The mineral record your bloodwork keeps missing.
Blood is regulated minute to minute. It will look normal long after things have stopped being normal. Hair holds roughly three months of what your body has actually been doing with minerals, which is a different question and often a more useful one.
Analyzed by Trace Elements, Inc., a federally licensed clinical laboratory in Texas. Read by me, through the Root Cause Protocol.
From $125
Kit, laboratory analysis and report
Trace Elements, Inc.
CLIA licensed clinical lab since 1984
36 elements
Nutrient minerals, toxic metals, ratios
No doctor needed
No prescription or signature required
Two to four weeks
Results delivered by secure email
Same lab. A different reading.
Nearly every HTMA practitioner working today traces back to the same teaching lineage. That lineage produced some real pattern recognition, and it also produced a set of assumptions that have never survived a close look. The copper toxicity story is the most famous of them.
I practice within the Root Cause Protocol. I read your electrolytes closely, because sodium, potassium and magnesium tell me a great deal about how you have been handling stress. I do not read your hair calcium as a diagnosis. I will not put you on zinc to drive copper out of your body.
I also tell you where this test cannot help. Hair is good at some questions and poor at others, and when your question belongs to blood, I say so and we go get blood. You are paying for judgement, not for a printout.
What HTMA is good at
- Stress and adrenal patterns read through the electrolytes
- Long term trends rather than a single day of blood
- Cumulative exposure to toxic metals
- A baseline you can retest against in six months
- Preparation and recovery around plant medicine work
What it is not
- A diagnosis of any disease
- A reliable read on your iron status
- A substitute for a full blood panel
- Proof that a mineral is toxic in your tissues
Three ways to order
All three include the same laboratory test. What changes is who interprets it, and whether you walk away with recommendations or with understanding.
LAB RESULTS ONLY
$125
The test and the data. Nothing interpreted.
- Trace Elements Profile 1, 36 elements
- Two page bar graph report with levels and ratios
- Collection kit and prepaid return envelope
- Results emailed to you as a PDF
- Your data is yours to take anywhere
No consultation and no written interpretation. Best if you already read these fluently.
MOST CHOSEN • MY READING
$275
The test plus an hour with me to make sense of it.
- Everything in the Profile 1 test
- Sixty minute video consultation with Hamid
- Every mineral, ratio and toxic element walked through
- Read through the Root Cause Protocol lens
- Your questions answered in plain language
Interpretation only. This session explains what your results mean. It does not include a supplement or dietary protocol.
TRADITIONAL LAB REPORT
$245
The test plus the laboratory’s own written interpretation.
- Everything in the Profile 1 test
- Written interpretation generated by Trace Elements
- A named metabolic type and pattern discussion
- Personalized dietary and supplement recommendations
- No consultation included
This is not an RCP report. The recommendations come from traditional nutritional mineral balancing and will likely run counter to the Root Cause Protocol. Read the note below before you order it.
| Package | Price | Who interprets it | Recommendations |
|---|---|---|---|
| Profile 1, results only | $125 | Nobody. The data is yours. | None |
| Profile 1 + 60 minute consultation | $275 | Hamid, through the Root Cause Protocol | None. Interpretation only. |
| Profile 1 + Trace Elements report | $245 | Trace Elements, traditional mineral balancing | Yes, and not RCP aligned |
Prices are in US dollars and include the laboratory fee. Retesting is available at the same rates. On a phone the table scrolls sideways.
About the laboratory's written report
Trace Elements will produce a written interpretation of your results if you want one. It names a metabolic type, discusses your mineral patterns, and finishes with dietary and supplement recommendations tailored to your numbers. It is a real document produced by a real laboratory with forty years of data behind it.
You should know exactly what you are buying. That report is built on traditional nutritional mineral balancing. It is not built on the Root Cause Protocol, and the two disagree in ways that matter to what you will end up swallowing. It will very likely tell you copper is accumulating in your tissues and recommend zinc to move it out. It may suggest doses and combinations I would not endorse. The recommendations in that report will in many cases run directly counter to what I would tell you about the same numbers.
I am willing to sell it and I will not be defending it. Plenty of people want to see what a traditional practitioner would say about their results, and that is a legitimate reason to buy it. Read it as a document, not as a protocol. If you want my reading of the same numbers, the sixty minute consultation is the option you want, and there is nothing stopping you from buying both.
If you are already doing the RCP, read this first
The Root Cause Protocol runs on blood, not on hair. If you are following it and you want me to look at the whole picture, the hair test on its own is the smaller half of the story. This is not an HTMA package. It is a different route, and some people arrive at it from here.
01
Full Monty blood panel
Ordered directly from Request A Test, drawn at Quest or Labcorp. You pay them, not me. This is the panel the RCP is actually built on.
02
HTMA Profile 1
Optional, and useful. $125 ordered on this page. I use the hair primarily for the electrolytes and what they say about your stress patterns.
03
Ninety minutes with me
$350. A full Mineral Balancing consultation. I review the blood panel and the hair together, and this is the session that ends with recommendations.
What is on the Full Monty
- Ceruloplasmin (serum)
- Copper (serum)
- Ferritin
- Hemoglobin
- Iron and TIBC
- Magnesium RBC
- Transferrin
- Uric acid
- Vitamin A (retinol)
- Vitamin D (storage)
- Zinc (plasma)
Two things worth saying plainly
The Full Monty is not an add on and I do not charge for it. You order it from Request A Test through the link above and you pay them directly. I have no control over their pricing.
Ferritin is on that panel because the number tells me something, not because it measures your iron stores. It does not. Serum ferritin is a leakage product from damaged cells, and reading it as a fuel gauge is one of the more consequential mistakes in this field.
More detail on both panels lives on my lab testing page.
What Profile 1 measures
Thirty six elements plotted as bar graphs against reference ranges, plus twenty seven calculated ratios. Boron is included at no extra cost.
15 nutrient minerals
Calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, copper, zinc, phosphorus, iron, manganese, chromium, selenium, boron, cobalt, molybdenum and sulfur.
7 toxic metals
Uranium, arsenic, beryllium, mercury, cadmium, lead and aluminum, each reported against a reference range.
14 additional elements
Germanium, barium, bismuth, rubidium, lithium, nickel, platinum, thallium, vanadium, strontium, tin, titanium, tungsten and zirconium.
7 significant ratios
Ca/P, Na/K, Ca/K, Zn/Cu, Na/Mg, Ca/Mg and Fe/Cu. The electrolyte ratios are where most of my attention goes.
9 toxic metal ratios
Ca/Pb, Fe/Pb, Fe/Hg, Se/Hg, Zn/Cd, Al/Hg, S/Hg, S/Cd and S/Pb.
11 additional ratios
Ca/Sr, Cr/V, Cu/Mo, Fe/Co, K/Co, K/Li, Mg/B, S/Cu, Se/Tl, Se/Sn and Zn/Sn.
Profile 1 is data, not narrative. It shows you where every element sits. It does not tell you what to do about it.
Why Trace Elements runs my samples
Trace Elements has been analyzing hair since 1984 and is a federally licensed clinical laboratory under CLIA, license number 45-D0481787, inspected by the Texas Department of State Health Services. Samples are digested in a clean room using temperature controlled microwave digestion and read on ICP mass spectrometry, against NIST traceable standard curves with quality control validation on every batch.
The detail that matters most is one they do differently. Trace Elements does not wash your hair sample before analysis. Washing strips loosely bound minerals and can cut some readings by half or more, which is exactly the sort of thing that makes hair analysis look unreliable in the literature. A clean, properly collected sample sent to a lab that does not wash is a meaningfully different measurement.
Trace Elements does not sell tests directly to the public. Ordering goes through a practitioner, which is where I come in.
How it works
01
Order
Choose your package and check out. A few screening questions confirm your sample can be processed before you pay.
02
Your kit arrives
Mailed to you with the lab submittal form, collection instructions and a return envelope. International clients receive the forms by email.
03
Cut and send
A small amount of hair from the back of the head, cut close to the scalp, using the most recent growth. The instructions walk you through it.
04
Results and reading
Two to four weeks later your report arrives by secure email. If you booked a consultation, we schedule it then.
This will probably help you if
- You are tired in a way that sleep does not fix
- Your blood panels keep coming back normal
- You have been in a long stretch of stress and want to see what it cost
- You are preparing for plant medicine work, or recovering from it
- You want a baseline now and a comparison in six months
- You were handed a copper toxicity protocol and want a second opinion
This is not the right test if
- You want a diagnosis, which no hair test can give you
- You want your iron status, which belongs to the Full Monty
- You need an answer this week
- You live in New York State, where we cannot process samples
- You want someone to confirm what you already believe
Before you order
Do I need a doctor's order?
No. There is no prescription or physician signature required.
What is the difference between the $275 and the $245 option?
Who does the interpreting. At $275 I read your results in a live sixty minute session, through the Root Cause Protocol, and you get understanding but no protocol. At $245 you get a written report produced by Trace Elements using traditional mineral balancing, which does include supplement recommendations, and I did not write it and do not endorse it. Different products, not different tiers.
Can I buy both?
Yes, and some people do. If you want the traditional report as a point of comparison and my reading as the one you act on, order the consultation package and add the lab report. Tell me at checkout.
Can I test if I color my hair?
Usually yes. Standard chemical color contains no minerals and will not affect the result. Henna and Grecian Formula are the exceptions. Both contain lead acetate or other metals and will invalidate your test. Bleach can distort calcium readings. If in doubt, use hair grown since your last treatment or ask me first.
How much hair do I need?
Roughly a tablespoon, taken in small snips from several places on the back of the head and cut as close to the scalp as you can manage. Only the first inch and a half of growth is used, so long hair gets trimmed down. Full instructions come in the kit.
What if I have very little hair, or none?
Body hair can be used. The reference ranges are different and I will factor that in. Tell me when you order so the submittal form is marked correctly.
I am pregnant or nursing. Should I test?
Testing is genuinely useful here, since a significant share of a mother’s stored minerals leaves during pregnancy and lactation. What changes is the approach afterwards. We support the body and we do not push detoxification, because mobilized metals can reach a baby through the placenta or through milk. Heavier work waits until nursing has finished.
How long until I get results?
Two to four weeks from the day the lab receives your sample, plus mailing time in each direction.
Can I retest later?
Yes, and you should if you are following a protocol. Three to six months is the usual interval. Bring your previous lab number so the results can be compared.
I already have results from another practitioner. Can you read them?
Often yes. If the test was run elsewhere I may need a signed release before the lab will share the file. Contact me and we will work it out.
When should I book my consultation?
Within about a month of receiving your results. Mineral patterns move, and a reading based on data that is half a year old is worth considerably less.
Shipping, eligibility and terms
New York State
Under New York Public Health Law Section 574 we cannot mail a kit to a New York resident, and we cannot accept a hair sample collected in or mailed from New York State. This is not our preference. It is the law, and the lab will refuse the sample. If you have an address outside New York, contact me before ordering.
Countries we cannot serve
Trace Elements holds exclusive distribution agreements that prevent us from accepting orders or samples from Australia, Austria, Bahrain, Colombia, Denmark, England, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Ireland, Kuwait, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Oman, Papua New Guinea, Poland, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Scotland, Singapore, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates. If you are in one of these countries, contact Trace Elements, Inc. directly and they will point you to your regional distributor.
Other international orders
If you are outside the United States and not on the list above, you are welcome to order. Rather than mailing a kit, I email you the lab submittal form and collection instructions. You post your sample to the laboratory at your own expense.
Refunds
Tests, consultations and written reports are not refundable once purchased. Your kit and submittal form stay valid for one year, so there is no rush to collect your sample.
Not for legal use
This analysis is for education and personal insight. It is not forensic testing and it is not intended for use as evidence in any legal proceeding.
Find out what the last three months did to your minerals.
The test is the same one thousands of practitioners use. The difference is who reads it, and what they believe about what it says.
Questions first? Send me a note.
Hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening tool for nutritional and educational purposes. Nothing on this page, and nothing in a report or consultation, is medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, and none of it replaces the care of your physician. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. Talk to your healthcare provider before changing your diet, your supplements or your medication. Some links on this page are affiliate links.
