Using Acu-Cell Cellular Technology to establish Nutritional Requirements for Trace Minerals and other Nutrients
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From routine annual physicals to emergency hospitalization, blood tests are viewed as important tools to help arrive at a medical diagnosis, and later to monitor the progress of various treatments prescribed. While there is the advantage that blood samples may be taken on a live or dead body, with or without consent, and under various other circumstances, they suffer from many flaws in regard to establishing nutritional requirements on an individual basis, and especially with patients who fall outside the so-called "normal" range.
Medical science is well aware of the many limitations, i.e. close mineral tolerances in serum [1] samples that are frequently maintained when patients are seemingly healthy, when they go through a medical crises, or when they are terminally ill. Unfortunately, this delays or prevents a more accurate diagnosis, or it requires other, perhaps more expensive diagnostic tools - to the detriment of the patient and the efficiency and cost of the Health Care System.
As changes in lifestyle, diet, stress, genetics, injuries or aging start to affect a person's well-being, intracellular chemistry reflects many of these changes through variations in nutritional levels, abnormal mineral ratios, or general biochemical imbalances. Blood chemistry on the other hand - with some exceptions - remains largely unchanged and unaffected, and would give a patient a clean bill of health. Conventional medicine would now offer the patient a vast array of pharmacological solutions, aimed at alleviating the medical "symptoms", and any side effects that should arise from the treatments.
The more sensible approach for a patient would be to consult a practitioner, who has the resources to pinpoint the actual intracellular problem areas instead, and to resolve any chemical excesses, deficiencies, or imbalances nutritionally. If indicated, chiropractic / spinal manipulation, (electro)-acupuncture, or health spas for more stress-related episodes could be another consideration.
Gene Therapy promised to be a radically different approach in the treatment of genetically-driven diseases, however the technology has been successfully used for just a limited number of disorders, so at this time, its implementation is yet futuristic for most medical conditions.
Although intracellular measurements have a much larger test range compared to serum panels, the actual reference or "healthy" range is much narrower with Acu-Cell Analysis, even in comparison to Red Blood Cell or White Blood Cell Analysis since it establishes the most person-specific values by using the patient's own genetic reference. As a result, Acu-Cell Technology represents one of the most cost-efficient and accurate tools to:
Established optimal nutritional requirements within the tested criteria,
Measured the cellular effects of various diets, supplements, or drugs,
Assessed the impact of disease processes on biochemical levels (and vice versa),
Monitored an individual's nutritional status for maintenance.
The measuring technique is based on testing the evoked nerve point potential of all cell receptors which correspond to essential trace minerals. The calculated average is used to establish a reference range and mineral ratio profile. Measurements can be taken along the spine (done in veterinarian medicine), or at the extremities in human patients. The measuring current is limited to a few micro amps, which is totally painless and harmless, even when testing infants or patients with pacemakers.
Each electric nerve potential varies with the intracellular level of the nutrient it corresponds to, and changes as the matching chemical is increased or decreased through supplementation, drugs, diet, and various disease processes. Under certain circumstances - particularly when excessively low - serum levels and cellular levels of trace minerals are quite close, however by nature, they represent different physiological and pathological processes, so they need to be interpreted differently.
When compared to serum, urine, saliva, or hair analysis, Acu-Cell Analysis will always reflect a patient's mineral and trace element status more accurately, since its values are genetically referenced to that patient. In contrast, blood tests are supposedly matched to 95% of the population average, although thyroid panels are one example of being well below that percentage, with actual patient symptoms being nowhere near 95% of matching serum values, while for instance potassium measurements are plagued with numerous false positives or false negatives as a result of improper blood collection, transport, hemolysis, or the type of processing used.
Calcium requirements are another of many other examples that cannot be established through conventional or routine blood tests, so recommendations are also based on population averages or estimates, instead of individual requirements. This of course can have disastrous consequences for patients who either suffer from any number of disorders that prevent normal calcium absorption, or for those who suffer from a calcium overload. Acu-Cell Analysis is also better equipped to detect pseudodeficiencies, where an excessive amount of one trace mineral triggers deficiency symptoms of another interactive trace element, despite the level of the "deficient" element being in the "normal" range. For instance, a common pseudodeficiency is experienced when excessive cellular levels of potassium trigger symptoms of a chromium deficiency (K being a Cr antagonist), resulting in a bladder or tonsil infection, which can be resolved without antibiotics by supplementing sufficient amounts of chelated chromium.
Serum or plasma measurements are unable to establish these deficiencies because in contrast to a cellular analysis, they lack the extended range necessary to establish a K / Cr ratio conflict, being limited by the homeostatic control of potassium. Acu-Cell Analysis, on the other hand, would not be suitable for antibody screening, nor is it as accurate for blood sugar, and other blood-specific measurements.
Evidence Review
Critical Scientific Evaluation of Electrodermal Measurement as a Test of Mineral Status
A Comparative Review of Historical Alternative Claims and Contemporary Biomedical Evidence
AI-assisted literature review ·
6 peer-reviewed sources ·
The article above is preserved as first published and has not been altered. What follows
is a separate document that examines its claims against the current biomedical
literature, reproduced here in full.
The Measurement as Described
The article describes its technique directly: the evoked nerve point potential of cell
receptors corresponding to essential trace minerals, measured at the extremities in human
patients or along the spine in veterinary use, with the current limited to a few microamps.
That description places the method within the family of electrodermal screening devices,
which pass a small current through the skin at acupuncture-type points and derive a
diagnosis from the reading.
It does not establish that the instrument, its circuit, its choice of points, its
calibration or its interpretation matched any particular device that has been studied. What
follows examines the published evidence for that family of methods, and then the claims that
are specific to this page.
The Electrical Premise
Underneath every device of this kind is a single premise: that acupuncture points carry
distinct and stable electrical properties which can be read from the skin surface.
A technical review of that premise sets out what actually contributes to an electrodermal
reading — electrode polarizability, the impedance of the stratum corneum, the presence
of sweat glands, the choice of contact medium, and electrode geometry. Its conclusion is that
these factors are frequently overlooked, and that they may cast doubt on the validity of the
commercial electrodiagnostic devices built on the
premise[2].
The premise has also been tested directly. In 53 healthy subjects, 631 electrical skin
resistance measurements were taken at six common acupuncture points using an array of 64
electrodes, an arrangement chosen to minimise the usual confounding influences. In
62.8 % of the points measured, resistance did not differ significantly from the
surrounding skin. Where it did differ, the direction was inconsistent: 25.9 % read lower
and 11.3 % read higher. Reproducibility was very high after one minute, and low after
one hour and after one week[3]. The authors concluded that
their data could not support the use of electrical skin resistance measurement for locating
acupuncture points or for diagnostic purposes. That study examined acupuncture points rather
than the Acu-Cell method, and it did not measure minerals.
Blinded Testing of Related Devices
Instruments in this family have been put to blinded tests. The question asked in each case
was allergy diagnosis rather than mineral status.
The first result was favourable. In 1997, electrodermal testing in 41 patients discriminated
between allergens and non-allergens 82 % of the time in a first group of 17, and
96 % of the time in a second group of 24, under a double-blind
protocol[4].
Two later studies did not find comparable performance. A double-blind randomised block study
of the Vegatest device tested 15 people with a positive skin prick test and 15 with a negative
one, using three operators across three sessions and 54 tests per participant. The
electrodermal results did not correlate with the skin prick results, no operator performed
better than any other, and no participant's atopic status was consistently identified. The
authors concluded that electrodermal testing cannot be used to diagnose environmental
allergies[5]. A double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 72
allergic patients and 28 healthy volunteers presented allergens, histamine, immunoglobulins
and saline in sealed vials in random order. It found wide variability in the readings
regardless of the subject's allergy status or of the substance presented, and no significant
difference between allergens and negative controls[6].
These are studies of what related instruments can detect. None of them tested the Acu-Cell
method, and allergy diagnosis is not mineral status.
The Claims Specific to This Page
The article makes four claims that the literature above does not reach. That each nerve point
potential corresponds to the intracellular level of a particular mineral. That the reference
range is genetically individualised to the patient. That the method detects mineral-ratio
disorders, such as the potassium and chromium conflict described. And that it reflects
mineral and trace element status more accurately than serum, urine, saliva or hair analysis.
No peer-reviewed human study validating any of the four was identified.
The single reference the article carries does not fill that gap. It is attached to the
statement that medical science is aware of the limitations of serum mineral testing. The
paper measured serum magnesium, zinc, copper, iron, selenium and calcium by inductively
coupled plasma mass spectrometry in women in Gondar, Hanoi and Sapporo, and reported
substantial differences between the three groups, which it attributed to differences in food
or soil[1]. It is a survey of how trace element levels vary
between populations. It does not address the limitations of serum testing, and it makes no
comparison with any other method.
Intracellular mineral concentrations can be measured. The methods that do it —
inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry, atomic absorption spectrophotometry, X-ray
fluorescence — work on samples of blood cells or tissue, and several of them appear in
the studies cited elsewhere on this site. Whether a reading taken through the skin
corresponds to what those methods find is the question that would have to be answered, and no
study answering it was identified.
Editor's Assessment
A measurement is not a meaning
An editorial reading of the original article and the evidence review above
Assesses both preceding sections ·
Numbered references point to the reference list for this article.
A device of this kind does measure something. Skin has electrical properties, they vary from
point to point and from person to person, and a microamp current through a probe produces a
number. The question a diagnostic method has to answer is a different one: whether that
number corresponds to the thing it is said to correspond to.
1 A Reading and Its Meaning Are Separate Questions
The article treats the electrical measurement and the mineral level as one fact described
twice: each electric nerve potential “varies with the intracellular level of the
nutrient it corresponds to.”
The Measurement
A probe on the skin returns a number, and over a short interval that number is highly
repeatable[3]. Nothing here disputes that something is
being measured.
What Sits Between
Before any physiology enters the reading, it has been shaped by electrode
polarizability, stratum corneum impedance, sweat gland activity, the contact medium
and electrode geometry[2].
The Missing Step
The correspondence between that number and an intracellular mineral concentration is
asserted, not demonstrated. No study establishing it was identified. A measurement
being real is not the same as a measurement meaning what it is said to mean.
2 What the Blinded Evidence Settles, and What It Does Not
Instruments in this family have been tested blind, and the results moved in one direction
over time: a favourable study in 1997[4], followed by two
independent studies that found no useful diagnostic
performance[5][6].
What This Shows
When the operator could not see what was being tested, the readings stopped separating
the categories they were said to separate. In one study the same participant's status
was not identified consistently by any of three operators.
What It Does Not Show
None of those studies tested the Acu-Cell method, and none of them tested minerals.
They are evidence about a family of instruments, not a direct trial of the analysis
described on this page.
Why It Still Bears On It
The claims made here are larger than the ones those devices were unable to meet. A
related instrument could not distinguish an allergen from distilled water under
blinding; the method described here is said to resolve individual mineral levels,
mineral ratios, and a reference range individualised to the patient's own genetics.
3 The Reference That Does Not Support Its Sentence
The article carries one citation, attached to the statement that medical science is well
aware of the limitations of serum mineral testing.
What Was Cited
A study measuring serum trace elements by mass spectrometry in Ethiopian, Vietnamese
and Japanese women, which found substantial differences between the three
populations[1].
What It Reports
That trace element levels differ between populations, most likely reflecting
differences in food or soil.
What It Does Not Report
Anything about serum testing being insensitive, anything about close mineral
tolerances, and no comparison between serum and any other method. It is a
demonstration of serum measurement detecting real differences, offered in support of
the claim that serum measurement does not detect them.
Summary
The observation this article starts from is not in dispute. Routine blood panels are built
around population reference ranges, an individual can sit inside those ranges and still be
unwell, and nutritional requirements are not identical from one person to the next. That
is a real limitation of routine testing, and it is worth stating plainly.
What does not follow is that a small current passed through the skin resolves it. The
premise those devices rest on — that acupuncture points carry distinct, stable
electrical properties — has been examined directly: most measured points did not
differ from the surrounding skin, those that did differed in both directions, and the
finding did not survive an hour[3]. The technical factors
shaping any such reading are substantial enough to raise doubt about the commercial
devices built on it[2]. Under blinding, related
instruments did not perform on the question they were
tested on[5][6].
And the claims specific to this page — mineral-by-mineral correspondence, a
genetically individualised reference range, the detection of mineral-ratio disorders, and
greater accuracy than serum, urine, saliva or hair analysis — have no identified
peer-reviewed human validation of any kind. That is the state of the evidence, and it is
the reason this assessment is attached to the article rather than folded into it. The
service is no longer provided, and the article above is preserved as it was published.
