Rick Malter: Avoid Stress Overwhelm

Balance Minerals to Calm Stress and Increase Energy

In today's world, most of us overactivate the fight or flight stress response. Rick Malter, Ph.D. of the Malter Institute describes this situation as "stress overwhelm." We can have too much fight (anger) or too much flight (anxiety). These reactions can lead to a vicious cycle of mineral imbalances, which in turn cause even more stress response.

Dr. Malter has found that common triggers of cascading mineral changes leading to stress overwhelm include:

• unnecessary or imbalanced supplements of calcium, copper, and/or vitamin D (all present in many multivitamins),
• chemicals, stimulants, drugs, and alcohol,
• the inner Judge,
• blood sugar imbalance,
• low magnesium levels, and
• anything that causes copper dysregulation (birth control pills or copper IUDs, copper water pipes, estrogen, congenital copper).

Dr. Malter believes that magnesium deficiency and copper dysregulation factor in 80 to 90 percent of physical and mental concerns. On the other hand, there is great room for improvement of mind, body, and spirit by balancing the minerals!

Dr. Malter says that he himself likely might have died of a heart attack if he had not discovered his extreme magnesium deficiency through a hair tissue mineral analysis in 1980. He has been using HTMA in his clinical and consulting practice ever since. Dr. Malter continues to extend mineral balancing research.

Annotated References:

Malter, Rick, Ph.D. (2003). The strands of health: A guide to understanding hair mineral analysis. Cottonwood, AZ: Educational & Health Resources of Arizona. An outstanding introduction to the basic concepts of hair mineral analysis. A clear and understandable explanation of the important levels and ratios to examine. With emphasis on the widespread mental and physical issues caused by copper dysregulation and magnesium deficiency. See pages 94-100 re Dr. Watts' work on pseudo-inversions which indicate hidden magnesium and potassium deficiencies. Dr. Malter's hair mineral analysis course is also highly recommended. He provides informative course presentations plus patient and helpful answers to many questions.

Malter, Rick, Ph.D., Rendon, Cassie, & Aalund, Renee. (2005). A developmental study of sex differences in hair tissue mineral analysis patterns at ages six, twelve and eighteen. Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 20(4), 245-254. Retrieved from http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2005/pdf/2005-v20n04-p245.pdf. Dr. Malter teamed up with teachers and students for a study of how basic hair mineral levels and ratios change through childhood and with gender differences. Significant age and gender differences were found in oxidative metabolic rate and in copper metabolism.