Q and As

Minerals are the building blocks of life, vital substances your body does not produce naturally. Whilst your doctor might say you are healthy you may not be operating to your full potential. An imbalance in your body’s minerals can prevent you from performing at 100% looking your best and feeling your best.

Many conditions can be contributed to, or aggravated by, various mineral imbalances and toxic excesses. These can range from short-term problems such as depression, headaches, low energy and insomnia to longer-term conditions including hair loss, heart problems, and infertility, breathing difficulties, cholesterol levels and many more. By addressing your body’s needs you are taking a step towards improving your well-being as well as your long-term health.

Hair analysis is extremely accurate.  The laboratory uses sophisticated instruments (mass spectrometry) and has software programmes that allow for extensive quality control. The laboratory specialises in hair testing exclusively analysing over 75,000 samples a year and full attention is given to assuring the accuracy of your results

Lots of factors can cause a mineral imbalance.  Diet is a major factor and refined carbohydrates, alcohol, repeated dieting or just missing out certain food groups for a while can all lead to poor nutritional status.   Even a great diet can be lacking certain minerals if the food has been grown in soil that has poor levels of nutrients! Stress, either physical or emotional can lower minerals like magnesium or zinc and pollution plays a role too.  Toxic elements like lead, merucry and cadmium can all interfere with mineral absorption and increase mineral excretion.

From our youngest years we will all have been exposed to a variety of toxic elements including for example copper pipes, aluminium cookware, hair dyes, cosmetics, anti-perspirants, hydrogentated oils and dental amalgams. There are hundreds of sources that we may be exposed too every day. Pop over to our instagram feed where we do post pictures and more details regularly

For candida, you need to do a specific test for candida anti-bodies via a blood or saliva sample. Candida will not show in a hair analysis – but – there are some markers that indicate that candida may be a problem, for example high copper.  If copper is high then candida may persist even if you have been following all the diet and supplement recommendations.  Until copper and mercury levels are checked, and lowered if necessary, then the diet and supplements alone may be insufficient to deal with a candida overgrowth

Food allergies require specific blood tests.  Your hair analysis cannot confirm food allergies – but – it will give you specific recommndations for foods to avoid and foods to increase based on your unique profile.

The simple answer is yes!  Our lifestyles today prevent most of us from giving our bodies the minerals they need.  Diet, stress, pollution, lack of sleep and our unique digestion profile can all contribute to imbalaces and supplements can often help

Blood tests give information about your mineral levels at the time of the test only.  If you’ve just eaten a banana your test can indicate a high potassium level for example, whereas this may not actually be the case.  Your hair test indicates your overall level of potassium – so your actual storage levels over a period of time, not just what you ate that day or that week.  A blood test will only accurately report what is being transported in your blood at the time of the test.

Testing for minerals in the urine measures the minerals that are being excreted from your body – not necessarily what has been absorbed as fuel for your body.

So blood and urine tests are like snapshots whereas a hair analysis is the video of your mineral retention.

That is an important question.  Did you know that over the past twenty years there are over a thousand references in peer-reviewed journals that document and support the reliability of hair mineral analysis?  Technical articles are published weekly!   We sift through many articles weekly including numerous technical journals.  It is unfortunate that some health professionals are critical – they often have not read the research. At Mineral Check we are happy to provide a list of references to support the using hair analysis.