What is the HTMA (Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis) and why do I love it so much as a practitioner?

The simple answer? It's well, just as it sounds—a test that measures the mineral content of hair.

But it’s so much more. Because just a small piece of hair from your head actually provides a reflection of your whole body’s mineral status, particularly what’s happening inside of your cells, which is difficult to measure via bloodwork.

And it measures not just minerals—like sodium, potassium, copper, and magnesium—but heavy metals, too—like mercury, aluminum, and lead. Because of this, the amount of information this simple test provides is pretty mind-blowing.

But first—why minerals?

Put simply: Minerals are critical for life. Making up about 4% of the body, they act like your spark plugs. Minerals basically help build and activate enzymes (proteins needed by all cells in the body that help speed up chemical reactions carried out by the metabolism).

Which means that minerals help fuel the metabolism, directly impacting your ability to produce energy.

Minerals play a lot of really important roles in the body—like providing structural support, aiding muscular activity, maintaining pH balance and hydration, supporting digestive function and hormone health, conducting nerve activity, and more.

And each one plays important roles and they all work together—no one mineral functions alone.

Now the thing is: ideally, minerals exist in a critical balance in the body. But this balance is easily thrown off, especially over time when not addressed. Dysfunction in the body arises as a result of an abnormal balance between minerals.

And not only do minerals work together, they also work with other nutrients in the body. Vitamins in particular are synergistic to minerals and act as coenzymes.

Lastly, heavy metals can place a ton of extra stress on the body, especially burdening our detoxification systems, so can impact our health in so many ways. We’re all exposed to them, but if our bodies are stressed and our mineral reserves depleted, we are less able to effectively deal with them. Once metals accumulate is when problems arise.

*Example HTMA test results shared with client permission*

Why do we test the hair?

As hair forms, it’s exposed to our body’s internal environment. Once it reaches the surface of the skin, its outer layers harden and this locks in the metabolic products that accumulated when it initially formed. The body unloads excess minerals and heavy metals in the hair in order to keep them away from vital organs.

In other words, hair contains a blueprint—a lasting record of mineral status and nutritional metabolic activity—that occurred over its growth period. The HTMA can show us what’s going on in the body over the last 3-4 months especially, which is one reason why it’s such a unique test!

The HTMA is therefore an extremely effective, non-invasive, and bonus—inexpensive compared to most functional labs—test to determine mineral imbalances, deficiencies, and excesses.

It shows what minerals the body is losing/using up fast, which it's retaining, and key relationships. Especially when we look at specific ratios, we can learn so much about the body’s functioning and why someone feels the way they do. (For example, there’s a blood sugar ratio, thyroid ratio, adrenal ratio, and more!)

Wait, why not just test the blood?

For one, blood shows only a snapshot of what’s happening right now. What’s occurring in the blood (especially from a nutrient standpoint but also things like hormones and more) can shift even day-to-day based on factors like stress, diet, sleep, exercise, and more.

Blood is simply not an accurate way to look at mineral levels, especially over time. The body is constantly working to maintain homeostasis (balance) and therefore, will pull minerals from tissue stores in order to keep levels adequate in the blood. This means blood is always balancing itself, even at the expense of our own mineral stores!

It’s important to understand that the HTMA is not a diagnostic test.

In fact, as a functional nutrition practitioner, I do not do any diagnosis or treatment in my practice. Instead, this is one really incredible screening tool, especially because mineral imbalances typically occur before symptoms and conditions even arise.

In my practice personally, I also use HTMA alongside health and stress history, symptom assessment, and often other labs to help see trends, put puzzle pieces together, and uncover opportunities to more deeply support each person’s unique body and provide the environment for healing.

HTMA is an incredible functional assessment that helps pinpoint trends, put puzzle pieces together in terms of what’s driving symptoms, and uncover opportunities to more deeply support each person’s unique body and provide the environment for healing.

Because of the vast amount of information the HTMA provides, here are some things we can learn from the results:

Nervous system state
Stage of stress (i.e. alarm, resistance, exhaustion/burnout)
Metabolic rate
Adrenal and thyroid activity
Energy production
Digestive function
Blood sugar regulation & carb tolerance
Liver/detox function
Oxidative stress & inflammation
Heavy metal presence

And from there, we can create a personalized plan using food, herbs and nutritional supplements, lifestyle factors, and more to bring more balance to the body.

Ultimately, so many of us are living with mineral imbalances due to things like soil depletion, nutrient-insufficient diets, chronic stress, pregnancy (especially multiple and/or closely spaced), synthetic vitamin and mineral supplementation (especially single nutrients and in high doses), processed foods fortified with synthetic vitamins and minerals, medications like the birth control pill and acid suppressors, and more.

And moms especially are at risk for mineral imbalances, particularly depletion, as pregnancy takes about 10% of our body’s stores, breastfeeding increases many nutrient needs, and high stress levels lead to increased mineral use.

Replenishing and rebalancing minerals—while also addressing what’s throwing off your own balance—is an important step to healing your body and achieving your most vibrant health.

If you’re interested in running your own HTMA to get more insight into what’s going on in your body—driving your symptoms and blocking you from feeling your best, let’s chat! Apply to work with me to schedule your free call and we can dig deeper and create a plan to get you back to balance and feeling amazing.

Assessing Your Minerals & More Using the HTMA