Hair Analysis
5/24/21
“Is a hair analysis a good idea to identify nutrient deficiencies?”
Talking to a friend today and she mentions, "Someone recently approached me from a company doing hair analysis for nutrient status. They want us to use their supplements to fill in any gaps that they find. Good or bad idea?
Hair analysis services are often offered by supplement vendors to diagnose mineral and vitamin deficiencies. Many of these vendors also offer supplements to correct these deficiencies. One of the problems with this method is there is no standard to evaluate the results by, and thus they are subjective. Different labs given the same samples from the same horse can produce different results. Different labs use different measures of variance, and thus their results are all interpreted differently. Hair samples can be affected by color, how clean the hair was, the gender of the horse, and environmental contamination – i.e. dirt and sand! There is no standard method on how to prepare samples, how to test the hair, calibration methods, acceptable minimum and maximum levels, accepted range of values, and thus different results from each testing lab. If there is so much difference in the way labs test and interpret, how can this be used for an accurate nutrition advice?
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