The increasing rates of cancer, vascular disease, dementia, and other diseases are directly related to the increase of toxic heavy metals and other chemicals in our environment, as chronic, even low-grade, environmental exposures raise the body burden over time. 

Living in an industrialized society exposes all inhabitants to metals in the environment. Metals can be toxic (at times called Heavy Metals) to life in all but the tiniest of amounts, including lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, nickel, and aluminum.

These metals have been known to have adverse biological effects on humans for many years.

Public Health Burden due to Toxic Metals

The nervous, vascular, and immune systems can be adversely affected by heavy metal toxicity. An article in the NEJM concluded that there is an inverse association between blood lead levels and IQ scores. The chief author, Richard L. Canfield, Ph.D¹., stated in a subsequent interview, “There is no safe level of lead”.

Mercury in both organic and inorganic forms is neurotoxic and is related to Autism², Alzheimer’s disease, and Cancer. Metallic mercury is readily converted under physiological conditions and constitutes is a major public health risk. Primary non-occupational sources of mercury exposure in humans include: medications and devices (including amalgams and vaccines), metallic mercury, mercurial fungicides, water, and recreational exposures including from ceramic glazes.

The USA Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) have released guidelines for restricting fish consumption based on the mercury content.

Peer reviewed medical journals, such as the NEJM and JAMA and others, have published multiple recent articles about lead and mercury, even at low levels, affecting the entire vascular system, leading to hypertension, stroke, heart attack, cardiomyopathy and renal failure. Other journals have shown lead and other heavy metals as a partial causation of macular degeneration as well as decreased intelligence, reading disability, gout, thyroid diseases, and other physiologic problems.

Some 300 tons annually of mercury are added to the American ecosystem from all industrial and consumer sources.

Cadmium and nickel are also potent toxins with similar mechanisms of action to arsenic, including cardiovascular risk. Cadmium also causes cancer.

Arsenic is another potent metabolic, hormonal, immune and gene toxin with cancer promoting effects. Primary sources of arsenic exposure in humans are water, food, arsenical biocides and therapeutics.

The EPA recommended, in 2001, a 10 ppb arsenic maximum acceptable level in drinking water. The Institute of Medicine of the United States National Academy of Sciences expert panel on arsenic, recommends a drinking water standard of less than 1 ppb because the cancer promoting effects of even this level of arsenic in the water are deemed to be too high.

The public health burden due to toxic metals is an acquired and reversible health risk for at least 80 million Americans.

Blood Levels of Metals vs. Tissue Levels

Blood levels of heavy metal toxicity are not representative of tissue levels and frequently fail to identify significantly toxic tissue levels, i.e. levels that are causing tissue damage.

Determination of blood metal levels is more useful for assessment of recent or ongoing exposure. In adults with past exposure, the correlation between blood lead and tissue lead is poor because the metal is no longer measured accurately in the blood.

Metals in the tissues vary significantly and many factors complicate the assessment of measuring tissue levels in a given individual. The assumption that serum levels correlate with body burden has been clearly recognized as erroneous. There is no single test that adequately determines the total body burden of toxic metals.

Metals are detoxified via the skin, hair, stool, and urine. However, all tests for mineral excesses and deficiencies have their limitations,

Thirty days after exposure there is little evidence of any remaining toxic metal in the serum as it has been deposited to other tissues and partially excreted.

Random urine tests for toxic metals show only what is being detoxified via the kidneys from serum.

Intracellular (red blood cell) mineral analysis is one form of a “tissue” analysis but is also most significant for recent exposure (four to six months about 63 days for Me-Hg).

Hair analysis for toxic metals, while controversial, has been widely accepted and validated for epidemiological studies by the World Health Organization and the EPA as being extremely useful and cost effective for identifying toxic metal exposures

These samples should be carefully collected and processed according to the instructions provided by the laboratory running the test, especially urine specimens since the volatility of mercury, for instance, can lead to a false negative if not properly handled.

The most valid, readily available test to show the total body burden of toxic metals is the provoked urine test, where urine is collected and analyzed following administration of EDTA or other chelating agents, oral or IV.

A hair sample is much more practical, as it does not require a provoking agent. As long as hair dyes have been avoided for about two months, can give an indication of long term heavy metals exposure.

Synergistic Effects

Synergistic effects of heavy metal combinations could be more damaging than a single toxin.

One of the basic principles of integrative and environmental medicine is that every patient is unique, biochemically, genetically, and physiologically. Individual tolerance to a given level of a toxic metal varies considerably, based on the presence of other antagonistic metals, chemicals, and genetically determined detoxification capabilities.

Some individuals may be more susceptible to toxic effects of a heavy metal or other chemicals than others, for example: patients with autism, multiple chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, genetic deficiency of glutathione production, aberrant homocysteine metabolism, and other genomic variations may be more susceptible.

In conclusion, heavy metal toxicity can cause cellular damage and disease even in very small amounts. Given the growing evidence of correlation between heavy metal burden and disease states, any test showing heavy metals deserves to be treated, if only for preventative purposes. Ideal level of heavy metals in human tissue is zero, if we are to prevent the development of chronic illness.

1. Intellectual Impairment in Children with Blood Lead Concentrations below 10 μg per Deciliter [nejm.org] ↩︎
2. .The relationship between mercury and autism [Science Direct] ↩︎