Making your blood work for you!

I’m joined on this episode by Emily Morrow, blood work expert, IHP (Integrative Health Practitioner) & FNTP (Functional Nutrition Training Practitioner). Emily has a thriving online practice where she works with clients and trains other practitioners in the expert use of blood work to find the root cause of health conditions. 

Emily has talked at conferences across the country and has built a knowledge base that is helping to change how blood work is used in functional medicine. 

Today we will discuss practical, actionable insights that you can use to improve your health by understanding what your bloodwork is saying. Including how to talk with your healthcare professional to ensure you are getting the best results for your health. 

Listen and find out how you can eliminate blood sugar dysfunction, balance hormones, improve immediate & long-term health and even address autoimmune disorders. 

You can find Emily on Instagram @emilymorrow or on her website: 

 https://www.theemilymorrow.com/

To contact me directly, use my email info@longevityfitnessandhealth.com or check me out on IG or FB @longevityfitnessandhealth. 

Disclaimer:

This podcast is for general informational purposes only. It should not be used to self-diagnose, and it is not a substitute for a medical exam, cure, treatment, diagnosis, prescription, or recommendation. Always seek the advice of a physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.

Transcript

Emily Morrow Blookwork Podcast

[00:00:00] Ryan: Hello and welcome to this week's episode. We're covering labs, blood work and finding the root cause for illness and really any non optimum health situation. So it's a fascinating subject. I have a very special guest, extremely knowledgeable, and a, longtime practitioner who's gotten. Hundreds, if not thousands, of results on people, helping them improve their health and life.

 As a blood work and lab expert, she's gonna explain how to use your blood work that you can get from your doctor each year, to get to the root cause of illness and really, as I said, any body dysfunction and even beyond that, how to optimize your health from this information and get the most out of your life.

Her name is Emily Morrow, and today we're covering, specifically how to balance blood sugar thyroid optimization, hormonal health, Lyme, [00:01:00] mold, detox, parasites, heavy metals, and a bunch more actually. And we're also gonna cover why your labs may look good or you may be told that everything is in the healthy range, yet you don't feel healthy or something is going on that isn't resolving in your health.

 And how to navigate that type of communication and actually get fully optimized in your health and fitness levels. Okay, without further ado, here is Emily Morrow. 

[00:01:30] emily_morrow: My health story could have a bunch of little details in the midst from being really sick as a kid, having my tonsils removed, breaking numerous bones, concussions, ear infections, tons of things as a kid.

But really, my health collapsed after college. I felt like I was running on stress hormones in college. I played collegiate soccer at the University of Tennessee, and so was surviving. I was surviving by taking four to six Tylenol or Advil a day. And [00:02:00] yeah, my gut disaster they put me on birth control.

Little did I know the side effects my freshman year because I lost my menstrual cycle. And so they were like, solution birth control. So birth control paired with the stress of keeping a scholarship and good grades and being 14 hours away from home and going through just a lot of life stress.

We lost my stepsister when I was in college to suicide mental health is something that's really important to me just a lot of things that were thrown my direction in a very short span of And so with all that to say, Graduated and my health just absolutely collapsed. And I was diagnosed after seeing numerous specialists with Hashimotos which most people are familiar with the autoimmune thyroid disorder of hypothyroid.

And then I was also diagnosed with, it doesn't have an official autoimmune name, they just call it autoimmune liver. It wasn't Lupus but [00:03:00] autoimmune liver disease. I had astronomically high liver enzymes. My put on about 40 to 50 pounds in a year. My eyes, my palms, my hands. I've told this story a few times.

I was like in the beautiful mountains of Jackson Hole, Wyoming on this horse. Should be enjoying every moment. And I got off and I just broke. I was in tears cuz there was anxiety, there was panic. There was depression. My palms were yellow, my eyes were yellow. I felt like I wasn't me and so that really jump started my desire to get into this space because so many doctors said there was nothing you could do.

I think we all heard that at one point or another. I came across this doctor who was probably like the 20th doctor in a line of people I've tried to get information from who sat me down went line by line with me with blood work. so that really was the pinnacle of opening my eyes of a, Doctors are not reading these panels They don't know what they mean. They can give you so much insight and [00:04:00] information about the human body and clues into what's going on from a deeper root cause perspective, and then guidance that was beyond just, here's a bandaid. Because I think even in the holistic world, we've seen. Instead of a medication is a nutraceutical supplement. That's still a bandaid. You can take tumor for pain, but we wanna start asking the question, why is there pain? do we have these underlying root issues? And I just started talking and sharing about my own story and journey on social and in my local community and doing talks at local and started getting clients same story as me.

A lot of them came to me with the same story. And I started running labs and so the talk that you heard at Eco was a sweet human being that came to me that was struggling with a lot of the same things. I was a lot of skin stuff with her too. Trauma overwhelm in medical school and.we look at our labs and there's clues for mold.

There's clues for lime, [00:05:00] there's clues for Babesia. There's clues for heavy metals. There's clues for parasites. And lo and behold, you start supporting their body from a foundational perspective. Chipping away at some of these root causes. Their numbers start to balance. The skin starts to clear up, their anxiety starts to diminish.

They start digesting their food and sleeping and all the things we're looking for when it comes to health and vitality. So that's probably the most condensed, shortened version of how we've gotten to this point today. Yeah

[00:05:33] Ryan: Wow. Sounds pretty intense actually. Great that you've accomplished what you've accomplished and established so much knowledge in the area to help yourself, help others. It's awesome. So it's really great. So yeah, I definitely would like to take advantage of some of your knowledge regarding blood work and how it can be used in a practical sense in a person's life.

To the degree that obviously maybe the common person [00:06:00] who isn't doing this as profession doesn't wanna be expert or need to be. , but what are some things they can be aware of? And let's just start with something that's very common to people insulin resistance, the overweight, amount of people overweight in the society, influences our

What can you tell us about that for a starter?

[00:06:17] emily_morrow: That's very important because glucose regulation and insulin resistance is one of the number one predictors for like 10 of the most complex diseases, cardiovascular disease being one of them. And then that can funnel down into met. Dysfunction and there is lot of people walking around with insulin resistance and pre-diabetes, and they have no idea.

They have absolutely no idea. They may not manifest with symptoms for a very long time, and most doctors don't run the marker fasting insulin, and they're looking at two markers predominantly for insulin resistance or diabetes, if they even know what insulin resistance is, and it's glucose hemoglobin a1c.

But there's [00:07:00] a of other markers on a blood panel that can indicate if we're not managing glucose well, one of those is fasting insulin. Ideally, we. Around that two to five range. Most people will say you want it least under eight, but there's people with fasting insulins in the twelves, thirteens fourteens, fifteens, and it's one of the most. Aging things in the body. Insulin is, it forces the body to work in overtime to a point where eventually that signaling system and communication just comes to a halt, then the insulin can't get into the cells and attached to those receptors. It's like a key in a hole, and so it's floating in the bloodstream.

And then we have symptoms of hyperglycemia and hypoglycemia, high blood sugar, low blood sugar, where we eat a. It should spike our glucose insulin is secreted from the pancreas it brings it back down, and that's not happening. And that is the case for a lot of people, even if they're ripped to shreds.

I [00:08:00] used to work with CrossFit athletes and some NHL players and they look super healthy, they were

ranges insulin is a really important marker. And then the other two markers that can really give you a lot of information that's on pretty much anybody's blood work is the ratio between triglycerides, which is in the cholesterol lipid panel and H D L. And so when you have a ratio that is above 2.5, say their triglycerides are super high cuz they're not digesting their fat well or there is pre-diabetes going on, your hdl, which is your good cholesterol, is way too low. You have. A large gap, a large ratio, you ideally want that as close to a 1.5 ratio as you can.

So example, if HDL was would not really want your greater than 100. If they are above 100 or that [00:09:00] ratio gap too large, get indicator of insulin resistance, and pretty much anybody can look at their labs and do that quick.

[00:09:08] Ryan: Okay. And so somebody shouldn't feel backed off about looking at that and making a comment on it or saying, Hey, I wanna address this to their professional they're working with. Okay, great. And then the first one you mentioned, the fasting insulin. Is that common to most blood work? Is that something you have to specially ask for?

[00:09:31] emily_morrow: It's of one of those cases where when you go in and you're like, I. how I'm doing from an insulin and glucose perspective, they're probably gonna run glucose fast in glucose and a hemoglobin a1c, which is around your two to three month

of your glucose markers. why that's an issue is if someone's on a rollercoaster and they have highs and lows, that average is gonna look pretty

And so fasting, a lot of people

a solid fasting glucose, which is below [00:10:00] 86. We really wanna fasting glucose below 86. So they go into their doctor and they're like, I'm golden.

I've gotten 87 check hemoglobin a1c. They're running in the 200 s and then hypoglycemia fifties from of balanced meals or eating too much or not eating enough. And then you take that one 50 and a hypoglycemia range of 60, average it out, their hemoglobin A1C looks okay. So get into issues here where people are not able to tell or see they have a potential insulin resistance situation going.

[00:10:34] Ryan: Makes sense. Yeah. And I've heard that insulin resistance shows up in the body before the high glucose, is that correct? So you could, 

find it first. 

[00:10:49] emily_morrow: out there with how long it takes different perspectives, say different amounts of time, but there's been a few situations where it can be like anywhere

to 10 to 13 [00:11:00] years. Before the glucose and hemoglobin A1C fully catches up, whereas

you're gonna get a definitive answer right there. so we really wanted that two to five Now type one because they're not making insulin, that's where there's that two in play. They may be like zero or one or 0.5, right? They may still produce a little bit. But also people that. Like in your community, there may be a few in the 1.5 range because they're not eating a lot of carbs, so we're not seeing a change in insulin. And you're very with this, certain protein is very insulin driving people have been shocked when they eat a

has zero grams of carbs and zero grams of sugar, but their glucose shoots up to one. 

[00:11:53] Ryan: Yes, I've seen that many times 

[00:11:56] emily_morrow: Yeah what someone's diet [00:12:00] is. Keto can play a role in that, but we really wanna shoot for two to five on that fasting insulin.

[00:12:08] Ryan: Okay. Interesting. Okay. And then when a person is I thought you were gonna say Two to seven months, and then you said high insulin resistance starting to be created, that's the time to catch it.

Way before it, it gets to the point where it's affecting your glucose chronically correct.

[00:12:30] emily_morrow: this space of preventative We're choosing to make diet, lifestyle, exercise changes it becomes disease. So yeah, catching it early is huge.

[00:12:47] Ryan: Good. And then on a person, just to make it crystal clear, for anybody listening who wants to take advantage of this, you'd simply ask your doctor or nurse practitioner, whoever's running your labs to [00:13:00] run fasting insulin as part of the blood work.

[00:13:07] emily_morrow: they may bill you because our insurance system is just a little bit broken.

they don't like to cover a lot of markers. You

panel and you get TSH back, I want a full thyroid panel, Please run it. And they only run tsh. Or if they do run the other markers, then you have a bill in the mail. This happened to me a few times. It made me so irritated for $500 for Fairton, B12 and fully. And you're like, Really?

I also was like, there has to be another way. And so I partnered with a lab called Veia Diagnostics and were able to run labs at a very cheap. Cost. So like a CDC and cmp, Basic Labs, $15 

Add fasting insulin…

 [00:14:06] Ryan: yeah, No, understood. That's amazing. And we'll have that information in the notes and everything so people can take advantage of that. Cuz I've actually never heard of being able to run those at that cost, at that low of a cost. That's awesome. Okay, great. This makes a lot of sense. And then so let's say a person, is moving on to a different area with lab work and whatnot.

Let's say a person is looking to try to balance, we have a lot of people who come in with thyroid issues. They've been told they're gonna need to be on medication or get surgery, or their biopsy said X, Y, Z. Do you have some things to maybe help a person? Like you can with the insulin way beforehand that something's going on with their thyroid.

[00:14:53] emily_morrow: beforehand, because it takes, and most people don't, aren't aware of this and dunno this, but it takes a [00:15:00] 25% reduction in the thyroid before it starts to manifest in blood work. 

[00:15:07] Ryan: Really? Wow. 

[00:15:08] emily_morrow: So now people are walking around

Okay Their thyroid labs look okay, but it may be functioning at 77.

[00:15:19] Ryan: Wow. 

[00:15:20] emily_morrow: Yeah, so if your thyroid is working great, it's functioning at a hundred percent. Imagine if it took a hit. Radiation, heavy metals, other And so that hundred has now decreased to functioning at 77%. So you've lost a lot of function, and that's not great because it's not showing up on labs yet.

So you don't know why you don't feel good, and your thyroids are responsible for activating mitochondria in every other organ. not only is your thyroid. Not working well. Your heart's not working well. Your liver's not working well. Your kidneys are [00:16:00] not working well, Your brain's not working well. Your spleen's not working well, your reproductive system's not working well.

It's all connected. So vitally important to have clues on. And there's a few of 'em. Granted, it's like process of elimination approach when it comes to thyroid, but when you're looking at a panel as a whole with like markers that people typically. Run. If you see elevated liver enzymes, that's gonna be your ass T and Alt. That is responsible converting your inactive thyroid to active your T4 into your t3. So if your liver is struggling, it's also gonna impact the thyroid. So that's one. But one of my favorite markers that you tend to see very early is calcium. And calcium is run on almost everybody's work panel. And part of the reason why is because the parathyroid. [00:17:00] Which sits, they're thyroid. They are responsible for balancing calcium and phosphorus.

so if that's not happening, we have an imbalance in calcium and phosphorous, and the range for calcium is 9.2 to 9.8. so if it's outside of that range, it can be a thyroid. 

[00:17:26] Ryan: that's a pretty narrow. 

[00:17:28] emily_morrow: Yes it is. And we 10.0 calcium or 11.0 and then there's some sort of signaling system or problem that's been disrupted with the thyroid, and that's a very. Good marker to look at. Another of markers going back to the lipid panel is your cholesterol and ldl, and there's a lot of misinformation about cholesterol and ldl.

We need it. We don't wanna have a panel where we don't have [00:18:00] any because it's responsible for the synthesis of our steroid hormones, but elevated levels can also be hypothy. 

[00:18:12] Ryan: Oh, okay. 

[00:18:13] emily_morrow: Yeah, so if you see total cholesterol

go.

[00:18:23] Ryan: Oh yeah. So it's not even something necessarily related to a person eating too much of something that's gonna change it. It could just be the thyroids not doing what it should be.

[00:18:37] emily_morrow: get into the real science side of things of why, but with those markers specifically, it may have nothing to do with like plaque on the arteries and everything to do with an under-functioning th. That's driving those markers up yet they go in and what are they given? statin baby aspirin or something like that. Yeah,

[00:18:57] Ryan: Yeah.It just compounds the situation. [00:19:00] 

[00:19:01] emily_morrow: Yeah early detective markers, but most of the time if people are looking to make lifestyle changes, they don't feel great. That's what got them into this space to begin with. So typically, cause I run labs on every single person. I see and it enters into our practice, and so it's not uncommon for me to see a thyroid panel that is all over the place.

It's very rare to see a normal thyroid panel.

[00:19:31] Ryan: Wow, how interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's very common. We have people come in with fatigue or something going on with their emotional health and they've seen somebody in thy. Has come up. So that's why I wanted to ask you about it with the blood work and those markets make a lot of sense. And then something you mentioned about it, throwing off cholesterol and the cholesterol helps with our certain hormones.

hormones were we referring to? I think you said [00:20:00] the steroid hormones.

[00:20:04] emily_morrow: lot of women where their total cholesterol is maybe one 30. It's really low, and it's usually the people who come from a background

stress, long time chronic infections, long time old toxicity, more so just nutrient depletion. Their body has been either in a starvation season and over exercising season, and so when you're being chased by a bear or there's high cortisol, what's the first thing to be shut? Your reproductive system, it's very hard to get pregnant in that way.

so that's why we need enough cholesterol to synthesize those really important steroid hormones. And so with those women, we always have, and men that conversation of how much are we eating? What does our stress levels

does our look like? How much are we sleeping? those factors in the big, bigger [00:21:00] picture I.

[00:21:02] Ryan: Yeah, absolutely. So the use of blood work with helping a person have a child and create fertility. This would start with looking at things like, where's your,

your thyroid doing? 

How's your liver working? Things like that. Yeah. 

[00:21:18] emily_morrow: Yeah.

[00:21:19] Ryan: Okay. Are there any other markers? Yeah.

[00:21:22] emily_morrow: Those we need progesterone to get pregnant and to stay private. It was once called like pro gestation

progesterone in the thyroid are best friends. I educate in that way

things are either enemies or they're best friends, and the and thyroid are best friends, and so if the thyroid goes into that hypo range, it's gonna pull progesterone down. And vice versa. If the progesterone gets pulled down due to cortisol or excess adrenal stress, that [00:22:00] typical process of making progesterone is gonna shift and it's gonna be used for the cortisol. Pathway. Progesterone goes down, pulls the thyroid down with it. So oftentimes with these infertility situations, there's a lot of things that can lead to infertility, but so much of it does come back to progesterone, the thyroid, and the nutrients that are needed for optimal functioning of both.

[00:22:24] Ryan: Wow, amazing. It's this harmonious balance that has to happen. And it sounds complicated, but it seems like there are also some very key things you can just zero in on to balance a lot of different factors in the body. Would that be correct? We covered a couple topics here.

A lot of clients that we have come in to see us don't necessarily know exactly why they're feeling. Non optimum where their energy's low or they keep putting on weight or whatever. What would you say to someone who can't come to you and say, Oh, I know I'm having thyroid trouble, or I know I have trouble with [00:23:00] sugar and insulin.

What type of place would a person like that start?

[00:23:04] emily_morrow: So there's a few different places to start. Number one, I love the symptoms that the body gives us, their alarm systems, their clues. So let's just put weight loss resistance on the table. We start to break that down of what can cause that. Dysfunction is one of the big reasons because it's what leads And if your glucose is high, your cortisol is. Those are also best friends. Your stress and your glucose and the body cannot burn fat a high sugar, high cortisol state. It just can't, It can't tap into those fat reserves. So that's number one is looking at those markers we just discussed with metabolic dysfunction. when you dig deeper and you get into these root causes,

lead to weight loss resistance. It could be any of them, but there's a few that are very key. One is gonna be heavy metals, [00:24:00] the reason why is because it causes the receptors to be filled with the metals versus really important minerals that are needed for blood sugar balance. So think of things like chromium that's needed for sugar and magnesium for the nervous system and selenium, which is needed for the thyroid. These metals come in and they displace those really essential. Minerals then we suffer from, again, hormone issues or thyroid problems as a result.

So that would be the second thing that I would maybe look at, and there's a few different ways to test for metals. One is through a hair tissue mineral analysis test. A lot of metals will come out through the hair. way would be a test. Some metals come out through the urine, then there's also some metals that can show up in the. So if someone wants to know, are metals playing a role in weight loss resistance or blood sugar imbalance, [00:25:00] could look into those tests. Another really key one is bartella. Are you familiar with bartella? 

[00:25:07] Track 1: Not very much. Give me some more information. How does that work with this?

[00:25:14] emily_morrow: bacteria and it's considered a Lyme co-infection. So it's within the co-infection family of Lyme disease. term the cat scratch disease because a lot of animals and cats carry it, but it can also be spread through fleas Li. Ticks, mosquitoes, all of these other ways. goes in and infects the red blood cells. It also will go and accumulate in the liver and spleen and decrease their function. Livers needed for glucose balance, livers needed for hormone balance, the spleens needed for immune balance, and if those really important organs being overwhelmed from this bacteria, their function goes down and we start gaining weight.

[00:26:00] We start packing on the pounds, and that's very common. That's one of common things we see that leads to weight loss Resistance is bartella The only downside to that is it's very hard to test. 

 [00:26:14] emily_morrow: It's very difficult to test for, but there are a few clues.

sees on their labs, like iron anemia, we see how common that is, right? 

[00:26:24] Ryan: Yeah. 

[00:26:24] emily_morrow: Or if we see elevated liver enzymes, a S

alt, that bacteria can cause those issues. So there's within these labs and blood. That can point to it. And really regardless if you can get a positive test, there's herbs that people can add in to help. and really the top two that we really are cor decept mushroom, 

Really great for barella. Weed. 

[00:26:50] Ryan: Oh. 

[00:26:51] emily_morrow: So those two are really great to just.

Help decrease that bacterial load, which will just get the body back into balance. Another thing people can look at [00:27:00] is mold. don't know how familiar your audience is with mold, but if people move into a moldy home, okay? Okay.

If people move into a moldy

[00:27:07] Track 1: that couple. 

[00:27:09] emily_morrow: and all of a sudden going feel like myself. My weights to the roof. I've got vertigo and dizziness and these static electrical shocks and tremors, and they just don't feel like themself. And that can also throw off blood sugar.

The body can go into a state of overactive nervous system function. And so as a protective me, The pounds just start packing on. So these are just all things to start thinking about and exploring that feel was such an aha moment for even me of I'm eating well, I'm exercising well, I'm sleeping well, feel like I'm doing all these right things, and the needle's not moving.

[00:27:56] Ryan: Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And as far as [00:28:00] the mold goes, I've heard that can hide inside of things in the body like Lyme or parasites or whatever. Is there some blood work that can be used to help, be an early detection system for mold as well?

[00:28:16] emily_morrow: to parasites, like you mentioned, cuz they can hold their weight in basically everything we've talked about thus far. They can hold their weight in metals, they can hold their weight in mycotoxins, they can hold their weight in lime bacteria. And the two that are your parasite markers are your eosinophils, short eeo.

And your basophils short. B a s o s, if they had a name tag, those are part of your soldiers, your white blood cells, it

fighters. only other thing they really do is like allergies and asthma.

If those are elevated like basophils, if it's one or above eosinophils, above three parasites are present.

So then that's a whole other thing you gotta add into the bigger picture. But from there mold does have [00:29:00] very specific things that impacts a blood work panel, and two of the ones that are very definitive for us that we look at are carbon dioxide. And I'll touch on Y in a second. And the urinary pH. So in a urinalysis, you know how they spit out that pH. Okay. if we look at co2, carbon dioxide, my sports background, that's why I like to have analogies with sports. But a sprinter is sprinting down a track and they can only go so long until lactic acid builds up in those muscles and they are deprived of oxygen.

They eventually have to stop. And so when there is mold,

an acidic environment in the. So in that acidic environment, we see a lower carbon dioxide, a low CO2 below 25, and we see a low urinary pH, so that

ideally we want it [00:30:00] as close to seven as possible, and a lot of mole people will see at 5.0 6.0 lower markers because of the acidity

the mold is creating.

That's why there's brain fog with. A lot of the mold symptoms, if you really break down why they're all there, it's lack of oxygen, think of dizziness, think of vertigo, think of joint pain. All of those are a lack of oxygen. So those are two of the most definitive ones we look at. Granted, we can't say you have mold because both of those are out of range, it should get people thinking in a new way. Another one. Because of the way mold

your hormone, you may see variations in the A hormone. So mold will impact that. It's why kids wet the bed when they're in a moldy situation because of the way mold influences A. So you may see an A out of balance on. Labs, you may see a gravity. don't know if you're familiar [00:31:00] with that marker, but that marker is basically also a part of the urine analysis, and we tend to see it like 1.005, 1.06 very low end with mold because of the way it influences A and the body's ability to actually absorb the water. From a cellular standpoint. And that's also why when you're talking about what can people do with these situations, why saline IVs or mineral IVs or choline IVs, all these things that get minerals into the cells people so much when they're dealing with mold. Cause it's hydrating.

[00:31:35] Ryan: And it displaces the mold and the 

cell. Is that part of the.

Yeah. 

[00:31:41] emily_morrow: if you flood the.

body with like CHO

phosphide or phosphide, it goes in there. The CHO comes into the cell and it says, Hey, mold, metals, mycotoxins, Get out. 

Get out which is great. We

be on binders and things like

free floating. Same thing with minerals.

[00:32:00] Those minerals go in and they displace the mold. They displace the mycotoxins. Selenium's great for, displacing mercury, and they're forced to be peed out. That's why they'll often do provoking testing with mycotoxin panels, line panels, metal panels. Cause it likes to, like you said, go hide itself in organs and tissues in the lymphatic system. Lymphatic massages and so infrared saunas and all these things that can get it out of tissues to be able to sweat it out or p it out can help when they're trying to get testing done to see what's going on.

[00:32:31] Track 1: Makes sense. Makes a lot of sense. I've heard so many people who we find mold with or it comes up saying that they wish they found it. Many years ago because they feel so different now that they're addressing it or broke through a plateau that, they've been struggling with or didn't even know they have.

So I think that's a really important piece for a lot of people. Now these markers you mentioned that you know, to check for and whatnot, are these things the person would also have

ask for specifically, [00:33:00] or are these 

pretty. 

[00:33:02] emily_morrow: common panels, and that's what I love about this is most people, maybe not everyone, a lot of people in the wellness world have like just said, I'm not gonna have a doctor. I'm never gonna go see a PCP But for the most part, on a yearly basis, you have a. And they will run basic labs. Where people have been misled is they run those labs the doctor gives 'em a phone call or flags it and says, Oh, everything looks normal. Everything looks good. You have nothing to worry about. the ranges that they're going off of are so skewed. They're based upon the sickest of the sick population.

Cause they take an average and right now, one in three have disease. So it's like what are you being compared to someone in a hospital bed or someone with vital. And wanting to thrive. And so that's a big issue, but that's why podcasts like this and resources that are like no. Look at your labs.

Take responsibility of those markers. [00:34:00] Start marking them up and figuring out what it's pointing to. But I like it cause it's accessible. Almost anyone can get their PCP to run. Just a basic C, B, C, and P and lipid cholesterol panel. That is covered by insurance. Yeah, all those markers you just mentioned are.

[00:34:14] Ryan: Okay. Great. And just to speak to something you just mentioned, cause I actually just heard this a couple weeks ago, it shocked me Clarify this if it's incorrect, but I've heard that the blood panels used or the ranges for blood panels to show normal or healthy ranges have changed over the years because the population has gotten sicker.

Basically, there's more chronic and inflammatory diseases, so the blood work is different, but instead of keeping it at the range that is truly healthy. , it's been re averaged out over the years. Is that correct or not? I know it's not correct, but is that what is happening to your knowledge?

[00:34:59] emily_morrow: [00:35:00] my Instagram because I get that question all the time. Hey, my labs look good, and I went and did this whole thing about. An article it's all over where you can go back and look at PubMed studies from years and years ago, and they'll say the optimal range for white blood cells is five to eight, like years and years and years and years ago.

Do you know what they are now? Three to 11. 

[00:35:22] Ryan: Oh my gosh. 

[00:35:23] emily_morrow: It's even broader. So if someone has chronic illness

four,

It looks awesome, our range is three to 11, and you're in.

[00:35:33] Ryan: Wow.

Oh my. I don't even know what to say to that. 

[00:35:38] emily_morrow: know? it's a mess 

[00:35:39] Ryan: So that's rough. That's why, like you said, the education piece, being empowered with knowledge for your own and for the health of those that you care about or know or whatever. Okay, great. Little tangent there, but I think it's worth people understanding that you have to pay attention in order to know that you're getting what is correct, what is healthy for you and[00:36:00] your children, your family, 

et cetera. 

[00:36:03] emily_morrow: you do 

[00:36:04] Ryan: Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Okay, great. So we covered a lot of ground there. I did have just a couple other things that I wanted to bring up regarding blood work and how how it can be used in different ways. For example, one of the things that we work with people a lot on is digestive issues.

Almost everyone who, who comes in, whether they're working on weight loss or an autoimmune situation or some other non optimum health situation, has an aspect of a dysfunctional gut. Whether they've been diagnosed with IBS or Crohn's or not, something's going on. How does blood work?

For, telling what's going on, but also what are the precursors somebody can pay attention to in that 

yearly checkup to make sure 

they're staying on top of things. 

[00:36:52] emily_morrow: Good question 

These markers are probably the ones we use most often. It's not to say that there aren't other ones, [00:37:00] but the combination of these typically can give us a lot of. So the first one I always think of when it comes to digestion is a marker called globulin. A lot of us have heard of like immunoglobulin and we want it at least 2.4. Most people are not at least 2.4. They're either 2.1 or less typically, and that is. A big red flag for us of either they have low hydrochloric acid production, they're not producing stomach acid. There's a lot of digestive distress. there's leaky gut, intestinal permeability where their gut is damaged or inflamed and they're not absorbing their nutrients. So then from there, when we see that, we look at a few other markers. The next one, is called Bun u n. So it's UIA nitrogen breakdown, and we want that one 12 to. And so if someone is below 12, they may not be making amylase, lipase, [00:38:00] So they're not breaking down their food, they're not digesting it.

And then on the same token, if they're really high, that's not great. Either that can also be low stomach acid or inflammation of the GI tract with Crohn's, ulcerative colitis IVs, which is basically just, we don't know what's wrong with your gut, so we're gonna throw a blanket diagnosis at you. 

 [00:38:23] emily_morrow: with those people you'll see inflammatory

will elevate, and one of those inflammatory markers is C reactive protein, the highly sensitive one, C R P. 

[00:38:34] Ryan: Okay. Yeah. 

[00:38:35] emily_morrow: You really want that marker, less than

so with lot of inflammation the body, the gut as well that can drive that marker up. Now, what's been really interesting as I, I'm studying new like PubMed studies that come out all the time with even this situation that's going on in our world right now with you. You know exactly what I'm [00:39:00] talking about. I am always like, is this gonna impact the blood work? Because how can we detect things early on? And then can our blood reflect progress once we bring in nutrients or support from whatever that infection caused? And one of the things that it's is very high c r p values because of the way it's damaging the lung tissue. 

[00:39:28] Ryan: Oh. 

[00:39:29] emily_morrow: So I've had people where

got blood work done. They started having symptoms about five days later.

Then they got sick while their blood work was done five days before. And I look at it and their CRP is 20. 

[00:39:44] Ryan: Wow. 

[00:39:46] emily_morrow: Wow. Yeah. And then I was like,

me go look in PubMed. And there's numerous studies that have come out in the past few months recording this July, 2022, but like March, April, May, June, studies that have come out [00:40:00] and shown that the elevation of C CRP can help reflect the severity the infection. And this smaller elevation of zero to. Minor infection. Your symptoms aren't gonna be as severe. 10 to 20, you're not gonna feel great, but you're probably gonna be able to handle it 20 to 40, probably gonna need some third party help. And then they were saying that people in the fifties to 100, those are the ones they're seeing in settings with severe loads needing machines. 

[00:40:32] Ryan: Wow. 

[00:40:33] emily_morrow: Yeah, so you know, again, the blood is giving

information that there's inflammation on, then you can track that over time of, Okay, let me support my body.

anti-inflammatories and things that support, mucus reducing. Vitamin A is great for that, and B, Propolis and vitamin C. labs done again four weeks later and see the progress in the c. What is that inflammation doing? It's a [00:41:00] Also a great marker with anyone that I work with Crohn's or colitis of how they're doing. 

 [00:41:08] emily_morrow: So those are probably the top

definitive ones. There's other clues that you can look at throughout.

For example, if they show a lot of anemia markers, red blood cells, low ferritin, low hemoglobin, hematocrit, are they not absorbing those nutrients? Is it because their gut is impaired? Is it because their gut is So with those situations of just inflammation in the body, hemoglobin and hematocrit are naturally lower because we need a healthy gut and a non-inflamed gut to absorb our nutrients.

[00:41:44] Ryan: Makes sense. Yeah. Wow. That's, it's interesting. There's so much information that you're giving about what to look for and how to address these different things. It can seem quite overwhelming. , [00:42:00] but would I be correct in saying that if you hone in on and focus on one thing at a time and just improve that, then over time, eventually, in most cases things will even out and you'll get to the level of health you want unless there's something severely off.

Okay. 

[00:42:22] emily_morrow: thing where I'm like, 

I hope more

available is right now the external assaults that people have to deal with on a daily basis are making it to minor changes, they're treading water constant. 

 [00:42:38] emily_morrow: The herbicides, the pesticides, the air

the metals in products, the fact that there is. Supplements and foods that aren't tested after manufacturing, and so they're ingesting those and then that's causing issues. The water sup, all these things where, mentally it slow, I think that the more you can just [00:43:00] know your numbers and know what it's pointing to and fine tune that based upon your own. You really start to see changes over time, but you're absolutely right. If someone is coming to you and they're highly inflamed and their blood sugar's off, start tracking your blood sugar, seeing what foods, meals, exercises, sleep does to it. Get your blood sugar bounce. That's something that can so beneficial for you.

Then start looking gut markers. How can we optimize digestion? Maybe it's a little. Alle juice or alle in a smoothie and some tea and reducing inflammatory foods and gluten and other things that can cause GI distress. Taking longer between meals, adding in periodic. I'm not a big fan of fasting every day for premenstrual. Premenopausal women just because it can throw off hormones. But I think like a

fast a while in the first half of a female cycle can give that gut a great break or do liquid for a few days just to relieve things. And then once you've got that covered, [00:44:00] then move on to the next step. Maybe you know, you some drainage and some bind.

Finding, metals and mycotoxins, and then you take a step further and you do a parasite cleanse. And it is a progressive thing. You don't have to do everything at once, but I think it does start with what your markers are telling you. 

[00:44:19] Track 1: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, I would agree completely. I like the fact that you brought up. We do have to concentrate on eliminating the things that might be prolonging or exacerbating, the underlying, whether we've pinpointed the root cause as a heavy metal exposure or glyphosate from the field down the road or whatever.

We can still be cleaner and by cleaner I mean eating cleaner foods or having purified or distilled water, whatever you can. Taking on to clean up your environment, then all these things that you're mentioning to look at will be much more [00:45:00] effective and long term. 

[00:45:03] emily_morrow: I was shocked that I shared yesterday that. I thought this was just a well known thing that you can avoid scanners to help reduce, the radiation and things. And so many people were like, I didn't know I could avoid the

And I'm like, Yeah, you can. You can sign up for pre-check pay a hundred

And you don't avoid even being patted down. But even if you don't have that, you can say, I respectfully wanna decline this. Either I have a thyroid situation or my for my health. I wanna decline it, do the pat down, and you can avoid that radiation from the scanner. That's a reduced exposure. So there's little things you can do over the course clean water and trying to shop local with farmers and using essential oils to clean your produce and being mindful of the things you're putting on your body a skincare and a shampoo and conditioner and soap perspective. Metals, for example, it's accumulation over time. [00:46:00] So step one, decrease, accumulation. Just like you said, and I have felt even lately. It is so easy to get overwhelmed when you don't feel good and when you're just like, I just wanna know the thing. just wanna know what it is. I've been in this for enough

that even when, you know what it. It doesn't bring you the relief you're looking for because at the end of the day, live in a world that is filled with toxins and chemicals, and we can do the best we can with what we have, do our best to live in a way that is consistent over time and just chip away at things. In a way that feels to you and bring the basics in and community laughter and joy and being mindful of social media and things do make a really massive difference.

 [00:46:54] Ryan: Awesome. Yeah, great. I love it Makes so much sense and definitely [00:47:00] have seen amazing results by applying what you're talking about Awesome. Thank you. So I'd love to hear a little bit about what, how someone engages with you. I've seen your amazing posts on social media. I've heard you talk, I know you have created miracles with your work, but if someone wanted to reach out to you and take advantage of the products that you've created and the tools that you provide,

how does someone.

[00:47:26] emily_morrow: best everything organized on my Instagram account. It's how I launched my practice, and it's just of what I've stuck to. ever dabble in the other modalities, just because I was like, Let me focus on one. so I have recently started. Creating guides

and there's a health toolbox guide.

There's a root cause guide with like signs and symptoms and supports and testing. There is just a health guide, and so I'm really doing my best to just put as much free educational info out there. On my Instagram account, [00:48:00] there's tons of information and highlights. is links to blog posts where I've talked. Important organs and how to figure out if your organs are struggling and how to support them. I've done a lot our group page, which is root cause formula, where people can go read through highlights and get information about just what does it look like to work through root causes. So those are probably the best ways. Learn and be educated. And then if somebody is like, Yeah, I really want to take this, the next step, I offer two blood chem courses where I'm teaching the information similar to what we went over today. One is just a basic course that's basically top one to three reasons. marker on your labs is high or. And then I have a full course where it's like very in depth. Those are for like the people that like, I wanna be a practitioner, or I'm a practitioner and wanna know more, or [00:49:00] I really wanna heal my child of autism. It's across the board who enters that. So there's that information. then I recently brought on. practitioners to help guide people in their health. Just because I was at capacity. I

[00:49:46] Ryan: I'd. Okay, great. And then I know if you click on the link in your bio there, there's a whole list of things that you just mentioned. That's how a person can find all this. A lot of this amazing information, and I can attest, is very [00:50:00] educational.

I was looking through it and learning things the other day in preparation for talking with you. So ama, you could get a whole education on a lot of this just by going through that Instagram account.

[00:50:14] emily_morrow: feel like I just went through a college course, just I've spent weeks in your highlights and posts and blog and all these things, and I'm like that's awesome because I would've loved. Six years ago when my health collapsed, had have all this information at my fingertips. I never wanted someone else to have to go through what I went through. Where it's just you feel like you have nowhere to turn. You don't understand why you're feeling the way you're feeling. You can't put symptoms and diagnosis of yourself even together. You're like, just feel bad and doctors can't help yeah, it's, I'm such an introvert. That

people. The fact that I got up and spoke was like a big deal for me. I'm such an introverted person. So that account is solely to serve and help as many people as possible. 

[00:50:59] Ryan: Awesome. [00:51:00] Yeah. I would never suspect that Your talk was amazing. If you listen to it and I look at your Instagram, I'm like, Okay, this person's out there,

[00:51:10] emily_morrow: that's the thing that's you gotta do now. And I'm like, I was so terrified before I did it, but I'm like, we're just gonna, we're gonna go there. We're gonna do our best.

[00:51:18] Ryan: Awesome. Awesome. Thank you for doing it, . Great. Is there anything else you'd like to share before we before we wrap up today?

that you wanted to bring up we didn't cover?

[00:51:29] emily_morrow: covered to edify what you said, to not get overwhelmed. Do the basics, some basic labs done, go over the markers we discussed, make some notes next to your own labs of potential things that could be going on. And you're real big on biohacking.

Optimizing body function is like one of the best biohacks out there. Start with the basics I think not being overwhelmed is a big thing. So other than that, I don't think I have anything else.

[00:51:51] Ryan: Awesome. Thank you so much for being here, Emily. It was very enlightening and educational. I learned a lot. 

I'm sure everybody listening will get a lot 

out of it as [00:52:00] well, so thank you. 

[00:52:01] emily_morrow: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. 

[00:52:03] Ryan: Sure.

Thank you for being here with us today for this episode. If you'd like to get more information or work directly with Emily go ahead and check her out on Instagram. You can find her at Emily Morrow.  theemilymorrow.com. Both of these sites have amazing information on them, invaluable resources, really.

So feel free to check them out, even if not ready to get signed up or work with her directly. You can get a lot just from checking out the information. Thank you again for being here today and have a great rest of your day.