In the English HMA report, most people state read there is an “unhealthy parasympathetic state“. We often get questions from both colleagues and consumers what is actually meant by this.
It is important to always recall what the HMA analysis actually stands for. The HMA analysis like that by Dr. Paul Eck was developed to reflect a state at cell level over an average period of about 3 months. What is special about Eck’s approach has been that he tried to link these states to various system variables. Variables such as the state of the stress response, the condition of the ANS, the function of the HPA axis and the HPT axis, the glucose metabolism, etc.
According to HMA criteria, we speak at a Ca / P ratio of <2.5 of a sympathetic state and at a Ca / P ratio of> 2.5 of a parasympathetic state. This is emphatically different from, for example, a sympathetic dominance, as we know it in a multi-day HRV measurement.
But what then is that parasympathetic condition?
This means that the persistent excess stress pressure has caused a disruption in precisely those functions of the body that are related to recovery and regeneration. These functions are under the control of the parasympatic. There is increasing damage, as the price that the body pays for the stress response.
It is often mistakenly thought that the consequence of long-term stress is that the stress system becomes exhausted and is no longer capable of an adequate stress response. The well-known stress scientist Prof. Robert M. Sapolsky has dealt with this idea in his controversial book “Why do Zebras not get stomach ulcers”? He writes about this: “However, as we shall see, it is very rare that one of the crucial hormones actually runs out, even during the most protracted stress period. The army does not come without ammunition. On the contrary, it is so much ammunition that the rest of the body economy collapses. It is not so much that the stress response is depleted: but that the stress response can cause damage itself if there is sufficient activation“(page 24).
An “unhealthy parasympathetic state” therefore represents a state of ‘overdue maintenance’ for an accumulation of the consequences of stress, for accelerated aging. A combination of a sympathetic dominance (measured with a multi-day HRV measurement) i.c.m. an unhealthy parasympathetic condition is obviously an extra undesirable situation.
