Mercury does it's damage primarily by binding inside the cells to sulphur containing molecules (sulfhydryl groups) in critical enzymes (microsomes and mitochrondia for example) and enzyme building sites, literally causing havoc in one's basic body chemistry.
Central nervous system symptoms include irritability, over-sensitivity to stimulation, shyness, depression, anxiety, memory impairment, and inability to concentrate. It also manifests as other neurological disorders with Parkinson-like symptoms, tremors, inability to walk straight or balanced, numbness and tingling and the list goes on.
We also see chronic fatigue type of symptoms, headaches, joint pain, impaired hearing and sight. There are renal failure cases and many gastrointestinal symptoms such as nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and colitis. Skin rashes, gingivitis, stomatitis and excessive salivation also make the list.
Firstly, if you think your fillings don't gas off mercury and cause all types of health problems, watch this video below:
In 1990, Dr. Anders Lindvall MD, from the Foundation for Metal Biology in Sweden, started a study on the health effects of amalgam dental fillings. This was a study of 796 patients who had Chronic Fatigue/Epstein Barr type symtpoms. He set the study up to not only evaluate the patients pre and post amalgam removal, but also to truly evaluate the diagnostic tools to evaluate the toxicity from the amalgam fillings.
Treatment of the group who had their amalgams removed consisted of antioxidants (B complex, C, E, and Selenium..and we'll talk more about this later), treatments of jaw infection and dysfunction, removal of any incompatible dental material, low-emission dental amalgam removal techniques, then replacement of biocompatible materials as fillings, then laboratory follow up in one year.
Over 70% of the group with amalgam removal reported significant improvement of health symptoms and it correlated with subsequent testing of mercury in their tissues as compared to what showed the year before.
In a review paper from the International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, February 2004, one may be surprised at some of the findings of European investigators into this health issue, mainly because it's not being made widely known here in North America.
1) Mercury vapour is constantly being emitted from the filling, is absorbed and accumulates in your organs. 2) People with amalgams have 3-5X the mercury in urine, much higher blood levels of mercury (although this is cleared quickly..but then goes to your tissues) and 2-12X the mercury in their overall body tissues than people without amalgams. 3) It's not blood or urine mercury levels that we count on to determine mercury as a causal factor in disease..it's tissue levels. 4) The half-life (time it takes half of it to disappear) of mercury in blood is short, about 3 days. It quickly goes into other tissues..it's not that it's eliminated. Urine mercury only indicate the inorganic mercury levels in the kidney itself and has a very weak correlation to the overall mercury load in your body. 5) When mercury exposure stops, a half life for your body to get rid of it on it's own can range from 1-18 years, depending on your body's ability to handle heavy metal detox.
Other Reports...
1) Patients with symptoms relating to amalgam, have lower selenium and other trace minerals vs. people with amalgams and no symptoms.
2) The total antioxidant plasma levels are significantly lower in people with amalgams.
3) Something to remember...studies cited as proof that dental amalgams are safe or harmless are NOT using proper control subjects with no amalgams to comapare symptomatology to.
4) As well and Lindvall's report above, other studies have shown that people with autoimmune thyroid disease and chronic fatigue have definitely improved with the removals of their amalgams.
5) Another one..75% of people with autoimmune disease including multiple sclerosis improved after amalgam removal.
6) Dental authorities and the FDA has been trying for years to say that the low dose of mercury from amalgams is not harmful.
Well, fact is...now it's been shown that it definitely could be a factor in the development of autoimmune disease. Both animals and in vitro (in the body) studies confirm that exposure to inorganic and metallic mercury leads to damage to the nerve cells and biochemical changes including the formation of beta amyloid (plaques in the brain cells) like those found in Alzheimer's Disease...even at VERY low concentrations. AND the topper is that these effects were NOT seen with other metals such as lead, aluminum, cadmium, manganese, zinc, iron, chromium and copper.
Dental Mercury Amalgams in Pregnancy:
A huge concern...can't be more simply put. There is a direct correlation with the amount of mercury found in the placenta and the number of amalgams in the mother's mouth. We also know now that a substantial amount of mercury gassing off from the mother's dental amalgams reaches the fetus.
There is a connection to autism as well. In 94 autistic children, thier mother's had statistically more amalgams while they carried their babies than 49 mothers of normal controls. Now, a very interesting co-factor is that on their first hair cut, the autistic children had considerably less mercury in their hair. This essentially means, that their bodies were not detoxing the heavy metal as well as the normal control children. (Mercury shows in the hair when your body is detoxing it..that's the reason many people get false negatives on hair testing..thinking they are not mercury toxic..when in fact the opposite is true.)
A Genetic Component:
Those who are more susceptible to negative effects of mercury may have a genetic predisposition. A risk analysis study showed that about 1% of the population would show pathological side effects to amalgams.
The German Commission on Human Biological Monitoring states the genetically susceptible may develop immunological reactions to amalgams and they feel its more in the range of 1-4% of the general population. Also that about 20% of the population will develop health issues which are sub-clinical, in other words don't actually show as health symptoms but are there, compromising the well being of in particular the nervous system and kidneys. In fact, recent studies show that about 25% of the whole populations of the USA suffers from heavy metal poisoning.
There is also one specific gene anomally which we know leads to improper detoxification pathways and hence a problem with mercury. There is a gene (ApoE 4) which appears way more often in mercury toxic people than in healthy people who tend to have ApoE 2 or 3. ApoE4 is lacking thiol groups, which are molecules with sulphur in them to bind the mercury and help escort it out of your body and so are crippled when it comes to detox.
Today the practitioner who is truly up on how the body really works knows how we can manipulate shortcomings which exist as a result of genetic information supplied by our DNA both within the nucleus of the cell and in the mitochondria (structures within the cell, but outside the nucleus..sometimes called the 'powerhouse' of the cell as it makes our energy molecules).
Mitochondria are responsible for energy molecule production. Although the DNA of the mitochondria only total about 1% of the cell’s overall DNA (which by the way is completely inherited from your mother), it is about 20x more susceptible to toxic reactions.
These energy molecules, called ATP are manufactured by biochemically converting your nutrients such as glucose from carbohydrates, amino acids from proteins and fats through a long chain of reactions into ATP. Essentially these are the agents of energy or “life” to the human being (excluding the spiritual aspect, of course). What we must remember is that damage to your mitochondria is accumulative over the years and increases one’s risk to degenerative disease.
By looking at the whole “picture” in this light we are able to see how something like mercury can greatly contribute to chronic “unwellness”.
Although our genetics lead us to our susceptibilities, we now understand as practitioners of true nutritional/biochemical medicine how to alter a person’s chemistry to augment or bring out the best of our genetics.
Chronic illness stems from a cellular environment in which the proper substances to maintain optimal genetic expression are lacking. This world of 'true' medicine is called Functional Medicine, a phrase coined by it's founder and frankly, genius.. Dr. Jeffery Bland.
Nutrigenomics is another term associated with this type of practise and what it comes down to is bathing your cells in a nutrient soup so full of what they need for ultimate, healthy expression and function. In this case, it's up-regulating the biochemical pathways which enable mercury heavy metal detox.
