Joanna Cosgrove03.01.08
Nutritional Needs, Spelled Out
Two new tests help physicians create personalized nutritional and supplement plans for their patients.
By
Joanna Cosgrove
Online Editor
The average consumer will agree that taking a multivitamin is part of their daily routine, but what if the nutrients in those vitamins weren’t enough to satisfy some people’s unique nutritional and supplemental needs? Two new tests from Asheville, NC-based Genova Diagnostics are structured to give physicians a full assessment of their patient’s individual nutritional status so they can establish a personalized nutritional and supplement plan for optimized health.
According to the company, the NutrEval test was designed to determine an individual’s overall nutritional status and better understand a patient’s disease risk. With this information, physicians can regulate or treat conditions ranging from chronic fatigue and depression to learning disabilities and immune problems with targeted nutritional intervention.
The ONE: Optimal Nutrition Evaluation test is a more basic nutrition assessment developed to help physicians understand a patient’s individual nutritional needs and assesses the patient’s individual functional need for vitamins and minerals. The ONE also provides doctors with individualized recommendations for supplementation.
Elizabeth Bridgers, Genova’s marketing director, says the company’s nutritional testing line is a natural extension of the innovative wellness testing the company has been offering since 1987. “Genova recognized that several of our tests that evaluate essential metabolic activity—oxidative stress markers, amino acids, & organic acids—were providing pieces of information on the ‘functional’ nutritional needs of individuals. That is: What nutrients does a specific person need to provide their body with optimal conditions for being well, rather than what does an individual need to barely be average,” she said. “By weaving together these elements, Genova was able to get a more complete picture of the individual’s nutritional needs, as well as a window into where they may have physiologic imbalance—often before overt symptoms of disease have manifested.”
The crux of these tests is rooted in the fact that even if an individual is eating a healthy diet and taking supplements, the body can still lack vital and necessary nutrition. Much depends on how an individual’s body metabolizes the diet, vitamins and supplements they are taking. “This is a difficult question for healthcare providers, because there are conflicting messages regarding individual needs,” noted Ms. Bridgers. “Nutritional evaluations take a look at a broad spectrum of amino acids, organic acids and oxidative stress markers (antioxidant need) that help to put all the pieces together. The evaluations give the clinician impartial information to individualize the nutritional recommendations for a patient. Functional nutritional testing provides scientific rationale and understanding in order to individualize the vitamin and mineral recommendations for a patient.”
A Closer Look
Unlike traditional labs that focus on disease pathology (or, the cause of an existing illness), Genova Diagnostics specializes in comprehensive panels that combine standard and innovative biomarkers designed to provide a more complete understanding of specific biological systems. “The use of panels to understand biological systems can help physicians plan and monitor how their patients achieve optimal health,” said Ms. Bridgers.
NutrEval requires a blood and urine sample, taken on the same day with fasting the night before. A NutrEval assessment includes analyses of organic acids, amino acids, oxidative stress, essential and metabolic fatty acids, as well as a nutrient and toxic elemental analysis.
ONE: Optimal Nutrition Evaluation requires a urine sample. A ONE assessment includes analyses of organic acids, amino acids and oxidative stress.
“Direct measures of vitamins and antioxidants are often variable and have diminished accuracy,” noted Ms. Bridgers. “Genova Diagnostics’ ONE and NutrEval tests determine a patient’s nutritional needs by measuring how your body metabolizes basic elements of nutrition. These elements include amino acids, organic acids, oxidative stress markers, essential fats, nutrients and toxic minerals. Most important, we synthesize all the tested biomarkers into information that helps the healthcare practitioner to understand it, interpret it and use it in clinical practice.”
Genova Diagnostics laboratory tests are available only through licensed healthcare professionals. Although prices of the NutrEval and ONE vary, most patients can expect to be billed between $375-$600 for the ONE or the NutrEval assessment. The ONE test panel is covered by many major medical insurance companies.
Included with each patient’s tests results for NutrEval and ONE, is a personalized supplementation recommendation for the ordering clinician. “This recommendation includes specific supplementation needs based upon results of the analysis and contrasts these to the Recommended Daily Intake (RDI),” explained Ms. Bridgers. “The personalized nutritional recommendation includes six B-vitamins, five minerals, and four antioxidants; as well as 17 essential and semi-essential amino acids.”
She concluded by emphasizing that Genova Diagnostics does not sell vitamins or nutritional supplements and has no financial interest in the sale of them to patients or physicians. “Genova provides the patient and physician confidence that the recommendations provided are objective and not based upon the need to sell further supplements,” she said.