Can mineral testing be the answer?

What is mineral testing?

Mineral testing looks at your mineral levels and ratios to each other. The best way to test for this is through a hair sample to look at the minerals over the past 3 months to get an accurate result of your cellular health.

A basic mineral test will include just the key minerals, calcium, copper, iodine, magnesium, manganese, and zinc. The problem with this is it is missing so many other needed minerals for optimal cellular health.

Hair testing provides a clear window into cellular health. This way of testing detects imbalances in minerals, toxic exposures, metabolic activity, and nutrient levels. Hair provides a long-term record of nutrients and toxins that could be affecting vitamin and mineral balances. A blood test does not always pick up all these things because of the minute-by-minute fluctuations based on activity and food consumption.

Imbalances can be adjusted through diet and supplements to restore balance.

Why are mineral deficiencies on the rise?

Diet is the main cause. Even if you are eating a whole real food diet, the way things are grown now with the pesticides and poor soil there are minimal nutrients in those foods. Supplementation may be needed to correct those imbalances. Switching to organic foods will be a help. Medications can also deplete certain vitamins and minerals as well.

Over long periods of time, these deficiencies could result in more than 1,000 symptoms affecting your health. Just to list a few; fatigue, hormonal acne, depression, anxiety, gut dysbiosis, brain fog, dry skin, weight gain, and thinning/brittle hair.

How often should you test?

Yearly. Yes, it is as simple as that.

Where to find testing kits?

I personally like Honed and Dr. Stephen Cabral’s Minerals and metals tests. Use code realfood15 to get 15% off at Honed. Shout out to Realfoodology she shares great information about wellness, check out her page and podcast.

I did both tests and was blown away by the results. I was deficient in so many minerals and had toxic levels in others. I was completely out of balance, and it was affecting my health. No matter how hard I tried to eat the proper foods to get adequate nutrition, move my body, lower stress, and heal mentally it was never going to work if I did not add in supplementation.

Before doing these tests I was taking several supplements I “thought” would help but were not. These tests showed exactly what I was deficient in and what had elevated levels. I was then able to curate a supplementation regimen specifically for my nutrient needs.

The explanations of which foods to have more and which ones to avoid or reduce were also a huge help to my diet. They also explained what symptoms I could be experiencing due to my certain deficiencies or elevated levels. Along with the hair analysis, you will answer a questionnaire and get suggestions on what you can do to improve any symptoms you may be having.

With each yearly retest, you will see what has improved and make changes based on those retest results.

Next steps

This will be different for each person because of our bio-individuality. For me, because I already eat a real whole-food diet and minimally processed foods, supplementation is my route. If you are not eating a real whole-food diet it could look as simple as switching up what you put in your body. This simple change that can seem overwhelming can pop you back into an optimal cellular function within 3-4 weeks.

Do the testing. I cannot say enough about my gratitude for being informed about this testing. It has brought so much insight into the symptoms I was having and advanced my cellular health at exponential rates.

This post is not sponsored by either one of these companies. I truly believe in the work they are doing and want to share this information with others so we all can live our best lives in the healthiest way possible.

The whole purpose of this blog is to share all the valuable information that I have learned over the last 15 years. Over the last 15 years, I have changed my relationship with food to recover from an eating disorder that caused severe dysbiosis in my body. I am now learning about the quality of our foods and the better options to improve my health on a cellular level. I am also retraining my brain to love myself from the inside out.

If you are finding this information helpful in any way please share it to spread the word. The better informed we are the better decisions we can make regarding our bodies and lifestyles. Thank you for joining me today and I will catch you on the next one!

~ Tina