Shorts – Metal Accumulation and Health

I was taught in neurology residency training in the early 1970s that when symptoms cannot readily be explained, look for toxic metal poisoning,” Robert A. Nash, MD, writes in his article “Metals in Medicine” (Alternative Therapies, July/August 2005). Nash is Chairman of the American Board of Clinical Metal Toxicology. He is also on the NIH Data and Safety Management Board of the National Institutes of Health chelation therapy study involving post-myocardial infarction patients. In his article, Nash discusses the evolution of metal toxicology and symptoms of metal toxicity.

Although toxicologists have long recognized the signs of acute metal poisoning, low-dose metal accumulation in bones and body tissue has mostly been ignored. With the onset of clinical metal toxicology in the 1950s, practitioners began to realize that many conditions associated with aging may be linked to low-dose metal accumulation in the body. Early research found that EDTA chelation helped people with occupational lead poisoning. As EDTA drew lead from their bodies, some patients experienced improvement in other medical conditions. Practitioners also learned that chelation pulls other toxic heavy metals from the body including mercury and cadmium. Clinical and laboratory research found that these metals have affinities for various organs and are associated with cardiovascular disease (hypertension, angina, peripheral arterial disease), neurological and memory problems, kidney disease, cancers, macular degeneration, and cataracts.

Conventional toxicology uses a blood test to identify metal poisoning, but metals remain in the blood only for a short time. Whatever the body cannot excrete on its own via feces, urine, skin, or hair, it deposits in bone and tissue. Nash reports that up to 15 percent of the population may have a genetic predisposition that prevents normal excretion of toxic metals. Because absence of metals in hair analysis can indicate a problem with excreting metals or a functioning detox system and low metal exposure, he does not use hair to gauge toxicity. He believes that a provoked urine test after a dose of chelation medication “gives the best reading of the body burden of toxicant metals.

Nash says, “I believe toxicant metals and their detection and detoxification will be one of the exciting new fields in medicine.” He may be right. Pollution, dental amalgams, thimerosal-preserved vaccines, and our practice of using sludge from wastewater treatment plants as fertilizer virtually guarantees that people in the U.S. carry a load of heavy metals that interfere with the body’s natural state. The NIH chelation study may be the first in a series of studies that firmly link many common age-related diseases to heavy metal toxicity.

Nash RA. Metals in Medicine. Alternative Therapies 2005;11(4):18-24.