We are too heavy, and I don't mean overweight. We're heavy with metals, not fat. Nearly 40 percent of us have toxic levels of lead in our bodies. And we don't even know it. But that doesn't mean we don't have symptoms...
You may have headaches, insomnia, irritability, a low sex drive or tremors. You may have mood problems, nausea, depression, memory difficulties, trouble concentrating, poor coordination or even constipation. Yet most of us attribute these symptoms to other problems. We don't recognize that they may be caused by lead poisoning.
I recently went to a medical conference on heavy metals and health. Although I have been treating toxicity from heavy metals for more than a decade (including in myself), I was surprised to hear about research that has been completely ignored by the media.
A study published in 2006 in the conservative medical journal Circulation, for example, should have been on the front page of the New York Times. Today I will tell you why the study was so important, and why you probably won't hear about it from your doctor. Then I will give you six tips to help get the lead out.
Studies Show Any Lead in Your Body May be Unsafe
In the study I mentioned above, researchers measured the blood lead levels of 13,946 adults who were part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They were recruited from 1988 to 1994 and were then followed up on for up to 12 years. The goal of the study was to track what diseases people developed and why they died. (i)
Now, it's important to remember that since lead was removed from gasoline and house paint several decades ago, the average person's blood lead level has dropped dramatically. But our levels of lead are still a great deal higher than those of people who lived before the industrial age. That's because we continue to be exposed to lead in our soil and water, as well as from our own bones, where it is stored once it's introduced into our system.
Fifty years ago, the average blood levels of lead were about 40 micrograms/deciliter. The level considered "safe" by the government has continued to fall and is now considered less than 10 micrograms/deciliter. But this new study and others like it question the idea that ANY level of this toxic metal is safe.
In this study, researchers found that a blood level of lead over two micrograms/deciliter (that's two, not 10 or 40) caused dramatic increases in heart attacks, strokes and death. In fact, after controlling for all other risk factors, including cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking and inflammation, the researchers found that the risk of death from all causes in people with a lead level that high increased by 25 percent. Deaths from heart disease increased by 55 percent, risk of heart attacks increased by 151 percent and risk of stroke increased by 89 percent.
What's even more remarkable is that nearly 40 percent of all Americans are estimated to have blood levels of lead high enough to cause these problems. This is potentially a greater risk for heart disease than cholesterol! But this study is not the first indication we have of problems with lead.
A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that high blood pressure in postmenopausal women is strongly correlated to blood lead levels. This is because bones break down faster during menopause, releasing stored lead and injuring blood vessels, which leads to high blood pressure.(ii)
High lead may also be responsible for kidney failure as well. A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that using chelation therapy with EDTA to reduce lead levels in patients with kidney failure could prevent further loss of kidney function, save billions in healthcare costs and eliminate the need for dialysis in millions of people. (iii)
Wow! Take a moment to digest that. Chelation therapy saves lives and billions of dollars. But your doctor probably isn't offering this as standard treatment, because, as I have said many times, doctors don't learn two of the most important things in medical school: How to help people improve their nutrition and how to deal with environmental toxins.
Lead is not only linked to heart disease, high blood pressure and kidney failure, it is also connected to the epidemic of children with ADHD, developmental and learning problems, and autism. Even though the "safe" blood levels of lead has been set as 10 micrograms/deciliter, recent studies show that the greatest drop-off in IQ scores in children occurs in those who have lead levels between just one and 10 micrograms/deciliter.(iv) This is particularly troubling, because more than 10 percent of poor and inner city children have lead exposure levels higher than 10 micrograms/deciliter!
I recently treated a young boy with extremely high lead levels who had Asperger's syndrome, severe ADHD and violent behavior. He likely got the lead from his mother, who had very low vitamin D levels and had developed osteoporosis, which released a lot of lead from her bones during pregnancy. This lead got into the boy's body in the womb across his mother's placenta. Thankfully, we got rid of his lead over time through chelation and nutritional support. Doing so dramatically improved his attention, behavior and social skills.
This young boy is, unfortunately, not alone. We live in a sea of heavy metals. Lead is still found in our soil and water. In areas with a history of industrial pollution, people track lead into their homes from contaminated soil. The sad result is that regular house dust often contains 17 times the level of lead it once did. In Washington, DC, the water was so contaminated with lead recently that the government had to provide free water filters for everyone in the city. Up to 20 percent of the city's tap water may be contaminated.
So what can you do about this?
SIx Tips to Help You Get the Lead Out
Luckily there are steps you can take to help you heal from lead poisoning if you have been exposed. Try the following:
1. Find out if you are lead-toxic. The easiest test is a simple blood lead test. Be sure the lab can measure VERY low levels of lead accurately. Anything higher than two micrograms/deciliter is toxic and should be treated. Unfortunately, the blood test only checks for current or ongoing exposures, so you must also take a heavy metal challenge test with DMSA, EDTA or DMPS, which can be administered by a doctor trained in heavy metal detoxification. (See www.functionalmedicine.org or www.acam.org to find a qualified doctor.) Consider undergoing chelation therapy if your lead levels are high.
2. Reduce your exposures by having a "no shoes in the house" policy. A great deal of lead can be tracked into your house in the dust on the soles of shoes. Leaving your shoes at the door helps reduce the amount of contamination in your home.
3. Test your water for heavy metals. There are a number of home test kits available online. If you prefer to have a professional test your water, call your city water provider or look for labs in your area that will perform this kind of test.
4. Buy a carbon or reverse osmosis water filter for your drinking water. These filters remove lead and other toxic substances like PCBs. They are my favorite kind of filter and the type I use in my home.
5. Take 1,000 milligrams of buffered ascorbic acid (vitamin C) a day. This helps remove lead from the body.
6. Take 2,000 to 4,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day to prevent your bones from releasing lead into your bloodstream.
Even though many of us have toxic levels of lead in our bodies, there is a lot we can do to prevent it and treat it. Doing so is an essential step to healing your body and achieving lifelong vibrant health.
Now I'd like to hear from you...
Do you suffer from any of the symptoms of lead toxicity?
Have you been tested for lead poisoning? Do you plan to be?
Which of the other steps have you tried?
Please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment.
To your good health,
Mark Hyman, M.D.
References
(i) Menke, A., Muntner, .P, Batuman, V., et al. (2006). Blood lead below 0.48 micromol/L (10 microg/dL) and mortality among US adults. Circulation. 114(13):1388-94.
(ii) Nash, D., Magder, L., Lustberg, M., et al. (2003). Blood lead, blood pressure, and hypertension in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. JAMA. 289(12):1523-32.
(iii) Lin, J.L., Lin-Tan, D.T., Hsu, K.H., and C.C. Yu. (2003) Environmental lead exposure and progression of chronic renal diseases in patients without diabetes. New England Journal of Medicine. 348(4):277-86
(iv) Canfield, R.L., Henderson, C.R. Jr., Cory-Slechta, D.A., et al. (2003). Intellectual impairment in children with blood lead concentrations below 10 microg per deciliter. New England Journal of Medicine. 348(16):1517-26.
Mark Hyman, M.D. practicing physician and founder of The UltraWellness Center is a pioneer in functional medicine. Dr. Hyman is now sharing the 7 ways to tap into your body's natural ability to heal itself. You can follow him on Twitter, connect with him on LinkedIn, watch his videos on Youtube and become a fan on Facebook.
Follow Mark Hyman, MD on Twitter: www.twitter.com/markhymanmd
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My amalgam fillings were improperly removed in August 2006. They contained both lead, mercury, and nickel. I am not going to go into details about what type of symptoms and what I have gone through in a reply blog unless someone emails me. However, could write a book on it. Currently I suffer from extreme inflammation throughout my body and especially chronic bronchitis in the lungs. I know this is due from the metal poisoning and why.
However, my question to you which no one has been able to answer is: I lost the moons on my fingernails immediately after the improper removal of the fillings and they have not returned, what is the cause of this? I would very much appreciate a response if you can answer this question. Thank you so much.
Sincerely,
Jessica Coco
Even with DMSA challenges and the like it is still difficult to uncover lead poisoning a lot of the time. also, because the EPA says the 4 deciliter margin is the place to stop for toxicity, most lab tests don't report anything lower than that.
My child got autism from lead poisoning in our house. She was never vaccinated, and when our dogs got sick with cancer at the same time and I was knocked out with a headache that just blew me out of the water suddenly, I had our home tested, and it came up radiator hot with lead, everywhere.
For people with small children and babies testing the home for lead is essential.
Thank you for this great article. This should be on the front page of the NY Times.
Try this website as an example: http://www.ampac1.com
They have great systems at a very affordable price and Made in USA.
http://scienceblogs.com/whitecoatunderground/2010/06/the_one_true_cause_of_all_dise.php
One way to rather inexpensively find out how much heavy metals are in your body is to have a hair test. I wrote about this in my blog about health matters here: http://www.garmaonhealth.com/2009/08/hair-analysis-test-simple-cheap-valuable/ (Note: I have no affiliation with the service profiled, and there are many others that offer hair analysis.)
Taking your shoes off before entering the house is also a good idea, and not just to diminish heavy metals, but also to improve allergies and asthma: http://www.garmaonhealth.com/2010/05/remove-shoes/
Yep
I worked from 1954 for some 20 years as a newspaper Linotype operator and we even heated our lunches on the top of the lead pots. There was no ventilation of lead fumes to the outside at all. When I retired in 1993, I had my doctor test for lead and I was on the high side of normal whatever it was at that time.
This could explain some long-term health problems I have.
Some clarification needs to be made on one of your statements:
"Now, it's important to remember that since lead was removed from gasoline and house paint several decades ago...."
Aviation fuel (high octane gasoline) still contains Lead - Tetra-ethyl lead, (abbreviated TEL). It is still used as an additive in aviation fuel for piston engine-powered aircraft.
So the next time you look up and see those private planes flying over, you are still getting a dose of lead. Not as much the millions of autos did before - but lead nonetheless.
Have you been tested for lead poisoning? Do you plan to be? Yes, I have tested for metals twice in the last two years. Both times i had high levels of lead, and the first time I had extremely high levels of mercury. I finished chelation therapy a little over a month ago and I await results from a third, and hopefully final, test.
Which of the other steps have you tried? Diet is huge. I have been able to reduce my chronic sinusitis and chronic pain by removing inflammatory foods and eating organic, whole foods.
Most people in mainstream American life don't understand how the toxins that we are all exposed to can shape our lives, until it hits you or someone you know or love. I have spent 10 years looking for natural solutions to a number of chronic, immune-based issues that are mentally and physically crippling at times. As this article notes most of us don't realize or often care where our dis-ease comes from because we listen to our western docs that are funded by big pharma (my father was a physician, mother a nurse, so I know how it works). It's not impossible to avoid prescription meds and pain-relievers to maintain health and be happy. In fact, the more meds you take, the worse off your liver becomes, making the toxicity more lethal.
It seems to me that a major issue with this is the financial aspect that you neglect to discuss in your article. (I don't mean 'neglect' in a way suggesting you overlooked it - it was not the main concern of the article.) This is a concern for me because though I would love to be tested, and have my water tested, and purchase a nice filter for my sink, all of this costs money - and added up, could cost a lot of money, especially for those of us without a health care provider. Certainly this article can develop awareness for lead toxicity. But being the cynic / skeptic I am, I wonder how this can be applied on a widespread level. Can lead control / prevention be applied to the general public?
I visited my naturopath a few months ago and he advised I had high metal toxins in my body - charming! It's incredible how we are so easily able to inadvertently pollute our own bodies.
Many thanks for a great article.
Peace and much love
Lara Jane
http://ultimatelifestyleproject.com/you-are-going-to-die
Study up...They have been approved in Europe as a medical device. The scam that is being
perpetrated here is one of ignorance. Many people in our society have never studied physics and chemistry, and if they can't see it...they assume it doesn't exist.
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Dr. Hyman, could you please explain why your article doesn't even mention that conventional medicine opposes the use of tests for levels of heavy metal after a chelating drug is given (challenge tests)?
Your website proclaims that you are a physician, advocate and educator. The general public isn't that knowledgable about heavy metal poisoning or chelation. So doesn't your claim to be an educator require you to provide some information from those who disagree with you ---- particularly as your claims are not part of conventional medicine.
Something as simple as this would be enough.
Position on Challenge Urine Tests
... concludes
"It is, therefore, the position of the American College of Medical Toxicology that post-challenge urinary metal testing has not been scientifically validated, has no demonstrated benefit, and may be harmful when applied in the assessment and treatment of patients in whom there is concern for metal poisoning." http://www.acmt.net/cgi/page.cgi?aid=2999&_id=52&zine=sh
Your point is superfluous information, non-sequitor, and the way you are phrasing it you are
making it sound like it's a contrary position to getting the lead out.
If you wanted Dr. Hyman to educate on conventional medicine; the info would be about the pharmaceutical chelation methods...and of course; he mentioned that.
The beneficial information would be the study that shows how lead...even in small amounts
over time can lead to premature life threatening conditions. It graphs out like a parabolic curve.
Infinitesimal, unnoticed symptoms at first...but over time leaps off the chart.
Historically, the first story to enlighten us about lead was the autopsies of explorers who died in the Arctic expedition; Franklin's Northwest Passage 1845.
Peace,
Cindy
I am not arguing that lead isn't harmful in small amounts. Nor am I making that argument for any other heavy metal.
The argument is that testing for heavy metals after giving chelating drugs gives meaningless results and should not be used as a basis for using chelating drugs.
Dr. Hyman is free to reject the views of the experts. But as an educator, he does a great disservice, when he does not even mention the conventional view on the value of challenge urine tests.