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MERCURY (Hg)

ATOMIC NUMBER: 80

GROUP 12: CADMIUM AND ZINC

Shiny, metallic, and intoxicatingly strange in its elemental liquid form, mercury has long been known as a poison, as intriguing as it is deadly. One of the most toxic elements on the planet—especially in organic form—mercury has long been known to be poisonous to humans, animals, and the environment.

With more than thirteen times the density of water, a sea of mercury would be dense enough to theoretically walk on, or break apart most things plunged into it. And that’s only the beginning of its unique properties. In the ancient, occult-driven pursuits of alchemy, it was thought to be an element of central importance to achieving transmutation to gold. It was even a key ingredient in a popular elixir-of-life formula, believed to bestow eternal life despite its toxic qualities.

Mercury is a particularly insidious heavy metal that appears in three forms: organic, inorganic, and elemental, the latter of which is familiar to most as the curious liquid metal that responds to air pressure, which has been widely used in thermometers. Like other harmful heavy metals, it is frequently extracted as a by-product alongside other ores, but it has also been mined deliberately for the useful pigment properties exhibited by the reddish cinnabar, a crystalline mercury-based ore formed by volcanic activity or alkaline conditions, such as those seen in hot springs. Crushed cinnabar is burned, separating sulfur from the alluring liquid mercury yielded for industrial production.

Legends say China’s first emperor, Qin Shi Huang, died after imbibing a powdered jade and mercury mixture his alchemists told him would bring eternal life. Although the location of his tomb has been discovered, archeologists are still unsure of how to go about excavating the site due to the underground moat of liquid mercury surrounding it and the cloud of toxic vapors that opening the area would surely unleash.⁷³

Over the last several hundred years, the study of chemical reactions when mercury is combined with other elements has led to the development of mercurial compounds, believed to be useful in treating numerous diseases. Arabs created quicksilver ointments for the treatment of skin conditions based on knowledge of Greek medicine and other reputed remedies. After the Renaissance era, an understanding of the principles of metal oxidation lent to its use in apothecary drugs and attempts to create antiseptic treatments.⁷⁴

While mercury does have antimicrobial properties, which led some cultures to recognize how it may be beneficial for killing bacteria, fungi, and mold, it’s also extremely toxic to nearly all forms of life, making it a less-than-desirable medicine.

Mercury exposure leaves workers “mad as a hatter”

The rise of the industrial age has revealed the dangers and downsides of increasing societal exposure to mercury and its various chemical compounds. A trend of workplace hazards began to emerge during the nineteenth century, bringing into view new diseases that could befall laborers subjected to mercury vapors and direct skin contact.

The most infamous are the so-called Mad Hatters, seen prior to but made famous in Lewis Carroll’s 1865 novel Alice in Wonderland. Unnerved, edgy, and tormented by a complex of erethism symptoms, these tradesmen actually suffered from mercury poisoning. Industrial hat workers engaged in curing pelts to make felt hats, as well as other related furrier activities, were known to frequently suffer symptoms including mental instability, irritability, and tremors from exposure to mercury.⁷⁵ The common thread behind the phrase “mad as a hatter” was the workplace use of mercury nitrate, which left many sickened, debilitated, or simply off kilter. Miners, gilders, and mirror makers in the Renaissance era and Middle Ages were known to suffer similar ailments as well, though it would not be attributed to mercury for centuries to come.⁷⁶

Mercury commonly found in consumer goods

There’s a common, but potentially deadly, misconception that mercury has been banned from everyday products. In reality, the relatively rare earth mineral is widely used in the production of many consumer goods. In addition to its use in thermometer bulbs, mercury is also used in batteries, pesticides, and now in large quantities as an element of energy-saving CFL fluorescent light bulbs.

We face exposure through broken thermometers or light bulbs, both of which can emit vaporous mercury that’s quickly inhaled. That’s why instructions for cleaning up a mercury-containing CFL light bulb include an extensive list of steps to ensure basic safety, despite CFL’s touted reputation as “green” technology. A health study found that if a single CFL bulb breaks, mercury gas concentrations released can reach 800 µg/m³, more than eight times the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) limit of 100 µg/m³ for adults in an eight-hour period.⁷⁷ A research team also found that because an electrical current is charging the mercury vapor contained in all CFLs, and the curly shape of the bulb can make it more prone to tiny cracks in the phosphor coating that would otherwise protect people from those rays, the bulbs were giving off cell-damaging UV radiation.⁷⁸ They recommended keeping one’s distance from these bulbs and encasing them in an extra glass structure just to be safe.

Mercury is even used in vaccines given to children. On October 9, 2015, California Health and Human Services Agency Secretary Diana S. Dooley issued a directive that suspended the ban on mercury in vaccines given to children, allowing those children to be injected with a mercury-containing vaccine preservative known as thimerosal. “I am granting a temporary exemption from California Health and Safety Code Section 124172 for seasonal influenza vaccine with trace levels of thimerosal to be administered to children younger than three years from October 9, 2015, through December 31, 2015, because the current supply of thimerosal-free vaccine for young children is inadequate,” wrote Dooley. In doing so, she demonstrated that even when governments recognize the threat of mercury toxicity to children, they will nevertheless allow mercury to be injected into children whenever supply conditions demand it.^79,80

Flu shots, by the way, typically contain over 50,000 ppb of mercury—about 25,000 times the concentration limit of mercury allowed by the EPA in drinking water.

Coal-burning power plants

The argument made by many CFL proponents for CFL’s viability as an environmentally friendly technology despite its dangerous mercury content is that the energy it saves results in a net reduction of mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants. Such power plants eject thousands of pounds of mercury into the air every year, where it eventually settles to the ground, contaminating soil, water, and products for human consumption. According to the National Resources Defense Council, 33 tons of mercury pollution are emitted from power plants each year just in the United States alone.⁸¹

Limitations on these mercury emissions have only recently been put into place. In an attempt to curb such emissions, the EPA announced the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) for power plants in December 2011, limiting the amounts of mercury and other hazards such as arsenic that power plants are legally allowed to emit.⁸² However, the rule still allows for 1.2 pounds of mercury per trillion BTUs of energy produced, and because even tiny levels of mercury accumulate in the environment, the cycle of pollution will undoubtedly continue.

Wildfires and mercury pollution

Wildfires are another significant cause of mercury pollution. A 2007 Global Biogeochemical Cycles journal article noted that mercury in the atmosphere accumulates on foliage, and when it dies or decomposes, that mercury then enters the soil where it is taken up by roots and incorporated into tree leaves and structures. When a forest fire sweeps the area, mercury is emitted and carried by the rising heat and smoke into the atmosphere. The authors concluded that forest fires comprise a fourth of all mercury emissions in the United States.⁸³

Mercury emitted via waste disposal

Mercury is also burnt or disposed of throughout industry, creating a pattern of contamination that has yet to be reined in. Everything from hospitals to dentists’ offices, veterinary clinics, laboratories, septic haulers, residential neighborhood waste, batteries, printing, painting, pottery, scrap metal, and industrial laundry contribute to the mercury waste burden. Unburned quantities of waste materials are often dumped back into croplands and waterways via sludge-based fertilizers. Either way, these mercurial compounds reemerge in the environment and continue to pose health risks.⁸⁴

Mercury in pesticide use and residual effects in croplands

Although the majority of agricultural inorganic mercury uses have been banned or discontinued in most countries throughout the world, mercuric chloride, an inorganic mercury-chlorine compound, is still allowed for use in some pesticides in the United States and other countries—while the residue from decades past still impacts background metal exposure.⁸⁵ Populations that eat grains sprayed with those pesticides (or meat from animals that ingest those grains) also accumulate toxic mercury.

Production, use, and emission figures for this compound are unknown, but it’s estimated to be in the hundreds of metric tons in the United States alone.⁸⁶ Avoiding or restricting imports cultivated with the use of this harmful pesticide from places like China, where regulations are lax or difficult to enforce, may prove difficult or impractical. Thus, banned formulations still appear in foods consumed by millions of people.

For example, my own research into certified organic vegan protein products made predominantly from rice protein grown and processed in China found mercury concentrations as high as .036 ppm.⁸⁷ Given that some consumers of such products eat over 100 grams of these proteins each day, their mercury intake from this one product can exceed 3.6 micrograms. It’s also important to note that nearly all of these rice protein products are certified USDA organic, which most consumers assume means “free of toxic substances.” Yet, as I discussed previously, USDA organic standards have no limits whatsoever on mercury or any other heavy metals.

Mercuric chloride has also made headlines for its negative effects when found in industrial waste. Following complaints of a strong chemical smell making villagers ill, news outlet RIA Novosti reported that 200 tons of a banned mercury pesticide was discovered dumped in a Russian village in 2011.⁸⁸ Just as with all heavy metals, once mercury is in the environment, it is exceedingly difficult to remove.

The EPA has listed inorganic mercury as a Class C “possible human carcinogen,” as the agency’s own Office of Research and Development acknowledges it is a developmental toxicant that can cause gastrointestinal erosion and kidney damage in addition to DNA damage and cancer in lab animals.⁸⁹

Mercury in dental fillings

Elemental mercury is still used in amalgam dental fillings, which contain, on average, 50 percent mercury. The FDA issued a final rule in 2009 that reclassified mercury from Class I (least risk) to Class II (more risk) and officially classified encapsulated dental amalgam—a mixture of silver, tin, copper, elemental mercury, and a powdered alloy—as a Class II restorative medical device.⁹⁰

Although the American Dental Association has released a statement claiming that dental amalgam “is considered a safe, affordable, and durable material,”⁹¹ studies specific to dentists and mercury exposure via amalgam have produced worrisome results. In a neurobehavioral study of dentists exposed to elemental mercury at work, researchers found that the dentists did significantly worse on mental acuity and motor skill tests than control subjects; in addition, as years of exposure to elemental mercury in amalgam increased, a dentist’s test performance significantly decreased.⁹² Female dentists and dental assistants exposed to mercury in another study were also found to have significantly more reproductive failures, including more painful and irregular menstrual disorders as well as more miscarriages and increased congenital malformations in infants.⁹³

Dental amalgam has also been shown to leach mercury into the mouth, which can emerge in the form of vapors or be swallowed if pieces of amalgam break off. Studies vary widely on the quantities of mercury people are exposed to in this fashion. Researchers with the Department of Materials Science at University of Virginia’s School of Engineering and Applied Science found that both stannous and sodium fluorides, active ingredients in commercial toothpastes and mouthwashes, played a role in increased corrosion rates of mercury fillings.⁹⁴ Multiple adverse health effects have been correlated to the presence of dental amalgams, including one study that found that mothers who had six or more dental amalgams during pregnancy and later had a child diagnosed with autism were more than three times more likely for that diagnosis to be severe autism than the autistic children of mothers with five or fewer mercury fillings.⁹⁵

Studies have also revealed that microwave radiation from cell phones and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) significantly accelerated the leaching of mercury from dental amalgams, giving cause for concern about people who have these fillings coming into everyday contact with electromagnetic fields (EMF), including the ubiquitous Internet Wi-Fi hotspots found in most urban and suburban areas.⁹⁶

Interestingly, even the cremation of human bodies releases enormous quantities of mercury vapor into the atmosphere due to the burning of mercury amalgam dental fillings found in most people. A 1994 study conducted by Japanese researchers found that a single crematorium released approximately 9.4 kg of mercury into the atmosphere each year.⁹⁷

DENTISTRY—HOW DENTISTRY POLLUTES OUR BODIES WITH MERCURY

One source of potential toxin exposure that may not immediately come to mind is dental amalgam (i.e. “fillings”).

Over 90 percent of American adults have received one or more dental fillings as a remedy for their cavities. The vast majority of these fillings are “silver” amalgams composed of 50 percent elemental mercury (Hg) and other metals that are less toxic than mercury.

According to the CDC and the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, Americans between the ages of twenty and sixty-four have an average of 3.28 cavities each.^1,2 Though some 23 percent of these cases go untreated, a staggering number of cavities (in the hundreds of millions) have been treated with fillings containing mercury, a well-known heavy metal toxin and brain-damaging element.

Research has shown that these amalgams pose an ongoing risk, as they continuously release mercury vapor, which is in turn inhaled into the body, where it wreaks havoc on cell integrity. About 80 percent of the elemental mercury vapor is inhaled through the lungs and enters into the bloodstream.³ From there, significant amounts of mercury can cross the blood–brain barrier where it is transported to the brain via blood. Additionally, small pieces of mercury can also be swallowed if the amalgam breaks or chips.

Studies on the impact of mercury-containing fillings have concluded that amalgams contribute the vast majority of mercury that accumulates in the human body,⁴ with the World Health Organization naming amalgams as the most significant source of inorganic mercury in the general population, contributing to half of overall exposure. The WHO further reported that frequent activities among the entire population such as chewing, including both eating and chewing gum, and brushing teeth can increase mercury vapor emissions by more than fivefold.⁵ Worse, the active ingredients in commercial toothpastes and mouthwashes—stannous and sodium fluorides—have been found in studies to increase amalgam corrosion rates.⁶ Higher rates of mercury uptake among the general population have additionally been documented for frequent gum chewers and those who grind their teeth.⁷

Research has also shown that when people with dental amalgams are exposed to microwave radiation from cell phones and magnetic resonance imaging, mercury release from dental amalgam accelerates.⁸ Considering how many urban and suburban areas are bathed in perpetual electromagnetic fields due to a myriad of Wi-Fi hotspots these days, this finding is particularly worrisome and demands further study.

According to the EPA, the adverse health effects of breathing elemental mercury vapor include mood swings, irritability, nervousness, tremors, insomnia, muscle atrophy and twitching, headache, nerve response and sensation changes, cognitive dysfunction, and—at very high levels—kidney and respiratory failure, and even death.⁹

Autopsies used in an Italian research study concluded that subjects with twelve or more fillings had significantly higher levels of mercury in the brain and other tissues than did subjects who had three or fewer fillings.¹⁰ Rat studies confirmed that exposure to amalgam vapors increased concentrated brain mercury by as much as eight times, while accumulation in kidney tissue after exposure was also high.¹¹

Several studies have linked the presence of mercury fillings with mental disorders. One found that multiple sclerosis patients with fillings had far higher levels of depression and sudden feelings of anger and irritability than those who had their amalgam fillings removed.¹² A related study found that mental issues were improved or eliminated within about ten months of removing mercury amalgams. A study on women found those with amalgams showed tendencies toward uncontrolled anger, a lack of happiness and satisfaction, and an inability to make decisions as compared with those without amalgams.¹³ Even low doses of exposure to dental amalgam mercury have been shown to contribute to adverse behavioral effects in relation to toxicity burden in the body.¹⁴

After years of complaints of symptoms and worry over the risk of toxicity by the public and researchers, the FDA reclassified mercury from a Class I (least risk) to Class II (more risk) in 2009. Further, the agency officially classified dental amalgams (composed of elemental mercury, silver, tin, copper, and a powdered alloy) as a Class II restorative medical device.¹⁵

Exposure to mercury is also a serious concern for dentists and dental assistants. Studies have long found suicide rates among workers in the dental industry to be significantly higher than in other occupations.¹⁶ Although the full explanation for this is not clear, chronic exposure to mercury vapors and elemental mercury may play a significant role.¹⁷ Already the available data show that there is reason to associate amalgams with mental health issues and depression. Considerable research has gone into investigating occupational exposure for dental professionals, who consistently have higher rates of mercury in their bodies alongside notable adverse health effects.

A 2001 study published in the British Dental Journal found elevated blood mercury levels not only in the dental students working with restorative amalgams, but also in surrounding students and staff who worked in the same environment but had no direct contact with the materials.¹⁸

Researchers have further concluded that, when compared to control subjects, dentists perform significantly worse on mental acuity and motor skills tests; worse, the longer a dentist had been exposed to elemental mercury, the poorer his or her performance was on the tests.¹⁹ Researchers have also found memory disturbances and kidney disorders among dentists.²⁰

Studies have also shown that female dentists and dental assistants are prone to significantly more irregular periods, miscarriages, and giving birth to infants with congenital deformities than women who are not consistently exposed to mercury at work.²¹ Moreover, it was found that occupational exposure to mercury vapor lowered fertility rates among female dental assistants.²² A study examining the relationship between amalgam fillings and mother’s breast milk taken shortly after birth found a correlation between the concentration of mercury in milk and the number of fillings in the mother.²³

Though the damaging effects mercury can exhibit on the reproductive system are known, many dental journals insist that the risk is low if proper mercury hygiene is used and mercury accumulation remains below the established “threshold limit value”—though no true “safe” level for mercury has ever been established.^24,25

Even waste disposal has been an issue for the mercury used in amalgams by dental practitioners, and amalgams have now been identified as a significant source of environmental pollution.²⁶ With a focus on the tons of mercury-amalgam waste dumped into sewers or on land in the United Kingdom, the WHO reported that as much as 53 percent of total environmental mercury emissions come from dental, laboratory, and medical waste.²⁷ An estimated one-third of mercury waste collected in sewage sludge comes from dental discharge.

Methods for separating amalgam and reducing mercury levels in waste have been deployed, while many countries have begun regulating dental disposal practices.^28,29 However, discharged mercury remains a widespread and significant environmental problem, and many dental amalgam separation technologies have been found inadequate at reducing pollution levels.³⁰

Once mercury enters the environment, microbes readily convert the elemental mercury into methylmercury, which significantly bioaccumulates and becomes a major issue in the food chain, as with fish (see “Methylmercury in fish” on page 49 for more information).

Mercury from dental amalgams has even been found to be a significant environmental pollutant through its release into air after deceased people who had fillings in their teeth are cremated, as mercury is being released at levels similar to other industrial emissions.³¹

Even with the abundance of studies noting the adverse effects and the FDA’s reclassification of amalgam as riskier to health, the American Dental Association (ADA) continues to assert that mercury-containing dental amalgam is “a safe, affordable, and durable material.”³²

Banned in the EU; concerns about exposure in U.S. products

The European Union has banned nearly 1,400 chemicals from being used in the production of cosmetics based on health risk assessment that they may be carcinogenic, mutagenic, or reproductive toxicants.⁹⁸ In an attempt to rein in mercury by-products, the European Union enacted a ban, beginning in 2011, on the export of mercuric chloride, cinnabar ore, and many derivatives.⁹⁹ Mercury, lead, and arsenic (among others) have all been banned as cosmetic additives in Canada.

By contrast, the U.S. FDA has only banned ten ingredients, and even though mercury is on that short list, up to 65 parts per million of mercury is still allowed in cosmetics applied to the eye area.¹⁰⁰ As of 2007, Minnesota was the first U.S. state to officially outlaw thimerosal, a mercury derivative, in some cosmetics, including mascara, eye liners, and skin-lightening cream—a far stricter rule than the federal standards currently in place. One of the concerns Minnesota officials considered was that fumes from these cosmetics could build up within the containers and users might inhale them upon opening the products. Minnesota Senator John Marty, who sponsored the ban, noted, “Mercury does cause neurological damage to people even in tiny quantities.”¹⁰¹

Bioaccumulation

The senator is correct: Mercury damages human health. Even low-level mercury exposure can be toxic, and chronic exposure bioaccumulates in the body. Mercury poisoning can induce reproductive, developmental, systemic, immunological, genotoxic, and carcinogenic adverse effects, potentially impacting every single body system.¹⁰² Although science has long established the grave effects that mercury poisoning can have on the brain and nervous system—especially for fetuses and developing children—exposure to even smaller amounts have been linked to cardiovascular disease and neurotoxicity.¹⁰³

Methylmercury in fish

Methylmercury, as found in tuna and other large fish, is the primary source of dietary mercury consumed today. Once ingested, methylmercury is absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract where it is eventually converted to inorganic mercury. Five percent of bodily mercury load is found in the blood and another 10 percent is found in the brain. The metabolism rate for mercury is slow, so less than 1 percent of the total mercury in the body is actually excreted in a given day.¹⁰⁴

The New York Times conducted an investigation on mercury involving twenty Manhattan sushi restaurants and stores in 2007 and found that eating a mere six pieces of sushi a week would actually surpass EPA limits on mercury. Five of the twenty restaurants had mercury levels high enough to warrant FDA action.¹⁰⁵

To avoid mercury toxicity, considering your fish intake is important.

Mercury and Seafood: Eating Guide

Highest Mercury (Avoid eating)

Mackerel (King), Marlin, Orange Roughy, Shark, Tilefish

High Mercury (Eat only three servings or less per month)

Bluefish, Grouper, Sea Bass (Chilean), Tuna (Yellowfin, Canned Albacore)

Moderate Mercury (Eat six servings or less per month)

Bass (Striped, Black), Carp, Cod (Alaskan), Croaker (White Pacific),

Halibut (Atlantic, Pacific), Lobster, Mahi Mahi, Perch (Freshwater),

Sablefish, Sea Trout, Snapper, Tuna (Canned Chunk Light, Skipjack)

Least Mercury

Anchovies, Butterfish, Clam, Crab (Domestic), Croaker (Atlantic),

Flounder, Hake, Herring, Mullet, Oyster, Plaice, Pollock, Salmon, Sardine,

Scallop, Shrimp, Sole (Pacific), Tilapia, Trout (Freshwater), Whiting

Source: The Natural Resources Defense Council (based on FDA and EPA data). NRDC. org. www.nrdc.org/health/effects/mercury/walletcard.PDF.

In my lab testing, I have primarily found mercury in fish—and shellfish-derived food products, including those harvested from the North Atlantic region. Beware of high mercury content in pet food treats derived from fish, where I’ve spotted some products containing more than 1,000 ppb mercury (1 ppm).

THE SYSTEMIC, APOCALYPTIC POLLUTION OF THE WORLD’S OCEANS

Approximately ten years ago, Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen decided to sail from Melbourne, Australia, to Osaka, Japan, then on to San Francisco, California. In a 2013 interview with the Newcastle Herald, Macfadyen recalled how the ocean was teeming with life: sounds of sea birds and an abundance of fish to catch with a simple bait and line.¹

Expecting a similar journey, Macfadyen recently decided to redo the trip only to find a very different ocean waiting for him. For 3,000 nautical miles, Macfadyen said he saw very few signs of life. He said there were hardly any fish to catch. A creepy quiet filled the air where the noise of sea birds should have been. In fact, the only sound consistently heard amid the lapping ocean waves was that of garbage hitting the hull of his boat. Macfadyen was sailing through the aftermath of the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that hit the Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant at Fukushima, Japan, in 2011. “The wave came in over the land, picked up an unbelievable load of stuff and carried it out to sea. And it’s still out there, everywhere you look,” Macfadyen said. He also noted that something in the water near Japan reacted to his boat’s bright yellow paint job, causing the craft to lose its sheen in what he described as a “strange and unprecedented way.”

When he finished his voyage, Macfadyen declared it official: “The ocean is broken.”

To be fair, even though an estimated 25 tons of debris were said to have been swept out into the Pacific Ocean after the tsunami hit,² the sea was already in deep trouble way before the Fukushima earthquake.

Ever heard of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch? Right now as you read this, an island twice the size of America comprised entirely of rubbish—everything from water bottles to used syringes to broken boats and storm-captured houses—all kept together by swirling currents is floating out in the Pacific Ocean.³ In fact, five garbage patches are perpetually accruing trash out in the subtropical oceans between the continents. An Australian research team investigating the ocean garbage dumps concluded, “humans have put so much plastic into our planet’s oceans that even if everyone in the world stopped putting garbage in the ocean today, giant garbage patches would continue to grow for hundreds of years.”⁴ And that was before the Fukushima earthquake and tsunami hit, with its 25 tons of debris.

Until it was banned by the U.S. Congress in 1988, America used the ocean as a giant toilet—literally. That is, thousands upon thousands of tons of processed municipal sewage were regularly dumped into the ocean for decades. The last 400 tons were dumped by New York City in 1992.⁵ Too many oil spills have occurred over the years . . . so many that the well-known 1989 Exxon-Valdez spill and the BP oil spill in 2010 do not even make the “top ten worst” list (for the record, according to Popular Mechanics, the worst oil spill in history happened during the first Gulf War, when somewhere between 240 and 336 million gallons of oil were purposefully dumped into the Persian Gulf by Iraqi forces attempting to slow American troops as they fled Kuwait).⁶

Before all that, the ocean was used as a testing ground for America’s atomic bomb development at the Bikini Atoll islands, where twenty-three surface and subsurface nuclear devices were detonated between 1946 and 1958.⁷ In addition, decades of toxic runoff from industrial pollution—everything from agriculture to mining—has allowed all manner of noxious chemicals and heavy metals to seep into the ocean. In the wake of the 2011 Fukushima disaster, the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) that owns the crippled Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant has admitted that some 400 tons of irradiated groundwater is continually being dumped into the plant’s harbor in the Pacific Ocean every single day.⁸ Somehow, though, TEPCO claims the radioactive water is magically confined to the 0.3 square kilometers (0.12 square miles) within the bay in front of the nuclear plant—a claim scientists have outright called “silly.”⁹

This puts a whole new perspective on eating so-called “bottom feeders” like shrimp, crabs, and other shellfish that have subsisted off of ocean waste even before the ocean became as filthy and polluted as it is today. Fish in general, especially larger fish that live longer, such as tuna and shark, tend to accumulate toxic heavy metals. The primary pathway to mercury exposure in most humans is through eating these fish. Studies have also shown that bluefin tuna have been able to carry poisonous, radioactive cesium 134, with a half-life of a little over two years, and cesium 137, with a half-life of a little over thirty years, all the way from Japan to the United States—cesium that is traceable to Fukushima.¹⁰

It has long been common knowledge that seaweed is an efficient metal ion absorber as well; in fact, European researchers in 2005 demonstrated the use of seaweed as a way to decontaminate heavy metals such as cadmium and zinc from toxic water runoff continuing to drain from old metal mines.¹¹ This fact hasn’t stopped the commercialization of several types of seaweed for human consumption, promoted as a “healthy” snack food option before any real testing was done on the heavy metals accumulated in them. For example, a 2009 analysis of six different edible seaweed products from Spain showed that all contained levels of toxic cadmium exceeding French regulations and one type contained particularly high levels of total and inorganic arsenic.¹²

Studies have also shown that marine life experiences stress from continued pollution exposure, exhibiting physiological symptoms such as thinned stomach linings and ulcers, high blood glucose levels, decreased hormone levels, and weight loss.¹³ Just imagine what it does to humans who consume those stressed, sickened creatures.

In short, the sea has been used as a gigantic garbage can for hundreds of years, and now, nearly everything in the ocean is polluted. Simply put, whatever goes into the ocean goes into the food chain there, where it will ultimately wind up in some form or fashion on someone’s dinner plate.

Dietary defense against mercury in sushi, fish, and other foods

Although mercury is present in alarmingly high concentrations in sushi and fish, my research into the Metals Capturing Capacity of foods and dietary supplements has revealed a surprisingly positive finding: Many foods naturally bind with and “capture” dietary mercury during digestion, surviving the “acid bath” of the stomach and likely preventing the mercury from being absorbed through intestinal walls.

In fact, mercury is the easiest of all heavy metals to capture in this fashion, and seaweeds tend to have very high efficiency in capturing free mercury during digestion. Even the nori seaweed often used in sushi is able to capture around 85 percent of dietary mercury, according to my lab tests. Other seaweeds are more effective, however. One brand of dulse seaweed, for example, showed an ability to capture 99 percent of dietary mercury.

In the lab, mercury is well known as a “sticky” element that sticks to everything, including sample tubing on laboratory equipment. This stickiness makes mercury easy to capture in the gastrointestinal tract using natural foods that contain insoluble fibers, such as fruits and vegetables.

Nearly all whole foods containing natural fibers show some affinity for capturing elemental mercury, including cereals and fruits. Strawberries and camu camu were the most effective fruits for this purpose, and nearly all grass powders (such as alfalfa grass powder) and chlorella superfood supplements showed high affinity for mercury.

The “Metals Defense” formula I developed at the lab captures nearly 100 percent of elemental mercury, leaving almost no mercury available for absorption during digestion. (See the full laboratory details on this formula at www.heavymetalsdefense.com.)

Methyl- versus ethylmercury

Both ethyl- and methylmercury are organic mercury. Organic mercury readily builds up in the environment. While some mercury apologists claim that ethylmercury is not harmful (they ridiculously compare it to ethyl alcohol), ethylmercury is actually far more harmful than methylmercury once it enters your body’s cells. As stated in the abstract of a published study entitled “Toxicity of ethylmercury (and Thimerosal): a comparison with methylmercury”:

EtHg’s [ethylmercury] toxicity profile is different from that of meHg [methylmercury], leading to different exposure and toxicity risks. Therefore, in real-life scenarios, a simultaneous exposure to both etHg and meHg might result in enhanced neurotoxic effects in developing mammals. However, our knowledge on this subject is still incomplete, and studies are required to address the predictability of the additive or synergic toxicological effects of etHg and meHg (or other neurotoxicants). ¹⁰⁶

Another study entitled “Thimerosal-Derived Ethylmercury Is a Mitochondrial Toxin in Human Astrocytes: Possible Role of Fenton Chemistry in the Oxidation and Breakage of mtDNA” explains how ethylmercury damages mitochondria:

We find that ethylmercury not only inhibits mitochondrial respiration leading to a drop in the steady state membrane potential, but also concurrent with these phenomena increases the formation of superoxide, hydrogen peroxide, and Fenton/Haber-Weiss generated hydroxyl radical. These oxidants increase the levels of cellular aldehyde/ketones. Additionally, we find a five-fold increase in the levels of oxidant damaged mitochondrial DNA bases and increases in the levels of mtDNA nicks and blunt-ended breaks.¹⁰⁷

Because the oceans are polluted with it, methylmercury is typically found in fish and shellfish. The larger the fish and the longer the lifespan, the more mercury is accumulated; the most contaminated include tuna, swordfish, king mackerel, and shark. The EPA warns that nearly all fish are tainted with at least trace amounts of mercury. Some of the more health-conscious grocery stores even include warnings on store shelves about methylmercury in tuna, and many recommendations caution people from eating tuna more than once a week (pregnant women are cautioned to eat it sparingly, if at all).

MINAMATA DISEASE: MERCURY POISONING VIA INDUSTRIAL POLLUTION IN JAPAN

The most significant mass acute mercury poisoning in recent history was seen in cases of Minamata disease in Japan, officially attributed to industrial contamination. Wastewater dumped into Minamata Bay containing high levels of inorganic mercury was converted to methylmercury through biological processes, bioaccumulated up the food chain, and ingested in large quantities by local residents.

In the short term, about one hundred people were killed by intense industrial-based mercury poisoning. Decades later, thousands of people from the region had been officially diagnosed with Minamata disease, while over one thousand of those diagnosed have died from the effects of mercury poisoning since the 1950s.¹

Mercury’s debilitating effects include sensory damage, muscle weakness, paralysis, coma, and possible death. The Chisso Corporation, responsible for the pollution, has paid out more than $80 million in damages to tens of thousands of affected people and has been ordered to clean up the sources of waste.²

Meanwhile, numerous other sources of toxic mercury pollution remain barely noticed and under-regulated.

Thimerosal in vaccines

The ethylmercury preservative thimerosal is found in personal care products like lotions, cosmetics, and contact lens solution; over-the-counter medications including some nasal and throat sprays; and in some vaccines including many widely available flu shots officially recommended to pregnant women. Because a vaccination is injected directly into the bloodstream, all of the ingredients are allowed to bypass the digestive tract where many of the body’s natural defenses are located.

According to the state of Wisconsin’s Department of Natural Resources, “Vaccines with 1:10,000 or 0.01 percent thimerosal have about 50 mg/L mercury, which exceeds the 0.2 mg/L hazardous waste toxicity characteristic regulatory level for mercury.” This means that discarded vaccines containing the preservative may need to be officially handled as a hazardous waste per state and federal standards.¹⁰⁸ The Environmental Working Group (EWG) has listed thimerosal as a 10, or high hazard, on the organization’s health hazard scale—the highest ranking an ingredient can receive.¹⁰⁹ The CDC continues to assert that thimerosal in vaccines is safe and denies links to adverse health effects including autism on the insistence that ethylmercury is much less dangerous than methylmercury.

Shorter half-life for ethylmercury

Part of this argument rests on the observation that ethylmercury has a shorter half-life in the blood, but some researchers have advised caution in making ethylmercury safety determinations based on this criterion. A comparative ethyl- to methylmercury toxicology study found little difference between the neurotoxicities of either compound, and detected concentrations of inorganic mercury in treated rats was higher after an ethylmercury dose.¹¹⁰ Further research corroborated these findings.

A 2005 study assessing human ethylmercury risk noted that much higher levels of inorganic mercury were found in the brain than with methylmercury, where it remains much longer than organic mercury at a half-life of more than a year. The author cautioned that neurotoxic potential in developing brains exposed to inorganic mercury “are unknown” and that thimerosal risk assessments based on blood mercury measurements alone may be invalid and require further research.¹¹¹ Researchers reviewing medical literature in combination with U.S. government data have concluded that thimerosal induces autism and related its symptoms in some children who suffer the effects of mercury poisoning due to the preservative.¹¹²

Mercury in high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS)

High-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) is a highly processed sweetener made primarily from corn and found in a plethora of food and beverages on grocery store shelves. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service estimated in 2011 that the average consumer per capita consumes nearly 42 pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per year.¹¹³ Not one, but two studies in 2009 found that HFCS commercially produced in America and American-bought HFCS products were tainted with mercury.

The first study published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health found that, of twenty samples collected and analyzed from three different manufacturers, nine, or 45 percent, came back tainted with mercury.¹¹⁴ The second study by watchdog group Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP) purchased fifty-five food items from popular brands off grocery store shelves in the fall of 2008—items in which HFCS was the first or second principal ingredient—and detected mercury in nearly a third of them.¹¹⁵ The contamination may have been due to the fact that mercury cells are still used in the production of caustic soda, an ingredient used to make HFCS.

The HFCS-mercury plot thickens, however. Online news outlet Grist reported that the lead researcher in the Environmental Health study, Renee Dufault, previously worked as an FDA researcher. Dufault had apparently turned over the information contained in her HFCS-mercury study to the agency back in 2005, but the FDA reportedly sat on it and did nothing, so Dufault went public with it after she retired in 2008.¹¹⁶

A breakthrough in converting dextrose to fructose with the use of a microbial enzyme in 1957 set the stage for a commercially viable process to produce what became known as high-fructose corn syrup. The development was pursued by the Clinton Corn Processing Company, which was later acquired by Archer Daniels Midland in 1982.

The Clinton Corn Processing Company’s work in the mid-1960s with the Japanese Agency of Industrial Science and Technology led to the discovery of HFCS in 1966 by Dr. Yoshiyuki Takasaki, who was granted a patent on the substance in 1971 alongside development of the sugar substitute’s commercialization.^117,118

HFCS is created through a complex process in which cornstarch undergoes acid hydrolysis and becomes dextrose,¹¹⁹ the glucose sugar produced from corn. A secondary process uses the enzyme glucose isomerase to convert glucose into fructose.

Clinton Corn created different formulas of HFCS, including a 42 percent fructose concoction that contains 58 percent glucose, which is frequently used to sweeten solid foods, as well as a purified 90 percent fructose formula (with only 10 percent glucose) that is rarely used directly. Instead, the 42 percent and 90 percent fructose formulas are blended to create a high-fructose corn syrup that is 55 percent fructose and 42 percent glucose (or alternately 45 percent glucose and 52 percent fructose).¹²⁰ This liquid corn-derived 55 percent fructose variety is the most widely consumed, typically used to sweeten sodas, fruit drinks, and more. By comparison, sucrose, or table sugar, has 50 percent fructose and 50 percent glucose.

How this chemical corn derivative became a staple of the American diet is rather interesting.

Initial attempts to get corn syrup widely dispersed into the U.S. food supply in the 1970s didn’t really take off because sugar was so cheap and abundant at the time. However, this changed, as U.S.-imposed tariffs decreased sugar imports throughout the 1970s and early 1980s, making sugar significantly more expensive in America than in other parts of the world.^121,122,123

The surface explanation for these tariffs was to protect American sugar farmers; behind the scenes, however, Big Agra interests had lobbied for the policy to promote what would become a new source of sugar—derived from corn—which soon emerged as a popular commodity that was sold at a price significantly cheaper than cane sugar or beet sugar.¹²⁴

Archer Daniels Midland opened the first large-scale plant in 1978 (before they acquired the Clinton Corn Processing Company) to produce 90 percent HFCS and 55 percent HFCS. By January 1980, Coca-Cola began allowing high-fructose corn syrup to be used as a sweetener at 50 percent levels with regular sugar; Pepsi Cola followed suit by 1983.¹²⁵ By November 1984, both major soft drink brands had approved full sweetening with HFCS, and HFCS quickly captured 42 percent of the sweetener market. The rising dominance of HFCS allowed it to maintain commercial prices similar to sugar until the 1990s.¹²⁶

For the past several decades, the U.S. government has paid subsidies to American farmers to grow tons of corn (much of which—nearly 90 percent—is genetically modified) and shifted domestic agricultural policy to maximize corn crops. This made high-fructose corn syrup and other corn-derived processed ingredients much cheaper for industrial food manufacturers to use.

Today, HFCS is nearly ubiquitous on American grocery store shelves. It can be found in a wide range of items, including candy, ice cream, bread, chips, snacks, soups, soft drinks, fruit drinks and other beverages, condiments, jellies, deli meats, and much, much more.

HFCS is not just a cheaper sweetener than sugar, but also useful in stabilizing and extending the shelf lives of many products.¹²⁷ Moreover, it was not only used to replace sugar, but also infused in new recipes. It became so pervasive, often lurking in unexpected foods, that the TIME writer Lisa McLaughlin commented in 2008, “unless you’re making a concerted effort to avoid it, it’s pretty difficult to consume high-fructose corn syrup in moderation.”¹²⁸

The average American consumes 12 teaspoons of HFCS per day, but for many (and especially children and teenagers who crave sweets), consumption can frequent 80 percent above this average amount.¹²⁹ By 2004, about 8 percent of total calories consumed by the average American came from high-fructose corn syrup.¹³⁰ Overall, Americans consume about fifty to sixty pounds of high-fructose corn syrup per capita—an insane amount.

HFCS has been linked in scientific research to obesity, diabetes, heart disease, fatty liver, and other contributors of bad health and early death.

A 2004 study linking high-fructose corn syrup to the rising obesity epidemic shocked the market and national consciousness. It asserted that the increased consumption of HFCS since 1970, which increased more than 1,000 percent by 1990, mirrored the rapid increase of obesity in America. The study argued that HFCS’s abundant fructose sugar promotes new fats, and its interaction with insulin and leptin prevents appetite regulation and encourages the consumption of more and more calories.¹³¹

In experimental conditions, another study also found that consumption of the sugar alternative damaged metabolism, contributing to disease, even when weight gain did not take place, while it also contributed toward hypertension and cardiovascular disease.¹³²

As the biggest dietary source of fructose, HFCS also promotes insulin resistance and increasing uric acid levels, which contribute to metabolic dysfunction and type 2 diabetes.^133,134

Further, researchers in 2008 found a correlation between high fructose consumption and liver scarring in nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), which is present in nearly a third of American adults.^135,136

Of course, sucrose (table sugar) is also very detrimental to health.^137,138 While excess intake of both can contribute toward weight gain, studies found that rats fed fewer calories of HFCS (at 8 percent) gained more weight than those eating sucrose (at 10 percent).¹³⁹

In both cases—in ordinary sugar and high-fructose corn syrup—it is the fructose rather than the glucose that is spiking insulin and damaging the body.¹⁴⁰ Though glucose theoretically counterbalances fructose, studies have found that both HFCS (55) and sucrose, which have both glucose and fructose in close-to-equal proportions, act on the body almost exactly like pure fructose, which is rarely used in food production.^141,142

The body’s response to highly refined liquid sugars fails to satiate appetites and contributes toward eating more.¹⁴³ But the relative inexpensiveness of high-fructose corn syrup, in contrast to the other two, allowed food manufacturers to indiscriminately increase package sizes and amounts of calories. Cane sugar was relatively expensive and statistically less likely to become an overindulgence.

As consumers added high-fructose corn syrup to their diet for the first time, they increased total sweet calories on top of increasingly already high added-sugar intake.¹⁴⁴ Bottom line, eating more sweet calories and more calories overall went hand in hand with the age of cheap and overabundant high-fructose corn syrup. The rise in HFCS intake outpaced that of any other food during this period.¹⁴⁵

Of course, it’s worth keeping in mind that high-fructose corn syrup is not naturally occurring, nor is it easily made. It requires sophisticated industrial-scale processing with multiple transformations of the base corn raw material.

Technically, it is possible to create this concoction at home, but it requires unique and expensive ingredients. Preparing HFCS takes significantly more effort than your average cookbook recipe.

Just boil water, add a drop of sulfuric acid, heat to 140 degrees Fahrenheit, reduce, and add the corn to soak overnight. The next day, add a teaspoon of alpha-amylase, stir until viscous and thin, cool to room temperature, add a teaspoon of glucose-amylase, and pour the mixture into a cheesecloth-lined bowl. Sprinkle on a teaspoon of xylose and strain the resultant slurry through the cloth. Reheat back to 140 degrees, add some lab-created glucose isomerase (genetically modified from the streptomyces rubiginosus bacterium) and boil; then cool and enjoy!¹⁴⁶

Beyond the impact that high-fructose corn syrup has on American waistlines, Western fructose consumption, and the food market, this bittersweet foodstuff is adding very harmful and very hidden food additives as well.

HFCS is everywhere, but most people who eat it never even consider that it could be contaminated with toxic mercury.

Chlor-alkali plants produce chlorine and caustic soda using something called mercury cell technology. Even though it has been well-known for hundreds of years that mercury is a poison, and more energy-efficient, mercury-free technologies exist, approximately fifty mercury cell chlor-alkali plants are still in operation worldwide.¹⁴⁷ As of 2009, eight such plants operated in the United States. Each plant’s cells can contain as much as 448,000 pounds of mercury, and unaccounted-for mercury losses get reported to the EPA every year.

Aside from all that toxic mercury poisoning the air, water, and soil, it also directly contaminates the food supply in so many of the products containing HFCS. How? Caustic soda is a main ingredient in the corn conversion process used to turn corn into HFCS. Four of the big plants that manufacture HFCS in the United States still use mercury cell technology to do it.

Two studies came out in 2009 exposing mercury-tainted products containing HFCS. First, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy published “Not So Sweet: Missing Mercury and High-Fructose Corn Syrup” following an investigation of mercury content in fifty-five foods and beverages from popular brands including Kraft, Hershey’s, Smucker’s, and Quaker. The sampled products included HFCS as the first or second most predominant ingredient. All told, mercury was detected in nearly one-third of the fifty-five products tested.¹⁴⁸

That same year, Dufault et al. (2009) published a paper in Environmental Health in which twenty samples of HFCS from three different U.S. plants were tested for the presence of mercury. Of the twenty samples, nine were contaminated with detectable levels of mercury (≥0.005 µg/g), ranging from 0.012 to 0.570 µg/g HFCS.¹⁴⁹

As consumption of this relatively new sweetener remained historically high, and with the presence of mercury at concerning levels in a wide array of foods containing HFCS, the regular consumption of these foods by children and adolescents grew in significance.¹⁵⁰

The Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy and Center for Science in the Public Interest highlighted the high consumption of sodas and other drinks containing HFCS by these vulnerable and developing members of society.¹⁵¹ It found that some 20 percent of children one to two years old drank sodas, while half of children ages six to eleven consumed an average of 15 ounces of soda per day. Teenagers who drink soda tossed back three or more high-fructose beverages per day on average.¹⁵²

Hopefully, this is beginning to change.

HFCS consumption climbed steadily from the early 1980s through 2000, but sales slumped a significant 11 percent from 2003 to 2008 as concerns about its contribution to obesity and other issues reverberated in the media, even as sugar consumption surged about 7 percent over the same period. The term “high-fructose corn syrup” gained a definite negative connotation.¹⁵³

On top of lobbying efforts, the Corn Refiners Association, an industry organization of which Archer Daniels Midland is a key member, launched the website SweetSurprise.com as a media relations ploy to debunk “myths” about HFCS and clarify “the facts about high-fructose corn syrup.”¹⁵⁴

It also ran well-funded TV advertising starting in 2008 sticking up for the industry’s favorite sweetener and asserting that “sugar is sugar,” which prompted a lawsuit by sugar producers claiming false advertising in 2011.¹⁵⁵ The FDA also demanded the corn industry stop using the term “corn sugar” without approval.¹⁵⁶

In 2012, the FDA rejected a petition filed by the Corn Refiners Association in 2010 to change the name of high-fructose corn syrup to “corn sugar” for the purposes of food labeling and advertising. The Corn Refiners Association claims that it wanted the name change to “educate consumers,” the majority of whom are “confused about HFCS.”¹⁵⁷

What seems perfectly clear is that most consumers in Western culture, and increasingly many people in the developing world, have adjusted to drinking and eating far too much fructose—both from high-fructose corn syrup and from ordinary table sugar. Americans in particular rode a wave of cheap corn, subsidized by the taxpayer, which was added to foods across the spectrum. While it sweetened the deal on fast and easy calories, tasty snacks, and sugary drinks, that wave has brought with it a severe backlash of obesity, with more people than ever being overweight and unwittingly following at-risk lifestyles.

Strategies for chelation and removal of mercury

Avoiding or limiting fish intake, particularly of those higher up the food chain and more inclined to accumulate harmful mercury, is one way to limit exposure to this toxin, but the extensive presence of it in the environment due to modern industrial practices means that no one can reasonably avoid it altogether.

Pregnant mothers and young children should not eat tuna or other large fish, and adults should eat no more than a few servings per month. Moreover, health-conscious individuals should minimize or eliminate their intake of many common processed ingredients, including high-fructose corn syrup.

For those who choose to consume fish on a regular basis, a defensive strategy against mercury is crucial for self-protection.

Fortunately, several essential nutrients, which can be obtained from foods or by vitamin supplementation, play an important role in defusing the effects of mercury. This means you can, to some extent, eat your way to natural mercury elimination. The original research I have conducted at the Natural News Forensic Food Lab shows that fresh, raw strawberries, when eaten in conjunction with mercury-tainted meals, bind with and capture over 90 percent of dietary mercury during digestion, effectively “locking up” the mercury in fibers that pass through the body undigested.¹⁵⁸

The use of detoxifying foods, nutrients, and activities that support the elimination of heavy metals may be necessary for those concerned about the buildup of significantly high levels. Regular ongoing, long-term detox efforts to encourage the elimination of toxins through sweat and excretion may be among the safest and most effective methods. Chelation has proven to be effective as well but should only be pursued under the direction of qualified, licensed chelation practitioners with significant experience in the art.

Outside the body, several well-known compounds demonstrate strong affinity for mercury, including activated carbon charcoal, sulfur, and selenium. Activated charcoal—based around oxygen-treated carbon—is used widely to effectively remove toxins (and other materials) in a vast array of potential bodily infiltrators due to its sizable surface area.¹⁵⁹ Air and water filters, as well as oral consumption, are used to administer carbon as a purifier element. Of course, charcoal has long been used to intervene in cases of poisonings and drug overdoses of all kinds.

Many important sulfur compounds have a particularly strong affinity for binding with mercury. These include sulfhydryl-containing thiols, which attract many heavy metal ions—including mercury, cadmium, lead, chromium, zinc, and arsenite—and allow chelation from the body through metabolic pathways.¹⁶⁰ Thiol solutions have also been used successfully to remove mercury from scrubber tanks in coal-fired power plants.¹⁶¹ Important sulfhydryl compounds in various bodily processes involving antioxidant protection and DNA transcription include the sulfur-containing amino acids cystine, cysteine, methionine, and taurine.^162,163

Mercury also binds to glutathione, perhaps the most important form of cysteine in the body, which some doctors have referred to as “the mother of all antioxidants,” allowing for significant heavy metal removal.¹⁶⁴ Glutathione, which regenerates other oxidated antioxidants such as vitamins C and E, is critical to a fully functioning, healthy immune system. Whey protein has been identified as an important dietary source of glutamine, the primary precursor to glutathione.¹⁶⁵

Both cysteine and glutathione are effective at detoxifying heavy metals but are also depleted by heavy metals’ presence and may require supplementation. Although normally recycled in the body, glutathione becomes depleted when toxic loads become too great, rendering a person unable to rid their body of toxins and opening them up to free radical damage, illness, infections, and cancer. Selenium, by the way, is a necessary dietary mineral for glutathione production. Thus, maintaining proper levels of selenium through a well-balanced diet remains imperative to maintaining proper health, as well as in reducing heavy metal toxicity.

Selenium and mercury: a highly specific and significant relationship

Mercury’s binding properties with selenium are also highly significant, as this essential nutrient can block heavy metal bioavailability and reduce toxicity. However, in turn, mercury can deplete selenium, making it insoluble and reducing its protective abilities as an antioxidant, opening the body up to free radical attack.

Mercury’s ability to cross the blood–brain and placental barriers allows it to deplete important stores of selenium components located there, which are essential to critical bodily functions. Mercury’s powerful affinity for this element disrupts the metabolic processes of selenocysteine, and by binding into mercury selenides, it makes them unavailable for protein synthesis.¹⁶⁶

Selenium is naturally absorbed by most foods when present in soils. While many people’s diets are deficient in selenium, too much, if repeatedly ingested at sustained high levels, can also be damaging. Selenium is available in vitamin supplements as selenium methionine and is a significant nutrient in several dietary sources, which have known antagonistic effects with mercury.¹⁶⁷

Brazil nuts are known for yielding the highest serving of food-based selenium, with more than 767 percent the established daily value (DV) in just a single one-ounce serving. The actual selenium content in the harvested nuts, of course, depends on the availability of selenium in the soil. So concentrations in such nuts may vary widely. However, many warn against eating more than one or two of these nuts per day on a regular basis, due to concerns about the possibilities of selenium toxicity (though high levels of selenium must accumulate over time before any adverse effects could occur). Numerous seeds including sunflower, chia, and others contain significant levels of selenium, as do many commonly consumed meats, though none of them reach the concentrations of Brazil nuts.¹⁶⁸

Ironically, tuna fish and oysters, known for their high mercury content, are the next largest food-based sources of selenium, with some researchers demonstrating the ability of the selenium inside these seafoods to bind with mercury and make both unavailable for bioabsorption, though the ratio between the two elements is highly relevant to the risk of mercury exposure.¹⁶⁹ Whether the mercury is organic or inorganic is relevant as well; methylmercury irreversibly blocks selenium-related enzymes from functioning correctly.

Registered pharmacist and nutritionist Barbara Mendez notes that even low-level mercury poisoning can cause a number of symptoms that might easily be mistaken for other health issues, including rashes, inflamed gums, mood disturbances, insomnia, anxiety, and depression.¹⁷⁰ Mendez recommends a diet that helps optimize liver function, including garlic, cilantro, Brazil nuts, pumpkin seeds, and ground flaxseed. In studies, garlic has been effective against methylmercury-induced cytotoxic (toxic to living cells) effects.¹⁷¹

The therapeutic compounds BAL, DMPS, and DMSA have all been shown to chelate mercury. Researchers at the University of Lisbon’s Research Institute for Medicines and Pharmaceutical Sciences found selenite helped detoxify cells and make these chelators more effective.¹⁷²

Researchers who exposed mice to mercuric chloride pesticide were able to ward off oxidative stress and liver cell damage using propolis, the resinous botanical mixture honey bees mix with their beeswax to glue their hives together. A treatment for inflammatory disease and infections, propolis was found to protect antioxidant defenses against mercury poisoning in the mice.¹⁷³

There are possibilities for mitigating the harm imposed by mercury-based pesticides as well as the environmental pollution imposed by industrial contamination, though concerned individuals should focus on personal strategies to limit their exposure.