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Apr 25, 2023·edited Apr 25, 2023

I had blood drawn for three micronutrient tests from Spectracell, vibrant, and Cell Science Systems on the same day and time. Of the three, Vibrant had the most deficiencies and Cell Science had the least. No deficiencies in the Spectracell test but it had 4 markers with borderline score.

My markers with deficiencies/borderline are as follows:

Vibrant:

WBC: B5 & vitamin A were deficient

Serum: Vitamin C was deficient.

RBC: omega 3 index was 5.32 which they consider average. AA/EPA was 36.6 which is considered high. I will consider taking fish oil.

Serum: B12 and vitamin D , 25-OH were high. Vitamin D was also confirmed by Labcorp to be high.

My manganese serum and WBC zinc are right at the minimum reference values so I consider those a deficiency just like with Spectracell (as you’ll see below)

Serum Inositol, WBC inositol, and WBC carnitine were also at or barely above the minimum reference values so I consider those deficient.

Spectracell:

Chromium, Glucose-Insulin Interaction, Manganese, and Zinc were all borderline. Vitamin A is at 75 which is barely above borderline so I consider it borderline or deficient. Apparently I need a lot of preformed vitamin A because of a gene snp. B2, magnesium, selenium, carnitine, vitamin E are barely above the borderline so I consider those a deficiency.

Cell Science:

Asparagine, calcium, oleic acid (omega 9) were the only markers with borderline.

Magnesium was the only marker with a deficiency.

My diet at the time was about 25 - 35% lean animal protein, 45-60% carbs mostly from fruits, and 10-20% fat mostly from nuts and animal protein.

No supplements two days before the test.

My usual supplement stack consists of b vitamins, multivitamin, amino acids, minerals, vitamin D, and choline with inositol. I wasn’t taking any fish oil supplements prior.

Overall, each test has its advantages and disadvantages. I really like all including Genova NutrEval. However, if I could only afford one test I’ll probably go with Vibrant because they measure both short term and long term micronutrient reserves.

I hope that helps someone!

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author

Thanks for sharing!

Isn’t Cell Science the same principle as Spectracell, that they add nutrients to your cells to see what makes them grow better?

If so what I find remarkable is that there is nothing in common between those two tests.

Perhaps because you don’t have any majors imbalances. But it brings me back to these methods being not validated and experimental with high uncertainty in their interpretation.

The important thing in my mind is to combine nutrient concentrations (are they there?) with functional markers (are they doing their job) and I think that is best obtained by combining Vibrant with ION + 40.

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The main difference between Cell Science and Spectracell is that the former uses the patient’s own serum to culture the cells while Spectracell uses a patented medium that was developed by the original inventor. Cell science measures way more nutrients than Spectracell.

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author

Interesting, though that doesn’t seem to shed any light on specifically why they are generating inconsistent results or which one is correct if they are conflicting.

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Sorry I don’t have cell biology or medical background. However, I would think the difference is because of the concentration of each nutrient in the Spectracell medium vs the patient’s own blood that Cell science uses (in addition to the nutrients they add). I think there will always be a difference in the results from both companies or any other companies doing something similar. I think there are also many other variables that are considered by the cells themselves that these companies are unable to account for. Even if the patients serum had the same concentration of each nutrient as the Spectracell medium, I doubt they both add the same concentration or amount of each nutrient since that would be proprietary information. Last year when I did both (Spectracell on October 3rd and CS on October 17th), I had 4 markers deficient and 7 borderline with Spectracell and Zero deficiency and 5 borderline with CS. Of the two borderline in CS, one was a deficiency and the other was borderline in the Spectracell. The other CS borderline markers a were not measured by Spectracell. They only way I would think we can do a direct comparison would be if both were measuring those markers directly like vibrant. That would be like comparing a labcorp vs a quest results. Even then I still would expect a difference due to machine calibrations, sensitivities, or error etc. Like I said earlier, both have disadvantages and disadvantages.

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I agree and take for granted that this is the *general* cause of the differences but what I am saying is that this gives us no information about the *specific* cause of any *specific* difference, and as a result, while they may both have strengths and limitations versus each other, we don’t actually know what any of them are, and that is probably also true for the people running the tests.

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Aug 6, 2023Liked by Chris Masterjohn, PhD

Helps me!

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This was such a fascinating read. Is there any chance that you have an issue with acetaldehyde levels? I recently read a pub med study that stated “We found that chronic exposure of NCM460 human colonic epithelial cells as well as human differentiated colonoid monolayers, to alcohol metabolites (acetaldehyde, ethyl palmitate, ethyl oleate) significantly inhibited biotin uptake and SMVT expression”. I do not drink alcohol ever but this seems to be the explanation for my chronically low biotin and vitamin A (retinoic acid) levels. Maybe I have reduced function of acetaldehyde dehydrogenase? I was addressing this with niacin but correcting my vitamin A with the recent large dose seems to have greatly reduced my need for biotin and opened up the way for me to take B6 which just might allow me to put niacin on the shelf. Just my current theory. Thanks for giving us a front seat to all this great data. It’s so helpful in getting a clearer understanding of the relationships between nutrients.

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Interesting comparison. Thanks for sharing it.

Have you checked your genetic data for biotinadase (BTD) variants? https://www.geneticlifehacks.com/genetics-of-biotin-deficiency/

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author

I have one SNP in BTD of unclear effect, and normal biotinidase activity.

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So many questions! Are they now directly measuring K2? I moved to the desert for access to sun and have gotten increasingly unwell. Could it be folate-related even though my folate levels are always too high to measure in LabCorp-type tests. I also have discovered by trial and error that I need far more vitamin A than is usually recommended. I would like to take the vibrant test.

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author

Sunlight can destroy other vitamins too especially riboflavin. It can destroy A too, in the eyes and skin. Especially if you have blue eyes it will destroy a lot of A since eyes have the most A. So no if your folate is high I would not think it’s from the folate.

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Based on Vibrant's Micronutrient Test, in general, why would Serum vitamin status be in a normal range, but intracellular status be deficient?

I know you've touched on ATP playing a role here as well as some possible transporter issues. Are there any other pitfalls to look for? If you have more than one vitamin in that status (where serum is fine, but intracellular is low), would you deduce that its more likely that ATP plays a role as opposed to a transporter issue?

**This might be a more nuanced question, and I'm not sure you can even answer this, with the (minimal) information provided. However, any input into this question will most likely be helpful.

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I just finished listening to your two part series on Pantothenic Acid. It was excellent, as usual.

With regard to B5, you state:

"...the best marker of, in fact, the only legitimate marker of nutritional status is urine concentrations, and that blood concentrations are not a useful marker of nutritional status.

In fact, I'm not sure exactly what I'm going to do for my Testing Nutritional Status: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet. I am going to have to remove the recommendation to use blood levels of pantothenic acid that are offered by LabCorp."

Yet in Testing Nutritional Status: The Ultimate Cheat Sheet you recommend testing plasma levels of pantothenate as it declines in nutritional status.

Did you change your mind?

Can you clarify where you stand on the utility of urine vs. blood for testing B5 status?

Thanks.

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author

Urine is better but the Great Plains OAT is the only test that offers it.

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Such a great comparison. THANKS for doing this! Sorry for this question but I got a little confused: Are you saying that Vibrant might be a good option to ADD on to what's in your nutritional cheat sheet (which has the Genova ION /organic acids plus all the different B's and other single line-items?). Or did you mean Vibrant can REPLACE Genova ION... I am not seeing organic acids on Vibrant Micronutrient Panel...

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Could you comment on the costs of the Vibrant snd Spectracell test for out of pocket costs?

I am interested, but my insurance won’t pay.

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author

Look them up on truehealthlabs.com

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