Mercury Detox - A 3-step Plan to Recover Your Health

Hi, this is Dr. Mark Hyman. Now after my last blog, I'm sure many of you were discouraged and depressed about mercury and its toxic effects. The bad news is I'm going to review more of these effects and the things I learned at the medical conference on mercury. But the good news is I I will leave you with a clear plan on how to help your body detoxify from mercury and recover your health. I've done this successfully and safely with hundreds and hundreds of patients over the last 10 years, including myself. So now let's get back to the research from this conference. What about mercury and autism? Well, last week I talked a little bit about the link between mercury fillings and autism. Now I'd like to discuss the effects of mercury on this condition in greater detail. Boyd Haley from the University of Kentucky Medical Center is a vociferous opponent of dental fillings. The toxicology literature and the decades of his own research fuel his fervor. The National Institutes of Health funded his research for 25 years until he began to seriously call into question the safety of dental amalgams, the use of thimerosal, another form of mercury in vaccines, and their correlation with autism. He reported the dramatic rises in autism rates. The numbers were stunning, over 900% in less than a generation in California and 714% increase in autism nationwide. He reported on the dramatic increase in autism rates in California since the introduction of the hepatitis B vaccine in 1990 and overall increase in the vaccine schedule from about 10 to about 27 vaccines. In 1999, Thimerosal was removed from vaccines as parents gained increased awareness of the issue. In the first three quarters of 2004, the data showed a decline in the incidence of autism in California for the first time. Dr. Haley also reported on the toxicity of Thimerosal, which is used in vaccines as a preservative. It's a form of mercury. It is quickly converted to ethylmercury in the body, where it moves rapidly from the blood to the brain. He also reported on the data showing the synergistic effect of metals with each other, so mercury, lead and so forth. For example, the dose that lead and mercury would cause death in one out of 100 people is magnified when you are exposed to both lead and mercury, leading to a lethal dose 100% of the time when combined even at low levels. This is in animal studies. Mercury in autism is also something that was talked about by Dr. Jane Aldar who is the chief of pediatric allergy immunology at Tulane. She talked more about the possible link between thimerosal and the vaccines and autism. In California, rigorous standards of reporting of autism were in place because the social benefits were tied to the accurate diagnosis, so the increases in diagnosis are very likely to be real. During the first 25 years of reporting, 6,527 cases were reported of autism. But then the rates skyrocketed. It took only three years during the 1990s to add another 6,596 cases. From 1987 to 1998, there was a 273% increase in autism cases in California. The CDC and the American Academy of Pediatrics raised an autism alarm stating that one in 166 children in the US have autistic spectrum disorder. Currently, one-sixth of all children under the age of 18 have developmental disability. That's nearly 20% of the population who may not be able to be productive members of society. Much of this could be due to mercury toxicity. And that's not just a guess, it's actually based on the analysis of the real dose of thimerosal received by these children after the change in the vaccination schedule. In people with a genetic susceptibility such as defects in enzymes that are responsible for detoxifying or getting rid of heavy metals, prenatal and early postnatal exposure to mercury leads to neurologic damage resulting in autistic symptoms. Other potential sources of early exposure in the fetus are maternal dental fillings, fish consumption, ear drops, and nasal drops. But the vaccines may even be more problematic. They present a significant source of mercury exposure in RhoGAM, which is to prevent fetal blood disease, influenza vaccines during pregnancy, and childhood immunizations. The maximum exposure from these vaccines in the first six months of life is 187.5 micrograms of mercury. far exceeding limits set by the World Health Organization and the EPA. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the safe level for daily exposure to mercury for a 5 kilogram, 2 month old infant is 0.5 micrograms or 0.1 microgram per kilogram. But these limits are set for methylmercury primarily from fish, not from ethylmercury from vaccines. The typical 2 month vaccination schedule for a baby includes DPT, Hib and Hepatitis B. Combined, these vaccines contain 62.5 micrograms of mercury. That's a whopping 125 times the EPA safe limits for a daily single exposure. Like lead, there may be no safe level and children are susceptible more than adults to the toxic effects of mercury. Dr. Aldar said that there appears to be a correlation between immune system malfunctioning in both autism and mercury toxicity. Now, these specific immune abnormalities have been found in 30 to 70% of autistic children. What about mercury in adults? Well, you can see the devastating effect of mercury toxicity on kids, but what about adults? Dr. Robert Nash is a practicing neurologist and he reviewed the mercury associated diseases and their mechanisms, controversies, and treatment options. The toxic effects he suggests spread across a broad spectrum of diseases including autism, Alzheimer's, ALS, MS, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson's, neurodevelopmental diseases, kidney failure, and cancer. So how can this be possible? Well, the mechanism of mercury poisoning in the adult brain may be related to proteins involved in mercury excretion including glutathione, glutathione transferase, metallothionein, and apoenzyme. These are a lot of big words, but the bottom line is that mercury jams up your brain chemistry. It also poisons your cells as well as depletes it of key vitamins like glutathione, vitamin C, B1 and B6. It can also affect the central nervous system by concentrating in the spinal fluid and the kidneys by concentrating in the kidneys. Mercury also inhibits nerve growth and easily goes across the placenta. It can also reduce nerve cell communication and function which leads to problems with neurofibrillary tangles which is a very common feature of Alzheimer's. He also said that biologically the case of mercury as a potential contributing factor to Alzheimer's is more complete than for that of autism. Now Dr. Ashkali, who's a mercury retention and toxicity is made worse by certain things in your diet, by antibiotics, by other toxins like cadmium and lead and also your genetic susceptibility. So no level of mercury exposure from amalgams or from fish or from any source can be considered safe. Mercury toxicity also may be linked with heart disease. Two studies have reported an increased risk of heart attack while another has shown no risk. But the data presented on heart failure from unknown causes is very compelling. Biopsy samples found 22,000 times the level of mercury in people with heart failure from unknown causes compared to controls whose heart failure was caused by a virus or heart attack or high blood pressure. In fact, one of my patients had this exact problem. She was 62 years old facing a heart transplant. I found she had mercury toxicity. I took out the mercury from her system using a comprehensive treatment plan and her heart function improved by 130% and she's still doing great five years later. So first we have to realize that there is a subset of the population that can't really excrete it and they're at higher risk. And this susceptibility is due to genetics and diet to exposure to their toxins. Now given that susceptibility, we have to realize that mercury is a risk factor in many diseases, but it can safely be measured. Now we have to realize that genetics make us more at risk, but we can do something about it. Now we have to do more studies on this. We need more information and more science, and yet we still have enough information to know what to do. Now I want people to know that just because this topic is mostly ignored by conventional medicine and dentistry, it isn't any less important or relevant to our health or children's health, and it can be treated. In my practice, I've seen the benefits of detoxifying from mercury. My patients have recovered from things like dementia, chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, Parkinson's, heart failure, MS, depression, autoimmune diseases like colitis and rheumatoid arthritis and many other things. Of course, that doesn't mean that mercury is the cause of these conditions but simply may be one of the many causes that has to be considered. The good news is that there is a way to get the heavy metals out of your body and you can recover from many of the chronic symptoms that may be connected to mercury or lead toxicity. but I do not recommend that you detox from mercury without a trained doctor's supervision. Unfortunately, there are no large control studies looking at this problem and I'm working on getting studies done on this and other areas of systems and functional medicine better funded so we can have some answers. But right now we have to go with what we know and the experience and knowledge of many doctors over many years doing this. But realize that we do know how to help you detoxify effectively and deal with the effects of low levels of mercury toxicity. Thank you.