Heavy metals are a very common but overlook culprit in many chronic health conditions. The main heavy metals we find on testing are mercury, lead, aluminum and cadmium, and each has its own toxic effect on the body systems. They can even affect your mental well-being, as mercury has been associated with depression, lead with learning disabilities in children, and aluminum with Alzheimer’s disease.
Metals harm the body in a number of ways. They can act as cell poisons directly. They can displace necessary nutrients, especially minerals, then they disrupt enzyme reactions by taking up the binding site reserved for the mineral, and they can stored in vital organs, therefore disrupting their normal functions.
Just as we need air, water, sunlight and the appropriate nutrients to survive, we also need to be able to eliminate environmental toxins and metabolic wastes. The accumulations of toxins throughout various bodily tissues may adversely affect the body’s capacity for health and well-being.
The more toxic one’s body gets, the harder it is to eliminate them through the liver, kidneys, colon, lymph, lungs and skin. This is our own “waste management system” designed by nature to help process the toxins from the environment and the ones we make from metabolic processes. Lack of proper biochemical balance may be a contributing cause in the loss of the body’s natural defense against and resistance to the absorption of toxins, as well as its natural ability to adequately rid itself of them. It becomes a vicious cycle and one that is particularly difficult to combat in our modern society, for at every turn, it seems, the body is exposed to substances potentially toxic and detrimental to health.
Exposure to environmental pollutants contaminating our food, air and water, along with the consumption of over processed foods, challenges the body’s capacity for maintaining balance and puts considerable strain on the body’s organs of detoxifications and elimination. Another factor that comes into play is genetics. We’re finding in practice that many people, especially the ones with chronic degenerative or autoimmune diseases, have the genes that support detoxification “switched off.” Especially in this case you don’t want to start a detoxification process on your own.
Our heavy metal detoxification program begins by laboratory testing to determine what metals you have, and just as importantly, are your body’s natural detoxification systems impaired and how to support them.
While you are on the detox, we monitor test metals at appropriate intervals, and help you optimize your nutrition, lifestyle and overall health so you can avoid re-introducing toxins and get rid of them if you do.