What is Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis? (HTMA)

Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA for short!) is a screening test that uses a small sample of recent hair growth to provide information about a person’s average mineral and heavy metal accumulation in the tissues over the past 8-12 weeks.

When hair grows, metabolic

activity is greatly increased which exposes the hair to the internal metabolic environment. This includes extracellular fluids, circulating blood, and lymph. As the hair reaches the surface of the skin, the outer layers harden, which lock in the metabolic products accumulated during this period of hair formation.

By analyzing the mineral and heavy metal content in the hair sample, we are able to infer information about tissues throughout the rest of the body.

The hair analysis provides us with a window into the tissues and cells that we wouldn’t be able to see otherwise. There is no other non-invasive and cost-effective way of btaining a tissue biopsy.

Can't we just test minerals in the blood?

When we test the blood for minerals, the result is reflective of what is being transported at the exact moment in time. The blood has a strong desire for homestasis, so mineral levels in blood are generally matintained at the expense of the tissues. Minerals will be robbed from the tissies in order to maintain homestatis in the blood, and excess minerals are deposited into the tissues to get them out of the blood

Blood is excellent for testing in many ways, but looking at mineral levels in the blood alone does not provide much information. For example, only 0.3% of Magnesium in the body is found in Serum Magenesium and 0.5% is found in RBC Magnesium, while 30-40% is found in the tissues!

What does HTMA tell us?

Minerals are literally the "spark plugs" or "energy system" for everything in the body! THey act as a co-factors for thousands of enzyme reactions for every system, they are essential for the contraction and relaxation of every muscle, they faciliate transfer or nutrients across cell membranes (nothing can get in or out of the cell wall without minerals!), and so much more!

With minerals being so foundational to the way out bodies function, most symptoms and conditions can truly be traced back to some sort of mineral imbalance.

We do not interpret HTMA results differently based on someone's specific conditions or symptom, but we are usually able to see potential mineral imbalnces that could be related to the symtoms they are experiencing.

So, we always approach balancing the minerals the same way. We address the highest priority pattern or ratio in the HTNA results first, because that will directly affect the other minerals and will work towards bringing everything into balance.

What is the goal of HTMA?

In one work: balance