Article by Rowena Bautista-Alcaraz on Manila Bulletin 11/25/14
Each body has a unique nutrient and metabolic profile, determined by age, genetics, lifestyle, environmental exposure, and even disease predisposition, among others. Therefore, in nutritional intake and supplementation, one size does not fit all.
Know the state of your health on an intracellular level with BioBalance.
“Just because you’re not sick doesn’t mean you’re well, it only means you’re not sick,” says European double board-certified physician who specialized in Interventional Endocrinology and Nutrient Therapy Dr. Ted Achacoso. He was recently in the country to witness the official unveiling of BioBalance Wellness Institute of which he is the chief science officer and medical director.
BioBalance is a health services company that allows you to know specifically the right kind and the right amount of essential nutrients to keep you nutritionally balanced and optimally well. “What we do is both simple and complex. Simple, in that we detect and correct subtle deficiencies and borderline toxicities. Complex because nutrients interact with each other and with the rest of the body in a networked manner, such that correcting one deficiency may correct three others,” he further explains.
According to Dr. Achacoso, a nutrient deficiency or toxicity signals an imbalance in the body way before illness sets in. Unaddressed, the body can still function at sub-optimal levels for months or years but when the imbalance progresses, it eventually manifests in signs and symptoms that may lead to serious health conditions.
“Before you go into a particular diagnosis, you get into signs and symptoms that never quite make it as a legitimate complains to your doctor. What I’d like to encourage those people is to actually come to us first and take a look at what’s going on inside their cell before they look at their organ. Because when you’re at the organ level, the disease becomes very specific.”
Wellness on an Intracellular Level
Dr. Ted Achacoso
BioBalance applies advanced technology to test for metabolites inside the cell. Before, intracellular metabolites had no practical application since they could not be measured inexpensively for clinical use. So, the clinical tests of today have been testing for organ function instead. But cells underlie all organs.
Through their exclusive partnership with Genova Diagnostics (a US-based laboratory), BioBalance applies advanced technology to peer inside the cells and measure levels of vitamins, minerals, co-factors, amino acids (from breakdown of protein), omega fatty acids (from ingestion of essential fats), and pyruvate (from breakdown of carbohydrates), among many other substances including those that reveal the inner workings of the mitochondria and the neurotransmitters of the brain.
“You must realize that since I graduated from med school, technology has marched a long way. Many doctors are unaware that you can now correlate neurotransmitters that are coming from the urine with the neurotransmitters in the brain. This has allowed me, personally, to pull out certain medications from patients with bipolar disorder or in particular medications affecting behaviors and put on natural nutrients that will actually boost their own neurotransmitter. Without the guidance it is very difficult, but now you can actually see those. You could also see why you are getting very weak because of your energy production and that is even deeper than the cell, the mitochondria which is the powerhouse of your cell.”
He further explains, “The Gods of medicine in the Philippines right now have learned about organ testing so we test our liver, lung, etc, and patients know how to interpret that stuff. But, when it comes to looking at things inside the cell, it gets very complex. In fact, I get calls in the States when I’m there from doctors and they go ‘Achacoso, what is this? This is biochemistry.’ And I say, ‘Yes it is.’ And that’s where the new medicine is all about. That’s what we have to learn right now. It’s the new generation. We are also trying to instill this in the medical curriculum; that they should start looking at these kinds of practices in the future.”
Doing things differently
Dr. Achacoso clarifies that BioBalance is not an alternative treatment or alternative medicine. Neither is it a complementary treatment to illness. It is not within the integrative medicine framework to treat illness. They are also not functional medicine to treat illness even if they use functional diagnostics for what they do.
“We quantify wellness that’s why it’s measured wellness. This approach removes the guesswork on specific nutrients your body needs. You can be assured that you’re taking the right food and vitamins and other supplements to achieve optimal health and to support management of any current disease or disease predispositions. The solution is 100 percent tailored for you.”
Lastly, Dr. Achacoso imparts, “I came from the illness medicine so I know all the tricks of the trade. Looking at that, what is it exactly that convinced me to take a look at the wellness portion of it? It’s because of the realization that health is a spectrum so you don’t suddenly just get sick. A good example of that is you will have plummeting levels of particular nutrients before you actually get sick.”
