Nutrition Response Testing is a noninvasive system of analyzing the body to determine the underlying causes of illness and suboptimal health. This clinically proven approach to wellness is not based on masking symptoms through medication, but on finding the underlying cause of the symptoms to help the body heal itself. While this method is precise and scientific, it might seem strange to someone who doesn’t understand it, only because it is probably very different from what most people experience during a traditional medical evaluation.

In Nutrition Response Testing, analysis involves assessing specific acupuncture points—areas on the surface of the body that relate to overall health and the flow of energy in every organ and bodily function—as well as neurological reflexes regulating organ function. By testing these reflexes, the practitioner has a system for monitoring the body at each appointment to identify exactly what it needs and how well he or she is meeting that need.

If a doctor were to hook you up to an EKG machine and take a reading, that would make perfect sense to you, right? The EKG would record your heart’s electrical energy pattern in the form of a graph or chart that the doctor could then study and interpret for you.

Well, electrical energy also flows within all your tissues and organs, and these flows can become disrupted for a variety of reasons. A practitioner can use Nutritional Response Testing to check for alterations in your nervous system’s healthy electrical flows. His or her first step would be to contact your extended arm with one hand while contacting a specific reflex area with the other. If the tested reflex is stressed, your nervous system will respond by reducing energy to your extended arm and sending it to the stressed organ or body part. As a result, your extended arm will weaken and drop, indicating an underlying stress or other dysfunction in that area of your body that may be adversely affecting your health. Once the underlying cause of the dysfunction is corrected with the appropriate nutrients, the "weak" muscle response in your arm will no longer occur.

Since the analysis is based directly on the body and nervous system, Nutritional Response Testing is faster and often more accurate than lab tests. It also involves no expensive machines, drugs, surgery or needles. Practitioners with a background in functional medicine are trained to read lab work to determine if their clients are actually in the optimal range. Combining muscle testing with lab work is an especially helpful approach for clients who’ve been told their labs are "normal" but who don’t feel normal at all.

Many Americans are stressed out and have poor lifestyle and dietary habits. As a result, they have developed nutritional deficiencies or imbalances that inhibit their bodies’ ability to cope with environmental stresses (chemical, microscopic or otherwise). Each cell, tissue and organ in the body is continually in the process of replacing itself, and so the condition of each organ depends on having the correct nutrients to upgrade or maintain its health at the cellular level. Nutrition Response Testing tells the practitioner what nutrients to use and when to use them to bring about the desired result.

Medical practice has two components: diagnosis (identifying the "disease" or syndrome) and treatment (drugs, surgery, etc.). While Nutrition Response Testing isn’t used to diagnose or treat disease, it also has two parts: analysis and a personalized health improvement program that includes dietary changes and supplementation.

Although every case is different, it’s not unusual to hear good reports from clients in as few as four to six weeks. Those who recover the most quickly are the ones who most closely follow their recommended nutritional program.

Generally, chronic health problems do not develop overnight; rather, they are the culmination of years of improper nutrition and a high-stress lifestyle, which cause nutritional deficiencies and imbalances that turn into long-term problems. Often there are also additional problems caused by chemical toxins, heavy metals, parasites, pollutants and other environmental health hazards.

Nutritional Response Testing can help determine the exact nutrients needed to supplement someone’s diet in order to restore balance and better health. In some cases, specific diet and lifestyle changes may be recommended as well. The sooner and more thoroughly clients take control of their health and begin a nutritional program specifically created to fix their health issues, the faster they see results.

Melanie Angelis calls herself "living personal proof" that we can achieve health from the inside out, as she used carefully calibrated lifestyle changes to overcome food allergies, a heart condition and chronic low energy. She wrote about her personal health journey in her book, The Grecian Garden: A Natural Path to Wellness. She has degrees in education and complementary alternative medicine and is a board-certified specialist of holistic health. Book appointments through her website, NourishedInEden.com.http://NourishedInEden.com