One Test Sees One Moment; the Body Holds the Years

One Test Sees One Moment; the Body Holds the Years

"Last year's tests were normal and this year's are normal, but I am certainly not what I was."

Two things in that sentence do not match. The numbers are unchanged, and yet the person has changed. I do not take it that one of the two must be wrong. They are looking at different spans of time.

Some Tests Do Read Time

Let me be clear about one thing first. To say that tests only see today would not be true.

HbA1c is a good example. Blood sugar rises and falls with what you ate and when the sample was drawn, but HbA1c holds the average of the past two or three months, because glucose attaches gradually to red cells over the span they live. Being careful at one breakfast will not move it much. It is a test designed to hold time.

The same goes for measuring blood pressure across a whole day, or recording the heartbeat over twenty-four hours. They were built to show a course, not a single value.

Most of Them, Though, Measure Today

Yet a good share of the tests we usually receive are not like that. Blood drawn today, an image taken today, a pressure measured today.

And the body was not made in a day. Tissue changes character with use, the force that springs back grows duller over the years, and a healed place remains in a weave unlike the original. Some places are replaced within days; others run on their originals for a lifetime.

Today's value being normal, and the years having left nothing behind, are not the same statement.

What Accumulates Changes Character More Than Numbers

Here is the center of what this part is about.

What time leaves in the body is usually not a number but a character: how far something stretches, how well it springs back, how freely it glides, how quickly it is replaced. Such characteristics are often not among the items being measured. So they do not appear on the report, and they do remain in the body.

That is generally where "all the tests are normal, but I am not what I was" comes from. It is not exaggeration. It means two different spans of time are being read.

So I Ask About the Course, Not the Present

In the consulting room I often ask when it began. Months or years, and what changed in between. From today's state alone it is hard to tell whether a place is getting worse now, worsened and then stopped, or is slowly coming back.

And what time made generally comes back over time. This is not cause for discouragement. Coming on slowly also means it is not urgent, and it means that if the conditions are changed, the body moves a little in that direction. The chapters that follow look at that accumulating and returning one at a time.

That said, if something worsens noticeably within a few weeks, if weight falls without reason, or if pain wakes you at night — that is not the story of the years. Tests to find the cause come first.

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Tests mostly measure today. They measure it accurately. But the body is not made of today alone.

If last year and this year are both normal and you are still not what you were, what changed in between may not be the value but the character of the body that produces it.

Related Reading

• The Body Does Not Age All at Once — different clocks in different places
• What a Scar Leaves Behind — the weave that remains in a healed place

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Sources

• HbA1c holds the average blood glucose over roughly the three months a red cell lives — StatPearls, Hemoglobin A1C, 2023
• About 1.1% of human cells are replaced each day, so the cellular mass of the body turns over roughly every 2.4 years — Tissue Homeostasis and Non-Homeostasis, 2023

Written by Dr. Heo Ji-young (PhD in Korean Medicine Pathology, Kyung Hee University · former Research Professor of Herbology, Kyung Hee University)