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    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

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Messages
13,774
At first, I thought it was going to be group about low maintenance hair styles for the fatigued!

(Recently, I've found that hair dangling over my face leads to roseacea - I need it short).

A quick google made it look like there has been problems with quackery and hair analysis in the past. Is this a new test? As ever, I'd encourage people to be cautious about what tests they pay for, what treatments follow, and what they put in their bodies. It's best to try to make decisions based upon published data, rather than trusting someone who claims to be an expert. Good luck all.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
At first, I thought it was going to be group about low maintenance hair styles for the fatigued!

(Recently, I've found that hair dangling over my face leads to roseacea - I need it short).

A quick google made it look like there has been problems with quackery and hair analysis in the past. Is this a new test? As ever, I'd encourage people to be cautious about what tests they pay for, what treatments follow, and what they put in their bodies. It's best to try to make decisions based upon published data, rather than trusting someone who claims to be an expert. Good luck all.

LOL, I thought the same thing about the forum. I could certainly use a hair style that is low maintainance.

I agree out the about the potential for quackery. There have been studies where the same hair has been sent to different labs and they come up with different results.

Hair analysis is neither a valid nor reliable test. Things from hair dye, the water used for washing hair, exposure to things like cigarette smoke, your shampoo or just being out in the sun can influence the results of hair analysis.

I will come back later with some citations about hair analysis.

Please be careful, people. There are too many scams out there when our money can be used more effectively. That being said, it's a personal choice so I can only speak for myself that I choose to go by the science than by a theory that has not been proven.

Take care.

Barb C.:>)

Just out of curiosity, why is this thread under general treatment and not under alternative treatments? Absolutely not my decision, that but as I said just curious.

The following study is just one of many but I chose it as it cites other studies.

Assessment of Commercial Laboratories Performing Hair Mineral Analysis

Conclusions Hair mineral analysis from these laboratories was unreliable, and we recommend that health care practitioners refrain from using such analyses to assess individual nutritional status or suspected environmental exposures. Problems with the regulation and certification of these laboratories also should be addressed.
http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/285/1/67
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
Why is a birth date required to join? I understand the need for a full name for accountability. I am not in the habit of putting my full name and date of birth on the internet. That is just asking for identity theft.

Free sites do not generally have a high degree of security. I consider the term secure internet site to be an oxymoron anyway. I notice that it says, neither meandmyhair.freeforums.org nor phpBB shall be held responsible for any hacking attempt that may lead to the data being compromised.

P.S. I really am not trying to be difficult. I would just like a nice, safe place where we can get together and talk.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
Hair analysis is neither a valid nor reliable test. Things from hair dye, the water used for washing hair, exposure to things like cigarette smoke, your shampoo or just being out in the sun can influence the results of hair analysis.

I asked my doctor about this and he said hair analyses is only reliable in spotting deficiencies as anything on your hair can make it appear like you have too much of something in your body eg hair dyes etc can make some things look higher then they actually are, environmental factors can get on and enter hair too.

My doctor has found it useful thou in picking up some deficiencies in his patients (there are some things which should show up in hair) but said to ignore all the other results eg so he wasnt concerned about very high copper showing on my hair test but he wanted me to supplement with things found deficient. What he said does make logical sense.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
I asked my doctor about this and he said hair analyses is only reliable in spotting deficiencies as anything on your hair can make it appear like you have too much of something in your body eg hair dyes etc can make some things look higher then they actually are, environmental factors can get on and enter hair too.

My doctor has found it useful thou in picking up some deficiencies in his patients (there are some things which should show up in hair) but said to ignore all the other results eg so he wasnt concerned about very high copper showing on my hair test but he wanted me to supplement with things found deficient. What he said does make logical sense.

You can get blood tests that are reliable and can spot deficiencies, so why go with something that isn't validated as being an accurate test? I am/was deficient in Ferritin, a protein that binds with iron, B12 and Vitamin D so now supplement with these. I have had an iron infusion from a hematologist to bring my levels back to normal as I can't tolerate the iron and needed more than I could get in a pill.


Barb C.:>)
 
Messages
13,774
You can get blood tests that are reliable and can spot deficiencies, so why go with something that isn't validated as being an accurate test?

That's how it seems to me too.

Perhaps I can take a too relaxed approach to my health (I don't think I've been tested for any of these things by validated or alternative testing), but it does seem as if it's only worth going to the trouble of having testing done when there is good evidence to show that the results will be accurate and meaningful.
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
You can get blood tests that are reliable and can spot deficiencies, so why go with something that isn't validated as being an accurate test? Barb C.:>)

My MD said that there was not a reliable blood test for zinc, which I wanted tested. She said that tissue testing was better and referred me to a particular dietitian. I assume she trusted the hair testing lab that that dietitian uses.
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
Hi

You can edit your birthdate after joining.

Brenda

It is not so much the other members that I do not want to see my birth date as the message board provider. They can grab it before I change it.

They make the money to support the board with advertising. If you register, providing full name, birth date, and email address, you will see (fewer/no) ads. That means your personal info has some value to them. Since I do not know what they will be doing with it, I am reluctant to provide it.

I suppose the real problem here is that I want something for nothing. I would just not register and put up with the ads, but if I am not registered, I cannot post.
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
You can get blood tests that are reliable and can spot deficiencies, so why go with something that isn't validated as being an accurate test?

There was lots of things on my hair test in which doctors never tested me for.. eg how many doctors blood test someone for a molybdenum deficiency. If it wasnt for the hair test, I wouldnt have found out I was deficient.
 
Messages
13,774
There was lots of things on my hair test in which doctors never tested me for.. eg how many doctors blood test someone for a molybdenum deficiency. If it wasnt for the hair test, I wouldnt have found out I was deficient.

Have these results been confirmed elsewhere?

eg: If hair testing has not yet shown to be reliable, could it be that it wrongly found you to be deficient in molybdenum? Or have you since had this result checked and confirmed by others?

For myself, I've only ever had very minimal testing of potential deficiencies (or anything much really), so it is possible that further testing would reveal some significant result, but I'd want to know that the testing used had itself been shown to be reliable.

It could be that hair testing allows for testing of a wide range of different things that would not normally be examined, but if the results aren't reliable, it would still not be of much use. I've really got no idea about how effective hair testing has been shown to be, but it certainly looked like there were problems with it in the past, and I'm not sure if there's been new evidence in support of it's accuracy since then.
 
Messages
5,238
Location
Sofa, UK
There was lots of things on my hair test in which doctors never tested me for.. eg how many doctors blood test someone for a molybdenum deficiency. If it wasnt for the hair test, I wouldnt have found out I was deficient.
Actually, this seems to me like a very positive point for hair testing. It might not be thoroughly reliable and validated, and maybe some of the factors mentioned (pollution from environment etc) mean that it can never be definitive, but it does appear that the low cost of performing the test might make it a good way to get a very rough idea of deficiency patterns, and a broad spectrum of clues as to what to look into next. I would imagine that the battery of blood and biopsy tests needed to explore all the various different deficiencies that hair tests explore would be very expensive indeed.

Another big factor that would seem to be important is the 'historical' aspect that hair tests can potentially demonstrate - blood tests just take a snapshot of the state of the body at the point in time when the blood was drawn, whereas hair tests are going to potentially show you the averages - and even the history - over the last months or years.