For those who were otherwise preoccupied that day long ago in high school chemistry, the heavy metals refer to a group of especially dense metals or metal-like substances (called metalloids) found in the environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
These metals–specifically lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, and aluminum–can all be absorbed by your body and stored there. Our environment is already quite toxic (Trump\u2019s EPA deregulations aren\u2019t helping) and it\u2019s getting worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not that this is new. Here\u2019s someone you might remember from 150 years ago.<\/a> The expression \u201cmad as a hatter\u201d came from the mercury absorbed by people making felt hats<\/a>. Did I mention that one year ago the Trump administration ordered a rollback of mercury regulations<\/a>?<\/p>\n\n\n\n We tend to think that heavy metal toxicity<\/a> happens to other people and not us. This is pure NIMBY (not in my backyard) logic. You protest that lead poisoning, which occurs when kids munch on sweet-tasting paint chips, could only occur in neighborhoods and cities not as nice as yours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Sorry, but of three cities reviewed for lead exposure (New York, Boston, and Chicago), we fared the worst<\/a>. Lead exposure is mostly related to the age of housing and how much lead in old buildings is stirred up during renovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Heavy metal accumulation The most common symptoms linked to heavy metal toxicity are fatigue, headaches, depression, brain fog (with measurably lower IQs in children), diminished memory and cognitive ability, and peripheral neuropathy (numbness\/tinging in extremities).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also, because toxic metals can make their way into the millions of metabolic reactions throughout your body, these metabolic processes start shutting down, triggering susceptibility to damage from free radicals, destroying delicate cellular membranes, and causing functional decline of brain, kidneys, heart, and bone marrow in addition to increasing susceptibility to certain cancers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Scientists know for certain that heavy metal exposure\/accumulation accelerates the aging process. Here\u2019s just one of many studies on this subject<\/a>, linking cadmium levels to walking speed (a common measurement of premature aging).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Your susceptibility to toxic metals is likely genetic, with some people more susceptible to accumulating (or clearing) them than others. For example, a single meal of sushi can cause a measurable increase in blood levels of mercury in one person, but not another. You can get some idea of your genetic susceptibility with this simple test<\/a>, which uses a scraping of cells from inside your cheek.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are two good reasons to get tested for toxic metals However, concerning dental amalgams, know that the Dental Amalgam Wars have been ongoing for 150 years (!), since amalgams were first introduced. The question: do dental amalgams, which are 40% mercury, actually release enough mercury to be a health hazard?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The FDA says no, but if you\u2019re worried you can ask your dentist for porcelain<\/a> or, if you\u2019re flush with cash, go for gold<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Remember, toxic metals remain stored in your fat deposits. If, as you look back on your life, you remember playing with those fascinating little beads of mercury for hours on end, you volunteered to clean out an abandoned paint factory (cadmium), or your hobby was making stained glass windows (lead in the solder), you should probably get tested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Second, if you\u2019ve got some of the chronic symptoms I listed earlier (fatigue, muscle\/joint aching, brain fog) and you endlessly hear \u201cWe can\u2019t find anything wrong with you and all your tests are normal,\u201d get tested.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In addition, consider testing if you have any premature chronic health problems (heart, lung, or kidney disease or cancer anywhere in your body) that seem inappropriate for your age. Listen up: when you care for your body correctly, your vital organs should last well until your late 80s or early 90s. If you learn that you\u2019re falling apart prematurely, it\u2019s possible you\u2019re being poisoned by toxic metals you were exposed to long ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Getting tested As a start, ask your doctor for a \u201ctoxic metal screen.\u201d This is a blood test that should include lead, mercury, arsenic, aluminum, and cadmium, all of which are troublemakers. It\u2019s worth noting that testing hair samples, popular several years ago, went into disfavor when hair from the same volunteers was sent to four different testing labs and received four completely different results<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If the screen reveals that your blood levels of toxic metals are found to be virtually zero, you\u2019re probably out of the woods. However, low blood levels indicate you\u2019re still in the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If any of your scores are not zero, consider the next step, called a \u201cprovoked urine challenge.\u201d With this test, you\u2019re given oral DMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid), a chelating compound that literally pulls a sample of the toxic metals from storage in your body and sends them into your urine. You then mail some of your urine to Doctor\u2019s Data in St. Charles, IL, which has been testing for toxic metals for almost a half a century<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since the vast majority of us have been accumulating toxic metals for years, this particular test almost always returns some positive results, which can look quite alarming to the uninitiated. The provoked challenge is considered controversial because most doctors don\u2019t know what to do with the results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>As heavy metals accumulate in the body, any of them can cause multiple and mystifying symptoms, both physical and mental. When conventional physicians encounter a patient with longstanding and seemingly unrelated symptoms, they virtually never screen the patient for heavy metal toxicity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>First, if you\u2019re pretty sure you have a history of exposure, get tested. For example, you once lived near a factory whose smokestacks were visible from your bedroom window, you\u2019ve been living in an old house (pre-1950) for years, you do craft work with metals in an unventilated area, or you really like sushi (which carries methylmercury<\/a>, also a toxin) and eat it a lot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
<\/strong>Getting tested for toxic metal exposure should be straightforward and fairly easy, but when patients want to explore testing, they meet with some interesting barriers. Except for the blood tests offered to children being screened for lead poisoning or to worried sushi devotees for mercury, most conventional physicians are taught little about toxic metal testing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n