You just had your OligoScan. You’re looking at a screen with 20 minerals, 14 heavy metals, and a grid of colored bars showing Optimal, Watch, and Action categories. Your practitioner walked you through it — but now you’re home, looking at your results card, and you have questions.
This guide is designed to help you understand what OligoScan results mean, how to read the ranges, what the categories actually indicate, and what to do next. Every client gets access to the OligoScan Interpreter in their Member Tools account — but here’s the framework behind it.
The three result categories
Every mineral in your OligoScan result falls into one of three categories based on where its measured concentration lands relative to the reference range for your age, sex, and body weight:
Optimal
The measured concentration is within the healthy reference range. This is where you want to be. It doesn’t mean “maximized” — it means your body appears to have adequate stores of this mineral at the tissue level. Optimal results generally don’t require supplementation for that specific mineral.
Watch
The measured concentration is trending toward the edge of the healthy range — either slightly low or slightly elevated. Watch results aren’t urgent, but they’re worth noting. They often reflect dietary patterns, stress, or absorption issues that can be addressed before they become deficiencies. A Watch result is your early warning signal.
Action
The measured concentration is meaningfully outside the healthy range — either significantly depleted or elevated. Action results are the priority findings. Your protocol will typically start here. An Action result on a critical mineral like magnesium or zinc usually explains a lot about how you’ve been feeling.
The most common findings and what they mean
Low Magnesium
The most common finding across our client base by a significant margin. Magnesium is involved in over 300 enzymatic reactions in the body. Low tissue magnesium is associated with poor sleep, muscle tension and cramps, fatigue, anxiety, constipation, and difficulty recovering from exercise. Because blood magnesium is tightly regulated, it’s frequently “normal” in blood tests even when tissue stores are critically low — which is exactly why OligoScan often reveals it when nothing else did.
Common contributors: chronic stress (magnesium is depleted rapidly under stress), high sugar intake, alcohol, certain medications (PPIs, diuretics), poor soil quality in modern food supply.
Low Zinc
The second most common deficiency finding. Zinc is critical for immune function, wound healing, taste and smell acuity, testosterone production, and skin health. Low zinc is frequently associated with frequent illness, slow wound healing, hair thinning, and reduced appetite.
Common contributors: low animal protein intake, high phytate foods (whole grains, legumes) without proper preparation, chronic stress, digestive issues limiting absorption.
Elevated Mercury
The most common heavy metal finding. Mercury accumulates in tissue from dietary sources — primarily high-mercury fish (tuna, swordfish, shark, king mackerel). It’s also associated with old amalgam dental fillings and certain occupational exposures.
Elevated tissue mercury doesn’t necessarily mean acute toxicity — it reflects accumulation over time. Moderate elevations are common and often completely manageable through dietary adjustment and targeted support. High elevations warrant a more structured detox protocol developed with a qualified practitioner.
Low Calcium-to-Magnesium Ratio
Individual levels can be fine while the ratio between them is off. A high calcium-to-magnesium ratio (too much calcium relative to magnesium) is associated with muscle tension, difficulty relaxing, poor sleep, and anxiety. This is one of the reasons your practitioner looks at ratios and not just individual values — the balance between minerals often tells a more complete story than the levels alone.
Low Selenium
Selenium is critical for thyroid hormone conversion and immune function. Low tissue selenium frequently appears alongside thyroid symptoms — fatigue, cold intolerance, brain fog, dry skin — even when TSH looks normal on blood work. It’s also commonly depleted in people who don’t eat Brazil nuts and live in selenium-poor soil regions.
Understanding the numerical values
OligoScan reports mineral concentrations in g/L or mg/kg depending on the mineral. These absolute values are less important than where they fall relative to the reference range for your age, sex, and weight — which is what the Optimal/Watch/Action categories reflect.
Your report also includes a percentile position within the reference range. A mineral in the lower third of the Optimal range is meaningfully different from a mineral sitting at the midpoint — your practitioner uses this granularity to prioritize what to address first.
What to do with your results
Your practitioner gives you a starting protocol before you leave — typically your top two or three priority actions based on your specific numbers. The goal is a focused starting point, not an overwhelming supplement list.
For deeper interpretation and a personalized protocol built from your exact results, Thrive Membership ($24/month) gives you access to three planning tools:
- Supplement Protocol Builder — a prioritized supplement stack built from your mineral deficiencies, health conditions, and dietary pattern
- 7-Day Mineral Meal Plan — a full week of targeted meals and shopping list built around your specific mineral gaps
- Herb Protocol Builder — 2–3 herbs precisely matched to your OligoScan findings with dosage and timing guidance
Free with every scan: the OligoScan Interpreter — enter your mineral statuses and get instant plain-English explanations for every result in your member account.
When to retest
90 days is the minimum interval that produces meaningful change data. Mineral levels in tissue shift slowly — you won’t see significant movement in 30 days. After 90 days of following your protocol, a Recheck scan ($120, or $95 for Thrive Members) lets you compare your new results side-by-side with your original and see exactly what’s changed.
Most clients who retest after 90 days of protocol adherence see measurable improvement in their Action findings — which is both validating and useful for adjusting the next phase of the protocol.
Questions after your scan?
Call us at (301) 590-5914 or use the OligoScan Interpreter in your member account at mythrivelytics.com/member-tools/. We’re here Monday through Saturday, 9am to 5pm.
If you haven’t had your scan yet, MyThrivelytics is located at 1451 Rockville Pike, Suite 250, Rockville MD 20852, serving Bethesda, Silver Spring, Germantown, Potomac, and the DC Metro area.
Ready to see your own numbers?
View pricing and book your session → If you want to go beyond minerals and also measure your body composition, our Styku 3D body scan pairs seamlessly with any OligoScan appointment.
Related reading
- OligoScan Mineral Testing in Rockville MD — What to Expect — book a session in Rockville MD
- OligoScan vs Blood Test: What’s the Difference? — why tissue testing finds what serum panels miss