Heavy Metal

[Guest guest]

Good one, that shows no matter the age, mercury is toxic and chelation is needed. http://www.nbc4.tv/newslinks/5874317/detail.html Heavy Metal POSTED: 7:01 pm PST January 5, 2006 UPDATED: 6:18 am PST January 6, 2006 LOS ANGELES -- In the health-conscious Southland, sushi is a staple, and something many of us believe keeps us hardy in mind and body. But there is emerging evidence, some of it proven, some of it anecdotal, that suggests eating sushi and other fish products may load us up with toxic heavy metals. NBC4's Mack has a cautionary tale. KELLY MACK: Fish. It's supposed to be one of the healthiest foods we consume. But could high

levels of mercury in fish, particularly tuna, cause a toxic buildup of the metal in our bodies? Yes, says Matt Mahowald, a respected nutritionist and fitness expert. He claims it happened to him. MATT MAHOWALD, NUTRITIONIST: I was eating canned tuna fish two and three times a day and sushi five or six times a week. KELLY MACK: Matt says the first symptoms started about 18 months ago. MAHOWALD: I found as I was training in the gym, I was more and more fatigued. Then I started having heart arrhythmias. KELLY MACK: Those irregular heartbeats sent Matt to the emergency room and a long list of doctors, but the doctors could find nothing. He finally insisted on running a test to determine the levels of toxic metals in his body, and the results shocked him. A normal mercury reading in the urine would be a "3." Matt's mercury level was "50." Matt persuaded several of his clients, who also had troublesome symptoms, to get

tested for elevated mercury levels. One was 30-year-old Feco. BRANDON FECO: I started getting sick a lot, every three weeks I'd get a cold, but it would put me in bed for two days. KELLY MACK: Turns out Feco's mercury level was almost 20 times the norm. He too was an inveterate fish eater -- a fact that may help explain the toxicity, according to Dr. Karima Hirani, an expert on mercury poisoning. KARIMA HIRANI, MERCURY POISONING EXPERT: I have seen in my practice several patients who primarily eat seafood, as their main source of protein. It's their primary source of mercury exposure. KELLY MACK: The Food and Drug Administration issued an advisory in March 2004 warning pregnant women not to eat any shark, swordfish, king mackerel or tilefish because of high mercury levels. It also recommended eating no more than 12 ounces of canned tuna or six ounces of "white" albacore tuna every week. State health agencies have

issued similar warnings. But most scientific studies about mercury in fish focus on the danger to high-risk groups like children and pregnant women, with little guidance for people like Matt or . BRANDON FECO: Nobody could give me any answers. MAHOWALD: I'm really looking to the medical community to really step up and say this is a problem. KELLY MACK: Both Matt and are getting "chelation" treatment. HIRANI: The chelating agent goes into the tissues, binds with the heavy metal likes mercury, makes it soluble, so, it can be excreted out. KELLY MACK: And they're avoiding fish. Even if you're not a pregnant woman, you might want to check out the FDA advisories about the danger of mercury-laden fish to unborn children and nursing mothers. They provide perhaps the only authoritative guidelines on how much mercury is safe in seafood.

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