Two ratios, one shape
One ratio climbs, the other falls, and the graph dips in the middle
The bowl is not a mineral level. It is the shape two ratios make when they move in opposite directions.
The bowl is defined by a high calcium/magnesium ratio combined with a low sodium/potassium ratio. That is the whole criterion. No single mineral level defines it — it is the relationship between two ratios.
Picture the four values plotted left to right. Calcium sits high, magnesium and sodium sit lower, potassium comes up at the end. The line dips in the middle and rises at both edges. That is where the name comes from, and it is why the name is worth keeping: it describes the chart.
The pattern is not one shape but a family. The workbook names fast bowl, slow bowl, deep bowl, shallow bowl, low bowl, high bowl, drastic bowl and deep four lows bowl.
Two axes are doing the work there. Fast and slow describe the oxidation rate the bowl sits inside. Deep, shallow and drastic describe how far apart the two ratios have pulled. A shallow bowl in a fast oxidizer and a deep bowl in a slow oxidizer are the same shape at very different magnitudes.
The last one matters most. A deep four lows bowl is a bowl sitting on top of a Four Lows pattern — the shape plus depleted macrominerals underneath it.
There is a separate name for the movement rather than the state. Bowling occurs when a person moves into a bowl between tests, and its criteria are precise:
The Ca/Mg ratio increases AND the Na/K ratio decreases. Both, on the same retest.
One moving without the other is not bowling. That is a useful discipline, because a single ratio drifting is common and means much less than the two moving apart together.
The reverse reading is also recorded: where the Ca/Mg ratio improves slowly across three or more successive tests, that is read as a gradual change of direction rather than noise. Three tests, not two — the workbook is specific.
This is the part most worth knowing, and it argues against the pattern rather than for it.
The bowl is less reliable on a retest — because the body often eliminates biounavailable calcium, and that produces a falsely elevated Ca/Mg ratio.
Read that carefully. Calcium leaving can make the ratio go up, which can make a bowl appear on paper that is not a bowl in the body. A pattern that can be manufactured by the very thing you were hoping for is a pattern to hold loosely on a second test.
It is the same trap as a high mineral reading generally: the number moved, and the direction alone does not tell you why.
The laboratory and workbook literature associates the bowl with a carbohydrate-handling trend and with nutrient depletion and toxic-metal excess. Where a bowl persists across tests, the description shifts from a physical reading toward a longer-standing one.
A trend is a direction the mineral pattern points, not a condition anyone has. It is also not a finding to act on alone — the ratios are read alongside the levels, the oxidation rate and the toxic pairs.
A hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test for nutritional and toxic-element patterns. It does not diagnose, it does not establish a cause, and it does not measure what is circulating in blood today. Where the laboratory literature describes a trend, that trend belongs to the mineral pattern rather than to any person reading about it. Anything medical belongs with your own licensed provider.
The bowl is the pattern I am most careful about on a second test, precisely because it can be created by progress. Calcium coming out of storage lifts the Ca/Mg ratio, and there sits a bowl that was not there before.
So when I see one appear on a retest, the first question is never "what does the bowl mean". It is "did calcium move, and does the rest of the report agree". If the two ratios moved apart together, that is bowling and I take it seriously. If only the Ca/Mg climbed and calcium fell out of a shell, I wait.
A high calcium/magnesium ratio combined with a low sodium/potassium ratio. It is defined by the two ratios together, not by any single mineral level.
A bowl is the state. Bowling is the movement into it, and requires both things at once on a retest: the Ca/Mg ratio increasing and the Na/K ratio decreasing.
Because the body often eliminates biounavailable calcium, which falsely elevates the Ca/Mg ratio. A bowl can appear on paper for a reason that has nothing to do with the pattern worsening.
Eight are named: fast, slow, deep, shallow, low, high, drastic, and deep four lows bowl. They describe the oxidation rate the bowl sits in and how far the two ratios have separated.
A full hair tissue mineral analysis reports the calcium/magnesium and sodium/potassium ratios alongside the levels, so the shape they make is visible on the page.
Published 2026-08-30 · Updated 2026-08-30
By Eileen Durfee — Practitioner, NBS (Nutritional Balancing Science), NASM-CPT; wellness educator, inventor and author.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Hair tissue mineral analysis is a screening test and is not diagnostic; anything medical belongs with your own licensed provider. Wellness Shopping Online is operated by Nuco Enterprise Solutions LLC.
