Frequently Asked Questions

Biolab is a medical laboratory in the West End of London offering a range of specialist tests to assess the effects of a patients environment on their health. Most of our tests are used in conjunction with routine pathology tests to provide an in-depth analysis of a patients biochemistry.

No, Biolab is a medical/practitioner referral laboratory and can only perform tests that a doctor or registered healthcare practitioner requests (i.e. nutritional therapist, dentist, osteopath, chiropractor etc.). We send our reports to the requesting practitioner for interpretation. Patient should then discuss our results with the practitioner who will provide copies of the reports with their interpretive comments.

We measure levels of micronutrients (minerals, vitamins, essential fatty acids), other biochemical parameters that relate to nutritional & antioxidant status. We also have a wide range of tests to assess the impact of a patients lifestyle on their health (i.e. gut function tests, toxic metals, allergy tests etc.).

After a practitioner has confirmed which test you are having you can order test kits via our web site: Request Postal Test Kits. The kits for all requested tests will be posted to you by First Class Royal Mail/Air Mail post and you should receive within 2-3 days of ordering. The kit(s) will include full instructions and a request form that you will need to complete and return with your samples. You can email or telephone us if you require any assistance in using the test kits.

Yes for many of our tests we can post sample collection kits to addresses outside of the UK, most European countries, and America and Asia if a 24-48 hour return courier service is available for the submission of samples.

Some routine medical laboratories offer a few of our mineral, toxic metal and vitamin tests. There are no other laboratories in the UK that perform the full range of tests available at Biolab and many of our profiles are unique to Biolab. There are some laboratories in America that offer mineral and vitamin screens, essential fatty acids and various gut function tests, and there are a few companies in the UK that offer a referral service to these American laboratories (although they are not all laboratories in themselves), and in most cases Biolab test fees are less than these organisations charge. You should discuss with your practitioner which laboratory would be best to perform the tests you require.

Biolab employs a team of highly qualified and experience biochemists and scientists who perform all of our laboratory tests. Most of our tests use well established methods which have been widely reported in scientific / medical journals, a few are more specialised tests have been developed at Biolab and their methods and clinical significance have been published in the medical literature. Where available we participate in external quality assurance schemes enabling us to compare test results of a shared sample with other laboratories around the world. Internal quality control procedures are also used for each batch of tests analysed. Tests referred to other laboratories are only sent to pathology laboratories that are appropriately Accredited. Conventional hospital tests are referred to either The London Clinic or The Doctor’s Laboratory (TDL Pathology), both of which are UKAS Accredited.

Biolab is a highly specialised biochemistry laboratory, so unless your doctor has previously referred patients to Biolab, or belongs to the British Society for Ecological Medicine, or reads literature about nutritional and environmental medicine it is unlikely that he /she will have heard of Biolab. Thousands of UK doctors have now referred patients to Biolab since we opened in 1984.

We cannot tell you which tests you should have, but have to leave this to a healthcare practitioner who is familiar with your full clinical history. The type of tests requested will depend on your symptoms, diagnosed diseases, clinical history, medications & medical treatments and lifestyle factors. We can discuss with your practitioner which tests might be helpful, or we can recommend private specialists who are familiar with our range of investigations (most of these would be doctors/nutritional therapists in private practice). Our Medical Referral List includes a number of doctors from around the United Kingdom who are familiar with our work.

We only recommend doctors to patients if we know that they have a demonstrable interest in the field of nutritional and environmental medicine and are known to have attended further training in this field of medicine. Some areas have a greater concentration of such doctors (e.g. London) whilst in others there’s fewer to choose from, but we will do our best to assist. Please view our list of recommended clinicians or contact us directly for further information.

We offer food and inhalant allergy screens (IgE) and also food intolerance tests (IgG) – see Allergy tests.  See sample reports on this web site

From within the UK you can return samples for analysis by Royal Mail First Class post (or Royal Mail Special delivery if you prefer to guarantee next-working day delivery and to enable tracking). From outside the UK we recommend using an overnight courier (FEDEX, UPS, DHL etc.). From most locations in Europe we can book a FEDEX collection for you for a fee of £30.00, please contact us for rates & availability beyond Europe.

Your test reports will be issued directly to your doctor/practitioner on completion using a secure digital platform. We can also post reports if preferred.

Not directly, but we are always willing to discuss our findings with your healthcare practitioner.

We can write to your doctor and discuss our results in greater detail, or speak with him/her on the telephone, but we are not able to advise directly.

Only if you have spoken to your practitioner about the additional tests, and he/she agrees to assist with the interpretation of these tests.

Biolab can only accept samples by post/courier delivery to our laboratory in West London. Most of our tests can be performed on postal samples and we also maintain a list of Blood Draw Services in the UK who are available to collect blood samples.

All Biolab reports are sent to the referring practitioner who will consider the results and provide an interpretation and recommendations. The General Medical Council have advised us not to issue results directly to patients because we do not have full details of a patient’s medical history and we therefore cannot provide an adequate interpretation of our findings.

If the referring doctor is recognised by your medical insurance company, then sometimes the cost of any laboratory investigations he / she requests will also be covered. Please confirm what test fees will covered with your insurance company before the tests. We ask that patients submit their Biolab receipt/invoice directly to their insurers for reimbursement. If a healthcare insurer declines to pay for the tests then the patient will be required to pay us directly.

Many of our tests results are completed within 2-3 days of receipt of the samples, but some of the more complicated assays take longer. We therefore recommend that patients allow up to 10 working days before making a follow-up appointment with their practitioner to review the test results (up to 15 working days if test samples are being referred to American laboratories as with organic acids, IgG food sensitivity screens, stool tests and urine hormone profiles). Please see: Turnaround Times.

We ask that you pay for your tests when you submit your samples for analysis (prices are included with our test kits). Payment can be made by bank transfer, debit/credit card or cheque/banker’s draft. All payments should be made in Pounds Sterling (the UK is not in the Euro Zone therefore we cannot accept payment in Euros). If your practitioner indicates on the request form that he / she will settle the account then payment is not required and we will invoice the practitioner directly.