Busting Heavy Metals Myths | Podcast #196

Spread the love

Welcome to a functional medicine podcast with Dr. J and Evan Brand! Watch this video as they geek out on today's topic, Heavy Metals, to clear some myths and misconceptions about the big ones, such as Aluminum, Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, and Mercury. Listen as they also talk about some of the significant ways to support detoxification.

Keep tuning in for more videos to get the latest about what’s happening on the functional medicine world. Hit subscribe, smash the bell, and don’t forget to share!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani

In this episode, we cover:

00:30    The Big Ones

03:00    Sources of Heavy Metals

05:10    Heavy Metals and Cognitive Issues

11:52    Linked Major Infertility Issues

28:10   Dental Amalgams, Flu Vaccinations, and Various Chemicals

17:25   Inside Out Hyperbarics and Wellness Center In a Picture

Youtube-icon

 

 

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Hey, guys. It’s Dr. Justin Marchegiani here. Evan Brand, how are we doing today?

Evan Brand: Hey, man. Happy Monday to you. We’re gonna talk about heavy metals. I’ve been geeking out on this, and I thought, “Why don’t we cover this ‘cause there’s a lot of myths and misconceptions about heavy metals and…”

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Evan Brand: …a lot of fear-mongering about heavy metals.” So maybe we can clear some things up today and answer some questions.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So we’ll go over some of the major sources for our more toxic heavy metals. This will include uh—Aluminum, Arsenic, Cadmium, Lead, Mercury—those are kind of like our big ones— and some of the major ways we can kind of help support detoxification. And, you know, we talked about the vectors. We’ll talk about the detoxification. A lot of the unspoken things is actually good digestion. Right? A lot of metals are removed via our hepatobiliary system, which is our liver and gallbladder dumping out into our gut as well. So we need healthy digestion, healthy gut function to be able to eliminate metals as well. So a lot of people just think, “Hey, let’s do this fancy chelating program or this IV or this or that, but having good digestion can actually help eliminate a lot of our toxins out our stool better. We have healthier transit time. We have less leaky gut so there’s less of these metals get reabsorbed into our body and create uhm—you know, ideally, less immune issues when our gut’s healthier.

Evan Brand: Yeah. One thing that we test for— We run a stool test on every new client, and one thing we look for is a marker called beta-glucuronidase, which is an enzyme that goes elevated usually in the presence of bacterial overgrowth— they’re some other type of gut issue. And what it indicates if it’s elevated is that the person is reabsorbing toxins. So this would include heavy metals, meaning, if you buy some fancy detox tea or detox protocol, but you have elevated beta-glucuronidase because you have a gut infection or, like Justin said, your gut’s not working properly, you’re recirculating all of this stuff. And if you’re not pooping on a daily basis, preferably twice a day but at least once a day— if you’re not doing that, it doesn’t matter how perfect your heavy metal detox protocol is. You’ve got to fix these big foundational pieces first before a detox will work.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: One hundred percent. And then, just another simple aspect is, the solution to pollution is dilution. Drink enough good quality water and good healthy minerals, whether some sea salt or trace mineral support supplement, that’s gonna be helpful as well just to kind of keep your body keep flushing things out.

Evan Brand: Just sip on water all day. I mean, some people argue like you could just chug water, but I don’t know. I don’t think you’re gonna get the same benefit as just constantly sipping on it. Do you have any— any thoughts on it?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I mean, I think it depends. I mean, you know, you’re gonna absorb it. If you’re drinking a whole bunch of cold water before meal, or whatever, that cold water’s gonna sit in your stomach a lot longer and get heated up to your body temperature. ‘Cause if it’s, you know, dropping 50 or 60-degree water into your intestinal tract, that’s really cold. That may disrupt your digestion so it will just sit on your stomach for a while ‘til it gets to room temperature. So I think if it’s more room temperature kind of stuff, you could probably go faster. If it’s colder, you probably want to sip it more.

Evan Brand: Yup. Let’s talk about some of the sources of heavy metals. People may hear the topic of heavy metals and think that it’s some like new ones that doesn’t apply to them because they eat organic and they live somewhere where they think it’s not an issue. But, literally, every single person on planet Earth has heavy metals. We’re even seeing in some of the whale blubber samples taken from the Arctic that there’s PCB’s and dioxins and heavy metals and other chemicals, even in untouched places of the planet where mankind has never stepped foot. So let’s go through some of these together.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Let’s start with the—what I consider the more toxic heavy metals. So, Aluminum’s one, for instance. So Aluminum i—is actually still common in vaccinations. You’ll see it on the ingredients label as Aluminum hydroxide, so that’s still there for sure. You’re gonna see in some antiperspirants, in various deodorants, uh—Aluminum cookware, utensils, Aluminum foil is very common as well, uh—Aluminum cans as well. I still drink at some Aluminum cans, just because when I go in my boat or whatever, you know, you can’t quite bring a nice glass bottle ‘cause it may break and go in the water. So— It’s kind of a dose-dependency thing, so just do your best if you’re gonna drink out of Aluminum cans ‘cause they are convenient if you’re drinking a sparkling mineral water. It

’s nice, you know, you don’t have to worry about a breaking or cracking. Just try to follow the 80-20 rule on that. We talked about deodorant. We talked about toothpaste— another big one. Toothbr—Toothpaste uhm— sugar, uhm—refined sugar, you can get some Aluminum in that as well. Uhm— various medications, had it as well. Uhm—Anything else you want to highlight there? I mean, there’s a lot of different places you can get it— pesticides, medications, deodorants, ceramics. Just trying to think of the big, big ones-

Evan Brand: Yeah, dude.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -Aspirin—

Evan Brand: So, I’ve got— I’ve got a— a paper pulled up here that was from The American Journal of Epidemiology 2009, and it’s called, “Aluminum and Silica in Drinking Water, and the Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease or Cognitive Decline,” and it was like a 15-year study, and what they were saying is, just based on doing tap water—just everyday tap water exposure—They were looking at these people in Southern France, and it was almost 2,000 people that were studied, and of course, what they find is Aluminum intake significantly associated with increased risk of Dementia. So, when we hear heavy metals, people like, “Okay, yeah. I know heavy metals are bad. Why should I care?” Well, you should care because this stuff is affecting your brain. Like Klinghardt, I had him on the Candida summit. He talked about the Alzheimer’s. He talked about Dementia and these cognitive issues, and there’s a huge link to Aluminum. So, this is a big deal and it’s not something that you want to ignore. So, I—I put the link, Justin for you in the—in the—in the chat box, and then, we may be able to share it later on with the—with the listeners.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely. So, I think—I think a big kind of take-home for the Aluminum is, number one, you’re vaccinations are gonna be a big factor. Uh— The antiperspirants, the Aluminum foil, the Aluminum cookware, uh—pesticides, chemicals, uhmconventional type of toothpaste—those are, I think, the big ones.

Evan Brand: Right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Anything you wanted to highlight there?

Evan Brand: Let’s move on to Cadmium because we see-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: -Cadmium a lot. We know that it does come from car exhaust fumes, and there are different ways that you can measure heavy metals.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—

Evan Brand: Maybe we’ll talk about that in a minute but— I would say car exhaust is huge—a big, big, big source! I’ve also looked at a couple of papers where they studied people who lived close to the highway, or— get this— even more interesting, people who live close to a stop sign or a stoplight.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, really?

Evan Brand: Think of the car as it’s driving by, it’s probably not as big of a deal, but a car using it’s brake pads to stop at a stoplight or stop at a stop sign, that brake dust creates more toxic off-gassing into those houses that lived closer. So, they literally, on the same street, studied uh—the levels of metals in the person on the street, where they just have people pass by, and then they studied the people closer to the stop sign. The people closer to the stop sign have more— had— have more heavy metal exposure, just from the brake pads.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And, what was that study, Evan?

Evan Brand: Uh— Let me see if I can pull it up. It was on—It was on PubMed, one of my random search days. Let me see if I can find it though.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s crazy. Well, while you’re looking for it, other major sources. Cadmium— you can commonly get it in cigarettes and, potentially, marijuana, uh— ceramics, burning coal, instant coffee. It can be found in Amalgam fillings, pikes, fungicides or pesticides. You’re also gonna see it in some paints. You’re gonna see it in some oil. You’re gonna see it in various uhm— smelt ring, or—or kind of like soldering of canned foods. Uh—Also, our— our Cadmium’s also— c— Cigarettes, that can also be a big uh—affector of the prostate. I’ve seen some studies talking about Cadmium driving inflammation in the prostate as well.

Evan Brand: Here’s the—Here’s one of the papers. So this one is— It’s— It’s titled—This was in uh— 2012 International Journal of Environmental Public Health, and it’s titled, “Influence of Traffic Activity on Heavy Metal Concentrations of Roadside Farm Land Soil.” Basically, this one was different in the city one. This one was in the country and they were checking the soil, and they found that on certain roads that had a farm right next to the road-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—

Evan Brand: -and they found significantly higher Lead. Let me see what else here. I know Lead was the big one, which I guess, which is-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—

Evan Brand: -weird because maybe certain countries are still suing Lead in gasoline, where in the US, we’ve mainly got rid of Lead.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: [clicks tongue] I think—

Evan Brand: I put that one in the chat box.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I think there is still some Lead in certain types of gasoline, not like maybe the conventional one but I think maybe in certain gasoline in—in jet fuel. I think there may still be Lead in like various jet fuels.

Evan Brand: Okay, okay, okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Not quite a hundred percent sure on that. I’ve seen some research showing that jet fuel is—is a source of Lead, so I have to imagine there are still got to be some in there.

Evan Brand: Yeah. I just put another link in—in your Skype chat or your uh—Google chat. People can’t see it, but it’s for you. And maybe you could post it in the YouTube, but it was people—This was uh—uh— LA Times article about freeway pollution and how far that it travels and it,a nd what they found this paper that they’re referencing here. They found that the uh—the traffic pollution drifts more than a mile from the freeway.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Interesting. Yeah, I know right now in Austin, we have this issue with sub-Saharan-African dust. So, it’s this weird kind of thing—You can Google it— but you have this dust from like this kind of African area that’s like over Austin right now and parts of Central Texas. And there’s a lot of allergens in it, so people’s allergies right now really kind of in full effect because of this African dust.

Evan Brand: You’re saying this is literally coming from Africa and blowing-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: -around the planet?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, literally.

Evan Brand: Holy smokes!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: yeah, exactly. So, and it’s one of those things. We got to do our best to really create a healthy home environment.

Evan Brand: Yeah. So this uh— Sorry to interrupt you. This—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: It was UCLA who did this sp—specific study in California, and what they found is that, “In the nighttime, the winds change.” And so it was going over a mile drift from the highway. During the daytime, they said that the drift, you know, didn’t change as much. But basically, they’re measuring ultrafine particles, hydrocarbons, Nitric oxide, and other pollutants succumb from the car exhausts. So, I mean, really—you know, we could talk about all of the—the detox protocols and such, but why not talk about—you could just move. I mean, if you live right next to a highway, that’s probably not a good idea. So when you mentioned Cadmium, or we talked about Aluminum or Arsenic—Okay. You could—You could stay on a detox protocol, but if you’re close to the source, you’re just gonna keep getting re-infected, kind of like with gut bugs. Like, if you’re drinking contaminated water with Giardia, you could treat Giardia and you could end up with Giardia again.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, man. It may really depend, right? If you— If you want to be living in the city or if you have to work in what- a major hub like New York City or something, you know, that’s a sacrifice you’re gonna have to make. You’re gonna have to invest more on making sure water’s on board, uh—being on more detoxification support, whether it’s various binders, whether it’s activated charcoal or Chlorella or Glutathione precursors, or like kind of liver-tonifying support. You may have to frequent infrared sauna more to help your body kind of sweat some of these things out. You may have to invest in a really good air filtration device for your house or your apartment to kind of filter some of these things out. I have one by AdvancedAir that I like that works really good on—at justinhealth.com/shop. That’s good. I like it. It’s really affordable. There’s some more expensive ones. One called Molekule, uh—where there’s a “c”—in molekule, there’s a “k”, so “Molekule” with a “k”. That’s a good one. It’s a little more pricey though. So, find a really good air filtration device that you could put in your house or in your apartment to help at least combat some of these things. Make sure water and diet’s good. And you may want to look at detoxification support a little bit more frequently, and then find a place where you can frequent an infrared sauna maybe once a week, to help with that extra sweat.

Evan Brand: There’s major infertility issues linked to heavy metals too. So, you know, Justin’s already mentioned some symptoms. We talked about the Alzheimer’s connection. There’s fatigued. There’s gut symptoms that can happen. There’s sleep issues that can happen. But if you just go on PubMed on your own, you could just type in “Heavy Metals Fertility” and you’ll find that there’s [sic] miscarriages and other sorts of ovary and pituitary issues that happen from heavy metal exposure. And in some of these studies, what they do is they’ll ggive a woman some type of a chelator. This is not gonna be a natural chelator. This is gonna be like your typical uh— DMPS-type stuff, and then, they found that they were able to stop the woman from having uterine fibroids, miscarriages and other hormonal problems.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Because—Because they chelated some of the metals down?

Evan Brand: That’s right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow-

Evan Brand: It was—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -it was powerful.

Evan Brand: Yeah. This was a long time ago. This was over uh—20 years ago that this was— that this has come out. This was journal and toxicology. Just type in “Heavy Metals Fertility,” and people can read about it. But this is real stuff, so it’s not just uh—a trendy bus word to work on metals, like we all have this.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And a lot of these metals, they have a similar mechanism, how they—they irritate or damage people, right? What are they doing? They’re affecting the Mitochondria. They’re jamming up the Mitochondria, making it harder to generate energy. So, it’s like taking uh—a five or four-lane highway into a one-lane highway. They’re jamming it up. Uh—Number two, they’re putting stress on your liver and on your detoxification system. Right. Of course, these compounds are flowing around the body. There’s more inflammation. More inflammation can mean brain fog. It can mean more leaky gut. Right? All of these various things are gonna be there. And of course, these uhm—metals have an effect to damaging neurological tissue. Potentially, brain fog, mood issue, cognitive stuff, maybe even increased autoimmune conditions, Multiple Sclerosis, other auto—other Dementia-like symptoms, there’s some connection with Aluminum. There’s some connection with Aluminum and Alzheimer’s and Dementia. There’s some connection with Mercury and other MS autoimmune neurological conditions. Again, the research on this, it’s like you can find one study that says it can and then another says that it can’t. Right? That’s the problem with the research, is if you’re in a certain industry and you want a certain result, you can pretty much rent the Ph.D. to adjust the sample size and to manipulate the studies uh—in a way to find what you want. So, if there’s a study showing something negative, and it makes sense to me how, you know, hate to see what they did. This is how they came up with the results. I’m always leery now if someone else find something different. I’m always like, “Oo—‘cause it was found once.” I’m always like—I always— No. I’m always on the side. If I—If it was found once, it probably is something that we have to be careful of.

Evan Brand: Yep. Yeah, that’s a good point about the research. I could cherry pick things and—and make it look like heavy metals ‘cause every health problem ever. But a gut infection plus a heavy metal problem, a lot of practitioner ay that they go together. The heavy metals and parasites and other gut infections are sort of two peas in a pod, and then if you don’t address one, you can’t—you can’t fix the other. And I would agree.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But—But the research stuff, for instance, let me give you an example. Someone— I saw someone put an article on soy, how, say, soy isn’t that big of a deal. It’s not producing a significant amount of Estrogen to hurt—hurt a guy, or to affect, you know, boys that are being breastfed—or I’m sorry— formula-fed with uhm—soy. Yet, there are studies out there showing that soy can provide Phytoestrogens to help women with post-menopausal symptoms. So, what is it? Right? If it’s providing enough Estrogen to help a menopausal female with their menopausal symptoms, tell me why or should walk me through how that mechanism is not gonna affect men, who Estrogen can really affect this feedback loop, especially young developing boys and infants and babies that are with Soy formula. So, once I see data on one thing, yet other research is contradicting it, my feelers are always like, you know, I—I got to be careful with that.

Evan Brand: That’s smart. That’s really smart. You mentioned the sauna, so sweating— I talked Dr. William Shawl, the Ph.D. at Great Plain Laboratory. He said it doesn’t really matter in terms of detox. It doesn’t matter whether you sweat via infrared sauna, whether you sweat a hot rock sauna, whether you sweat from running or riding your bicycle down the street. The sweating was the key that he’ seen across the board over the last 10-20 years to reduce levels of toxins. This is not—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So exercise?

Evan Brand: Yeah, so exercise was key, he said so. He runs, basically, everyday.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I have seen data though that it’s showing that the—the near infrared, right? I think it’s the far infrared uhm— [crosstalk] does penetrate deeper. So there is uh—a deeper penetration where you may be—you’re ringing out uh— a— a bigger sponge if you will.

Evan Brand: I—I believe it. Here is the interesting thing. The guy eats out basically every day at restaurants, and that’s obviously conventional food that’s sprayed with pesticides and a bunch of other things, but he didn’t seem to worry about it. I was kind of let down. I’m like, “Man, you’re like a guy I look up to. You created this great laboratory.” He’s like, “I don’t bring my lunch.” And I said, “So that means you eat out everyday at— at conventional restaurants?” And he was like, “Yup. I don’t worry about it. I’m feeling pretty good.” It’s like, “Dude!” So—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. I mean, I’m a big fan of the 80-20 rule, so try to do your best 80% of the time, and 20 percent of the time you can have a little bit of latitude. Now, again, that rule kind of fall South that the more sick you are, the more symptoms you have, then we go up to 90 to a hundred percent. But yeah, I agree. I mean, there’s lots of things that are out there o you try to do your best to have lifestyle habits or substitutes, or you find good restaurants that are gonna good options for you. [crosstalk] That makes sense.

Evan Brand: Yeah. Look for grass-fed— grass-fed burgers and organic restaurants. I mean, just type in, “Organic Restaurant” in your city, or wherever you’re travelling to. If you travel a lot— and I hear that from clients. “Oh, I travel. How do I eat healthy while travelling? How do I avoid these toxins?” For one, you—you’d bring your own water, or get a Berkey Sport, the little portable Berkey. You can filter-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yup.

Evan Brand: -out some of the heavy metals and pesticides from the tap water if you have to drink tap water.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally, hundred percent. So let’s keep on rolling here. Copper’s another one. I mean, Copper’s in it an actual nutrient as well, so it’s not a heavy metal, like a toxic meta per se, but you can have high amounts of it with an IUD called uh– Paragard is one. Copper pipes—older ones. There’s some Copper in some fungicides and various—and various chemicals up. Some people eat, just get too much Copper in their Vitamins, or they’re eating a vegetarian diet that’s higher in Copper and they’re not getting enough Zinc from potential meats. That’s another option. Not a huge deal with that. With Copper, you can always do Vitamin C to help chelate, as well as uhm—higher doses of Zinc as well. Any comments on that, Evan?

Evan Brand: Yeah. I just posted a podcast today with Ann Louise Gittleman, and she talked about how she had clients with major, major Acne issues-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Uhmhm—

Evan Brand: -and they were Copper-toxic, and it was because they were drinking Kombucha. So, supposedly, Kombucha is the natural properties of the tea is that it uptakes Copper from the soil, that the tea is grown-in, which is huge for the Kombucha. So she got the client off Kombucha completely—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What kind of Kombucha did she say?

Evan Brand: She said any. Any and all Kombucha. She doesn’t—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I imagined if it’s organically grown though there’s gonna be a more balanced, I mean, amount of minerals in there, right?

Evan Brand: I don’t know. I don’t know. She—She acted like it was all Kombucha. She—She said, “Stay away from it. You know, don’t touch it with a 10-foot straw, basically.” So—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Well, I—I think there’s a lot of health benefits in Kom—in Kombucha. There’s a lots of different kinds out there. Some are really high in sugar. Some are low in sugar. Some are organic; some are not. So I think [incomprehensible]—

Evan Brand: I know. How would she—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -maybe not as good.

Evan Brand: I know. It was a broad brush stroke, but it’s like, “How would you verify?” I guess you’d have to test all the different brands, like GT’s, and measure is there high Copper? But anyway-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: Either way, she had them come off Kombucha and then she did some ZInc, and then this person’s major Acne problem went away. So she was talking about if you’re trying to think, “Okay. If you can’t get your doctor to test you for uh— for the Copper, look for some of the symptoms, and some of the biggest ones were— were mainly skin. And then also like Anxiety issues and fatigue issues-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah.

Evan Brand: -and uh— Tinnitus, ringing of the ears, hyperactivity, sleep issues. It was all tied in to being Copper toxic. She called it being a Copperhead, and she said she was a Copperhead for many, many years.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah. I mean, we’ll see. I mean, hh— I have a hard time thinking that that’s all because of Copper.

Evan Brand: Yes.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Personally, there could have— There— There could easily been some SIBO there, and this person could have been just consuming too much fermentable products ‘cause of their gut bacterial overgrowth.

Evan Brand: Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  A— And that could have been the mechanism, right? I don’t know, but I mean, just my clinical experience with thousands of patients, I don’t— I don’t see that being a  huge deal. Changing other diet and support the detoxification in getting, you know, more Zinc in there tends to be a good way of supporting that. But we’ll— we’ll note it.

Evan Brand: It sound— I mean, it sounds sexy, right? All the problems were just linked to that one little beverage, but yeah, I agree with you…

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I— I don’t—

Evan Brand: …probably more root causes. And that’s the hard part too. Like, when you interview these people, I mean, you could just probe them and probe them and like call them out on their stuff. But then, I don’t know. Like, are you gonna end up getting— getting somewhere with it or is it just gonna go nowhere? You know?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: The problem is, number one, we’re moving so many levers. It’s not like we’re having a clinical study or a clinical trial where people are in a metabolic war and we’re tweaking only one variable.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, we have to really use common sense, and that’s why I try to look at what are the major mechanisms we— we’re moving when we make a diet change or a lifestyle change or a supplement change? And the— the— the foundational levers are simple things like sleep, water, digestion, getting rid of infections, supporting hormones, supporting inflammation, reduction, and you— So many symptoms can change with just one of those levers, and if we, like, isolate each lever one at a time, it would take patients years to get better.

Evan Brand: Very cool.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: So, you know, we just do our best as clinicians and doctors to like use our common sense to— to see based on our experience what we think it was. So, yeah!

Evan Brand: [crosstalk] We— We probably moved— I don’t know— 50 needles at a time or something.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow. So many, totally. [crosstalk] So next, let’s go to Lead. Let’s go to— Oh! What yo—

Evan Brand: Yeah, hit Lead.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -next.

Evan Brand: Hit Lead-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: -but we got to hit Mercury, too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Auto exhaust. But again, we talked about that being unleaded for most of United States. Maybe some jet fuels aren’t. You know, perchlorate’s in the jet fuels. smelting stuff, anything that’ smelted, uhm—circuit boards that require certain smelting for the wires to stick, of course. Root canal’s maybe an issue. Uhm—glazes, hair dyes, Lead pipes, uh—potential Lead paint if you’re in a house before 19—I think—76 is the rule. Uh—Some pencils, some pesticides that have Lead-Arsenic in it, rain waters, uhm—some of the cheaper Chinese herbs, Ayurvedic herbs from China, some of them are grown in very high Lead-based soils. Uh—concrete, wood, building materials, final siding, anything else you want to add there, Evan?

Evan Brand: Uh—I would add guns. You know, shooting.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Oh, yeah. Shooting booths, yeah.

Evan Brand: Uh—I have—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s good.

Evan Brand: I had a female client who—she was like a private investigator. I think she worked for the government. Anyway, she was at the shooting range every single week, and it was an indoor shooting range. She said that the airflow was not very good, and she could see like the smoke, you know, floating around her after she was shooting, and she had a lot of like the Lead toxicity symptoms. So, you know, her brain was not working very well. She was depressed. She was anxious. Her blood pressure was up. Her memory was terrible. Uh—She didn’t have any of like the crazy Lead stuff, like paralysis, and numbness, and Parkinson’s, like some of the major manifestations. She didn’t have that, but her sleep was crap and her brain was crap. So we did start giving her just some gentle uh—Chlorella-based uh—tinctures, and we did see symptoms get better. However, though, like you said, at the same time, I wasn’t doing just that. I was also getting rid of the many, many, many different gut infections that she had.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally. Not—I go to the shooting range like once a quarter, like when my wife was pregnant, like you know, she just did’t come with me. It was like, “Alright, you stay away.” But typically, if we go, it’s like, “Alright. Have a little bit activated charcoal and Glutathione and antioxidants kind of before and after.” Kind of clean things up, and I just choose a good range that has good uh—air filtration like you mentioned.

Evan Brand: I go to an outdoor range, but then also, I use—I use Copper bullets. Uh—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s good.

Evan Brand: They don’t have it—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: A lot more—They are a lot more expensive though, so—

Evan Brand: [crosstalk] They are expensive. I just don’t shoot as many. [laughs]

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. There you go.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s a good option. So let’s hit Mercury next. Anything else you wanted to highlight about Lead there, Evan?

Evan Brand: I mean it’s huge. We can spend a whole hour. We can spend a whole year on Lead. It’s a big deal. You got to look at all sources, especially your Lead pipes, if you live in the old part of a—old part of a city. You know, look at the uh—Look at the Flint water— you know— crisis thing, you know. It’s—It’s bad, so—so yes, please.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and that’s why I just don’t—don’t trust—I don’t trust any government’s water, or any local municipality’s water. I have two water filtrations: the whole house and the countertop. If you’re on a budget, get a countertop. I—You pay—If you actually are paying for bottled water right now, you’ll—you’ll pay for itself in six months, okay?

Evan Brand: Yup.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: You know, you can get a good one for  two to 300 dollars, and ends up being less than a dime per gallon, so super good. And then you can filter it out. And, people are always complaining about, “Oh, you filter it out, you pull all the minerals out.” It’s like, “Come on, man” I rather have cleaner water and add minerals back in. It’s way easier to add mineral back in than to leave toxins in the water.

Evan Brand: Yeah. I don’t want toxins in my water. Let’s hit Mercury.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: You mentioned the uh—the vaccines for Aluminum. Obviously, Mercury— Thimerosal is like I think it’s 48% Mercury? The Thimerosal in—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: …in vaccines?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. It’s gonna be in primarily your Flu vaccine now. They pull some out but they replaced a lot of the ones that had Thimerosal in it with Aluminum hydroxide-

Evan Brand: Oh.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -so it’s only in that one. There may be one version of the deep— the D— DTP, and one version NMR, potentially. There was, right now, the primary one is just the Flu vaccine.

Evan Brand: Okay. So you think Mercury is out of— pretty much out of vaccines? Uh—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Yeah. Now, there is some Mercury that’s used in the processing of the vaccination, like not in the actual ingredients.

Evan Brand: Okay.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: And if you go look on the John Hopkins ingredient label for Vaccine Safety, there’ll be a little ex— like a little like kind of star at the bottom of that, and it will say like, “Oh, like Mercury that’s used in the processing is not like counted if it’s less than 0.005 like per liter like ppm or whatever.” So there is some people that say there is still some Mercury. It’s just not in the actual vaccine. It’s used in the processing of it, and it’s still at a— a reasonably high level. So you have to take that with a grain of salt.

Evan Brand: Yeah. I would say, particularly, people that could pay mo— that should pay more attention to this would be like military people, where they travel to certain countries and they have to go and get like 20 or 30 different vaccines to go to Afghanistan, for example. I mean, how do you mitigate that? Like you said, you’ve just got to do a lot of your good detox support and binders to try to mitigate the risk of vaccines if you’re forced to do that for your job, and you can’t-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: -opt out.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah, and there’s some research on that. Like, if you watch the documentary, Trace Amounts, they go over some of that with the Mercury. But just something to keep in mind, the big source is gonna be your teeth though. Dental Amalgam fillings, uhm— they’re typically referred to as Silver Amalgam Fillings. It’s kind of uh— I would just say poor marketing, or I should say, inauthentic marketing because they’re over 50% Mercury. So you—

Evan Brand: People have to look up the documentary Our Daily Dose. It goes into the whole history of how the American Dental Association got corrupted. I think it was back in the 1800’s, maybe early 1900’s and how Mercury even came into the picture. Incredibly corrupt history.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: What’s it called again?

Evan Brand: It’s called Our Daily Dose.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Our Daily Dose. Alright, cool. So we’ll make sure we put links for that. I have to put that on my list.

Evan Brand: It also— Yeah. It’s incredible, man. It also talks about the uh— cremation and how anybody who lives near crematories should probably move because when they’re cremating the bodies, all of the Mercury out of those dead bodies is going out of the exhaust pipe into the air from the crematory, landing in the soil and into the air. If anyone living near a crematory— So, we’ve got to find a better way to— to mitigate— I mean, everyone dies, and we’ve got millions of bodies that have Mercury in them, so—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: I’m surprised they don’t require— there’s not some kind of uhm

Evan Brand: A scrubber or something?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Something that a scrubber to filter that out. I— I would think it wouldn’t be that difficult to do that.

Evan Brand: I know. I know. I— It’s— It’s— When you watch that documentary, it will literally blow your mind because it’s ending up in the groundwater. They’re doing studies of groundwater near uh— crematories, and even the groundwater— uh— The fish are contaminated next to uh— I guess we can mention fish in the ocean but for this specific topic, I meant fish any— in any uh— freshwater near crematories is a big deal.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Wow. Well, good to know. But your dental amalgam fillings will be the biggest. And of course, things uh— like that are excellent to know about vaccinations with the flu, for sure, is gonna be a big one. Uh— Some various pesticides and chemicals will still have some of these things in there. Again, we have a list we’re going off of so I can’t give you specific products, and again, if you’re buying things from certain countries that don’t have the— the higher environmental regulations, like some of the places in China, may have a higher level of Mercury still in the paint or Lead in the paint, or you know. So you got to be careful of where you’re getting things. But again, I can give you a whole list. Fertilizers, laxatives, lumbers, paints, [crosstalk] exhaust fumes, embalming fluids— So embalming fluid makes a lot of— well, embalm— I should say, embalm— U— Yeah. Embalming fluid. That’s like basically antifreeze, I think.

Evan Brand: They use uh— Formaldehyde in them—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Formaldehyde. Yeah, Formaldehyde. Exactly.

Evan Brand: It’s not—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Chlorine bleach, sludge, sewage disposal, lightening creams, waxes, wood preservatives— I think the big thing people got to be aware of is the Flu vaccine component, the heavy metals in your mouth, uhm

Evan Brand: And the fish, [crosstalk] the Tuna.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah. Some of the Tuna, the higher Mercury— The Skipjack Tuna’s pretty good. It’s got a very low Mercury to high Selenium ratio. So— Selenium’s a natural chelator of Mercury, so if you’re eating fish that have Mercury in it, Selenium’s a natural chelator, and Selenium’s actually a mineral-precursor to Glutathione. So, the more Selenium, the fish— the nutrients in the fish are actually detoxifying you at the same time. It’s—

Evan Brand: What about other fish? Do you worry at all about like, even in Salmon or Cod, or Haddock? Do you worry about the Pollack, the smaller fish?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  You got to look at the high Mercury to low Selenium fish. So the shark, the pilot whale, the swordfish— those are gonna be more concerning ‘cause they have lower amounts of Selenium and higher amounts of Mercury. But if you look at the higher Selenium and lower Mercury fish, Skipjack Tuna, your Salmon, your Haddock, your Cod. So, man, I think three to four servings a week is fine. There’s been some studies showing that when women cut out their fish, right— even during pregnancy time, their kid actually— their baby drops IQ of seven points because of the healthy fats, the DHEA, the DHA fats in the fish are now reduced out of their diet, which is— those fats are really important for neurological and brain formation. So I think three to four servings a week is fine, just choose the higher Selenium to Mercury ratio fish. Just Google “High Selenium Low Mercury ratio fish,” and you’ll get a nice little PDF uhm— with that in there, so you can at least plan appropriately.

Evan Brand: I guess you could, if you were extra paranoid, you could do some of the chelators that we’ve talked about. And I— I hate to call them chelators, so technically not that. Mild detoxifiers, like your Michael Ni’s C— Chlorella could help if you’re gonna consume seafood.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  Totally. By the way, a— an MD friend of mine used to give me so much crap ‘cause I would use to call them [chē-ˌlā-tərs] like you just did. He was like [ˈkē-ˌlā-tərs] [crosstalk]. I’m gonna pass. I’m gonna pass down that— that knowledge to you as well.

Evan Brand: I— I— I shouldn’t even use the word ‘cause it’s technically not correct. It’s— It technically the— ‘cause the chelator is more something that is—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Like a DMPS-

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -or TSA or EDTA.

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: More of a chemical bonder.

Evan Brand: Yeah. The natural stuff is not a chelator. I— It’s technically just a mild detoxifier. So I’ll just ditch the word from my vocabulary.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Nah. No— No problem. I’m just giving you a little hard time there.

Evan Brand: [laughs]

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: But in general, cheap Chinese herbs, uhm— dental Mercury fillings, uh— pesticides, your— the Mercury in your mouth we talked about. I think those are the big things. Any you want to highlight there?

Evan Brand: I don’t think so. I mean, we could go on and on with some of these other metals. I mean, car exhaust has so many different things It pops up across the board for containing Thallium as well. Uh— we tualked about the Aluminum. Also, Tin could be your Tin cans and stuff too.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yes.

Evan Brand: Uh— I think you could freak out and probably make yourself want to live in a bubble pretty quick if you start reading about some of these stuff. But I would just say, reduce sourcing. If you can change your zip code and move somewhere that’s not close to a highway, do it. And then, if you can get safely and healthily get out— healthily get out the uh— Amalgams with the biological dentsists— If you’re strong enough to do this, and Justin, maybe you give your disclaimer or your two cents on this, but I think you should probably be somewhat strong. Adrenal, detox-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yep.

Evan Brand: -gut-wise before you go into biological dentistry if removing Amalgams.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Bingo! Stronger with your detoxification pathways, good nutrition, uh— healthy gut function before you actually go into the process of removing things. I think if you want simple things, you can alway do some of the— the binders, the Chlorella, uh— the various citrus pectins, the various activated charcoal I think is— is safer, and starting at lower dose, I think, is okay. But if you want to get tested, we test— I test my patients all the time. I use a DMPS chelator for the initial test. I do a Urine Challenge Test ‘cause I want to look at what’s in the tissue. A lot of times the hair— hair is a natural method of pushing heavy metals out of the body. There’s been some studies of, for instance, one study with Autistic children showing they had less heavy metals in their hair.

Evan Brand: ‘Cause they can’t get it out, and then—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: ‘Cause they can’t get it out because you actually have to have healthy detoxification to push it into the hair. So the question is if you’re detoxification’s impaired, you may not see it in the hair. And if— the hair is the indicator of what your body burden is— Well, it’s— It’s a couple steps downstream, so there could be other steps that come above it that affect it. That’s why I like the chelation challenge of the urine because y— they’re pulling out what’s in the tissue. And again, blood, it’s gonna be more acute. Like if your kid’s eating paint chips and you’re doing a blood test, you could see that Lead right in the blood. But if your kid ate paint chips like a couple months ago, the body may have taken that Lead, pushed it into the tissue, into the fat, and then now, when you test the blood, it may not come back. But a challenge may reveal it, ‘cause these metals can go into other tissues and you kind of have to agitate the tissue and pull it out.

Evan Brand: Now, are you recommending a random urine test after the provocation agent or you having like 24-hour collection after provocation?

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Just a two to three-hour collection. The half-life of some of these chemical chelators, like DMPS, is a three— a three-hour half-life, so any longer than that is not necessary.

Evan Brand: ‘Cause the NDF I was telling you about, that can be used as a— as a natural provocation agent. The half-life of it is around two hours, so it sounds very, very, very close, but I would argue maybe superior. I’ll have to—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: I’ll have to uh— find that paper and— and send it to you ‘cause it’s pretty mind-blowing.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Absolutely, yeah. So, if your concerned about heavy metals, look at some of the things we talked about, just the simple vectors. Number two, get a heavy metal test that can actually provoke and get a window into what’s happening tissue-burden-wise. Also, look at your organic acids because your organic acids can give you a window into a lot of your Glutathione and Sulfur amino acid and antioxidant precursors to run your Phase-1, Phase-2 or even Phase-3 detoxification pathways. The Cytochrome P450 oxidase enzyme pathways are important for detoxifying, so it’s nice to see how those pathways are doing. DO all the diet and lifestyle things. Get tested. Uhm— Don’t get your heavy metal fillings removed right away, but you go see a good biologically-trained dentist. Get your gut and your inflammation and diet better first, before you get that removed. And it depend how many you have, you may want to get kind of uh— a protocol lined up with your dentist. Maybe remove 25% at a time, or 50% at a time, depending on how many you have. Some people that have 20 or 25, you may not want to do more than five or six at a time. So you got to work that-

Evan Brand: Yeah.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: -out with yoour biologically-trained dentist.

Evan Brand: Yeah, and some— Some practitioners, some dentist have protocols they may impleme— implement with (R)-lipoic acid and Alpha-Lipoic acid, and-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Yeah.

Evan Brand: -some other things, so just uh— We always recommend people look at the link— Let me double check the website. It’s the I-A-M-O-T—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani:  I-A-M— Yeah. International Association of Oral and Medical Toxicology dot (.) org.

Evan Brand: Yeah. So I— I’m making sure I’m typing it in right.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: IAOMT.org.

Evan Brand: Yep. That’s the one.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: That’s Dr. Jack Kennedy’s site.

Evan Brand: Yeah, but there’s a whole database there, so you can look in someone [inaudible]

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Feel free you guys. Look at the uh— the video called The Smoking Tooth.  If people think or your dentist says that heavy metals stay put when they’re put in your mouth, watch that video and your mind will be blown. Oh— We’’l try to get that link put in below, so you guys don’t have to hunt it down.

Evan Brand: That video clip is in that Our Daily Dose. They show, it’s like—

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Okay.

Evan Brand: It’s like 2000 times the safe amount of Mercury gets released when they drill it out-

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Totally.

Evan Brand:wiithout any safe procedure. It’s— It’s— It’s— It should be a crime.

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Insane. Hundred percent insane. But hey! Education, we start here. We vote with our dollars. Make smart decisions. And if you guys are loving this podcast, give us a thumbs up. Give us a share. We appreciate it. We get energized by your comments. We get energized by your feedback, and we’re just— We’re here to empower everyone. Then, if you want to take that next step and dig in deeper, for Evan’s help, evanbrand.com, as well as myself, justinhealth.com. Look forward to being of service. And, Evan, you have a phenomenal day. Great chatting with you.

Evan Brand: Sounds good. We’ll talk to you all next week. Buh-bye!

Dr. Justin Marchegiani: Take care. Bye.

——————————————————————————————————

REFERENCES:

Aluminum and Silica in Drinking Water and The Risk of Alzheimer’s Disease or Cognitive Decline, An American Journal of Epidemiology 2009 15-Year Study

Trace Amounts, a documentary

http://www.ourdailydosefilm.com/  Our Daily Dose, a documentary

IAOMT.org

Dr. Layton’s “The Smoking Tooth” Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJVBYZEsqEU,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pBVjZJhPrw

https://justinhealth.com/

https://www.evanbrand.com/

https://justinhealth.com/shop

Water Filtration Devices

Whole House Water Filtration

Enjoying What You've Read? Sign Up For FREE Updates Delivered To Your Inbox.

Enjoying What You've Read? Sign Up For FREE Updates Delivered To Your Inbox.