HAIR TISSUE MINERAL ANALYSIS

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, though a broad lens that considers both traditional HTMA (aka Nutritional Mineral Balancing) and 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

WHY ORDER HERE

Same lab. A different reading.

I read hair through the Root Cause Protocol. Your electrolytes get most of my attention, because sodium, potassium and magnesium say a great deal about how you have been handling stress. That is a different emphasis from the tradition most HTMA practitioners trained in, and it leads somewhere different.

Copper is the clearest example. Traditional mineral balancing reads high hair copper as accumulation and uses zinc to move it out. I read it as copper that is sitting idle rather than doing its job, and the answer looks nothing like the same. You are entitled to know which reading you are buying. On this page you can buy either one, and I am glad to sell you either one.

Hair is strong on some questions and quiet on others. When your question belongs to blood, I say so and we go get blood. What you are buying is judgement about your own body, and the point of it is that you walk away able to run this yourself.

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

Where blood answers better

Iron status, which the Full Monty blood panel reads properly
Copper status, which requires an understanding of various blood markers in combination
Zinc, Magnesium, Vitamin D, and Vitamin A are best measured through blood
The whole metabolic picture, which blood and hair give together

CHOOSE YOUR PACKAGE

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

At the usual retail price, ordered directly through me.

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

Best if you read these fluently already, or you have a practitioner of your own who does.

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

A reading rather than a protocol. You leave understanding your own numbers. Add a full Mineral Balancing consultation whenever you want one.

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
Add my sixty minute reading any time

This report is traditional, not RCP. Trace Elements writes it from nutritional mineral balancing, so its recommendations will often differ from mine.

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.

IF YOU WANT TO TALK FIRST

Start with a Clarity call

Thirty minutes for $45. We look at what you are actually dealing with and pick the package that earns its money for you, or find the route that serves you better than a hair test would. If the fee is a barrier, email me and ask, and my booking page tells you how to have it waived.

READ THIS BEFORE YOU ORDER THE $245 OPTION

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.

Know what you are buying and it is a good buy. The report comes out of traditional nutritional mineral balancing rather than the Root Cause Protocol. It will most likely read high hair copper as accumulation and suggest zinc to move it out, and it may suggest doses I would put differently. If the traditional view is the one you want, this is the cleanest way to get it, written by the laboratory that ran your sample.

Some of my clients follow the Root Cause Protocol and some of them disagree with me about it, and both are welcome here. If you want my reading alongside the traditional one, order the sixty minute consultation as well and hold the two documents side by side. That comparison teaches more than either one on its own.

A NOTE FOR PEOPLE FOLLOWING THE ROOT CAUSE PROTOCOL

If you are already doing the RCP, read this first

The Root Cause Protocol runs on blood. If you are following it and you want me to look at the whole picture, the hair test is the smaller half of the story. Here is the full route. It is a different path from the three packages above, and some people arrive at it from this page.

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

You order the Full Monty from Request-A-Test through the link above and you pay them directly. The price is theirs and I have no control over it.

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.

THE DATA

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 shows you where every element sits and how they relate to each other. Turning that into a plan is what the sixty minute reading is for.

THE LABORATORY

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.

THE PROCESS

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 is a good fit 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

Where to look instead

For a diagnosis, your physician
For iron/copper status, the Full Monty, which reads it better
For a traditional mineral balancing protocol, the $245 report from Trace Elements
For the whole picture, blood and hair together in the 90-minute consultation
If you live in New York State, see the terms below and contact me

QUESTIONS

Before you order

Do I need a doctor’s order?

No. There is no prescription or physician signature required.

Which package should I choose?

Book a Clarity call. Thirty minutes for $45, and we pick the one that earns its money for you. If the fee is a barrier, email me and ask, and my booking page tells you how to have it waived.

What if I disagree with the Root Cause Protocol?

Order the test on its own, or the test with the Trace Elements report, and you will get exactly what you paid for with no argument from me. The lab is the same lab either way, and I am glad to have you as a client.

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 it comes from a tradition other than mine. Two honest products, not two tiers of the same one.

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, assuming they used a laboratory that follows the same protocols. 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.

PLEASE READ

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.

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.