Course Overview

Explore health as a functional hierarchy and learn why regular blood testing is essential to your practice. Discover the best methods for analyzing your patients’ blood test results (no more telling your patients that their results are “normal”). You’ll learn the blood test biomarkers you want on YOUR panels—and we’ll introduce you to the 50+ major metabolic patterns covered in this training.

Dive into the Functional Physiology of digestion, absorption and excretion. By understanding function, we can understand dysfunction and the role blood test biomarkers play in uncovering the metabolic patterns of common dysfunctions of the GI system. These patterns will help you assess and monitor your patients for hypochlorhydria, H. pylori, gastric inflammation, pancreatic insufficiency, dysbiosis, and intestinal hyperpermeability.

Explore the functional physiology of the hepato-biliary system. Become very familiar with 5 common functional hepato-biliary problems that you can detect with blood tests. Learn how to differentiate problems in the biliary tree from liver problems, and learn the best method for pinpointing the location of liver dysfunction. We’ll also dive into oxidative stress and look at the biomarkers that indicate oxidative stress in the body. Lastly, learn how to use FBCA to uncover systemic toxicity and a heavy metal body burden.

Explore nutritional anemias with an in-depth look at red cell function and physiology,  and how we can use FBCA to help differentiate the nutritional causes of anemia. Discover the one biomarker that most practitioners leave out in their analysis of iron deficiency, as well as a relatively new biomarker to assist in assessing for B12 deficiency. Lastly, learn 3 minor causes of nutritional anemia.

Discover the most common functional problems associated with vitamin and mineral insufficiencies that can be detected with blood tests. Look at calcium through the lens of parathyroid hormone regulation and assessment. Learn the very best biomarkers to assess for deficiencies in zinc and magnesium, as well as the one test you should use to diagnose vitamin D deficiency. Explore the role that anion gap plays in helping assess acid-base balance in the body and diagnosing B vitamin sufficiency. Examine the role Essential Fatty Acids play in human physiology and ways to analyze EFA deficiencies using blood biomarkers.

Examine the soaring cases of diabetes and obesity and learn how FBCA is the best way to assess for blood sugar issues before they become full-blown disease. We’ll cover the 9 blood biomarkers you must use to get to the bottom of your patients’ blood sugar regulation issues and uncover the metabolic patterns linked to each stage “On the Road to Diabetes”. In our final section, we cover some advanced biomarkers, calculators, and new FM ratios that will truly separate you from other practitioners.

Get an in-depth look at the Functional Physiology of the adrenal glands. Look at the regulation of adrenal hormone release and the role stress plays in adrenal dysregulation. Dive into how to use the biomarkers on a standard blood test, plus other functional tests to assess for lifestyle-based adrenal dysfunctions. Explore renal anatomy and physiology, and learn how to differentiate kidney dysfunction from kidney disease. 

Understand the functional physiology and biochemistry of the thyroid gland to get to the root cause of your patient’s thyroid conditions. Review 10 biomarkers and 1 essential ratio that you must run to assess your patients’ thyroid problems. Examine the role each of these biomarkers play in 6 metabolic patterns of hypothyroidism, from classic primary hypothyroidism to thyroid conversion syndrome. Dig into hyperactive thyroid dysfunction and autoimmune thyroiditis. Examine the clinical indicators of these conditions—plus the shifts in  thyroid biomarkers—that help you detect these conditions long before they manifest as full-blown disease.

Take a comprehensive look at cardiovascular risk and inflammation. Explore more than 20 biomarkers from a standard blood test that are independent risk factors for early detection of cardiovascular disease. Examine the role apolipoproteins and the 8 specialized biomarkers of the NMR Lipoprofile play in uncovering lipid-related coronary heart disease. Explore the role inflammation plays in cardiovascular disease and overall dysfunction in the body. Look at 8 relatively unknown biomarkers that you can measure on a blood test to further assess for generalized inflammation in the body as well as inflammation relative to increased cardiovascular disease.

Start with a look at the functional physiology of sex hormone regulation in both men and women, then get a thorough grounding in sex hormone biochemistry. Become an expert in all 12 of the major sex hormone biomarkers that we measure in the blood, understand their optimal reference ranges, and learn how to use them to uncover hidden causes of both male and female sex hormone dysfunction. Gain a thorough review of the main biomarkers you can evaluate to assess for your patient’s risk of prostate dysfunction. 

This last clinical module focuses on immune function. Look at immune system physiology and the main players of our immune system. Dive into the biomarkers on a blood test that relate to the immune system and learn how to use them to assess for immune dysfunction. Explore the standard immune biomarkers on a CBC as well as the 4 immunoglobulins and the 2 main autoimmune biomarkers. Examine how all of these biomarkers can be used to assess for immune deficiency, allergies and immune over-activity. Become familiar with Coca Pulse Testing, a wonderful in-office method of assessing patients for allergies.

Our first 10 modules cover 14 organ systems, 50 key metabolic FBCA patterns, and more than 100 individual blood biomarkers. In this final module, we put it all together. Learn how to use blood testing for foundational care and understand why annual blood testing is so essential, especially in your patients over the age of 40. Look at cash flow in practice and explore how FBCA and the FHR can become a profitable income stream and help with treatment planning. Look at the best ways to include the FHR and your functional analysis in your report of findings. In our 4 case studies, Dr. Weatherby shows how FBCA can unlock a wealth of information locked within a blood test. See firsthand how he approaches the analysis from the Functional perspective.

Get added insight on blood chemistry analysis from some of the best in the field of Functional Medicine. These bonus lectures offer additional depth and nuance to the information covered in our Mastery Training.