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Be wary of over the counter supplements and plant extracts touted as “cures.” There is no scientific support for these claims. Every day, new supplements are introduced to the shelves of pharmacies and online with claims that they are the new “miracle” supplement. They are at best expensive urine and at worst toxic overdoses.
w Over the counter supplements are not regulated and may not contain the advertised, if any, active ingredients, but that does not mean they cannot be dangerous.
w Supplements can affect the performance of your medications by interfering with their absorption, increasing their activity, or working against their activity.
w Taking any supplement, including vitamins, can disrupt the body’s delicate chemical balance and cause serious injury to your organs.
w Too much of a “good thing” can create toxic levels or a serious imbalance in paired elements, blood levels of hormones, amino acids, and/or neurotransmitters.
w Even multiple vitamins can contain levels that can be disruptive.
w Avoid foods and beverages advertising added vitamins, minerals, and exotic plants. Serving sizes are deceptive. You may ingest many times the daily limit of a substance.
w Additives can distort blood and urine tests. For example, green tea at high levels can negatively affect liver enzymes.
Before experimenting, a deep understanding is needed of how vitamins and minerals interact with conditions such as diabetes and thyroid disease, the ability of your body to effectively absorb them, whether your body can utilize them in tablet form, and whether your body is deficient enough to warrant supplementation.
Do not take supplements unless they are supervised by your physician for a clinically diagnosed deficiency. It does not hurt to do your own research. Few doctors are highly informed on this topic. A trained and qualified nutritionalist may be consulted.
Copper: Conductively-Coupled Plasma/Mass
Spectrometry (ICP/MS) • Atomic Spectroscopy (AS), plasma and urine
Copper is an essential element that is a cofactor of many enzymes. Copper metabolism is disturbed in Wilson's disease, Menkes disease, primary biliary cirrhosis, and Indian childhood cirrhosis. Copper concentrations increase in acute phase reactions and during the third trimester of pregnancy. Copper concentrations are decreased with nephrosis, malabsorption, and malnutrition. Results of copper are often interpreted together with ceruloplasmin.
For more information on this test, visit Quest Labs.
Folic Acid/ Folate Serum
Folic acid deficiency is common in pregnant women, alcoholics, in patients whose diets do not include raw fruits and vegetables, and in people with structural damage to the small intestine. The most reliable and direct method of diagnosing folate deficiency is the determination of folate levels in both erythrocytes and serum. Low folic acid levels, however, can also be the result of a primary vitamin B12 deficiency that decreases the ability of cells to take up folic acid.
For more information on this test, visit Quest Labs.
Magnesium Serum/Urine
Abnormal levels of magnesium are most frequently seen in conditions or diseases that cause impaired or excessive excretion of magnesium by the kidneys or that cause impaired absorption in the intestines. Magnesium levels may be checked as part of an evaluation of the severity of kidney problems and/or of uncontrolled diabetes and may help in the diagnosis of gastrointestinal disorders.
Assessing magnesium status is difficult because most magnesium is inside cells or in bone. The most commonly used and readily available method for assessing magnesium status is measurement of serum magnesium concentration, even though serum levels have little correlation with total body magnesium levels or concentrations in specific tissues. Other methods include measuring magnesium concentrations in erythrocytes, saliva, and urine; measuring ionized magnesium concentrations in blood, plasma, or serum; and conducting a magnesium-loading (or "tolerance") test. No single method is considered satisfactory. Early signs of magnesium deficiency include loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and weakness. As magnesium deficiency worsens, numbness, tingling, muscle contractions and cramps, seizures, personality changes, abnormal heart rhythms, and coronary spasms can occur.
Severe magnesium deficiency can result in hypocalcemia or hypokalemia (low serum calcium or potassium levels, respectively) because mineral homeostasis is disrupted.
Since a low magnesium blood level can, over time, cause persistently low calcium and potassium levels, it may be checked to help diagnose problems with calcium, potassium, phosphorus, and/or parathyroid hormone – another component of calcium regulation.
For more information on this test, visit Quest Labs.
Hypermagnesemia is an electrolyte disturbance in which there is an abnormally elevated level of magnesium in the blood. The kidney is very effective in excreting excess magnesium. It usually develops only in people with renal failure who are given magnesium salts or who take drugs that contain magnesium (e.g. some antacids and laxatives). It is usually concurrent with hypocalcemia and/or hyperkalemia. It can cause muscle and generalised weakness, decreased reflexes, hypotension, cardiac arrythmias, drowsiness, decreased alertness and concentration, decreased rate of breathing/respiratory paralysis, CNS depression, coma.
Vitamin B 12 (cobalamin and cyanocobalan) is decreased in pernicious anemia, total or partial gastrectomy, malabsorption, and certain congenital and biochemical disorders.
For more information on this test, visit Quest Labs.
Vitamin D, 25 Hydropxy LC/MS/MS - Normal
Vitamin D, 25OH, Total , Vitamin D 25OH D3
Vitamin D 25OH D2
Vitamin D deficiency is a common condition associated with rickets in children and osteomalacia and osteoporosis in adults.
Vitamin D deficiency is also associated with muscle weakness and secondary hyperparathyroidism, both of which exacerbate these bone disorders and/or their clinical impact.
Muscle weakness increases the risk of falls and bone fracture in the elderly and parathyroid hormone (PTH) increases bone resorption in patients with secondary hyperparathyroidism.
Studies link vitamin D deficiency with cancer (especially colorectal and breast cancer), cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, depression, and schizophrenia.
Ingestion of large doses of vitamin D results in vitamin D toxicity, which manifests as hypercalcemia, hypercalciuria, or kidney stones.
The risk of vitamin D toxicity may be increased in individuals who have hyperparathyroidism, sarcoidosis, tuberculosis, or lymphoma and are taking vitamin D supplements.
Vitamin D is a fat-soluble vitamin that, through its suppression of parathyroid hormone, promotes bone health by enhancing intestinal absorption of calcium and phosphorus.
Vitamin D receptors have been found in a number of tissues including colon, breast, prostate, brain, and immune cells.
Vitamin D occurs in 2 forms: vitamin D3 and vitamin D2.
Vitamin D3 is produced in the skin in response to sunlight and is obtained in small amounts from animal-based foods.
Vitamin D2 can be obtained in small amounts from plant-based foods.
Vitamins D3 and D2 are rapidly metabolized in the liver to their respective 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] forms, 25(OH)D3 and 25(OH)D2, which are in turn converted in the kidneys to their corresponding active forms.
For more information on this test, visit Quest Labs.
Vitamin K is a required co-factor for the synthesis of factors 2, 7, 9, and 10 and proteins C and S. Deficiencies of vitamin K lead to bleeding. Coumadin® (warfarin) acts as an anticoagulant because it is a vitamin K antagonist.
For more information on this test, visit Quest Labs.
VITAMINS AND MINERALS