HH352: Resources-Metals & Minerals Lab Test

Melissa Deally: 00:00:00

Welcome back to another episode of health hacks as I continue sharing resources with you, and the resources that I want to share with you this week and next are just showing you some of the lab testing that is available to you through functional medicine, lab testing that gets mailed to your home versus what you get access to through your doctor's office. This first one that I want to share with you is called a metals and minerals lab test, and it is a hair sample. So you literally take a clipping of hair from the nape of your neck, and you send that in, and what it is showing us is what the body is using up and excreting in terms of mineral levels and mineral usage, or if the body doesn't have enough what it is holding on to because it doesn't feel safe in order to be excreting any more of that mineral. And it also then gives us insight into the stress that your body is under, as well as your energy levels. In addition, it also has a heavy metal profile, and we also look at your mineral ratios, because it's not enough just to look at your mineral levels and determine whether you're deficient in minerals or not. We also want to know that the ratios are in balance with one another, because, of course, the body always wants to be in balance. So I'm going to share my screen here and just show you what this lab looks like, so you can get an idea. So initially, at the top part of the lab, it shows our electrolyte minerals, our calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium levels. And you want to be in that green wave across the middle of the screen, and your results are the little white dots. So this person, you can see their calcium levels are right where we like to see them. Their magnesium levels are right where we want to see them, although it does show us that they are relatively deficient in calcium compared to magnesium, because the ratio for those is seven to one, and if I multiply nine times seven, I get 63 so their calcium level is lower than it should be relative to their magnesium level. And so based on this, I would be recommending that this person use a calcium magnesium supplement rather than just taking straight magnesia, and that can help these two minerals not only be sufficient, as we can see they are, but also have their ratio in balance with one another. We can also see their sodium and potassium levels are lower, and that is showing us that the body is actually now starting to move into more of an exhausted state, because these two minerals have dropped. The body isn't excreting as much because it doesn't feel safe to do so, because it doesn't have enough in order to excrete. It wants to hold on to every last morsel. And it starts to show us the stress that the body is under. And we know that when we are under stress, the body is burning through our minerals, and if we're not replenishing our mineral supply, then we can become depleted. And if you look over here at the nutrient minerals, you can see that they are all in the lower end of where they should be. And so this person is also likely feeling quite fatigued, as well as having many other symptoms going on when we start to dive into specifically, their copper is low. What symptoms does that relate to? Their zinc level is low, their manganese is low, etc, etc. So when I review this lab with people, I go through each of these nutrient minerals, and we talk about the symptoms that happen when their levels are low, and what that person is feeling themselves, and very often, people are like, Oh, this makes so much sense. And the great news is, is that it's really easy to start replenishing our nutrient minerals, our electrolyte minerals, and we do that through a daily nutritional shake that is packed full of all of these minerals that people need, that we can access through life. It's made by naturopathic doctor Dr Cabral, who started the company, and it really helps in a very short amount of time, people be able to regain their energy, because their mineral levels are starting to get to a more sufficient place. In addition to that, we talk about lifestyle changes so that we can be reducing stress levels people are experiencing. And we look at toxic metals. So this person here has higher than what we want to see, level of mercury in their body, as well as aluminum. And this is very, very common to see. We talk about the sources of these. We talk about doing a heavy metal detox in order to bring those levels down. They're both neurotoxins, so we don't want them in our running around in our body and getting into our brain. And when it comes to these toxic. Metals. If we don't actively do something to get them out of our body, our body can't excrete them on its own. It stores them in our adipose tissue, our fat closets to keep them out of our bloodstream. However, we have to actively use plant ingredients and binders in order to bind them up and get them out of the body. We look at additional minerals as well, and these are we're also looking at these from a toxicity level. We don't want them hot too high, and fortunately for this person, they're not. And then lastly, as I mentioned earlier, we look at the mineral ratios in order to bring the body into balance. Because a body in balance doesn't hold on to excess weight and doesn't get sick and doesn't end up with disease. Diagnosis of body imbalance is a very Happy Body, and that's what we help you achieve when we can really dive deep into this type of information. So I hope that's helpful to you. You perhaps have never heard of that lab test before. If you would like to know more, feel free to reach out Melissa at your guidedhealthjourney.com, and I would be happy to have a conversation with you around this lab test and others that may be of interest to you in getting to the root cause of your health concerns.