Are heavy metals really a threat to your health? Is “detoxing” from them a fad or a farce?

It’s not a fad or a farce - if done correctly. And yes, heavy metals are really a threat to your health and can build up over time in the tissues of your body.

This buildup of pollutants like toxic heavy metals is a well-established scientific phenomenon called “bioaccumulation” that has been witnessed in many animals and humans¹⁹. For instance, modern humans have “1000-fold” the amount of lead in our bodies that our ancestors had ²⁰.

We Live In A Polluted World

Since the industrial revolution, our world has become much more toxic. Factories and fossil fuel production have taken a toll on the environment - and as a consequence, on our bodies as well.

The Centers for Disease Control has stated that the current environment is 100 times more toxic than in our grandparents’ time. All sorts of pollutants have infested our food, water, and air.

These pollutants are damaging to your cells and can be implicated in many degenerative diseases. Pollutants - which we’ll discuss shortly - can damage your DNA and disrupt the metabolic functioning of your cells.

Toxic Metals: Terrible For Your Body

Toxic heavy metals are perhaps the most common form of toxicity that your body can fall victim to.

Metals like mercury, lead, arsenic, cobalt, and many others damage the cells of your body and also cripple their metabolism. In other words, these metals can make you sick.

Lead has powerful toxic effects on nearly every organ system in the body and can cause a wide variety of symptoms, including “short-term memory or concentration, depression, nausea, abdominal pain, fatigue, insomnia, headaches, and slurred speech” ^21,22†.

Mercury isn’t any less toxic, symptoms can include “weakness, fatigue, anorexia, weight loss, and gastrointestinal disturbance” as well as depression and insomnia ^23†.

Toxic Metals Can Cause Mysterious Symptoms

Toxic metals mutate your DNA, cripple your immune system, damage your brain and nervous system, and inhibit the enzymes that control the duties of your cells.

Considering that, is it any surprise that heavy metal toxicity is thought to contribute to mystery illnesses?

Many practitioners believe that metals play a big role in disorders that doctors cant label or figure out. If your doctor tells you, dismissively, that your symptoms are “all in your head”, heavy metals might be playing a role.

So let’s look at some of the easiest and most effective ways to detox your body from metals.

Getting Rid of Heavy Metals

Step 1: Minimize Your Exposure to Toxic Metals

The first step in cleaning your body of heavy metals is to stop letting them in your body (as much as you can).

A little bit of exposure to heavy metals is inevitable. It’s practically impossible to completely avoid the trace amounts that are in some of the foods you eat. But some foods contain heavier loads of metals - and these foods make all the difference. In a matter of weeks, these foods can spike the levels of metals in your body and cause toxicity.

1. Don’t Eat Large Fish

In theory, fish are great for our health, but unfortunately, our oceans are quite polluted. And since medium to large fish are high on the food chain, they absorb more metals over time from the smaller creatures they eat.

Be wary of fish like tuna, halibut, and especially dangerous big swimmers like shark and swordfish [1]. These fish can contain high amounts of mercury and if you eat them regularly, it could be very bad news for your health.

2. Eat Organic

Not only do you get much less exposure to toxic synthetic pesticides when you eat certified organic crops, you also get less exposure to heavy metals ^2†

Eating this way isn’t a fad, it makes sense. Researchers have a lot of info about how these toxic compounds are bad for our bodies, so try to get organically grown fruits, veggies, and grains whenever you can.

3. Don’t Gorge on Meat

It’s especially important to be wary of large fish but other meats can attract metals as well.

Animals accumulate metals just as we do and when you eat them, you’re consuming whatever is in their tissue. And unfortunately, metals in animals may be more absorbable than those in the plant foods you eat because plants have compounds called phytates that can latch onto metals and prevent them from being absorbed into your body ^3†.

4. Don’t Eat Rice Everyday

You wouldn’t think that rice would pose the threat of heavy metals but it is one of those weird foods that you have to eat in moderation because metals sneak their way in.

Unfortunately, rice has the nasty habit of absorbing the toxic metal arsenic ^4,5. Researchers think that the arsenic content of some rice is a serious health concern ^5†.

If you’re buying rice in America, choose rice from California because it has significantly less arsenic than rice from midwestern states ^6†.

5. Make Sure You’re Not Drinking Out of Lead Water Pipes

Pipes in the past have been made out of lead and they may be leaking trace amounts of lead into your water!

Step 2: Get Those Metals Out!

1. Selenium

One way by which metal toxicity can be measured in your body is through your hair. Some metals are excreted through your hair and researchers have found that selenium supplementation can cause a 34% decrease in the mercury content of your hair ^7†.

Selenium also increases the elimination of metals in urine - out of your body - and can also decrease damage mercury does to your body ^8†.

Selenium also plays an important part in maintaining the body’s glutathione system, which refers to a set of compounds that detoxify your body and provide antioxidant protection ^9†.

2. Sweat

Sweating is one of the most assured and effective ways of getting metals out of your body ^†. Whether you sweat by exercising or taking a sauna, metals (and other pollutants) come out of your skin with perspiration ^10,11,12†.

Make sure to take it slow, though, if you are not used to sweating. You also expel valuable electrolytes when you sweat, but they are easily replenished. If you overdo it, you can feel faint.

3. Dandelion

Your liver processes toxins and releases them, through bile, into your digestive system for elimination. So stimulating bile flow from your liver, through your gallbladder, into your gut is important for detoxification.

Dandelion root helps the flow of bile from the liver to the gallbladder and then to the intestines for elimination^†. Not only does bile help digest fats, it also contains waste products from the liver, so having bile flow smoothly is crucial for the elimination of toxins from the liver^†.

4. N-Acetyl-Cysteine (NAC)

This sulphurous compound can boost your cellular levels of the metal-detoxifying antioxidant glutathione ^15†. Glutathione is one of the most important defenses in your body against metal toxicity.

Studies have also shown that NAC can also lower toxic metal levels in the body ^16†. One study showed that toxic chromium and cobalt levels in the blood decreased by 24% and 45% respectively ^16†. NAC is great for increasing mercury elimination from the body as well ^17†.

5. Vitamin C

Vitamin C can drag lead out of your blood. In One study showed showed a “81% decrease in blood-lead levels” after people took 1000mg of vitamin C per day ^18†.

6. Chlorella

Chlorella is a nutrient-packed algae that you can supplement with. It’s also great for soaking up metals that are in your gut ^†.

Chlorella acts like a sponge for environmental pollutants like heavy metals and dioxins that could be lurking the the food you're eating and in your colon ^24,25,26†.

When left in water with toxic heavy metals, chlorella absorbs 50% of chromium and 77% of lead after 12 days ^24,†.

7. Modified Citrus Pectin (MCP)

Pectin, a polysaccharide in citrus fruit, can be modified so that it is more absorbed by the body. MCP is remarkably effective at latching on to heavy metals and eliminating them through your urine.

In one study, blood levels of lead dropped an average of 161% and the amount of metals being eliminated through urine increased by 132% ^27†.

Heavy Metals: A Serious Problem

You should take heavy metals seriously. Their ability to do harm to your health and accumulate in your body over time is definitely concerning.

In fact, it’s an underappreciated problem.

In order to escape being a victim of heavy metal toxicity, you have to steer clear of the main sources of metals in your diet and environment and you have to get metals out of your body on a regular basis.

Now you know the tools to do just that!

Does your liver need a detox?

Poor diet and lifestyle choices, as well as everyday pollutants and toxins can have a harmful effect on your liver.

After all, it’s job is to act like one big detox factory. But sometimes it can get overloaded and could use a little help.

Help your liver perform at its best with a clean and natural detox.

The good news is that there’s a safe, all-natural way to detox and cleanse your liver and it only takes 3 simple steps.

Click here to download the FREE report by Nutritionist Evan Burns, which reveals how to cleanse and detox your liver in 3 steps. Yours FREE for a limited time.