There is a blood test that began as a medical application but has developed as a fantastic holistic health assessment tool. It has a wealth of science and research behind it which validates its use in the context of health screening, and it can be used as part of a holistic health approach by the complementary therapist.

That test is called Dry Blood Analysis (sometimes known as the Coagulation Morphology Analysis or the Oxidative Stress Test).

Medical and Scientific History of
Dry Blood Analysis (DBA) 

Originally DBA was developed as a simple, quick health assessment of very sick patients that could be performed at the bedside. It was a solution to the difficulty of extracting enough blood from very sick patients in order to run tests. It was developed in 1939 by a New York Doctor called Emanuel Goldberger and he called it a blood film diagnostic test. 

It involved puncturing the patient’s fingertip and allowing a bead of blood to surface. A microscope glass slide was then pressed onto the finger in order to take up the blood. This was repeated three times resulting in three circular ‘puddles’ of blood on the slide. The slide was then left for 20 minutes, allowing the blood sample to dry. 

Once dry the blood films produce distinct patterns depending on the contents and the condition of the patients’ blood. Diseases left distinct patterns in these dry blood films and could indicate how serious the state of health in the patient was. By holding the slide up to the light, the doctor was then able to evaluate the patterns with the naked eye.

This test was further developed in 1942 by Dr Bolen and was used as a screening tool for cancer. The cancer disease process creates a large amount of oxidative stress/free radical damage from the breakdown of tissue which produced specific patterns in the dry blood films. In reality, however, the test was not as specific as this; it could detect the presence of any chronic disease – not just cancer – that would cause the oxidation and breakdown of tissue, including all inflammatory processes. 

In 1979 the Bradford Research Institute determined what was causing the distinctive patterns that appeared in the dry blood layers. They proposed a theory – The Reactive Oxygen Toxic Species (ROTS) theory of degenerative disease – which mapped the blood’s highly complex clotting cascade and determined how various chronic and acute disease processes interrupted this delicate homeostasis. 

They proved that the metabolic by-products of disease processes (ROTS) would damage cells, tissues and organs and that this damage to health could be assessed via the ‘HLB’ test – a name derived from the initials of the researchers. 

The test was essentially revealing the levels of inflammation in the body that was caused by free radical damage. 

Dry Blood Analysis can:

• Detect the presence of inflammation
• Assess the progression of inflammatory processes – chronic or acute
• Determine the location of the inflammatory process – organ, tissue or system specific
• Monitor the progression or reduction of the inflammatory process
• Detect heavy metal toxicity
• Reveal the presence of parasites
• Show mineral and vitamin imbalances
• Show antibiotic damage
• Detect bowel inflammation
• Assess the lymphatic burden
• Assess protein metabolism.