Wellness Testing

Hormones don’t just affect your mood. They also play an important role in the health of your skin. The regulatory molecules known as hormones control many processes in the body, playing a role in everything from weight gain, metabolism, growth and development, and insulin production to sex drive and mental clarity. Hormones can affect just about any aspect of your health and wellness. These chemical messengers that are secreted by glands are ideally in balance, but life changes including situational factors (like stress or lack of proper sleep) and natural shifts (like puberty, pregnancy, and menopause) can throw hormones off.

When you have a hormonal disorder, it may manifest itself in the skin and hair as well as internally. However, hormonal changes tend to mostly go unnoticed unless some type of complication occurs. Wellness testing via saliva samples can reveal the degree of a hormonal imbalance, providing valuable information when it comes to developing a plan to address problems known and unknown. Stress can affect wellness by triggering flareups of chronic skin conditions like psoriasis, eczema, and rosacea. Not to mention, being stressed makes you more likely to leave out steps in your skin care routine.

Results from wellness testing may indicate a drop in estrogen, progesterone, or testosterone due to aging, stress, or life changes such as a pregnancy. Cortisol levels due to adrenal depletion after prolonged and sustained high levels of stress can also be a problem that can affect the skin. Estrogen is a hormone that plays a major role in skin health because it promotes adequate oil production to keep your skin smooth and supple. Aging causes levels of this hormone to decrease, and this can impact your overall wellness in various ways, such as causing skin to become drier and itchier.

Making changes to your diet and lifestyle can help you to cope with changes and problems identified by wellness testing. Possible solutions to support wellness include nutritional supplements for a natural, non-pharmacological approach.

Some people are more prone than others to developing diseases that impact the heart and blood vessels. With both cardiovascular disease and adult-onset diabetes on the rise in the United States, it can be vitally important to understand how at-risk you are of a potentially life-threatening problem. Blood spot testing during a wellness check can reveal the presence of key markers that show someone is predisposed to diabetes and cardiovascular disease. While everyone should commit to making healthy diet choices and scheduling regular exercise, this wellness testing can serve as a call to action.

Most of us don’t pay much attention to what our gut is doing until symptoms begin to manifest, so we may not be giving it as much care as it needs. The gut consists of a complex system of bacteria and microbes. The wellness of the gastrointestinal system can have a dramatic impact on the rest of the body, specifically the skin, as its typical workings—as well as the microbiological environment maintained there—determine how well other areas function.

The state of the skin can reflect what’s going on in the gut. When gut wellness is off, it’s common for the skin to become irritated. Inflammation in the gut and other digestive problems will often manifest as skin-related symptoms. So-called “gut health” is connected to everything from the obvious (digestive issues) to the unexpected (mental clarity). Furthermore, gut health is commonly associated with skin conditions like eczema, rosacea, and acne. A stool test can help identify wellness issues related to the GI tract.

It’s important to manage gut health to support general wellness, including glowing, healthy skin. If you have particular health and wellness-related concerns, talk to Dr. Ellen Turner and her team about how wellness testing may be able to start you on the path to addressing them. There are many tests available to help identify the cause of the problem and start you on the path to improved wellness.

Dr. Ellen Turner does not perform heavy metal testing at the Dermatology Office, but can refer patients to an expert on heavy metal testing as necessary or desired.

Heavy metals are found naturally in the earth. They are often used in several industries including agriculture and medicine. Lead, mercury, and other toxic metals commonly found in the environment can work their way into the body, causing a host of physical and mental problems. This is what’s referred to as heavy metal poisoning. Other elements—such as iodine, copper, iron, and zinc—are important in small amounts for our overall wellness but can become unhealthy in larger concentrations. Arsenic, silver, gold, and mercury are the metals that cause the most drastic changes to our skin and general wellness.

We don’t realize it, but we are exposed to heavy metals every day by inhaling, ingesting, or physical contact. They get into our body through food, water, air, or the skin. Wellness testing can identify the presence of unhealthy levels of certain elements, leading to a strategy for removing the toxins or developing a plan for treating the symptoms or damage.

Blood spot or urine wellness testing can detect the presence of various metals, with specific tests working best to identify specific elements. Signs and symptoms of chronic exposure to heavy metals include skin changes, impaired cognitive, motor, or language skills, nausea, lethargy, insomnia, and emotional instability. However, the symptoms of heavy metal poisoning vary, depending on what type of metal is involved.