The hair consists of a cellular structure and is supplied during its growth, like all other body cells, with micronutrients (vital substances) such as minerals and trace elements. But also many foreign compounds in significantly higher concentrations than in other organs are stored in the hair. For example, heavy metals and other potentially toxic elements accumulate in the hair. Unlike in blood or urine, in the hair you can find information about, for example, environmental pollution of several months. Hair analysis or hair analytics uses the fact that hair is an easily accessible biomonitor. Hair analysis is a name for a chemical analysis of the hair sample. The method is used in forensic toxicology (the study of toxins, poisonings and their treatment) and ecotoxicology (environmental toxicology), it is used for retrospective (looking back) analysis of the intake of various chemical elements and organic compounds of a person over the period of several months.
The method
Material needed
- 250 mg of hair is required for hair analysis. These are cut strand by strand directly on the skin from various locations on the back of the head. The hair on the head grows on average 1 cm per month and thus one centimeter of hair reflects the accumulation of one month. If circa 3 cm of hair is removed near the scalp, which is ideal, you get an overview of the accumulation of the last three months.
Disturbing factors
- If the hair is dyed, the hair analysis can not be performed, because the dye will affect the results. The same applies to permed hair.
In the laboratory, the hair is washed, dissolved in nitric acid or in a microwave and liquefied. Then, by means of mass spectrometry with inductively coupled plasma (ICP-MS) or ICP-OES, less frequently by means of neutron activation analysis, the concentrations of chemical elements (e.g. minerals and trace elements; heavy metals) are analyzed. Narcotics are usually detected by liquid chromatography with mass spectrometry coupling (LC-MS or also LC-MS/MS) and gas chromatography with mass spectrometry coupling (GC-MS or also GC-MS/MS).
Indications (areas of application)
- Detection of:
- Narcotics (ecstasy, heroin, cocaine).
- Mineral and trace element deficiencies due to :
- Allergies
- Cephalgia (migraine)
- Lack of energy
- Memory impairment
- Immunodeficiency
- Susceptibility to infection (immunodeficiency)
- Insomnia
- Sexual and fertility disorders
- Doping agents (anabolic steroids; nandrolone).
- Heavy metals (arsenic, lead, cadmium, copper, mercury, thallium, etc); in the context of environmental analysis; in the late stages of poisoning, when the hazardous substance is no longer detectable in other media (semi-quantitative statement).
- Acute renal failure (sudden loss of function of both kidneys (within hours to days)).
- Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS).
- Dementia (loss of formerly acquired intellectual skills).
- Mild cognitive impairment
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Periodontitis (disease of the periodontium)
- Male sterility
- Tremor (shaking)
- Forensic/epidemiological/historical issues.
Further notes
- Hair analysis is not conclusive evidence of cannabis use, because even without having consumed cannabis, degradation products of the cannabis active ingredient tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) can occur in the hair. Researchers were able to prove that THC can not be used for definite proof of consumption, because this can be through sweat and sebum (sebum, skin sebum) of a user on other people.
