Written by Michael Gerber, MD, HMD |
It’s been my long time assertion that all of life’s ills can be resolved by putting in the good stuff and taking out the bad stuff in our body. I’ve been writing about the good stuff; supplements and healthy lifestyles, in our last three articles on Brain Fog and now it is very important to acknowledge the bad stuff; toxins and immunosuppressants and how to get rid of them. Heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic break down our nerves and can cause death. Short of death, these metals cause a lot of grief including neurological damage from Alzheimer’s, Multiple Sclerosis, arteriosclerosis, heart attacks, stroke, depression, psychosis, Attention Deficit Disorder, and what you end up with is brain fog. We are all exposed to these heavy metals daily and have 1,000 times more lead in our bones than pre-industrial man.
The heavy metals issue has been around for a long time. At the turn of the 20th century the English felt hat makers were known to become “mad as a hatter” after a year of working on felt hats that were treated with mercury. This especially affected the workers who painted the hat brims with mercury and touched the paintbrush to their lips to moisten it. It is documented that they became psychotic, bipolar, ADD, melancholic (depressed) and lost their memory. The Murimota Bay disaster in the 1980s in Japan was another dramatic demonstration of what happens when an industry dumped mercury into a bay where the local people caught their fish. Many of the population began exhibiting MS like symptoms: gaunt, experienced total brain and body decline and loss of motor function.
Mercury, lead, cadmium and arsenic, among other heavy metals, are well known neurotoxins. According to the World Health Organization, the chief source of mercury in man arises from mercury amalgam fillings in teeth, which are 50 percent mercury and outgas mercury with chewing of food and drinking hot liquids. If you would like to watch mercury vapor coming off the teeth and see how radioactive mercury spreads through the body go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ylnQ-T7oiA. Be sure to ask your dentist about mercury before getting your next filling.
Removing mercury and these other metal toxins involves a process called chelation. Chelation comes from the Greek root Chelos, the claw to grasp or to bind. There are many chelating agents available, which remove heavy metals from the body. You can read more about chelators in the next issue.
Beside metals, we are all routinely poisoned by hundreds of chemical toxins such as pesticides, herbicides, volatile organic hydrocarbons, benzene, xylene, toluene, gasoline, propane, butane, diesel and jet fuel, plastics such as bisphenol A, phthalate, styrene, solvents such as MEK (methyethylketone), formaldehyde, formic acid and acetone.
One effective way to remove these toxins is to undergo routine sweating. Far infrared saunas (FIR) are high tech- low temperature saunas that use the radiation wavelength of sunshine to detoxify the body. They are operated at low temperatures, 90 to 140 degrees instead of the high temperatures of regular saunas of up to 220 degrees, and are well tolerated by older, more sensitive people. When beginning a FIR detox, it is important to begin slowly, increasing time and temperature gradually so that you don’t release toxins from your tissues and cells more quickly than the body can eliminate them. To learn more, read Dr. Sherry Rogers book, Detox or Die. She makes a great case for toxicity in all of us and how routine sauna use removes these toxins by sweating so we can pursue healthy aging strategies without the road blocks of environmental toxins.
References:
1. It’s All in Your Head: The Link Between Mercury Amalgams and Illness by Dr. Hal A Huggins, D.D.S. Avery Publishing; 1 edition (July 1, 1993)
2. Detoxify or Die (Paperback) by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. Publisher: Prestige Pubs (December 2002)
For more info, contact Michael Gerber, MD, HMD of the Gerber Medical Clinic at (775) 826-1900.
