Don’t forget to refer to our Glossary to define the phrases in quotes on your hair test graph!
Video Transcript:
This is an example of a Hair Analysis Test Results Graph. In order to understand your own test graph, we are going to introduce you to the different sections of the graph to prepare you for your consultation.
At the top you will see your name, gender, age, the date the test was performed, the number the lab assigned you which will be the same every time you test, and your practitioner’s name. If you see any errors in this information, feel free to notify [your practitioner] [us] .
Below that are the nutrient minerals. These are some of the most important minerals in your body, and the levels of these in the hair tell us a lot about how your internal body chemistry is functioning.
You will see the name of the mineral and above that is a number which is your test result. Above that is a black bar that shows your test result compared to the ideal level. The ideal level is shown by a grey line that crosses each mineral reading. For example, calcium’s ideal level is 40, magnesium is 6 and so on. Underneath each mineral, you can see the scientific symbol for that mineral, for example, calcium is Ca.
When these levels are either too low or too high, it shows a tendency for imbalance in the body. The body functions at its best when these levels are close to or at their ideals.
Levels can be too high or too low for various reasons, which [we] [your practitioner] will go over with you when reviewing your test results. But it is important to know that just because a level is low in your hair, does not necessarily mean you need to eat more of that mineral. And just because a level is high in the hair does not mean you have too much of that mineral in your diet or in the rest of your body.
In fact, a high level of a nutrient mineral in the hair is usually either a loss of that mineral into your hair due to some imbalance or is a toxic form of that mineral being pushed out into the hair. As you can see, this is more complicated that it would seem.
It took several decades for Dr. Eck and his fellow researchers to decode the complexities of these hair test readings (pictures of Eck and Wilson) and what to do to correct them. We will explain the significance of each of your nutrient mineral levels you during your consultation.
The first four of these nutrient minerals are some of the most important. Calcium, Magnesium, Sodium and Potassium. These four minerals exist in very large quantity in your body, and different conditions inside your body will cause different amounts of these minerals to be pushed out into your hair. Therefore, the levels of these minerals in your hair tell us a lot about your metabolism. They provide most of the information we use to design your nutrition program. So [we] [your practitioner] will be spending some time going over these levels during your consultation.
The ratios between these four minerals are also important. These ratios are shown on the bottom of your graph page. Balancing these four levels and their ratios and bringing them towards their ideals will be a major focus of your nutritional program. When these levels are corrected, your body can function at its best. Your metabolism and energy production are optimized, the immune system is strong, toxic metals and chemicals are released efficiently and disease is much less likely to occur.
Other nutrient minerals are tested, as well, such as zinc, copper and manganese. Each has importance in the body, and most people are deficient in these minerals today due to a lack of them in our food. Also, poor diet, toxins, stress, and imbalance in the body chemistry cause a further loss of these minerals from our bodies. So this causes us to be even more deficient in them.
These deficiencies contribute to many different health problems. Over time on your health program, you will be replenishing these minerals with diet and supplements.
It is important to know that sometimes on an early hair test, one of these nutrient minerals can look closer to the ideal level than it actually is. For example, certain toxins in the body push zinc out of where it belongs in the body and into the hair. This will make the zinc reading look higher on the graph than it really is. This is why we do not use the zinc level on the graph to determine how much zinc we give you. As you do the nutrition program and the body gets rid of the toxins, the zinc reading in the hair can actually down on a future hair test because the body can now retain this mineral in the organs or other vital tissues where it belongs.
Down below the nutrient minerals are the toxic metals. There are many toxic metals in the environment, and we don’t test all of them. But these metals here are some of the most common — everyone is exposed to them through the air, water, food, skin and bath products, etc. — and the levels of these in your hair tell us a lot about how your body is handling toxic metals in general.
Think of the hair as a trash can for toxic metals. Toxic metals show up in the hair under two different circumstances: the first is when you are first poisoned by that toxin. If you eat a toxic metal, for example, it is absorbed in the intestines and circulates around the blood until the body either properly gets rid of it or until it gets stored [in your cells] for future elimination. While it circulates around, some of it can go into the hair causing a higher hair level.
People who eat a lot of sushi, for example, always have high levels of mercury in their hair, because they are being poisoned with mercury every time they eat sushi.
The second situation where toxic metals show up in the hair is when the body is digging the toxins out of places they were trapped or stored [in the cells] and is pushing them out [into the blood] to finally get rid of them. So a toxic metal level will go higher on a hair test graph during a detox of that metal.
So if a level of a toxic metal is high on your test, it means you either have been exposed to that metal in the last few months or you have a lot of it circulating around in your body in an attempt to get rid of it. For many people, the body isn’t strong enough to efficiently remove toxic metals. So they wind up collecting toxic metals in various places in their bodies. On the test graph, we often see this as very low levels of most or all of the toxic metals. This doesn’t mean you don’t have these metals. It means your body is not doing a good job of getting rid of toxic metals, so the trash can is not filling up quickly enough. Our goal is to get your body strong enough to get rid of these metals. When that happens, the body pushes the metal out of a cell or tissue and circulates the metal to send it to the liver, the kidneys or other areas to be removed, and often some of the metal goes into the hair at that time. We will see this on your retest graphs — the level of that toxic metal goes up on the graph when it is being detoxified — and it is an exciting part of doing the retests. We want to see the trash can getting full of these metals. So when a toxic metal level goes up on a future hair test, it is a sign that that the body is now getting rid of it. Of course, if you suddenly get exposed to more of that toxic metal for some reason, that exposure can raise the level, too, and of course it is best to avoid toxic metals in the environment as much as possible.
Some of the nutrient minerals can also be in toxic form in the body, such as copper, manganese, and iron. These toxic forms should be either gotten rid of or converted into a usable form. When these levels are very low on the test graph, it is often a sign that the body isn’t doing a good job of getting rid of the toxic forms of these minerals. For manganese and iron, very low levels are also a sign of fatigue, because these two minerals in toxic form can act as irritants and stimulants in the body and can actually support your energy systems. The body is very smart and will use these two toxic minerals to make your adrenals and thyroid produce more hormones so that you are not as tired. In fact, the body uses many different toxic metals to support energy or as spare parts when the correct mineral isn’t available.
A very high level above the ideal on these minerals is usually a toxic form of that mineral being pushed out into the hair. The same is true for high levels of chromium and selenium, which can also be in toxic form.
To the right of the toxic metals are other minerals. The first of these is nickel which is actually toxic, too. So we discuss nickel as one of the toxic metals. The other readings in this box aren’t as significant unless a level is unusually high, which is not very common.
At the bottom of the graph are the significant mineral ratios. We will be discussing the first four. These have to do with the ratios between the first four readings of the graph: calcium, magnesium, sodium, and potassium. If you look at the calcium reading on your graph you will see the letters “ca” underneath the word calcium. Magnesium is mg, sodium is Na and potassium is K. The first of the significant ratios is calcium to magnesium or Ca slash Mg. The ideal ratio is shown and it is 6.67 calcium to every one magnesium. This is the ratio the body tries to maintain between these minerals. This is true whether these levels are high or low. Next to the ideal ratio it shows your ratio. Next to that it shows what percentage of the ideal your ratio is (so 200% means the ratio is twice what it should be), and to the right of that is a bubble representation of where your ratio falls compared to the ideal. The Calcium to Magnesium ratio has a lot to do with how well a person is tolerating carbohydrates or sugars. If your ratio is either too high or too low, it shows you are exceeding the amount of sugar in your diet that your body can handle. Each person’s tolerance for sugars is going to be different based on the state of their body chemistry. For many people, even the sugar in fruit is too much for the body to handle easily, and it can cause this ratio to go out of balance. So this ratio has a lot to do with the diet. However, a ratio over 13.5 has a lifestyle stress component to it which we can review with you if yours is at that level.
The Ca/K ratio. We call this ratio the thyroid ratio. It’s calcium to potassium. With this ratio we are looking at the trend in the body towards either a reduced thyroid effect in the cells of the body or an excessive thyroid effect in the cells. Your thyroid is located in your throat area. It makes hormones that enter the cells and cause them to make more energy. To have this all function correctly, the thyroid needs to make enough hormones, the hormones need to be of good quality, they need to be able to enter the cells, the cells need to be sufficiently sensitive to them, and the cells need to have the correct nutrients to properly respond to the hormones to make you energy. This is your metabolism. Breakdowns can occur along any part of this, and a person can feel the effects of either too low a metabolism or too fast a metabolism in relation to their thyroid hormones. It does not always relate to how many hormones are in the blood. It is the effect the hormones are having on the cells of the entire body. A low calcium to potassium ratio indicates a trend towards excessive thyroid effect which would cause a fast metabolism, and a high Calcium to potassium ratio indicates a trend towards a low thyroid effect, which would cause a slow metabolism.
The Na/Mg or sodium to magnesium ratio is similar to the thyroid ratio, but it reflects the effect on the cells’ metabolism from the adrenals. We call it the adrenal ratio. Your adrenals are small glands above your kidneys that make various hormones which control all kinds of functions in your body, one of which is energy production. When this ratio is high, it shows excessive adrenal effect on the metabolism so a fast metabolism. When this ratio is low, it shows reduced adrenal effect on metabolism or a slow metabolism.
So if you have a high Ca/K ratio (your thyroid ratio) and a low Na/Mg ratio (your adrenal ratio), this indicates reduced thyroid and adrenal effect, and you are a slow metabolizer or slow oxidizer. If you have a low Ca/K ratio and a high Na/Mg ratio, this indicates excessive thyroid and adrenal effect and one is a fast metabolizer or a fast oxidizer.
Oxidize means to combine with oxygen. Your cells combine the food you eat with oxygen to make energy. If this rate is too slow or too fast, you will not be making energy efficiently and symptoms will occur. 0ccasionally, these ratios show opposite effects where one ratio is excessive and one ratio is reduced. In this case, we call it mixed oxidation. This usually always resolves to either slow or fast oxidation within a few months on the program.
Many people get the idea that the goal is to become a fast oxidizer. This is not the case, ideally one should be fairly balanced: either slightly slow or slightly fast. Young children typically should be fast oxidizers because fast oxidation favors growth. Healthy adults typically should be mildly slow oxidizers.
The Na/K ratio. This is the sodium to potassium ratio. This ratio is so important, Dr. Eck called it “the life or death ratio. A high ratio is better than a low ratio and was therefore considered the life ratio. A very high ratio indicates a tendency towards inflammation. Inflammation is pain, redness, swelling, itching, etc. A low ratio indicates a tendency for various stressed states including kidney stress, liver stress, cardiovascular stress, immune deficiency, fatigue, blood sugar problems, and tissue breakdown where the body is having to break down its own tissues for nutrients and energy. When this ratio is high, we use Zinc to balance it. The higher the ratio, the more zinc we need to use. When this ratio is low, we use a smaller amount of zinc and combine it with minerals that help to raise the ratio such as good copper and manganese.
As you progress on your health program, you will be doing periodic retests to see how these levels and ratios are changing. So understanding them is important to understanding your progress.
Please feel free to watch this video again as needed. Understanding these basics will give you more time during your consultation to review more specific details as they relate to your symptoms and health program recommendations.