RN Advice: Inflammation and Lab Values

Last month at the suggestion of the Newsletter I watched Supersize Me again.  While the whole movie relays a powerful message, there was one particular message that hit home with me; Morgan’s lab results.

For those who have not seen the movie, Morgan Spurlock undertakes a 30 day carefully monitored and documented experiment of eating nothing but McDonald’s.  At the beginning of his journey, he has physicals by 3 different physicians and all of his blood work is well within a normal healthy range.

After eating only McDonald’s for 15 days, Morgan’s cholesterol and triglycerides levels are very high.  His kidney function is poor and his liver function is so bad (related to an alcoholic’s), that he is told if it continues, he would need a liver transplant.  The physician also recommended he stop the experiment.  This is the same physician who in the beginning did not feel that his lab values would change significantly at all!

Morgan continues eating McDonald’s for another 15 days.  His blood work at Day 30 stabilizes out.  His cholesterol and especially liver function actually declines!  How is that possible?  He was still putting toxic food into his body.   Why was he not ready for the liver transplant list?

Our bodies are designed to handle quite a bit of abuse.  If it didn’t, I think many of us would be on the transplant list.  In the beginning, Morgan’s organs especially the kidneys and liver were in shock and very inflamed.  This is demonstrated by the elevated kidney labs, liver function test and cholesterol levels.  After a time though, the organs became DESENSITIZED to the inflammation and toxin; his lab values declined and stabilized.  THIS DOES NOT MEAN INFLAMMATION IS NOT PRESENT!   Again, our bodies are designed to handle quite a bit of abuse and stress and will compensate only so long.  When abuse and stress continues, inflammation spreads from one organ to many organs and disease follows.

When we begin our GT journey making changes to decrease inflammation in our body, our lab values (liver, cholesterol, BUN, glucose) will become ‘out of range’ as toxins are released from our organs and fat.  This does not mean that what you are doing is not working or is unhealthy. Lab values are indicators of what is going on at that particular moment and will change over time. Repeating the blood work and watching the values over time will be more indicative of overall health.

Many of us have abused our bodies with toxins and stress for years.  Healing takes time but committing to CLEAN FOOD, WATER, appropriate EXERCISE, REST and ELEGANT THINKING are the first steps to achieving an optimal level of HEALTH.