Mercury toxicity is pervasive in the environment but especially in your mouth if you have any mercury fillings.  Learn about the various sources, testing, and elimination of Mercury. First it is important to know how it got there in the first place.  It can come from what you eat, like fish products, mercury amalgams in your mouth, inhaling it in fungicides and pesticides – use of fungicides/pesticides have reduced but mercury residues persist from past use, and batteries as well as other uses.  Once in your body, mercury attaches to sulfur amino acid building blocks in proteins.  These are methionine, cysteine and taurine.  Did you know that when you chew, vapors from the mercury amalgams is swallowed or inhaled into your lungs?  So if you suspect you have mercury amalgams in your mouth, please do not chew gum!

Is Fish High in Mercury?

Most fish have levels of mercury from environmental contaminants.  Generally speaking, the bigger the fish is, the higher it’s Mercury content will be, due to it being at the end of the food chain.  Smaller fish, low on the food chain, are low in Mercury and other heavy metals.  Sardines, Anchovies, Herring, Flounder, Haddock (Atlantic), Mackerel (N. Atlantic), are examples of fish low in Mercury.  Some examples of larger fish high in Mercury are: Tuna, Bluefish, King Mackerel, Marlin, Orange Roughy, Shark, and Swordfish.

Mercury is fat soluble

Heavy metals, including mercury, are all fat soluble.  The liver detoxifies toxins and heavy metals and excretes them through the bile.  However, most are reabsorbed.  Glutathione breaks this cycle and toxins are then removed through the kidneys for water soluble ones, as well as the feces.

How to Eliminate Mercury from Your Body

Supplements to eliminate Mercury from your body

Glutathione is the first and best to add to detoxify mercury (as well as other heavy metals).  Without glutathione mercury from the environment cannot be detoxified and eliminated.  Glutathione along with MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) are your primary sulfur sources which your body can produce. Sulfur is present in several proteins and numerous enzymes which require intact sulfur groups. Tripeptides of sulfur are glutathione, cysteine and glycine.   Many are inactivated by mercury.  Glutathione usually comes in 50 mg caps.  You can start taking on an empty stomach 50 mg three times a day.

MSM (methylsulfonylmethane) contains bioavailable sulfur.  It can provide sulfur to cysteine and methionine.

B6 – pyridoxine – is the next important one.  It is used to convert methionine to cysteine and then to glutathione.  A suggested use is 50 mg B6 with your breakfast meal. The CoEnzyme form of B Vitamins have the best utilization by the body.

B1 (thiamine) is next.  Use 50 mg one cap three times a day with meals.

NAC ( N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine) can stimulate your body to produce large amounts of cysteine and glutathione.  Use of this is optional.

Zinc is needed for many functions in the body. For this purpose zinc stimulates the production of metallothionein in the body.  This is one way the body detoxifies the effects of mercury.  There are all different kinds of zinc tablets available.  For the best zinc to actually get through the cell membrane, it should be attached to an amino acid chelate. (see our blog on Zinc).

Vitamin C is also important in helping the body to detox mercury, and other toxins.  Start with 500 mg once a day and build up in divided doses to 1500 mg or more a day.  If you take too much, and you get diarrhea, just take 3/4ths the amount in divided doses the next day.

Selenium is the next nutrient.  It is an essential trace element and is a component of glutathione-peroxidase. It also helps produce T3.  Start with 50 micrograms three times a day.  Selenium should never be taken with Vitamin C. Take it 2-3 hours before or after taking Vitamin C as it will reduce selenite to the biologically unavailable form.

ALA (alpha lipoic acid) has a metal chelating capacity and it substantially increases reduced glutathione.  It also may be effective in numerous neureodegenerative disorders. You can take 100 mg capsule once daily. 

Also you can take Molybdenum that increases urinary excretion of mercury.

And take an amino acid complex which prevents depletion of several amino acids.  Take one hour before meals or at bedtime.

Foods to avoid:

Fish can be high in mercury – all fish has some level of mercury.

Chicken and Eggs products – can have the potential to have a significant amount of fish feed in them which gets passed on to the human food chain.

Candy or a lot of sugar products, esp. High Fructose Corn Syrup.

Foods to help eliminate Mercury from your body

Garlic- contains a high level of sulfur and some contain selenium.

Bromelain from pineapple. Take between meals with a full glass of water.

A high fiber diet.  An easy way to get more fiber is to eat oat or bran muffins.  Also be sure to drink a lot of water.  Routine intake of 6 – 8 glasses on non-fluoridated water daily will also assist your body in getting rid of toxins.

In general dietary intake of refined carbohydrates, sugars, and saturated fats should be reduced. 

Gut micro flora and Mercury

As long as the gut micro flora is functioning properly, the body can eliminate mercury and other heavy metals.  A simple stool test can tell you how well your gut micro flora is functioning.  The Microbiology Stool Analysis is a great test that reports these parameters.

How to Test for Mercury Toxicity

The best test to determine long term exposure to mercury and other toxic heavy metals in your body is through a hair test, which is much more practical than an invasive bone biopsy; blood testing is only accurate for a very recent exposure..

To conclude, there are a number of supplements that can help eliminate mercury from your body as well as tests to determine levels of Mercury and other heavy metals you may have.  To monitor your progress, hair tests are available from Health Always which can demonstrate long term exposure to Mercury and other heavy metals.  A urine test can be used but should be provoked by an oral or IV chelating agent first for accurate tissue results. Blood testing is not an accurate test for long term exposure.