Heavy Metals Are Everywhere... Are Your Children’s Illnesses the Result?

Heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic are surrounding us every minute of every day. They are in our water, our soil, our plants and our homes. You cannot escape the fact that you will absorb heavy metals into your body throughout your life, even if you live on an island. They are called heavy metals because they have a high atomic weight, and therefore are more difficult to break down. You can eat them, inhale them, absorb them through your skin and even smoke them in cigarettes. They are a part of our industrialized world and understanding their effect is the first key to recognizing when you need to cleanse your body of stored metals. Let’s look at where they are. Lead is common in industrial and household products, such as paint in older homes, but also in circuitry, lead batteries, electrical cables and laboratory equipment. Lead is used extensively in plumbing and the drape that is provided when you have your x-rays is lead. It is in paints, putty, ceramics, explosives, insecticides and pigments. It can be absorbed through inhaling or ingesting. It can also be absorbed through the skin from things like fuel.

Mercury is present in dental amalgam fillings, contaminated fish and many industrial processes. It has been used for centuries in thermometers, barometers and electric batteries. You are under it when you look up at many street lamps, it’s present in black lights and even the new "green" lightbulbs contain mercury which can rain down on your countertop if they break. Mercury can be found in rat poison, skin ointments and even was the basic ingredient in mercurochrome (Thanks Mom!).

Cadmium contaminates much of our food and water supplies because it is present everywhere in our environment. It was essential in paint pigments and is a byproduct of zinc, copper and iron mining. It is present in plastics, ceramics, blue glass, solar cells and as an anticorrosive in many industrial applications.

Arsenic isn’t just the poison of choice for little old ladies, it is used in herbicides, pesticides, general weed killers and even semiconductors. It is used to produce ammunition, it’s in the preservative for your deck and your dock, it’s found in taxidermy and leather tanning, and is a byproduct of copper smelting.

All of these heavy metals have touched us throughout our life, and now we have to understand why autistic children have high heavy metal levels, why it’s creating tremors, chronic digestive problems, memory loss, mental disorders and blood poisoning. This may be the single-most common reason for the rapid degeneration of the lives of the homeless and drug abusers.... their exposure to heavy metals.

The natural herbal world has provided effective treatments for heavy metals for centuries. Studies have found that plants commonly thought to be great metal chelators such as cilantro, in fact provide minimal improvement. Instead, garlic, milk thistle and hawthorn were found to be the very best in the herb world.

Garlic is essential for all heavy metals, but especially for Mercury. Sulfur is the key, as garlic contains a large amount of an amino acid that contains sulfur which is responsible for the familiar smell of garlic. Oral garlic administered over 12 weeks resulted in a clinical decrease of heavy metals from the liver, kidneys, bone and testes by up to 40%. At high doses garlic even produced a decrease in mercury accumulation in the brain of animal subjects. Garlic juice almost doubled the survival rate of rabbits exposed to lead. Garlic also has a strong antioxidant effect which may protect against the oxidative damage caused by these metals as well.

Even as far back as the 1960’s in Europe, clinical and pharmacological tests showed that workers at a lead smelter that were fed a garlic preparation reduced their symptoms of lead poisoning and the presence of lead in tissues by 83% after three months.

Milk Thistle or Silymarin is another key herb long known for its ability to protect the liver from damage. It is especially effective as an antioxidant in patients with liver dysfunction that is caused by alcohol ingestion. It is amazing at detoxification of cadmium and is a very strong detoxifier of lead. It is essential for anyone exposed to toxicity and may be the key long-term to protecting us from the negative effects of our environment.

Hawthorn is the key to heavy metal detoxification with the strongest effect in releasing cadmium and lead from body tissues. It is especially effective at preventing metal absorption in the gut and prevents negative effects on the nervous system as well. The active constituents of Hawthorn are commonly present in our food and beverages. Tea, coffee, red wine, cocoa, spinach and eggplant all have these wonderful detoxifying effects which are concentrated in the Hawthorn plant. It can chelate heavy metals very effectively from tissue by binding to the heavy metals and facilitating their removal.

I highly recommend each person completing a heavy metal herbal cleanse at least once each year, and more often if their lives bring them into contact with substantial numbers of heavy metals on a daily basis. For some, even daily doses of Milk Thistle can make a substantial difference over time in their overall health and mental acuity. So don’t underestimate the effects of metals on your life and your health.