20 Popular Lab Tests You Should Rethink

Are Lab Tests Helping You – Or Just Selling You Something?

I’ve become deeply concerned about the explosion of lab testing in modern medicine.

Have you ever noticed how there are more and more of them? And how often do the results send people directly to the pharmacy?

Modern medicine has become obsessed with lab tests – not just for diagnosing disease, but for creating new “conditions” that feed a trillion-dollar pharmaceutical industry.

Some of these tests were developed not because they saved lives, but because they sold drugs. Welcome to the era of disease-mongering by lab work.

(Don't want to read? Here's a video if you prefer to watch.)

The Marketing Genius of Lab Testing

Lab testing is a brilliant marketing ploy because all you have to do is tell someone they have a lab value that is too high or too low.

And then, the vast majority of people will sign up for hundreds or thousands of dollars’ worth of further testing or treatment. Even if it means going into debt.

Many people are quickly and easily convinced that something is “wrong” with them.

But, the truth is: Your labs can vary widely. Within a day, within a week – and what’s “healthy range” for you might be different for someone else.

Let me give you two examples from my own life:

• I’ve had “low iron” my entire adult life. Then, after moving to Park City, my iron levels suddenly shot up – for a few tests. Then, just as suddenly, they returned to my usual baseline. I didn’t change anything. I just stopped obsessing over iron.

• More recently, my C-reactive protein (CRP) – a marker of inflammation – came back 20 times higher than usual. I felt great. No injuries, no symptoms. And I don’t smoke. A follow-up test weeks later showed completely normal inflammation levels. Even my nurse practitioner said, “This happens all the time.”

So, why are we treating these labs as if they were a definitive diagnosis?

Why Does Our Guided Detox Now Include Before-and-After Labs?

Some labs can be helpful information when used to inform your health.

The GreenSmoothieGirl Labs we now offer as part of our Guided Detox show you how much you can accomplish for your health in just a few weeks.

You’ll take the labs before you begin the Detox, and then, after you’re done.

This will show you how our science-backed program:

• Reduces your inflammation
• Improves your blood sugar levels
• Helps get your cardiovascular biomarkers into a healthy range
• Improves the functioning of your kidneys and liver

All that on top of the average weight loss of 12 pounds.

I developed these labs with the help of my friend Alan Hopkins, MD, a board-certified emergency and family practice physician.

Imagine seeing, in black and white, how much your body is healing. This is real proof of your body’s transformation.

20 Overused Lab Tests That Often Lead People to Unnecessary Medication and Fear

Here are 20 of the most controversial or overused lab tests that too often lead healthy people down a path of unnecessary medication, fear, and long-term dependency on some drug, and on getting retested annually or even more often.

Let me run through these 20 labs, and I’ll tell you what each lab is, what it supposedly detects, what class of drugs it tests for, and why this is a red flag at best and an outright scam at worst.

1. DEXA Bone Scan

What it “finds”: Osteopenia or osteoporosis (until the DEXA scan was invented, just 35 years ago, nobody had ever even heard of osteopenia).

But, never fear, there are drugs for it! It may not make sense to you that taking chemical or petrochemical drugs preserve your bone mass, and it doesn’t make sense to me, either, but – well, that’s what we do.

No one has ever validated whether the light refraction technique used in DEXA scans actually measures bone density.

Strangely, the vast majority of bone fractures occur in the top quartile of DEXA bone scans – so, according to DEXA, the strongest bones.

We don’t prescribe people to eat more leafy greens and engage in some impact exercise, such as walking, because it works. But what a doctor will usually tell you is, “We tell patients to do it, but they just won’t.” So, drug them instead.

What does the DEXA bone scan push? Bisphosphonate drugs (Fosamax, Boniva)

Why it’s a red flag: It turns natural bone thinning of aging into a “disease.” Osteopenia isn’t even a real pathology – it’s a made-up label to prescribe drugs that can cause jaw necrosis and femur fractures.

Most doctors don’t know this. They believe the marketing since 1990, just like you probably do.

Dentists found out accidentally that jaw necrosis, or a dying jaw BONE, is one of the effects of taking biphosphonate drugs.

Let’s think about that for just a few seconds, it won’t take long: an adverse event of taking a drug to strengthen your bones is that your jawbone dies, and rots.

[Related: Osteoporosis: How to Prevent and Reverse It]

2. PSA (Prostate-Specific Antigen) lab test

What it “finds”: Possible prostate cancer

What it pushes: Biopsies, surgery, hormone blockers (often men are not told that when they undergo these procedures, they’ll never have sex again)

Why it’s a red flag: The PSA test has an outrageously high false-positive rate. Many men undergo life-altering procedures for slow-growing cancers that they would never die from.

The developer of the PSA test himself tried to walk it back – but, too late, it had already become a big business.

His test is still used widely, with millions of men chemically castrated, like both my father and father-in-law have been, both in their 80s, when prostate cancer is highly unlikely to be the thing that kills them.

3. Total Cholesterol lab test

What it “finds”: “High” cholesterol

What it pushes: Statin drugs

Why it’s a red flag: This lab test oversimplifies a complex system.

Statins are often given based on flawed targets, with little benefit in low-risk people, and in fact, potential harm. Because statin drugs simply do not work: they do not reduce the incidence of cardiac events, massive studies show, even though they may create an impression of a benefit, by lowering a biomarker.

[Related: Healing Hearts and Changing Lives through Plant-based Living with Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn]

4. Hemoglobin A1C (in borderline cases)

What it “finds”: Prediabetes

What it pushes: Metformin, Ozempic, and newer glucose-lowering drugs

Why it’s a red flag: “Prediabetes” is a slippery slope.

The fix is in our diet and lifestyle, not lifelong meds.

I was told in my 20s, eating burgers and fries and Diet Coke every day, that I was prediabetic – and I changed my diet, and have had optimal blood-sugar labs ever since.

[Related: Millennials Told to Take Diabetes Drugs for Life!

Everything You Think You Know About Diabetes Is Wrong! with Robby Barbaro and Cyrus Khambatta

Green Smoothies for Diabetes]

5. Vitamin D Testing

What it “finds”: “Deficiency”

What it pushes: High-dose D3 supplements or prescriptions

Why it’s a red flag: Labs vary wildly.

Deficiency cutoffs are hotly debated, and synthetic D without magnesium or K2 can create new problems. Since cholecalciferol isn’t a secosteroid hormone the body produces, and K2 is derived from coal tar, it is only similar to the nutrient in the body due to some molecules in common.

I’ve written extensively about the fraud that is “vitamin D” supplementation, so you can go deeper, if you’ve been taking cholecalciferol, believing that you have a “deficiency.”

[Related: Taking “Vitamin D” Does Nothing Good for You (100’s of Studies Show)

“Vitamin D” Pills Deplete Your Minerals And Do Not Support Immune Function

4 Huge Vitamin D Studies Show Harm, or No Benefit]

6. TSH Only (Thyroid Stimulating Hormone)

What it “finds”: Hypothyroidism

What it pushes: Levothyroxine

Why it’s a red flag: TSH alone is a narrow lens.

Millions are over- or under-medicated because full thyroid panels aren’t run. To actually ascertain if you aren’t making an adequate amount of thyroid hormone, more tests are needed, as there are downstream and upstream precursor hormones, which all play a role.

I’ve found, in going to now 9 bioidentical hormone practitioners over the last 25 years, also called “natural hormone replacement practitioners,” so you can Google them in your area, that they’re all kind of winging it; there’s very little “standard of care” nailed down; it’s a young art and science; and so they’re just kind of “all over the map.”

That said, I’d still choose one of them, versus regular M.D.s who will mostly just take the TSH test alone, and potentially prescribe inaccurately a drug that isn’t molecularly the same as what your body makes. I’ve found the best among nurse practitioners who specialize in bioidentical hormone replacement.

And, I don’t take the “vitamin D” or fish oil they try to sell you.

7. Mammograms (this is a screening test, not a lab technically, but I’m including it here anyway)

What it “finds”: DCIS, benign masses

What it pushes: Surgery, radiation, fear

Why it’s a red flag: High false-positives and overdiagnosis of “cancer” that may never become dangerous.

Most functional and integrative doctors will tell you that your body produces aberrant growths many times during your life, and the vast majority of the time, it also metabolizes them effectively, so you never knew they were even there.

So, mammograms both cause breast cancer with their radioactive waves, and also diagnose SO early, that stage 0 and stage 1 breast cancers your body would have just resolved on its own, get overtreated. Also, putting women into a state of panic, destroying their quality of life.

[Related: 6 Things Every Woman Should Know About Breast Cancer

Heal Breast Cancer Naturally Interview with Dr. Veronique Desaulniers]

8. LDL Particle Size Testing

What it “finds”: “Pattern B” LDL

What it pushes: Cholesterol meds even beyond statins

Why it’s a red flag: Often, this is a cherry-picked lab used in boutique clinics to over-treat marginal risk.

9. MTHFR & Genetic SNP Panels

What it “finds”: Genetic variants (of a gene we all have, but they don’t tell you that)

What it pushes: Special supplements or meds

Why it’s a red flag: Associations do not equal causation.

You’re not broken just because your genes aren’t “ideal” according to a very incipient awareness of the human genome.

[Related: MTHFR Gene: Should You Worry About It?]

10. “Low T” Hormone Panels

What it “finds”: Slight testosterone drops (which are often just normal aging)

What it pushes: Testosterone replacement–pellets, oral, creams, various delivery methods

Why it’s a red flag: Used to sell expensive therapies with risks of stroke, infertility, prostate issues.

Patients are usually not told of these risks, and men often think taking testosterone will make them an animal at the gym, or better in the sack, and generally neither is true – plus, excessive testosterone has caused many problems, not least of which is road rage and divorce.

11. Adrenal Fatigue Panels

What it “finds”: Cortisol dysregulation

What it pushes: Hormones or supplements

Why it’s a red flag: The condition is not even recognized by conventional medicine.

Often used as a catch-all to sell supplement protocols, particularly petrochemical-based “vitamin B complex.”

And more awareness is growing that there is an interaction between the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and adrenal gland, rather than the myth of “adrenal fatigue,” for which there is no strong evidence.

[Related: Debunking “Adrenal Fatigue” with Ari Whitten]

12. C-Reactive Protein (CRP)

What it “finds”: Inflammation

What it pushes: Statins or anti-inflammatory drugs

Why it’s a red flag: Extremely nonspecific.

Elevated CRP can mean you exercised yesterday or have a cold. I recently had 20x higher CRP than I’d ever had before, or that is considered normal, and when I asked my practitioner if he thought I had cancer or something, because I wasn’t puffy anywhere, no joints hurt, I felt fine, his response was,

“No, this is a biomarker that I see a lot of fluctuations in, so I’d rather you just get another test in a few months.”

So that’s another $65 and driving across town, and taking a whole vial of blood when they just need a drop. And I’ve seen so much in my research that I’m not losing any sleep over it.

13. IgG Food Sensitivity Panels

What it “finds”: Dozens of “reactive” foods

What it pushes: Elimination diets, supplements

Why it’s a red flag: IgG reflects exposure, not intolerance.

As in, it’s telling you what you ate yesterday or two days ago – it’s not telling you what you shouldn’t eat. This often leads to unnecessary restrictions and fear.

One year, just for the sake of science, I got three different food sensitivity tests done, and each of them told me completely different foods I was supposedly sensitive to. There wasn’t a single overlapping food. Leading me to not value these tests much at all. And they aren’t cheap!

14. Antinuclear Antibodies (ANA)

What it “finds”: Autoimmune warning flags

What it pushes: Immunosuppressant drugs

Why it’s a red flag: Positive ANA is common in healthy people, especially women.

Context is everything. This lab test is a perfect example of how lab tests are proliferating, and the individuals performing the blood draws and evaluations often lack a thorough understanding of the test's validity, leading to unnecessary concerns for patients.

15. Homocysteine

What it “finds”: Cardiovascular risk

What it pushes: High-dose B vitamins (which are generally made of tar and other petrochemicals, acids and other chemicals, and lab-grown bacteria) – no food at all is involved in 99% of the products sold as vitamin B.

Why it’s a red flag: The fix isn’t always necessary, and its role in actual disease is still unclear.

16. Insulin Resistance Panels (in non-diabetics)

What it “finds”: Mild insulin resistance

What it pushes: Metformin, GLP-1 drugs

Why it’s a red flag: Medicalizes lifestyle issues.

Diet and exercise are more effective and sustainable solutions to address the problem, rather than putting duct tape over the warning light on the dashboard.

17. Celiac Antibodies Without Symptoms

What it “finds”: Possible celiac

What it pushes: Gluten-free diets, sometimes colon biopsies

Why it’s a red flag: Many positives are false or irrelevant; gluten avoidance isn’t always helpful, as processed gluten-free cookies, for instance, might be made of high-arsenic rice flour.

18. Bone Turnover Markers (NTX/CTX)

What it “finds”: Bone metabolism speed

What it pushes: Stronger osteoporosis meds

Why it’s a red flag: Not standardized and highly variable, and labs are often overinterpreted.

19. Lipoprotein(a)

What it “finds”: Cardiovascular risk

What it pushes: PCSK9 inhibitor drugs, niacin (supposedly a B vitamin, that makes your face turn red and makes some people throw up, due to the so-called vitamin being so toxic)

Why it’s a red flag: Genetic and not well modifiable. No drug has been proven to reduce events just by lowering Lp(a).

20. Perimenopause Hormone Panels in Women

What it “finds”: Fluctuating estrogen, progesterone

What it pushes: HRT, antidepressants

Why it’s a red flag: Hormones naturally fluctuate daily. One-time testing often leads to misdiagnosis and overtreatment.

You Deserve Informed Consent

To sum up what we learned from a quick run-through of 20 labs, in an environment where doctors love to prescribe labs and patients love to get them, because they think it tells them the status of their health, you deserve informed consent.

Lab tests should inform, not scare you into dependency. If your lab work comes with a prescription but no lifestyle discussion, that’s a big red flag.

 

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