MERCURY, THE POISON THAT IS ALL AROUND US

by Lawrence Wilson, MD

© December 2010, The Center For Development

Mercury is among the most toxic elements known. It is also the most common heavy metal on the earth today. One could easily write a book about its sources and its many toxic effects. Here let us introduce the subject, followed by a brief discussion of how to reduce exposure and remove it from our bodies.

SOURCES OF MERCURY

Medications. Mercury is found in many prescription and over-the-counter remedies. The most important include vaccines. These may contain thimerosal, a mercury compound used as a preservative. Newborns and young children have much less ability to remove mercury from their bodies.

Thiazide diuretics, of which there are many, contain mercury and are used to lower high blood pressure. Other classes of prescription and over-the-counter drugs that may contain mercury include antiseptics, anti-fungal preparations, soaps, optical preparations such as contact lens solutions and others. Mercury is used because it is an excellent germ killer.

Dental Materials. Studies demonstrate that each time one bites down on a mercury filling, some mercury vapor, the most dangerous form of mercury, escapes. The amount that escapes is tiny, but it occurs thousands of times each day. It can quickly travel directly to the brain, an organ easily damaged by mercury.

The word “quack” originally referred to doctors and dentists who advocated mercury amalgams. When mercury amalgams were introduced over 100 years ago, most medical professionals, including the AMA and the ADA, rejected their use as too dangerous. However, those who wanted cheap, quick fillings that did not become infected used them anyway.

The word for mercury in German is “quacksalver”. The mercury dentists and doctors were nicknamed “quacks” by the more respectable doctors. Eventually, mercury amalgams were accepted by the AMA and the ADA. We can only hope these groups return to their original opinion of this abominable practice.

Large Fish And Shellfish. In addition to drugs and amalgam fillings, the major sources of mercury exposure for most people are foods from the sea. In particular, large fish that eat smaller fish concentrate mercury up to one million times in their body fat and other tissues. Tunafish is the most common source. However, all fish are somewhat contaminated.

Shellfish, including clams, mussels, oysters, lobster and shrimp all tend to contain excessive mercury and may also contain other toxic metals such as cadmium, arsenic, lead, and even radioactive waste and other contaminants. This makes them basically unfit for human consumption today.

Other Sources. Many industries use mercury because it is cheap and has many excellent properties as a fungicide, an excellent electrical conductor and more. These industries include electronics, gold mining and the manufacture of paper, chlorine, adhesives, fabric softeners and waxes.

Among the hundreds of other common sources of mercury in our environment are bleached flour, a few Chinese herbs, cleaners including Ajax, Lysol, Comet, Derma Scrub, Dove Soap, Ivory Liquid, some bleaches, some cosmetics, dyes, paints, inks, embalming fluid, engraving supplies, exhaust fumes, fabric softeners, feeding tubes, felt, fertilizers and many more. For a complete list, go to www.mercuryexposure.com.

As a result of all this exposure, most children today are born with excessive mercury in their bodies. Vaccines add much more and the results are predictable. Mercury easily passes through the placenta so that each generation today is worse than the previous one. This source (congenital mercury) can be reduced if young women make an effort to reduce their mercury load before becoming pregnant.

SYMPTOMS

Hundreds of symptoms may be due to chronic mercury toxicity. The organ most affected is often the brain, and children suffer the most from many mercury-related disorders. Mercury may be a factor in increasing birth defect rates, autism and other developmental delays, ADHD and other learning disorders, anxieties, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive behavior, panic attacks, neuroses and paresthesias. A medical colleague reports that every case of multiple sclerosis he has seen involves mercury.

The “mat hatters” of the Alice In Wonderland story were real people who worked in the hat industry in the nineteenth century. Many became mentally ill due to rubbing mercury on felt or hides to soften it.

Here is a long list of symptoms and conditions that may be associated with mercury. Note that mercury toxicity is usually found with copper toxicity, and perhaps other metal toxicity. So it is not always possible to separate the cause of the symptoms exactly:

· Acne - Opportunistic infections cause by general immune suppression.

· Adrenal insufficiency and burnout.

· Allergies - Gut wall deterioration via mutated intestinal flora)

· Anorexia

· Apathy, Feelings of (especially toward property and personal affairs)

· Asthma

· Ataxia

· Autism (contrary to popular belief, there is very strong medical evidence linking autism to mercury)

· Nearsightedness & Farsightedness (by altering interocular fluid eye pressure)

· Autoimmune Diseases (through methionine mimicry and other processes)

· Amylotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS)

· Ankylosing spondylitis

· Arterial Sclerosis

· Mercury activates an enzyme called phospholipase D (PLD) in cells which line blood vessel walls (endothelial cells). This activation causes the release of phosphatidic acid which damages the cells.(2) These damaged cells then accumulate cholesterol-based plaque leading to arterial sclerosis.

· Kuopio Ischemic Heart Disease Risk Factor (KIHD) study: 2,005 men (ages 42 to 60) without heart disease are divided into four groups based on hair-mercury content and tracked for an average of 12 years. Those in the top 25 percent for hair mercury had a 60% increased risk of death from CVD. Those same men had a 70% increased risk of coronary heart disease.(7)

· Myasthenia Gravis

· Parkinson's Disease

· Acid Reflux - Caused by reduced digestive fluid production.

· Alzheimer's Disease (See Beating Alzheimer's) Quote From Book Review: "He had the mercury removed from his teeth and it did not change things. However,some time later when his gums were x-rayed a tiny sliver of mercury was found in the gum tissue. He had surgery to remove this minute piece of mercury and at the moment of its removal he experienced complete lucidity."

· Aneurysm

· Anxiety

· Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)

· Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

· Blood in the Urine

· Blushing

· Borderline Personality Disorder

· "Brain Fog"

· Bruising, Easy (and other vitamin C deficiency diseases as mercury displaces vitamin C)

· Bulimia

· Calcium, Elevated Blood

· Cancer

· Chronic Fatigue

· Circadian Rhythm, Shifted (inability to sleep on a normal schedule)

· Colitis

· Constipation

· Crohn's Disease

· Dementia

· Depression

· Dermatitis

· Discouragement

· Dizziness (loss of equilibrium)

· Dysbiosis

· Elevated Homocysteine (increases risk of heart disease)

· Endocrine-Related Issues

· Environmental Illness

· Enlarged Prostate (Elevated DHT)

· Fatigue

· Flatulence (gas)

· Floaters In the Eyes

· Fibromyalgia

· Grinding Teeth While Sleeping (Bruxism)

· Gastritis

· Hair loss (Balding—Elevated DHT)

· Headaches

· Heart Arrhythmia (irregular heartbeat)

· Heart Disease (see Arterial Sclerosis)

· High Cholesterol

· Hypoglycemia

· Hyperglycemia

· Hyperacusis (sensitivity to certain sounds)

· Hypothyroidism

· Immune Suppression (weak immune system leading to frequent general illness or numerous opportunistic infections)

· Insomnia

· Iodine Deficiency

· Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS)

· Juvenile Arthritis

· Kidney Damage

· Leaky Gut Syndrome

· Learning Disabilities

· Loss of Self-Control

· Lupus Erythematosus

· Magnesium, Deficiency

· Manic Depressive Disorder

· Memory Loss, Short-Term

· Mole Formation (especially on the neck, underarms, inner thighs, and feet)

· Mood Swings

· Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS)

· Multiple Sclerosis

· Nausea and Vomiting

· Nervousness

· Numbness and tingling,Oily Skin (Elevated DHT)

· Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

· Outbursts of Anger

· Pain In Limbs

· Panic attacks

· Phobias, General

· Photophobia (sensitivity to light from weak iris response)

· Rashes

· Rheumatoid Arthritis

· Salivating, Excessive

· Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders

· Sciatica

· Self Esteem, Lack of

· Shyness

· Sleep Disorders

· Social Separation/Isolation

· Suicidal Thoughts

· Spider Veins

· Selenium Deficiency

· Thyroid Disorders

· Timidity

· Tinnitus (Ringing In the Ears)

· Tremors

· Vision, Loss Of Peripheral vision

· Vitamin C Deficiency

· Weakness, Muscle

· Weight Gain

· White Coating On the Tongue

· Yeast Syndrome/Candida

· Zinc Deficiency

Symptoms may be ill-defined because the exact location and the amount of mercury vary with each individual. Metal toxicity is unlike many infections that have well-defined symptom presentations.

DETECTION

Chronic mercury toxicity does not receive more attention because it is difficult to detect. Simple blood or urine tests are practically useless because the body quickly removes mercury from the blood. It often settles deep in the tissues of the brain, kidneys and liver.

Urine or Feces Challenge Tests. These are common methods for detecting chronic mercury. A high dose of DMPS, a chelating drug that is not safe, is often administered. Then urine is collected for 24-hour hours and analyzed for mercury. The test is almost always “positive”. This may be because mercury is high in many sick people. However, the lab and doctor must be careful not to confuse a “normal” mercury with a mercury produced by a challenge test.

Other problems with this test are that it misses a lot of mercury. The drug does not penetrate the blood-brain barrier very well, so it often misses this key organ where mercury accumulates.

Hair Tissue Biopsy. Any hair level of mercury above about 0.02 mg% is too much in my view. Mercury does not always accumulate in large quantity in the hair. In my experience, however, the hair mineral test provides indicators of ‘hidden mercury’ that are relatively reliable as well. These include:

· An elevated copper above about 2.5 mg%.

· Hidden copper toxicity indicators such as a high hair calcium, a low hair potassium, a low sodium/potassium ratio and a low zinc level. For more on copper, read Copper Toxicity Syndrome.

· Indicators for a hidden zinc deficiency. For more information about zinc, read Zinc on this website.

· Elevated levels of cadmium, arsenic or aluminum often indicate the presence of hidden mercury.

Using these criteria, most people have excess mercury today. This is no surprise. I assume excess mercury is present and contributing to chronic health problems today, especially for those who were vaccinated, those who eat fish at least twice weekly and for those who have or had dental amalgams in their mouths.

Other detection methods. A few practitioners use electrical machines or applied kinesiology techniques (muscle checking) to identify mercury problems. These methods are okay, but are dependent on the skill and clarity of the operator.

REDUCING EXPOSURE

Reduce Fish In Your Diet. To reduce mercury exposure, completely avoid tuna fish and all fish caught in coastal waters. Other fish known to be high in mercury include most sea bass, marlin, all sharks, halibut, pike, walleye, swordfish and largemouth bass. Also, it is best to avoid slightly less contaminated fish such as mahi mahi, cod, pollack, salmon from the Great Lakes, channel catfish (wild) and lake whitefish.

Fish that are considered a little safer include trout (farmed), catfish (farmed), fish sticks, flounder (summer), sardines from Europe, salmon (wild Pacific), croaker and haddock. Beware of farmed fish, however. Quality varies tremendously.

The only fish I can recommend are sardines (very small fish and therefore less likely to be heavily mercury toxic) and perhaps some salmon once a week. I cannot recommend eating even small fish more than once or twice weekly. Anyone who is ill should eat even less, although they are an excellent source of nutrients such as omega-3 oils. These, however, can be obtained from fish oil preparations that have been cleansed of mercury and other toxic substances.

Avoid All Shellfish. Mercury is just one reason to avoid all shellfish, even though they are tempting and formerly were one of my favorite foods. Shellfish are also often high in cadmium, arsenic, aluminum and many toxic metals found on the coastal shelves of every nation.

Vaccines. Also avoid vaccines, including flu shots. Some are still preserved with thimerisal, and it is hard to know which are and which are not. Also, reports on the television news indicate that most doctors and nurses do not know if their vaccines contain thimerisal or other preservatives, so asking your doctor is often not worth the trouble.

There are many other reasons to avoid vaccines, no matter what is promoted on television and elsewhere. To read more about vaccines, click on the Vaccination article.

Avoid Tap Water. Tap water is likely contaminated with mercury and many other chemicals. The only drinking waters I recommend are distilled water, spring waters and filtered water. Carbon filters, however, will not remove much mercury. Carbon block filters are only slightly better.

Replace Dental Amalgams. Dental amalgams can be replaced by a dentist who can do the job without vaporizing too much mercury in your mouth. This can be costly, so it can be done in stages.

Caution: If you know or suspect you have an active cancer, do not replace amalgams. The extra mercury vapor that is released has proven lethal for some cancer patients. It is far better to wait until your cancer is controlled, or preferably gone altogether before replacing amalgams. With the Kelley metabolic cancer therapy or Protocel or maybe other methods many cancers can be handled naturally without drugs and their side effects. Read Introduction To Cancer for more information about this important disease.

All the above are simple steps anyone can take to limit mercury exposure.

REDUCING MERCURY IN YOUR BODY

Very briefly, I never recommend chelators such as DMSA, DMPS, chlorella, cilantro, bugleweed, zeolite and the others. They are not needed, they can be toxic and they all unbalance the body chemistry.

A far gentler, and often more effective method is nutritional balancing science. It is discussed in several articles including Nutritional Balancing, Why I Recommend It. This method is not specific for mercury because in most instances mercury is just one of a dozen toxic metals and hundreds of toxic chemicals that plague us. This method, however, removes most or all of the toxic metals at once, plus hundreds or thousands of toxic chemicals as well. It does this by the following methods, among others, used in a coordinated and integrated way that maintains the body is an excellent balance to increase its energy level. These methods include:

1) Loads of rest and sleep. This is critical. Detoxification always takes energy.

2) A diet rich in vitamins and minerals. These nutritional factors help the body remove mercury through the liver, bowel and kidneys, in particular.

3) Very little fruit or other sweet items in the diet, including fruit juices or honey. Sweets, especially for children, tend to unbalance the body chemistry severely, which hampers detoxification. Unfortunately, many children eat so many sweets that it can halt mercury elimination in some cases.

4) Increase Adaptive Energy. This greatly enhances the body’s ability to excrete all toxic substances. Nutritional balancing science increases energy production by balancing the electrolyte levels on a properly performed hair mineral analysis.

5) Activate the skin. The skin is the largest organ of the body and an excellent eliminative route for mercury. The best way I have found to enhance skin elimination is daily use of an infrared light sauna for several years. After this, one should only use a sauna once daily several times a week, as one can overdo any therapy.

Saunas deserve special mention because they are not part of regular medical care. However, they are highly effective, very safe if done right, extremely cost-effective and a comfortable therapy for most people. We do not recommend them for children under 4 or 5, however, because children can dehydrate faster than adults. For details, read Sauna Therapy by this author or work with a professional trained in sauna use.

6) Balance The Autonomic Nervous System. Most people overuse their sympathetic or fight-or-flight nervous system. This powerfully inhibits the activity of the eliminative organs such as the liver, kidneys, bowel and skin. Many simple methods can reduce sympathetic activity, primarily saunas, meditation, relaxation, biofeedback, prayer, massage and some forms of bodywork.

7) Strengthen The Eliminative Organs. An excellent diet, extra nutrients, herbs, reflexology and other natural methods can help restore the activity of the liver, kidneys, lungs, skin and intestines. Once again, the sauna excels in this area by dramatically improving circulation and decongesting the liver and kidneys.

8) Antagonists. I also use mercury antagonists such as zinc, chromium, manganese and selenium as supplementary nutrients. Our diets are deficient in these elements in most cases.

9) Ver limited use of a few natural chelators. These include vitamin C and sulfur-bearing amino acids such as L-taurine and L-cysteine. Too many supplements are avoided, however, as they often just add stress to the body instead of reducing it.

Chelating Drugs. Some physicians use chelating drugs such as the sodium salt of 2,3-dimercapto-1-propane sulfonic acid (DMPS) and dimercaptosuccinic acid (DMSA). DMPS, a widely used chelating drug, is not approved by the FDA and is considered an experimental drug.

These help some people, but I do not recommend them except in advanced cases of multiple sclerosis, which is connected to mercury toxicity in many cases. Here these drugs might be life-saving. All chelators have a few important problems

1. They all remove beneficial minerals along with the mercury. Thus they can easily upset the delicate balance of body chemistry. Anything given intravenously has a much greater chance of doing this, by the way. Anything taken orally must be regulated by the intestinal lining, which allows only a certain amount to pass into the body. This is helpful in many cases, though not all, as mentioned above.

2. They can pull mercury from storage sites in the body, but the body may not be able to eliminate the mercury fast enough. The storage sites may be relatively benign such as fatty tissues. But the mercury may redeposit in vital organs such as the brain or liver.

3. They may be somewhat toxic in other ways. For more on chelation, see the article on this website, Chelation Therapy.

Mercury is with us. Everyone needs to be aware of it and take at least basic preventive steps to reduce it in their bodies, and in those of the next generation as well. By combining the above eight simple practices, mercury will easily come out of our bodies in a safe and controlled manner.

METAPHYSICAL ASPECTS OF MERCURY TOXICITY

Mercury toxicity is at its greatest at the end of an age, as we are in today. There is no accident that mercury is so prevalent today. It is, of course, found in all fossil fuels, which are the major sources of energy on planet earth at this time.

Mercury actually develops aspects of the human mind, even though it negatively affects the mind and body. Mercury brings about death of the physical, while energizing the emotional and spiritual natures to some degree. Thus mercury is not just a toxic metal, but it also represents a certain energy needed on earth at this time.

Otherwise, it would not be allowed, as it is very dangerous for health and healing. It gives rise to mental illnesses galore, but it is also helping humanity move forward into a new age of reason and integrated emotional/spiritual development.

REFERENCES

1. Casdorph, H.R. and Walker, M., Toxic Metal Syndrome, Avery Publishing, New York, 1995.

2. Dental Truth Magazine, published by DAMS International, 1079 Summit Ave, St. Paul, MN 55101, (800) 311-6265.

Droesti, I.E. and Smith, R., Neurobiology of the Trace Elements, Vol II, Neurotoxicology and Neuropharmacology, Humana Press, 1983.

3. Huggins, H., It’s All In Your Head, The Link Between Mercury fillings And Your Health, Avery Publishing, NY, 1993.

4, Pfeiffer, C., Mental And Elemental Nutrients, Keats Publishing, Ct., 1972.

5. Schroeder, H.A., The Trace Elements And Man, Devin-Adair Company, Old Greenwich, Ct., 1973.

6. Wilson and Eck, Toxic Metals In Human Health And Disease, Eck Institute of Applied Nutrition and Bioenergeteics, Ltd., Phoenix, AZ, 1989.

7. Wilson, Sauna Therapy, LD Wilson Consultants, Inc., 2006.

8. www.mercuryexposure.com - a long list of mercury sources.

9. www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/mercury.html - This sight claims to be an anti-quackery website and presents a positive view of dental amalgams very well.

10. www.karlloren.com/ultrasound/p18.htm is a web page with a very positive description of DMPS.

11. www.dmpsbackfire.com - This is an excellent site about problems with DMPS and DMSA.

12. www.iabdm.org - This is the International Academy of Biological Dentistry And Medicine.

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