With just a small sample of urine, blood and saliva, Bio Terrain Analysis is a simple test that gives you an overview of the entire internal environment of your body. This internal environment in which cells grow is what we term the �bio terrain�.

This test demonstrates whether your lifestyle, diet or supplement�s are actually doing you any good. It also indicates which dietary and lifestyle changes would benefit you the most. Think of your body as a fish tank. Think of the importance of maintaining the integrity of the internal fluids of the body that your cells "swim" in daily. Just like a fish in a tank, your cells and organ systems live in fluids, which transports nutrients and removes the waste. If polluted, the fish sickens and eventually dies; so also with your cells; if the fluid becomes fouled by our own toxic waste or damaging chemicals ingested or absorbed from the environment, then our cell function will be impaired and waste removal deteriorates further.

Technically Biological Terrain Analysis is not a diagnostic test as such; What it actually offers are straight forward biophysical measurements of factors known to be contributory to biochemical dysfunction i.e. are invariably precursors of clinical disease. For this reason Biological Terrain Analysis is used to decide treatment programmes, to monitor patient progress and occasionally to highlight the necessity for additional medical tests.

Biological Terrain had its beginnings in Europe and is based largely on the clinical research of a noted professor named Louis Claude Vincent. He discovered that the key to healing the body was not found merely in administering drugs. Rather, he believed that the key was found in the biochemistry of the body. His belief, based on a lifetime of gathering and evaluating human clinical data, was that the building blocks of life, the elements, amino acids, enzymes, molecules and atoms found within the bodily fluids (the blood, urine and saliva), provided vital data about the way that the body was actually functioning.

By monitoring the subtle yet powerful values of pH (acidity and alkalinity), oxidation-reduction potential or redox (the electron potential and enzymatic activity) and resistivity (molecular ion movement) of these bodily fluids and then by making changes at a biochemical level, cell health and vitality could be re-established within the body better enabling it combat illness and disease naturally.

The goal is to gain a deeper understanding of the in-depth elements within your chemistry and recommend the exact forms of therapy and nutrition to help you regain and maintain a healthy internal biochemical environment. Making changes at this level can then, in time, translate to creating vitality and health for every cell, tissue, organ and gland within your body.

The pH measurement can indicate if your bodys functional biochemistry is too acidic or too alkaline, whether enzymatic activity in the body is occurring properly, and if digestion and absorption of vitamins, minerals, and nutrients is adequate. This measurement can also alert the practitioner to environmental or industrial contaminants, substances that can prove very damaging to the bodys delicate chemistry.

The oxidative-stress values indicate the electron movement and concentration in your system. The effects of stress, poor air quality, and food lacking in nutritional value, along with lack of aerobic exercise generally result in values much higher than optimal. If these values continue to remain elevated for extended periods of time, the body becomes more susceptible to illness, disease, degeneration, and premature aging.

Minerals are reflected in the resistivity measurements. If minerals are deficient, enzymatic reactions cannot occur; conversely, if mineral content is elevated, congestion, and stagnation of vital dynamic fluids may ensue.

Nowadays saliva is increasingly being chosen as a biological fluid for detection of numerous biochemical markers such as hormones, antibodies, electrolytes, and drugs. The science of finding minute traces of various chemicals has advanced enormously under the influence of forensic, sports and preventative medicine.

With saliva, sample collection is non-invasive and much more convenient for both patient and practitioner compared to, for example, the taking of blood samples, especially when a number of samples may be required over a 24 hour period.

In saliva, only the biologically active part of the hormone, which is not protein bound, is being measured � and this in effect represents the �free� fraction of the hormone in question. With the possibility of evaluating a saliva sample from multiple conditions it becomes increasingly more possible to put together profiles which are appropriate to the diagnosis and or monitoring of various diseases and illnesses.

And inevitably, because the concentration of analysed materials in saliva is so much less than the concentration of hormone in the blood, specialised and highly sophisticated assays for their quantification in saliva have had to be developed. The following saliva based tests are used by The Chiron Clinic although the first has been the most required to date: