In Nutritional Balancing one of the most important concepts is the importance of minerals in human health. They regulate nearly every level of our biochemistry, as discussed in other sections of this website. Therefore, we realize the importance of measuring the mineral status of a person. A hair analysis allows us to do this and is the main tool we use for assessment of the biochemistry in Nutritional Balancing.
A hair test measures the minerals in the hair tissue during the months in which the hair grew. It does not measure the total body load of any mineral, as some claim, however the hair mineral values do give us clues to the overall mineral and heavy metal status of a person. The hair test measures 21 elements: the macro-minerals, trace elements, and toxic metals. The readings of the mineral levels do provide some information for our analysis, but the bulk of information that we glean from the test comes from the ratios between the minerals and the patterns the minerals make. We test about 1 ¼ to 1 ½ inches of hair and this gives us a reading of the mineral deposition over the most recent 3-month period. This allows us to look at longer-term metabolic trends. A hair analysis is not good for testing what is happening inside you right now, or even today, like many blood tests are.
A hair analysis is also soft tissue biopsy test. This means it is a cellular test, like doing a liver biopsy to see what is happening inside the cells of your liver. By measuring the minerals inside the cells of the hair we can infer information about what is happening inside the body.
One of the features of a hair test that makes it so powerful is that hair mineral values vary widely, often by a factor of ten or more. Contrast this to mineral values in the blood, which are kept in a very tight range even when pathology is present. And in fact, minerals are pulled from tissue storage sites to maintain the mineral balance in the blood. As a result of this, the hair test can be used as an early indicator for metabolic imbalances.
Unique to Nutritional Balancing is our interpretation of the hair analysis. This method was pioneered by Dr. Paul Eck and further refined by Dr. Lawrence Wilson, as described in other areas of this website. We use a hair test for a stress analysis of the body. We can do this because of how the minerals are regulated by our glandular system, which in turn determines how we respond to stress.
When you realize what the minerals do inside the body you can then use the hair test to infer information about the functioning of certain systems in the body. For instance, calcium is used in the body to signal the release of insulin from the pancreas when blood sugar is elevated. Magnesium is used to shut that signal down when blood sugar is returned to a normal level. Therefore, in Nutritional Balancing the calcium/magnesium ratio is called the blood sugar ratio. Another example of this would be the calcium/potassium ratio. In NB, we call this the thyroid ratio because calcium is responsible desensitizing the cells to thyroid hormone, while potassium is responsible for sensitizing them.
Many alternative health care practitioners randomly give their patients upwards of 30 supplements, not considering the many interrelationships those supplements have to one another and the intricate ways they can affect the stress response as revealed on a hair analysis. A hair analysis allows us to precisely target which supplements you should be taking. Furthermore, because we know how to use supplements for the specific purpose of balancing the minerals on a hair test, we find our clients don’t need nearly as many supplements as those who are randomly supplementing.
This is just an introductory article on what a hair analysis is, what it can reveal and how we use it to set up your healing program. For a more thorough article on hair analysis please see this article on Dr. Wilson’s website: https://www.drlwilson.com/articles/HA%20INTRO.htm
