by Dr. Paul Eck
I prefer the use of hair test to blood tests because I feel they are more accurate indicators of the overall metabolic trends in the body. When you understand how the blood operates, you will see why I say this.
Blood is a transportation medium. It is the “highway system” of the body. The components of your blood must remain fairly stable at all times – or you would die. Acidity, alkalinity, levels of certain nutrients, etc., all must remain within fairly tight limits. This equilibrium, or balance, is INCREDIBLY IMPORTANT TO YOUR HEALTH.
Two Examples of Problems that a Blood Test Could Miss that a Hair Test Would Catch
First example: Your blood test shows adequate levels of calcium. Does this mean your calcium metabolism is good? Not necessarily. It could be that your body is robbing calcium from your bones and teeth to support a major organ. A hair test would show the actual mineral status of your tissues. A blood test could miss it.
Second example: After a person ingests lead, a poisonous metal, the lead levels in the blood stay high for 30 days. Then the lead disappears. Is it gone? No. The answer is that the lead has now been removed from the blood. It is being stored in the tissues and would show up in a hair test – not a blood test.
The quantities of minerals being measured from the blood are 1,000 times smaller than those found in hair tests. The standard of mineral measurement from blood tests is a nanogram. This is one-millionth of a gram. In a hair test, we use measurements of a thousandth of a gram – 1,000 times larger.
For this reason, I tend to prefer hair tests. I think it is easier to get experimental error when you are working with the smaller quantities of minerals found in the blood.
Also, if we were to test blood for all the minerals that we do in hair tests, the cost would be prohibitive. This is because of the sophisticated tests and equipment needed to measure quantities of minerals that small. I think the cost would be hundreds of dollars, maybe even more.
A blood test can be too easily influenced by events that happened only hours or even minutes before. In time, like overnight, the blood would regain its long term stability. But over short periods it can be volatile.
Blood tests are too easily influenced by short-term events in your life
For example if you ate several candy bars or had a sugary breakfast, your blood sugar would rise. If you took a blood test shortly afterward, it might indicate high blood sugar or even diabetes. Can you see the problem?
I realize that people who take blood tests are told not to eat any sweets or food for so many hours before the test. That’s not the point. the point is that the blood is capable of such big fluctuations over such a short time.
Another quick example: If someone insulted you and got you upset, your blood chemistry, in some ways, could change within seconds. A test taken at this time would not be completely accurate.
By contrast, your hair is more stable. It takes several weeks to change the basic mineral pattern of your hair. Short-term variations like what you had for breakfast or what kind of day you had do not affect the hair test. That is why I feel hair analysis testing is more accurate than blood serum analysis for picking overall metabolic trends.
I am not saying that blood tests do not have value when properly interpreted. What I AM saying is that hair tests can reveal to us far more information, and at far less cost. That is why I use them. Ideally, hair tests and blood tests may be used in conjunction with each other.
* Lead will show up in blood tests if it has been less than 34 days since the lead was ingested. If the person is getting lead on a continual basis, like a child eating paint chips, or a person breathing polluted city air, then the blood will, of course, detect the problem.
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