What does children's nutrient testing detect?

The core of children's nutrient testing carried out by regular medical institutions is to assess the reserve and metabolic levels of macro and micro nutrients in children. The former is mainly related to protein and energy intake status, while the latter is commonly referred to as vitamin and mineral related indicators.

When I was attending a child care clinic last week, I met a mother who brought her 3-year-old baby into the door and asked for a full nutrient test. She said that the test package purchased by the community was only 99, and she could also take a hair test without needing needles. I flipped through the items in that package, and even "growth factor potential" and "IQ-related nutrients" were mixed in. It was obvious that IQ tax was charged.

In fact, there has been a lot of controversy about children's nutrient testing. The most typical one is the testing reliability of non-venous blood sampling. Whether it is hair, nails or fingertip blood, there are too many interfering factors: dust on the hair and residual care products will make the mineral results higher. If you squeeze hard when sampling fingertip blood, The interstitial fluid mixed in will dilute the sample, and the measured iron and zinc concentrations are generally low. In the past six months, our department has encountered more than a dozen cases of "multiple nutrient deficiencies" measured by external institutions. The fasting venous blood test was completely normal when they came to us. Many parents also gave their children nutritional supplements for less than half a month, which actually increased the burden on the gastrointestinal tract. There are also many institutions that like to measure bone density along with it, saying that low bone density means calcium deficiency. In fact, children are in a period of rapid bone development, and low bone density is a normal physiological state. Unless there is severe vitamin D deficiency or metabolic disease, bone density cannot be used to judge calcium deficiency. This has long been recognized in the industry.

If you really want to do a reliable nutrient test, the items you check are actually targeted, and you won’t just prescribe dozens of items. For example, if your baby has recently turned pale and is picky about eating red meat, we will focus on checking hemoglobin, serum ferritin and other indicators related to iron reserves; if your baby often wakes up crying in the middle of the night and has slow teething, we will also check blood 25-hydroxyvitamin D and blood calcium. , blood phosphorus, this 25-hydroxyvitamin D is also the gold standard for judging vitamin D nutritional level, which is much more accurate than the ordinary vitamin D concentration measured by many institutions; only if you have repeated angular stomatitis, are picky eaters and do not like to eat vegetables, you will consider checking B vitamins and vitamin C. As for indicators such as total protein and albumin, they are generally aimed at children who have been picky eaters for a long time, are underweight, and whose growth curve has fallen out of the normal range, to evaluate whether they have insufficient protein and energy intake.

To put it bluntly, this test is like going through the storage box when you are lacking something at home. If your baby usually eats meat, eggs, milk, fruits, vegetables, and whole grains, and his height and weight follow the growth curve steadily, and there are no abnormal symptoms, there is really no need to follow the trend and do the test. After all, even if it is venous blood, the baby will suffer if too much is drawn, right?