What is your blood telling you? Part One
Have you ever wondered what your blood might be telling you about your health and wellbeing? Although blood analysis cannot diagnose medical conditions, it can give us a glimpse of what is going on inside your body. In this blog we will look at some of the most common anomalies I see in my client’s blood and I will briefly discuss how this understanding can impact health.
Using a darkfield microscope to analyse live and dried blood, we can literally see – in real time – the size, shape, ratios and movement of your red cells, white cells, platelets and plasma. Seeing the live and dried blood samples gives us vital clues towards potential degenerative and chronic health conditions enabling us to prevent them wherever possible.
I find that many of my clients are fascinated by the blood analysis. Not only does it motivate them to make changes but it also a great tool for monitoring their hard work implementing lifestyle and dietary changes. I always find it exciting when they come back for their follow-up appointments and they see how their biochemistry is positivity changing. Equally, if they have not made any changes, this can also be seen!
The best thing about this is that it is all live. The immediacy of live blood analysis means you can see your blood moving on the screen with no time waiting for results. We can talk through it as I identify what is going on and you can ask as many questions as you like in the moment.
What is involved?
Taking a blood sample for a live and dried blood analysis is very easy. It involves a tiny prick on the finger and a fresh drop of living capillary blood is mounted on a glass slide which can then be viewed through the microscope. I use a high powered darkfield microscope capable of up to 1000x magnification.
I will view the sample through the lens, but the amazing thing is that you will be able to see everything I see because the microscope is connected to a computer screen for simultaneous viewing. The live blood can be viewed immediately, but we will wait half an hour for the dried blood.
Live and dried blood analysis will give important information about vitamin and mineral deficiencies, digestive imbalances and gut microbiome health, liver and kidney function (detoxification capacity), cell membrane integrity, as well as inflammation and immune health.
What are some of things we can see?
Let’s start with what we see are likely to see in healthy normal live blood. Next month we discuss Dried Blood Analysis.
First, we look at the live blood through brightfield (grey) then we look at it through darkfield (black and white). The red blood cells (the circles you can see above) should be a regular circular shape and uniformed in size. They should not be overlapping. Your plasma (the fluid between your red blood cells) should be clean.
When we see lemon-shaped red blood cells, as in the sample above, it indicates excess protein in the blood due to poor protein digestion and absorption. This is normally either because of excessive dietary protein or a low production of the pancreatic digestive enzyme protease.
When we see abnormal bottle-topped shaped red blood cells, it can be an indication of either dehydration and/or high toxicity, and a need for detoxification support. By taking a thorough case history from my client, I am normally able to determine which one it is. You may also notice that the red blood cells are different sizes. This can indicate a B vitamin deficiency particularly, vitamin B12 and/or folic acid.
When I see the red blood cells with indentations appearing similar to a cloud drawing it is an indication of inflammation. By looking for other anomalies at the same time, I can gain an indication of how severe the inflammation is. For example, in the black and white photo on the right-hand side, I can see fibrin in the plasma which is causing the red blood cells to look like cloud drawings as well as a monocyte (a type of white blood cell) which suggests to me that the inflammation may be quite moderate.
When the red blood cells resemble a target, it is most often associated with iron deficient anaemia.
When the red blood cells are piled on top of one another it is an indication that the red blood cells are sticky. This is normally due to poor diet and toxicity, and can result in fatigue as red blood cells struggle to carry oxygen.
White, round, puffy forms in the plasma (the fluid between the red blood cells) is a strong indication of blood sugar imbalance. If the puffy forms appear to have bubbles, it is an indication of a candida yeast infection. Candida is a type of yeast that often grows in the large intestine (alongside parasites and unhelpful bacteria). This can cause a multitude of different symptoms including fatigue, sugar cravings, digestive issues, brain fog, thrush and allergies, amongst many other things.
I look forward to making an appointment for your blood analysis to talk about this in more detail soon!
With every blessing,
Emma
Emma Maitland-Carew – Registered Nutritional Therapist
Dip.ION, mBANT, CHNC Registered Practitioner,
Metabolic Balance® Coach, HeartMath Coach, Accredited Wellbeing Coach.
