Heavy-Metal Toxicity: 16 Ways to Limit Your Exposure

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Heavy-Metal Toxicity: 16 Ways to Limit Your Exposure

By Catherine Guthrie, Experience Life

What would you think if someone

asked you to consume a dose of heavy metals every day for the rest of

your life? Most likely, you'd be horrified. But truth be told, you're

already doing it. Everyone ingests small amounts of arsenic, cadmium,

lead and mercury daily. It's not an option or an immodest proposal -

it's an environmental mandate.

The environment, unfortunately, is

laden with heavy metals, mostly as a result of big-industry waste.

Anyone who eats a fish sandwich, inhales secondhand smoke, drinks a

glass of water or simply breathes air can be exposed.

Heavy-metal toxins is one of those

doomsday topics that makes John Q. Public and even some medical experts

want to scoff and look away. But the threat is real, and while the

extent of the potential damage is still being debated, you don't have

to wait to begin protecting yourself. There are dozens of simple ways

to minimize your exposure and curtail potential dangers.

The key is to be proactive about

what you can change and mindful about what you can't. Knowing what

you're up against can help you strike a healthy balance, and may

inspire you to learn more about the heated environmental and political

debates that surround this important issue.

Tom McGuire, DDS, a holistic

dentist in Santa Rosa, Calif., and an expert on mercury-free dentistry,

compares the body's slow accumulation of heavy metals to the damage

done by smoking. A person isn't going to get lung cancer from the first

cigarette, he says, but that doesn't mean he shouldn't worry about the

long-term health risks of smoking. "Sadly, most people don't realize

they are being poisoned by heavy metals until they have already

affected their health."

To confound matters even further,

heavy-metal toxicity can masquerade as a host of other ailments, so it

may fly under the radar of conventional healthcare practitioners. "Most

physicians don't think to look at heavy metals as an underlying cause

of disease," says Liz Lipski, PhD, an expert in dietary detox and

author of Digestive Wellness (McGraw-Hill, 1999). "It's just not in their training."

Symptoms of chronic heavy-metal

exposure include depression, irritability, mood swings, tremors,

autoimmune diseases, chronic infections and cancer. Skeptics point out

that most of these ills can be caused by any number of other factors.

You can cut down on the amount of

heavy metals you imbibe by cleaning up your diet and living space.

Here's a guide to four of the most common heavy metals - arsenic,

cadmium, lead and mercury - the effects they have on the body, and the

ways you can mitigate your exposure.

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