Hair Test Interpretation: Finding Hidden Toxicities
by Andrew Hall
Cutler,
PhD, PE
© 2004, 2008 Andrew
Hall Cutler
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Hair zinc does provide
useful
information about body zinc levels but interpretation can be complex
since
elevated hair zinc can indicate low body levels, and low zinc can too.
Low hair zinc does
correlate well
with low red blood cell and total body zinc. Substantially
elevated hair zinc is usually a sign of zinc
wasting and consequent LOW body zinc levels (and low blood zinc levels). That is, people with high hair zinc
usually have low red blood cell zinc and low tissue levels of zinc. Rarely will high
hair zinc be due to elevated body levels of zinc.
Plasma and serum zinc are
reduced in
acute illness and are not reliable indicators of body inventory.
...
Vegetarian diets are low
in
zinc. High carbohydrate intake is
believed to reduce zinc levels and high consumption of grains is known
to
hinder zinc absorption. Modern
foods are relatively low in zinc compared to foods 50 years or more ago
(due to
changes in agricultural methods since that time), and sometimes are
preserved
by the use of EDTAor other agents to sequester whatever zinc is in them
and
render it unavailable. In addition, zinc absorption from the intestines
is
limited and saturable, which means a smaller fraction is absorbed as
the amount
taken increases. Thus as you increase the amount taken a lot the amount
absorbed only increases a little.
Because of this very few people will have high enough zinc
levels to be
a problem unless they take zinc supplements several times a day for
months on
end.
...
Much zinc is absorbed in
the large intestine
and people with chronic diarrhea can become zinc deficient.
The half life of zinc in
the body is
about 4 months. Interventions to
affect zinc levels will thus typically have their effects gradually
over a
period of several months.
...
Low zinc levels lead to
rough dry
flaky skin especially on the hands, feet and around body orifices. It also causes slow wound healing, poor
immune function – specifically cellular immunity – in the presence of
normal levels
of white blood cells and antibodies, poor appetite, reduced taste
sensitivity,
reduced sense of smell, fatigue
and poor night vision. Low zinc
also lead to impaired growth and development in children, and to birth
defects
and difficulties during labor and delivery. Severe
forms of childhood zinc deficiency are described in
standard medical textbooks.
Current estimates are that about 10% of children have mild zinc
deficiencies that they are suffering some negative effect from, e. g.
that they
have recurrent ear infections – a problem which can often be stopped
with
supplementary zinc.
...
Low zinc levels are known
to cause
impairment of neurological and psychiatric functioning which are
corrected by
zinc supplementation, and zinc supplementation is known to improve
attention
and behavior in ADHD.
The specific aberration
of immune
function that zinc deficiency causes is an imbalance between T helper
type 1
and T helper type 2 cells along with reduced activity of natural killer
(NK)
cells. This is also commonly observed in mercury toxic people and is
most
likely a consequence of their poor zinc status due to mercury induced
mineral
transport derangement. This
results in allergies, autoimmunity and a poor immune response to
pathogens like
viruses, bacteria yeast and fungus.
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|
Read some excerpts from
the book: |
||
|
|
||
|
Other books of
interest (vaccines cancer autism hormone balance etc) |
||