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I've had cause to research the topic of lead (and other metals) toxicity quite extensively. A key factor seems to be the body's propensity to produce metalloth

I've had cause to research the topic of lead (and other metals) toxicity quite extensively. A key factor seems to be the body's propensity to produce metallothionein [1], proteins that bind metallic compounds in the body, either to metabolise and utilise them (in the case of beneficial metals like zinc, copper, iron, selenium etc), or to remove them (in the case of toxic metals like lead, mercury, aluminium, cadmium etc). This propensity seems to be determined by genetic predisposition and/or genetic expression in response to environmental stimuli. This is why, in a group of people subjected to similar levels of environmental lead exposure (e.g., soldiers in the same military unit, children in the same town with contaminated water), only some will exhibit symptoms. Here's my own experience: I have not done any military service as an adult, nor used firearms more than a handful of times. (I participated in army cadets in high school but it was little more than boy-scout training - camping, survival skills, hiking, etc). But I did spend a few years in my late teens/early 20s working in an electronics factory soldering circuit boards. I grew up in the last few years of leaded car fuel still being commonplace. I also grew up in an old house that may (or may not) have had lead water pipes. For much of my life, I've experienced a complex set of vague, but moderately debilitating symptoms. Nothing apparently life-threatening, but always frustrating and often painful. In childhood it manifested as respiratory problems, learning/cognition difficulties (including modest academic and sporting performance even though I tried hard at both and was often assessed as being of high natural ability), social difficulties, anxiety and mood instability, tinnitus, and digestive issues. In adulthood it progressed into conditions such as depression, chronic fatigue syndrome, endocrine problems, painful muscle tension in the back, head, neck and hip regions, dizziness/confusion/fuzzy vision at times, among other things that have come and gone along the way. I happened to do a home urine test just this morning, something I do from time to time. It indicated the presence of lead in my urine, which has routinely been the case for the past year or more. I've also sent hair samples to a commercial testing lab every 6-24 months over the past 10 years, which have consistently suggested accumulations in my body of lead and other metals including aluminium, cadmium, mercury and others. People may react with skepticism that home urine tests and commercial hair tests are of any clinical validity. Fair enough. But, as the linked article explains, you just can't easily get this stuff considered, tested and diagnosed by mainstream doctors. I've seen multiple mainstream doctors over the years, and the best they can ever offer is anxiety or anti-depressant medication. They'll run tests on all the standard stuff - cholesterol, Vitamin D, iron... that's usually about it. Everything always shows up close enough to normal and they tell you you're fine and send you on your way. But despite doctors' assurances, I haven't felt fine, and my ability to live a normal life, compared to most other people I observe, has not been fine. So I do the only thing that seems to be available to me, which is home urine tests and commercial-lab hair tests. And they tell me something thing that makes sense when I read things like the linked article; there's just too much lead in my body. In the 10+ years since this possibility became apparent and I started doing these kinds of tests, I've done a lot of work to get my physiology to a state where it could remove the metals from my system. I've considered doing chelation therapy but I understand that carries its own risks (i.e., removing important nutrients and moving toxic metals to areas where they can cause more harm), and that you're better off just supporting your body to detoxify at its own pace. It seems to be working, slowly but surely. That would be why the lead is showing up in my urine now, after not doing so in the first few years; as alluded to in the article, it's been accumulated in my bones and is now coming out. My health, and life, is steadily improving. People keep saying I'm looking healthier and functioning better. My fitness keeps improving. My muscle tension and pain keeps subsiding. My work performance and career seems to be on the up. But boy, it's been tough to get through, and all the more difficult through the lack of mainstream medical recognition, and from the ridicule that inevitably comes your way as soon as you start talking about testing methods and healing techniques that are outside the mainstream. That's probably the toughest part. I'm a scientifically-minded person from a family of mainstream science and medical professionals, yet due to the hand I've been dealt, in the absence of any other options, I've been forced to venture outside the mainstream, and have found myself being the subject of ridicule and scorn at times. Anyone who has read this far might want to think about that next time you mock someone for seeking help from non-mainstream practitioners like naturopaths, acupuncturists, chiropractors, etc. You probably have little idea of just how much difficulty and frustration they've been through before winding up there, or what undiagnosed underlying issue has caused their predicament. I know I'm not alone in having these challenges, and I know plenty of people have it a lot worse than me - particularly those lacking the financial means and family+social support that I’ve had. With that in mind, it's high time that we started taking this problem seriously. Knowing what I know now, it wouldn't surprise me if it turned out that lead and other metals toxicity is an explanation for a huge amount of the debilitating illness that mainstream medicine is currently unable to diagnose and treat. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallothionein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metallothionein

scottlamb 8y ago
Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm glad to hear what you're doing is slowly working. I have a couple questions: > I've done a lot of work to get my physiology to a state where it could remove the metals from my system. What does this mean? Are you talking about the usual healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, or something more specific to lead exposure? > It seems to be working, slowly but surely. That would be why the lead is showing up in my urine now, after not doing so in the first few years; as alluded to in the article, it's been accumulated in my bones and is now coming out. Does the hair test reflect more your long-term overall health? do the positive urine tests correlate with drops in the hair tests?
- tomhoward 8y ago
  Good questions, thanks. > What does this mean? Are you talking about the usual healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, or something more specific to lead exposure? Nothing specific to lead or metals toxicity, no, at least not these days. Just a steady effort to look after my body and mind. In short: sensible diet, a small number of supplements, moderate exercise, some breathing exercises, but a big focus on emotional healing work. The diet just involves eating a solid amount of animal protein and green vegetables, and avoiding junk. I'm not fastidous these days, as my gut is now pretty tolerant of things, even of gluten and grains if it's in well-made food like good quality pasta or sourdough bread. A coffee or two a day for liver/gallbladder flushing - but not too much as it can bring on anxiety and insomnia if I have too much. The supplements I currently take are fish oil, a combined calcium+phosphorus+magnesium+VitD tablet, zinc and CoQ10 - but that changes. The exercise I do is basically just walking or jogging 10,000 steps/day on average, and a bit of boxing bag training every week or two to give the adrenal glands a moderate workout and promote hormone production. Also, a weekly pilates session to stretch muscles and strengthen the core. Regular exercise is particularly important when detoxing, to keep the lymphatic system moving. Breathing exercises might be just long deep breaths, yoga breathing or occasional "holotropic breathwork" (which is also an emotional healing technique). Breath is one of the major toxin exit pathways, so increasing the respiration rate is a good way to increase detoxification. A major focus these days is emotional healing practices. I've gone really deep on subconscious emotional healing for about the past 7 years, and I am now comfortable in the belief that there is a strong link between deeply held emotions (trauma, worry, fear, anger, resentment, arrogance) and the body's propensity to retain metals and other toxins. Veteran cell biologist Dr Bruce Lipton [1] seems to be the leading proponent of links between emotions/trauma and genetic expression/physiology (though not specifically to do with metals/toxins, just general physiology). I spend about 30 minutes per day doing that, and see a practitioner about once every two months. When I started out on this journey about 10 years ago, I went pretty heavily into nutrition-balancing diets and supplements programs, as recommended by Dr Lawrence Wilson [2]. For 2 years I basically just ate animal protein and steamed green vegetables, plus lots of sulphuric vegetables - garlic & leeks mostly. I avoided all gluten grains, sugar, alcohol, nightshade vegetables, anything else that seemed problematic. I also undertook a lot of detox practices - daily infrared saunas for sweating and to reduce inflammation, frequent liver/gallbladder cleansing, detox-promoting supplements like Vit C and taurine. But I don't really do that stuff anymore. I think it was necessary early on when my body and life were quite seriously out of balance, but as every year passes it becomes more resilient and the need to restrict my diet and undertake unorthodox detox practices keeps subsiding. > Does the hair test reflect more your long-term overall health? do the positive urine tests correlate with drops in the hair tests? I started writing an answer to this but it's long and even more convoluted than what I've written above, and I've decided it's not the right forum to go deep into it. The short version: hair testing and urine testing of nutrients and toxins is a complex business but once you've learned enough about it, it does make sense, and yes the hair test results do align with long-term physiological changes and feelings of wellbeing. Feel free to email me (address in profile) if you want to know more. [1] Bruce Lipton is a pioneering stem cell biologist from Stanford, who, in his research, observed the way environmental stimuli substantially alter cell function, and has since gone deep on the topic of epigenetics, i.e., altered gene expression based on environment and emotions/beliefs. His theories are explained in his 2006 best-seller, The Biology of Belief. He's dismissed by some mainstream devotees as a bumbling, ageing quack who handwaves too much about quantum physics, and I find that critique has some merit, but in my experience, what he's right about is far more important than what he's wrong about. [2] Dr Lawrence Wilson is an Arizona-based physician and naturopath who is the leading proponent of hair-mineral testing and nutritional balancing for healing of chronic illness. He was an acolyte of Dr Paul Eck, who in the 1970s did extensive research into the correlations between hair mineral levels and physiological conditions. I find Wilson's ideas somewhat useful, and were very valuable to me early on my healing journey. However they are limited, and inadequate without other ideas and healing practices, particularly the emotional techniques I've adopted more recently (Wilson considers emotional healing to be vital to overall healing, but his recommended technique is limited to a very basic form of meditation, which I found inadequate). Also, Wilson is a conservative Christian, who has some very old-fashioned and conservative ideas around politics and morality. He'a also dogmatically anti-vax, which I'm not on board with. Learning how to sort the wheat from the chaff has been one of the most important parts of this process :)

scottlamb 8y ago

Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm glad to hear what you're doing is slowly working. I have a couple questions: > I've done a lot of work to get my physiology to a state where it could remove the metals from my system. What does this mean? Are you talking about the usual healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, or something more specific to lead exposure? > It seems to be working, slowly but surely. That would be why the lead is showing up in my urine now, after not doing so in the first few years; as alluded to in the article, it's been accumulated in my bones and is now coming out. Does the hair test reflect more your long-term overall health? do the positive urine tests correlate with drops in the hair tests?

tomhoward 8y ago
Good questions, thanks. > What does this mean? Are you talking about the usual healthy diet, exercise, and sleep, or something more specific to lead exposure? Nothing specific to lead or metals toxicity, no, at least not these days. Just a steady effort to look after my body and mind. In short: sensible diet, a small number of supplements, moderate exercise, some breathing exercises, but a big focus on emotional healing work. The diet just involves eating a solid amount of animal protein and green vegetables, and avoiding junk. I'm not fastidous these days, as my gut is now pretty tolerant of things, even of gluten and grains if it's in well-made food like good quality pasta or sourdough bread. A coffee or two a day for liver/gallbladder flushing - but not too much as it can bring on anxiety and insomnia if I have too much. The supplements I currently take are fish oil, a combined calcium+phosphorus+magnesium+VitD tablet, zinc and CoQ10 - but that changes. The exercise I do is basically just walking or jogging 10,000 steps/day on average, and a bit of boxing bag training every week or two to give the adrenal glands a moderate workout and promote hormone production. Also, a weekly pilates session to stretch muscles and strengthen the core. Regular exercise is particularly important when detoxing, to keep the lymphatic system moving. Breathing exercises might be just long deep breaths, yoga breathing or occasional "holotropic breathwork" (which is also an emotional healing technique). Breath is one of the major toxin exit pathways, so increasing the respiration rate is a good way to increase detoxification. A major focus these days is emotional healing practices. I've gone really deep on subconscious emotional healing for about the past 7 years, and I am now comfortable in the belief that there is a strong link between deeply held emotions (trauma, worry, fear, anger, resentment, arrogance) and the body's propensity to retain metals and other toxins. Veteran cell biologist Dr Bruce Lipton [1] seems to be the leading proponent of links between emotions/trauma and genetic expression/physiology (though not specifically to do with metals/toxins, just general physiology). I spend about 30 minutes per day doing that, and see a practitioner about once every two months. When I started out on this journey about 10 years ago, I went pretty heavily into nutrition-balancing diets and supplements programs, as recommended by Dr Lawrence Wilson [2]. For 2 years I basically just ate animal protein and steamed green vegetables, plus lots of sulphuric vegetables - garlic & leeks mostly. I avoided all gluten grains, sugar, alcohol, nightshade vegetables, anything else that seemed problematic. I also undertook a lot of detox practices - daily infrared saunas for sweating and to reduce inflammation, frequent liver/gallbladder cleansing, detox-promoting supplements like Vit C and taurine. But I don't really do that stuff anymore. I think it was necessary early on when my body and life were quite seriously out of balance, but as every year passes it becomes more resilient and the need to restrict my diet and undertake unorthodox detox practices keeps subsiding. > Does the hair test reflect more your long-term overall health? do the positive urine tests correlate with drops in the hair tests? I started writing an answer to this but it's long and even more convoluted than what I've written above, and I've decided it's not the right forum to go deep into it. The short version: hair testing and urine testing of nutrients and toxins is a complex business but once you've learned enough about it, it does make sense, and yes the hair test results do align with long-term physiological changes and feelings of wellbeing. Feel free to email me (address in profile) if you want to know more. [1] Bruce Lipton is a pioneering stem cell biologist from Stanford, who, in his research, observed the way environmental stimuli substantially alter cell function, and has since gone deep on the topic of epigenetics, i.e., altered gene expression based on environment and emotions/beliefs. His theories are explained in his 2006 best-seller, The Biology of Belief. He's dismissed by some mainstream devotees as a bumbling, ageing quack who handwaves too much about quantum physics, and I find that critique has some merit, but in my experience, what he's right about is far more important than what he's wrong about. [2] Dr Lawrence Wilson is an Arizona-based physician and naturopath who is the leading proponent of hair-mineral testing and nutritional balancing for healing of chronic illness. He was an acolyte of Dr Paul Eck, who in the 1970s did extensive research into the correlations between hair mineral levels and physiological conditions. I find Wilson's ideas somewhat useful, and were very valuable to me early on my healing journey. However they are limited, and inadequate without other ideas and healing practices, particularly the emotional techniques I've adopted more recently (Wilson considers emotional healing to be vital to overall healing, but his recommended technique is limited to a very basic form of meditation, which I found inadequate). Also, Wilson is a conservative Christian, who has some very old-fashioned and conservative ideas around politics and morality. He'a also dogmatically anti-vax, which I'm not on board with. Learning how to sort the wheat from the chaff has been one of the most important parts of this process :)