioners and has had many interpretations of what may be going on in his body. Initially he was diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/M.E and later he was diagnosed with Lyme Disease and co-infections.

I have analysed his blood from the time he first started to feel ill, throughout his anti-viral and antibiotic medication and during his herbal protocols. In times of frustration when nothing seemed to be working or when a symptom would come on suddenly without apparent provocation, I have been able to look at his blood, make an assessment and offer advice. This had many advantages:

1. Reassurance – because I knew my husband’s blood well, I was able to judge when things changed. This helped me to reassure him when he was feeling rough and was worried that things were getting worse.         

2. I was able to assess his blood during the various protocols he tried which included prescribed medications as well as herbal and supplement protocols, checking for changes or new developments.

3. It gave me the sense that I was able to help and make a positive contribution to the man I love, even if I couldn’t offer a cure.

4. It also gave me a valuable insight into the progress of a diagnosis such as this which is often vague, hard to treat and fraught with a lot of “try and see” approaches to finding relief from symptoms.

 “Somethings just not right – I need to look at his blood.”

Just recently my youngest son has been poorly. He has been having a repeated cycle of nausea, dizziness and stomach pain that comes every few weeks. At first I assumed it was a tummy bug and it passed after a few days, but when it returned again a week or so later I knew I had to look at his blood.

I could see all the signs of a parasite infection and this enabled me to take immediate action and put an anti-parasitic protocol into place for him. I loved the reassurance my microscope gave me. As a Mum, that is priceless.

It is often harder to help those you love because you care so much, the emotions can take over and you can lose your focus. My microscope has been my rock to cling to when I was worried about my family and helped me use my knowledge to take positive action to help them.

The beauty of being able to use Live & Dry Blood Analysis is that I can get immediate results, no waiting for tests or appointments and I can take action straight away.

Having my own microscope gives me the opportunity to experiment!

With so many new supplements being produced, new types of tests being invented and theories about health and diet being written about, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed by all of this information input! How do you, as a nutritionist, absorb it all and use it effectively to help clients?

I have used my microscope to experiment on myself by doing many “before and after” blood checks. I have tried new supplements over a period of months and checked my blood to see if there are any changes. I have induced a hangover (all in the name of science of course!) and administered hangover cures and seen how my blood changed.

What the blood looks like during detox - I conducted a gallbladder and liver cleanse on myself and I analysed my blood before I started, during the detox and once I had finished so that I could track how my blood changed during the process. It really helped me understand that once you start a detox it doesn’t end.

• I learned to allow the body the time it needed to complete a detox. Your body will continue the process for some time after you have finished the detox routine.

• Once toxins are kicked out of their hiding place in the cells and tissues, you must check that they are indeed being excreted and are not left circulating in the blood able to settle somewhere else.

Detox Before & After

Pleasant Side-effects

Having constant access to my own microscope has been a huge benefit to my health, my family’s health and my clients’ health. It has allowed me to grow in my knowledge and experience of the human body and how it is in constant flux, adapting and responding to its internal environment.

I have learned also that we are all truly unique and our own blood has a unique signature – I can see patterns, similarities and a range of abnormalities in everyone’s blood but the particular collection of indications in a person’s blood is unique to them.

I initially trained in LDBA because I thought it would help me be more effective as a nutritionist, which it absolutely has. I completely underestimated just how valuable it would be to my own health and the health of my loved ones. 

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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Does Your Client Really Have An Allergy or Intolerance?

Food intolerance testing is big business for online laboratories and the number of people believing they have a food allergy or intolerance is growing.

Are people really intolerant to certain foods - are they having a true allergic response - or does the problem lie in the health of their digestive tracts?

One of the most common questions I get asked from the general public is “Can Live Blood Analysis test for food allergies or intolerances?”

Food allergies and intolerances are of huge concern for many people I encounter in my practice. Understandably so as it appears that many children are being born with severe allergies. Often just a tiny particle of an allergen is enough to induce a potentially fatal anaphylactic shock in those people with a true acute allergy.

Along with those who have life threatening allergies, there are many having a variety of uncomfortable symptoms who believe that they are becoming allergic or are intolerant to a variety of foods/environmental chemicals. 

In an attempt to eliminate the symptoms they buy into the many allergy tests that are now available. The burgeoning “gluten free” and “dairy free” food industry is capitalising on this and now shops are full of “free from” options. When whole isles of supermarkets are dedicated to these foods you know that the demand is great.

So, if your clients suffer from bloating, constipation, diarrhoea, IBS, skin rashes, lots of mucous production, big dips in energy, breathing problems, hayfever, asthma, watery eyes, runny nose and brain fog after eating etc - does this mean that they could be allergic or intolerant to certain foods?

Should you initiate a raft of tests, and a big bill, to determine the truth? Or does Live & Dry Blood Analysis (LDBA) offer an alternative?

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The Allergic Response

Firstly let’s look more closely at what an allergy is.

Allergic reactions are a result of an immune system reaction to an allergen and there are different scales of allergic reactions.

The most severe are the types of allergic responses that cause anaphylactic shock. Scientists are still working out why this happens and they do have some ideas – some people are born with an immune system that is primed to produce a certain differentiation of immune cell that produces a particular chemical, an immunoglobin (IgE), which initiates a massive release of histamine from the body’s mast cells.

Mast cells are immune cells that contain histamine (and enzymes, cytokines, oxidative chemicals, proteoglycans) and they release these chemicals when triggered.

These chemicals are thought to have several functions:

• They help generate new blood vessels, assist in wound healing, defend against pathogens and play a role in protecting the brain.

• They also affect the surrounding tissues, increasing blood flow, increasing fluids in the area, attracting more white blood cells, triggering muscle cells to contract and irritating nerve cells.

Mast cells are stationed in all tissues that are exposed to the outside world – the skin, the mucosal linings of the respiratory tract, the blood-brain barrier and the lining of the digestive tract.

They can be triggered to release their chemical contents in a localised area as a normal response to an allergen/pathogen or other trigger of some sort.

Or it can be a systemic, almost simultaneous, release of chemicals throughout the whole body causing a severe allergic response. The body cannot survive or overcome the release of these chemicals and it can result in anaphylactic shock which if left untreated will be fatal. This is not a normal immune response.

So – If someone asks me can you test for allergies? – I ask them –

• Do you have itchy skin, rashes, welts, hives?

• Do you have difficulty breathing, runny nose, streaming eyes?

• Do you have blood in your stools, do you vomit or have acute diarrhea?

• And – do these symptoms occur rapidly, with little warning?

If the answer is ‘yes’ I advise them to go straight to the doctor and get checked for severe allergies.

Food Intolerances

The next question I ask is – what sorts of symptoms are you having that lead you to believe you are reacting to foods?

The answer to this is usually that they are experiencing a lot of digestive discomfort. It is true that there are certain foods, mostly types of sugars, that some people cannot digest properly such as lactose or foods that contain FODMAPS.

The sugars contained in these foods are undigested and travel through the digestive tract being fermented by intestinal bacteria leading to very uncomfortable symptoms like, gas, bloating, IBS etc.

Lectins are another substance that can cause these issues too.

As a nutritionist or naturopath looking to help clients - do food sensitivity testing kits help?

There are many types of food sensitivity testing kits that can be bought online. Typically they send you a kit that directs you to prick a fingertip and extract some drops of blood directly into a tube which is then sealed and sent off in the post to a laboratory for processing. You receive your results with a report that shows you which foods you are supposedly sensitive to and they advise you to avoid.

HOWEVER – these tests are for IgG antibodies not IgE. IgG antibodies are produced when you are exposed to a food, not because of an allergy response. They are generated by circulating immune cells - plasma cells - when we are exposed to certain foods and they are there to protect us against the naturally present allergens in these foods.

For the most part they actually prevent us from having an abnormal reaction; we become desensitised by these immunoglobins so that we can harmonise with our environment (our diet).  Each of us has our own distinct repertoire of circulating IgG antibodies.

AND – the story so far in terms of immunoglobins (all of them), cytokines and T helper cells, B cells and plasma cells is nowhere near complete.

The way the immune system works, how it is primed from early life within the womb through infancy to adulthood, the genetic influences, the inherited traits and the environmental exposure to allergens, foods, chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs creates a very complex picture. We do not have all the pieces of the puzzle in order to see it clearly, yet.

Does avoiding problematic foods actually solve the problem?

By eliminating the foods you are supposedly sensitive to as laid out in the IgG food sensitivity testing, or by following a low FODMAP or low lectin diet in an attempt to resolve your health issues, you may not be getting to the root cause.

When you look at the list of foods that contain FODMAPS or lectins – the list is huge and you cannot possibly avoid them all nor should you. It can be dangerous to start cutting out foods and food groups from the diet for any length of time, as it can lead to nutrient deficiencies and ultimately may be totally unnecessary.

There can be a placebo effect from this process which can be powerful, however, I am not convinced it will override an underlying health issue for long and may end up causing further problems.

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How Live Blood Analysis Can Help

In my experience as a nutritionist the root cause of these sensitivities and digestive issues needs to be uncovered in order for them to be resolved.

Firstly, as a holistic practitioner I believe that the influences on a person’s health come from many angles. My role is to investigate thoroughly to be able to generate as complete a picture of their health as I can.

I take their case history – this includes a list of all the symptoms they are currently experiencing, a complete list of foods and drinks they consume, a run through of their entire health history going back to birth to present day, the health history of parents grandparents, a list of medications and supplements they are taking, a breakdown of lifestyle habits, levels and sources of stress and an understanding the environments they spend their time in.

Then I conduct a Live and Dry Blood Analysis to uncover the possible root causes of their issues.

Here are just a few examples of how LDBA can assess a client to find the root cause of their symptoms:

1)      Assessment of gut permeability

Most of the symptoms experienced by those looking for food sensitivity testing are digestive in nature. They range from acid-reflux, indigestion, nausea, cravings, bloating, IBS, constipation, diarrhoea, pains in the belly/stomach.

Chylous particles in live blood

I ask clients to fast for 5 hours before the blood analysis so that when I take their blood sample (only a drop from the finger tip) there should be no food particles floating around in the plasma. However, if I do see bright particles in their sample as in the image, it tells me that there is gut permeability also known as leaky gut - this can be contributing to their symptoms.

Particles leaking from the digestive tract will be either undigested or partly digested, covered in bacteria, or may even be fragments of bacteria or fungus. This will put pressure on the immune system – it has to cope with these ‘foreign particles’ in the blood and decide how to deal with them.

This can lead to higher production or activation of immune cells, by products of which can generate a lot of acidity, oxidative stress and use up lots of nutrients and energy.

The leaky gut needs to be addressed as part of their root cause protocol.

2)      Digestive capacity

In order to have a happy, normally functioning digestive tract we need to have a good level of stomach acid. Without that we cannot kill off microbes or digest protein properly which can lead to all kinds of issues like bacterial overgrowth in the stomach (helicobator pylori), bacterial overgrowth in the small intestine (SIBO) and deficiency of B12.

We need stomach acid (and ‘intrinsic factor’) for the digestive tract to extract, breakdown and absorb B12. Learn more in our post ‘To B12 or not to B12’.

Signs of B12 Deficiency

Some clients’ blood samples show that they have a low level of B12 which is reflected by the appearance of certain red blood cells and white blood cells. We are not measuring the B12 in the blood here - we seeing an actual functional deficiency of B12 (and folate) that has impaired the DNA synthesis and results in abnormal cells.

This can be an indicator of digestive capacity and it is vital to catch a B12 deficiency early so that it can be corrected as it is one of the most vital nutrients for health. Possible indications are:

• Macrocytes - Red blood cells that are too big due to lack of B12 at point of production in the bone marrow. They cannot travel into the capillaries and so are not able to carry oxygen or carbon dioxide.

A macrocyte (enlarged RBC)

• Hypersegmented neutrophils – the nucleus of this white blood cell is divided into many lobes indicating a deficiency of B12.

A Hypersegmented Neutrophil


3)      Bowel inflammation

Dry Blood Sample showing indication of bowel inflammation

Digestive disturbances can be caused by the overgrowth of bacteria creating gas and bloating. They can also be caused by inflammation in the bowel which may have been caused by antibiotic damage, allowing an overgrowth of ‘bad’ bacteria or it can be a condition such as IBD.

Whatever the cause, bowel inflammation can be seen in dry blood analysis. In the image above you can see a dark central area – which represents toxicity building up in the bowel (possibly from an inflammatory process, but also could be from toxicity in general). You can also see white circular areas which are puddles of the metabolic breakdown products from inflammation.

4)      Immune System Assessment

If a client does have allergies or intolerances which are related to an immune system response, then there will be some obvious signs in the both the live and the dry blood analysis. 

• Basophils - If there are several of these cells in a live blood sample then we can deduce that the immune system is reacting to an allergen or an irritation of some sort.

  They contain histamine granules just like mast cells, and can be the cause of inflammatory reactions, acute and chronic allergies and are present when there are ectoparasite infections such as tick bites (basophils migrate to the infected tissues).

Basophil

• Eosinophils – these are another type of white blood cell that if found in certain levels in the blood sample can indicate that there may be a parasite infection. They are part of the inflammatory response, are specifically related to helminths and other multicellular parasites, asthma and viral diseases.

Eosinophils

• Evidence of parasites – The blood contains chemicals that can either be the product of cellular processes, ingested toxins, cellular degradation products or toxins produced by parasites.

When the blood sample is allowed to  ‘dry’ it goes through the clotting cascade and the various substances in the blood will disrupt the clotting and create distinctive patterns in the dry blood layer.

Dry Blood Sample showing indication of parasites

One of those patterns is the appearance of black bulges within the black fibrin web that overlays the blood layer. This happens because of the products of exogenous parasites interfering with the fibrin production and is a clear indicator of an active parasitic infection.

Parasitic infections can disrupt many of the body’s processes and trigger immune response, digestive issues and alter the pH of the body’s tissues. 

5)      Ability to detox

Another issue that can hamper a client’s health, cause allergic reactions or disrupt the digestion is the level of toxicity being held within the body.

Liver stress – the liver is the primary organ that filters toxicity from the blood. If it is overburdened by toxicity, it has difficulty with other functions such as the creation of certain proteins responsible for the blood’s clotting process.

Indications of liver stress in a live blood sample

When the liver is stressed it has difficulty producing the right level of pro-clotting and anti-clotting proteins. These are both necessary for the homeostasis of the blood because we need both proteins circulating in pure blood, at the ready.

If the liver is stressed it can produce too much fibrin – pro-clotting factors. This causes congestion in the blood, prevents optimum oxygenation of the tissues and can lead to all kinds of symptoms. It is important to catch this liver stress early on so that it doesn’t lead to more complicates issues.

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LDBA Takeaway

A holistic perspective dictates that everyone is unique. A client’s path to ill health is unique and so it follows that the client’s path back to health also needs to be unique to them.

By assessing the blood alongside a detailed case history a practitioner can build a map of the client’s health status. It is a full-colour map that has a wide perspective taking into account what is reflected in their biological fluid - the blood.

The examples I have shown you above are just a small sample of what can be seen from a Live and Dry Blood Analysis. This type of blood test can be performed in your clinic, with your client present and you can share the results with them immediately.

Integrating this form of biological medical testing into your practice offers you and your clients many benefits. It can be much cheaper than the outsourced laboratory tests for your clients, the results are immediate, and you can retest them and check progress more frequently, adapting your protocols as you go.

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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Is it Really Time For a Detox?

Are detoxes or cleanses necessary and beneficial? Do they suit everyone? 

Detox is a bit of a buzz word in the wellness industry. The word carries with it the promise to cleanse you from the inside-out, leave you renewed, refreshed, feeling younger, happier, more energetic and a few stone lighter. Who wouldn't want that? But, what does it actually mean and will it deliver what it promises?

Living life in this modern world where we are surrounded by pollution in the water we drink, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the clothes we wear and the chemicals we put on our skin; it's hard to escape toxins. Our bodies, when functioning well, can process these toxins and either eliminate them or lock them away somewhere in the body fat so they don't cause us problems. Undoubtedly we all have toxins, but it's whether they are overwhelming our body's own capacity to process them that is the issue. Toxins can disrupt enzyme reactions, block absorption of nutrients, weaken nerves, and distort many body processes. They can even accumulate in the brain and other organs or tissues where they can cause inflammation and worse. 

However - if you have an unhealthy level of toxicity and this is reflected in the symptoms you are experiencing, then it is vital that you proceed with caution. 

Why?

1. If your body is being overwhelmed by toxins then it is certainly not ready for a detox, as it shows that your routes of elimination are blocked. What your body needs is help with preparing and toning up the routes of elimination, and improving the digestive process so that you can absorb nutrients and stop consuming toxins through your diet and lifestyle.
   

2. A body detox takes energy, nutrients and enzymes in abundance and so if the body is already deficient in any of these, the detox may actually do more harm than good. A detox typically involves limiting food types and therefore limiting certain nutrients. Once toxins are pushed out of the tissues and into the blood there's a chance that they will flow around the body and get deposited elsewhere rather than be eliminated.
   

3. If toxicity is suspected, it's important that you make sure you know what toxins you are dealing with so you can eliminate them safely. For example, heavy metals like mercury can be very destructive to health.
   

4. A detox takes time, energy, money and support. It's important you ask yourself "do I have these resources in order to do a successful detox?". It is impossible to tell how you will feel and how your body will react, but if you have been assessed properly by a nutritionist you will not be putting your body through anything it cannot cope with.
   

5. Detox reactions can happen, but ideally they shouldn't. If you do have a detox reaction like flare up of old symptoms, headaches, inflammation etc then your body is not coping with the release of toxins and you should slow down the detox.

Often I hear of the suffering people go through when they undertake a juice cleanse without professional guidance, and find they have constipation or diarrhea, their energy levels soar and then crash, they feel starving all the time, their sleep suffers, or they get moody and irritable, and often experience headaches. When they eventually resume normal life, their bodies get stressed all over again as they suddenly have to cope with solid food, caffeine, alcohol and stress!

My definition of a detox varies from client to client because I create a unique detox plan that will suit them and their body's needs. I always use live and dry blood analysis as a guide as to whether they need a detox, and what level of detox they can comfortably and successfully complete. Most clients need to prepare the body for several months so that they can really shift the toxins efficiently and painlessly. 

Why use Blood as a guide?

Live and Dry Blood analysis is a useful tool for any nutritionist, naturopath or biological medicine practitioner wanting to get a different perspective of a client's health by viewing a drop of their blood.

The blood flows throughout the body connecting all the cells, organs and tissues. It allows the body's different systems to communicate with each other with in-house hormonal and protein signals and messages, in order to maintain optimum health. The blood is actually a biological fluid that contains plasma as well as red and white blood cells. When viewing a drop of live blood (cells are still 'alive' rather than stained and separated) through a darkfield microscope, you can examine the function and viability of the cells and assess the contents of the plasma, the vital nutrient rich medium that feeds the body and removes waste. Add to this analysis the interpretation of the patterns within a drop of dried blood which are created from its elements and residues, and you can build a unique picture of the biological health of a client. 

It becomes very clear from looking at the blood in this way as to what sort of detox they will need. Heavy metals show up in the dry blood as a very definite indication if present and will need very careful handing in order to remove them safely from the body. If a client's blood indicates a lack of antioxidants, this will be obvious by the viability of the white blood cells as well as the sialic acid residues in the dry blood and will need correcting first.  Their dry blood picture may even indicate severe toxic bowel which would mean the routes of elimination need to be opened and supported first. 

For information on using Live Blood Analysis with your clients please CLICK HERE

Detox Case History

Below is an example of a case history showing blood analysis pictures before, during and after a detox program, tracking the progress and changes that the body goes through, as seen through the blood of a client.

A brief history

This client wanted to do a detox as she felt a bit sluggish. Her diet is a mostly gluten free and dairy free, predominantly organic, meat or fish once a day and loaded with vegetables. She drinks a litre and a half of water, a fresh green juice and one coffee a day. She regularly performs naturopathic techniques such as skin brushing, epsom salt baths and enemas and she exercises regularly. She experiences a cold or cough twice a year on average. She recovered from ME 20 years ago and is prone to migraines, brain fog, candida and chronic fatigue if she doesn't keep on top of her diet and lifestyle regime. She has been under some considerable stress for a few years now and wanted to do a cleanse to help release a sense of being overwhelmed, stuck and carrying some weight that was very stubborn despite her diet and activity levels. 

Pre-detox

Before any detox or dietary advice is given I always take a full case history to flag up any areas of weakness and strengths within the clients health and body systems. That allows me to get a sense of how their body is coping with things like digestion and elimination, how robust their immune system is, and how much energy they have. Importantly it also allows me to identify how much time, support and resources they have available in order to make the changes that may be necessary to their daily habits. Any changes will need to be continued for at least a month (usually longer) in order to get the results they are wanting.

I then look at their blood under the microscope to see the effects of their current lifestyle and I look for issues such as possible nutrient deficiencies, signs of toxicity, how stress is affecting them, inflammation and allergy response and to see how deep their symptoms go - are they superficial and transitory (acute) or are they longstanding and underlying all other health issues (chronic).

Pre-detox live blood pictures:

The pre-detox live blood pictures (all pre-detox aged) show corrugated red blood cell membranes with what looks like strings coming off from the membranes. It also shows smaller circles, vesicles, and other shapes with fainter outlines. These are congestive bacterial forms showing a trend towards pathogenic bacterial development - if allowed to continue then it could pave the way for more of the ME symptoms of candida and chronic fatigue. 

Pre-detox dry blood picture:

The dry blood picture shows that there are signs of parasites in her system and there are also signs of stress (the round white pin prick holes in the centre of the picture). The larger white shapes in the centre indicate an inflammatory process is occurring. There is also a darker patch of blood right in the centre too. This shows that there is an element of bowel toxicity. 

Considering that this client's diet was generally very good and there didn't seem to be any glaring nutrient deficiencies I felt that she could undertake a colon cleanse. The symptoms of fatigue, stubborn fat, sluggishness and the sense that her old symptoms of chronic fatigue, migraine and brain fog were just lurking ready to pounce if she relaxed her diet, made me confident that not only could her body cope with a cleanse but that she would be able to shift some stagnation and create movement and healing at a deeper level. 

The Detox

The detox that I recommended was a Colon Cleansing Kit by Blessed Herbs (click here for a 10% discount on all Blessed Herbs products). It contains a comprehensive booklet with full instructions, questions and answers, and guides for diet and for naturopathic techniques in terms of assisting the detox process. The kit contains a glass shaker jar in which one mixes up the sachets of "toxin remover" which is a mixture of apple pectin and psyllium husk. This is mixed with fresh pressed organic apple juice (that you make yourself). Digestive enzymes are taken to help break down and soften any tough residues in the digestive tract and to ensure movement of contents of the colon. Whilst on this cleanse you consume food in the form of liquid rather than solid - fresh juices, vegetable broths, coconut water, herbal teas and plenty of water alongside the regular shaker jars of the toxin remover ensure that you do not get hungry. This program can vary in length depending on your choice of detox intensity. In this client's case it was completed in seven days. 

The colon is the place where we absorb water and eliminate waste. It is also a place where bacteria colonise and proliferate in huge numbers. If the colon doesn't work properly, or efficiently - which can happen for many reasons such diet, stress etc - then we accumulate waste and unfriendly bacteria and parasites. Making this part of your body work better will make a huge difference to your health.

Blood re-test after colon cleanse

After my client had completed the cleanse, I wanted to check her blood to see if there were any changes. There was a huge difference in the red blood cell membranes and a reduction of the congestive bacterial activity on the membranes and in the plasma too. I also noticed that the white blood cells, the body's immune cells, were very active and I witnessed them moving around the blood chasing and engulfing bacteria. All of these changes were positive. 

Mid-detox live blood pictures:

I then looked at the dry blood and could see that there was increased evidence of parasites. This did not surprise me because the colon cleanse would have cleared away a lot of matter that provides a home and food for them. The colon cleanse will also have an effect on the tissues too, as clearing the routes of elimination allows the body to push out more toxicity from other tissues. Parasites can live anywhere in the body, depending on which type they are, but they are rarely in the blood itself. What we see in the dry blood are the by-products of their life cycle, their waste and their debris from dying.

Mid-detox dry blood picture:

This showed that the colon cleanse was working, however it created a release of toxicity that the body still needed to be supported in continuing to eliminate. Otherwise the danger was that this newly released toxicity would settle in the body rather than be ushered out of it. I advised that she continue the cleanse but added in herbs for treating parasites. 

Post colon cleanse and continued parasite cleanse

After two weeks of conducting a colon cleanse and parasite cleanse, my client reported a sense of clarity in her mind, she had more concentration and felt very motivated. Physically she felt that she had so much more energy and that she had lost weight. 

The blood pictures reflected this. The live blood picture shows really active white blood cells; a sign of a healthy immune system and a reflection on health and vitality in general. The aged blood picture is vastly different to the pre-detox picture - this shows how the cleanse changed the internal environment. The fluid around all the cells has been changed and no longer supports "bad" bacteria. The red blood cell membranes look stronger and the plasma is clear of debris. The dry blood pictures throughout the detox process tell a story of the toxicity being processed by the body. The final picture shows less stress, no inflammation or parasites but it does show heavier bowel toxicity which makes sense, as in order to cleanse and release toxicity it has to exit the body and the bowels are the primary channel!

Post-cleanse live & dry blood pictures:

I advised my client to keep focused on the fact that her body was still cleansing and so it was important to keep hydrated, keep up the "clean" diet and the naturopathic techniques that supported the release of toxicity. 

This case history illustrates the importance of understanding the demand that is placed on your body when you ask it to cleanse or detox. The body needs antioxidants, fibre, hydration, rest and time. A five day, seven day, ten day detox doesn't really exist.

Once the body is encouraged and supported in releasing toxicity it creates momentum and you want the body to continue until it is completed or else you could be left with more health issues. Using blood analysis is an ideal way to help clients prepare for a cleanse and track the progress to make sure it is followed through. 

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If you would like to know more about Live and Dry Blood Analysis Training so that you can use it to assess your clients’ health then please follow this link.

You are also invited to join our Facebook Group ‘Learning Live Blood Analysis’ - a private group of students, qualified analysts and anyone interested in learning.

If you have any questions about this topic or LDBA in general please email Shirah directly at info@naturecureacademy.com or add a comment below!

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