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Mad as a Hatter

Authors: Kaayla T. Daniel, PhD, and Galen D. Knight, PhD. Please read original article: Mad as a Hatter

In the original article, the authors discuss "How to Avoid Toxic Metals and Clear Them from the Body." They explore; chronic exposure; adverse effects; the connection between metabolic dysfunction and obesity; antibiotics and toxic metals; a protective diet; hTMA laboratory assessment, and more.

Article Excerpt:

How to Avoid Toxic Metals and Clear Them from the Body

What's wrong when people follow Dr. Weston A. Price's dietary principles but still suffer from significant health problems? Why do so many people try to eat good fats but find they cannot digest them? What is the reason for digestive distress and dysbiosis despite taking high-quality probiotics and consuming cultured foods and broth? Why are some babies sickly even when the parents eat a nourishing diet prior to conception and throughout pregnancy and lactation?

The answer may be toxic metals. Though we may honor our bodily temples with nourishing foods, we cannot realize our full health potential so long as we remain waste dumps for mercury, aluminum, cadmium, arsenic, lead and nickel. Even the "precious metals" gold, silver and platinum can create problems. Mix well with a dose of chloride and fluoride found abundantly in municipal water supplies and it's no wonder that so many of us are sick and tired.

In 1986 Congress established the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) of the Department of Health and Human Services in order to deal with effects of hazardous environmental substances on human health. In cooperation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the ATSDR compiles priority lists of hazardous substances each year. Out of 275 substances on the 2007 list, arsenic is number one, lead two, mercury three and cadmium seven. Of these fearful four, mercury is the most studied, but all four have similar adverse effects on the body.

Chronic Exposure

Victims of acute metal toxicity make the six o'clock news, but far more people suffer adverse effects from low-level, chronic exposure to multiple metals. Because the symptoms may develop over a period of many years and are often interchangeable with other signs of poor health, sufferers rarely recognize slowly accumulating mercury and other metals as the culprits. Thus, although nearly everyone on the planet carries some toxic load, not everyone shows obvious and distinguishing ill effects. After all, fatigue, digestive distress, aching joints and depression, to name just a few everyday complaints, are considered "normal" in our increasingly sick and aging society. Almost all chronically sick patients, regardless of their specific symptoms or diagnoses, have sustained significant exposure to toxic metals. Mercury toxicity should be assumed in anyone who has—or has had—amalgam fillings or root canals and who also chews. Aluminum, cadmium, lead, cobalt and arsenic and other metals are rarely absent from such patients.

Dose, duration, manner of exposure, biochemical individuality, genetic propensity, diet quality and stress levels combine to determine the degree of ill effects. Good nutrition is key because a deficiency of vital metals will lead to their replacement by toxic metals in enzyme binding sites. Lead will replace calcium, for example, cadmium will replace zinc, and aluminum and nickel will replace magnesium and manganese. These substitutions will allow a certain degree of vital enzyme function, but in time lead to physiological dysfunction.

Sadly, it no longer takes decades or even years to become toxic. Babies are born toxic because mercury and other metals pass through the placenta from toxic mothers. The Environmental Working Group reports that blood samples taken from the umbilical blood of newborns show an average of 232 toxins including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and Teflon chemicals. This is a primary reason why babies come into this world with compromised digestive and immune systems. The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) estimates that over 60,000 US children are born each year at risk for life-long problems because of dangerous blood levels of mercury in their mothers.

Vaccinations containing mercury and aluminum then add to the burden, often sending an already vulnerable child over the edge into autism, ADD/ADHD, life-threatening allergies and autoimmune diseases. Thimerosal has mostly been removed from children's vaccines. However, old batches are still given to children, if not in the US then abroad. As for new batches, even the FDA admits that they may contain trace amounts.

The Weston A. Price Foundation has educated parents about how to optimize their nutrition prior to conception. But unless parents also detoxify themselves of toxic metals before conception, this trend will not reverse, and we will continue to see the degeneration of our children's health.

(hTMA) Laboratory Assessment

Hair mineral analysis offers a valid and inexpensive way to test someone's toxic metal status, as well as provide insights into nutritional status. The growing hair follicle is well supplied by the blood vessels, and blood transports both essential and toxic elements present in the body. These elements are incorporated and stored in the hair proteins, which are evaluated in the test. Hair tests can evaluate someone's toxic metal and nutritional status over the past three months.

hTMA laboratory reports can be difficult to understand and evaluate correctly. And there is some controversy about how to do the assays and what constitutes normal ranges of toxins and nutrients. In most cases, the first test will show low levels of toxic metals. Aluminum typically shows up in the first test, sometimes with low levels of mercury and arsenic. However, to correctly interpret the test, it is necessary to look at the overall levels and ratios of macro and trace minerals. In all probability, there will be evidence of "hidden" toxicity. This means that the body in its wisdom has stashed mercury and other very dangerous metals as deeply out of the way as possible.

If a client follows the initial hair test with an effective detoxification program, re-evaluation hTMA's will typically reveal not only higher levels of the metals present in the initial analysis but also the emergence of other, more deeply buried ones, such as cadmium and lead.

Cadmium and lead rarely show up on the first hair mineral test because the body binds them very tightly and keeps them deeply stored in the liver, joints and bones. For example, ionized elements that are nearly the same size as calcium (e.g., some radioactive elements) and magnesium (e.g., nickel) often are found in the bone where they can poison and damage the stem-cell-producing bone marrow. Often patients require months on a detoxification program before they begin excreting cadmium and lead. Lead may take as long as a year or more to show up. Making matters more complicated, lead might show up in the hair after release from one storage site, decline on a subsequent test but later rise again as it is released from yet another site. For these reasons, hair mineral analysis testing needs to be performed as an ongoing process.

Nickel is a growing problem because of partially hydrogenated fats in the "Standard American Diet," the popularity of nickel-containing jewelry and the widespread usage of stainless steel in the processing of foods, beverages and pharmaceuticals. Unfortunately, nickel rarely shows up in hair even when present at toxic levels elsewhere in the body. For nickel, it is better to analyze sweat, which is one way the body attempts to get rid of this carcinogenic metal. (The other way is excretion via the bowels.) Nickel also causes hyperviscous and hypocoagulable blood so a clotting profile of the blood analyzed by a Sonoclot™ or similar diagnostic is another useful test. Nickel toxicity should be suspected if there are symptoms such as tiny blisters or reddish rashes where nickel touches the skin (as with eyeglasses or jewelry) or at sites of sweating (such as the palms of the hand, hairline, or feet). In addition to "sensitizing dermatitis," stubborn symptoms that might be the result of nickel toxicity include allergic asthma, acid reflux, insomnia and snoring.

Another shortcoming with hair tests is that gold, silver, uranium and other metals usually are not included as part of most laboratories' standard hair tests (Trace Elements Lab hTMA includes uranium). Luckily, the same detoxification programs that round up and remove the usual toxic metal suspects will usually help to eliminate or deal with these others as well. The biggest problem with hair tests is not the test itself but the fact that far too many people—including doctors and other health practitioners—misread the initial hair tests and take the low levels in the initial readings at face value. Editor's note: Once nutrient mineral levels and ratios are balanced, the cells are effectively able to mobilize and eliminate all types of toxins through the body's detoxification and elimination channels. So it is not necessary to test for every toxin.

Conventional medical doctors prefer blood tests to determine metal toxicity. However, a serum test has minimal diagnostic value unless it follows an acute exposure. The body's natural detoxification systems work to keep the blood clean at all costs so toxins are removed from the blood and stored in a less critical location, such as bone or tissue. Urine samples aren't much better unless potentially dangerous systemic, oral or intravenous chelating agents are given, followed by a 24-hour collection. In such tests, mercury or another metal is "provoked" out of the tissues and organs and attaches itself to the chelating agent, which is then expelled through the urine or feces. Chelation is not recommended except in extreme cases, and must be supervised by experienced medical personel, because chelation causes a toxic rush into the bloodstream that can result in painful and difficult detoxification symptoms with a possible worsening of overall health — and sometimes even death.

Article source: Mad as a Hatter

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Editor's note: This article may or may not contain minor editing from the original document. Editing is done for one or more reasons: technical issues, layout or space considerations, content accuracy and/or clarity. © Copyrighted content is owned by the author. Please contact the author if you have any questions or would like to use any of their content for any reason whatsoever. Thank you.