Introduction
    Tissue mineral analysis, using hair, despite its detractors, is receiving ever-increasing acceptance.
    Through mineral analysis of the hair, one is able to determine the levels of both essential and toxic minerals, i.e., those which are normal or necessary for vital body function such as calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, iron, copper, zinc, phosphorus, etc., and those like toxic metals, which by their very nature are detrimental to health and well-being, such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic.
    As valuable as blood serum analysis is in many cases, it principally reveals what is in the blood, whereas hair analysis not only reveals what is in the tissues, but also provides us a record of how the body uses, stores and disposes of mineral elements.

Terms Related To Theory
Adaptation - Adaptations are the way the body alters itself, changing mineral and vitamin levels, temperature, blood sugar levels, attitudes, etc., to survive in the best way possible, given the circumstances. In mineral balancing nutrition programs, foods, vitamins and minerals are used to remove the need for adaptations. Sometimes, nutrients are also used to force the body to adapt in ways that will promote health, using nutrition to push the body in such a way that it moves back toward normal functioning.

Biochemical Energy - A common denominator of life is the production of biochemical energy, or adenosine-triphosphate (ATP). The goal of our programs is to increase production of biochemical energy, which automatically promotes healing.

Cybernetics - Cybernetics is the science of communication and control in living organisms or machines. When we speak of cybernetics in mineral balancing, we refer to the fact that our bodies are self-regulating. Our goal is to assist the self-regulatory mechanisms in order to restore health.

Dual Concept of Energy - There are two aspects to the body's biochemical energy system; 1) the rate of energy production, or oxidation rate, and 2) the energy pathway, or the steps involved in energy production.
    Both the rate and the functioning of all steps must be optimized to obtain maximum energy production.

Energy Pathway - The energy pathway is the series of steps involved in the production of biochemical energy from food. The pathway begins with chewing and digestion of food and ends in the glycolysis and Krebs cycle, where final production of ATP occurs.

External Stress - Factors arising from outside our bodies, which affect our health, are called external stressors. They may include physical factors (heat, cold or noise), social pressures, financial or job stress, microorganisms such as bacteria, etc.

Homeostasis - Homeostasis means balance or dynamic equilibria. Our bodies are always trying to maintain a state of balance, or homeostatic state, no matter how precarious it is.
    The goal of mineral balancing programs is to move the body from a less desirable state of balance to a more desirable homeostatic state - one associated with better health.

Internal Stress - Internal stressors are those factors, which originate from inside the body, which cause stress. Nutritional imbalance can be the result of stress, but is also a cause of internal stress. This is hidden stress, which can cause both physical and emotional problems.

Oxidation Rate
    The oxidation rate is the rate at which food is burned in the body. The oxidation rate is closely related to the metabolic rate, a term referring to the general rate of chemical reaction or metabolism in the body.

Fast Oxidation:
    The condition in which there is too rapid a release of energy in the biochemical pathway.

Slow Oxidation:
    Slower than normal release of energy in the biochemical pathway.

Mixed Oxidation:
    A transition or unstable state in which one of the glands, thyroid or adrenal, is overactive and the other underactive, causing an unstable release of energy.

Flexible Oxidation:
    An ability in healthy persons to move from slower to faster oxidation as circumstances require.

Balanced Oxidation:
    The median or optimum oxidation rate at which combustion efficiency is optimal.

Metabolism - Metabolism is the total of the chemical reactions taking place in the body. Metabolism is divided into two parts, anabolism and catabolism. Anabolism refers to those reactions which build up body tissues, while catabolism refers to reactions and processes which tear down body tissues.

Stress - Stress refers to the way our bodies react to pressures in our internal and external environment.
    For our nutrition work, what is important is that there are predictable ways in which bodies experience stress. We can measure these through hair analysis and other methods and from this knowledge, know how best to assist the body in coping with its condition.

Stages of Stress - Dr. Hans Selye discovered that one's body passes through several well-defined stages as they come under more and more stress. He called these stages alarm, resistance and exhaustion. We can measure these stages on a hair analysis.

Teleology - Teleology is life's goals, intents, or purposes. Although this is a subtle concept, it is central to our understanding to know that our bodies are always operating with a set of goals or intents to maximize survival.
    Mineral balancing programs take advantage of these goals, to work with the body to promote health.

Terms Related To Minerals
Macro-Minerals - Calcium, magnesium, sodium and potassium. These are sometimes referred to as the electrolytes. Sometimes phosphorus is also included in the macro-mineral group.

Trace Minerals - Copper, zinc, manganese, chromium, selenium, iron, cobalt, molybdenum, lithium, silicon. These elements are essential, but needed in very small quantity relative to the electrolytes.

Toxic Minerals - Lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic, aluminum, nickel and beryllium. These may be found in the body, but have no known necessary function and can cause disease.

Mineral Levels - Refers to actual levels on the hair chart, read in milligrams percent or parts per one hundred thousand.

Mineral Ratios - A pure number consisting of one mineral level divided by a second mineral level.

Mineral Patterns - A group of levels or ratios or some combination of the two. Slow and fast oxidation, for example, are mineral patterns defined by several ratios.

Inversion - An inversion refers to a reversal of a normal mineral ratio. For example, a sodium-potassium inversion is a ratio of less than 2.5/1. A calcium-magnesium inversion is a ratio between these two minerals of less than 6.67/1.

The Mineral Wheel - The mineral wheel is a graphic representation of the relationships between minerals. The original mineral wheel was conceived by Dr. William Albrecht, to describe relations between minerals in the soil. The mineral wheel has been updated by Dr. Paul Eck and the revised version is printed on the cover of the hair analysis programs.

Antagonistic Minerals - Minerals which are inversely related, when the level of one goes up, the other goes down. Sodium and zinc, calcium and magnesium, copper and potassium, iron and chromium, are examples of antagonistic minerals.

Synergistic Minerals - Minerals which are directly related, when the level of one goes up, the level of the other goes up. Iron and aluminum, copper and calcium, manganese and sodium, act synergistically.

Note: Minerals may be both synergistic and antagonistic under different conditions.

Terms Related To Enzymes
Enzymes - Enzymes are chemical compounds which facilitate or enable a chemical reaction to take place. There are thousands of enzymes in the body and many require minerals to function.

Mineral-Activated Enzymes - These are enzymes that require the presence of a mineral to activate a chemical reaction, even though the mineral is not part of the enzyme.

Metallo-Enzymes - These are enzymes that require a mineral for their structure.

Preferred Minerals - For each metallo- enzyme in the body, there is a mineral that is most effective to activate or form a component of the enzyme. This is called the preferred mineral for that enzyme.
    There is also an order of preference, with a second best, third best and so forth.
    Health depends upon having the preferred minerals in our enzyme systems. Poor health is associated with enzymes functioning with second or third-choice mineral activators, due to deficiencies of preferred minerals or an excess of toxic minerals in the body.
    Nutrition programs are designed to assist the body to replace less desirable minerals with preferred minerals.

Terms Related To Hair Analyses
Hologram Principle - States that the hair analysis readings represent not only the physical body, but a whole view of hereditary patterns, lifestyles, diet, psychological tendencies, as well as current physical conditions.

System Principle - The hair analysis chart must be viewed as a system - that is, all at once, for proper understanding.
    Trying to understand one reading without considering all the other readings, will only lead to confusion and misinterpretation.

Compensation Principle - The minerals on the chart compensate for and adapt to one another in order to maintain critical levels and ratios.

Layers of Metabolism - On successive tests, different layers of metabolism are revealed. For this reason, it is not possible to understand a person's entire health condition from only one hair test.

Tissue Biopsy Principle - The hair sample only reflects minerals in the cells and interstitial spaces of the soft tissue of the body. Hair testing is a mineral biopsy or cellular testing procedure.

Averaging - Each mineral reading represents an average rate of accumulation of mineral in the hair over a 2-3 month period.

Summation - Each mineral reading represents a sum of metabolic events taking place in the hair.
    The components of this sum are the normal metabolism of hair, such as displacement, retention, excretion, loss and bio-unavailability.

Normal Mineral Metabolism - This component of the sum is the baseline levels of minerals found in hair.

Mineral Retention - One component of the sum is minerally retained in the hair. Retention in the hair elevates the mineral level.

Bio-Unavailability - This is a particular type of mineral retention or non-utilization, due to lack of a releasing factor. Bio-unavailable minerals are generally elevated, unless the mineral is locked up in tissues other than hair. In this case, the level may be very low.

Retention During Correction
    A mineral may be retained in the hair or in another organ or tissue during the correction of body chemistry.

Mineral Loss - A pathological loss of minerals through the hair can occur due to lack of a retaining factor. A mineral loss elevates the reading.

Mineral Excretion - A physiological effect of elimination of an unneeded mineral, that had been retained. Excretion elevates the mineral reading.

Displacement - One mineral can displace or replace another. Displacement causes an elevated reading of the mineral displaced.

Defender - A mineral level may be kept high or low to defend another level, ratio or pattern. A mineral acting as a defender may cause elevation or depression of a reading.

Critical Minerals vs Compensatory Minerals - In any particular situation, some minerals are critical to correct, while others are acting as compensatory or defender minerals only. These should not be corrected.

Terms Related To Nutritional Therapy
Correcting the Energy Pathway - This is one of the keys to recovering health, because by correcting the pathway, energy production increases.

Correcting the Oxidation Rate - This is the second key. Balancing the oxidation rate improves the efficiency of energy production.

Correction of Other Ratios - Other ratios are also critical, such as the sodium/potassium ratio and the zinc/copper ratio.

The Time Factor - As ratios remain uncorrected over time, compensations and adaptations occur on many levels. Time is required for correction, because these compensations and adaptations must be reversed, usually in reverse order called, retracing.

Retracing - The concept that as old mineral patterns are passed through on the way back to health, old symptoms will return for a time.

Toxic Metal Elimination - An important goal and occurrence on nutrition programs is removal of toxic metals. Sometimes temporary symptoms occur such as, a metallic taste, headache, or skin rash; as toxic metals are removed.

Decompensation Reactions - As healing occurs and energy returns, adaptations the body made are no longer necessary and are dropped. The changes associated with dropping adaptations can cause temporary symptoms such as, fatigue, anxiety, etc., until rebalancing of body chemistry occurs.

Completion Reactions - As the energy level increases, the body completes old business, resolving chronic infections, healing poorly healed wounds or injuries, etc. Occasionally, acute symptoms may flare-up during the process of completion or healing.

Psychological Override - Sometimes a person's psychological make-up will keep him in a mineral pattern, in spite of nutrient therapy. This we call psychological override.

Emotional Healing - No sharp distinction can be made between physical and emotional healing. Sometimes, emotional events are recorded in association with mineral patterns. Thus, when retracing of old mineral patterns occurs, old emotions or thoughts arise and are released.