Should You Get a Hair Mineral Analysis?

Written by Annie Eklöv in ADD (ADHD predominantly inattentive),ADHD (Primarily Hyperactive and Impulsive),Family life with diagnoses,Parenting Hacks,Self Care

Your hair tells your nutritional history. A Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis tests your hair to reveal data about who you are, how you live, what you over-consume, what your current diet lacks, and if you’ve been exposed to toxins. This data can be utilized to pinpoint what vitamins and minerals are missing in your diet and create nutritional strategies to bring balance to your body.

A Hair Mineral Analysis aims to correct body chemistry and improve cell functioning using the analysis as a guide for targeted supplementation.

If you have particular problems or symptoms, the clerk at your local health food store can tell you what vitamins and minerals could be helpful and make recommendations based on your indications, but there is no guarantee that their suggestions are what your body needs.

Many of us know when something feels off, but we don’t know exactly what the problem is. That’s where a hair analysis comes in handy. It shows us where our body is out of balance, so we don’t have to base our decisions on guesswork.

I’ve seen those I care about do their best to self-medicate. Most of us are aware when we feel ‘Off’ and try to fix it. Unfortunately, trying to ‘Fix’ an imbalance without knowing what it is, is like looking for your keys blindfolded.

Feeling tired all the time caused a family member to drink excessive coffee and eat insane amounts of sugar! We recently got the results from their hair analysis and found a reasonable explanation for this behavior. The problem was high sodium to potassium, high calcium to potassium, low sodium to magnesium, high calcium to magnesium, and low B6. The coping mechanism (Coffe and Sugar) was making the imbalances worse. Unfortunately, our bodies’ cravings aren’t always healthy.

Most of us know that vitamins and minerals are good for us, but it’s not common knowledge that ‘Good’ vitamins and minerals can be harmful or even toxic in the wrong ratio.

That’s why it’s important not to feed yourself vitamins and minerals if you have too much of them in your system and not enough of the substance that keeps these particular vitamins or minerals in balance.

Vitamins and minerals that should coexist in specific ratios.

  • Copper and Zink
  • Calcium and Phosphorus
  • Sodium and Potassium
  • Magnesium and Sodium
  • Calcium and Magnesium
  • Calcium and Potassium
  • Iron and Copper

Nutrient mineral levels and their relationships to other nutrients (ratios) determine how well your cells function and impact physical and cognitive performance. 

Misguided biochemistry balancing leads to all types of undesirable health consequences. It’s much better to balance biochemistry intelligently using hair mineral analysis.

Biochemical balancing is simply about eating a nutrient-rich diet, targeted nutrient supplement therapy, detoxification, and learning to avoid things that negatively impact your body.

What can a Hair Mineral Analysis reveal about you?

  • Mineral Deficiencies and Imbalances
  • Metabolic Rate (fast or slow)
  • Heavy Metal Toxicity
  • Adrenal Fatigue
  • Thyroid Function
  • Nervous System Imbalances
  • Mental Health Issues
  • Protein Synthesis
  • Chronic stress
  • Inflammation
  • Energy Levels
  • Liver & Kidney Stress
  • Blood Sugar Imbalances
    • Diabetes
    • Insulin resistance

What causes Mineral imbalences?

There are more causes for imbalance than I can mention here. Still, a few significant contributors are stress, chronic bacterial infections, chronic viral infections, eating toxic food, excessive pesticides, superphosphate fertilizers, bad drinking water, unhealthy lifestyle, poor sleep, poor diet, excessive sugar consumption, exercising too little or too much, and eating mainly refined foods with additives (E numbers).

Benefits of a Hair Mineral Analysis include:

  • Improved cognitive function
  • More energy
  • Better sleep
  • Correcting the metabolic rate (weight loss)
  • Emotional stability
  • Greater stress resilience
  • I’ve even seen hyperactive ADHD symptoms improve after balancing the body with vitamins and improved diet for 2-3 months.

I did a hair mineral analysis after pregnancy and nursing. I felt irritated all the time and guessed the pregnancy + nursing must have started an imbalance in my body. What I found was a vitamin B deficiency. I ate vitamins and slightly changed my diet for three months, and felt myself return to normal.

We did hair mineral analysis on our kids when they were six and seven. The results showed imbalances, but we tried to correct the problems by improving their diet because of their age. They did eat some kids’ vitamins under the supervision of a pharmacist, but you can’t give kids the same treatment as adults.

It’s a good idea to find a doctor who is positive towards and understands how hair mineral analysis works and consult with them if you’re considering testing a child. The doctor may want to do a blood test and a hair analysis. Doctors can suggest vitamins in appropriate amounts for kids.

A hair mineral analysis is easy to perform. You can either follow the instructions in the kit the lab sends you (ask a friend to cut a tiny bit of your hair at home) or visit a clinic that does it for you. When I lived in the USA, my chiropractor cut my hair and sent it to the lab for me. Since I moved to Sweden, I’ve asked my hairdresser to help me.

Checking if your body is balanced can provide extreme value for money as long as you know how to interpret the hair analysis. Most clinics include a 1/2 hour phone consultation with every analysis. When they get the lab results back, an expert will talk you through them and make recommendations for diet changes and supplements.

This is an essential part of understanding how to correct any imbalances. Ensure the clinic (health food store or chiropractor) you’re considering sending your analysis through (Most labs don’t accept paperwork from private individuals) provides personal service before you decide to use them.

If you aren’t going to incorporate your hair analysis results into your life, then there isn’t any reason to spend money on it unless you need to check for toxic substances in your system.

How accurate is a Hair Mineral Analysis?

The accuracy and validity of these tests are grossly underestimated and misunderstood (See references). They are often ignorantly dismissed as not being accurate or advised against when the doctor or practitioner has a complete lack of knowledge of how hair analysis works and little or no understanding of the 40 years of research behind HTMA.

Hair mineral analysis is highly accurate and valid if the lab does not wash the hair. Cleaning the hair at the lab washes away some minerals.

I send all my hair tests to Trace Elements (TEI) and Analytical Research Labs (ARL), which, in my opinion, are the best hair mineral testing companies in the US and do not wash the hair samples. I am not receiving anything to say this. All my hair analysis tests have gone through this lab, including the first time I sent hair in as a teenager living in the USA and the last time I got a hair analysis as the mother of three living in Sweden.

In Sweden, the clinic I use sends their hair samples to the Trace Elements lab in the USA for testing.

Most critics who say hair mineral analysis is not accurate are (as they say in Sweden), “Pulling everyone through the same comb.” In other words, they are not making a distinction between the labs that are washing the hair, which causes them to be less accurate, and the labs that are not.

Dr. Paul C. Eck, the founder of ARL (Analytical Research Labs), performed over 100,000 tests and correlated them to many different health conditions. He is regarded as the authority on the science of balancing minerals and body chemistry through hair tissue mineral analysis.

The research was done in collaboration with Dr. David Watts, founder of TEI (Trace Elements, Inc).

I am not giving medical advice. I am only sharing what worked for us because I hope it will help you.

References

Annie Eklöv

Originally from the USA, I moved to Sweden in 2004 when I married a Swede. My husband and I have three kids two of which have ADHD and Dyslexia diagnoses.

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