The Importance of Detoxification and Mineral Balancing
When we start on a mineral balancing program, we are always thinking, “when will I start to dump metals?”
Sometimes we may even believe we are actively dumping Cu, Fe, As, Pb, Hg, Al, Ni, Cd, etc. because we get an aggravation and blame the metal thinking that we are in the process of an active metal dump.
However, typically most adult patients will not mobilize the toxic metals out of the body—at least not until they have been on a mineral detoxification program of a minimum of 1 year, and to really get the deeper layers of the metals out we’re talking 3-7 years.
If metals are in organs such as the brain and bones, we are looking at seven years minimum before the body will mobilize these toxic metals out of their layered compartments.
So, the first concept to understand is we need to be patient, vigilant, and understand that this is not an easy process of uncovering the toxic metals layered in the many tissues, organs, and glands.
Let's say if I was to remove every drop of mercury from your body and I take that same mercury that I just evicted out and put it in a syringe and injected it back into you, you would die.
Hence, this is why the body compartmentalizes the metals into the many layers to protect you from the ravages of toxic metals.
First, metals are not broken down like most organic materials that are typically degradable by natural processes, but not metals!
They cannot be degraded or destroyed, which makes them very dangerous because they tend to bioaccumulate in our tissues.
Bioaccumulation means an increase in the concentration of harmful substances such as chemicals or metals in a biological system that accumulate over time as the rate of intake exceeds the rate of excretion.
Metals typically last forever, which is why we name the great cosmic cycles of time after the metals giving us the golden age, silver age, iron age, and our current bronze age—because they last a very long long time!
Metals are a sticky problem because they are cumulative and replace the nutrient minerals at the enzyme binding sites.
So, if we are deficient in a nutrient mineral like zinc, then the toxic metal like cadmium can pinch hit for zinc when it is low.
We know this because of one of the most ancient enzymes, carbonic anhydrase, which is needed to break down carbon dioxide, which is a zinc-dependent enzyme.
However, in a zinc-deficient state, cadmium mimics zinc, gains access to the body, and runs this specific carbonic anhydrase enzyme, but it can't run the other 200 plus enzymes that zinc does.
Cadmium is the imposter rolling in on the Trojan horse due to its molecular mimicry to zinc.
So, this toxic element may be keeping you alive by running this all-important enzyme that is involved in the process of breaking down carbon dioxide, a breakdown product of glucose metabolism.
CO2 is a strong acid that cannot be dumped into the blood.
Therefore, the body will turn the strong acid CO2 into a weaker acid called carbonic acid.
The carbonic anhydrase enzyme that converts CO2 to carbonic acid wants to use zinc, preferably.
Still, cadmium, the imposter, in this case, will get the job done.
However, the brain will detect a foreign invader, and a defense system is activated by stimulating the production of the sulfur enzyme metallothionein.
The sulfur atoms attract and stick to the cadmium, where it gets transported to the kidneys to evict out the toxic metal.
The problem is that the cadmium binds 300x stronger than zinc, which in the kidneys, 10% possibly more of the cadmium gets reabsorbed.
Cadmium can remain in the body on average for about 30 years.
Hence, the righteous concern about this toxic metal as it is an accumulative poison, even making the infamous top 10 environmental worst toxin list!
Also, in creating sperm, cadmium can be very problematic, especially in the prostate and testicles, as the production, manufacturing, and delivery of sperm depend on a lot of zinc.
DNA transcription depends on zinc!
Hence, we have seen the sperm count decrease dramatically, especially in the last 50 years.
Understanding the declining sperm count, which has many etiologies, but in my mind, the smart money is on a zinc deficiency, exacerbated by cadmium toxicity, resulting in the decline of our Olympic swimmers—our sperm.
The best protection against cadmium ingestion is iron.
The more iron you have, the less cadmium you absorb.
When cadmium does get into the cell, then metallothionine gets activated, for which this metalloprotein is mostly made up of the amino acid cysteine that needs a lot of zinc.
In fact, every molecule of metallothionein needs seven zinc atoms for this protein to fold correctly so that it can act as a filter for toxins, especially copper, mercury, and cadmium.
The body will continue to store cadmium, but at some point in time, the kidneys will hit critical mass when the cadmium levels exceed 200 ppm in the kidneys, preventing the reabsorption of proteins, amino acids, and glucose, damaging the filtering system of the body.
Now, the all-seeing brain will not dump cadmium, at least not until zinc stores are moderately better.
So as zinc takes its parking space back, the cadmium is no longer needed.
Also, another concept to grasp is it takes a lot of energy to mobilize a metal out, which fundamentally means the energy of the body must pick up.
For that to happen, we look at HTMA to assess and gain insight into the current status of the adrenals.
Simply put, with low Na and K, your adrenals are weak.
Therefore, your energy is low, and consequently, you won't have the power and energy to evict out the toxic elements.
We see this on many HTMA patterns, such as the four-low and classic shell patterns.
Also, when we see K at a five or less, or when Na is below an eight or less, or when the Na/K ratio is below 1.8.
Therefore, our therapeutic modality mindset should be on creating strategies based on the patients' biochemical and psychological individuality.
So we can use this information pertaining to how we are going to charge the batteries, meaning pick up the adrenals.
Without adrenal reserves, you will not have that extra energy of the body to prioritize the evicting out of the toxic metals.
Now, if the minerals are not dealt with in a timely fashion, then they will become the metals of the most horrible chronic diseases known to mankind.
Basically, think either too much apoptosis (brain diseases) or too little apoptosis (cancer).
Mineral deficiencies appear to have some of the most profound adverse effects of toxic metals, especially lead, since it has been the most readily studied, which is always made worse when we become deficient in calcium and zinc.
Many experimental studies have shown that nutritional deficiencies can have an additive cumulative effect in potentiating lead toxicity.
Scientists already knew that lead poisons by displacing biologically active metal cations, such as calcium and zinc, from their proteins.
Calmodulin is a ubiquitous protein that is found in all eukaryotic cells.
It is involved in a wide variety of processes, including muscle contraction, cell cycle regulation, intracellular signaling, phosphorylation, and fertilization.
Think of calmodulin as a Ca receptor, which regulates the activity of many Ca2+ dependent enzymes.
Calmodulin, for example, binds and transports four calcium cations, which regulate critical cellular processes.
Lead displaces one calcium cation, so reducing the enzyme's efficiency.
Think of the harmful effects once this gets impacted into your bones.
This is why getting metals out of the bones takes a very long time as it gets locked away in the bones as lead phosphate.
If you have been following my work, you know that lead is the metal of Saturn.
Just as Saturn takes 30 years to rotate around the Sun, it also takes 30 days for lead to get out of the blood and 30 years for it to get out of the bones.
Going back into antiquity, a manifestation of chronic lead toxicity from 'illicitly distilled beverages (colloquially referred to as moonshine) for which the grapes were often boiled in lead containers to make the resultant elixir sweeter.'
Also, to make wine and other spirits more visually appealing and to prevent spoilage.
However, this resulted in chronic lead poisoning for which the rheumatologic entity is known as Saturnine Gout.
Yes, that was the name given to lead poisoning in antiquity.
So today, every patient with gout, you must be thinking about lead toxicity in the back of your mind.
The fact that gout loves the big toe, which corresponds to the liver, and we can conclude lead has an immense impact on uric acid metabolism in the liver.
Worst yet, when lead is in the bone marrow, it will inhibit the haem biosynthetic enzyme.
The enzyme aminolaevulinic acid dehydratase (ALAD), performs the first step in the production of heme rings, using a zinc ion to help catalyze the reaction.
However, lead displaces the zinc from the enzyme's active site, consequently, inactivating the enzyme.
As a result, the precursor molecule aminolevulinic acid (ALA) accumulates.
It is ALA that is responsible for the various symptoms of plumbism.
Its actions will paralyze the gut, hence the stomach cramps and horrible constipation; more insidious it results in excess fluid in the brain, causing pressure headaches and loss of sleep; it affects the reproductive system, leading to infertility and miscarriages.
These symptoms of the mind may range from mild headaches, depression, and sleeplessness in a lesser attack, but can become hallucinations, terrifying insomnia, fits of rage, blindness, and coma in severe cases.
Many researchers have discovered that lead’s destructive action is not just its malleable quality that allows it to fit snugly into these proteins.
Its toxicity, they say, is also due to the 'inert pair effect,' which I believe is the reluctance of the valency electrons to bond.
This can seriously distort the arrangement of atoms around lead; for an enzyme, this is disastrous.
A common storage site of toxic metals is fat stores.
Fat is an adaptation to our toxicity epidemic to protect you and your brain.
Fat has a job description, which is to insulate and protect, and that's exactly what the extra fat in the body is doing.
It is serving a function by protecting you in the current here and now, but to only kill you later down the road.
You know those fatty grandma triceps were it just hangs low on the arm, where did most of us get our vaccine jabs, right in those tissues of the upper arm known as our triceps, at least I know I did.
However, there's a price to pay for this fat-adaptation that ends up putting another nail in your coffin.
But the point being is the obesity epidemic is because of the toxicity epidemic.
Our genes and our emotional themes dictate were the metals will go.
However, toxic metals can be stored anywhere in the body, such as the bones, as lead displaces calcium as copper can get into the bony matrix as well as aluminum.
Cadmium is also notorious for the bones as the Japanese named cadmium poisoning Itai- Itai due to their painful bones and joints.
Also, metals can bioaccumulate in the brain.
Hence why we have an alarming rise in all of our brain-related diseases.
Minerals can be deposited in any organ or gland as where the energy of the mind goes, so does the electrical metals.
It also would be safe to say metals have a very high affinity for the liver and kidneys.
Another factor to consider for the dumping of metals is the raw materials must be present to make the transport proteins to shuttle the toxic metals out.
This not only depends on the ingredients being available but, more importantly, a robust and healthy liver so the liver factory can make the protein carriers to do just that.
But most people have fatty stagnant livers!
The biliary canaliculus, a filtration system embedded in the liver must be opened, patent, and flowing to remove the toxins from the blood that will find their way into the common bile duct eventually out into the toilet bowl.
Remember, the liver is a blood hog as most of the body's blood is in the liver.
The incoming dirty blood dumps its toxins into the liver cells that dump their toxins into the biliary system to clean the blood before it finds its way to the inferior vena cava to bring blood back to the heart.
The liver can't send dirty blood back to the heart!
But if the filtration system of the biliary system is clogged, dirty, and inefficient with a slow rate of excretion, then it can't keep up with the inflow of toxins.
Hence, the toxins get dumped back into the liver cells, which increase the fat of the liver as a protective mechanism to store the toxins.
However, toxins also may end up anywhere in the body to be shelved in other storage sites.
As I alluded to earlier that most of us have fatty stagnant livers, and our liver gallbladder biliary system is scared and fibrosed, to the point we have faulty plumbing to remove the by-products of metabolism and all the other poisons.
It is in our biliary ducts where most of the garbage gets stuck resulting from the build-up of decades of toxins bioaccumulating in the biliary system.
This includes our mold, yeast, viruses, retroviruses, prions, nanobacteria, and many other pathological microorganisms or their chemical by-products.
As well as the chemicals, metals, and radiation from the many exposures that enter us from our skin, lungs, and digestive tracts.
And of course, the worst exposure being in utero known as congenital toxic metals as our mother's poisons get passed into us through the placenta from mother to child.
These congenital metals did not get out through the biliary system and may have been stuck in the liver system since the beginning of life, as was the case with me as I was born jaundice.
We must reduce exposure to the toxic metals as best as we can while improving the organs of elimination.
While concomitantly mineralizing the body using serial HTMAs as our guide to the detoxification and mineralization process.
Removal of these toxic metals needs to go slow as these metals are very disturbing and very traumatic to the system.
So, to get the superficial layer deposits of these metals is a minimum of 1 year.
Therefore, you never want to force a metal dump, as it needs to happen in symphony with the energy picking up.
At the same time, the autonomic nervous system finds a better balance in communicating with the portals of elimination.
Then the all-seeing brain decides which metal it will dump.
During this period, we may see the toxic metals increasing.
Even a slight increase is still very significant, or we may also dump a nutrient mineral such as Ca, Mg, Cu, Fe, Mn, or Cr.
These are the oxidized versions of a nutrient mineral that need to come out because the oxidized version is now behaving like a toxic metal.
Sometimes we may even see a multitude of toxic metals coming out, which is favorable but certainly challenging to the patient.
First, before the eviction of toxic metals typically happens, we may notice Na and K increasing as well as the Na/K ratio will also increase.
This means the adrenals are priming the electrical pump to send the hormonal neural signals to the brain, kidneys, and liver to start the detox process.
As the all-seeing brain decides when it is ripe for dumping the toxic metals as it will not put you in harm's way, this is why we do not want to force a detox reaction unless it's an emergency acute poising situation.
Also, we should take note of phosphorus (P) and zinc typically decline or just stay low as we are detoxing the body because it takes energy for which the P molecule represents that high energy mineral needed for AT+(P)= ATP/Mg.
Also, Zn is driving a lot of these enzymes that need the energy of P to drive these Zn dependent enzymes, which is why we see Zn and P typically going low or just staying low.
This is telling us the body is in a catabolic breakdown state as it is breaking down old, oxidized necrotic diseased tissues so that it can function correctly.
The packaging of metals and chemicals need to be put in containment buckets that require extra energy to ensure safe passage out the portals of elimination.
This is why I believe a lot of our strategies need to be focused on opening the portals of elimination for effective detoxification processes that will improve the mineral patterns and, therefore, our health.
A key point is a body will dump the metals in waves, and many waves and never all at once!
We will go through a roller coaster of a ride as we see Zn, P, and selenium decreasing because they are being utilized in the detox process, so they typically go low, and this indeed reveals our zinc and Mg deficiencies.