Nutrient deficiency testing
I got (most of my) blood work back! The good news is that I’m pretty darn healthy… Thyroid is great, I’m not at all anemic, metabolism seems good and apparently my antioxidant levels are awesome! I blame the red wine. ;) The only things I was actually deficient in by this lab’s standards were serine (an amino acid) and zinc. I was suspicious of the zinc already, since I had read recently that apparently copper and zinc compete for uptake in the body, and we know that our house has incorrectly installed copper pipes paired with steel pipes, which can cause a bit of leeching or some such. My copper levels were pretty much optimal, so I’m going to take zinc supplements for a while and try to figure out which (if any) water filters will filter out copper. And we’ll probably raise the priority on updating our plumbing on our long, long home improvement list. :P
I had never heard of serine before, probably because it doesn’t have any specific deficiency symptoms like rickets or anemia. My doc says she’ll sometimes prescribe serine supplements to people with insomnia or stress issues. My sleep isn’t fabulous, but it’s not as good lately as it sometime is, so I guess we’ll see if these supplements make a difference there or not. I haven’t gotten the results back on my stress/cortisol/sex hormone test yet, so hopefully that will help to paint a more complete picture…
Oh, and my vitamin D3 levels were pretty boringly normal. I was wondering because that’s the one nutrient that I supplement regularly with a pretty high dose. So I’m glad that it looks like I’m not overdoing it. I’d still rather just get more sunlight every day though. :)
