Hannah Zulueta Why They Call It a Practice
On doubt, data, and what happens before a number reaches you
Before acupuncture school, I thought medicine was black and white. Years in, I’ve learned how much gray area sits underneath a single bloodwork value.
Every Result Passes Through People First
A provider gives a prognosis. A likelihood, built from training and experience. Not a guarantee.
A lab result depends on where it was drawn, who drew it, and what equipment processed it after. Any one of those steps can go wrong. Wrong data in, wrong data out.
In a hospital, a junior team member often reads the result first and a senior provider signs off later, both between patients. In a veterinary clinic, the vet who ordered the panel usually reads it between appointments. Either way, a person is interpreting a number against a real animal, with the clock running.
Medicine is a practice in the plainest sense of the word. Providers spend years learning it, then keep learning for the rest of their career, because the real world looks different every day.
What Does the Research Actually Say?
I went looking for this research in veterinary medicine first. There wasn’t much to find, so I turned to human medicine. The problems underneath it, sample handling, interpretation, communication, and plain human error, are not unique to human healthcare.
The numbers were sobering, though years of patients arriving with disconnected records made them feel almost expected.
Acupuncture is often where people land after they have already been everywhere else. Providers in a busy clinic get minutes with each patient. An acupuncturist usually has an hour, and Chinese medicine spends that hour asking different questions: about sleep, appetite, thirst, temperature, the look of the tongue. A longer visit with different questions sometimes turns up something a shorter visit couldn’t. The first provider had less time and a different checklist. One more conversation, and one more set of eyes, can add something useful. When it does, the job is to send it back to the medical team, so everyone stays on the same page.
None of this is a reason to distrust every result. Treat any single number as a starting point, and ask again if something about it feels off.
Who Actually Answers for a Bad Claim?
A licensed provider trains for years before they ever see a patient alone. Board exams. License renewals. Continuing education, year after year, often a few thousand dollars out of pocket annually just to keep the license current.
Consumers expect a lot in return: fast answers, exact results, nothing missed. That’s a fair expectation. Anyone paying for care wants it done well.
A marketing company can promise anything, all the time. Ads running constantly, across every feed you scroll.
The regulatory standards are different. A drug company has to prove a claim to the FDA before making it. A supplement company can make a general claim like “supports joint health” without that approval. The label has to carry a line saying the FDA has not evaluated the statement, and the company can’t say the product treats or cures a disease. Enforcement usually comes after the ad has already run. And there’s no license behind a marketer, so there’s nothing to lose the way a provider can lose one.
Then there are the people calling themselves animal communicators or coaches, held to no licensing standard at all. Some claim to know exactly what your dog is thinking. That one still strikes me as opaque.
A drug ad has to include the risks. A supplement making a health claim has to carry the FDA disclaimer. Read the small print on both. It tells you which set of rules the product is playing under.
What Does the Difference Sound Like?
This is a skill, and you can learn it. Listen to enough people talk about health and you start to hear the difference in how they speak.
A trained, licensed provider answers to a board that can take that license away. That provider is there to help you. You can hear it in how they talk. Conditions get added, like “this depends on your dog’s bloodwork.” A problem outside what they do gets sent to someone else. And when they don’t know yet, they say so.
A marketing company is there to sell. You can hear that too. These are the red flags.
- It promises. Words like “cures” and “guaranteed.”
- A hedge word like “may” or “might” sits in front of a claim that otherwise sounds certain.
- You’re told to act now. Limited time.
- Your vet or your doctor gets criticized, so the product looks like the better answer.
- No license to lose and no board to answer to.
- One dog’s story is sold as every dog’s answer.
- The person recommending the product profits from the sale, and that is never mentioned.
- Someone claims to know what your dog is thinking.
- The FDA disclaimer is missing from a product making a health claim.
- “I don’t know” and “ask your vet” never come up.
A license alone doesn’t settle it. Plenty of good vets sell prescription food or supplements through the clinic, and say so. The trouble starts when someone who profits from a product talks like a marketer and never mentions the profit. Ask which job they’re doing right now: helping you, or selling to you. The credentials after their name won’t tell you.
Scammers and grifters are the obvious ones to watch. The quieter risk is the well-meaning person who doesn’t know the rules yet. Think of someone sharing what worked for their own dog, or a new creator, or someone just starting a company. They make claims about herbs, supplements, or food that sound like medical claims, without knowing that medical claims are regulated. The advice is offered kindly. It can still do the same damage as advice from someone lying on purpose.
Next time you’re scrolling and a health claim stops you, about you or about your dog, read exactly what it says. Then ask one question. Who is regulating them?
I keep the same careful distance from pharmaceutical companies and wellness companies. Neither one gets a pass because of which industry it’s in.
The global wellness industry, supplements included, is now close to four times the size of the global pharmaceutical industry, according to the Global Wellness Institute. That’s a lot of money moving through both industries.
The real question is how this whole system operates. Two standards are in play. Medical providers get held to one, and the wellness industry gets held to another.
We run to the wellness industry because it promises certainty. When the promise fails, we forgive it. On the medical side, we expect a perfect result every single time. That was never a fair ask.
People leave conventional medicine when they’re scared, far more often than when they doubt the science. The dog is sick. Your vet says “let’s monitor it.” Bloodwork comes back with no clean answer, and the prognosis has a range in it. Nobody wants a range when their own dog is the one on the table. Then someone online says, “I know exactly what’s wrong.” Certainty like that is hard to resist, and hardest when you’re afraid.
The person on the medical side spent years in training, then passed the exams, then kept the license current. What they tell you has earned that weight, including “we don’t know yet.” That answer is the training talking. Appreciate it.
No matter the intervention, the body will always say what is true for it.
So What Does the Number Actually Mean?
This piece is about trusting the process. If a specific value on your dog’s panel is the thing keeping you up, these guides go further into what it means.
The System Works Better With You Watching
A second look keeps the whole team sharp, you included. That’s what checks and balances actually look like.
TCM Dietetics work starts with the numbers you already have, whatever they say, and figures out what your dog’s body needs next.
Global Wellness Institute. (2024, November 5). The global wellness economy reaches a new peak of $6.3 trillion [Press release]. https://globalwellnessinstitute.org/press-room/press-releases/the-global-wellness-economy-reaches-a-new-peak-of-6.3-trillion-and-is-forecast-to-hit-9-trillion-by-2028/
Mize, R., Swanberry, C., Listro, L., Shih, A., & Lewandrowski, K. (2026). Analysis of safety reporting in the clinical laboratory of a large academic medical center: Frequency, type, and classification by phase of testing. American Journal of Clinical Pathology, 165(5). https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcp/aqag033
Newman-Toker, D. E., Nassery, N., Schaffer, A. C., Yu-Moe, C. W., Clemens, G. D., Wang, Z., Zhu, Y., Saber Tehrani, A. S., Fanai, M., Hassoon, A., & Siegal, D. (2024). Burden of serious harms from diagnostic error in the USA. BMJ Quality & Safety, 33(2), 109-120. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjqs-2021-014130
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (n.d.). Structure/function claims. https://www.fda.gov/food/nutrition-food-labeling-and-critical-foods/structurefunction-claims
Hannah Zulueta obtained her Certificate in Canine Nutrition from CASI Institute. She is also studying for her Doctorate in Acupuncture, Traditional Chinese Medicine, and Herbalism from the esteemed Pacific College of Health and Medicine. If you’re as keenly interested in health for yourself, visit her website for human health: Satori Acupuncture and Herbs.
She resides in San Diego with her three dogs, Maggie, Orbit, and Mr. Higgins.
She is available for one on one consultations. She develops evidence-based recipes that meet both NRC and AAFCO nutritional standards while integrating the therapeutic food principles of Traditional Chinese Veterinary Medicine into her formulations.
Additionally, you can find her sharing free content on Instagram.
