caledonia
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Would you have any references for that?
I think possibly in David Hammond's book Mercury Poisoning: The Undiagnosed Epidemic. If not in that, then in Andrew Hall Cutler's book, Amalgam Illness: Diagnosis and Treatment.
If you look at this article:
Is there an association between exposure to chemicals and chronic fatigue syndrome? Review of the evidence
it says:
In other words, just because mercury poisoning can produce fatigue, that does not imply that mercury is linked to triggering ME/CFS.
Also note that dentists and dental assistants have exposure levels to mercury vapor much higher than the general population. But there is no epidemic of ME/CFS in the dental profession, as far as I am aware.
Of course if you had both mercury poisoning and ME/CFS, and you detoxified mercury, you might feel less fatigue by reducing the component of your fatigue that comes from mercury.
Some people tolerate higher levels of mercury than others due to having a genetically better detox system. The ones that don't tolerate mercury drop out of the profession early. (source Cutler's book)
However, I have heard of there being a much higher rate of suicide in the dental profession - depression being another symptom of mercury toxicity.
There are other metals which produce fatigue besides mercury - also lead and arsenic. Unfortunately, I have all three of those metals. All three of them are ubiquitous in our environment.
When mercury combines with other metals, it makes them something like 14 times more toxic. So it doesn't take large amounts. It's the combination of small amounts of many things adding up to a much larger effect. There is also a synergistic effect among organochemicals (formaldehyde, benzene, pesticides, etc.) and a synergistic effect of mercury on those chemicals.
All of them do various bad things to the methylation cycle, detox cycle, ATP, etc. and can cause widespread issues in the body. ME/CFS being only one of many bad things that can happen depending on your genetics or combination of exposures. Think about the rise in chronic and subclinical illnesses, as well as cancer - autism, depression, anxiety, hypothyroidism, adrenal fatigue, ME/CFS, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, IBS, etc. etc.
I skimmed the study you listed. (Good find by the way!) It's a literature review. I don't really have the wherewithal right now to look at the mercury studies referenced, but off the top of my head, I would say that it's difficult to determine if someone has mercury toxicity, unless you use Cutler's method of hair testing and looking for disordered mineral status, not the level of mercury in hair, blood or urine.
Of course, you can also take a history such as, do or did you have amalgams, eat a lot of tuna and things like that. However, people can be exposed and not know it, such as acquiring their mother's body burden.
So I would contend that there is a lot more mercury toxicity than people think there is.
It would be interesting to do a study on a group of people with ME/CFS and use Cutler's hair test and interpretation and see what percent have disordered mineral status. I don't think that's ever been done.