Why are You Swallowing Heavy Metals Daily in What You Eat?
by www.SixWise.com

Metals are a natural part of your environment and, often, your food supply as well. This is a good thing, in part, because many of these metals, such as iron and copper, are essential for optimal health when consumed in small quantities.

However, when large amounts of metals (or even small amounts of toxic metals) are consumed, it can lead to short-term poisoning and, in the long-term, chronic illness. Further, some heavy metals, such as mercury, are toxic and have no place in your food supply at all -- yet are showing up at high levels in popular foods.

What are the Risks of Consuming Too Many Heavy Metals?

There are two types of metal toxicity: acute and chronic. Symptoms of acute toxicity are easy to recognize because they are usually quick and severe in onset. The symptoms include:

• Cramping, nausea, and vomiting

• Pain

• Sweating

• Headaches

• Difficulty breathing

• Impaired cognitive, motor, and language skills

• Mania

• Convulsions

Chronic exposure, which is what typically occurs from dietary sources, produces different symptoms, which can be easily confused with symptoms of different illnesses. According to LifeExtension:

“The symptoms of toxicity resulting from chronic exposure (impaired cognitive, motor, and language skills; learning difficulties; nervousness and emotional instability; and insomnia, nausea, lethargy, and feeling ill) are also easily recognized; however, they are much more difficult to associate with their cause.

Symptoms of chronic exposure are very similar to symptoms of other health conditions and often develop slowly over months or even years. Sometimes the symptoms of chronic exposure actually abate from time to time, leading the person to postpone seeking treatment, thinking the symptoms are related to something else.”

Where do Dietary Metals Come From?

Exposure varies greatly according to the type of metal in question. Here we’ve detailed four common dietary metals you should be aware of. Keep in mind that in addition to food, you may also be exposed through dietary supplements and multivitamins.

1. Copper

Copper is found in high quantities in calf’s liver, shellfish, sesame seeds, cashews, crimini mushrooms, soybeans, and sunflower seeds. You can also be exposed through drinking water that flows through copper water pipes.

Copper is an essential nutrient present in every tissue of your body, however at high levels it may contribute to schizophrenia, high blood pressure, fatigue, joint pain, hyperactivity, depression (and postpartum depression), insomnia, autism, more.

At least one study, published in the Archives of Neurology, has also linked fat- and copper-rich diets with increased rates of cognitive decline.

2. Iron

Iron is found in large quantities in beans (especially soybeans, lentils, garbanzo beans, kidney beans and navy beans), spinach, sesame seeds, beef, and venison. While important for human health, too much iron has been linked to heart disease, cancer and possibly rheumatoid arthritis and Alzheimer’s disease.

While most people who experience iron overload suffer from a genetic disorder called hemachromatosis, researchers have recently begun advising people over 50 to consider cutting back on both iron and copper intake because the metals can accumulate in your body, leading to disease.

"It seems clear that large segments of the population are at risk for toxicities from free copper and free iron, and to me, it seems clear that preventive steps should begin now,” said George Brewer in a new report in ACS' Chemical Research in Toxicology.

He continues:

“Evolution has kept stores of copper and iron in excess during the reproductive years because they are so vital to life. But the oxidant damage from these excess stores of metals builds up as we age, and natural selection ceases to act after about age 50 since diseases after that do not contribute to reproductive fitness.

Diseases of aging such as Alzheimer’s disease, other neurodegenerative diseases, arteriosclerosis, diabetes mellitus, and others may all be contributed to by excess copper and iron.

A very disturbing study has found that in the general population those in the highest fifth of copper intake, if they are also eating a relatively high fat diet, lose cognition at over three times the normal rate.”

3. Mercury

Mercury released into the environment from mining and coal-burning power plants accumulates in waterways, contaminating fish and other seafood. Fish that are long-lived and which eat other fish (such as tuna, swordfish and tilefish), generally have the highest levels of contamination.

Mercury is a known neurotoxin and chronic exposure has been linked to increases in mental impairment, autism and Alzheimer’s disease. It’s also been linked to changes in heart rhythm even at levels considered “safe.”

Eating contaminated seafood (along with exposures through “silver” dental fillings, vaccinations, air pollution and even high fructose corn syrup) are leading to concerning increases in this heavy metal in humans.

One recent study even found that one-third of U.S. women have toxic mercury in their blood.

"My study found compelling evidence that inorganic mercury deposition within the human body is a cumulative process, increasing with age and overall in the population over time," author Dan Laks, a neuroscience researcher at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles, told the Environmental News Service. "My findings also suggest a rise in risks for disease associated with mercury over time.”

Another of the primary health concerns surrounding mercury is for pregnant and nursing women, or women who may become pregnant, as mercury can harm a developing child. One study, for instance, found neuropsychological deficiencies in children who had higher levels of mercury in their cord blood sample, including deficiencies in:

• Language

• Memory

• Attention

• Motor function

• Visual-spatial function

Because of these risks, you should avoid eating bottom crawler seafood and deep-sea fish that contain high levels of mercury such as oysters, clams and lobster, tuna, mackerel and swordfish.

Pregnant women and those who may become pregnant are also advised by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to avoid shark, swordfish, king mackerel, or tilefish because they contain high levels of mercury, and eat only up to 12 ounces (2 average meals) a week of a variety of fish and shellfish that are lower in mercury (such as salmon, pollock and catfish).

4. Cadmium

Cadmium accumulates in the body and can stay there for many years. The metal accumulates most often in the bones, liver and kidneys and can cause damage to these areas. The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) also says that cadmium and cadmium compounds may "reasonably be anticipated to be carcinogens."

Smoking is a major source of cadmium exposure, but dietary-wise you may be exposed to cadmium through processed foods, canned evaporated milk, soft drinks from galvanized pipes, shellfish, liver and kidney meats.

How to Remove Heavy Metals From Your Body, Safely and Effectively

There are many ways of removing toxic chemicals such as heavy metals from your body, but most of them involve expensive treatments where a doctor injects you with drugs or vitamins intravenously via a drip. Many of these drugs will also strip the good minerals from your body, something that is not recommended since it is difficult to replenish (or replete) these important substances.

A better and safer way is to take some drops of a natural tincture a few times per day -- it simply goes into water or some juice. This is the beauty of using HMD™ from DrHMD.com -- it’s literally as simple as drinking a little water, and it’s safe and cost-effective.

Heavy metals can accumulate in your body not only from food and supplements but also from silver dental fillings, cosmetics, pollution, contaminated water, vaccines and other sources, so it would be wise to disarm this potential “time-bomb” now before it causes serious illness in the future.

At Sixwise we highly recommend that you use HMD™ (Heavy Metal Detox) from DrHMD.com, the natural oral formula that helps to effectively eliminate heavy metals from your body, without any side effects.

HMD™ is actually the ONLY chelator that has undergone a $1 million, three-year double-blind placebo-controlled research trials with several hundred people! During these three years over 25 different natural products and combinations were tried but the synergistic components of HMD™ were the only ones that worked for all metals tested. It presently has a worldwide patent-pending.

Dr. George John Georgiou -- HMD™ Inventor and worldwide Patent holder -- has 9 degrees and diplomas, including two doctorates and has been researching natural heavy metal chelators for a number of years, after he discovered that he became ill himself with mercury poisoning after replacing 12 amalgam fillings with composites.

After a number of years of searching, Dr. Georgiou discovered a unique synergistic formula comprising three natural components: Chlorella Growth Factor, Cilantro or the herb Coriandrum sativum and a homaccord of Chlorella. None of these natural products worked when tested individually, but when combined there was a “magic” synergy that eliminated a large number of toxic metals, including the ones mentioned here.

It is not only a very powerful chelator of toxic metals, but a very gentle one too. It has been tried and tested in many thousands of people worldwide, including children with autism, with no side effects when used at the correct dosage. It has therefore been dubbed “The Gentle Chelator.”

So if you are concerned about the effects of environmental chemicals, then you should not hesitate to take HMD, which will help eliminate a variety of toxic metals from your body. Use it for all the family -- it is considered a gentle and natural chelator that can be used by all.

Important Note for Pregnant Women and Women Trying to Conceive

Dr. Georgiou advises AGAINST using any type of chelator, even the gentle HMD™, when you are pregnant or breastfeeding, as the mobilization of metals in the mother will go through the placenta into the baby. It is recommended that women detoxify before pregnancy and after breastfeeding finishes -- you can then give the baby a couple of drops of HMD to help the little one detoxify too.

Due to many requests, we are providing you more specific links to the DrHMD.com line of products. Click here to learn more about: DrHMD.com ULTIMATE DETOX PROTOCOL.

Tips for Choosing Your Foods Carefully

Of course, another key to avoiding heavy metals in your food lies to some extent in choosing your food with care -- although toxins are so ubiquitous nowadays that it may be impossible to avoid them completely.

As it stands, the best way to ensure that the food you eat is as safe and healthy as possible is to educate yourself about potential contaminants -- and avoid those foods.

Eating organic produce, meats and other foods, or those you know have been grown locally with care and in as pure and clean of growing conditions (including soil) as possible, will also go a long way toward reducing your exposure to these toxins. If you don't have access to organic foods, you can reduce your exposure to one type of toxin, pesticides, by avoiding the most-contaminated produce listed in this article.

Recommended Survey

How Healthy Are Your Eating Habits? Click Here to Take this Survey and Compare

Recommended Reading

Heavy Metal Toxicity: Signs and Symptoms That You May be Toxic

Warning: Your Soft Drinks and Favorite Snacks May be Loaded With Toxic Mercury

Sources

ScienceDaily.com January 22, 2010

Chemical Research in Toxicology December 7, 2009

World’s Healthiest Foods, Essential Nutrients

GotMercury.org September 1, 2009

Environmental Health News December 24, 2009

LifeExtension, Heavy Metal Toxicity

ScienceDaily.com August 16, 2006

FDA.gov March 2004