Voice of the Environment | Campaigns | Investigating the Autism Epidemic

Finding Out. Any number of awful and scary conditions have been laid at the feet of heavy metal toxicity, including Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, seizures, heart failure, thyroid problems or osteoporosis. Therefore, finding out if your body has a toxic metal load could save your life. For example, toxic metals contribute to osteoporosis because metals such as mercury, lead or cadmium knock calcium out of the bones as the body attempts to remove these health threats from general circulation by placing them in bones’ deep storage. Gradually bones become made of lead or cadmium or mercury instead of calcium. Memory problems can signal toxic metal load (perhaps aluminum) in the brain, and may be an early warning sign for the start of Alzheimer’s disease or Parkinson’s disease.

There are a number of methods that can be used to discover if you have heavy metal toxicity, some used in combination. These include:

Signs and symptoms: Signs and symptoms are one way of assessing heavy metal toxicity. For example, the following indicators are used to asses a likelihood of mercury toxicity: how many silver amalgam fillings you have and how old they are, presence of root canals (which are up to 20% toxic metals, mainly mercury and lead), how often you consume fish and what types you eat, whether you feel fatigued, whether you have any tingling or numbness around your mouth or face or fingers or toes, have problems with articulation of joints, headaches, tremors, difficulty hearing, memory loss, narrowing of your visual field, problems with walking (such as balance difficulties, running into things). Many disturbances which appear to be psychiatric in nature may be due to mercury toxicity, including mood swings, anxiety, agitation, mental confusion, quickness of temper, or depression. Gastroenteritis is the most damaging result of ingesting inorganic mercury (mercury chloride). People who are severely poisoned may lie in a mute, semi rigid posture, able only to cry and exhibit primitive reflexive movements. Elemental mercury ingested as a vapor can cause acute lung injury and respiratory failure.

Blood, urine or stool analysis: For blood, urine or stool samples to show toxic metals accurately, they must be preceded by a metals challenge before collecting the sample. That’s because toxic metals are held out of circulation and inside the cells, including bone cells (that’s the body’s deep storage for dangerous toxins). Therefore the body must be stimulated to release them before they will appear in blood, urine or stool. When such tests don’t show a metals problem when there is one is due to the failure to conduct a metals challenge before taking the sample. Many health professionals do not know this and have even been tested themselves, and falsely reassured that they did not have a metals problem. For example, a whole Florida convention of dentists was recently falsely reassured in this way, as one of the companies manufacturing “silver” (translate, mercury) amalgam fillings offered free tests to demonstrate to the dentists how harmless their product is. (“Silver” amalgams can contain up to 50% mercury.) Since the dentists did not first challenge their bodies to release any held metals for a few days prior to collecting the specimen, the test was very unlikely to demonstrate a problem, and this proved to be the case. The average concentrations of total mercury in non-exposed people is about 8 parts per billion (ppb) in blood

Other tests thought to indicate a high potential for heavy metal poisoning (including mercury) include the following:

On a CBC (complete blood count) - elevated MCH and MCV
Immune tests - low CD8 cells, elevated CD4/CD8 ratio
Low absolute number of NK (natural killer) cells
Serum IgE elevated above normal range
Elevated urinary d-glucaric acid
Elevated urinary 3-methylhistidine
Elevated serum ALT and/or AST
Low serum superoxide dismutase (SOD)
Changes in fractionated urine porphyrins
High urinary mercapturic acid

Hair analysis: Toxic metal levels can be determined through sending a snippet of your hair to a laboratory, which will assess it for toxic metals. For example, for under $60, one company assesses nine toxic elements: Aluminum, Antimony, Arsenic, Bismuth, Cadmium, Lead, Mercury, Nickel and Tin. The accuracy of the tests is affected by some shampoos, all hair dyes, bleach, perms and straighteners. According to Doctor’s Data Labs, which performs hair analysis, “Elevated levels of several elements (Al, Ni, Ag, Sn, Co, Ti and Sr) may be elevated due to hair treatments… (Grecian Formula 44) and selenium based dandruff shampoos (Selsun Blue) are well known to dramatically affect lead and selenium respectively. A number of other shampoos or even dyes, may have minimal or no effect.

In addition, Doctors Data Labs reports, “there are other hair darkening products besides Grecian Formula that contain Lead Acetate. Some of the straighteners can cause contamination. Sulfur containing shampoos can affect Se, Zn, and Ti. Many shampoos will have little or no impact on element levels. Johnson's Baby shampoo is often recommended and can allow more standardized collection.”

Hair analysis test results reflect your condition for the last three months. Average hair concentrations in non exposed people are 2 ppm (parts per million).

Muscle testing: The process of using an indicator muscle can demonstrate not only whether your body has a toxic metal problem, but also, through resonance testing, can indicate what metals are present and where they are in your body. If you have a particular symptom, say, leg cramps, hot flashes, a tired heart, or blood sugar levels that keep fluctuating, a trained practitioner can resonance test to find out if there are toxic metals in your leg muscles, your autonomic nervous system, your heart or your pancreas, respectively. Muscle testing has the added advantage of then being able to be used to determine what supplements are necessary for your particular body to aid in the detoxification process and get your body back to full strength.

This important topic - detoxification from heavy metals - is the subject of the next and last article in this series.

Pamela Levin, R.N. is a local health practitioner specializing in clinical nutrition. She wrote “Perfect Bones, A Six Point Plan to Promote Healthy Bones” to detail the process she used for herself and her clients to rebalance the body and regain bone health. Published by Celestial Arts, it is at amazon.com, www.perfectbones.com. She can be reached at (707) 462 2217.