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*Not a Substitute For your regular Doctor. Contact your physician before starting a nutritional program or discontinuing prescription medication.

Heavy Metal Toxicity

Recommended supplementation and lifestyle changes (not meant as a diagnosis or to replace the advice of a health care practitioner):

There are numerous detoxification products and herbal formulations to feed and support the body to detoxify on my site. Please take the time to read through these detoxification measures and herbal protocols. I have a firm belief in the utilization of these products because of the extremely toxically overloaded world we live in and the grave affects this bombardment of chemicals daily has on the human body. They are everywhere: air, food, household goods, carpets, plastics, water, etc. etc. The only way to work with a specific toxicity is to find out what it is through a hair biopsy through my office, and than to utilize a vitamin or mineral food supplement as an antagonist or opposite of this metal causing it to be forced from it’s hiding place and then eliminated from the body.

Or BIOTIC’S food supplementation: 2 Porphyra-Zyme (3x each day)
1 MCS (2x each day)
2 GSH-Plus (3x each day)
1 Bio-C Plus (3x each day)
2 Colon Plus (3x each day)
2 Multi-Mins, Iron & Copper Free (3x each day)
1 capful HR #7 (Homeopathic (1x each day)
remedy for heavy metal)
1 ADHS (1x each morning)

· Exercise: Exercise increases movement, lymphatic drainage, tissue oxygenation and sweating, making the removal of heavy metals by the body much easier than when you are sedentary.
· Eat garlic and cilantro: Both foods contain substances that bind to heavy metal. Cilantro is specifically useful for getting rid of mercury.
· Sweat: Use a sauna on a regular basis. Sweat is one avenue for the metal to leave your body.
· Eat plenty of vegetables: Fiber helps to bind heavy metal and remove it from the gastrointestinal (GI) tract.
· Drink plenty of water: Whenever elimination is an issue, water consumption is very important.
· Eat sulfur-containing foods: Cabbage, onions, garlic, and other pungent foods contain sulfur. Sulfur is necessary for detoxification.

Additional recommendations (your doctor may want to individualize the nutrient and lifestyle recommendations for you):

Lead and mercury poisoning are well-described medical entities. In children, high lead levels can lower IQ, cognition and development. High lead levels have also been associated with antisocial behavior, attention-deficit disorder (ADD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Mercury poisoning can cause mental disturbances and have neurologic effects.
Some researchers contend that low levels of these heavy metals, below the levels that are defined as "metal poisoning," can cause chronic and long-term health problems. Compared with lead levels in people during the Middle Ages the levels of lead found in people living in America today are 500 times greater.
Low levels of heavy metals may lead to depression, anxiety, fatigue, digestive problems (including yeast overgrowth), joint pain, high blood pressure, heart disease, kidney disease and a multitude of other symptoms. The metals create oxidative stress, decrease absorption of nutrients, replace calcium in bone, burden the liver and kidneys, interfere with normal detoxification and even affect the immune system.

Where Do We Get Heavy Metal Toxicity?

Lead:
· Lead was used in gasoline until the 1970s and is still found in diesel fumes.
· Lead was also present in paint prior to the 1970s. Living in a house built before 1970 can be a source of contamination, especially near wood windows. Opening and closing the painted wooden windows produce lead dust.
· Rehabilitating old houses is a major source of lead toxicity. Many patients have chronic symptoms that began with a rehabilitation project.
· Certain occupations like working in factories where batteries are produced, working with solder, working near diesel fumes, etc., are associated with lead poisoning.
· Some older homes have lead pipes and lead is also found in the tap water.
· Because it was prevalent in the air pollution prior to 1970, lead is concentrated in the soil in some areas. It has turned up in produce.
· Some hair dyes and eye makeup contain lead.
· Some ceramic dyes contain lead and food served on a cracked or chipped ceramic plate colored with lead dye may contain lead.
· Some calcium supplements are contaminated with lead, especially those derived from limestone (dolomite).

Mercury:
· Dental amalgams are a major source of mercury in the body. This is a controversial subject, but the controversy does not center on whether or not the mercury is absorbed, but how much mercury contributes to health problems.
· Mercury is found in tuna and other seafood.
· Shark cartilage supplements are a source of mercury.

Cadmium:
· Cigarette smoke is a major source of cadmium.
· Workers in certain industries like battery production are exposed to cadmium.

Finding Heavy Metal Toxicity

Blood Tests: Children are routinely screened for lead with blood tests. This is a good practice because children are the ones who are most adversely affected by lead toxicity. Developing nervous systems are susceptible to lead. Lead decreases IQ, is linked to disruptive behavior, ADD and ADHD. It has been argued that blood tests for heavy metals are not entirely effective. The body tends to store heavy metals in the soft tissue and blood tests are only good to demonstrate recent exposure or when very high levels of the heavy metal are present.

Hair Analysis: Hair analysis is useful for finding heavy metals. Very often the presence of heavy metal in hair reflects the soft-tissue burden. Hair analysis is not the most accurate way to measure heavy metal toxicity, but it's a good, inexpensive, noninvasive screening tool. It is hard to know exactly how much metal is present totally in the body based on a hair analysis, but if metals are found in the hair, they are present in the body. On rare occassions people have heavy metal toxicity, but the metal doesn't show in the hair analysis. These are usually the sickest people; they have very poor ability to detoxify themselves from the metal. Hair analysis has received some bad publicity lately because some nutritionists use hair to determine nutritional status—it is a very poor tool for that. Our office uses this for screening purposes only.  As stated it is a good indicator to find specific metal toxicities. A specific antagonist to that particular metal can then be used as a dietary supplement to encourage the body to dump the particular toxic metal.

Chelation Challenge and urine screenings: This is a very accurate way to find heavy metals in the body. You take a chelating agent (a chemical that binds to heavy metal) and measure the amount of heavy metal found in the urine over the next 24 hours. Unlike a blood test, this method will find metal that is stored in the body. Unlike hair analysis, a chelation challenge gives an idea of how much of the metal is present.