Nutrition
Articles
The Coming Health Crisis: Heavy Metal Poisoning
Hard to Avoid but Easy to Treat
by Charles Poliquin
Today's technology has its benefits - no argument there. From luxury cars to high-tech computers, we can enjoy a standard of living that could hardly be imagined just a few decades ago. However, all this manufactured "stuff" comes at a high cost - not just the sticker price but a huge increase in toxic substances all around us. It's showing up in our bodies and making us sick. I'm not suggesting that we should go so Paleo as to wear sheepskins and hunt for food with a rock and a stick, but we have to quit kidding ourselves that the problem is overstated and will go away in time. It's not, and it won't. We need a solution - now.
The most dangerous toxins we are exposed to today from our environment are toxic- and heavy metals. There is an ever-expanding body of research showing up in peer-reviewed journals about the dangers of these metals.
What are heavy metals? They are those metals that are at more than five times the specific gravity of water. Among the heavy metals known to have serious health implications are arsenic, barium, cadmium, lead, cobalt, aluminum and mercury (US Dept. of Health, 2007). These metals can cause severe damage throughout the body - this means muscle tissue, the intestinal tract, the skeletal system, the central nervous system, the endocrine system, the cardiovascular system, the reproductive system. Damage that was seldom seen a decade ago is showing up with alarming frequency.
In my athletes the areas that I see most commonly affected by heavy-metal toxicity are the central nervous system and the endocrine system. In fact, heavy metals can be the number-one disrupter of proper hormone metabolism, leading to estrogen dominance in both men and women. When I have athletes with unexplained muscle weakness or hormonal problems, I have them tested for heavy-metal exposure.
The traditional approach to lowering heavy-metal levels has been chelation treatment, either orally or intravenously. But even in the hands of qualified practitioners, chelation treatments can still be challenging and problematic (Payne, Desrosiers, Caro, et al., 2007). Chelation therapy can cause serious side effects that can have a major impact on health, making people even sicker. Further, chelation therapy can result in huge losses of essential nutrients, including the minerals calcium, magnesium and zinc as well as vitamins C and B. Fortunately, there is another approach to dealing with heavy-metal toxicity.
Heavy Metal Detox - A New Approach
The human body is equipped with a natural, innate ability to remove toxic metals by means of metallothionein or MT (Andrews, 2000). MT is a protein produced inside our cells that can bind with and remove toxic, heavy metals for excretion (Saydam, Adams, Steiner, Schaffner, & Freedman, 2002). Working with elite researchers, I have found a way to safely upregulate this internal process.
MetallicDetox-s Research has shown that certain phytochemicals and nutrients can naturally boost this process. These very specific nutrients can be found in my new formula, which I call Metallic Detox. It is powerful enough to be used when we know metals are a problem, and so safe that I recommend it be used before you see any heavy metal problems.
I'm more excited about this product than almost any other I've introduced because it helps to relieve a concern that is far more serious than improving athletic performance or recovery or any of the usual reasons we might choose a supplement. Metallic Detox's most valuable contribution is in meeting hidden health challenges that not only hold back our individual progress but also threaten health on a global scale. With the increasing problem of metal toxicity in our environment, Metallic Detox is a timely solution.
How to Dose Metallic Detox
The protocol for Metallic Detox is a function of how much toxic load you have:
If your lab results indicate a heavy load, then I'd recommend 3 tabs twice a day for up to 16 weeks. You would then take a 4 month break from the supplement and start again with a course of 2 tabs, twice a day for a month. The 2 tabs/twice a day can be repeated every four six months for a month at a time.
To save you the effort of pulling out a calculator, this works out to an investment of around 4 bottles for a year of detox on a 4 months ON / 4 months OFF / 1 month ON protocol at the above doses.
Order Metallic Detox
References
Andrews, G. (2000). Regulation of metallothionein gene expression by oxidative stress and metal ions. Biochemical Pharmacology, 59(1), 95-104.
Aydemir, T., Blanchard, R., & Cousins, R. (2006). Zinc supplementation of young men alters metallothionein, zinc transporter, and cytokine gene expression in leukocyte population. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 103(6), 1699-1704.
Payne, K., Desrosiers, M., Caro, J., et al. (2007). Clinical and economic burden of infused iron chelation therapy in the United States. Transfusion, 47(10), 1820-1829.
Saydam, N., Adams, T., Steiner, F., Schaffner, W., & Freedman, J. (2002). Regulation of metallothionein transcription by the metal-responsive transcription factor MTF-1: Identification of signal transduction cascades that control metal-inducible transcription. Journal of Biological Chemistry, 277(23), 20438-20445.
US Dept. of Health and Human Services. Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR). (2007). CERCLA priority list of hazardous substances. Retrieved June 18, 2008, from http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/cercla/07list.html