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Hair Mineral Analysis Help Interpreting

Messages
28
Can someone tell me what my hair mineral analysis means? Are there any hidden toxicities?
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aaron_c

Senior Member
Messages
691
Yes and no, at least as far as Cutler's Hair Mineral Interpretation. He needs to know what the various colored bands mean--what percentile they represent. What company did your hair mineral analysis?
 
Messages
28
Trace Elements. You can't tell anything from this? :( Any idea where I got such high strontium? I couldn't find any info about that online.
 
Messages
13,774
I'm not sure that there's any good evidence that this sort of testing is useful. Hair testing seemed pretty dodgy when I last looked, so I'd be cautious with this stuff.
 

aaron_c

Senior Member
Messages
691
Thanks.

According to Andrew Hall Cutler's Hair Test Interpretation: Finding Hidden Toxicities, you passed two tests for "deranged mineral transport." Test number one looks to see if you have five or fewer lines above the 50th percentile. He counts both "Nutritional Elements" and all of the "Additional Elements" except for Bismuth, Platinum, Thallium and Tin. While I am not 100% sure what percentiles the "reference range" represents, we do know that the line in the middle of the reference range is the 50th percentile. By my count you have only five elements above the 50th percentile, which means you likely (Cutler says 97.5% chance) have deranged mineral transport.

The second test you passed that indicates deranged mineral transport looks for four or more minerals whose values are either very elevated or very low. I count five values that appear to match or very nearly match this criteria (Calcium, Magnesium, Strontium, Titanium, and Germanium). Because I am not sure what percentiles the darkest purple and green areas of the chart represent, I could be wrong about this. But my guess is that he is asking whether any values go beyond the first "chunk" of darkest purple or green.

As I said, according to Cutler passing either one of these tests would be enough to suspect deranged mineral transport due to mercury.

Having said all of this, I am not an expert in hair mineral analysis, nor am I a physician of any kind. Given our problems with ATP, which is needed to maintain healthy mineral transport for many kinds of nutrients, I am not entirely sure that his conclusions would hold for us.

I would like to tell you that a provoked urine analysis will tell you the truth about your mercury levels in black and white--but that is controversial as well. Nonetheless, when I underwent chelation therapy that was how we kept tabs on my mercury levels and how we decided I was finally done.
 
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Messages
28
Thanks.

According to Andrew Hall Cutler's Hair Test Interpretation: Finding Hidden Toxicities, you passed two tests for "deranged mineral transport." Test number one looks to see if you have five or fewer lines above the 50th percentile. He counts both "Nutritional Elements" and all of the "Additional Elements" except for Bismuth, Platinum, Thallium and Tin. While I am not 100% sure what percentiles the "reference range" represents, we do know that the line in the middle of the reference range is the 50th percentile. By my count you have only five elements above the 50th percentile, which means you likely (Cutler says 97.5% chance) have deranged mineral transport.

The second test you passed that indicates deranged mineral transport looks for four or more minerals whose values are either very elevated or very low. I count five values that appear to match or very nearly match this criteria (Calcium, Magnesium, Strontium, Titanium, and Germanium). Because I am not sure what percentiles the darkest purple and green areas of the chart represent, I could be wrong about this. But my guess is that he is asking whether any values go beyond the first "chunk" of darkest purple or green.

As I said, according to Cutler passing either one of these tests would be enough to suspect deranged mineral transport due to mercury.

Having said all of this, I am not an expert in hair mineral analysis, nor am I a physician of any kind. Given our problems with ATP, which is needed to maintain healthy mineral transport for many kinds of nutrients, I am not entirely sure that his conclusions would hold for us.

I would like to tell you that a provoked urine analysis will tell you will know the truth about your mercury levels in black and white--but that is controversial as well. Nonetheless, when I underwent chelation therapy that was how we kept tabs on my mercury levels and how we decided I was finally done.

Thank you very much for the info. I have a lot of symptoms of mercury toxicity so I was wondering if I have that.
 

aaron_c

Senior Member
Messages
691
I'm not sure that there's any good evidence that this sort of testing is useful. Hair testing seemed pretty dodgy when I last looked, so I'd be cautious with this stuff.

For what it's worth, the conclusion I came to after reading Cutler was that, like most tests, HMAs can be accurate for some things and not accurate for other things. In Cutler's Hair Test Interpretation: Finding Hidden Toxicities he does a pretty good job of going through each mineral and indicating whether HMAs provide accurate data. It does not seem to be accurate for everything, and there are circumstances where a value that would normally be accurate is not such as mercury poisoning, which he gets into in detail.

I think we'd find a similar problem if we ordered a panel that looked at, say, serum nutrient concentrations, or even RBC nutrient concentations; those tests aren't accurate for every mineral found in the body. My two cents is that the problem with HMAs occurs when physicians assume that all of the values are valid.

I haven't looked all that hard at the anti-HMA side of things, though. Another project for when I recover, I suppose.
 

aaron_c

Senior Member
Messages
691
I have a lot of symptoms of mercury toxicity so I was wondering if I have that.

Good luck to you! Unfortunately there is a pretty decent overlap between the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning and the symptoms in ME/CFS. I finished chelation therapy years ago and still have many of the same symptoms that I had before. Nonetheless, I suspect it had value; When Rich Van Konynenburg did the trial of his simplified methylation protocol there were a few people that he failed to help at all. Some of them had known mercury toxicity and some...I'm not sure, but it seems like he thought that mercury could interfere with methylation supplements. Maybe because of the whole methylcobalamin binds to mercury and spreads it around the body? I don't recall him saying.
 
Messages
28
Good luck to you! Unfortunately there is a pretty decent overlap between the symptoms of chronic mercury poisoning and the symptoms in ME/CFS. I finished chelation therapy years ago and still have many of the same symptoms that I had before. Nonetheless, I suspect it had value; When Rich Van Konynenburg did the trial of his simplified methylation protocol there were a few people that he failed to help at all. Some of them had known mercury toxicity and some...I'm not sure, but it seems like he thought that mercury could interfere with methylation supplements. Maybe because of the whole methylcobalamin binds to mercury and spreads it around the body? I don't recall him saying.

Yes, the symptoms seem very similar to those of histamine intolerance as well. I suppose it wouldn't hurt to detox mercury even if it isn't the main problem. Did you notice at least some benefit from the chelation therapy?
 

PeterPositive

Senior Member
Messages
1,426
I'm not sure that there's any good evidence that this sort of testing is useful. Hair testing seemed pretty dodgy when I last looked, so I'd be cautious with this stuff.
I agree, especially for the main elements such as Na, K or Ca I am really not sure on what grounds one would conclude that there's a sufficiency or insufficiency of such mineral purely based on hair content.

Additionally there are several variables such as type and color of hair which could have different baselines of those minerals, and the use of shampoo and other products which may alter the local balance of minerals.

However elevated amounts of heavy metals in the hair seems like a valid indicator of possible toxicity. For instance I have had elevated Hg levels in periods where I was consuming larger amounts of tuna fish. When I lowered the consumption and added a bunch of antioxidants the levels were reduced by almost 50%.

I think for toxic metals the hair test can be useful.