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TDG
Test, Don't Guess — Edinburgh

The clinical investigation
your health has been
waiting for.

Many people spend years managing symptoms that haven't been investigated, only treated. The Initial Consultation starts differently: you complete your Case File first, I read it and prepare your Health Status Report, and the session starts with your picture rather than with history-taking.

Book Your Initial Consultation — £145 How it works
6
Intake forms, 1–2 hours
1988
Working with people since
1
Health Status Report

You answer once. You get back your Health Status Report.

See a sample (made-up client) →

Why conventional doesn't work

Your symptoms have been managed.
Not investigated.

Conventional medicine is exceptionally good at diagnosis and emergency care. It is much less good at the question most people actually have: "I don't feel well, and nobody can tell me why."

Fatigue, brain fog, gut dysfunction, weight that won't shift, hormonal disruption, poor sleep, recurring infections, autoimmune symptoms — these are the patterns conventional medicine struggles with, because they require investigation across multiple systems simultaneously rather than referral to seven separate specialists.

The Test, Don't Guess approach is built specifically for this gap. We investigate first, then treat. The clinical logic is simple: if you don't know the cause, the treatment is a guess.

What we assess

Eight body systems. One picture.

Most symptoms have roots in more than one system. The symptom questionnaire in your Case File scores all eight and looks for the patterns that cross them, because a single symptom list rarely points to one cause.

🔬
Digestive & Gut
⚗️
Hormonal
⚡
Blood Sugar & Metabolic
🧠
Stress & Nervous System
🛡️
Immune & Inflammatory
♻️
Liver & Detoxification
🌙
Sleep & Circadian
🏃
Energy, Muscles & Movement
Your investigation

Exactly what happens — in order.

01
Book your consultation
A secure booking through Practice Better. You'll then receive a private link to your Case File. The £145 consultation fee includes everything below.
Now
02
Complete your Case File
Six online forms: your health story, symptoms, lifestyle, medicines and supplements, your Metabolic Nature questionnaire, and your measurements. Allow 1–2 hours in total, in as many sittings as you like. It’s where the investigation starts: the history-taking happens at home, so our time goes on answers.
Before your session
03
Stephen reads your Case File and prepares your Health Status Report
Before your session I read all six forms: which systems score highest, which symptoms cluster together, what your medicines may be depleting, and which tests would answer the questions your answers raise. Your Health Status Report pulls it together. If anything needs more detail, I'll say so before we meet.
Before your session
04
Your Initial Consultation
Time with Stephen. We go through your Health Status Report in plain language, agree whether testing is worth doing and, if so, which tests and in what order. Your Metabolic Nature reading is introduced as a starting point for how you eat. You keep the report, and you leave with a plan and a testing pathway. The £145 is credited against the TDG programme, the Resilient Gut System or the Resilient Stress System if you go ahead within 60 days (not against single tests or monthly coaching).
£145
Free call or Initial Consultation?

One starting point,
or the whole picture.

Free · 20 minutes
One starting point

Before: a short form, about 5 minutes.

Best for: one clear question, such as “should I check my bloods?”

You leave with: one suggested starting test, or an honest “this isn’t for us” and where to look instead.

Afterwards: no follow-up unless you ask.

Initial Consultation · £145
The whole picture

Before: your Case File, six forms, 1–2 hours in as many sittings as you like. I read it all and prepare your Health Status Report.

Best for: several things going on, or “nobody has looked at the whole picture”.

You leave with: your Health Status Report (eight body systems scored; see a sample), your Metabolic Nature reading, a medicines and nutrients check, and a written plan: which tests in what order, what each would change, and what you can start now without testing (see a sample).

Afterwards: one follow-up question by message within 14 days, 30 days of AIdan Pro, and the session recording and a written summary if you’d like them.

Credit: £145 off a programme if you go ahead within 60 days.

Sample Health Status Report page, made-up data: radar chart of eight body-system scores, the strongest areas and the first place to look.
Sample Health Status Report
Sample written plan, made-up client: the twice-weekly 25-minute session, with drawings and coaching points for horse stance, plank, squat and split squat.
Sample written plan
The Case File is where the investigation starts: the most complete health history you may ever have given. It costs you nothing but time, and it decides whether the paid tests are worth doing. The history-taking happens at home, at your pace, so our time goes on answers. It’s also how I narrow the tests down to the ones worth paying for.

Not sure which? Book the free call and I’ll tell you.

Not for new or urgent symptoms that haven’t been seen by your GP. For those, see your GP first.

What I look at before your session

Your Case File.
Six forms. One picture.

I read your Case File before your consultation, so the session goes straight into what it shows, not history-taking. This is what I look for.

Already have blood results from the last 12 months? Send them with your Case File and I’ll read them as part of your report. If I’ve recommended a retest, it counts as testing through me even if you book the lab yourself, so it’s Results & Plan (£295, or £236 if you’ve worked with me before).

🧬
Metabolic Nature Reading
A direction and a strength on each axis, read from your Metabolic Nature questionnaire. It gives a starting point for how you eat, which we then check rather than assume.
🔍
Symptom Pattern Analysis
Which of eight body systems score highest, which symptoms cluster together across systems, and what those patterns suggest is worth investigating.
⚖️
Lifestyle and Stress Load
Sleep, food, movement, stress, supplements and environment, and the practical constraints on what you can realistically change right now.
💊
Medicines and Nutrients
If you take medicines, the nutrients they are known to deplete, and whether any of that should be checked before other testing.
🧪
Testing Priorities
The tests most likely to answer your questions, in order of priority. Sometimes the answer is that testing isn’t needed yet.
🌿
Measurements
Weight, waist and hip, blood pressure, resting heart rate and HRV if you have them: a baseline to measure change against.
📋
Your Health Status Report

Built from your Case File before we meet. It scores the eight body systems your symptom questionnaire covers and sets them alongside your lifestyle, measurements and medicines, so you can see where to look first and which tests, if any, are worth doing.

We go through it together in your consultation, and it’s yours to keep.

It’s a baseline built from questionnaires: not a test result and not a diagnosis. It shows where the questions are, so testing can answer them.
Sample page from a Health Status Report, made-up data: a radar chart of eight body-system scores, the three strongest areas, and the lowest-scoring area marked as the first place to look. Not a real client.
Sample report, made-up data — not a real client. See the whole sample report, with notes on each section, the sample plan that follows it, and how the whole investigation fits together.
And the plan that follows it

After the consultation you get a written plan: food, the day around meals, a short strength session with drawings, and how any supplements are set out, each with how sure we are. This is the sample, for the same made-up client.

Sample written plan, made-up client: the plate, with protein, carbohydrate, starch and fat amounts, plain-words guidance and an evidence note.
The plate: amounts from your Metabolic Nature reading
Sample written plan, made-up client: the twice-weekly 25-minute session, with drawings and coaching points for horse stance, plank, squat and split squat.
The session: twice a week, about 25 minutes

See the whole sample plan →

Which is for me?

If you…Start with
aren’t sure where to start, or what to testFree 20-minute call →
already have blood results (GP, any lab, any year)Initial Consultation, £145: I read every marker in your Health Status Report, with your history. Book → A retest I’ve recommended counts as testing through me, even if you book the lab yourself: Results & Plan (£295, or £236 returning).
want to test, or have GI-MAP, DUTCH Plus or OAT resultsResults & Plan, £295: results consultation, follow-up, your plan and 30 days of AIdan. Results & Plan →
want questions answered between sessionsAIdan, £50 a month. AIdan →
want ongoing help putting the plan into practiceCoaching, £95 a month. Coaching →

Testing is priced separately, on each test’s page.

Everything included

The Initial Consultation

Case File, Health Status Report and consultation
£145
Initial Consultation
  • Your Case File: six intake forms, 1–2 hours, in as many sittings as you like
  • Your answers read by Stephen before the session
  • Metabolic Nature reading (a direction and strength on each axis)
  • Symptom pattern and lifestyle review
  • Drug-nutrient depletion check (if you take medicines)
  • Priority functional testing recommendations
  • Consultation with Stephen Duncan FDN-P MSc
  • Your Health Status Report, yours to keep, and agreed next steps
  • A written plan: which tests in what order, what each would change, and what you can start now
  • One follow-up question by message within 14 days
  • 30 days of AIdan Pro, so questions between appointments get an answer
  • The session recording and a written summary, if you’d like them
Book Your Initial Consultation →
The £145 is credited against the TDG programme, the Resilient Gut System or the Resilient Stress System if you go ahead within 60 days (not against single tests or monthly coaching).
Secure booking via Practice Better · earliest appointment two days after booking, so there’s time for the forms · stephen@detective-health.com
What comes next

After your consultation,
three ways on.

£95 a month
Nutrition & Lifestyle Coaching

Follow the evidence, week by week: two short calls a month, a written check-in from me each week, and one plan for food, movement and sleep. Needs blood results from the last 12 months. About coaching →

A programme
When the tests say go further

The TDG programme for the whole picture, the Resilient Gut System for the gut, or the Resilient Stress System for stress.

A single test
One question, one test

Sometimes one test answers the question your Case File raised. See the tests →

The £145 is credited against the TDG programme, the Resilient Gut System or the Resilient Stress System if you go ahead within 60 days. It isn’t credited against coaching or single tests.

In clients’ words
“I would highly recommend Stephen's services in nutrition & diagnostic testing.”
— Gavin Ferguson, Google review
“Working with Stephen was enjoyable as we agreed on a targeted plan after running some tests.”
— Paul Ramsay, Google review
“He really knows his stuff and listens to what you have to say.”
— Jessica, Google review

Read all 8 reviews on Google →

Stephen
Duncan
FDN-P · MSc · Edinburgh
BSc (Hons) Developmental Biology · University of Glasgow
Postgraduate Diploma Health Informatics · University of Glasgow
MSc Coaching Studies & Applied Physiology · Heriot-Watt University
Functional Diagnostic Nutrition Practitioner (FDN-P)
Metabolic Typing Advanced · Healthexcel
Coaching and clinical work since 1988
Co-founder, Omnos (Regenerus Labs)
@stephenduncan_guthealth
"The question functional medicine asks is the one conventional medicine rarely gets to: not 'what is wrong with you?' but 'why has this happened to you?'"

I've been working in health and fitness for nearly forty years — starting as an athletics and boxing coach at 18, long before I had letters after my name. The academic side came later: a BSc in Developmental Biology from Glasgow, a Postgraduate Diploma in Health Informatics, and an MSc in Coaching Studies and Applied Physiology from Heriot-Watt — the programme run alongside the Applied Sports Science course at Loughborough. I was the first to complete it.

The clinical side came through Functional Diagnostic Nutrition under Reed Davis, Metabolic Typing through Healthexcel, and years of building and refining a framework that actually produces answers. I co-founded Omnos, a functional laboratory software platform now integrated with Regenerus Labs, and built the TDG Clinical Tool Suite used in this practice.

In that time, I've seen the same pattern repeatedly: intelligent, motivated people told their tests are "normal" while feeling anything but. The issue is almost never that something isn't wrong — it's that the wrong tests are being ordered, or the right tests are being interpreted against the wrong reference ranges.

The Detective Health platform operationalises nearly forty years of this clinical logic. It's the investigation I wish I could have done at the start of my career — with the precision and depth that wasn't available then. Test, don't guess. Always.

TDG

Stop managing.
Start investigating.
One session.

The answers you haven't been able to find might be closer than you think. They just need the right questions — and the right tests.

Book Your Initial Consultation — £145 Ask Stephen a question first