Personalized Medicine
A Paradigm Shift for Healthcare Practitioners
Introducing Personalized Medicine
Personalized medicine, often referred to as precision medicine, represents a significant shift in healthcare models, focusing on individualized treatment tailored to the unique needs of each patient. Traditional medicine often employs a standardized approach based on broad patient populations, resulting in variable treatment outcomes due to the inherent differences among patients.
The personalized medicine approach recognizes that patients are unique and require individualized care, which is achieved through comprehensive and targeted functional testing. These tests allow practitioners to account for factors such as antibiotic resistance genes, virulence factors, and genomic information, leading to more precise and effective treatment plans.
Embracing Precision Medicine: The Role of Laboratory Testing
The successful implementation of personalized medicine hinges on the ability to obtain accurate and insightful information about each patient. Laboratory testing plays a crucial role in identifying the root causes of symptoms and understanding the patient’s unique metabolic signature and genetic makeup. This information enables healthcare practitioners to comprehensively understand causative factors and relevant predispositions that impact short and long-term health.
Advancing Personalized Medicine
Breakthrough functional medicine tests now provide practitioners with the necessary tools to optimize patient outcomes through personalized treatment strategies. Comprehensive test reports with graphic markers support a thorough understanding of patient health dynamics.
Practitioners can guide patients who are looking to achieve optimal health, as well as those who have been chronically ill and frustrated without a diagnosis for years.
Designs for Health Partners with Diagnostic Solutions Laboratory
To facilitate the practice of personalized medicine, Designs for Health partners with Diagnostic Solutions Laboratory to offer a range of testing options that enable healthcare practitioners to make well-informed decisions regarding individualized patient care. These tests contribute to a deeper understanding of patients’ unique physiological and whole-person profiles, paving the way for the development of targeted, effective treatment plans.
Optimized Healthcare Outcomes for Unique Patient Needs
Personalized medicine represents a significant shift toward individualized, data-driven treatment approaches, backed by functional medicine tests. This paradigm enables healthcare practitioners to optimize patient outcomes by tailoring treatments to each patient’s unique needs, setting the stage for the future of medicine.
GI-MAP® – GI Microbial Assay Plus
DNA Stool Analysis by qPCR
The GI-MAP is a comprehensive stool analysis that looks at DNA and uses quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction (qPCR) technology to evaluate gut pathogens, bacterial infections, viruses, and parasites.
Unlike other comprehensive stool testing offered the market, the GI-MAP identifies the quantitative value corresponding to each biomarker. This quantitative analysis allows practitioners to see how high or low a value is and whether it needs to be treated. The positive and negative values other stool testing analysis provide lack this specificity.
The GI-MAP uses qPCR technology that looks at the DNA of the pathogens within the gut (rather than the DNA of the patient). This gene-sequencing technology offers unmatched insight into precisely what is occurring in a patient’s gastrointestinal (GI) tract. Treatment progress can be monitored on retests by viewing whether the quantitative value of a biomarker has responded to treatment.
The GI-MAP also reports on antibiotic resistance and virulence factors, helping to take the guesswork out of treatment. The gut is highly complex; and, the GI-MAP optimizes the practitioner’s ability to practice personalized, precision medicine by reporting on the specific DNA findings within a patient’s microbiome.
OMX™ – Organic Metabolomics
An Advanced Organic Acids and Amino Acids Profile – Reveal Your Metabolic Signature
OMX™ metabolomic testing goes beyond traditional organic acid testing. OMX characterizes metabolic phenotypes by presenting analytes in pathway categories to more easily identify metabolomic deviations that can underlie—and even precede—disease.
Organic acids and other small molecules are intermediate compounds that can define the efficient flow of pathways and substrates such as amino acids to reveal the level of inputs, which together establish the functional status of key areas of health.
Metabolites are impacted by many factors and can change in response to diet, nutrient status, toxin exposures, exercise, physiologic demands, genetics, gut microbiome alterations, or disease stage.
Metabolic analysis can help clinicians evaluate the function of key pathways to better target support.