It Saved My Life!

Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (TMA)

in Health Maintenance

Richard Malter, Ph.D.
Cottonwood, Arizona 86326
info@malterinstitute.org

©  1997

 For me, back in 1980, hair tissue mineral analysis was literally a life saver.  I was chronically fatigued and exhausted with deteriorating health, including a severe reactive hypoglycemic condition.  I also had a huge red cancer-like growth on my forehead.  The medical doctors with whom I consulted were baffled by my condition.  Fortunately, at that time, I was working with some other professionals who were doing cutting edge work with learning disabled children.  One component of their clinical work was the use of hair tissue mineral analysis (TMA) to determine the nutritional status and needs of these children. My colleague, Ken Candelaria, Ph.D., was very knowledgeable about nutrition and the critical role of magnesium in stress management, especially for cardiovascular functioning.  Dr. Candelaria convinced me of the importance of doing my own  personal TMA which showed that I had a severe magnesium deficiency.  This produced an acute hypoglycemia and put me at great risk for a sudden massive heart attack.  Adding magnesium supplementation was critical in rebuilding my energy and health.  Since then, with my health restored, I have found many references supporting Dr. Candelaria's recommendation of magnesium supplementation in regard to stress and cardiac health.  Magnesium is nature's muscle relaxant and it is also essential for normalizing  blood sugar level.

It is a commonly recognized fact that excess stress can take a severe toll on a person's physical as well as mental health.  Many different medical and psychological problems are frequently attributed to the cumulative effect of excess stress.  It is also well known that continuous and relentless exposure to excess stress takes its toll on the body's capacity to produce energy by causing changes in mineral balances and, therefore, changes in neuropsychological chemistry.  This results in extreme fatigue, exhaustion and depression.  Anxiety may also increase to clinically significant levels.  The pioneering stress research of Hans Selye, M.D., Ph.D. repeatedly demonstrated this fact.  Dr. Selye also recognized that what he called stress was a general response of the body and the resulting fatigue and exhaustion reflected a general breakdown of the body's capacity to produce energy on which it depended for survival.  

During the past 20 years, outside of mainstream medicine, psychiatry, and psychology, and outside of university research centers, a few creative scientists and clinicians in the private sector explored a new laboratory technique -- the chemical analysis of human hair samples from the occipital area of the scalp.  Using their knowledge of the psychophysiology of the stress response and of the body's energy producing pathways, their investigations led them to organize the laboratory data in such a way that a great deal of clinical meaning and understanding emerged.  Since hair is a tissue that can easily be sampled and chemically analyzed, the technique came to be known technically as "tissue mineral analysis" (TMA) or, more generally, as "hair analysis.  When we relate TMA to the work of Dr. Selye and others, a major advance for health care is now available to us.  We can simply and inexpensively access clinical data that can tell us a great deal about two major factors affecting a person's mental and physical health -- stress and energy levels.

Over the past twenty years, as hair analysis came to be more widely used and known to professional health care practitioners (medical doctors, chiropractors, nutritionists, etc.) and to the general public, substantial controversy developed around this technique.  Recommendations for various nutritional supplements were frequently based on the results of hair tissue mineral analysis.  

Professionals and lay people often found it hard to believe that any clinical significance could be found in analyzing strands of "dead" hair.  It was easy to conclude that hair analysis was simply chemical "hocus-pocus".  This attitude was strongly reinforced by a well-publicized article on hair analysis that appeared in August, 1985 in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).  The article, based on research with hair samples from two 17 year-old girls, was strongly critical of hair analysis.  However, there were numerous flaws in the methodology of the hair sampling and in the data analysis.  In fact, the flaws were so blatant that the intent of the writer and the JAMA editors is highly questionable.  It is interesting to note that the data tables clearly showed that both girls had high copper levels and could have been considered "copper toxic." Since the article was also accompanied by a wide spread negative publicity campaign in all of the major news media, there was a devastating effect on the laboratories that did hair tissue mineral analysis and on many health care practitioners who utilized this technique with their patients or clients.  

During the past ten years, some hair analysis laboratories survived the negative publicity and their research continued.  As a result, several facts have become clear.  One of the most basic facts is that essential nutrient minerals (calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, phosphorus, etc.) do not deposit randomly in the hair follicle as it forms underneath the scalp.  In fact, there are very clear and distinct patterns to these mineral deposits in the hair follicle.  These patterns emerge very clearly when the laboratory data are organized and presented in a certain manner.  The data and the patterns that they generate can then be related to our knowledge of the psychophysiology of stress and to what we know of the energy producing pathways of the body.  Therefore, first and foremost, a TMA provides us with both a stress profile on a particular individual and an energy profile.  That is, from a TMA, we can learn a great deal about a person's stress level and stress coping mechanisms.  We can also draw some valid conclusions about that person's energy producing capacity.   

During the same twenty-year time span when TMA was being researched and developed, there was a veritable explosion of seminars, workshops, and techniques for stress management.  Business, industry, schools, and hospitals offered all sorts of opportunities for their employees, students, faculty, patients, and clients to learn about stress and to do something about "managing" their stress because it is so well known that there is a strong relationship between a person's stress and health condition.  A lot of good information and good techniques were presented, but many people got "burned out" on these stress management approaches because they didn't really know how to use the information.  It didn't seem to make much difference so they grew tired of hearing about stress management.

One of the most important things that was lacking in all of these programs was a simple and inexpensive technique which would tell a person more personal information about his or her own stress and energy condition.  What people also want to know is what can they actually do about it so that it makes a difference that they can really feel and notice.  TMA can fill this need and it can fill it very well.  As a matter of fact, it may be best suited and applied with the 80 % of the population that make the least demands on the health care system in terms of resources and costs.  Because TMA profiles are essentially stress and energy profiles, they are easily applied to preventive health measures and to health maintenance, especially when followed up with appropriate vitamin-mineral supplements, dietary changes, exercise, and other life-style changes.         

TMA profiles can also be used to monitor a person's progress towards reduced stress and increased energy levels.  This can be done every few months in order to determine whether any changes may be warranted in a person's life style and activities related to health maintenance.  Many people often wonder how long they need to do a hair analysis and take nutritional supplements.  When they understand the relationship between TMA profiles and energy and stress, it becomes clearer that this is a powerful technique that may be effectively used to monitor their overall stress and energy condition.  TMA then becomes a part of an ongoing program of activities for health maintenance.

For any one who is taking drugs or medications under the care of a physician or psychiatrist, TMA can be utilized to monitor both the short and long term effects of the medication, or, in the case of individuals taking two or more medications, the interactive effects of the medications.  This is a very important point for two reasons.  First, the longer a person takes a medication, the more likely it will eventually cause a significant change in nutrient mineral balances which play such a critical role in regulating important psycho-physiological functions involved in health maintenance.  Second, when two or more medications are taken together, the interactive effects are likely to cause a significant change in nutrient mineral balances, only much sooner than if only one medication were taken.      

For example, many anti-depressant drugs are stimulatory in their effect on the psycho-physiological system.  This means that the adrenal glands are stimulated and with adrenal stimulation, magnesium is lost from cell and tissue storage.  Eventually, a multitude of problems may result from an acute magnesium deficiency, including glucose metabolism problems, muscle spasms, cardiovascular problems, chronic inflammatory conditions, anxiety and panic attacks, and aggressive or violent behavior.    

The stimulatory effect of anti-depressant drugs can also result in a substantial loss of zinc from cells and tissues.  Zinc is necessary for proper wound healing, adequate glucose metabolism, and coping with stress.  When zinc is lost in significant quantity from tissue storage, these functions become impaired.  When a TMA is done while taking medication, it is possible to detect these mineral losses before they become acute and cause serious health problems.

TMA can also be very useful for people taking fruit and vegetable supplements such as Juice Plus.  TMA provides people with a mineral pattern showing how balanced or out of balance they are at a cell and tissue level.  This is a very different paradigm and perspective than looking at blood and urine test results. In general, the more balanced a person's mineral patterns are, the more they can depend on whole food products like Juice Plus + to provide rich nutritional support and to maintain a good balance.  However, from the mineral patterns I have seen of some people taking Juice Plus +, it is not sufficient, by itself, to restore the essential mineral balances.  Since Juice Plus + is a whole food supplement, it provides very good general nutritional supplementation for a person, but some specific vitamins and minerals may also be needed to produce a shift towards a healthier mineral balance within cells and tissues.  I'm not sure that Juice Plus + alone would have been sufficient for me to recover from my severe magnesium deficiency twenty years ago.  I was so severely deficient that I needed the specific effect of magnesium and other supplements in order to re-balance my minerals.  This view has been summarized on transparencies and, lately, in Power Point slides that I use in my nutrition presentations and in my book "The Strands of Health: A Guide to Understanding Hair Mineral Analysis."   I believe that most people need both approaches -- general whole food nutrition support provided by a product like Juice Plus + and specific vitamins and minerals as indicated by their own unique hair TMA profile.