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supporting supplements before amalgam extraction

caledonia

Senior Member
Thanks @Wishful I am having toxic tests at an independent lab :) I believe it has done damage to me as I have MTHFR compound heterozygous (677 +/- 1298 +/-) which means my methylation system doesn’t function properly and can’t get rid of toxin like other people, which means the mercury and metals have messed up my immune system and made me ill. :)

I see comments like this a lot, I guess because MTHFR is more well studied than some other SNPs and also mercury and other toxic metals.

Yes, an MTHFR C677T mutation will have some effect on methylation and eventually glutathione production (glutathione being the thing that actually handles detoxification). There are also mutations in glutathione itself (GSTP, GPX, G6PD).

The thing that everyone seems to miss is effect of epigenetics on detoxification. Mercury, lead, aluminum, and copper inhibit methylation at MTR (right next to MTHFR). Mercury, copper, iron, zinc, and arsenic inhibit the glutathione production cycle.

These epigenetic exposures inhibit the cycles more than genetic mutations. In other words, if you had the same genetic mutations, but were not exposed to mercury (or other toxic metals), your methylation cycle would operate well enough and you wouldn't get sick.

Even if you had no mutations in MTHFR, the mercury and other metals would inhibit MTHFR as if you had mutations there. However, having mutations would set you up to get sicker sooner with lower exposures compared to the next person, all other things being equal.

The more metals you have, the less you're able to detoxify. It becomes a vicious downward spiral and eventually you get sick.

So all those little daily exposures from mercury amalgams, which might not seem that bad, do add up over time. Your body can't detoxify them well, so it stores the mercury in your tissues and brain. Lead gets stored in your bones. The half life of them detoxifying back out is decades. You would be dead before you ever naturally detoxified it all back out.

So this is why I say, if you're sick enough to be on this forum and you have (or you used to have) mercury fillings, you're probably mercury toxic.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
I'm sure there are lots of "I had my amalgam filling removed and I felt better right away!" stories. There are also lots of "I used magic crystals (or magnetic bracelets or whatever) and cured my xxxx instantly!" Some people read those and become devoted believers; others don't. In this forum we had one woman saying that aluminum was horribly toxic and that giving up aluminum containers and antiperspirant solved (at least some of) her health issues. Then I pointed out that the aluminum cans were plastic-coated, and her replacement antiperspirant (natural Tibetan rock crystals or whatever it was) resulted in the same amount of aluminum absorption. So was her health improvement from reduction of aluminum (which didn't actually occur) or just a belief that she was successfully reducing that horribly toxic metal that she had read such scary stories about?

As I said, I've had probably above average exposure to mercury, and my blood showed only a normal amount of mercury. I'm satisfied that my mercury-elimination mechanism is working okay, and that similar exposure for other people with normally-functioning mercury elimination systems isn't a health concern either. I have no idea how common malfunctions in the elimination system are, so I don't recommend loosening of the regulations for mercury.
 

Wishful

Senior Member
Messages
5,684
Location
Alberta
@JenniferLO , I did a quick look at 'MTHFR compound heterozygous' which I hadn't heard about before. It seems to be one of those things that may be fairly meaningless. The mutation might cause problems for some people, but have no noticeable effect on others. Having the mutation doesn't seem to guarantee that you will have all the medical problems claimed to be due to it. If your toxin testing shows normal levels, I wouldn't worry about the mutation.

It's all too easy to read an article claiming that something causes health issues and jump to the conclusion that that's the answer to your health issues. That's why there are so many such articles: they sell, and they help sell tests and treatments and advertising. Big money involved. I read some of those articles in my early stages of ME, and wondered if that was the answer. Usually, a bit more thought showed that it didn't fit what I'd observed about my illness. Some I thought: 'The test (buying the supplement or whatever) is cheap and easy, so I may as well.' I think LDN is the only one that actually had a positive effect for me. Other articles just didn't convince me, especially if I couldn't find any supporting forum discussion that sounded believable. These days, I treat such articles with a lot more skepticism.