April 12, 2005

Toxic Metals

Remember the expression used to describe people who are slow to
make decisions that refers to the fact that they must have “lead in
their butt”? It may be more than an expression! Toxic metals surround
our daily existence, particularly in the petrochemical and industrial
growth centers of the world. It is absolutely impossible to avoid them
but it not impossible to avoid their disease causing syndromes, which
include problems ranging from neurological deterioration, cancer,
vascular disease and chronic fatigue. For people with an interest in
this subject, I suggest you read Toxic Metal Syndrome by Dr. H. Richard
Casdorf, MD, PhD et al . For people who don’t “believe” that these
poisons affect us dramatically, I suggest you also read this book or go
and get tested to see if the you already have toxic levels of these
brain damaging toxins in your body. As a young physician, I probably
would have never correlated widespread common disease with heavy metal.
Now that I have reengaged my brain to integrate my early cellular
biology and biochemistry training into the practice of medicine, it is
hard to view patients with today’s common diseases as anything but
victims of their environment combined with their individual genetic
make up. Every Single Cell and Organ System in Your Body is at Risk
Every Day for Dysfunction Due To Heavy Metal in our Environmant .

A heavy metal is defined chemically as one that is five times
heavier than water. The common metals I am finding in this area are
lead, cadmium, aluminum, arsenic, mercury, and tin. When pumped into
the ocean and bays, the majority tend to sink to the bottom quickly,
but not before fish and other living things latch on to them. The
chemical industry uses a lot of arsenic and mercury and lead. We have a
tin smelter EPA site in the Texas City area. Lead was removed from
gasoline and paint in the early 1970’s. Unfortunately, 50% of it is
absorbed in children compared to 10% in adults. In 1991, Mercury was
officially banned from paint, but surprisingly not from dental
amalgams. In 1992, the Bush administration led the fight (and won) to
allow industry to burn an additional 245 more tons of pollutants per
year. This includes particulate heavy metal toxins. Even if you are not
a radical environmental activist, it should be concerning to you when
your tax dollars that go to pay for Medicare are rising every day
because of pollutants that could be controlled better with government
intervention the other direction.

Aluminum makes up 8-14%of the earth’s crust and dementia and
other neurological syndromes like ALS (Lou Gerhig’s Disease) have been
well documented to have increased incidence in areas like Guam, which
are very high in soil aluminum. Aluminum dust inhalation was used in
mining until recently in an attempt to prevent silicosis problems in
the lung. Unfortuntely, the miners that are still alive are so feeble
minded from aluminum dementia that their longevity is not appreciated.
An acid stomach increases the uptake of the 400mg of aluminum that is
in Mylanta II, a common over the counter antiacid by 200 times! So, all
you coffee drinkers who have acid ingestion would be wise not to take
the liquid antiacids as you are drinking your caffeinated beverage.
Acid in the form of lemon in your tea, or fruit acid in a tin/aluminum
can can also leach out the these metals. Cadmium, released at the rate
of 3.1 million pounds per year in the US, is also very high in tobacco
and coffee/tea products because of its use in the fungicides that are
used in these crops. It is also used to stabilize motor oil and
plastics. Almost all cadmium ingested is absorbed. A pack of cigarettes
easily has 10x the “normal” amount of cadmium ingested daily. Arsenic
pesticides used to be common for the cotton and rice farming industry.

What is a person to do?

Nutrients such as the amino acids methionine, cysteine (NAC),
minerals such as selenium and zinc, and antioxidants such as C and E
are all implicated in the natural processing and removal of these heavy
metals, but there is no way that nutritional means are enough in a high
exposure environment such as the Gulf Coast area. In addition to
pushing whole foods and organic processing, I put all patients who will
listen on NAC 500-1000mg b.i.d. in addition to a good antioxidant
vitamin combination that has minerals. I now test anyone who has
symptoms of heavy metal exposure with the EDTA or DMSA challenge test
and collect a 6-24 hour urine specimen afterwards to measure the amount
they are secreting. I recommend 10-30 EDTA chelation treatmentss
depending on exposure and levels measured and then monthly or bimonthly
treatments as long as you are in this area. If the plentiful data is to
be believed, $2000-$3000 total investment in the next 20 years of
health seems like a small amount compared to an Alzheimer’s nursing
home unit, which is double that per month!