January 5, 2001 – According to a study comparing the results of hair analysis carried out by six commercial laboratories in the United States, this method of diagnosing nutritional deficiencies or exposure to environmental toxins is unreliable.
The hair samples sent to the six laboratories have been the subject of very different and sometimes even contradictory reports. One of the labs described the owner of the hair as having a “fast metabolism” and recommending that he abstain from vitamin A, while another lab described him as having a “slow metabolism” and recommending supplements of vitamin A.
As a result of this research, the American Medical Association concludes that choices based solely on these analyzes may be grossly inappropriate and even detrimental to the overall health of patients. A similar study, published 15 years ago, gave similar results. But as analytical methods have improved and a US federal law regulates this type of analysis, the researchers wanted to examine the issue again.
Hair analysis is often used to find out whether or not a person uses drugs such as cocaine, but the hair used for research was not tested for this and researchers therefore cannot assess whether the method is valid for identifying drug use.
Researchers from the California Department of Health Services believe that the nine US labs that do hair analysis should not be federally certified until standards giving reliable results are available.
Each year, the nine US laboratories perform approximately 225,000 hair analyzes costing $ 9.6 billion, to determine levels of contamination with arsenic, lead, mercury and 16 other elements.
HealthPassport.net
According to Associated Press, January 3, 2001
Sharon Seidel, PhD; Richard Kreutzer, MD; Daniel Smith, DrPH; Sandra McNeel, DVM; Debra Gilliss, MD. Assessment of Commercial Laboratories Performing Hair Mineral Analysis, JAMA. 2001; 285: 67-72
