Mercury is both the most toxic of all non-radioactive metals as well
as the most ubiquitous in people.Virtually
everyone is guaranteed daily exposure to this toxic metal due to the
practice of putting this metal in dental fillings.Some 22 million tons of mercury are put into fillings in
America every year.To put the toxicity of
mercury in perspective, if a single silver (mercury) filling was
removed from a client’s mouth and put in a ten-acre lake, the EPA
would have to order a fish advisory for the lake.Fishing, swimming, bathing, boating in that lake would all be
off limits.
To remove mercury, the chelators DMPS
and DMSA are often used, but both have serious drawbacks.
DMPS has been shown to cause the following side effects:
·auto-reactive T-cells
·increases in T-suppressor cells
·liver toxicity
·kidney damage
·stomach ulcers
DMSA has been shown to cause the following side effects:
·bone marrow suppression
·increases in tumor necrosis factor
·liver toxicity
·nausea
·diarrhea
·anorexia
·fatigue
·flatulence
EDTA can chelate mercury without any
of the side effects associated with DMPS and DMSA, just not as
quickly.As you can see on the chart on the
previous page, EDTA makes a very stable bond with mercury.It was previously thought that EDTA could not remove mercury
in vivo.This was believed because it had never
been seen to show up in the urine on a provocative EDTA challenge
test.This is partially correct.Under most circumstances mercury bound EDTA, will not come
out of the urine, but it will come out of the stool (but no one
thought to look for it there).You can get
mercury bound EDTA to come out in the urine by giving a large amount
of EDTA over a short period of time but this is not recommended.The kidneys are very sensitive to mercury, and if your body
can get rid of the mercury through the stool, so much the safer.Since mercury is normally detoxified via the colonic route,
EDTA suppositories may prove to be more effective than I.V. EDTA
chelation for this purpose since the highest concentration of the
EDTA in suppositories is being delivered right to the colonic
mucosa.
