my many missing minerals
June 26, 2009 11:31 AM Subscribe
How can I get tested to see if I'm missing any trace minerals or vitamins in my diet without health insurance?
If you live near a university, volunteer as a "healthy normal" research subject for metabolic studies. I've had thousands of dollars-worth of free health care in every specialty under the sun...Check the Craigslist "voulnteers" section or call around various departments until they put you in touch with the right people.
posted by aquafortis at 11:40 AM on June 26, 2009 [2 favorites]
posted by aquafortis at 11:40 AM on June 26, 2009 [2 favorites]
You could try and determine your diet and the relative health of it with My Pyramid Diet Log. I had to use this for a course once and it goes into great detail about diet, vitamins and minerals, caloric intake, carb intake, etc...
It will identify your deficiencies in many ways if you take the time to input your eating habits and exercise schedule.
You'd probably have to pay for a service like that if you wanted it quickly and didn't want to use the website to get a rough idea of where you're at. Aquafortis is the right track for free services though, though it might take a bit longer to have a test similar to what you are asking for done.
posted by Gravitus at 11:54 AM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
It will identify your deficiencies in many ways if you take the time to input your eating habits and exercise schedule.
You'd probably have to pay for a service like that if you wanted it quickly and didn't want to use the website to get a rough idea of where you're at. Aquafortis is the right track for free services though, though it might take a bit longer to have a test similar to what you are asking for done.
posted by Gravitus at 11:54 AM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
Is there some reason you believe you're missing any?
Investigating non-problems is a short road to misery. If you have a family history of deficiencies you should be planning a way to get tested by a medical professional (who can then supply a treatment plan) and be making sure that your diet provides you what you need.
If you know that your diet doesn't provide you what you need, then testing and determining you're not currently lacking is merely an indicator that you do not YET have an issue.
My apologies if you do have a reason, but it's become very common in our culture to go looking for problems that aren't there. This would be, at worse, a waste of money if there wasn't copious evidence to suggest that more testing is, in fact, often times worse than less testing.
posted by phearlez at 12:03 PM on June 26, 2009 [3 favorites]
Investigating non-problems is a short road to misery. If you have a family history of deficiencies you should be planning a way to get tested by a medical professional (who can then supply a treatment plan) and be making sure that your diet provides you what you need.
If you know that your diet doesn't provide you what you need, then testing and determining you're not currently lacking is merely an indicator that you do not YET have an issue.
My apologies if you do have a reason, but it's become very common in our culture to go looking for problems that aren't there. This would be, at worse, a waste of money if there wasn't copious evidence to suggest that more testing is, in fact, often times worse than less testing.
posted by phearlez at 12:03 PM on June 26, 2009 [3 favorites]
Do you have specific concerns? Unless you have inadequate intake (a very strict type of diet, or financially unable to afford an array of foods), or a medical condition with malabsorption, in general healthy individuals eating a varied diet won't encounter vitamin or mineral deficiencies. Just from standard breads, cereals, any veggies or fruits, and protein sources, you've got adequate vitamin and mineral intake.
Of course there can be exceptions, but in general healthy individuals eating a varied diet don't get clinically significant deficiencies unless there is an underlying problem.
posted by davidnc at 12:03 PM on June 26, 2009
Of course there can be exceptions, but in general healthy individuals eating a varied diet don't get clinically significant deficiencies unless there is an underlying problem.
posted by davidnc at 12:03 PM on June 26, 2009
This would be a huge waste of your money. If you eat a healthy, balanced diet, you should be just fine. Levels won't tell you anything as they are just a snapshot of what your plasma levels are at any given moment.
Save your money and spend it on good quality food. As davidnc corectly noted, unless you are on an unusual diet, or have some bizarre inborn error ot metabolism, you should be fine.
posted by scblackman at 12:11 PM on June 26, 2009
Save your money and spend it on good quality food. As davidnc corectly noted, unless you are on an unusual diet, or have some bizarre inborn error ot metabolism, you should be fine.
posted by scblackman at 12:11 PM on June 26, 2009
Unless you have a specific reason to be concerned that you have a malnutrition-related illness, eat a healthful diet and don't worry about it. If you are having symptoms of an illness that you believe to be diet-related, you should see a doctor or nutritionist and describe those symptoms.
posted by decathecting at 12:12 PM on June 26, 2009
posted by decathecting at 12:12 PM on June 26, 2009
As Gravitus suggested, there are a number of free nutritional trackers where you can input what you've eaten for the day and get back a report of how well you've met your nutritional goals, including vitamins and minerals. I use SparkPeople.com and have recently noticed I only get about half of my recommended daily amount of iron, so I'm currently adjusting my diet to up my iron intake. Fitday.com may be a good one for you as I believe it focuses more on reporting and less on weight loss support and community.
posted by platinum at 12:19 PM on June 26, 2009
posted by platinum at 12:19 PM on June 26, 2009
For like $40 you can visit a MOM - a Master of Oriental Medicine who will happily test for several responses that will indicate low this or that as well as work up a holistic Tx plan which should include diet and exercise.
posted by valentinepig at 12:54 PM on June 26, 2009
posted by valentinepig at 12:54 PM on June 26, 2009
A nutritional counselor would do this. Not free, but $40-$80.
posted by desuetude at 1:32 PM on June 26, 2009
posted by desuetude at 1:32 PM on June 26, 2009
Off-hand I know half a dozen women who've turned out to have vitamin and mineral deficiencies despite an incredibly healthy diet. There's no problem with checking it out, and yet 4 out of the 10 comments repeat the non-answer.
posted by small_ruminant at 2:18 PM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
posted by small_ruminant at 2:18 PM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
One: you cannot easily test for deficiencies.
Qualifiers: some vitamins and especially minerals are harder to test for than others. Some do not have established uncontroversial optimal levels.
Taking a blood test, like a comprehensive blood panel, will give you meaningless results for many of these. Example: take sodium, or calcium. You may be pretty deficient in both, but your serum (blood) levels will show up as fine, because the body finds it critical to maintain serum levels of these minerals within a pretty narrow range, otherwise you can't function - and so the "levels" will show up as fine. In fact, you are deficient, and the body is making it up by leaching calcium from your bones. In other words: worthless results. And by the time those levels are affected to the point that they are abnormal, you are dangerously deficient.
Meanwhile some tests are more meaningful than others: many popular tests for vitamin D are worthless, and you need a very specific test - unless you or your physician know this, you are out of luck.
Two: the best way of making sure you have enough micronutrients, is to consume a diet that has enough of these. There is nutrition software out there, and you can input your daily food and see what you are missing and by how much - you'll be surprised.
Three: we actually are not sure what optimal levels of many vit. and minerals are. We have rough guides for some, but for some we don't even have that. Vitamin D for example is in a state of flux. What we have at best, is minimum and maximum levels, but often even not that. Optimum? Hardly.
Four: we don't even have a complete list of micronutrients, and for some their status as "necessary" is uncertain.
Five: even if you get all of your vit. minerals in your diet according to the nutritional software, you must take into account bioavailability and interaction of nutrients and foodstuffs. It's complicated.
Recommended: if consulting with a qualified nutritionist is too expensive, get books on nutrition, to settle some of the issues I outlined in 1-5.
Caveat: most qualified nutritionists are at best aware of current recommendations. Nutritional science is greatly unsettled and making daily progress - they are always behind the times, and will be substantially wrong about a lot of their recommendations, to the point it may hurt you. Ditto for books.
posted by VikingSword at 2:46 PM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
Qualifiers: some vitamins and especially minerals are harder to test for than others. Some do not have established uncontroversial optimal levels.
Taking a blood test, like a comprehensive blood panel, will give you meaningless results for many of these. Example: take sodium, or calcium. You may be pretty deficient in both, but your serum (blood) levels will show up as fine, because the body finds it critical to maintain serum levels of these minerals within a pretty narrow range, otherwise you can't function - and so the "levels" will show up as fine. In fact, you are deficient, and the body is making it up by leaching calcium from your bones. In other words: worthless results. And by the time those levels are affected to the point that they are abnormal, you are dangerously deficient.
Meanwhile some tests are more meaningful than others: many popular tests for vitamin D are worthless, and you need a very specific test - unless you or your physician know this, you are out of luck.
Two: the best way of making sure you have enough micronutrients, is to consume a diet that has enough of these. There is nutrition software out there, and you can input your daily food and see what you are missing and by how much - you'll be surprised.
Three: we actually are not sure what optimal levels of many vit. and minerals are. We have rough guides for some, but for some we don't even have that. Vitamin D for example is in a state of flux. What we have at best, is minimum and maximum levels, but often even not that. Optimum? Hardly.
Four: we don't even have a complete list of micronutrients, and for some their status as "necessary" is uncertain.
Five: even if you get all of your vit. minerals in your diet according to the nutritional software, you must take into account bioavailability and interaction of nutrients and foodstuffs. It's complicated.
Recommended: if consulting with a qualified nutritionist is too expensive, get books on nutrition, to settle some of the issues I outlined in 1-5.
Caveat: most qualified nutritionists are at best aware of current recommendations. Nutritional science is greatly unsettled and making daily progress - they are always behind the times, and will be substantially wrong about a lot of their recommendations, to the point it may hurt you. Ditto for books.
posted by VikingSword at 2:46 PM on June 26, 2009 [1 favorite]
Taking a blood test, like a comprehensive blood panel, will give you meaningless results for many of these. [...] And by the time those levels are affected to the point that they are abnormal, you are dangerously deficient.
It wasn't worthless when I did a DEXA scan as a "healthy normal" research subject and was diagnosed with osteopenia. Nor the times I came in feeling perfectly fine and was told I was iron-deficiency anemic (vegetarian), hyponatremic (too much exercise, not enough electrolytes), had fibrous breast cysts discovered and drained during a sonogram, or had a small benign colon polyp removed during a colonoscopy.
None of those conditions were "OMG go to the doctor" bad, but who knows what might have happened in a few years unless I was made aware of them? Ironically, some of these deficiencies were caused by doing the "right" things: no meat, no dairy, no salt, low body weight as a teenager, and vigorously daily exercise. I've made some changes, and hopefully will be better off for it.
Not only were all these procedures free, I was paid for my time.
Being a research guinea pig is one of the best things going.
posted by aquafortis at 6:23 PM on June 26, 2009
It wasn't worthless when I did a DEXA scan as a "healthy normal" research subject and was diagnosed with osteopenia. Nor the times I came in feeling perfectly fine and was told I was iron-deficiency anemic (vegetarian), hyponatremic (too much exercise, not enough electrolytes), had fibrous breast cysts discovered and drained during a sonogram, or had a small benign colon polyp removed during a colonoscopy.
None of those conditions were "OMG go to the doctor" bad, but who knows what might have happened in a few years unless I was made aware of them? Ironically, some of these deficiencies were caused by doing the "right" things: no meat, no dairy, no salt, low body weight as a teenager, and vigorously daily exercise. I've made some changes, and hopefully will be better off for it.
Not only were all these procedures free, I was paid for my time.
Being a research guinea pig is one of the best things going.
posted by aquafortis at 6:23 PM on June 26, 2009
It wasn't worthless when I did a DEXA scan as a "healthy normal" research subject and was diagnosed with osteopenia. Nor the times I came in feeling perfectly fine and was told I was iron-deficiency anemic (vegetarian), hyponatremic (too much exercise, not enough electrolytes), had fibrous breast cysts discovered and drained during a sonogram, or had a small benign colon polyp removed during a colonoscopy.
???
What does that have to do with the worth of a complete blood panel as diagnostic of all vitamin and mineral levels? Nobody is arguing that you shouldn't have regular medical checkups in general or for specific conditions. Or that sonograms, colonoscopy etc. are not valuable. And what does a DEXA scan have to do with the OP's question, or my answer? This seems like a giant derail.
To repeat, my point is that even a complete blood panel will not give you the information the OP is seeking (though it will answer some questions). I'm merely calibrating expectations wrt. completeness. Many people think a blood panel answers all questions about possible vit & min deficiencies. It does not.
I advise the OP not to rely on such tests, because they will not give all answers to these questions. It is important to use nutrition software to monitor one's diet, and respond to that, and in addition, learn enough to know about bioavailability.
posted by VikingSword at 9:45 PM on June 26, 2009
???
What does that have to do with the worth of a complete blood panel as diagnostic of all vitamin and mineral levels? Nobody is arguing that you shouldn't have regular medical checkups in general or for specific conditions. Or that sonograms, colonoscopy etc. are not valuable. And what does a DEXA scan have to do with the OP's question, or my answer? This seems like a giant derail.
To repeat, my point is that even a complete blood panel will not give you the information the OP is seeking (though it will answer some questions). I'm merely calibrating expectations wrt. completeness. Many people think a blood panel answers all questions about possible vit & min deficiencies. It does not.
I advise the OP not to rely on such tests, because they will not give all answers to these questions. It is important to use nutrition software to monitor one's diet, and respond to that, and in addition, learn enough to know about bioavailability.
posted by VikingSword at 9:45 PM on June 26, 2009
And what does a DEXA scan have to do with the OP's question or my answer?
I was merely supporting my original comment: "metabolic research studies are a great way to find out if you have mineral deficiencies."
Despite daily exercise, eating a healthy diet, and being relatively symptom-free, testing revealed I had some fairly significant mineral absorption problems. While I agree no one should rely on blood panels to provide a complete picture, in my case-- particularly re. the iron deficiency anemia and exercise-associated hyponatremia-- they were far from "meaningless".
posted by aquafortis at 11:32 PM on June 26, 2009
Aquafortis is the right track for free services though, though it might take a bit longer to have a test similar to what you are asking for done.
Actually, almost every study I've been to gives you a complete blood panel and EKG as soon as you're accepted just to make sure you really are normal. Only then do you get the MRI, CAT scan, bronchoscopy, etc.
Investigating non-problems is a short road to misery.
I agree it would be stone cold nuts to pay for all those tests-- but if you're getting free preventative care, helping science, and making money, where's the downside?
And to everyone who said "eat healthy and don't worry about it": according to a study in JAMA entitled "Prevalence of Iron Deficiency in the United States", 5% of women between the ages of 20 and 49 have iron deficiency with anemia, and 11% have iron deficiency without anemia. I'd say that's common enough to warrant looking into.
In my experience, the quickest way to get checked for anemia is visit a blood drive and offer to donate. If you are, they'll let you know; if you aren't, you help save lives. Win win!
posted by aquafortis at 12:47 PM on June 27, 2009
Actually, almost every study I've been to gives you a complete blood panel and EKG as soon as you're accepted just to make sure you really are normal. Only then do you get the MRI, CAT scan, bronchoscopy, etc.
Investigating non-problems is a short road to misery.
I agree it would be stone cold nuts to pay for all those tests-- but if you're getting free preventative care, helping science, and making money, where's the downside?
And to everyone who said "eat healthy and don't worry about it": according to a study in JAMA entitled "Prevalence of Iron Deficiency in the United States", 5% of women between the ages of 20 and 49 have iron deficiency with anemia, and 11% have iron deficiency without anemia. I'd say that's common enough to warrant looking into.
In my experience, the quickest way to get checked for anemia is visit a blood drive and offer to donate. If you are, they'll let you know; if you aren't, you help save lives. Win win!
posted by aquafortis at 12:47 PM on June 27, 2009
« Older How much should I feel I should be paid? | so much for any nightclubbing (that's actually a... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 11:40 AM on June 26, 2009 [3 favorites]