By Dr. John Maher, D.C.
Do you remember the old game Twenty Questions? You’d try to uncover the “hidden” object using only yes or no answers.
Nutritional Response Testing—NRT for short—works on a similar principle.
Instead of verbal answers, the body responds with a strong or weak muscle response during a simple neuromuscular test. A “strong” response, meaning “yes” feels brisk, firm, and steady, while a “weak” response, meaning ‘no” feels wobbly, shaky, or unstable. It’s not a strength contest—it’s a window into how the nervous system reacts to specific stimuli.
Step 1: Asking the Body About Its Organs
The first “questions” in NRT are: Which organ needs support?
The practitioner gently contacts specific reflex points on the torso and head—areas associated with organs such as the stomach, thyroid, bladder, and more. The muscle response reveals which organ is under stress with a “weak” muscle response.
Step 2: Asking Which Supplements Support That Organ
Once the stressed organ is identified, the next question becomes: What will help this organ function better?
The practitioner places various nutritional supplements—one at a time—on the patient’s body and retests the muscle response. If a weak muscle becomes strong, only then is that supplement considered supportive for that organ according to NRT principles.
“How Can a Supplement Just Sitting on the Body Change Anything?”
This is the most common question.
To demonstrate, I often begin by testing a strong arm muscle. Then I have the person place their cell phone near their ear—about six inches from the brain—and retest. Almost always, the muscle weakens because of the proximal exposure to the strong electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted by the phone.
Next, I place an EMF blocker on the phone and retest. The muscle becomes strong again!
We cannot taste, smell, hear, or see electromagnetic fields—yet the body clearly reacts to them. This suggests that the body is aware of vibrational fields in its environment, even when our conscious senses are not.
Modern physics tells us that all matter is vibration at different frequencies. Based on the above demonstration it’s not a stretch to consider that the body’s own vibrational field interacts with other fields around it recognizing what are harmonious vibrations and what are not. NRT allows us to access this otherwise unconscious wisdom!
Innate Intelligence: The Body Already Knows the Answers
This phenomenon points to something profound:
Your body has an innate intelligence—a built-in awareness of what supports health, what stresses it, and what is toxic.
If the body already knows the right answers, then NRT simply becomes a structured way of asking the right questions. Just like a skilled player of Twenty Questions, the practitioner must frame each question wisely, based on physiology, pathology, and clinical experience.
We no longer need to guess the answers. We simply need to learn how to ask the body better questions!
And That Is the Revolution
Nutritional Response Testing represents a shift in how we approach wellness. A quantum jump from the educated mind to inquiring directly with innate intelligence. It is both a science and an art—one that honors the body’s ability to guide its own healing.
For more information, visit Valley Center Chiropractic and Holistic Care’s website.
