When I started this site I began with an explanation of my exposure to mercury. Your exposure will be less in all likelihood but it needs to be remembered that with toxicity that it is just another equation. "Metal in" versus "metal out".
This is doubly important as mercury messes with the machinery needed to remove it. All of these metals are bad but mercury is particularly nasty because it gets trapped behind the Blood-Brain-Barrier ( I'll be referring to this as the BBB).
The half-life of mercury in the brain is 10 - 20 years. If you are reading this because you have chronic illness then it is unlikely that you are at the upper level of this scale.
Saying #1. I have an annoying habit of quoting myself - you'll get used to it
"Everything that happens to us, happens because it can." That means that we have genetic susceptibilities that can be exploited. Mercury made me go crazy. That happened because genetically it could.
Other people could conceivably have the same amount of mercury but have a different presentation. Anxiety for example. And I suspect that the end game for all of us is depression. Right now there are people with a mouthful of fillings taking antidepressants when what they need to be doing is making a dental appointment.
Back to school. Just bear with some of this stuff. You'll get it eventually. I am going to simplify as much as possible. Chronic Illness is like a jigsaw puzzle. Don't expect to really appreciate any individual piece on its own. With patience, this stuff will start to come together eventually and with it the key to moving forward.
Everyday trillions of enzyme reactions take place in your body. This is how your body gets work done. An enzyme is just a bit of protein....a few amino acids strung together and they have a particular 3-D shape to perform a particular task.
Let's say we have an enzyme that is supposed to grab B12 and move it across a membrane or the BBB. Because of a genetic difference the recipe for this particular enzyme is changed and a different amino acid is added. This changes the shape and therefore efficiency of the enzyme.
The best way to think about this is imagine that I am tossing balls to you and your job is to catch them and put them into a basket. You are in great form and are catching 9 out of every 10 balls.
Then I change the shape of your hand. I tape your thumb and index finger together. Now, you are only catching 5 out of every 10 balls. If we want the same number of balls in the basket we will need to increase the number of balls tossed.
This is essentially what we are doing when we take some supplements. We introduce more raw material so that an enzyme that is limping along doesn't have to wait long for "the next ball" to be tossed.
Simplified, we can say that our DNA has two jobs. First, pass along our recipe to the next generation and the second is to make proteins including the trillions of enzymes needed daily to keep our machines running.
Billions of these enzyme reactions that occur in our bodies every day take place in the methylation pathway.
If you are chronically ill and have a lot of symptoms that are confusing you and your Dr then there is a better than average chance that your methylation pathway is not running as well as it should.
This is doubly important as mercury messes with the machinery needed to remove it. All of these metals are bad but mercury is particularly nasty because it gets trapped behind the Blood-Brain-Barrier ( I'll be referring to this as the BBB).
The half-life of mercury in the brain is 10 - 20 years. If you are reading this because you have chronic illness then it is unlikely that you are at the upper level of this scale.
Saying #1. I have an annoying habit of quoting myself - you'll get used to it
"Everything that happens to us, happens because it can." That means that we have genetic susceptibilities that can be exploited. Mercury made me go crazy. That happened because genetically it could.Other people could conceivably have the same amount of mercury but have a different presentation. Anxiety for example. And I suspect that the end game for all of us is depression. Right now there are people with a mouthful of fillings taking antidepressants when what they need to be doing is making a dental appointment.
Back to school. Just bear with some of this stuff. You'll get it eventually. I am going to simplify as much as possible. Chronic Illness is like a jigsaw puzzle. Don't expect to really appreciate any individual piece on its own. With patience, this stuff will start to come together eventually and with it the key to moving forward.
Everyday trillions of enzyme reactions take place in your body. This is how your body gets work done. An enzyme is just a bit of protein....a few amino acids strung together and they have a particular 3-D shape to perform a particular task.
Let's say we have an enzyme that is supposed to grab B12 and move it across a membrane or the BBB. Because of a genetic difference the recipe for this particular enzyme is changed and a different amino acid is added. This changes the shape and therefore efficiency of the enzyme.
The best way to think about this is imagine that I am tossing balls to you and your job is to catch them and put them into a basket. You are in great form and are catching 9 out of every 10 balls.
Then I change the shape of your hand. I tape your thumb and index finger together. Now, you are only catching 5 out of every 10 balls. If we want the same number of balls in the basket we will need to increase the number of balls tossed.
This is essentially what we are doing when we take some supplements. We introduce more raw material so that an enzyme that is limping along doesn't have to wait long for "the next ball" to be tossed.
Simplified, we can say that our DNA has two jobs. First, pass along our recipe to the next generation and the second is to make proteins including the trillions of enzymes needed daily to keep our machines running.
Billions of these enzyme reactions that occur in our bodies every day take place in the methylation pathway.
If you are chronically ill and have a lot of symptoms that are confusing you and your Dr then there is a better than average chance that your methylation pathway is not running as well as it should.
