Myth 6: If your tests are within the normal range, you're fine.

MYTH: If your tests are within the laboratory's “reference values” (those written next to each result), you are “normal”. This is not correct!

1) Being “normal”, “acceptable” is different from being really well, great or at your best (physiologically speaking) - each person has their own ideal values!

2. Every test must be correlated with the patient's lifestyle habits and complaints; after all, how normal is a patient who has uncomfortable symptoms despite “nothing on the tests” (as many professionals put it)?

3. The levels considered “normal” for some tests are simply absurd! For example, what is considered “acceptable” for the hormone SDHEA for women is a minimum of around 40 and a “maximum” of 430 (for the laboratory in question), which is simply too wide a range! Or do you really think that someone with SDHEA of 50 will be just as well off as someone with SDHEA of 420?

4. Are your results really normal, ideal, or are the parameters that your health professional has “wrong”? For example, in various parts of the world what is acceptable in terms of TSH changes: in Australia and several European countries, what is considered ideal is to be below 2. In the USA, below 3 but in Brazil it is absurdly considered “normal” to be below 4.7!

In other words, a person can have hypothyroidism and receive treatment for it if they have a TSH of 4 in most parts of the world, but in Brazil they can be considered “normal” and not even receive the important and necessary treatment that helps to bring about well-being.