Clinical Laboratory Biostatiscian Responds to JAMA Study on Hair Testing.

Business Editors/Health & Medical Writers

ASHEVILLE, N.C.--(BW HealtWire)--March 28, 2001

Today's issue of JAMA, the official journal of the American Medical Association, contains a letter in rebuttal to a previously published study and editorial on hair mineral analysis.

Written by Michael Glade, Ph.D., a biostatistician involved in laboratory medicine, and Mitchell Kaminski, M.D., a surgeon and anti-aging specialist, the letter has been posted by JAMA online at http://jama.ama-assn.org/issues/current/ffull/jlt0328-4.html . In the letter, Drs. Glade and Kaminski refute the conclusions reached by authors of the study and editorial and point to significant flaws in the study's design.

The study's authors submitted samples of the hair from one individual - described as "generally healthy" - to six different labs for analysis. The test results received from the labs, whose instrumentation, quality control, and sample preparation methods often differed significantly, offered several different interpretations and recommendations for nutrient supplementation. Based on these discrepencies, the authors concluded that hair analysis from these laboratories was "unreliable." They also recommended "that health care practitioners refrain from using such analyses to assess individual nutritional status or suspected environmental exposures."

"The authors have misinterpreted the hypothesis they set out to test," according to Glade and Kaminski. "Rather than conducting an examination of the reliability or accuracy of the results of hair mineral analysis, the authors have actually examined whether haphazard selection of a diagnostic laboratory is wise. Indeed, they confirmed the axiom that careful selection of a diagnostic laboratory is not just prudent but essential."

In the rebuttal, Glade and Kaminski argued that "the [study's] lack of any other objective data concerning the mineral and trace element content of the submitted sample precludes any conclusions about the accuracy of any of the test results.... Therefore, the authors cannot conclude that all of the laboratories were mistaken; at least 1 may have been correct."

Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory, the premier laboratory performing functional diagnostic testing, supports these efforts in the name of keeping practitioners and patients fully informed on clinical issues. For the education of practitioners and patients, Great Smokies now offers an extensively referenced "white paper" on hair testing accuracy and reliability online at http://www.gsdl.com/assessments/elemental/whitepapercomplete.pdf .

Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory provides advanced, innovative assessments of gastrointestinal, endocrine, immune, nutritional, and metabolic function to healthcare providers worldwide. It offers tests of physiology with innovative markers designed for early identification of risk for disease development and for guiding preventive therapies to promote optimal health, healthy aging, and productive longevity. Great Smokies' quality clinical laboratory services are certified by Medicare and several state regulatory agencies, as well as by the College of American Pathologists - the professional organization which monitors quality in the world's leading hospital and major reference laboratories.