Introduction

As a doctor with an appreciation for the importance of good nutrition, you have experienced the frustration of seeing patient after patient you know needs nutrition help, yet not always being able to meet their needs. On one hand you have patients in need, on the other you have the many and varied combinations of vitamins, minerals, amino acids and adaptogens at your disposal. How do you bring the two together effectively? Where do you begin? NUTRI-SPEC offers an answer to these questions in the form of an analytical, systematic approach.

The goal at NUTRI-SPEC is nutritional specificity, i.e., a means of evaluating all individuals for their specific metabolic needs. You now have a scientific system by which you can, for the first time, begin to realize the full potential of clinical nutrition. You will, with NUTRI-SPEC analysis procedures, be able to categorize all your patients in terms of their Metabolic Imbalances.  These Metabolic Imbalances will be the sole criteria upon which you treat your patients, regardless of their symptoms or conditions. 

With NUTRI-SPEC systems of analysis, it can now be demonstrated by objective clinical indicators that there is no patient whose health problem does not have a nutritional/metabolic component.  This is because there is no health problem that does not involve some form of Metabolic Imbalance.  In other words, your goal is to provide all patients with dietary supplements to maximize health — meeting the patient’s nutrition/metabolic needs — without regard to symptoms.  Both your immediate and long-term purpose is to achieve Metabolic Balance, which goes hand-in-hand with a dramatic increase in Vital Reserves.  Ultimately, what you offer patients is their ideal individualized Nutrition regimen that they may LIVE STRONGER LONGER.   This focus on Metabolic Balancing and increasing Vital Reserves makes nutrition a clinical tool with universal application and almost unlimited potential.

There are several key concepts you must understand …

Biological Individuality

It has often been said (and now can be objectively clinically verified using NUTRI-SPEC) that no two people are alike. Even the most casual look at the people around you reveals a diversity of sizes, shapes, personalities, and levels of health. You are seeing merely the outward manifestations of internal chemical differences. In other words, the physical, mental, and emotional qualities expressed by people are a reflection of their individual body chemistries; and different body chemistries mean different nutrition requirements to maintain Metabolic Balance and maximize Vital Reserves, and to enable all individuals to fully express their innate potential. 

For example, someone may eat a breakfast of sausage, eggs and home fries and feel great, running in high gear for hours. That same breakfast might make another individual feel like crawling back into bed and might have someone else running for the antacids. NUTRI-SPEC Analysis reveals why.

Nutrition needs vary to an extreme between one individual and another.  And each individual’s nutrition needs may be different today than they were six years ago or will be six years hence.

Understanding this concept of biological individuality gives you a new way to look at your patients. Any time you read an article or hear a lecture promoting “the ideal diet,” whether it be a high protein diet, a complex carbohydrate diet, a vegetarian diet, or whatever, you can justifiably ignore every word of it. The key concept of biological individuality is being ignored. It is high time all of us in the field of clinical nutrition give up the search for this magical, mystical “ideal diet.” There simply is no such thing.

Furthermore, anytime you encounter an article or lecture promoting a particular food as a “health food,” certain to work wonders for the health and well-being of every man, woman and child, ignore it as well. Or, if a particular vitamin or mineral is being touted as good for this or that disease or symptom, ignore it. Any two people are likely to have a dramatically different reaction to a food, or to a nutrition supplement. The sad truth is, in both the lay and professional literature, biological individuality is rarely considered. All we are offered is vitamin B6 to cure this, zinc to cure that, and so on. NUTRI-SPEC testing verifies the concept of biological individuality. You will see that no two people, even if they present the same disease or symptom, are alike.

As a NUTRI-SPEC practitioner the simple message to get through to your patients is that different people have different nutrient requirements for their body to produce energy efficiently and to perform all its other metabolic functions efficiently. 

Some of your patients will not do too well if they eat too much red meat, yet some become incredibly weak without red meat.  NUTRI-SPEC Evaluation can tell which is the ideal fuel for each person.  Similarly, some people thrive on eating cheese or butter, while others have terrible trouble if they eat cheese or butter.  Again, NUTRI-SPEC can tell who is who.  Some people might desperately need a calcium supplement, yet there are others who will very quickly become sick and weak if they take excess calcium, or the wrong form of calcium.  NUTRI-SPEC Analysis can tell you exactly what supplements, exactly how much, and in exactly what form is the ideal METABOLIC THERAPY for the individual body chemistry of each patient. 

Since everyone is different, we need a comprehensive system of evaluating each individual’s Metabolic Imbalances. We need a scientific analysis. That is what NUTRI-SPEC is all about — making nutrition scientific. And in having made it more scientific, NUTRI-SPEC procedures have transformed the practice of clinical nutrition into METABOLIC THERAPY.

Scientific Analysis vs. Empiricism

What does that word, “empiricism” mean to you? You can think of empiricism as a fancy word for trial and error; trial and error based upon educated guesses. While empirical clinical techniques may be scientifically derived, they are not often scientifically applied.

The failure to recognize biological individuality is the fatal flaw of most scientific studies referenced by your typical clinical nutritionist.  The statistically significant group whose condition benefits from the nutrient under study must have some quality that distinguishes it from the unresponsive group.  This unrecognized quality is clearly revealed by NUTRI-SPEC testing to be a difference in Metabolic Imbalances.  Using a scientific analysis to determine individualized patient needs is the KEY CONCEPT distinguishing NUTRI-SPEC from empirical health care.

 When clinicians employ empirical methods, they are directed in their therapeutic efforts only by the subjective response of the patient.  When you employ NUTRI-SPEC methods you are directed in your therapeutic efforts by objectively measured changes in your patient’s metabolism. 

Patient-Specific vs. Disease-Specific

The perfect example of empirical methods is the practice of allopathic medicine; medicine being essentially a disease-specific approach to patient care. In other words, it is known empirically that a specific disease or condition has a certain probability of responding to a particular therapy. The therapy is implemented, and the patient’s subjective response is awaited. The empirical trial may be a success, or may prove to be in error, in which case a second clinical trial is prescribed, and so on.

This empirical, disease-specific approach is the road taken by virtually all of today’s researchers in clinical nutrition. The goal apparently is to match each of the thousands of named diseases and conditions with a nutritional cure. There is a better approach. Whatever merits empiricism has in the practice of medicine, it is neither the simplest nor the most efficacious way to practice clinical nutrition. This KEY CONCEPT, patient-specific vs. disease-specific, truly sets the NUTRI-SPEC system apart from the standard approach to clinical nutrition. NUTRI-SPEC offers a viable alternative to disease-specific empiricism, namely, a patient-specific scientific analysis.   

This patient-specific approach will allow you to do with NUTRI-SPEC what could not be achieved with other forms of clinical nutrition.  In just a few minutes you can perform and evaluate over 30 different tests on your patients and thus determine exactly what foods make them stronger and what foods make them susceptible to symptoms.  You will also know exactly which nutrition supplements will make them healthy and which will actually make them weaker.  NUTRI-SPEC testing is the one scientific way to determine the biological individuality of each of your patients. The capacity to offer comprehensive Metabolic Therapy is now yours.

NUTRI-SPEC is a truly holistic system of Metabolic Therapy.  Most other nutrition systems claiming to be natural and holistic are merely trying to treat diseases with vitamins and minerals, using them as medicines.  The true meaning of the word holistic is treating the person, not treating his disease — and that is what you will achieve with NUTRI-SPEC.

In identifying Imbalances in your patients’ body chemistries, you are getting to the underlying causes of their conditions.  The fascinating thing about using NUTRI-SPEC is that you find yourself treating two patients having identical symptoms with entirely different Metabolic Therapy.

For instance, two patients with apparently the same osteoarthritis might test as having entirely different Metabolic Imbalances predisposing them to arthritis.  Anyone who tries an “arthritis treatment” on these two patients will necessarily fail in at least one of the cases.  The reason for failure obviously is that no consideration is given to what might be the causative factors.  NUTRI-SPEC has proved that Metabolic Balancing is one way to restore and maintain health, regardless of what symptoms the patient presents. 

There is not a patient in your practice that you cannot help with Nutri-Spec, because there is no patient without some degree of Metabolic Imbalance, or who does not need an increase in Vital Reserves. In other words, while NUTRI-SPEC may not be the sole answer to why patients sought your care, every patient that walks through your door has the need for Metabolic Therapy.  With NUTRI-SPEC you can offer all your patients and Individualized Nutrition Regimen loaded with powerful Adaptogens — all they need in the way of dietary supplements and dietary recommendations that they may LIVE STRONGER LONGER. 

If, however, you take the traditional empirical approach of giving a patient a nutrition remedy for whatever ails him, you are going to at best give him a temporary symptomatic boost, while inevitably actually exacerbating his body chemistry imbalances.  In the long run, the patient is always worse after the doctor takes a disease specific approach to his symptoms.  With NUTRI-SPEC you will never again feel the need to take an empirical shot in the dark.  You will have objective tests to guide your Metabolic Therapy.

Comprehensive and Objective Testing

If a patient-specific, scientific analysis is our goal, how do we achieve it? Clearly, prescription of a patient-specific nutrition regimen must be dependent upon a comprehensive evaluation of that patient. Furthermore, Metabolic Therapy must be achieved via objective testing procedures.

NUTRI-SPEC offers an analytical system by which to achieve a comprehensive patient evaluation. That system is based upon objective clinical data. The data is derived from 2 sources:

a) Tests of vital signs and neuro-endocrine reflexes.

b) Tests of urine and saliva chemistries.

During the developmental years of the NUTRI-SPEC system much clinical experience was accumulated demonstrating the clinical extremes found for each of these different urine and saliva chemistries and each of the different vital signs and neuro-endocrine reflexes. It became apparent that groups, or patterns, of abnormal test results tended to occur simultaneously. For example, it most often occurred that high urine pH was accompanied by low urine specific gravity. Before long, these simultaneously occurring patterns of abnormal test results could be labeled. In other words, one pattern of abnormalities corresponded to an acid condition, another pattern related to cardio-renal stress, and so on.  After years of clinical testing, patterns of aberrant test results associated with several fundamental metabolic control systems were defined.

These fundamental control systems are ubiquitous, playing a role in virtually every patient’s state of health.  Thus, a comprehensive, objective means of evaluating functional metabolic control in each patient was achieved.

Patterns

These patterns indicate lost homeostasis in those body functions associated with a particular metabolic chemical control system.  NUTRI-SPEC has identified five of these metabolic control systems that are continuously active in maintaining Metabolic Balance.  Each of these five balance systems can shift out of balance in two opposite ways.  Thus, there are a total of ten PATTERNS OF METABOLIC IMBALANCE that you will learn to identify and treat with your NUTRI-SPEC system. 

The total essence of NUTRI-SPEC philosophy can be simply stated as follows: All patients’ state of health can be defined in terms of its Patterns of Metabolic Imbalance.  In other words, rather than name and treat the “disease”, define and treat the pattern. In so doing you will have a patient-specific approach, derived from a scientific analysis, and based upon the concept of biological individuality.

NUTRI-SPEC testing will add a whole new dimension to your clinical practice by giving you an objective system by which to monitor the results of your therapy, rather than relying solely on the subjective response of the patient. When your Metabolic Therapy is effective you will know why. You will know exactly which metabolic control systems have benefited. And when you are ineffective, or perhaps even counterproductive, you will have a set of objective monitors, telling you why, and keeping you continuously apprised of the problem systems.