That "normal" label on your lab report... is it measuring what you think it's measuring?

Last year, I got my annual physical.

Everything came back "normal." All the boxes checked.

My doctor said, "You're healthy, keep doing what you're doing."

But I didn't feel healthy. I felt sluggish, my digestion was a mess, and I couldn't focus at work.

So I asked my doctor, "If I'm 'normal,' why do I feel this bad?"

She looked confused. "Well, you're within range."

That's when it hit me: "Normal" doesn't mean what I thought it meant.

"Normal" lab ranges are built from a statistical bell curve.

They're determined by testing a large population and saying, "Here's the middle 95% of where people fall."

But here's the problem: the middle 95% of the American population is... not very healthy.

We're a nation where two-thirds of adults are overweight, one in ten has diagnosed diabetes, heart disease is the leading cause of death, and most people report chronic stress and poor sleep.

The "normal" range is built from this population.

So when your doctor says you're "normal," they're really saying, "You're average for an average American."

And average for an American means you're probably prediabetic, mildly inflamed, and nutrient-depleted.

Optimal is the range where you feel good, have energy, your digestion works, your skin is clear, and you sleep well.

Optimal often means being below the "normal" high end of certain markers (like blood sugar or inflammation) and above the "normal" low end of others (like nutrient levels).

Here's something important: this isn't your doctor's fault.

Medical school trains doctors to identify and treat disease.

A cardiologist is looking for heart disease. An endocrinologist is looking for diabetes.

They're trained to say, "This is sick" or "This is well."

They're not trained to say, "This is well, but it could be thriving."

A fasting glucose of 95 mg/dL? Normal. Your doctor won't worry about it. But a fasting glucose of 95 is where pre-diabetes starts.

A ferritin level of 20? Normal. Your doctor won't treat it. But ferritin of 20 means you're running low on stored iron.

To see "Optimal," you need two things: comprehensive data (more than the standard 20 tests) and a different way of looking at that data.

This is the core philosophy behind Function Health.

Function tests 100+ biomarkers—5x what you get in a physical—and their dashboard doesn't just give you a "Normal/Abnormal" pass-fail grade.

It specifically shows you where you fall on the Optimal spectrum.

It's designed to flag things early, when they're "sub-optimal" but not yet "disease."

That gives you a window of time (sometimes years) to fix things with lifestyle changes before you ever need a prescription.

Keep your doctor for the ‘normal’ stuff.

Use Function Health for the optimization stuff.

It's the perfect partnership.

Learn more about Function Health here

Normal is just the middle. Optimal is where you actually want to be.