High Heavy Metal Levels Often Due To A Dysfunctional Microbiome

Do you think your body might be high in mercury, chromium, cadmium, lead, or arsenic?  Are you wanting to detoxify and get rid of these heavy metals? Probiotics and strengthening your gut’s microbiota may be the answer.

Scientists have found that microbes in our body, especially the gut, can detoxify many heavy metals, including some of the nastiest ones, such as arsenic and mercury.  Having a strong and diverse microbiome can also help prevent these metals in our diet from being absorbed and concentrating in our organs. If you have dental amalgam (silver fillings), and/or have had a compromised gut for a long time, then there is a good chance you’re at least high in mercury. Many areas of the country have water high in arsenic so that is also a concern.

•  “Treatment of the mice with antibiotics throughout the experimental period to suppress the gut flora reduced fecal mercury excretion and the dietary differences in whole body retention of mercury. Tissue mercury concentrations and proportion of organic mercury in feces, cecal contents, liver, and kidneys were increased by antibiotic treatment of mice fed the pelleted or synthetic diets. These results are consistent with the theory that demethylation of methylmercury by intestinal microflora is a major factor determining the excretion rate of mercury.” — PubMed #6524959

• “Detoxification is the ability to remove drugs, mutagens, and other harmful agents from the body. This is in contrast to detoxication, which is the mechanism of preventing entry of damaging compounds into the body (46). Detoxication usually occurs in the human intestinal tract, the liver, and the kidneys before compounds can spread and reach target sites where damage ensues (7). It is by this process that the gut microbiota, lactobacilli, and potentially probiotic bacteria may have the largest role in binding metals, preventing their entry to the body and, thus, protecting the host… certain strains of lactobacilli appear to sequester mercury and may also have mechanisms for its degradation.” — PubMed #PMC3426676

• “Several heavy metals have been associated with ASD (13). There is growing interest in using typical enteric microbiome flora such as Lactobacillus, which have a natural ability to bind to toxic heavy metals as a means for protecting against exposures (235). In an open-label trial, Lactobacillus rhamnosus GR was protective against increasing levels of blood mercury and arsenic in pregnant women, but not children (236). Given the wide use of probiotics in children with ASD and the growing excitement as a result of recent animal models of ASD (237), further research in this area might be promising.” — PubMed #PMC4425813

• “Significant increases of cadmium and lead absorption and dissemination in blood and target organs were measured in germ-free mice when compared with conventional specific pathogen free (SPF) mice. Besides the “barrier” function of the luminal microbiota, this may involve specific host-genes such as metallothioneins, which are differentially expressed in the gastrointestinal” — PubMed #23916686

• “Consumption of probiotic yogurt had a protective effect against further increases in mercury (3.2 nmol/liter; P = 0.035) and arsenic (2.3 nmol/liter; P = 0.011) blood levels in the pregnant women” — PubMed #PMC4196227

Heavy metals can also have a negative impact on the gut, perpetuating the problem. Thus intervention of some kind (such as The Gut Health Protocol) is probably necessary to get rid of the infection on secondary conditions.

• “Non-absorbed heavy metals have a direct impact on the gut microbiota. In turn, this may impact the alimentary tract and overall gut homeostasis. Our results may enable more accurate assessment of the risk of intestinal disease associated with heavy metal ingestion.” — PubMed #24325943

Read The Gut Health Protocol to find out what can be done about fixing your microbiome to help prevent additional heavy metal accumulation and to start detoxing the existing metals.

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