Why Lead Poisoning May be Causing Your Health Problems

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Why Lead Poisoning May be Causing Your Health Problems

Posted on May 7th, 2008

Categories: Autism

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We are too heavy -- and I don’t mean overweight.

You see, we’re heavy with metals, not fat. Nearly 40 percent of us have toxic levels of lead in our bodies. And we don’t even know it.

That doesn’t mean we don’t have symptoms.

You may have headaches, insomnia, irritability, a low sex drive, or tremors.

You may have mood problems, nausea, depression, memory difficulties, trouble concentrating, poor coordination, or even constipation.

Yet most of us attribute these symptoms to other problems. We don’t recognize that they may be caused by lead poisoning.

I just returned from a medical conference on heavy metals and health. Although I have been treating toxicity from heavy metals for more than a decade (including in myself) I was surprised to hear about new research that has been completely ignored by the media.

A study published in 2006 in the conservative medical journal Circulation, for example, should have been on the front page of the New York Times.

Let me tell you about why the study was so important -- and why you probably won’t hear about it from your doctor.

Researchers measured the blood lead levels of 13,946 adults who were part of the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. They were recruited from 1988 to 1994 and were then followed up on for up to 12 years. The goal of the study was to track what diseases people developed and why they died. (1)

Now, it’s important to remember that since lead was removed from gasoline and house paint several decades ago, the average person’s blood lead level has dropped dramatically.

But our levels of lead are still a great deal higher than those of people who lived before the industrial age. That’s because we continue to be exposed to lead in our soil and water, as well as from our own bones, where it is stored once it’s introduced into our system.

Fifty years ago, the average blood levels of lead were about 40 micrograms/deciliter. The level considered “safe” by the government has continued to fall and is now considered less than 10 micrograms/deciliter.

But this new study and others like it question the idea that ANY level of this toxic metal is safe.

In this study, researchers found that a blood level of lead over 2 micrograms/deciliter (that’s 2, not 10 or 40) caused dramatic increases in heart attacks, strokes, and death.

In fact, after controlling for all other risk factors, including cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, and inflammation, the researchers found that the risk of death from all causes in people with a lead level that high increased by 25 percent, deaths from heart disease increased by 55 percent, risk of heart attacks increased by 151 percent, and risk of stroke increased by 89 percent.

Want to know what’s even more remarkable?

Nearly 40 percent of all Americans are estimated to have blood levels of lead high enough to cause these problems.

This is potentially a greater risk for heart disease than cholesterol!

But this is not the first indication of problems with lead.

A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that high blood pressure in postmenopausal women is strongly correlated to blood lead levels.

Why is that?

Well, during menopause, bones break down faster -- releasing stored lead and injuring blood vessels, which leads to high blood pressure. (2)

And high lead may also be responsible for kidney failure as well.

A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that using chelation therapy with EDTA to reduce lead levels in patients with kidney failure could prevent further loss of kidney function, save billions in healthcare costs, and eliminate the need for dialysis in millions of people. (3)

Wow! Digest that. Chelation therapy saves lives and billions of dollars. So why isn’t your doctor offering this as standard treatment?

The answer is this: As I have said many times, doctors don’t learn two of the most important things in medical school: how to help people improve their nutrition and how to deal with environmental toxins.

And not only is lead linked to heart disease, high blood pressure, and kidney failure, it is also connected to the epidemic of children with ADHD, developmental and learning problems, and autism.

Even though the “safe” blood level of lead has been set as 10 micrograms/deciliter, recent studies show that the greatest drop-off in IQ scores in children occurs in those who have lead levels between just 1 and 10 micrograms/deciliter. (4)

This is particularly troubling, because more than 10 percent of poor and inner city children have lead exposure levels higher than 10 micrograms/deciliter!

I recently treated a young boy with extremely high lead levels who had Asperger’s syndrome, severe ADHD, and violent behavior.

He likely got the lead from his mother, who had very low vitamin D levels and had developed osteoporosis, which released a lot of lead from her bones during pregnancy. This lead got into the boy’s body in the womb across his mother’s placenta.

Thankfully, we got rid of his lead over time through chelation and nutritional support. Doing so dramatically improved his attention, behavior, and social skills.

Lead is still found in our soil and water. We live in a sea of heavy metals. In areas with a history of industrial pollution, people track lead into their homes from contaminated soil. Today, regular house dust often contains 17 times the level of lead it once did.

In Washington, DC, the water was so contaminated with lead recently that the government had to provide free water filters for everyone there. Up to 20 percent of the city’s tap water may be contaminated.

So what can you do about this?

Find out if you are lead-toxic. The easiest test is a simple blood lead test. Be sure the lab can measure VERY low levels of lead accurately. Anything higher than 2 micrograms/deciliter is toxic and should be treated.
Unfortunately, the blood test only checks for current or ongoing exposures, so you must also take a heavy metal challenge test with DMSA, EDTA, or DMPS, which can be administered by a doctor trained in heavy metal detoxification. (See www.functionalmedicine.org or www.acam.org to find a qualified doctor.) Consider undergoing chelation therapy if your lead levels are high.
Reduce your exposures by having a “no shoes in the house” policy.
Test your water for heavy metals.
Buy a carbon or reverse osmosis water filter for your drinking water.
Take 1,000 milligrams of buffered ascorbic acid (vitamin C) a day, this helps remove lead from the body.
Take 2,000 to 4,000 IU of vitamin D3 a day to prevent your bones from releasing lead into your bloodstream.

Even though many of us have toxic levels of lead in our bodies, there is a lot we can do to prevent it and treat it.

Now I’d like to hear from you…

Do you suffer from any of the symptoms of lead toxicity?

Have you been tested for lead poisoning? Do you plan to be?

Which of the other steps have you tried?

Please let me know your thoughts by leaving a comment.

To your good health,

Mark Hyman, M.D.

P.S. For more information on this and other blogs, please go to
http://www.ultrawellness.com/blog.

REFERENCES:

(1) Menke A, Muntner P, Batuman V, Silbergeld EK, Guallar E. Blood lead below 0.48 micromol/L (10 microg/dL) and mortality among US adults. Circulation. 2006 Sep 26;114(13):1388-94.

(2) Nash D, Magder L, Lustberg M, Sherwin RW, Rubin RJ, Kaufmann RB, Silbergeld, Blood lead, blood pressure, and hypertension in perimenopausal and postmenopausal women. JAMA. 2003 Mar 26;289(12):1523-32.

(3) Lin JL, Lin-Tan DT, Hsu KH, Yu CC Environmental lead exposure and progression of chronic renal diseases in patients without diabetes. N Engl J Med. 2003 Jan 23;348(4):277-86

(4) Canfield RL, Henderson CR Jr, Cory-Slechta DA, Cox C, Jusko TA, Lanphear BP.Intellectual impairment in children with blood lead concentrations below 10 microg per deciliter. N Engl J Med. 2003 Apr 17;348(16):1517-26.

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Lead poison/ Heavy Metals

A few months ago I found out I have heavy mteals and lead poisoning. It is what I do at work, soldering. Aluminum Zirconium is in all of the womans Anti-Perspirant & Deodorants I was using. I was making my self sick with out knowing it. I was losing my eye sight. Now I an detoxing my body I can read small words again. I could not lose weight. My over all health was going down hill fast. I am only 51 years old and did feel like I was at least 90. Health has inproved a lot and getting better all the time.

by kdbnicol at 05:01 PM on 05/10/08

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Lead poison/ Heavy Metals

by kdbnicol at 05:01 PM on 05/10/08

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Lead & Mercury Toxicicty

HI, I have been following the blog and have read Dr. Hyman's book. I have had chronic fatigue and thyroid related problems for over 20 years. Finally I have found a functional medicine Doctor who can help. The labs show that I have high levels of Lead and Mercury. I am going to be using the DMSA 3 times a week to see how it works. After 6 weeks, I will check the lab again. The one thing I have seen is that if you look at my labs that I get from a standard doctor, I am in good health. You need to go to a functional medicine Doctor who can run other tests, like heavy metals, organic acid, GI tests, ect. This tells us biologically and chemically how our bodies are working.

by kamik at 01:15 PM on 05/12/08

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Heavy Metals

I lived in a home with high levels of arsenic in the well water for 13 yrs before we had our water tested. My husband had been (wrongly) diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. We still don't know how it will effect the rest of us but I am suspicious and believe it has an effect on our hearing and my thyroid gland.

by katiepie at 04:29 PM on 05/16/08

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Lead Poisoning

I have just discovered that I have about 16 feet of lead piping running from the stop tap into the watersupply of my house in Northern England. The house is 100 years old this year, and the pipes have not been renewed when they should have been. Since I am the only occupant of the house, I must be drinking water that has been standing in lead, all the time. I have lived here about 5 years, and used a water filter. Unfortunately, the standard water filters sold in the UK do not filter out lead, so I have not been protected. Recently, I have had to search the internet to buy a (Spanish) filter that does filter out heavy metals. I rang the Water Company for help. They offered to test the water from my tap. The current standard is 25 micrograms per litre(?) and this will be lowered to 10 micrograms per litre to conform to European standards in 2013. If the Water Board's own piping f ell below that standard, they would replace it free, but if, as is the case, it is only my pipes that are lead, then I can get no financial help towards replacing them. The Water Board also said that if I hired builders to replace my lead pipe they would need to come and check the depth of the trench, and they would charge (an undisclosed sum) for re-connecting me to the mains at the end of the process.

I am therefore very grateful to read your article. I expect to replace the lead pipes in the next few months. I am 65 and hypothyroid, and sensitive to metal in that I cannot wear metal jewellery. I will see if it is possible to test for lead levels in the blood. Often our testing systems are not as advanced as yours. I will also try taking Ascorbic acid and Vitamin D3. How long should these be taken for?

I always enjoy your blogs, and not infrquently find them relevant to my problems! thank you! Liz

by elviola at 03:00 PM on 05/25/08

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Thank you

This info is so right on and you make it so understandable for everyone.

Thanks,

John Taylor JT Taylor Co 2801 E. Seattle St Broken Arrow, Ok 74014 918-938-1542 http://heavymetalscreentest.blogspot.com http://thejttaylorco.blogspot.com

by jttcousa at 12:42 PM on 05/29/08

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He's right--I have toxic levels of heavy metals

Dr. Hyman is right on the mark here. I have had a number of health problems for the past 25 years (I'm 42), like fatigue, "atypical depression" (I tried every SSRI and SNRI on the market), joint and muscle pain, weight gain, discoid eczema, allergies (which I only developed in my 30's), mild asthma, frequent sinus infections and asthmatic bronchitis. I confided in a colleague at work recently that my father had suffered from atypical (sleep too much) depression, and no medications ever helped him. She told me that she had it too, AND she had Hashimoto's Thyroiditis (an autoimmune disease that leads to hypothyroidism), so I decided to go looking on the internet for a thyroid specialist in my area, just to be sure that I didn't have a thyroid problem.

Lo and behold, I stumbled upon a GENIUS of a doctor (she's an MD (Internal Medicine) AND a DO) in my area. I had to fill out a 10 page questionnaire on my health issues before I even saw her, and when I walked into her office, she said "Given where you grew up (Long Island, NY), I think I already know what's wrong with you." I'm going to run some tests first, but my suspicion is that you have heavy metal poisoning. Long Island, NY has THE highest rate of breast cancer in the entire US. Gee, I wonder why? They've done all these studies on PCB's, electromagnetic radiation, etc, but they never did any research into heavy metals. Is that a DUH, or maybe they don't WANT to know????

So, after my doctor tested ALL my hormone levels, we discovered that ALL of them (including vitamin D) were low, except for insulin, which was high. Given that info, she said "Okay, now it's time for a heavy metal test." The results came back and BINGO, I had levels of lead, mercury, aluminum, bismuth, cesium, gadolinium, thallium, chromium and vanadium that were at the highest level of the reference range, and my copper was through the roof, i.e., it was so high it could cause organ damage. The high copper is from my adrenal glands--they're very weak, and weak adrenals cause all sorts of problems, like high copper (the adrenals send messages to the liver to produce a protein that binds to copper), joint and muscle pain, etc.

My doctor immediately put me on a regimen of certain supplements (particular brands too), a zeolite-based chelator called Natural Cellular Defense (Waiora), a 100% gluten and dairy free diet, and a glycemic load of no more than 40/day. Heavy metals cause all sorts of problems with your metabolism and they cause inflammation. So do gluten and dairy, which most people have some level of sensitivity to, particularly if your ethnic background is celtic, germanic, or nordic. Eliminate all the stressors on the body that cause inflammation, which tax the adrenal glands, etc. and eventually your body will heal itself.

My doctor also highly recommended Dr. Hyman's book "Ultra Metabolism." I'm addicted to any information re: medicine, so I ran out and bought it. I did already know some of the things he mentioned in his book (e.g., white flour, high fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils = very bad news) but he explained the WHY behind them, and it really helped me a lot in learning how to give up all the POISON that most of us eat on a daily basis. I've been eating a gluten free, dairy free, and low glycemic load diet for several weeks now, and I'm dumbfounded by how my brain is no longer screaming "FEED ME, FEED ME, FEED ME!" I actually went to our local Whole Foods Market on my lunch hour the other day, walked out of the store at 12:45 (I usually eat at 11:30) and said "Wow. I forgot that I haven't even eaten lunch yet."

My doctor tells me that it may take as long as 2 years to get all the heavy metals out of my system, but my adrenals are so weak that she can't give me what they normally use to chelate heavy metals, i.e, an artificially created amino acid called EDTA, because she's afraid it'll do kidney damage. Not for nothin', but I don't want something man-made put into my body to take out something that wouldn't be in there if "MAN" had been more vigilant about polluting my environment! I didn't get this heavy metal poisoning from snacking on paint chips as a child. This came from the water I drink, the food I eat, and the air I breathe.

Listen to Dr. Hyman: cut out the hydrogenated oils, the artificial sweeteners, the white flour, and the high fructose corn syrup. Don't pay some company your hard-earned $$$ to poison you. Go to your local Whole Foods Market and start experimenting with alternatives, like agave nectar or stevia (the KAL brand is fantastic!) instead of Nutrasweet and Splenda--btw, one bottle of stevia the size of one of those cylindrical spice bottles has about 900 servings, so it's economical too. That's how sweet it is, folks, and it comes from a plant, not a laboratory. Whole Foods Market will even let you return something if you don't like it! I use almond milk now instead of regular milk and I can't even tell the difference. Ditto for oat milk. It's not all gross granola-people bunny food. Experiment, learn, and discover.

by Heavymetal at 06:19 PM on 06/07/08

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Toxicity Foot Pads

Hi,

The latest AARP magazine has an ad for pads that you put on the soles of your feet. Overnight, toxins are supposed to be drawn out of you through the soles of your feet. The ad shows the pads before and after -- and the after pads are darkly stained.

Is this for real? Can we extract toxins through the soles of our feet?

LaLaLa

by LaLaLa at 10:05 AM on 06/21/08

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Kinoki foot pads

If it sounds too good to be true, it is. Those Kinoki foot pads are only going to extract one thing: the money from your wallet.

I get really ticked off when I see that commercial, because companies like that prey on people who are desperate.

by Heavymetal at 08:56 PM on 07/02/08

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