Mercury - Toxicity of Dental Amalgam - Why you should have your dental amalgams removed
From DoctorMyhill
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In November 2003 I chaired a Scientific Meeting of the British Society for Allergy Environmental and Nutritional Medicine (now the British Society for Environmental Medicine) at The Royal College of General Practitioners, which spent the day discussing the toxicity of mercury amalgam. Up until that day I had been advising patients to remove mercury amalgams when the opportunity arose and replace them with white, gold or ceramic fillings. Since that meeting I have had all my mercury fillings replaced. The evidence presented was so compelling that I am now advising all my patients to get rid of their mercury fillings as part of any general work up to almost any health problem, including wishing to live to a ripe old age!
Professor Fritz Lorscheider presented his work over the past ten years. The first question he wanted answering was whether mercury leaches out from dental amalgam. At room temperature, mercury is a liquid and in dental amalgam it is not chemically bound into the amalgam, but there as a liquid, albeit a very tough and stiff liquid. Lorscheider took some sheep, filled their molars with dental amalgam which was radioactively labeled and four months later scanned the sheep to discover the mercury had deposited in their bones, kidneys and in the brain. The next question was: what does this mercury do in the brain?
It just so happened that the adjacent laboratory had set up in vitro experiments so that individual nerve cells could be seen growing using time lapse photography. For a nerve cell to grow nerves which conduct electricity, the first step is a cylindrical cytoskeleton which gives the nerve fibre some structure and the delicate nerve then grows up inside this cytoskeleton. This stiff tube is made up of a protein called tubulin and using the photography one can actually see the nerve fibre growing. Lorscheider then infused some mercury at a very tiny concentration, considerably less than would be found in the saliva of a person with mercury amalgams. At this concentration the growing nerves collapsed because mercury destroyed tubulin so the nerve fibres no longer had any structure.
The pathology of this is similar to Alzheimer's disease, in which neuro-fibrillary tangles are formed. Essentially Lorscheider is telling us that mercury causes Alzheimer's disease. Alzheimer's is also associated with aluminium poisoning and, indeed, aluminium is a very similar metal to mercury in the periodic table of elements. The main source of aluminium is from antacids, antiperspirants and cooking foil, pots and pans.
A friend of mine in Australia tells me Australian dentists no longer use mercury amalgam. In California, Sweden and Germany mercury amalgam has been banned. Recently it has been banned in Norway. We should not be using mercury amalgam in U.K.
The early symptoms of mercury poisoning are loss of short term memory, a metallic taste in the mouth (this is difficult since taste is relative and amalgam is constantly present) and fine tremor. Mercury may also cause personality changes (like the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland). It is also toxic to the nerves of the heart and may be a cause of electrical dysrhythmias (palpitations).
There is now overwhelming evidence that mercury poisoning is the cause of autism. All children now receive a plethora of vaccinations, all of which contain mercury. Lynn Redwood, an American nurse, calculated that her autistic son received 183 micrograms of mercury (thimerosal) during the first year of his life, which is considerably more than the recommended annual dose for adults. The symptoms of autism are almost identical to the Mad Hatter's symptoms of mercury intoxication. A study of 400 autistic children published in New Scientist recently looked at the levels of mercury in the hair of autistic children and showed they had a much lower level than normal children. This was the opposite of what the researchers were expecting to find, until they realized that the autistic children were unable to excrete mercury. This meant that the mercury built up in their brains to cause neurological symptoms. An ongoing study now, yet to be published, showed that mercury chelation therapy was superior to any other therapy for treating autistic children.
This certainly squares with my view of other diseases - it is the people who are the slow detoxifiers who are not good at getting rid of chemicals, partly through genetics, poor diet or through poor micronutrient status, that are susceptible to illness. With childhood vaccinations one should be highly selective as to those given and only use vaccinations which are mercury free. At present this is not possible and there is an urgent need for mercury free vaccinations to be made generally available. The problem now is that mercury in vaccinations is being replaced by aluminium, which may be as toxic.
There was then a discussion about how to remove the fillings. Dr Lorscheider's view was that if you are relatively well then just go ahead and get the fillings replaced by your usual dentist. However, if you have symptoms which may be mercury related then you should get your fillings changed by a dentist specialising in mercury free dentistry. This is because in removing fillings more mercury is released into the body which may cause acute clinical symptoms.
To find a local mercury free dentist, go to: SOCIETY FOR MERCURY FREE DENTISTRY.
For a good book on the subject, purchase Mercury Free Dentistry - Menace In The Mouth by Dr. Jack Levenson
Testing for mercury toxicity
It is estimated by the British Dental Association that approximately 3% of the population are sensitive to mercury in amalgam and this could be causing a host of symptoms, including immune dysfunction and chronic fatigue syndrome. The best advice is to never have mercury amalgam in teeth (so called "silver" fillings are all mercury amalgams), but the fact of the matter is that most people have. To determine whether or not one is sensitive relies on a combination of the patient's history, symptoms and signs and testing.
Testing can be aimed at looking at the total load of mercury (such as hair analysis or sweat analysis) but this can be unreliable since heavy metals are very poorly excreted and people may have the highest body burdens because they are poor excretors.
Biolab do a Mercury - Kelmer test. This uses DMSA as a chelating agent, for assessing mercury levels. Urine mercury levels measured before and after a DMSA load will provide levels of mercury. Test kits are provided on an individual basis ensuring the correct weight-related dose of DMSA is provided. Please contact the office to confirm price of this test.
I am aware that there are concerns about using DMSA and I no longer use it for the detox regime. However I do not believe there is a problem using a small one-off dose for the actual kelmer test.
Allergy to mercury can be assessed by a Lymphocyte sensitivity to metals and chemicals.
Undergoing Extraction
The problem with removing mercury from dental fillings is that inevitably some mercury is released. Good dental techniques by a dentist experienced and skilled in using techniques such as rubber dam will reduce this release. One can reduce absorption in the gut by using charcoal - the idea here is that charcoal adsorbs mercury onto its surface and prevents it getting into the body. One used to be able to buy charcoal biscuits very easily, but it seems more difficult now. If you can get them, I would suggest, say 50 g just before extraction and then 50 g every 4 hours for 24 hours after the extraction.
Detoxing Mercury After Amalgams Have Been Removed
The most useful micronutrients for getting rid of mercury are selenium, iodine and vitamin C. Therefore, I suggest that for 3 months following mercury extraction you take 50 mg of iodine in the morning (as potassium iodate 20 drops daily), 500 mcg of selenium at night (sodium selenate 5 drops) combined with vitamin C 4 g daily. The best form of vitamin C is ascorbic acid and the slight acidity induced further helps to detoxify heavy metals. These supplements need to be taken over and above my standard recommendations for nutritional supplements.
At the end of this regime it would be well worth doing a kelmer test to make sure that the mercury load has been reduced and give some indication as to whether it is necessary to continue with further high dose micronutrients to get rid of the remaining mercury.
Watch a dramatic video, Smoking Mercury, demonstrating the level of release of vapours from mercury fillings.
Related Tests
Related Articles
References
- SOCIETY FOR MERCURY FREE DENTISTRY
- Lorscheider, F.L., Vimy, M,J., and Summers, A.O. Mercury exposure from "silver" tooth fillings: emerging evidence questions a traditional dental paradigm. FASEB Journal 9:504-508, 1995.
- Leong, C.C.W., Syed, NLI., and Lorscheider, F.L. Retrograde degeneration of neurite membrane structural integrity of nerve growth cones following in vitro exposure to mercury. NeuroReport 12: 733-737, 2001.
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