How to Test and Predict Blood, Urine and Stool for Health, Longevity and Performance

Jan. 6, 2017

Dr Tim Gerstmar practices Naturopathic Medicine at his Redmond, WA office, Aspire Natural Health. He specialises in working with people with digestive and autoimmune problems, and has worked with many of the most difficult to treat situations using a blend of natural and conventional medicine. He treats patients locally, throughout the US and as far away as the Qatar, Korea and Australia.

In this interview, Dr Gerstmar discusses the tests he most commonly uses, especially for gastrointestinal complaints. We also talk about strategies for dealing with health insurance and tips for keeping costs down.

These scatter plots, sometimes called calibration plots, are the ones I mentioned in the podcast. On the x-axis is what my XGBoost model predicted for previously unseen data, the y-axis represents the measured value. When the dot appears on the diagonal line, the prediction was perfect. The model was trained using results from just 260 athletes. My hope is that is these models will eventually bring down the cost of our full program by allowing us to predict the results of an expensive test using a cheaper one.

Here’s the outline of this interview with Dr Tim Gerstmar:

[00:00:15] First podcast: Methylation and Environmental Pollutants with Dr. Tim Gerstmar.

[00:00:56] Bob McRae podcast: How to Use Biomedical Testing for IRONMAN Performance.

[00:01:24] Our Elite Performance Programme.

[00:04:04] How much testing should we do?

[00:04:35] Factoring in lifetime costs.

[00:08:33] Donating blood to the Red Cross.

[00:09:44] Iron disorders: ferritin and haemochromatosis.

[00:10:53] Therapeutic phlebotomy.

[00:14:22] Treating symptoms is sometimes necessary.

[00:15:07] Steroids for eczema.

[00:17:09] Adrenal dysregulation and thyroid dysfunction.

[00:18:00] You can't feel high blood sugar in diabetes.

[00:18:46] AIMed conference.

[00:19:06] De Fauw, Jeffrey, et al. "Automated analysis of retinal imaging using machine learning techniques for computer vision." F1000Research 5 (2016).

[00:20:38] 25-OH-D testing. See Optimizing Vitamin D for Athletic Performance.

[00:22:01] Insurance interfering with testing.

[00:23:29] Liberty HealthShare.

[00:23:42] Affordable Care Act.

[00:24:10] Direct Primary Care.

[00:24:23] Health Share of Oregon.

[00:25:08] Covered California.

[00:25:32] Health Savings Account.

[00:28:52] Genova GI Effects stool test.

[00:29:27] BioHealth stool test.

[00:29:49] Doctor's Data stool test.

[00:30:13] Coeliac diagnosis.

[00:30:50] Transglutaminase.

[00:31:44] Genetic risk factors.

[00:32:43] NCGS and FODMAPs.

[00:34:22] Intestinal lymphoma.

[00:37:47] Normal test results are still useful information.

[00:38:45] Liver enzymes, e.g. ALT, AST and GGT.

[00:39:19] CBC and CMP, Hs-CRP.

[00:39:47] Testosterone and thyroid.

[00:40:09] Genova SIBO test.

[00:41:08] Organic acids by Genova and Great Plains.

[00:41:55] Beware insurance with OATs.

[00:43:23] Verifying your policy.

[00:44:07] Mitochondrial function.

[00:44:21] Nutrient deficiencies.

[00:44:52] Neurotransmitters and brain function.

[00:45:04] Oxidative stress.

[00:45:12] Detox stress, GSH status.

[00:45:38] Bacterial and yeast markers.

[00:46:49] Cortisol testing--DUTCH.

[00:48:45] Interview with Pedro Domingos: How to Teach Machines That Can Learn.

[00:49:08] XGBoost.

[00:50:33] Robb Wolf early adoption costs.

[00:51:54] HRV. See Elite HRV podcast.

[00:52:08] Supplement companies and self-assessment questionnaires.

[00:53:10] Arabinose.

[00:53:48] Hallucinating from noise in the data.

[00:54:52] Big Data.

[00:56:03] Abnormality detection.

[00:56:45] Functional versus pathological lab ranges.

[00:57:46] Mark Newman. See cortisol testing above.

[00:58:23] Adjusted reference ranges.

[00:58:45] Vanity sizing.

[01:00:52] Thyroid cancer and proximity to a mine.

[01:01:21] Aspire Natural Health podcast.