Diseases Caused by Mercury

Amalgam Fillings

Mercury is one of the most toxic elements on earth. It is linked to many of the most degenerative and horrible diseases known to man. It is unfortunate that these diseases are virtually all iatrogenic - diseases caused by inappropriate medical / dental treatment.

Mercury is one of the deadliest toxins known to man. Its toxicity may well prove to be the most invasive and widespread disease in the history of mankind. Mercury poisoning causes many common medical and mental problems including but definitely not limited to:

· generalized morning stiffness

· joint pain

· rheumatoid arthritis

· mixed connective tissue disease

· skin rashes

· subcutaneous nodules (skin bumps)

· multiple sclerosis

· amyotropic lateral sclerosis

· neurological symptoms

· ringing in the ears

· burning and numbness sensations

· dry eyes and mouth

· immune dysfunction

· axillary lymph node swelling

· digestive disorders

· malnutrition

· leaky gut syndrome

· dysbiosis

· yeast and pathogenic bacteria infections

· chronic fatigue

· depression

· circulatory diseases

· atherosclerosis

and the list goes on and on.

Most of the mercury in our bodies comes from the amalgams used to fill teeth. Though called silver fillings because of their silver appearance, these fillings contain 50 percent or more mercury along with other dangerous and toxic metals including copper, nickel, and tin.

Mercury can cause serious dementia, depression and short-term memory loss as well as all of the above listed symptoms and diseases. The American Dental Association (ADA) has known about the extreme toxicity of mercury for many years, yet they continue to deny that mercury in amalgams is toxic and they are adamant in denying that mercury leaches out of the filling. For many years now the ADA has been extremely active in keeping dental patients from learning that dentists have poisoned more than 85 percent of our population!

The ADA continues to fight a rear-guard battle to cover up their culpability in much the same way that tobacco and the cigarette industry have covered up and/or suppressed information suggesting that their products were connected with any disease entity. This is the same type of criminal negligence that surrounded the use of silicone breast implants, asbestos, intrauterine contraceptive devices (IUDs), and pickup truck gas tanks. It's all about greed and stupidity, egos and reputations and from one perspective represents the most reprehensible form of unethical and immoral behavior imaginable.

Dentists have known about the deadly consequences of mercury for many years. Mercury amalgams were introduced into the United States in 1833, more than 160 years ago and were denounced at that time by large numbers of American dentists. The opposition was so strong that the American Society of Dental Surgeons, formed in 1840, required its members to sign pledges promising not to use amalgams. And in 1848 they actually found 11 members of the society guilty of malpractice for using amalgams. All were suspended resulting in such an uproar that the Society had no choice but to disband in 1856. Its successor was the American Dental Association. Dental amalgams were not in good repute until after 1895 at which time it is believed that the ADA supported their use.

Prior to World War II a German chemist named Dr. Alfred Stock published many articles on the dangers of mercury fillings. A Colorado dentist, Hal Huggins has spoken out against amalgams for more than 20 years now. His book "It's All In Your Head" will teach you everything the ADA is trying to cover up. Read it and you will then know more about mercury toxicity than 99 percent of all American dentists.

Your dentist may attempt to refute the bad information on mercury amalgams because he is under pressure from the ADA to deny that this mercury leaches out. He also is probably unaware that a bacteria in your mouth -- Streptococcus mutans -- can transform mercury into methyl mercury which is 100 times more toxic than metallic mercury. Don't listen to or believe what he says (that mercury is safe) because he is parroting back ADA propaganda. The ADA has published and distributed guidelines for all dentists to use when answering questions regarding amalgams. Your dentist lives under the very real threat of having his license revoked for speaking negatively about amalgams. Thus it is necessary that you read this book and discover for yourself the incredible potential that amalgam has for destruction.

What is Mercury Toxicity?

Dr. Huggins poses some questions that you might ask:

"Am I mercury toxic? Can you test my mercury levels? Just what is mercury toxicity anyway? These are common and confusing questions. Mercury attacks many systems in the body. If is attacked just one, like the polio virus or measles virus do, it would be quite easy to identify. The diagnosis of mercury toxicity is based on both the number of changes and the degree of these changes. White blood cells usually increase as a response to the introduction of amalgam. If these cells go up from 5000 count to 7000 count, this is not especially note able. If the count goes from 5000 to 50,000, then we are talking about leukemia. This is quite note able. The white cell count bears much more weight in diagnosis at 50,000 than 7,000. Many measurable areas can be affected by mercury. Excerpting from our 1989 edition of the Applications Textbook, here are some of the mental gymnastics involved in generating a diagnosis:

Consider:

White cells above 7500 or below 4500

Hematocrit above 50% or below 40%

Lymphocytes above 2800 or below 1800

Serum total protein above 7.5 g% or below 6.4 g%

Serum triglycerides above 150 mg%

BUN above 18 or below 12 mg%

Hair Nickel above 1.5 ppm

Hair Mercury above 1.5 ppm or below 0.4 ppm

Hair Aluminum above 15 ppm

Hair Manganese below 0.3 ppm

Immune reactions to Aluminum, Nickel, Mercury, Copper, and Gold

Oxyhemoglobin below 55% saturation

Presence of root canal treated teeth

Grouping of symptoms

Presence of both amalgam and gold

Magnitude and polarity of electrical current

T-subset and DNA analysis.

This is just a partial list of potentially affected areas. Add to this, the intensity and direction of each reaction and it is obvious that diagnosis of mercury toxicity becomes a professional judgment call. Since each of these reactions potentially affects several others, it becomes increasingly more important to rely upon professional judgment than a single test result." (Huggins, It's All in Your Head, Life Sciences Press, 1989).

Make no mistake about it, hundreds of thousands of Americans show such changes in blood chemistry, mineral analysis and body function. If you have amalgam fillings, you, too, are very likely to exhibit such changes. No one is immune.

The nation is in the midst of a grave health crisis. It is a pandemic of environmental diseases in which mercury is intimately involved. Regardless of what the dental and medical authorities claim, mercury has been clearly linked, either directly or indirectly with a great many of these diseases.

Volumes of material have been written on the cytotoxic effects of mercury. Many studies have been conducted on the detrimental effects of mercury on human subjects. Literally thousands of anecdotal reports have been reported on the horrible consequences of mercury toxicity in people. It is incomprehensible that organized medicine and dentistry still refuse to acknowledge the voluminous research findings that clearly implicate this toxic heavy metal in the etiology of most of our diseases.

Take the time now to complete the attached questionnaire. It will reveal the true extent of mercury's potential for destruction. This is important because mercury may have given you heart problems in the form of heart attacks, chest pain, tachycardia, murmurs, heart blockages, or other problems. Mercury could very well be the reason you suffer from high or low blood pressure. It is very likely that mercury is the cause of unexplained skin rashes, excessive itching, red flushes, rough skin and acne. Mercury is the culprit responsible for the horrible functional degeneration seen in multiple sclerosis, and its spinal form -- amyotropic lateral sclerosis or ALS). It is also involved in shingles, numbness in any body part, epilepsy or convulsions, twitching, and knee or leg jerks especially at night. But mercury also attacks the digestive system causing diverticulitis, ulcers, Crohn's disease, inflammatory bowel disorder, and indigestion from most all causes, bloating, poor appetite, diarrhea and constipation. It is involved in Graves disease, and other endocrine diseases including hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, and pancreatic dysfunction including diabetes. Mercury is involved in problems of the ovaries, testes, painful menstruation, irregular menstruation, premature menopause, and tipped uterus. It is a likely culprit in cervical erosion and PMS. Mercury is also involved in almost all problems pertaining to the prostate gland in men. It's involvement in gray penis and lack of sensitivity in that organ is legendary. In fact, mercury may be the leading cause of impotence in men.

Mercury toxicity may underlie the phenomenal weight problems Americans have. It may be responsible for being underweight and/or being overweight. It is invariably found in cases of chronically low or subnormal temperature (hypothyroidism).

But mercury also causes emotional problems often leading to the loss of friends and relatives (i.e. divorces). For example, mercury can bring about sudden bursts of anger, massive depression, death wish mentation, suicide, extreme irritability, and divorces. It and aluminum are invariably involved in Alzheimers disease. It is involved in rheumatoid and osteoid arthritis, bursitis, tennis elbow, painful joints, Friedreich's ataxia, asthma, osteomyelitis, psoriasis, sickle cell anemia, chronic anemia, kidney stones, and virtually all allergies.

Are you ever bothered by metallic tastes in your mouth, frequency headaches, noises in your ears, ringing in your ears, chronic eye inflammations and chronic fatigue? Are you quick to tire? Do you have swollen lymph nodes, hearing loss, excessive sweating, cold hands and feet, motion sickness, slow healing, skin fungus infections, Candida infections, leg cramps, or dizziness? Do you have to get up at night to urinate, or experience frequent urinations during the day? Do you suffer from insomnia? Are you tired on waking up, have trouble making decisions (i.e. indecision constipation)? Are you guilty of perpetual procrastination? Do you seem to have more than your fair share of sore throats? Have you had mono? Mercury probably is responsible for mononucleosis and for false positives in venereal disease tests. It is always involved in leukemia, Hodgkin's disease, and many other grave disorders.

Now are you ready to believe that mercury may have affected your life? Hopefully, the above and the questionnaire below will awaken you as to the danger you face and the danger that everyone in your family faces.

Exactly What Does Mercury From Amalgams Do ?

Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, speaking on the amalgam controversy states:

"From a scientific point of view there is no more "controversy" about the ill health effects of the metals contained in and released by the typical dental amalgam fillings. The sheep and monkey studies conducted at the University of Calgary, Canada -- under the guidance of Dr. Murray Vimy DDS -- showed that radioactively labeled mercury released from freshly and correctly placed amalgam fillings (in a monkey study) appeared quickly in the kidneys, brain and wall of the intestines. Through its affinity for sulfhydryl-groups mercury bonds very firmly to structures in the nervous system. Other studies showed that mercury is taken up in the periphery by all nerve endings (i.e. the hypoglossal nerve of the tongue, the autonomic nerves of the lungs or intestinal wall and connective tissue) and rapidly transported inside the axon of the nerves (axonal transport) to the spinal cord and brainstem. On its way from the periphery to the brain, mercury immobilizes the enzyme that is essential for "making" tubulin. Tubulin forms tubular structures within each nerve, along which the nerve cell transports metabolic waste from the nerve cell into the periphery and along which the nutrients required by the nerve cell are transported from the periphery to the cell. Once mercury has traveled up the axon, the nerve cell is impaired in its ability to detoxify itself and in its ability to nurture itself. The cell becomes toxic and dies -- or lives in a state of chronic malnutrition. The mercury that has entered the nerve cell can no longer be excreted in the normal axonal transport routes (some can exit the Ca++ and Na+ channels) and begins to exert its more well-known ill-effects on the mitochondria, nucleus and other organelles of the cell. A multitude of illnesses, usually associated with neurological symptoms, result." (Dietrich Klinghardt, Amalgam/Mercury Detox as a Treatment for Chronic Viral, Bacterial, and Fungal Illnesses, Paper presented at the Sept. 1996 Annual Meeting of the International and American Academy of Clinical Nutrition, San Diego, CA).

Besides being in considerable trouble, what does all of this information mean?

It means you now have an explanation for chronic illnesses of all sorts. In some patients this explains chronic viral illnesses. Some suffer from Epstein-Barr virus infections (chronic fatigue syndromes) for example. Others now know why they have suffered for years from herpes, shingles, mouth ulcers, fungal illnesses, chronic sinusitis, tonsillitis, bronchitis, bladder infections, prostate infections, or HIV-related infections. The good news is that most such patients experience dramatic recoveries following an aggressive mercury / amalgam detoxification program.

Mercury and Nervous System Poisoning

Very quickly after entering the body, mercury becomes tightly bound in the nervous system. Mercury can be found in the brain, spinal cord, ganglia, autonomic ganglia, and peripheral motor neurons (running to muscles). Because it is so quickly absorbed by the nervous system very little is left to be absorbed by other tissues including the connective tissues. Thus, mercury appears to have a high affinity for nervous tissue and as a result it usually does not appear in the blood, hair, urine, feces or waste waters (e.g. sweat). For this reason trace mineral analysis of hair or blood may not show any mercury levels and an erroneous conclusion that "the patient does not appear to have mercury toxicity" results. Simply stated: Mercury does not appear to enter certain "compartments."

Mercury in the nervous system results in diverse phychological and neurological problems. All of these symptoms are discussed in a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services publication entitled: The Toxicological Profile of Mercury.

Mercury and Immune System Repression

It has been known for many years that mercury impairs the immune system. With impairment comes a chronically susceptible to infections, if not chronic sickness. Mercury detoxification programs almost invariably lead to immune system enhancement.

Amalgam fillings typically convey immunity to antibiotics. This means that antibiotics may no longer be able to kill or control certain bacteria when mercury is present. This coupled with mercury-induced immune system impairment can often lead to grave consequences when serious pathogenic infections strike.

It is possible that mercury is the only known substance with the ability to induce resistance to antibiotics. In the regard it is well known that gum diseases which are resistant to antibiotics quickly reverse once the amalgams are removed.

Fungal infections are also promoted by mercury poisoning and chronic mercury toxicity. Thus, it appears that susceptibility to bacterial and fungal diseases are directly related to the degree of mercury toxicity. This raises an interesting hypothesis regarding just exactly why these diseases appear to be chronically tolerated.

Klinghardt's Axiom

Dr. Klinghardt's axiom says:

"Most -- if not all -- chronic infectious diseases are not caused by a failure of the immune system, but are a conscious adaptation of the immune system to an otherwise lethal heavy metal environment."

That does this mean? It means essentially that because mercury

"suffocates the intracellular respiratory mechanism and can cause cell death [that] the immune system makes a deal; it cultivates fungi and bacteria that can bind large amounts of toxic metals. The gain: the cells can breath. The cost: the system has to provide nutrition for the microorganisms and has to deal with their metabolic products ("toxins"). That does not imply that the tolerated guest cannot grow out of control, as it sometimes clearly does. Therefore, there is still a limited place for antifungal / antibacterial treatment -- but only for the acute phase of the disease. A so-called "die-off effect" (the sometimes severe crisis or even lethal reaction a patient can have in the initial stages of aggressive pharmaceutical antifungal or antibacterial treatment) is often nothing else but acute heavy metal toxicity -- metals released from the cell walls of dying microorganisms as suggested by my own correlation of clinical syndromes and urinalysis for metals." (Dietrich Klinghardt, Amalgam/Mercury Detox as a Treatment for Chronic Viral, Bacterial, and Fungal Illnesses, Paper presented at the Sept. 1996 Annual Meeting of the International and American Academy of Clinical Nutrition, San Diego, CA).

Is this axiom correct? Dr. Klinghardt's results as well as my own results suggest that this is correct because when patients are put through a thorough mercury detox program, there is always a dramatic improvement in the clinical picture for chronic Candida infections.

Health Restoration Consultants uses a mercury detox program described below. One of the primary ingredients in this detox program is chlorella. Chlorella has powerful mercury chelating actions which are thought to be due to its cell wall. Something in the protein coat of the cracked cell wall binds the mercury. Pretreatment with chlorella before challenge with DMSA or DMPS (specific mercury chelators) will increase the urinary excretion of mercury anywhere from 300 to 1800 percent. Many mercury detox patients report improvements in chronic viral illnesses such as Epstein-Barr, and herpes. Japanese researchers have found that Minamata disease (a mercury disease caused by eating mercury contaminated fish) was far more severe when the patient also had a chronic viral disease. In fact, the prognosis for patients suffering simultaneous Minamata disease and chronic viral disease is poor.