Originally Posted by Marlene

There's no way to escape mercury. We all have it to some level as well as other metals/toxins from the environment. John did a heavy metal challenge. He collected his urine for 24 hour and they assessed it for heavy metals. He was in the normal range for all heavy metals. He then took a chelator, repeated the 24 hour urine collection and the level of lead excreted was high and mercury was elevated. So a lot depends on what kind of testing you are looking at. His blood serum tests and red cell analysis for heavy metals were normal also. The question is....are these levels effecting his health. There are those who say absolutely and others say kind of, while others say absolutely not. I say it plays a role in your overall health and the more you can get rid of, the better you'll be.

Everyone has toxic burden and when your body can no longer handle detoxing or neutralizing metals, chemicals, etc, they then get stored in the fat and organs and stay there. And some of us have a better detox pathways than others. If yours is in good shape, then you will deal with eliminating them better. If not, then the system breaksdown and effects your health.

Dr. Shari Rodgers has written quite a bit on our toxic living and the impacts on our health. You may want to google her.

Also, if you have any metal fillings in your mouth, then they contain mercury.

Regarding the Hair Analysis....Mrs D is so right....you need a really good doc to interpret it and you should never base supplementation/detoxing based solely upon a hair analysis test. Case in point is John again. He had his hair analyzed and his iron showed up as normal at a time when he had a very significant iron overload issue from many red cell transfusion. The high iron will mess with zinc/copper results also. Another example....high levels of zinc in the hair can indicate a vitamin D shortage because zinc will dump into the hair and not because you have too much zinc.

Marlene