This is a very, very important article. Please read it in its entirety as I feel it’s absolutely essential for you be aware of this information, especially if you’re experiencing weird and unexplained symptoms.

• Do you have a lot of mercury fillings, or eat a lot of fish such as tuna, salmon, shark and swordfish?
• Do you have a chronic white-coated tongue?
• Do you experience neurological symptoms such as tremors, twitches, memory, concentration and mood problems?
• Are you finding it tough to deal with digestive symptoms such as “IBS”?
• Can you link back any of your symptoms to having dental work done?

If so, you may be suffering with some mercury toxicity symptoms.

Mercury is one of the most toxic elements on the planet and it’s in virtually everyone.

I can safely say that you have a very, very high probability of carrying a fairly sizeable mercury load in your body.

Having read an awful lot around this topic, I can only conclude that mercury toxicity is a very important factor in modern symptoms and disease.

As with all toxins, there are two key issues surrounding mercury.

1. Does it accumulate in your body?

2. If and when it accumulates, does it cause health problems?

There’s now more than enough research to answer both questions with a resounding “yes”.

I’ve never tested a client who hasn’t had elevated levels of mercury in his or her blood (along with other toxic metals such as arsenic, lead and aluminum).

The scientific literature proves, hands down, that mercury toxicity causes many of the common symptoms folk experience on a day-to-day basis and worse, causes outright disease.

How does mercury get into your body?

The main route by which mercury enters your body is through metal or amalgam dental fillings.

Leakage, or “off-gassing”, of mercury vapor from amalgam dental fillings is a massive problem.

I worked with a gentleman in Devon, UK, recently. Bob had experienced a whole range of symptoms over the years, including low moods, fatigue, irritable bowels and tinnitus.

He also had a white coating on his tongue, which I advised was yeast overgrowth (usually Candida).

We worked on cleaning up his diet using Hompes Method Basics, and determined he was infected with H. pylori and Blastocystis hominis in his Digestive Health MOT.

Many of his symptoms improved as we worked to improve his digestive health, but it wasn’t until I recommended he had his four amalgam fillings removed that the magic started to happen.

Within just one week of having these fillings removed, Bob’s tinnitus improved about 80% and all the white coating on his tongue disappeared.

What are amalgam fillings?

Amalgam fillings are comprised of approximately 50% mercury, with the other 50% being comprised of copper, zinc, tin, silver and other metals.

Dentists claim the mercury is safe and secure when it’s combined with these other metals – they say it “stays put” and doesn’t get into your body.

But according to Dr. Walter Crinnion, ND, a renowned environmental medicine expert:

“In the absence of chewing, individuals with amalgam fillings have been found to have oral levels of mercury vapor nine times greater than those without amalgams. Upon chewing, the same individuals may have a six-fold increase in oral elemental mercury levels, resulting in a 54-times greater level of mercury vapor in their oral cavities than persons without amalgams.”

Here are some other interesting facts I dug out from the literature:

• The more amalgam fillings you have, the more mercury will be in your blood.
• Studies on animals indicate that mercury from amalgam fillings concentrates in the kidneys, liver, gastrointestinal tract and jaw.
• Methyl-mercury (rather than elemental mercury) is released into the atmosphere by coal-burning power plants and crematoria.
• Methyl mercury can be formed in the mouth by bacterial action on the elemental mercury in your amalgams.
• Methyl mercury is found in seed fungicides, outdoor paint, indoor paint prior to 1990 and processes involving chlorine manufacture and use.
• Mining and industrial practices dump mercury into water. Mercury accumulates in the food chain and enters our bodies when we consume fish and seafood. The larger and higher up the food chain the fish is, the more mercury it will tend to concentrate in its tissues (e.g. there’s more mercury in tuna than in sardines).
• Breast milk has been shown to contain mercury in women who consume seafood diets.

What symptoms can be caused by mercury toxicity?

Fact: mercury exposure is widespread. You have it in your body. But what are its documented health effects?

Well, mercury has been shown to:

• Destroy white blood cells that are central to immune system function – in other words, it has a direct toxic effect on your immune system.
• Increase risk of infections and cause bacterial resistance to antibiotics.
• Increase stress hormone levels, which further suppresses immune function and energy production.
• Create oxidative damage, which is the process by which cells age.
• Reduce the DNA content of synovial tissue found in joints, leading to a decreased ability for your body to repair joint damage.
• Decrease glutathione (GSH) levels – GSH is a very important protective substance. A reduction in GSH levels increases oxidative damage to cells and reduces the ability of the body to eliminate other toxins.
• Increase hydrogen peroxide and lipid peroxides in the body, which increase oxidative damage and may lead to increased rates of heart attacks.
• Decrease selenium levels – a critical nutrient in detoxification and in the maintenance of T3 thyroid hormone levels. T3 stimulates energy production in virtually all cells. Low T3 levels cause many problems.
• Interfere with mitochondrial (cellular engines) function, which directly affects energy production at the cellular level.
• Accumulate in the brain and nervous system, causing destruction of myelin sheaths around nerves (a characteristic of multiple sclerosis and according to Hal Huggins, the first cases of MS were reported shortly after amalgams were introduced in Paris, France).
• Inhibit the activity of key enzymes that rely on sodium, potassium and magnesium, thus causing swelling & inflammation of the nervous system.
• Interfere with neurotransmitter function. You may have heard of serotonin, dopamine and other chemicals that affect brain function, mood and memory. Mercury can disrupt the release and function of these chemical messengers, leading to sleep, mood, memory and learning problems.

If this weren’t enough, here are some additional interesting facts:

• Widespread pollution of Minamata Bay, Japan, in 1950 highlighted mercury’s toxic effects. Symptoms experienced by victims included ataxia, speech impairment, constriction of visual fields, hypoesthesia, dysarthria, hearing impairment and sensory disturbances. Follow-up studies 40 years later (1995) male residents reported stiffness, hand tremor, loss of pain sensation, decreased muscle mass, arthralgia, insomnia and lumbago. Female residents of the fishing villages reported higher incidence of leg tremor, tinnitus, loss of touch sensation, loss of muscle mass and muscular weakness.
• Dentists with an average of 5.5 years exposure to mercury performed worse than control subjects on motor speed (finger tapping), memory and other neurological tests. Performance worsened as the dentists’ total exposure increased.
• Mercury is associated with Alzheimer’s disease and amytrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Authors such as Hal Huggins present stunning cases where patients with ALS went into spontaneous remission upon appropriate restorative dental work.
• Psychological and behavioral symptoms associated with mercury toxicity include irritability, excitability, temper outburst, quarrelling, fearfulness, restlessness and depression.
• Mercury is strongly implicated in autistic spectrum disorders. Autistic children seem to lack the ability to detoxify and excrete mercury properly.
• The kidneys are adversely affected by mercury.
• Patients who have amalgams removed experience excellent improvements in anger outbursts, depression, irritability and fatigue.

The cardiovascular, immune and nervous systems are extremely sensitive to mercury:

• An Italian study showed that patients who with blocked arteries had 5 times the amount of mercury in their heart cells as healthy subjects.
• Patients with cardiomyopathy had a staggering 22,000 times (yes – twenty-two thousand times) as much mercury in their cells.
• In another study of 1,833 men, those with high mercury levels on a hair test were twice as likely to suffer a heart attack.
• Finnish researchers who studied the rate of progression of carotid plaque (which leads to stroke) found smoking to be the foremost accelerator with mercury a close second. Everyone knows smoking is a heart disease risk factor, so why isn’t mercury ever discussed?

I personally can’t believe mercury is still being placed in people’s mouths on purpose. Even a single mercury amalgam filling has the potential to cause an enormous array of symptoms in sensitive individuals.

A quick summary so far:

1. The majority of human beings accumulate mercury in their bodies, starting with their time as a fetus.
2. The effects of mercury on health are wide-ranging and can affect the immune, nervous and hormonal systems as well as cellular energy production.
3. Symptoms vary from person to person (specific symptoms are dependent on nutritional status, genetics, stress levels and other toxins).

The good news

Whilst all the info presented so far is a bit “doom and gloom”, there is also some wonderful news!

Using the Hompes Method Testing Toolkit, it’s possible to run tests to check for mercury levels in your body.

Furthermore, tests are also available to identify whether mercury is actually causing toxic effects in your body.

These tests can be used to identify initial toxicity levels and to monitor progress during careful detoxification programs under professional supervision.

The tests detect also other heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, aluminium, nickel and uranium (yes, uranium).

They’re not that expensive and all but one can be done in the convenience and privacy of your home.

Specific tests for mercury and other heavy metals

There are four types of laboratory tests for the detection of toxic metals in your body:

• Blood
• Urine
• Hair
• Stool

There is also a second urine test, called a porphyrins test, which can tell you whether mercury, lead, arsenic or other heavy metals are having a toxic effect on your body.

Apart from the blood test, all these laboratory tests can be performed in your own home.

If you’d like further information on each specific test, please click on one each of the four links, above.

Which tests do you need?

I’m often asked this question and, to be honest, in order to get a full understanding of your heavy metal levels, it’s ideal to run as many of the tests as you can.

You cannot get an accurate picture of your mercury levels without combining the tests, because each test profile provides information that must be interpreted in different contexts.

For example:

• The blood test tells you more about your recent or ongoing exposure.
• The hair test tells you about how much mercury is being pushed out of your body in your hair over an approximate 2-3 month period.
• A urine test with supplements to actively pull mercury out of your body begins to give you an idea about your total body load, or burden (which can’t be assessed any other way).
• The porphyrins test tells you whether mercury is causing specific blocks in your metabolism.

However if budget is a concern, a less financially demanding testing regimen can be designed for you. I’ve found the following tests most useful:

• Blood
• Hair
• Porphyrins

If you can run these together it’s a great starting point.

Please note that blood and hair tests also determine your nutrient element levels (e.g. zinc, calcium, potassium, selenium, magnesium, etc.), which are obviously very important.

In other words, a well-designed testing regimen looks at both toxic metals and “good” minerals at the same time, which gives you the biggest bang for your buck.

How important are these tests?

Whilst these tests are all important, detoxification of mercury and other toxic metals from your body is something that should only be addressed AFTER you’ve dealt with other important issues.

It’s very tough on your body to run specific detoxification programs without first getting your diet, digestive function, liver/kidney function and nutrient / hormone levels optimized.

Failure to do this can result in extreme problems during the detoxification process. I don’t recommend you enter into a serious “heavy metal” detox program without supervision.

That said, if you run testing to check your nutrient mineral levels using the hair and blood tests, you automatically get an idea of your toxic metal levels, up to a point.

I’d love to discuss the issue in greater detail, but I don’t have space here.

I do, however, recommend you read:

It’s All In Your Head by Hal Huggins, DDS.

Toxic Dentistry Exposed by Graeme and Lilian Munro-Hall, BDS

Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis & Treatment by Andrew Cutler, PhD

to get a handle on this critically important topic. Another truly wonderful and slightly more lighthearted book is The Mercury Diaries by Daniel Forsyth, in which the author chronicles his own journey back to health from a serious case of mercury amalgam-induced illness.