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Dr. Song's Guide to Pediatric Functional Medicine Testing

As discussed in chapter 11 of my book Healthy Kids, Happy Kids: An Integrative Pediatrician's Guide to Whole Child Resilience — a roadmap for resolving any persistent or recurring health concern for your kids includes three key steps:

  1. Optimize your child's nutritional status.
  2. ReSET the gut.
  3. Look beyond the gut.

The baseline testing I typically start for steps 1 and 2 include:

Bloodwork through a conventional lab, such as Quest Diagnostics or LabCorp:

  • Complete blood count with differential and platelets
  • Comprehensive metabolic panel
  • 25-hydroxy vitamin D (25-OH vitamin D)
  • RBC zinc
  • RBC magnesium
  • Ferritin

Comprehensive Functional Medicine Stool Analysis

For young children, it is important to use a functional stool analysis that has age-appropriate microbiome markers. Each functional stool analysis has its pros and cons. My current recommendations for stool testing include:

  • Tiny Health (my preferred for infants and young children)
  • Genova Diagnostics GI Effects
  • Doctor's Data Comprehensive Stool Analysis
  • Diagnostic Solutions GI-MAP

Testing Beyond the Gut

Additional Bloodwork

(as indicated by clinical history):

  • Thyroid function tests (TSH, Free T4, FT3, RT3)
  • Blood sugar regulation markers (Fasting glucose, fasting insulin, hemoglobin A1c)
  • Zinc/Copper ratio
  • Environmental/respiratory allergen panel
  • Inflammation markers (CRP, ESR, homocysteine)
  • Autoimmune markers (ANA with reflex)
  • Fasting lipid panel
  • Infection panel as indicated

Urine Organic Acid Testing

(to assess nutritional status, gut health markers, mitochondrial markers, detoxification markers, neurotransmitter markers, etc.)

  • Genova Metabolomix
  • Mosaic Diagnostics Organic Acids Test (OAT)

Urine Mycotoxin Testing

(for mold exposure as indicated by clinical history)

  • Mosaic Diagnostics
  • Realtime Laboratories