Hormone Balancing

There are 3 different methods of testing hormones:

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• Blood Serum

• Urine

• Saliva

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The question is which one is the most accurate? The World Health Organization has established that saliva testing is the most reliable medium for measuring hormone levels.

 

Why is saliva testing a better option?

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When deciding how to assess hormone levels in a patient it is important to establish the best method that will allow for ongoing testing and monitoring. Hormone levels in saliva accurately represent the amount of hormones delivered to receptors in the body, unlike blood serum which represents hormone levels that may or may not be delivered to receptors in the body. Clinically, it is far more relevant to test the amount of hormones delivered to the tissue receptors as this is a reflection of the active hormone levels in the body. Urine testing cannot measure progesterone directly, just the metabolites of progesterone. Therefore, blood serum and urine are both a much less accurate measurement than that of saliva when assessing functional hormone levels.

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In addition, once a patient is started on a regimen of topical hormones the adjusted hormone levels cannot be accurately assessed through urine or blood serum, only saliva. This is because blood serum and urine will not show bio-available hormone levels. Saliva, on the other hand, does measure the bio-available hormone levels in the body and reflects changes in hormone levels shown when a patient is on a topical hormone replacement. It is a proven method for adjusting and monitoring therapy.

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Providers who decide to use urine or blood serum testing will often find that it takes a long time to get prescription rates correct and existing symptoms continue while new symptoms may appear. Here at Quantum we specialize in balancing hormones using the saliva hormone testing. Based on the results we are able to make a regimen for a custom protocol using bioidentical hormone replacement.