Analytical Research Labs (ARL) assigns each toxic metal its own elimination symptom set: copper with headaches, extreme fatigue, skin eruptions, joint pains, and a racing mind with sleeplessness; lead with bone and joint pain; cadmium and mercury with a metallic taste; aluminum with few symptoms at all. My own reactions have been smells, itching, joint pain, headaches and sleep problems, in a different combination each time, and several of them match two readings on my charts: copper, and a low sodium-to-potassium (Na/K) ratio.
The per-metal elimination lists
ARL’s retracing and toxic-metal elimination documents list these reactions by metal:
- Copper: headaches (the most characteristic copper reaction), extreme fatigue, skin rashes and eruptions on the face, head, chest, trunk and thighs, a racing mind and sleeplessness, nausea and digestive upset, discomfort over the liver, menstrual changes, and joint pains.
- Cadmium: pain in the kidney area, joint pain, extreme fatigue, a metallic taste, temporary blood-pressure changes and digestive disturbance.
- Mercury: emotional changes, a metallic taste, kidney-area pain, fatigue and occasional skin eruptions; copper elimination symptoms commonly follow as mercury leaves.
- Nickel: kidney-area pain, fatigue, and lung-related symptoms, because nickel is commonly stored in the lungs.
- Lead: bone and joint pain, fatigue and general malaise.
- Iron: a greater awareness of anger (iron is stored in the amygdala) and temporary joint symptoms.
- Aluminum: “usually causes few symptoms as it is eliminated.”
The same documents list what leaves besides metals: metabolic end-products that produce foul odors and bad breath, pockets of bacteria encapsulated for years, and industrial chemicals inhaled years earlier. Dr. David Watts of Trace Elements, Inc. (TEI) ties two odor signs to minerals: general body odor and excessive perspiration go with magnesium, and excessive foot odor is peculiar to zinc deficiency. Because the metal being mobilized changes from one stretch of a program to the next, the reaction set changes with it.
Copper: headaches, skin, sleep and joints
Headaches, joint pain and sleep problems are all on ARL’s copper list, and the list’s skin entries (rashes and eruptions) sit beside my itching. ARL defines a copper elimination as “the elimination of excess copper from storage organs into the blood,” with the liver, brain, kidneys and bone named as storage sites. The trigger is any rise in metabolic rate: acute physical or emotional stress, caffeine, sugar, fasting, exercise, the premenstrual rise in estrogen, or the start of a nutritional balancing program. ARL states that the reactions “generally last a day or two,” and in some cases “a month or more.”
ARL gives three mechanisms for the symptoms of a copper elimination:
- Copper is released faster than the vitamin B6 and zinc reserves can contain it. Vitamin B6 and vitamin C are destroyed on contact with copper (Pfeiffer), and excess copper produces a relative zinc deficiency, so symptoms continue until the B6, vitamin C and zinc reserves are replete.
- Copper mobilization produces a transient drop in blood sugar, a rise in adrenalin and a build-up of lactic acid. Lactic acid dehydrogenase is a zinc-dependent enzyme, and a high hair calcium, common with stored copper, leaves little buffer against lactic acid.
- ARL calls copper the anesthesia mineral; as copper leaves, physical pain that it had dulled becomes perceptible again.
ARL’s zinc rule for anyone storing copper is that “Copperheads should never be caught without a good zinc storage reserve,” because acute stress causes an immediate zinc loss and widens the gap between zinc and copper. During acute illness, zinc losses can increase up to 4-fold (Rennert and Chan). Copper storage is also tracked through calcium: hair calcium tends to rise temporarily while copper is being eliminated, and a later drop in calcium is read as a reduction in stored copper.
The low Na/K ratio: fatigue and joint pain
Trace Elements puts the ideal Na/K at 2.4; Analytical Research Labs uses 2.5, and I read the range between them. A Na/K below that range is called an inversion, and ARL states that “the elimination of a heavy toxic metal is the most common cause of a sodium/potassium inversion on a retest chart.”
ARL’s thresholds for a low Na/K: under 2.5, fatigue is present to some degree; under 2.3 is its candida threshold; between 1 and 2, its table lists kidney and liver trends, joint trends and adrenal exhaustion. TEI’s acceptable Na/K band is 1.4 to 3.4, and Watts places the resistance stage of stress at a Na/K below 2.4, with glucocorticoid dominance and protein breakdown. ARL reads a low Na/K as excessive tissue protein breakdown (catabolism), so a low-Na/K stretch and a copper elimination both carry joint pain in their symptom sets, and the chart shows which of the two is active.
Cadmium moves the ratio in the other direction for a time. Cadmium has an aldosterone-like effect and raises sodium. While it is being eliminated through the kidneys, Na/K may rise temporarily; once the cadmium’s sodium support is gone, sodium drops, the oxidation rate slows, and fatigue follows. The same ratio can read high during one elimination and low during another, on charts taken 3 to 5 months apart.
Thrush and fatigue with a high Zn/Cu
During a stretch of oral thrush and fatigue, my chart showed a high zinc-to-copper (Zn/Cu) ratio. Both labs put the ideal Zn/Cu at 8:1, and TEI’s acceptable band runs from 4 to 12. A low Zn/Cu is the usual copper-toxicity reading; ARL’s ratio table reads 8 to 16 as copper deficiency or unavailability, and above 16 as severe copper deficiency or bio-unavailability.
ARL’s 1987 document on candida, based on tissue mineral analyses of several hundred candidiasis patients, lists these indicators: copper above 3.0 or below 1.0 mg%; zinc below 12.0 or above 20.0 mg%; a Zn/Cu ratio greater than 12; a Ca/Mg ratio above 10:1; and a Na/K below 2.3:1. Its stated reason is that copper has a fungicidal role in tissue, and copper that is stored but bio-unavailable cannot perform it. ARL also states that a high Zn/Cu “is not always a true reflection,” because copper is frequently bio-unavailable and cadmium frequently displaces the zinc reading upward.
The fatigue is in the same document: “the great majority, if not all, Candida patients have severely impaired production of biochemical energy.” It links a slow oxidation rate and a Na/K below 2.3:1 to systemic alkalinity, which favors yeast, and states that “correction of the sodium/potassium ratio is essential to eliminate yeast problems.” TEI reads the copper side the other way: its studies associate chronic candidiasis with copper excess. The two labs agree that copper is dysregulated and differ on the direction. My high Zn/Cu during the thrush and fatigue matches ARL’s candida indicator list, read as a copper-and-zinc trend and not a diagnosis.
What I do during a reaction
I have slowed my own program during reactions and added coffee enemas, sauna sessions and rest. ARL’s decision rules for any elimination reaction:
- Enhancing elimination is good in practically every case.
- Speed a reaction up when it drags on without finishing, which is most common in slow oxidizers.
- Slow a reaction down when symptoms are vigorous. For copper, ARL lowers the metabolic rate for a time: supplements reduced from 3 times a day to once a day, preferably at the evening meal, and dietary fat increased by 25 to 30%.
- Support the eliminative organs (skin, lungs, liver, kidneys, colon) with enemas, sauna or steam baths, warm baths, massage, skin brushing and deep breathing.
- The supplement program can be paused for a day or two until a reaction passes, except in a slow oxidizer whose energy depends on the supplements.
ARL names reassurance as the most important action and states that these reactions “usually cannot and should not be suppressed.” Its three screening questions separate a healing reaction from a decline: Is the person on a properly designed program, with both diet and supplements? Is the lifestyle healthy? Was the person’s energy rising just before the reaction? A yes to the third makes a healing reaction more likely, because energy is required for one to occur. Lonsdale, quoted in the same material, states that symptoms can worsen for “a few days to a few months” and calls this often a favorable sign.
A hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test for nutritional and toxic-element patterns. Each reading averages 2 to 3 months of growth, so a retest taken 3 to 5 months after a reaction shows which metal rose, whether calcium rose with copper, and whether Na/K moved below the 2.4 to 2.5 range.
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This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. Hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test for nutritional and toxic-element patterns, not a diagnosis.
