Salivary Hormone Testing for Fertility and Female Health: Why is it Better than Blood Tests?

Our resident kinesiologist and naturopath—Georgia Kilpatrick—gives us the low down on the benefits of salivary testing for fertility and female health.

The advantage of combining functional testing with kinesiology

Being a Naturopath and Kinesiologist, I use both functional testing and kinesiology in my consults. Functional testing measures various components within the body that I am then able to interpret.

Kinesiology is asking the body where the stress is, which can be different in practice than in theory. With kinesiology, we then balance the body, which allows the body to maximise any dietary and lifestyle changes plus any supplements, herbs, or nutritional changes we recommend.

Therefore, there is great advantage in combining the information of functional testing (and the understanding and interpretation) plus the kinesiology balance.

Functional testing for female health

With this in mind, functional testing is very useful information for many cases.  One major area is female and stress hormones in cases of fertility, period dysfunction, and perimenopausal symptoms (the time before menopause when periods can start to be irregular for no apparent reason). Our medical system does allow some blood tests by your doctor to be claimed on Medicare. However, here’s the problem…. the blood tests for hormones and stress hormones aren’t that accurate! Whereas, saliva hormone testing is. Here’s why.

Serum blood test

The serum blood test is the standard test when testing for hormones. Unfortunately, serum bloods only measure total hormone levels. Within total hormone values, it is broken into two more measurements. These are bound and unbound hormones. Approximately 90-99% of hormones found in the blood are bound to binding proteins, which does not allow them to bind receptors. Meaning, bound hormones are biologically inactive, and serum hormone tests cannot differentiate between bound (inactive) and free (active) hormones. This detail is what we need to know.

Saliva test

Yes, there are hormones in our saliva!

I recommend saliva testing for hormones such as oestrogen and its metabolites, progesterone, testosterone, cortisol, and DHEA. This is because for the hormone to get into the saliva, it has passed through cells and the saliva-gland tissue, thus it’s an accurate indication of active hormone levels . This means it shows us hormones that are bioavailabe to receptor sites and can be directly used by cells.

Time of collection matters

Hormone levels fluctuate throughout the day and change from day to day, especially with female sex hormones. It has been shown when comparing serum blood-test results and saliva collection results that serum blood tests do not reflect these fluctuations and are missing more important and detailed information. Therefore, the time of collection is important with salivary hormone testing. Collection in the first two hours of the morning, again at lunch, in the afternoon, and in the evening before going to bed is often recommended to get an accurate picture of what is happening. And for fertility reasons, the day of the cycle is often important too. It is easy and non invasive with no needles needed. This is a plus for many!

Book for a consult

If you are interested in salivary hormone testing, I’d love to see you in the clinic for a consult, and we can discuss which would be best for you. Call 1300 03 03 25 or book online anytime.