One of the most-significant distinctions between the approaches of Anti-Aging Medicine and standard medicine involves the interpretation and application of laboratory tests. When most people review reports of blood test, they look at their numbers in comparison to a scale of scores identified as “normal” on the printout. And, most people assume that the range of results that defines “normal” for each test is based on clear-cut, universal standards. However, once people learn the truth about laboratory values, they are usually shocked to discover their lab results may not be as “normal” as they believed.
By law, a laboratory must report the results of any medical test ordered by a physician in comparison to the other tests of the same type performed in the laboratory. This data is usually referred to as “Reference Range”. Most people think that the lab scores are marked as Normal, Above Normal, and Below Normal are scaled according to established health standards. They may want to “think again.”
The Reference Range is mandated to indicate that 95% of the tests fall within the reference range, (the lowest to the highest) with only 2.5% of results considered “above” the range and 2.5% considered “below” the range. This scale is obviously not representative of “normal” despite what many doctors may erroneously believe. First of all, the Reference Range is based on people sent for lab test, many of them because their doctors believe they have problems. So, this skewed population does not represent a selection of normal, healthy folks from the start. In addition, is it not absurd to assume that 95% of a population suspected of being ill would be “normal”?
Instead of asking what is “normal,” we should be asking, “What is optimal?” If the test were for a beneficial substance, such as thyroid or cortisol hormones, the optimal level would be in the upper section of the reference range. However, for a detrimental substance, such as C-Reactive Protein (CRP), a marker associated with stroke and heart attack, the level should be in the lowest part of the range. The questions to ask are: “Do you want your hormones to be at the optimal point — or are you content with a lab score that compared to 95% of probably ill people? Is there really a definitive lab score that draws a line between sickness and health? It is difficult for me to believe that on one side of a fine laboratory line, you are ill, but just on the other side, you are totally healthy. Illness is not a sudden occurrence, instead it is the result of a dysfunction that developed and remained untreated over time, and represents a spectrum of disease from mild to moderate to severe.