What Is Functional Testing?

Looking beyond basic bloodwork to better understand the bigger picture.

Bloodwork is an important part of understanding your health. But sometimes, standard lab work doesn't tell the whole story.

Functional testing looks at additional layers of information that may help us better understand what is happening with digestion, hormones, nutrient status, cellular metabolism, environmental exposures, and other areas of health.

The goal isn't to order every test available. The goal is to ask better questions.

Depending on your symptoms, health history, and goals, functional testing can help us take a closer look at specific systems and identify patterns that may be worth addressing directly.

The functional testing available includes

• Bloodwork & Function Health testing

• Stool Testing

• Hormone Testing

• Metabolomix + Testing

• Mold Testing

• Adrenal / Cortisol Testing

• Nutrition Genome Testing

Bloodwork + Function Health

Comprehensive bloodwork remains an important foundation of functional medicine. In addition to looking at standard markers, we sometimes order more extensive bloodwork through standard labs, or out of pocket labs such as Function Health, to evaluate areas such as metabolic health, cardiovascular risk, inflammation, nutrient status, hormones, and other markers.

Sometimes the information we need is already in the blood, we just need to look at a broader picture.

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Comprehensive Stool Testing

Bloating, constipation, diarrhea, reflux, food reactions, or changes in digestion can have many potential contributors. A comprehensive stool test can provide information about the microbiome, pathogens, parasites, digestive function, inflammation, and gut barrier health.

This can give us a much closer look at what is happening inside the digestive tract.

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Hormone Testing

Hormones are constantly changing—and a single blood measurement doesn't always tell us how hormones are being produced, metabolized, and cleared.

Depending on the question we're trying to answer, functional hormone testing such as DUTCH can provide additional information about hormone metabolites, estrogen metabolism, progesterone, androgens, and cortisol patterns.

For some patients, this gives us another layer of information when symptoms and conventional hormone testing don't seem to tell the whole story.

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Nutrition + Metabolomix+

Nutrition isn't simply about whether you are eating enough vitamins and minerals. The body needs nutrients as cofactors for energy production, antioxidant pathways, neurotransmitter metabolism, and other cellular processes.

Metabolomix+ looks at organic acids, amino acids, oxidative stress, and nutrient-related markers to provide another layer of information about nutritional status and cellular metabolism.

I often think of this as the “chicken or the egg” question: are the cells struggling because they don't have the nutritional support they need, or has increased metabolic demand changed what the body needs?

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Mold + Mycotoxin Testing

If you have a known or suspected history of mold exposure, environmental testing may be one piece of a broader evaluation.

The MycoTOX Profile is a urine-based test that looks for specific mycotoxins and metabolites associated with several mold species and toxin classes. Results are considered alongside your symptoms, health history, and environmental exposure history—not in isolation.

[Explore Mold + Mycotoxin Testing →]

Adrenal + Cortisol Testing

Cortisol follows a natural daily rhythm, and the pattern can be more informative than a single cortisol measurement.

Multi-point cortisol testing can give us a closer look at cortisol throughout the day and may be useful when evaluating concerns involving stress, energy, sleep, and the body's stress response.

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Nutrition Genome Testing

Nutrition genomics looks at specific genetic variations, or SNPs, that may influence areas such as nutrient metabolism, methylation, caffeine metabolism, fatty-acid metabolism, inflammation, detoxification, and cardiovascular health.

Genetics don't tell us exactly what will happen to your health or what you “should” eat. Instead, they can provide another layer of information to consider alongside your diet, lifestyle, symptoms, health history, and laboratory results.

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Functional Testing Is About Connecting the Dots.

No single laboratory test can explain everything about your health.

Instead, I use testing selectively—looking at the information that makes the most sense in the context of your symptoms, history, lifestyle, and goals.

Sometimes that means starting with comprehensive bloodwork.

Sometimes we need to look more closely at the gut.

Sometimes hormones, nutrient metabolism, environmental exposures, or genetics add another piece to the puzzle.

Functional testing isn't about testing everything. It's about choosing the right questions to investigate.