Hair tissue mineral analysis (HTMA) is an analytical test the assays the mineral composition of the hair. As a screening test in preventive health care, HTMA is an invaluable test that its increasing use is validating. Interpreted correctly, HTMA may provide indications of mineral imbalances, deficiencies, and excesses of many essential and toxic elements. Used in conjunction with other diagnostic tests, HTMA can provide a more holisitic and comprehensive picture upon which to base the most effective nutritional therapy.
Hair is used as the tissue of choice by the EPA in determining toxic metal exposure. A 1980 report from the EPA stated hair can be effectively used for biological monitoring of the highest priority toxic metals. This report confirmed the findings of other studies that concluded hair may be a more appropriate tissue than blood or urine for studying community exposure to some trace metals.
New investigations in biochemistry, physiology, and nutrition are continually supporting the concept of biochemical individuality. Further research has increased our ability to recognize metabolic types more definitively through tissue mineral patterns of the hair. Dr. David Watts has found that certain mineral patterns reveal metabolic characteristics that correlate well with the descriptions of earlier investigators. Dr. Watts has conducted clinical research in tissue mineral analysis by correlating over 100,000 tissue mineral analyses with specific physical and biochemical characteristics. As a result, eight distinct metabolic categories can now be identified through a properly obtained and assayed sample. These include, the fast and slow metabolic types, each with their four sub-types.
The metabolic types with their sub-categories can generally be associated with the various stages of stress, whether acute or chronic in nature. Developed by Habs Selye, these stages are the alarm, resistance, recovery, and/or exhaustion stage. Metabolic typing through HTMA allows these stages of stress to be more easily determined, and therapy can then be made more specific by working with, rather than against the body's normal responses to stress.