Most people have had the experience. You get your blood work back, half the page is flagged high or low, and the visit ends with some version of “everything looks fine.” You are left holding a piece of paper you cannot read, with a feeling that something is off.
That is the exact moment Traci Zizza built her practice around.
Traci is the founder of Root Cause Wellness, a holistic and functional nutrition practice, and one of the longest standing members of BNI Coastal Connections. She is a former biology teacher, a mother of four, and lives in Islip. For her ten minute feature this week she skipped the sales pitch entirely and did something better. She put a real case up on the screen and walked us through how she reads it.
The what, the why, and the how
Traci described her approach to functional nutrition in three steps, and it is worth understanding because it is genuinely different from what most people picture when they hear “nutritionist.”
- The what. A client starts with comprehensive blood work. Traci writes a prescription that the client takes to a standard lab, LabCorp, Quest or Sunrise, and it is not the short panel most people are used to. It is roughly twenty vials worth of markers. That gives her a snapshot of what is currently happening in the body, and it is usually comprehensive enough that she does not need more blood work after it.
- The why. Blood work tells you what is going on. It does not tell you why it looks that way. So the results drive a recommendation for deeper functional lab testing, stool and gut, minerals, food sensitivities, hormones, depending on what the picture suggests.
- The how. Then comes the part that actually changes someone’s health: a personalized protocol. Traci was clear that her specialty here is meeting people where they are, so that the plan is something the client can actually do.
The case study
The example she used came from a referral passed by a fellow member. The client had gotten her results back, saw page after page of flagged markers, and was frightened. Cholesterol. Lymphocytes. A lot of red. Her doctor had told her things looked okay, and she could not reconcile the two.
Traci ran the results through software that cross correlates every marker against every other marker, which produces a report identifying areas of dysfunction rather than isolated out of range numbers. The full report runs more than sixty pages. What emerged was a coherent picture:
- signs of a viral infection
- possible intestinal parasites
- immune insufficiency
- anemia
- gastric inflammation
The important part is what she did with that. She did not hand over a list of findings and wish the client luck. She asked the next question. What is causing the gastric inflammation. What is driving the anemia. How is this person living that got them here.
The answer, underneath all of it, was gut support and stress support. What the client got back was not a diagnosis to panic about but a phased plan, some targeted supplementation, functional lab testing to confirm the why, and behavioral changes.
Traci read the behavioral list out loud and the room laughed, because everyone recognized themselves in it. Tolerate. Push through. Compensate. Rescue. Workaholic. High expectations for self and others.
“Most people that come to our practice are doing some version of this, and it leaves their body needing a lot of help.”
What she sees in a gut test
Asked to go deeper, Traci showed what a stool test reveals:
- H. pylori, which can drive reflux, GERD, anxiety, joint pain, bloating and gas
- Parasites
- Depleted good flora
- Opportunistic bacteria releasing toxins into the intestine
- Leaky gut, where the lining of the intestine opens and things that were never meant to reach the bloodstream do exactly that
“This is kind of what I see all day, every day. And the fix is pretty simple, but you have to know what you’re dealing with.”
The line that landed
Mike Patti asked whether she provides a full roadmap for fixing those issues, and her answer was the strongest moment of the presentation.
Yes, she said, she could go in and eradicate the parasite, support detox, rebuild gut flora. That protocol is not complicated.
“But you cannot force the human body to heal. It has to be in a position to heal. You have to create an environment inside the body that tells the body it is safe to heal.”
Sometimes, she said, that means whispering to a client. Sometimes it means telling them to close the laptop, unplug, and set boundaries with work. Which is why she ends up working with so many business owners under chronic stress. They work and work and work, and then they end up with a pile of symptoms.
On compliance, nutrition and who she works with
Dr. Vic Gremli asked the practical question: how is her track record getting people off the standard American diet, when compliance is so hard?
Her answer was refreshingly direct. She does not work with everyone. She works with people who are ready to do whatever it takes to get well and stay well. Those are the people who show up already committed.
“Everybody is compliant and everybody gets results, because they’re ready. Other than that I’d probably be banging my head against the wall, and that’s why I won’t do it.”
On nutrition, asked by Eric Wuestmann whether she guides clients on what to eat and avoid, she gave the rule she keeps coming back to because it is simple enough to actually follow:
“If it wasn’t around when your great grandparents were making food, we shouldn’t be eating it now. Nothing has changed in our biology.”
Thermography
Root Cause Wellness now offers thermography on Long Island as well, which produces a thermal scan showing inflammation as heat. Traci explained why it matters: some people know something is wrong and feel it, but are not ready to act. Then they see the scan. Their neck, their gut, their joints lit up bright red.
“Inflammation leads to disease. When people can see that they have some pretty significant inflammation, sometimes it is disease, and sometimes that is how they find it.”
She was careful to note that her practice does not diagnose. But a bright red area on an otherwise normal scan tends to get people moving.
What she left us with
Traci had a warning for the people in the room who feel fine. Feeling fine does not mean nothing is happening behind the scenes.
“That doesn’t mean that the first very stressful event, you’re not just going to face plant.”
Her advice was not to wait until you are suffering enough to be desperate.
Traci offers a free consultation to members and visitors, including a metabolic assessment that she then sits down and unpacks with you, to figure out whether there is anything you should be doing and what that could be.
Or, as chapter president Mike Patti put it when she finished: if getting insight from someone as knowledgeable as Traci does not make you want to be part of this chapter, nothing will.
Connect with Traci Zizza
- Root Cause Wellness — https://rootcausewellnessny.com/
- Thermography — https://rootcausewellnessny.com/1867-2/
- Book a free consultation — https://rootcausewellnessny.com/contact/
Traci holds the health and wellness seat at BNI Coastal Connections, which meets Tuesdays in East Islip. See more member ten minute features or visit bnilongisland.com to find out about our open categories.