How To Reduce The Burden Of Heavy Metals In Your Body

Introduction and background 0:00

Hey, Wendy. I'm so glad you agreed to be part of the M.S. and Neuroimmune Summit. So, again, welcome. Please introduce yourself and explain why you are an expert here. Yes. Well, I'm Dr. Wendy Myers. I'm a naturopathy doctor, and I'm really focused on heavy metals and toxins for, well over a decade because I believe them to be the underlying root cause of so many different health issues, including M.S. and, you know, immune system issues and my website is Myers Detox dot com. Okay, so let's just jump right into it.

So why are heavy metals a big deal for everyone who is listing people with a mess and other autoimmune diseases affecting their brain? Yes. So, you know, heavy metals and environmental toxins are present everywhere in our environment or in the air or the food and water. They're unavoidable. Everyone has these heavy metals and toxins in their body and they can cause a range of different health issues. You know, when it comes to our immunity, heavy metals like mercury and cadmium and arsenic and lead have a profound impact on our immune system functioning, how our, you know, the histamine reactions, how our diverse immune immune

Why heavy metals matter in autoimmune disease 1:32

cells function and if they don't function. And so when we have different heavy metals in our body, this can also promote autoimmune issues like M.S and people. Heavy metals tend to heavy metals tend to accumulate in our glands. And so when people have heavy metals and they have an allergy or they have a sensitivity to a heavy metal that can cause their body to attack their nervous system tissue, to attack their thyroid, to attack whatever heavy metal is present in the different tissues around the body.

Because it doesn't necessarily matter about the level of heavy metals that we have in our body that can cause the severity of the symptoms. Though we do know that these heavy metals interfere in enzyme production and protein production and cause a lot of different, you know, mayhem in our metabolism. But the the body in its response to heavy metals or our immune system respond to the heavy metals can cause the severity of the some times that people have. So, you know, this is really pretty interesting.

I'm thinking about the sources. And also I'm an artist. Before I became a physician, I was very into oil painting. Then I also got into some metallurgy, did some soldering. And so just knowing that about me, what heavy metals would you predict would have been part of my health journey? Yeah, for sure. Led anyone who's doing welding the a lot is going to be an issue. Any kind of shiny metals that can be nickel that's in the chroma. And I mean there are so many different metals in amalgams you know there can be I mean, are just so many metals in our environment from industry, from craftspeople are doing if they're making jewelry, you know, Joy has a lot of lead and platinum, nickel and other metals.

But I would say lead would be a huge one for you. It would be. Huge. Now I'm thinking of the oil paint, so I'm thinking of cadmium, orange. So a little more cadmium there. There's probably some mercury in all of that lead cobalt. The cobalt blue that I painted with that was so beautiful. I love that. I don't know the metals that might have been in the purple colors. But, you know, I was very, very much into oil painting for many, many, many years. So when I did my own personal 24 hour heavy metals assessment, I was not surprised that there were quite a few heavy metals hanging out in my body.

Now, what's your favorite way to assess people's heavy metal? Do we do hair, saliva, fat, biopsies? What what do we do? Yes. Yeah. And so I want to make one comment about, you know, your your hobbies, you know, in the metal exposure that you were getting.

Personal exposure sources and testing methods 4:46

Even if you're not getting an acute exposure of toxins, you're getting a lot in your shower water, even if you drink filtered water, you're getting a lot in your food. Even if you eat organic food, you're getting a lot in the air that you breathe. Even if you live out in the country where you feel like your environment is clean, it's really difficult to avoid toxins in our environment no matter what type of lifestyle you live the way you know you want to take all the measures possible to prevent influx of toxins in your body.

But I just want to make that comment. And so when it comes to heavy metals testing, there is no perfect heavy metals test. But I like to start with hair mineral analysis, also known as TMA, because we can get a lot of information about heavy metal toxicity simply from mineral deficiencies that you have. And it's a great way to look at different metals that are coming out of your body because some metals show really good in the hair, some metals show the best in the urine, and some metals show the best in the stool.

So there's no one perfect heavy metals test that's going to show you every toxin that you have in your body. And some some physicians, you know, they want to pick, you know, one tester over another, whatever they're comfortable using. But really, I like to start with a hair test because it's the least invasive. It's really inexpensive, gives me a ton of information and I can design a program that will get all the toxins you have in your body for the most part, and that people want to go see just everything you want to do hair, urine and stool. Okay.

And probably a if you don't do a provocation test you'll get if you don't do some type of provocation, it's hard to know what's stored in your body. Would that be correct? You know what? I don't want 100% agree. I mean, it's we know when we do a provocation that we're going to see lead. We know that we're going to see nickel most likely. We know that we're going to see mercury, because that's what some of these chelating agents, when they're doing like a push urine test, will fever, you know, so you can also just do an unprovoked test just to see what the body is excreting over that 24 hour period.

And you're still going to get results where you see a lot of metals coming out. But, you know, regardless of test results, we know everyone has lead. We know everyone has mercury. We know that most people are going to have a cadmium and arsenic. A lot of these metals, they're really impossible to avoid. But what's good about testing is rather than doing like a shotgun approach to detoxification, taking like all different types of supplements in general for detoxification, if you know exactly what metals that you have, then you can do a more of a sniper approach to supplementation to take supplements and, you know, ingredients that we know or specific in ideal at removing the particular metals that people have.

Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Now, I know or I'm thinking in guide me on this that one of the first things we can do is think very, very carefully about how to reduce my exposure. So for everyone who's listening, if you have multiple sclerosis or if you have rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease with neurologic psychiatric symptoms, so you have some other autoimmune problem and you know, it's causing brain fog, pain, fatigue. And I'm like, okay, I should reduce my exposure. What are the things that we can do?

Because you've already told us, like even though I think I'm doing a good job, I could probably do a better job. So let's talk about reducing our exposures. Worse, the people listening to this summit, what are the first steps that you would have them do? Yeah, well, you want to begin with your food, so you've got to think about, you know, the fish that you're eating, eating low mercury fish. You need to think about. Hang on, what's a high mercury fish and what's a low mercury fish? Yes, exactly.

So low mercury fish are the small fish. They haven't lived long enough to accumulate a lot of mercury. So you're thinking, you know, little baby fish, you know, or anchovies, the sardines of mackerel, the hearing, any small fish is fine. Salmon is also. What would a oyster or shrimp be? A little a little fish or are they a problem because they're on the bottom? Yeah. So the bottom feeders are a problem because, you know,

Reducing exposure through food, water, and products 9:20

any kind of shellfish is typically going to be fairly high in metals. But it also depends on the source. If you are, you know, getting clean source like, you know, New Zealand tends to be pretty pristine. I eat oysters from New Zealand may not be a problem, but in general shellfish are can be fairly toxic and mercury inlet and other metals but they're fine to have occasionally. You can also take Lorella. I take her all I want. I'm eating seafood to buy non to the mercury because that's really the biggest problem with people that have M.S.

Mercury is one of the biggest issues because it is so neutrophil like loves nervous system tissue it inhibits nerve cell formation it blocks you know, you know, nerve cell kind of reception. It, you know, it causes a lot of different issues of deposits in the brain. So mercury is one of the biggest issues when it comes to multiple sclerosis. So you want to be very careful about limiting, you know, mercury tainted sources of food. So the small fish are okay, salmon's okay as well. So minnows, anchovies, little fish, little fishes, not bottom feeders.

Occasional oysters are okay. What else would we be doing with our food? Yes. So I also recommend going organic because a lot of the pesticides they can have lead, they can have arsenic, they can you know, they can have different organophosphates. They can have, you know, the glyphosate. All of these things are wreaking havoc on your gut microbiome and your nervous system. You have to go organic. You just do. And so that's one of the main sources of toxins in people's body is their diet. And but you can also take binders.

Binders are also different. Different, you know, fibers or charcoal, things like that can absorb a lot of toxins. So you go out to eat one night, you know, you know, there are all kinds of chemicals in the food or the whole family wants to go to, you know, a big chain restaurant or something. You can take some charcoal to limit that exposure that you're receiving and that diet and that food. So you also want to think about filtering your water. And so I drink spring water. I prefer to you just, you know, drink spring water.

That's not feasible for everyone. So some people, they need to get a really good reverse osmosis filter, but they need to add minerals back to that because that water is not going to stay in your body. It's just going to run right through you and make you fight to go to the bathroom ten times a day. So you need to make sure you're adding some some salts to that water. I like a product called Healthy Salt or Quinton, you want to add that to your water? So because you need minerals to hold on to water, okay.

Then I'd also recommend people really look at their beauty products. You know, everything you're putting on your skin is directly absorbing and interfering in your hormones, depositing into your fat tissue. So your body's going to build up fat stores to store all this garbage. That's why a lot of people are overweight, especially women. As we get older and older, you know, we've got us your body's going to store this stuff somewhere. It's not that your metabolism is, you know, taking a nosedive.

It's that your body's got to store this stuff. And so you want to think about what you're putting on your body, using more natural products, using single ingredient products like coconut oil for moisturizer, or just really taking a deep dove into everything you're putting on and in your body. And there's a learning curve involved in that. There absolutely is. It's not easy to do. You don't have to just throw everything out. Just start with it. When you're purchasing a new product, research that and get a better natural alternative.

Also, looking at your cleaning products, you know, indoor air quality is one of the a real big problem when it comes to breathing and different toxins from the the unnatural cleaners that people are using or air fresheners or perfumes and things like that. You're breathing in a lot of different toxins. So really looking at natural, you know, natural cleansers around the home, you can get away with just, you know, baking soda, vinegar, essential oils. And that's enough to clean your entire home. There's also amazing kind of ozone sprayers where you're just spraying pure oxygen on all your services to kill all the bacteria.

Your body can handle bacteria. It doesn't handle all the chemicals and the cleaners very well. So you've got to think, a, rethink your goals when it comes to cleaning your house. It's not about using all these different chemicals. You want to just you can live with the bacteria and the fungus and things like that. Your body in a less sterile environment is probably better for us. You know. Not as we should. That right? We should be less afraid of the bacteria and the viruses if we have a healthier immune system are my immune cells can take care of me pretty well.

They do a great job. And just about evolutionary wise, millions of years we're designed to deal with bacteria, but we've got almost 100,000 chemicals in our environment. Our body does not know how to deal with that stuff and it's really, really struggling or louvers are overloaded. So we need to think about, you know, taking that as much the burden off our liver and our body as possible. And what about so we've talked about food, we've talked about water, talked about soft skin air. Do we do anything about air quality in our homes and our working environments?

And if so, what? What should that be? Yeah, I mean, really, the best you can do is, you know, think about the floor. Well, first, an air filter and good quality air filter because your indoor air can be much more toxic than the outside air, surprisingly so getting a really good air filter is great and you have to get a pretty good quality one. The HEPA filter is not going to be good enough for the purposes of cleaning the chemical and toxins out of the air. But also think about the flooring that you have, like not using carpet.

If you're redoing a home, you know, do maybe wooden floors not carpet. That carpet releases a lot of volatile organic compounds for many months. And also your mattress really important if you're you don't want to use the memory foam mattresses those release cause the constantly off gas toxins that you breathe in all night long. So that's another kind of, you know, problematic area. People may not be thinking about or a memory foam pillow really bad. You know, you want to be using natural organic products, but if you can afford it, natural, just avoid at least the memory foam.

Okay, now what is your favorite is so everyone who's listening right now, if they're like, okay, I'm going to work on improving my food, improving my water, improving my air and skin products and if they were going to use a binder or what are some of your favorite binders that you would use? Yes. So binders are just substances that will absorb heavy metals and chemicals like a sponge. That's all they are. And they're a very easy entry way into doing something really effective for detoxification.

So you can take things like a charcoal or a modified

Binders, antioxidants, and detox support 17:08

citrus pectin, you can take a zeolite as well. Bentonite clay, things like that are great with the charcoal. I advise caution because those can absorb a lot of minerals. It works too good. So it's something you can take, you know, after a known exposure like alcohol, if you imbibe occasionally. But it's something you only want to take maybe once a week, maybe twice a week, because it can absorb a lot of really essential minerals that you need. As far as like other supplements for detoxification, you know, metals create a lot of free radicals, a lot of oxidative damage in the body works, damaging cell membranes, damaging DNA, interfering in different processes in the body and creating a lot of just these free radicals that damage your body.

So you need antioxidants. So Vitamin E, super important. Vitamin C, really important glutathione on taking glutathione in itself, maybe not as effective as taking a precursor, the building blocks to go them like an AC and acetyl cysteine. Coffee enemas can also be great for stimulating the liver to make glutathione iron as well and making more bile, which is a natural binder that's a body's natural binder. A lot of people not making enough bile in their body. So bitter foods, you know, apple cider vinegar, other vinegars, bitters, things like that.

Coffee's bitter, really good at producing bile in the body. So other antioxidants, any kind of antioxidant is great. But my my favorite ones are the vitamin C. The vitamin E and the AC and super lipoic acid. Really good. You know, I really love the combination of lipoic acid in some NAC, some very interesting studies that have used lipoic acid people with progressive M.S. And they found it to be very helpful for those individuals. Yeah, it's great for mercury and arsenic. And maybe that's why we're so effective in those clinical trials, you know?

And of course, they were not measuring the effect on heavy metals at that time. Now, what is the one thing that if people are listening with M.S. and autoimmune issues affecting their brain, what is the one key takeaway you would like everyone who's listening to this summit to take action to? Yes. Well, I really want people to think about detoxing Mercury. I think Mercury is probably the biggest problem when it comes to arms and a repressed immune system issues or autoimmune issues. You know, mercury just causes a lot of different issues.

Iron is also really important to detox because iron blocks the detoxification of other metals. And so we have iron overload in our body from iron fortified foods. So wheat products, cereal products, things like that have been re fortified with iron. But this iron is not a good nutritive source of iron and it tends to build up in our body and cause a lot of different problems in our brain and our nervous system or mitochondrial energy production. So you get rid of iron very simply by donating blood, you know, maybe three or four times a year.

And that's how you get rid of it, slowly but surely out of your body, because that iron is causing a lot of oxidative stress promoting dementia and brain function issues, and also preventing detox of mercury. So those two metals and lead really problematic, but those the main ones are the mercury and the iron that people need to be really thinking about when if they want to reverse their their symptoms and prove their health.

Mercury, iron, and where to get help 21:08

You know, that is super interesting that this this is a great thing we could do for the public is to donate blood. How many times a year did you suggest. Let's say once every three months. Is it a good start to especially with women or menstrual doing? They they don't need to do this. But when if you're menopausal or if you're a man, you need to be donating blood every three months. Well, excellent, excellent. And are you still seeing patients? I am. I don't I just took a new round of patients. I don't.

But I do occasionally. But I have a whole team of practitioners that I personally have train to work with to help people on their detox journey and to hold their hands through this whole process. So. So I do, but not at the moment, if I may, in the future. All right. So if people where would they find you and your team, if they would like to have more support on their detox journey? Yes, you can go to Maya's detox dot com. We have lots of, you know, heavy metals testing in different programs and different things to meet everyone's needs who are looking to detox and a wealth of free education as well.

Okay. And Dr. Myers, you want to spell your name? One more time for everyone? Yes. It's Wendy Myers M.y era. So Myers detox dot com. Okay. Well, this has been excellent. I could have chatted for hours, but this has just been a really beautiful reminder that there is so much under our control that we can do to facilitate your healing journey now. Thank you so much, Wendy. Thanks for having me.