In general, what is the method of checking trace elements?

Tests for trace elements in the human body can be done with peripheral venous blood or with the hair of the person being examined. Human trace element test is currently mostly used in children and adolescents with growth and development to determine whether there is a deficiency of trace elements. The trace elements detected generally include iron, magnesium, zinc, manganese, chromium, copper, lead, iodine and other trace elements.

Iron deficiency can lead to iron deficiency anemia; If there is iodine deficiency, goiter may occur; Zinc deficiency can affect appetite, leading to loss of appetite, stunted growth, and the risk of pica. In addition, there are some trace elements that can be poisoned if they are excessive, such as copper poisoning or lead poisoning. In fact, there has long been an official statement on the detection of trace elements in China.

On October 30, 2013, the General Office of the National Health and Family Planning Commission issued a notice on standardizing the clinical testing of trace elements in children, according to the clinical symptoms of children, targeted trace element testing can be carried out, but it is not necessary for diagnosis and treatment, and it is forbidden for all types of medical institutions at all levels to carry out trace element testing for children that are not needed for diagnosis and treatment, and it is not appropriate to use trace element testing as a general examination item such as physical examination, especially for infants under 6 months old.

In other words, unless the child is sick, the hospital can use trace element testing as an auxiliary means to help determine what disease the child has. Otherwise, there is no need to test for trace element deficiencies.

In general, it is the most accurate and safest to go to the hospital for blood testing. In fact, trace elements can also be checked for hair and urine. If you feel that your baby is deficient in trace elements, it is best to go to the hospital for a blood test and conduct an examination under the guidance of a doctor to avoid unnecessary panic.

Trace element detection is only one of the means of examination, and the results are indeed not 100% accurate, because trace elements are free in the blood in the form of ions, and the trace elements "captured" at a certain point in time may not reflect the overall situation of trace elements in the body. In addition, trace element detection has very high requirements for the environment of instruments and laboratories, and its results will be disturbed by many objective factors. Therefore, the test results of trace elements are only used as a reference, and the key is to make a comprehensive evaluation based on clinical symptoms.

For example, to determine whether a child is deficient in calcium, if the test result is low calcium, it is said that there is a lack of calcium, and a comprehensive analysis of height, sleep, diet, teeth and other aspects of the situation, and then supplement calcium under the guidance of a doctor. However, it is not meaningless, for example, for some children with iron deficiency and zinc deficiency symptoms, doctors will still test as needed, and use trace element testing as a reference standard for diagnosis.

In general, it is not necessary for a child to have a trace element test unless there are obvious symptoms. In general, children with iron deficiency tend to present with fatigue, hyperactivity, poor appetite, and susceptibility to wound infection; Zinc deficiency manifests as mouth ulcers and picky eaters; Poor sleep quality, night terrors, and occipital baldness are caused by a lack of calcium and a lack of vitamin D supplementation for a period of time. As long as the child eats normally and mixes the diet reasonably, the child will not develop trace element deficiency.

Babies in infancy and toddler years, according to the doctor's instructions to supplement vitamins and add complementary foods on time, should not be deficient in trace elements.

If the child is deficient in a small amount of a certain trace element, it is best to supplement it through food, not blindly supplement a large amount of nutrients, "The most important thing is to have a balanced diet." "For example, when iron deficiency and anemia symptoms occur, animal liver, green vegetables and a small amount of lean meat can be supplemented in moderation; Zinc supplementation can be done in moderation with lean meats, nuts, whole grains and shellfish. Blindly taking trace element supplements to children for a long time is also prone to the problem of mutual antagonism between various trace elements, such as calcium and zinc will affect the absorption rate of iron, and iron will also reduce the absorption rate of zinc.

Many parents do trace element testing for their children, wanting to see what aspects of their children need to be supplemented with nutrients in this way. The most common is to use an instrument clamped on your hand to detect whether your trace elements are up to standard, which is really good for friends who sell health care products, so is the effect of these instruments really useful?

1. Blood. Blood samples can be collected from venous or peripheral blood.

The content of trace elements in the human body is low, and it is susceptible to various contamination during the collection of samples, so trace element blood samples need to be taken with extra care during the collection process. In addition to the requirements of the Ministry of Health's "Technical Specifications for Clinical Testing of Blood Lead" on sample collection, special test tubes for trace elements that have passed the regular spot check should be used, and the test tubes should be immediately sealed with inert and non-polluting materials to eliminate the influence of the container itself on the test results.

Blood tests are easy to contaminate, causing cross-infection, inconvenient sampling, reflecting the status of trace elements in the body in a short period of time, which is greatly affected by diet and disease, and is only used as clinical guidance.

2. Hair. Human hair includes hair, armpit hair, beard, chest hair, etc., among which hair testing is the most widely used

1) Hair samples are easy to sample and easy to preserve.

2) For trace elements, the content in hair is higher than that in other parts of the human body such as blood, saliva and urine due to accumulation, and it is more stable and easier to analyze.

3) Hair can reflect the nutritional status of trace elements in the past few weeks to months, so it can truly reflect the storage status of trace elements.

4) The protein structure of hair can be combined with elements in the environment such as water and atmosphere, and its binding force varies with various trace elements, so the trace elements in hair can be used as an indicator of environmental pollution. At the same time, it also shows that the hair test does not represent the true level of trace elements in the body. Hair testing is generally not used in medical institutions.

1. Finger blood test: the pain caused to the baby is small, but there are many shortcomings: if the needle is shallow and the blood cannot flow out, the chemist will squeeze out the blood by hand, which will inevitably mix the surrounding tissue fluid, and the specimen is easy to be contaminated, so the test result must be inaccurate.

2. Venous blood test: the results of venous blood test are more reliable than finger blood test, but at present, venous blood test can not fully reflect the real nutritional status of trace elements in the body, because many trace elements exist in the blood only a very small amount, and some trace elements are not even 1% of the body's storage. Therefore, the test results can only be used for clinical reference.

Due to the difficulty of collecting blood, some hospitals currently use finger blood for testing.

3. Hair detection: Modern scientific research has proved that trace elements have a special affinity with hair, and trace elements in the body accumulate in hair, and their content is too high or low to indicate the risk of suffering from a certain disease. In general, a lack of copper can make hair gray, a lack of zinc slows hair growth, and a lack of calcium makes hair less gripping and tends to fall out.