Provider Spotlight: Eric Ohling, ND


Dr. Eric Ohling has been practicing as an Naturopathic Doctor since 2010. After graduating with a Bachelor’s degree in business administration from Oregon State University, he attended and graduated from the oldest naturopathic medical school in the nation, The National University of Natural Medicine in Portland Oregon. He then spent three years practicing in Oregon and three years practicing in Washington State before starting his practice, Ohling Natural Health, in Utah. As with all naturopathic doctors, Dr. Ohling believes in the healing power of nature, the body’s own innate ability to heal, treating the cause, treating the body as a whole, prevention, do no harm, and the doctor as teacher. 

Dr. Ohling is not only highly trained but highly experienced in the use of bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, anti-aging treatments, endocrine disorders, and treating PCOS/endometriosis/hormone imbalances and testosterone therapy as well as many other conditions. As a Naturopathic Doctor, he is a functional and alternative medicine expert and treats the patient as a person. He believes the symptoms a patient presents with is the most important thing. When not at work, Dr. Ohling enjoys spending time with his wife, four kids, and his granddaughter. If he is not at home, you can find him enjoying the outdoors skiing with his family, hiking, rock climbing, and mountain biking. 

Watch our interview with Eric Ohling, ND:


Highlights/Transcript:

DUTCH: Thank you for sharing your story. We find this to be a good exercise in mentoring the community, our DUTCH community and potential community, everybody telling their story, because it always is kind of a story how you venture into this space of hormone health.

So what inspired you to become a healthcare practitioner?  

Dr. Eric Ohling: I originally started undergrad wanting to be a doctor back in ’88, and I chickened out and ended up getting a business degree. I worked in production management for probably, oh, good heavens, 15 to 20 years, but I didn’t like what I was doing. So I went back to school and finished up my prerequisites for medical school. I didn’t even know naturopathic medicine existed at the time, and I was ready to go regular allopathic medicine of medical school, and met an internal medicine doctor and she did acupuncture and I was really intrigued by that. She learned to do acupuncture at Bastyr University, and when I got on their website to look at acupuncture,  I learned about naturopathic medicine and I switched right away

I don’t have any, like, great story about “growing up I always wanted to be a doctor” or anything like that. It was something that I was interested in, I like working with people, I like helping people and that kind of drew me to medicine. I’ve always been good at science and so it kind of fit all those things. Once I got started in medical school, I really loved it, absolutely loved it. And I was working full time when I went to medical school, if I didn’t love it, I would have never made it!

DUTCH: What other functional testing do you do in your practice?

Dr. Eric Ohling: That’s a tough one, I do use DUTCH a lot. There are a couple of saliva panels from other companies that I use, but really rely on Precision Analytical for the hormone testing. I don’t do a lot of other functional testing with other companies. I just like the DUTCH kits, I like the way they’re designed, and I like how easy they are for the patients to use. I do do use other adrenal testing, not very much anymore, some nutritional testing, some heavy metals, stuff like that. But predominantly my practice has become endocrine, thyroid, adrenals, sex hormones, some diabetic patients, so I tend to rely on the DUTCH Test® a lot because it is so complete.

DUTCH: What changes have you seen in your patients in practice since you incorporated the Dutch Test®?

Dr. Eric Ohling: Well, that’s a great question. So in the past, when women would come in, and I use the test predominantly with women, using blood there was still a lot of unknowns, right? There’s still a lot of metabolites that I couldn’t check for in blood and so there was a lot of guesswork typically.

Now with with the DUTCH Testing, I get the results. I take an hour going through with a patient, really explain what’s happening. It’s allowed me to be very, very specific in treatments with a very good success rate right. I mean, probably somewhere in the 90 percentile of having success right off the bat.

DUTCH: Do you utilize DUTCH Testing as a baseline test?

Dr. Eric Ohling: Typically, yes. If there’s a hormone issue and if they have symptoms that suggest pathway issues, then absolutely. That’s one of the first things I’ll do. 

DUTCH: Do you often do much follow up testing after you prescribe treatment?

Dr. Eric Ohling: Not typically. The reason I don’t typically do a lot of follow up with with the DUTCH Test® is because once I know what’s causing the symptoms, I’ll monitored by the symptoms.

DUTCH: Where do you see functional and integrative medicine in 20 years from now?

Dr. Eric Ohling: I do a lot in biochemical pathways. That’s why I like the DUTCH Test®, I can see what the enzymes are doing.  I do work with a lot of patients that have methylation errors, for example, and I really see functional medicine moving in that direction, really targeting treatments based on specific genetic factors and symptoms. I’m excited about that, but I would say I’m also cautious about that.

DUTCH: Have you found that you’re practicing more virtually? Have you integrated telemedicine or had you already done that in your practice?

Dr. Eric Ohling: I’ve always done some telemedicine. I practiced in Oregon and Washington before coming to Utah 40 years ago, and there are still some patients that I treat in Washington. I have patients as far away as Alaska, South Carolina, and Texas that I get with. I am very close to the Idaho border, so I do have some patients that will come down and see me, but we also do telemedicine.

DUTCH: What do you do outside of work for fun?

Dr. Eric Ohling: I spend a lot of time with my family. My wife and I, we’ve been married twenty five years. We have four kids, three adult children, one left at home, one granddaughter. Our kids are all still local, so a lot of time with the family. We do a lot of outdoor activities, mountain biking, snowing and ski boarding in the winter, hiking, camping, you know, those types of things.