Heavy metals like mercury, aluminum, and lead exposure occur naturally in the body and often trigger dangerous illnesses such as thyroid problems, heart disease, neurological conditions, dementia, autism, birth defects, and infertility. However, the good news here is that a proper heavy metal detox is beneficial as it removes impurities from the body and minimizes their effect on your overall health.
To detox your body from heavy metals, you either can use natural remedies or seek a professional doctor’s help to get scientifically approved supplements to treat your issue. However, some treatments may prove to be harmful, so it is good to consult with a professional when you are considering heavy metal detox like mercury detoxification.
So, let’s now in detail about mercury detox – how to get mercury out of your body?, health risks, and detoxification methods in this article below…
Contents
Mercury Toxicity: How Much Is It?
Mercury is a heavy metal found in the environment naturally. It is even used in a wide range of products, from light switches to thermometers.
There are many types available and all of them are toxic to human beings, but a few of them are more dangerous than others.
As per the Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S., we are most commonly exposed to mercury when we eat fish containing this heavy metal. So, fish consumption is the main direct origin of mercury toxicity in our bodies.
Another source of mercury in our bodies is dental treatment. This is because dental filling or amalgam filling leads to exposure to mercury in our bodies.
Research indicates that inhaling metallic elemental as mercury vapor leads to more serious intricacies than swallowing them. That is because our body absorbs little of this kind of mercury in our gastrointestinal tract.
Nevertheless, our gut absorbs another kind easily called methyl mercury. This can even enter our body, through the skin in vapor form. Methyl mercury is mostly found in seafood and fish.
On the other hand, Ethyl mercury occurs naturally when our body gives out thimerosal, a preservative containing mercury used in some adult or childhood vaccinations. It prevents embryones from spoiling the vaccine, but it’s used in very trace amounts safely. The body removes Ethyl mercury quicker than methyl type.
Mercury Found In The Following Objects:
- Water
- Air
- Food (mainly seafood and fish)
- Soil
- Industrial sites
- Thermometers
- Dental fillings with mercury amalgam fillings
- Cigarettes
- Light bulbs
- Batteries
- Old paint
What Are The Symptoms of Mercury Poisoning or Mercury Exposure?
Mercury may impact your nervous system, causing neurological symptoms, for example:
- Anxiety or nervousness
- Mood swings or irritability
- Memory loss issues
- Numbness
- Physical tremors
- Depression
Since the mercury levels in your body rise, further symptoms will occur. Such symptoms may differ based on your exposure levels, age, etc. Adults with poisoning may undergo symptoms like:
- Metallic taste after dental fillings using amalgam fillings
- Muscle weakness
- Feeling uncoordinated
- Vomiting and nausea
- Changes in hearing, vision, or speech
- Inability to feel when you touch your face, hands, and/or also other parts
- Difficulty standing straight or walking
- Difficulty breathing
Mercury can even affect the early development of a baby. Children with such poisoning may show signs like:
- Impaired motor skills
- Issues thinking deeply or problem-solving skill
- Difficulties understanding language or learning to speak
- Problems with eye-hand coordination
- Being unaware physically
Mercury poisoning likely develops gradually over time in case you come into regular contact with such heavy metal. However, mercury poisoning often comes on fast and is linked to a specific happening.
NOTE
If you are facing these symptoms of mercury poisoning, get a urine test done to know mercury levels in your body and take proper mercury detoxification ASAP.
What’s A Mercury Detox?
The mercury detox directs to any procedure that allows you to eliminate mercury from the body. There is no single method for mercury detox. A physician can do it with medications. Also, there is a wide range of home remedies available that a few2 supporters claim can aid to eliminate mercury from your body.
Mercury is among the most harmful substances to us and particularly to our brains. Yet, some people never recognize how much mercury is dangerous or that the amalgam fillings (composed using liquid mercury) in their mouth can cause health problems to the human body. So, you need to remove mercury as soon as possible using the right mercury detoxification method.
NOTE
Human exposure & health ussies of inorganic mercury as well as elemental mercury are many. So you need take immediate action with proper mercury detoxification/heavy metal detoxification process.
Why Mercury Is Dangerous?
Mercury, is a type of heavy metal naturally found in water, soil, and air.
It is released into our environment in many ways, including via industrial functions such as burning coal or via natural events such as eruptions.
3 main forms are — elemental (metallic), organic, and inorganic.
Human bodies get exposed to such toxins in several ways, like inhaling mercury vapors while mining and doing industrial jobs. You can even be exposed by consuming shellfish and fish since these animals soak mercury because of water contamination.
Gradually, methylmercury — which is an organic form — can thicken in their systems. Methylmercury is approvingly toxic, leading to serious health issues as soon as it reaches specific levels in your system.
In pregnant mothers, mercury is transmitted to the fetus via the placenta leading to increased hazards of poor neurological interpretation, verbal memory, and language skills.
Negative Effects Of Mercury On Health
Exposure to heavy metals like mercury can lead to serious health issues. In both animals and humans, higher mercury levels are linked to brain issues. Higher levels of mercury in our hair are linked to a reduction of fine motor skills, memory, attention, and dexterity.
Recent analyses also merge exposure to mercury to disorders such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, depression, anxiety, and autism. Nevertheless, more analyses are required to prove this connection. Further, mercury exposure is linked to higher “bad” cholesterol, high blood pressure, and a higher risk of heart disease.
Scientific evidence discovered that people with higher levels of mercury are almost twice likely to die because of heart-related issues than people with lower mercury levels. However, the health benefits of fish probably outweigh the dangers of mercury exposure — as far as you reconcile your intake of high-mercury fish.
NOTE
More increased levels of mercury can damage heart health and brain function. Nevertheless, the health benefits of consuming fish may overshadow these dangers as far as you restrict your consumption of high-mercury fish.
How To Detox From Mercury Naturally?
Luckily, there are several methods by which one can remove mercury naturally from their body. These consist of the following to naturally detox mercury from your body…
Use Natural Skincare and Body Products
Skin detoxification has healthy benefits and try to go with natural products to apply to your skin. Maximum cosmetic products nowadays include heavy metals such as mercury. Thus, it’s recommended to use natural body & skin-care mercury-free products on your skin.
Avoiding or Limiting High-Mercury Seafood
Even though all shellfish and fish include small amounts of mercury, it tends to build up or bioaccumulate inside a larger fish. A few of the seafood that is mercury-rich consist of different kinds of bluefish, tuna, swordfish, tilefish, and sharks.
Get Rid of Amalgam Fillings
More aged mercury fillings can release more mercury vapor that you inhale and accumulate within your body. Thus, it’s better to remove your damaged or old mercury fillings and replaced them with aesthetically more pleasing, safer composite repairs.
Are Heavy Metal Detoxes A Safe Method?
Chelation is a therapy that can treat issues like heavy metal poisoning. With careful management of professional healthcare personnel, you can get safer treatment. Professionals have the skill to perform mercury or amalgam removal in the safest way possible.
With chelation therapy for heavy metal poisoning, you can get rid of this issue. However, this can be quite dangerous and also fatal if you fail to appoint professional personnel for the job.
However, a few studies have shown that Chelation therapy often backfires and causes serious issues to the human body. So, before you start your Chelation therapy to get rid of mercury poisoning, make sure your body is well prepared to take such a therapy.
Only a professional can guide you in the right direction as to whether or not to go for such a therapy to get rid of mercury poisoning.
NOTE:
It is likely to be a safer method when you choose a professional to perform such a therapy. However, if you fail to appoint a professional for the job then safety can’t be 100% assured.
Who Needs Mercury Detox?
As per WHO, blood mercury levels of 0-9 ng/mL are standard and don’t present a crisis. While a grade of 10-15 ng/mL shows mild exposure.
On the other hand, anything more than 50 ng/mL shows heavy exposure to mercury (especially organic mercury).
Remember that the level of exposure shown by these measures can differ depending on the type involved.
People do not need to go through a mercury detox process until their mercury level begins to rise over 15 ng/mL. Our bodies are developed to filter out harmful substances, typically with the use of our liver and kidneys.
Unless you’ve got a condition that impacts your liver or kidney function, the natural detox system of your body is quite effective at eliminating toxins, such as additional mercury, via bile excreted in your feces and urine.
Nevertheless, high levels of mercury may overwhelm the liver and kidneys, making it more difficult for them to perform their job. In case you’ve got a blood mercury level that is closing 50 ng/mL or leading to substantial toxicity in your body, you will need to rejuvenate your kidney by detoxification to heal it for natural function.
How To Get Mercury Out Of Your System
There’re some ways to do the mercury detox, based on the level of exposure. So, here are the ways…
Medical Treatment Under Supervision Of Professional
In case you’ve got mercury poisoning and that too a high level of mercury, your physician will likely advise chelation therapy. It involves utilizing medications, named chelators. It binds to mercury in our body and helps it to leave our body. You can take Chelators as an injection or pill.
Home Remedies To Get Rid Of Toxic Substances Like Mercury Poisoning
Research has indicated that a few natural remedies, spices, and herbs, such as cloves (or Eugenia aromatic), milk thistle (or Silybum marianum), turmeric (or Curcuma longa), and garlic (or Allium sativum), have anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. These help to reduce the mercury level in the blood. You can even try doing an easy mercury detox process without any particular products by doing the following:
Drinking Plenty Of Water
Often Mercury leaves the body with urine. Thus, when you drink plenty of water, you are helping your body to release toxic properties from your body including mercury.
Eating Ample Fiber-Rich Food
Your body easily gets rid of toxic substances with detox cleansing with food as the mercury and other substances are flushed out via feces. Consuming more fiber-rich food aids to move things regularly via the gastrointestinal tract, causing more bowel movements. So, you should have more fiber-rich foods in your detox diet plan if you’re trying to cleanse your body.
Avoiding Exposure
There is no better way to get rid of high levels of mercury than by avoiding further exposure. So, try to avoid further exposure and you will certainly be good to go.
Foods To Eat For Detoxification
Some foods help your body detoxify harmful substances by removing heavy metals from the system. These foods affix to the metals as well as remove them easily from your digestive system.
Eating mineral and vitamin-rich foods can have a protective effect on those exposed to mercury. Foods to consume include the following:
- garlic
- cilantro
- lemon water
- wild blueberries
- chlorella
- spirulina
- Atlantic dulse
- barley grass juice powder
- green tea detox recipe
- curry
- probiotics
- tomatoes, etc.
Moreover, in case you are not getting the needed daily consumption of vitamins and minerals, consider having supplements that your doctor recommends.
Vitamin B-6, B, and C deficits are linked to inadequate tolerance of heavy metals as well as easier toxicity. Since Vitamin C has chelating effects, including it in your diet helps in detoxification.
So, include more vitamins B-6, B, and C in your diet to fight against heavy metals in your body. Natural heavy metal detox is the best way to get rid of them.
Foods To Avoid
Foods that have less nutritional value, slow down your detox process. This’s because less nutrition tends to reabsorb mercury or other harmful substances that you need to remove. A few foods to avoid or limit in the mercury detox diet contain:
- Rice since it often includes arsenic
- Excess fats
- Processed foods may contain amino acids and other harmful substances that negatively affect your body
- Stop and quit drinking alcohol
- Some mercury-rich fish, such as large fish and albacore tuna, may contain more mercury levels
- Nonorganic foods
Bottomline
Having high mercury levels in the body causes chronic health conditions or health concerns. As per World Health Organization, heavy metal toxicity like mercury serves as you autoimmune diseases, chronic fatigue syndrome, and cardiovascular disease weakens the central nervous system, and brings another negative effect to your body.
Thus, you need to take action to detox from heavy metals like Mercury as soon as possible. To get a safer way to detox mercury toxicity consult a medical professional and use medication for mercury excretion for reducing mercury from your body.
Resources:
- unep.org/newscentre/default.aspx?DocumentID=2702&ArticleID=9366
- sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424120953.htm
- ucirvinehealth.org/news/2014/04/mercury-poisoning-linked-to-skin-lightening-face-cream
- seas.harvard.edu/news/2013/07/harvard-researchers-warn-legacy-mercury-environment
- webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/what-to-know-mercury-poisoning
- betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/healthyliving/mercury-exposure-and-poisoning
- ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9273927
- epa.gov/air/mercuryrule/factsheetsup.html
- who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs361/en/
- drhyman.com/blog/2010/05/19/how-to-rid-your-body-of-mercury-and-other-heavy-metals-a-3-step-plan-to-recover-your-health/
- nationwidechildrens.org/family-resources-education/700childrens/2016/07/the-dangers-of-mercury-and-how-to-get-rid-of-it-safely
- timesofindia.indiatimes.com/life-style/food-news/cilantro-can-remove-most-of-heavy-metals-from-your-body-in-less-than-2-months/photostory/68285600.cms
