US EPA

1390475 

Technical Report 

Trace Element Nutriture And Metabolism Through Head Hair Analysis 

Strain, WH; Pories, WJ; Flynn, A; Hill OA Jr 

1972 

NIOSH/00151490 

pages 383 

383-397 

Trace element nutriture and metabolism through head hair analysis are discussed. Head hair analysis provides a unique method for studying human trace element nutriture and metabolism. It is suggested that the trace element content of hair is correlated with body stores, especially of bone. Feces and urine analyses are of limited value as indicators of body stores. Blood analyses also provide only limited information because homeostatic mechanisms operate to keep many blood components constant. Human head hair, however, is a recording filament that can reflect metabolic changes of many elements over long periods of time, providing a print out of past nutritional events. Using hair analysis for estimating trace element nutriture and metabolism is a very attractive prospect because hair is easily sampled, shipped, and analyzed. At the present time, single hairs can be analyzed for 17 elements, and with larger samples 27 elements can be determined. An experimental study to determine whether hair zinc concentrations reflect deficiency and sufficiency in humans is described. Studies of hair metabolism measured by the uptake and retention of radioactive isotopes in rats are discussed. Hair analysis is considered to be a promising epidemiological tool for monitoring exposure to toxic concentrations of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury. 

DCN-137774; Health engineering; Analytical instruments; Biology; Tissue distribution; Toxic materials; Health protection; Environmental exposure; Research; Biological effects; Hygiene; Trace analysis