Hair analysis at ARL

Hi,

My hair analysis results should arrive soon. Just wondering if others here have used Analytical Research Lab, what they thought of:

1. the test and supplement suggestions
2. quality of ARL supplements, if used
3. health improvements as a result of following Analytical Research Lab (ARL) recommendations

Many thanks,

Nobody, really? What about some of you Aussies who spoke of your hair analysis and the importance of mineral ratios? Were you able to re-establish more normal ratios? If so, was there a lessening of some of your symptoms?

Thanks,

Never heard of them. good luck!

GG

Cause you put it in diagnostics/lab testing, not many people look here.

Yeah I got one done. I didnt really change much from it. I picked up some molybdenum but dont think i got a quality version of it. I'll have another look at my test now. I think its good to see about heavy metals and your tendency towards certain minerals.

My iron was low yet taking iron tablets stuffs me up and i eat lots of meat, so it wasnt that - zinc seemed to help contribute the most to color of the skin.
Generally if say magnesium is low, you'll may issues with calcium too. At the time i was trying to be a vegetarian so i imagine my results were all screwed anyway.

Did you pick up the report version too Lou? As the report is useful. Tell me about your results when you get them?

Gavman said:

Cause you put it in diagnostics/lab testing, not many people look here.

Yeah I got one done. I didnt really change much from it. I picked up some molybdenum but dont think i got a quality version of it. I'll have another look at my test now. I think its good to see about heavy metals and your tendency towards certain minerals.

My iron was low yet taking iron tablets stuffs me up and i eat lots of meat, so it wasnt that - zinc seemed to help contribute the most to color of the skin.
Generally if say magnesium is low, you'll may issues with calcium too. At the time i was trying to be a vegetarian so i imagine my results were all screwed anyway.

Did you pick up the report version too Lou? As the report is useful. Tell me about your results when you get them?

Click to expand...

Hi Gavman,

Thanks for your input. There was a detailed report, the main features showing I was a mixed oxidizer, too high sodium/ potassium ratio, elevated zinc/copper ratio, far too much selenium(but they said this was probably from use of Selsum Blue shampoo). The only other individual mineral high was sodium, but this, too, at least to some extent was attributed to occassional use of baking soda(had actually just used strong solution of it to wash hair before test).

Copper and molybdenum levels were quite low. Iron was low. Boron didn't even register. Chromium, manganese, phospherous, magnesium and zinc levels were all slightly low, but not much. Calcium was right on the ideal level.

As to what you said about your iron level: I'm far from an expert, but I did learn treating a deficiency or an excess is in many cases much more complicated than taking(or not taking) the mineral in question. For intance, sometimes iron levels can actually be lowered further by TAKING an iron supplement. If one's copper or B12 levels are sufficiently low, then it's possible the iron never gets matabolized, or I think the other description was iron uptake is impaired. And as you probably know, too much zinc can make a cu deficiency worsen.

I do think correct levels and balancing of minerals are a lot more important for our condition than credited. Elemental, if you'll excuse the double meaning.

Thanks again, hope this is of some help.

ARL is a good choice. It is one of only two labs that don't wash their samples with acetone or detergent.

There have been studies that show the accuracy is often quite varied when a lab does wash samples, as it can often skew the water soluble minerals. Just search google for hair analysis washed hair samples for quite a bit of info.

The other lab that does not do this is Trace Elements Inc. by http://www.hairanalysiskit.com/

Which is the one I have been using. I've been happy with their results and the supplements for re-balancing minerals are working well 3 months later.

They have a good health consultant there that you can easily get on the phone with too so that helped me a bit in my choice. All the other places I was only able to get a hold of people by email and they didn't sound very knowledgeable, or just customer service people which was a bit of turn off.

Hope this helps, either of the two labs would do a good job though. I spent 2 weeks searching around and reading up on it so those were the ones I narrowed down to.

Jessica L

Hi. I used InterClinical Laboratories for my hair analyses (that lab was recommended to me by my specialist), so posted my hair to New South Wales.

Hair analyses can be inaccurate due to what the hair picks up from outside sources and hence may show a high reading of something which isnt necessarily related to what is in the body. It thou is great for picking up deficiencies of things thou as it can tell if you are low in something.

Mine showed extremely low molybdenum (it hardly showed up on the graph at all.. nearly nil and no where close to normal range. Mine also showed extremely high copper.. molybdenum helps take copper out of the body so I guess caused in my case high copper due to it being so extremely low. (that's my theory seeing it does affect copper).

Due to the above.. I strongly suggest to get your low copper up first before working on getting your molybdenum up as quite possibly it could make your level even lower otherwise.

My hair analyses had nearly every thing out in the balances.. also had NIL quite a few other trace elements too so who knows what that is doing to me.

due to my results, my specialist also recommended me to take Selenium. Also he put me onto something called "molyzinc" thou my zinc level was fine (its a supplement which has a combination of molybdenum and zinc). Five days after I started taking those supplements, I certainly had an improve in brain function and suddenly found I could do maths in my head again and have been able to do that ever since. So in my case.. getting that hair analyses done has really helped me.
.....

For anyone wanting to get this done throu InterClinical Laboratories. I can say they do give you a very good report (mine is 10 pages long) with also recommendations on treatment of the findings.

There is lots in my hair analyses report which does explain various issues I have
eg I have a low iron/copper ratio and it says that can be antagonistic to iron metabolism. That was very interesting to read as thou my blood levels of iron are good (I eat meat 3 times daily and in large amounts.. i crave meat), strangely I have no iron being stored, showing up on my blood tests so that test came back mentioning anemia. So I now assume my very high copper level to my iron, must be causing that issue I have with my iron storage too.

Ive asked around about others hair analyses and what they found in the past as far as the molybdenum goes, it seems nearly all of us with ME/CFS have that coming out in our tests as being low.
When babies are born with issues in which they dont have any of this trace mineral it causes them neuro issues etc (and death). With the ME, Ive always had a lot of neuro issues (very MS like at times).