Mineral Imbalances & Heavy Metal Overload

The Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis is one of the industry's oldest and most reliable lab tests. This is not new technology which is one of the many reasons why it’s such a great test.

The HTMA is simple and SO useful. It will be one of my go-to’s for sure with all of my clients because minerals tell us so much about our hormones and the impact that stress is having on our body along with knowing what kind of toxic metals we might have on board.

At the end of this episode, I will have a fun announcement on an introductory package for you including this lab test.

Remember to share this episode if this helped you today and tag me on Instagram at @simplyhealthykacey!

• Apply for Simply Healthy Academy
• Free Simply Nurtured Hormones Guide
• Ways to work with us
• Follow on Instagram @simplyhealthykacey or Facebook Simply Healthy Kacey

Transcript

[00:10] Kacey K: Welcome to the Simply Healthy You podcast, your place for overcoming overwhelm with your health to reach your fullest potential. I'm your host, Casey Canaan. I am so pumped to have you here. I'm a recovering burnt out high achiever who is diagnosed with an autoimmune thyroid, a condition by my early thirty s.

[00:27] Kacey K: I didn't realize that running myself ragged.

[00:29] Kacey K: In the name of being superwoman and determined to achieve all the things in life was killing my body. I created this podcast so that you don't have to continue the struggle like I did for over a decade. I sat down, studied the data, and simplified what it means to prioritize your own health needs so that you can be the best for all the things on your to do.

[00:50] Kacey K: List.

[00:50] Kacey K: Everything you hear on this podcast I have tested and implemented in my own super pact, Life with my Family, to bring you the tips, tools and strategies that will keep your life simply healthy.

[01:06] Kacey K: Hello friend, and welcome to another episode of the Simply Healthy podcast. I am so grateful to be infiltrating your brain with today's topic. My name is Casey Kane. I'm an integrative health practitioner and certified Holistic nutritionist with a Master's in Psychology and I'm here to bring you science based conversations to help you live a healthier and happier life. Back to talking about another functional medicine lab test. Today I will definitely be using this one with my clients. I'm talking about the hair tissue mineral analysis. Or HtMa for short. This one is so simple but so useful. It will be one of my go to's for sure. And at the end of this episode, I will have a fun announcement on an introductory package for you, including this lab. The HtMa is one of the oldest and most reliable lab tests in the industry. This is not new technology, which is one of the many reasons why it is such a great test. You use a hair sample, and I know that sounds a little scary. It's not a huge hair sample. You need to clip a few pieces of hair from a couple of different places on your head. There's some great videos on YouTube that you can watch to see how people clip their hair. Basically, you're clipping it from a few little places, like ladies in the back, like underneath, not where you would even notice if there was any hair missing. Anyway, it's not going to look like a big patch of hair that you cut off your head, but you use a hair sample, which is then incinerated at the lab and the ash is examined for mineral and metal contents. The coolest part to me is that one and a half inches of hair can give us approximately three to four months of data. And I just think that that's crazy because there's no other lab where we can really get that many months at a time. It's usually just a snapshot right of what is happening in our body at that moment, especially when you're talking about blood tests. It's literally just what's floating through your blood at that given moment. If you have shorter hair or want to run this test on the men in your life, a half inch of hair still gives us about one to two months, so it can still be done. It's just a smaller snapshot in time. The HtMa, unlike traditional blood work, shows us what the body is excreting and how much of a mineral was used or was in the body. It's not just the active form that's floating around in your blood. That is only part of the picture, which is also, again, why I think this test is so unbelievably valuable is we actually have an idea of what the body is using because we are looking at what it's excreting in the hair. The HDMA also shows us heavy metals that are unbound and being excreted. This doesn't give us the full picture of heavy metal overload, but it is certainly one of the best ways to try to at least pinpoint some of what it is that we are looking for when it comes to heavy metals. Some heavy metals will be bound and they will not show up until we are heavy metal detoxing. Still, though, it is hard for us to find those bound metals with any test. So this isn't just a fault of the HDMA. It really is like that with any test. But there are other things that I'll talk to you about in this episode that we can look for that would tell us that there might be a hidden toxicity of some kind. The most significant benefit to this test is seeing what minerals may be out of balance, because it's not only about having the optimal amounts of your minerals. Like, yes, we can be taking supplements and getting in all the foods with some of these minerals, but it's about balance. As most things are in the body, it is all about balance, right? Too much of something can be harmful, too little of something can be harmful. It really is a balance, and that is what this test really shows us. Some signs of mineral imbalance include high blood pressure, low blood pressure, anything affecting the blood pressure. Basically, you're going to want to take this test and see what's going on. Fatigue, lightheaded or dizziness, skin discoloration, nail discoloration like white spots, sweating, either increased or decreased breathing difficulty, heart, arrhythmia or palpitations, low mood and apathy, headaches, digestive issues, learning issues, allergies and asthma, and chronic inflammation. Some of the signs of heavy metal overload, which I'm actually going to talk more about in the next episode. I ended up splitting this up into two episodes because as I was writing the notes for it, I realized that this was going to take a long time. There's not as many markers on this as there are on some of the other tests that I've already talked about, but each one has a bit more nuance to it because it's not just looking at your minerals and going, okay, I need to take more magnesium. So heavy metals I'll talk more about in the next episode. But signs of heavy metal overload include things like headaches, joint pain, skin inflammation or red rash, skin pigmentation abnormalities, tingling in the extremities, nausea, vomiting, increased sweating, breathing difficulty, heart, arrhythmia or palpitations, chronic inflammation, and autoimmune issues. An estimated 75% of Americans are magnesium deficient. That is crazy. The majority of people also severely lack calcium in their diet and do not meet minimum requirements. This is not just a vegan or vegetarian issue. A lot of people like to put these things out there as issues for just vegan or vegetarians because we have the most horrible diet ever. But one in three or 33% of Americans have high blood pressure or vascular related issues, and very often we're seeing this related to other things. But minerals and metals have a huge role to play here, especially when we're looking at magnesium and calcium. We can see how important this kind of test can be with cardiovascular issues, like just making up such a large majority of our population that is struggling with them. So, like I said, I realized as I was writing the notes for this episode that it was getting pretty long. So I'm going to break it up and talk about the nutrient minerals today that this test gives us. In the next episode, I'm going to dive into toxic metals, additional trace minerals, significant mineral ratios, and the oxidation rate, because there are five different portions on this test. It's a one page result that you get, but there's five different sections on here. So let's start talking about the minerals first. The minerals that we look at on this lab are calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron, copper, manganese, zinc, chromium, selenium, and phosphorus. I think we all could agree that we know these minerals are important, right? We know that these are things that we need, although chromium and manganese, you're probably a little bit less informed about, but that's okay. We know we need these minerals. So in this episode, I'm not really going to tell you all the reasons why you need these minerals. We know that we do. I'm going to focus on the significance of the imbalances in these minerals and what it might look like in your body so you can know if a test like this would be helpful for you. Again, this is one I really think is going to be helpful for everybody. We all have stress, and as I said, with the glaring statistics of how many Americans are magnesium deficient and calcium deficient, we all could probably use this test to check in on those things. So let's talk about calcium first. High calcium usually indicates that calcium, high calcium result on the test usually indicates that calcium is leaving the bones and accumulating in soft tissues of the body. High calcium is associated with a slow oxidation rate. I'll talk more about what that means on the next episode and is a good indicator of hidden copper toxicity. So here we go. Right there. One of the hidden toxicities that we can tell just by looking at your calcium, potentially high calcium on a retest might often mean that the body is eliminating excess calcium. Some symptoms associated with calcium excess are apathy, arthritis, constipation, depression, fatigue, gallstones, hardening of the arteries, kidney stones, and withdrawal. Socially, a low calcium level usually means calcium is being lost in the urine. This is often associated with a fast oxidation rate or the alarm stages of stress. So if you go back to the thyroid adrenal hormone episode that I did, was it the last two episodes ago? I think if you go back to that one, I talked about the different stages of stress that we can experience. So again, even though we have that test that tells us about our stages of stress, we also have this test that shows us what's going on with our stages of stress and where we are. So if you're in the alarm stages of stress, there's a good chance that you are going to have your calcium come back low on this test. This is also often associated with copper deficiency, so we can tell multiple things just by looking at your calcium phenomenal. Symptoms associated with a calcium deficiency include an alarm or fight or flight reaction, anxiety, bruising, high blood pressure, insomnia, irritability, muscle cramps and spasms, nervousness osteoporosis, and tooth decay. When we look at the real world clinical significance of results on the hair tissue mineral analysis test, I'm going to say that for every single one of these nutrients, what happens in the real world? I gave you the answer of what the test says it could mean. But what do we see in clinical practice? What do we see in the case studies happening with a lot of clients and patients? When we look at the real world clinical significance, when it comes to high calcium, it shows high levels of stress. That's typically what we are seeing. When someone has high calcium come back, their stress levels are very high. It shows sympathetic nervous system activity and possible or probable bone tissue breaking down because of that stress state. And so, again, this is what we're seeing in individuals when the calcium is coming back high. We're not looking at you in a vacuum. I'm not going to look at your calcium being high and not know what's going on in your life, right? So when we look at what's going on in clients lives, people who are taking this test, it makes sense. Calcium coming back high, stress levels are high, right? It just depends on at this point, we're often seeing people in that alarm stage. Those are the initial stages of chronic stress. Like, you've been under stress for a bit, but not so long that you're getting to that exhaustion phase yet potentially. So. Low calcium often means in clinical in the real world, low calcium often means removing. We're moving out of the alarm stage to resistance and to exhaustion stages. So in the beginning, we might see the calcium as high, and then after longer periods of being under stress, we're going to see calcium actually go down pretty low as we get closer and closer to the exhaustion stages of stress. And again, I talked about these stages a bunch in the previous episode about thyroid adrenal hormone tests. So please go back to that one because there's a lot to talk about here, and I'm not going to talk about all those stages again. But we could see how these things go hand in hand with the thyroid adrenal hormone tests. And this is why these are two of the tests that I have already recommended to every single one of my current clients, because they are so important in telling us that big picture of what is going on with our body and how our body is reacting. Supplementation isn't always necessary here with calcium, but it can be helpful. Calcium can be increased through whole food sources for sure. There's plenty. We also need to look at magnesium, though, before we start doing any sort of supplementation with calcium. And so, thankfully, both of those are on this test. And that would be the next one that we're going to talk about. Magnesium. High magnesium is often associated with fatigue and depression. A high magnesium level often indicates that magnesium is being lost through the hair, right, that's how it's coming up on the test, resulting in deficiency symptoms in the body such as anxiety and hyper, irritability. Low magnesium is often associated with those things anxiety, irritability, and a high strung personality. When we're excreting a lot and we're seeing high magnesium come back on a test, but a person is telling me that they're having anxiety, irritability, and that kind of thing, then I know that we're seeing a lot of too much magnesium loss there. Other signs of magnesium deficiency include fast heart rate, high blood pressure, hyperkinetic behavior, irregular heartbeat, kidney stones, muscle cramps, especially after exercising, muscle spasms, seizures, and tissue calcification. Other symptoms associated with magnesium excess include confusion, depression, diarrhea, fatigue, lethargy, low blood pressure, muscle weakness, and slow oxidation rate. Again, we want to think about the real world clinical significance of this. And when it comes to high magnesium on your HtMa, we often see the body is trying to pull itself out of the fight or flight response and relax into the parasympathetic nervous system. So it is trying to slow down. It is trying to relax itself from the stress that it is under in order to heal. Whatever the deeper rooted issues or chronic stress is low magnesium on your test. We really just associate with that feeling of low and slow. Right? You are just, again becoming deficient. We're getting to that depletion stage. We see a lot of anxiety here. Apathy, fatigue, nervousness, insomnia. Again, go back to that thyroid adrenal hormone episode, because when we're getting to those exhaustion, seizures, everything is coming down, right? Your adrenals are coming down, your other hormones are coming down. Everything is just becoming low, and the body is becoming a lot more catabolic. There are a lot of foods here that do contain magnesium, but we just don't see the levels of magnesium in our food anymore that we used to. And I think that is what has partially contributed to many people being deficient. This is just soil depletion at its finest, right. This is one area where I typically recommend to most clients that they take some kind of supplementation. But the form of magnesium that would be most beneficial for you depends on what exactly you have going on. So it's helpful to have someone who knows the difference in each form of magnesium, and it can help you figure out, based on your symptoms, what would be the best one to try or if multiple forms would be good to have in one supplement. There are definitely supplements like that as well. Let's talk about sodium next. Sodium has definitely gotten a bad rap, but we absolutely do need it in a certain ratio within our body. High sodium on an HDMA is often indicative of excessive adrenal gland activity. Again, we're talking about the adrenals, right? These two tests go hand in hand, really. I'm going to probably reiterate that 20 more times on this episode because they really are very important, and I don't make recommendations lightly ever. And I'm not going to tell someone to do more lab testing just for the sake of doing more lab testing. Now, this is also helpful to know, because if you can't afford to do one of these tests, then we can get some of the information from just doing one of them. Right. So I think that's helpful too, because we also have to be practical about what's in our budget. Right. Anyway, I digress sodium. High sodium on an HDMA is often indicative of excessive adrenal gland activity. It often indicates excitability and fast oxidation. Right. Our adrenals are really pumping out at this point. Sodium levels can be elevated also by toxic metals, especially cadmium, which I'll talk more about on the next episode. So this is one where it could tell us that there's something else going on here. Even if maybe the cadmium isn't coming up high as a toxic metal on the other portion of this test, if we see that sodium levels are really high, then that can be a red flag for us there. Low sodium is an excellent indicator of impaired adrenal gland activity. If your sodium is too low below the ideal range, the optimal range, then we know that your adrenal glands, again, are kind of going towards that exhaustion phase. Basically, if we see all of these minerals getting really low, then we know that there's some big things wrong here with the adrenal gland activity. Very low sodium is indicative of exhaustion and getting to that really depleted state. Symptoms associated with a sodium deficiency include allergies, apathy, Bloating, depression, dizziness, fatigue, low blood pressure, apathy, poor protein, digestion, and weakness. Symptoms associated with a sodium excess include edema, fast, oxidation rate, headaches, high blood pressure, irritability, lower calcium and magnesium levels. Right. We just talked about those are going to be lower too. Nervousness and water retention. So what does this mean? What does this mean for you in the real world? High sodium on an HDMA often indicates the alarm stage, right? Just like calcium, we're often in an alarm stage when we see calcium and sodium elevated. Alarm stage or first stages of resistance to chronic stress, this is where we will see high aldosterone output as well. If we were doing a hormone test, symptoms associated with this stage would be anxiety, nervousness, insomnia, high blood pressure, being really high, strong, or amped up all the time, kind of on edge. And then low sodium often indicates those later stages of resistance to chronic stress. And seeing that HPA access maladaptation or adrenal dysfunction, very low levels could indicate something like Pots. We are obviously going to be experiencing fatigue here at this point. Low blood pressure. We're going to be really wiped out, feeling very weak, lightheaded, and overwhelmed. Generally in life, we do not supplement with sodium. I mean, yes, we might tell you to increase with a high quality salt, perhaps, but I don't really consider that supplementation. This is one that can be easily adjusted just by doing different dietary choices and using high quality sources of sodium. I think that's really the key there. There's a lot of low quality salt out there, and so you want to make sure that you're getting a high quality sodium if you are needing to increase your sodium levels. Next up is potassium. High potassium often indicates high sugar and glucocorticoid levels. Tongue twisters with these words. Very high potassium can be a potassium loss due to excessive breakdown of body cells. So we want to be aware of that. And again, we're going to be looking at all of these markers in conjunction with each other, so it's going to tell us exactly where your body is at and whether or not we've got that breakdown of body cells happening based on the other markers that we're looking at. So low potassium usually indicates adrenal gland exhaustion. Yes, you guessed it. You're with me now here. Very low potassium is associated with allergies, fatigue, low blood sugar, sweet cravings, and low blood pressure. Calcium is an antagonist here, so we need to be paying attention to calcium levels to see how that might be affecting potassium. Again, remember, everything is a balance. So if we have super high calcium because we're in that initial stage of alarm reaction to stress, then that will probably drive potassium lower. And we want to be keeping that in mind when we're looking at this. And as everything starts to come down, like, potassium is probably going to stay pretty low. Potassium is one that is pretty common to see very low on these tests. Symptoms associated with a potassium deficiency include allergies, constipation, fatigue, irregular heartbeat, low blood sugar, low blood pressure, muscle weakness, skin problems, and water retention. Symptoms associated with a potassium excess include depression, high blood sugar or diabetes, muscle spasms, and muscle weakness. The clinical significance of this, with high potassium on an HtMa, we often see people becoming more catabolic. There's a lot of cellular breakdown happening and they are typically in those alarm and resistance stages of adrenal maladaptation. Low potassium is indicative of later stages, typically of resistance and exhaustion of the HPA axis. Symptoms will include things like anxiety at this point, apathy, muscle weakness, muscle loss, bone loss, and high or low blood pressure. There are many foods that are high in potassium, and we can often adjust levels through the diet. There's also some foundational nutrition that you could use, a multivitamin, something like that, that would have a little bit of all of these minerals in them typically, but most of the time we'll have a little bit of everything. And so that can also help. But it's not going to be your daily requirement, right? There's going to be one where it's best to meet your daily requirements through food based changes. Now, iron is included on the HDMA test, but blood is really the best place to test for your iron levels. You will likely always see low levels of iron on your HtMa test. Unless there is something else wrong, it can tell us something. There are times when we might see high iron on an HtMa test, and this is often associated with feelings of anger and hostility. It's more often seen in those with a very fast oxidation rate and is associated with high aluminum levels. So again, when we're looking at this test and we're looking at toxic metals, maybe aluminum isn't coming up high because it's really bound in the body. But we see high iron, that's a red flag, because iron is almost never high on this test. So if it is, there's a good chance that there is some hidden aluminum issues here. This can also be due to iron loss, due to the destruction of body cells, and iron toxicity can be due to iron cookware or excessive iron in drinking water. But we rarely see this. I mean, I cook with a cast iron pan all the time and I don't have iron toxicity. That's not what's going on here. So I don't want you to freak out about your cookware. I think that these are rare situations here. Again, if we see it high, it's typically because of those aluminum levels. It is much more common on the HDMA to see iron levels that are low, and I don't think that this actually means anything about your iron levels. I would recommend using a blood test for this over the HDMA. And this is something you can get from your PCP because low iron is associated with anemia and other symptoms like fatigue. So you definitely would want to check it out. As women, we have a very high chance of being more anemic and being more iron deficient because, well, when we are in our reproductive years, because of our monthly period. So go ask your PCP to run your serum ferritin, your transferrin, and your total iron binding capacity or TIBC, and I'm sure they would be happy to do that. It's a pretty standard test. Well, I mean, I would hope they would be happy to do that. These days I have a hard time with my clients being able to ask their doctors for anything because if they didn't come up with the idea, then they're butt hurt about it and they don't want to do it. But anyway, iron can be tough to take as a supplement and can be pretty hard on digestion. So unless a client is super dangerously low, I like to try high iron foods first and then if needed, I also have some food based iron supplements that are much better on digestion and can be a little bit easier to take for the short term. Until we get that up, it's not something you should be supplementing with long term. Fun fact, you can maximize your iron absorption from foods by pairing those foods with high vitamin C foods. So I'm sure I've talked about that before, but I always have to mention that when we're talking about iron because I want you to get as much iron as possible from your food. So next up on the test is copper. Copper status can be tricky to assess. Copper may be present but unavailable for use in the body. This occurs anytime adrenal gland activity is low. So again, this is telling us something else, not just about our copper levels, but about something else that is going on in our body. Still, it is very beneficial to look at on this HtMa test. Copper may often be normal on hair tests, but may actually be locked in body tissues. So test indicators of a hidden copper imbalance are high calcium levels, low potassium levels, a potassium to sodium ratio that is low. And we can look at all of those things on this test to really assess what is actually going on with copper. Mercury toxicity often indicates a hidden copper toxicity as well, which is really interesting because mercury in and of itself is dangerous. And so if we're seeing that elevated, there also could be a chance that there's an issue with copper. Copper levels that are less than 1, zinc copper ratio that is less than six to one. All of these things tell us that something is going on with our copper. So while we may not be able to see it in just the copper marker, we can see a lot on this test about our copper that would give us an indication on what is going on with it. Copper toxicity is becoming much more common, especially with those using the copper IUD. This can be particularly dangerous. Symptoms associated with a copper excess are acne, adrenal, insufficiency, allergies, alopecia, anemia, anxiety, arthritis, elevated cholesterol cancer, cystic fibrosis, depression, diabetes, estrogen imbalance, fatigue, bone fractures, headaches and migraines, hemorrhages, heart disease, hyperactivity, hypertension, hyperthyroidism, hyperglycemia all the hypers, infections, inflammation, insomnia, mood swings, myocardial infarction, nausea, pancreatic dysfunction, premenstrual tension, schizophrenia, sexual inadequacy, strokes, tooth decay, urinary tract infections and vitamin deficiencies. That's a big freaking list. That's a big list. And like I said, copper toxicity is becoming a more prevalent issue and I think it's something that we really need to be paying attention to. Unfortunately, many children are also born today with excessive copper levels passed to them from their mothers and utero. So definitely a rising issue. Definitely. Really important to look at on this test. In the real world, we see high copper manifesting as fear or anxiety, Add or ADHD, other learning disabilities, cholesterol imbalances, mood disorders, and allergies and asthma. Low copper can cause graying hair, anemia and fatigue and low hormones, especially with the thyroid. Copper is a very easy one to get enough of in your diet. So we typically do not supplement with a copper only supplement. Again, it might be one of those things that's mixed into a multivitamin of some kind, but that wouldn't be my recommendation for your primary source of boosting it. I would definitely say to just eat more foods that are rich in copper. Next up is manganese. Manganese is often called the maternal mineral because manganese deficient animals cease to care for their young. How interesting is that? I thought that was really interesting. Low manganese levels are actually pretty common. Low manganese usually correlates with a slower oxidation rate and low energy levels. High manganese may be due to manganese toxicity derived from drinking water containing excessively high levels of it. But this one is a little bit harder to come by. That's not typically what we see in the real world. We see high manganese attributed to a more catabolic state where a lot of cellular breakdown is happening. And again, those alarm and resistance stages of chronic stress and adrenal maladaptation. Low manganese signifies those later stages of resistance and exhaustion of HBA, access, dysfunction and includes symptoms like anxiety, apathy, muscle weakness, muscle loss, bone loss and higher low blood pressure. We might supplement with manganese to raise low sodium levels. They have a direct relationship. We might take the supplements to. Lower excessive iron or copper or other toxic metal levels. So there's a couple of different ways that we might use manganese as a supplement or even to correct a low sodium to potassium ratio. But again, you really need to have someone who knows what they're doing with all of these and looking at these results to know if that would be necessary for you. There are many high manganese foods, so this can often be corrected through diet, given that there are no gut issues creating absorption problems. And that goes for any of these minerals, a large reason why we see people having deficiencies is because of poor absorption. And while absorption is never guaranteed, we can't say even what a healthy gut is absorbing on a daily basis, it's often a sign that the gut is not balanced. This is why for my clients, I also recommend the organic acids test, which I have yet to talk about on the podcast, but I will because that one will help us assess gut function, among many other things I am recommending to everyone. Basically that one for gut functioning. It also talks about neurotransmitters, a lot of different things on there. And then also this test for toxicities minerals, hormones, stress levels and the thyroid adrenal hormone for hormones and stress levels. So together we can get your gut and your hormones all figured out with those three tests and you are going to be on your way to a healthier and happier life, right? That's the whole goal. So that's one of the things with manganese, you can definitely get it from food. But we want to be assessing gut function here. Just a couple more minerals left. Next we have zinc, which is super important for so many functions within the body, as many of these minerals are. An elevated zinc level is common on the HDMA due to a loss of zinc from the body tissues. And in these cases, zinc supplements will often be recommended. This is definitely one where they will be recommended, but also you need to be making sure that you know what's going on with your copper at the same time, because it can throw off your copper stores and or your copper could be throwing off your zinc. Sometimes you will see high zinc levels on the HtMa as a tip off of a hidden copper toxicity. Interestingly enough, use of like head and shoulders shampoo occasionally can result in elevated zinc readings. So that's something to keep in mind if you are using a dandruff shampoo, that this can also be the case with selenium. So remember, if it's on your hair, it's going to show up. Now, it's not going to test for your hair dye or any of those kind of things, but there are instructions that if you are someone who treats your hair in any way, to try to take at least six weeks from doing anything before taking this test. Ideally six weeks. If that is just not possible for the color of your hair or any of that kind of stuff, then at least one to two weeks before getting your before taking your samples for this test. Cadmium toxicity can also cause a zinc reading to appear as to appear high. Zinc will often read low if the sodium to potassium ratio was less than 2.5 to one. In this case, it is not always wise to give a zinc supplement. Zinc is commonly low in fast oxidizers, but it can be generally low in a lot of different people. Very low. Zinc levels are often associated with emotional instability and with problems of growth and development. In children especially. Symptoms associated with a zinc deficiency include cirrhosis, carbohydrate, intolerance, conditions due to birth defects, diabetes, emotional problems, failure to thrive, fatigue, hypoglycemia, hypothyroidism, impotence, lack of taste and smell, low appetite, nervousness, poor wound healing, and prostate problems. Zinc is really important. Symptoms associated with a zinc excess include iron deficiency, anemia, depression, diarrhea, nausea and vomiting. Zinc is incredibly important for all of us, but it is also known as the masculine mineral because of its importance in the formation of male sex hormones. So make sure you tell the men in your life that if they want to be hormonally balanced, they need to be getting enough zinc. Especially for those of you who might be trying to conceive. It is not just about our health, it is about their health as well. In the real world, what do we see as clinically significant for high levels of zinc on an HDMA? We see elevated levels of candida here or heavy metals in this case. So typically there is something else going on with the gut. Candida is something that is going to absolutely destroy your gut. We see this person is often in the alarm stage of chronic stress exposure and that supplementation may be necessary to bring the zinc levels down. With low zinc we often see low testosterone in men and women, low drive ambition, low ambition, lack of courage, lack of strength, and poor self image. We see a lot of this just really bringing someone down. Definitely an overall low feeling and someone who has low zinc levels. We see poor skin issues like acne and rashes. We see poor hair quality, poor nail quality, like with the white spots, more poor muscle growth and tissue repair. And we see a weakened gut lining and increased permeability. So if your gut wasn't the cause of your zinc deficiency to begin with, from an absorption standpoint, not having enough zinc is going to weaken your gut lining. There are many ways to get zinc from your diet, but not in the most popular of places. So this is one where supplementation may be necessary or utilizing high quality fortified foods and beverages that might have some zinc as a part of it. Chromium is the next nutrient marker and you might not have heard as much about this one, but it's actually very important and involved in maintaining blood sugar levels and energy levels. Supplementing with chromium in the cases of low chromium can be particularly helpful, and especially in correcting symptoms of fatigue or sugar or carbohydrate intolerance. When we're seeing people in that pre diabetic kind of state, excessive iron intake is a frequent cause of both high and low chromium levels. So just like anything else, more is not always better. We need to be paying attention. This one would be particularly important for all of my carnivore friends out there, but chances are they're not listening to this episode. A high chromium level is often indicative of a loss of chromium through the hair and is frequently caused by an iron toxicity or another mineral imbalance problem. So we can often correct chromium by correcting the other imbalances that we see. Symptoms associated with chromium deficiency include atherosclerosis, depressed growth, diabetes, iron deficiency, elevated serum cholesterol levels, fatigue, and hypoglycemia. So we're seeing blood sugar and blood cholesterol issues associated with chromium here. Symptoms associated with chromium excess include asthma, allergies, calcium deficiency, iron deficiency, diarrhea, kidney damage, sinusitis, ulcers, and vomiting. We almost never see elevated C, chromium elevated or even within the ideal range on an HDMA test. Typically chromium is low because there's hardly any real chromium in food anymore from depleted soil. Ultraprocessed foods will also deplete you of chromium. Stress and blood sugar Dysregulation will cause chromium depletion, and most people can only get to optimal levels of chromium. Words are getting hard with all of this. With supplementation you will typically see chromium on multinutrient supplements. It just doesn't often get a lot of attention. We're getting near the end here. Selenium is the next mineral on the test. Selenium is most especially important for thyroid function, and I know you've heard me talk about that before, but there are many different things that selenium can contribute to in the body. The most common reason for high selenium on the HtMa is due to the use of shampoos containing selenium, but it also indicates a loss of selenium through the hair, typically from exposure or mass supplementation. We almost never see selenium elevated unless it's from excessive supplementation, but almost always from a hair product like Seltan blue or another dandruff shampoo. So, interesting fact there. Low selenium is much more common and maybe due to dietary deficiency. That's really the most common thing is just not taking in enough selenium, especially among those who eat more ultraprocessed foods. There is hardly any real selenium in food anymore because of soil depletion. Like some of these other minerals, toxins free radicals and ultraprocessed food will deplete you of selenium as well. Stress and blood sugar Dysregulation will also cause a selenium depletion and any stress having to do with the thyroid. Lack of selenium also directly affects the thyroid. Selenium is actually quite easy to get enough in your diet if you're using something like Brazil nuts. So if you're not allergic to nuts, brazil nuts are a great source. But you need to be careful, because there is an upper limit on selenium consumption, as it can become toxic at higher dosages. So last but not least, we have phosphorus. And this is another important one, not only for bone structure, but also energy production and cell membranes. An elevated phosphorus level is frequently indicative of excessive protein breakdown of body tissues. So as proteins break down, phosphorus is released. Phosphorus levels may increase temporarily as toxic metals are being eliminated in the course of a nutrition and detoxification program. So if we're doing a heavy metal detox, we may see phosphorus increase temporarily. In that case, it wouldn't necessarily be a red flag, because we would know that you're doing that detox at the same time. But we do need to pay attention here, because very high phosphorus can indicate a serious metabolic disturbance. A low phosphorus level is frequently associated with inadequate protein synthesis. Although most diets are adequate in phosphorus, those on low protein diets or vegetarians may have a lower phosphorus intake. Zinc is also required for protein synthesis, and often a low phosphorus level is associated with a zinc deficiency. So if we correct that, we can correct the phosphorus as well. Potentially. It also is associated with cadmium toxicity or zinc loss. When these imbalances are corrected, we can often see the phosphorus levels improve without really having to focus on the phosphorus itself. A low phosphorus level may also be due to poor digestion or assimilation of protein. So, very much like what I was talking about earlier with the gut, if we see digestive issues, we might see that phosphorus is also very low because of this. This could be because of digestive enzyme deficiency, it could be low hydrochloric acid levels or other factors dealing with the gut. So if you are someone who has acid reflux or gerd or something like that, you may actually have a low acid problem. And so something like low phosphorus would also help. Tell us that most of the time we think that those kinds of acid indigestion and all that kind of thing must be because we have too much acid, and usually it's because of too little. That's what most people aren't of for. So then we take PPIs and depress our acid levels even more, and then we really can't digest anything right, because we didn't have enough in the first place. It just infuriates me with Western medicine yet again recurring theme in my life here. Symptoms associated with a phosphorus deficiency include arthritis, fatigue, fragile bones, reproductive problems, tooth decay, stunted growth, and weakness in the muscles. Symptoms associated with a phosphorus excess include iron deficiency, anemia, arthritis, calcium and magnesium deficiency, diarrhea, hyperexcitability, irritability, tremors, and other vitamin deficiencies. Now, much like many of the other minerals in the real world, when we see high levels of phosphorus, we see a body that is becoming more catabolic with higher cellular breakdown, we see a highly stressed individual coming back with high phosphorus. We see a lot of muscle, bone, and body tissue breakdown. And for those who have a high ultraprocessed food diet, we see elevated levels of phosphorus as well. Low phosphorus on your test often indicates poor digestion, low protein intake, or weak digestive breakdown and a generalized weakened state. If you are eating a high variety of whole foods, phosphorus intake should not be a problem unless there is an underlying gut issue present. Okay, we made it to the end of all of the nutrients, all of the mineral nutrients. I know this was a lot on these minerals, but they are pretty darn important, as you well know. And this is how this test can show you exactly where your levels are and where your body is, especially with exposure to chronic stress. We all have stress, but at some point it becomes harmful for all of us. So even if we feel like in our head mentally that we are managing these things well, that doesn't necessarily mean that our body is managing it well. This is why it is one of the fundamental tests that I will be recommending to clients, because it's really important to understand the impact that our life is having, the impact that our stress is having on our body. Chronic stress over any amount of time has an impact, and we have to start really looking at that as an underlying factor for a lot of health issues, both for hormones and gut and everything in between. Next time, I will go into the other pieces of this lab and get that out to you as soon as possible. What I want to say for the fun, exciting announcement is that the Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis Lab will be part of a 60 day integrative health protocol package that I am putting together. I am still ironing out the details, but I wanted you to know first. I'm because I need to account for shipping times. I'm just still trying to figure out the timing of all that. I need to account for the time it takes for the test to get to you, the time that it will take for you to complete it and send it back and for you to get your results. It's typically about three to four weeks to get results back, but it is likely going to be a 60 day package where we are going to do an initial intake, waiting for your test to arrive. You will complete the test. We will have a lab call where once your results are in, I'm going to review them extensively and create a customized protocol for you. And then we are going to have a call where we discuss all of that, everything that the lab is telling us and why I'm recommending what I am recommending. And then I will also likely include a follow up call at the end of the 60 days after you've implemented some of the things from your customized protocol to see how things are going, how you are feeling. And I'm thinking that there's probably going to be some email support in there in between calls as well, just to check in and if there's anything that comes up. Obviously I want you to be able to reach out and get in touch with me. I believe in providing a lot of support with any of these things, but I do recognize that it just might not be the time or place for you to be in one of my longer group programs. So I'm hoping that this will be a way to start working with me, getting somewhere with your health, getting some kind of result, being able to implement something and make some changes that are specific to you. And like I said, I think this test will be applicable to most of us and will really help us get a lot of answers in a very efficient and effective way with this one test. So more details will be coming soon on my Instagram, going out to my email list. Make sure you are in all of those places. And as always, thanks for listening and I'll catch you next time.

[42:56] Kacey K: Thank you so much for listening to.

[42:57] Kacey K: The Simply Healthy You podcast.

[42:59] Kacey K: If these episodes are resonating with you, go ahead and click that subscribe button and leave a review with all the great nuggets that you're taking away from today's episode. I promise you I read every single one of them, as your feedback is really valuable to me in creating future episodes. As your host, I look forward to having you join me for the next episode. But in the meantime, remember, keep it simple and eat more plants.