Hair Mineral Testing After The Menopause: What Can It Tell You?
Updated: Sep 9
After menopause, many women — myself included — expect things to finally settle down after the craziness of perimenopause. Only to discover that life after the menopause can bring its own set of changes. Energy, sleep, mood, digestion, muscle aches, hair and skin can all feel different. And when your body doesn't quite feel like it used to, it's understandable to want to know what's going on — and what your body might need now.
One option you may come across is Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA).
HTMA looks at the mineral content of a small sample of hair and can provide another layer of information when we're looking at nutrition and mineral patterns. It isn't a diagnostic test, and it shouldn't replace appropriate medical investigations. But, when used as part of a wider picture, it can provide some interesting clues.
What is Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis?
Hair mineral testing, often referred to as Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis (HTMA), looks at a range of minerals found within the hair.
This include minerals such as:
Magnesium
Calcium
Zinc
Copper
Selenium
Sodium
Potassium
It also looks at toxic metals including mercury, lead and arsenic.
Unlike a blood test, which gives us a snapshot of what's happening in the bloodstream at a particular moment, hair grows over time. This means an HTMA can provide information about mineral patterns over a longer period.
Why might minerals matter after menopause?
Your nutritional needs don't simply stay the same throughout your life. After the menopause, it's worth paying attention to the foundations that support your health — including a nutrient-dense diet, adequate protein, movement, sleep and the minerals your body relies on every day.
Minerals are involved in hundreds of processes throughout the body.
For example:
Magnesium contributes to normal muscle and nerve function and is involved in normal energy-yielding metabolism.
Calcium is important for the maintenance of normal bones.
Zinc contributes to normal hair, skin and immune function.
Selenium contributes to normal thyroid function and protection of cells from oxidative stress.
Copper contributes to normal connective tissue, iron transport and energy metabolism.
What can Hair Mineral Testing tell you after the menopause?
It can highlight mineral patterns
One of the reasons I use HTMA is that it can provide another piece of information when we're trying to understand someone's nutritional picture. It highlights patterns involving minerals such as calcium, magnesium, sodium, potassium, zinc and copper.
And sometimes that's exactly what we need — more information, rather than more guesswork.
It can help us look at your supplement routine
After menopause, it's not unusual to accumulate a rather impressive collection of supplements! But taking more isn't necessarily better. Minerals interact with one another, and taking large amounts of one mineral over time can potentially affect others. Zinc and copper are a good example. Looking at your diet, supplements and mineral patterns together can help create a more thoughtful approach. The aim isn't to give you a longer supplement list.
It's about looking at you, not just your results
For me, this is one of the most important parts of HTMA.
I'm not interested in looking at a list of numbers in isolation.
I'm looking at those results alongside your symptoms, health history, diet, lifestyle, medications, supplements and what you're actually trying to achieve.
Because your results should make sense in the context of you.
So, is HTMA worth considering after menopause?
It can be — particularly if you're experiencing a collection of symptoms and want to take a closer look at your nutritional and mineral picture.
But I don't believe in testing simply for the sake of testing.
The useful question isn't:
“What can I test?”
It's:
“What information would actually help us understand you better?”
That's the approach I take with HTMA.
We start with you — your symptoms, your history, your diet and your current situation — and then consider whether testing is appropriate. And if testing isn't likely to add anything useful, I'll tell you that too. Because your results shouldn't just sit in isolation on a piece of paper. They need to make sense in the context of you.
A final thought
Life after menopause isn't simply about replacing hormones or taking a handful of supplements. It's a new stage of life, and your nutritional needs deserve a more individual approach. Hair Mineral Testing is a helpful tool after the menopause, it can provide useful clues about mineral patterns and help us ask better questions about nutrition and supplementation.
But the value isn't really in the hair sample itself.
It's in what we do with the information.
