Fast metabolism, and what a hair mineral test adds

A fast metabolism is usually described as a good problem to have. The part people mention is eating what they like without gaining weight. The part that brings them to a clinic is everything else: running hot, sweating easily, a mind that will not settle, lying awake at eleven at night with the day still going.

Both descriptions are of the same thing, and neither is a diagnosis.

What metabolism actually refers to

Metabolism is the whole set of chemical processes that turn food into energy and building material. What people mean by a fast one is mostly the resting part — the energy used doing nothing, which is the bulk of a day’s total.

Several things push it up, and they are worth separating because they call for different responses:

• Thyroid function. An overactive thyroid raises resting energy use, heart rate and heat production, and produces weight loss without trying. It is measured with a blood test and it is the first thing to rule in or out.
• Sustained stress. The stress response is designed to be brief. Held on for months, it keeps you alert, warm and poorly slept.
• Stimulants. Caffeine and nicotine both raise resting metabolic rate, and the amount people are actually having is usually more than they estimate.
• Muscle mass and activity. Lean, active people burn more at rest. That is not a disorder, and it is the explanation more often than anything else.
• Age. Resting rate is highest in youth and declines slowly.

The useful question is which of those applies, because “fast metabolism” as a label does not distinguish between a thyroid that needs attention and a body that is simply working well.

Where hair mineral analysis fits

Hair mineral analysis measures the concentration of minerals and metals in a hair sample, giving a picture spread across roughly the last one to three months of growth rather than a single moment.

The report includes something people are often surprised by. Alongside the element levels, the laboratory provides an interpretive section describing what it calls a metabolic type — read from the ratios between minerals rather than from any single figure:

Ratio	What the laboratory’s framework reads it as
Calcium to phosphorus	The main marker. Below roughly 2.6 to 1 is read as the fast pattern; above it, the slow one
Sodium to magnesium	An adrenal-activity marker in that framework
Calcium to potassium	A thyroid-activity marker in that framework

In the fast pattern, sodium and potassium tend to sit above the laboratory’s mean while calcium and magnesium sit below it — roughly the mirror image of the slow one.

Two things need saying plainly about that.

The first is that this is the laboratory’s own interpretive framework, built from its clinical data over several decades. It is not a mainstream diagnostic method, and a mineral ratio is not a measure of thyroid or adrenal function. If your thyroid is the question, the answer comes from a blood test.

The second is that the report is a screening measurement, not a diagnosis. It does not diagnose a nutrient deficiency, it does not diagnose a thyroid or adrenal condition, and the evaluation that comes with it is generated from the sample alone — the laboratory has never seen your history, your medications or your symptoms.

So what is it good for

Used as intended, it gives a practitioner something specific to work from rather than a description of how you feel.

It shows a mineral pattern across a window of weeks. It flags an element that is unexpectedly high or low and worth following up properly. It gives a baseline to compare against three or more months later, at the same laboratory. And the metabolic-type section gives a practitioner a framework to discuss with you — one set of questions among several, not a verdict.

What it cannot do is replace the blood testing that answers the thyroid question. If you are losing weight without trying, your resting heart rate is up and you are running hot, that testing is the thing to get moving on now rather than next month.

What to do with this

If this sounds like you, the useful order is: get the straightforward causes measured, and use hair mineral analysis alongside that rather than instead of it.

The naturopaths at Brunswick Health can arrange blood pathology through a private laboratory — paid directly to the laboratory, without a Medicare rebate — and will refer you on to a GP or specialist where a result calls for it. If you already have a hair mineral report, or you want one read properly, Carmen Farrugia is the naturopath here who works with mineral analysis, by phone or in a consultation.

Hair mineral testing at Brunswick Health explains what the test measures, what it costs and how to collect a sample. There is no kit to wait for, so you can start the same day.

If the picture in the slow metabolism article sounds more like you, that one covers the same ground from the other direction.