Heavy Metals Test

If you have any of the following symptoms, then heavy metal toxicity could be adversely affecting your health:

• Anxiety and/or depression

• Deteriorating eye health

• Digestive problems

• Fatigue

• Headaches

• Infertility

• Memory problems

• Mental "fogginess"

• Poor heart and/or blood vessel function

• Poor immune function (recurrent infections, autoimmune diseases)

• Poor kidney function

• Tingling sensations in the hands, feet, and/or around the mouth

• Tremors

Heavy metals consist of toxic elements like lead, mercury, and cadmium. Test results also provide the levels of essential minerals, including zinc, copper, selenium, and magnesium, because these can be affected by ‐ or can be protective against ‐ heavy metal toxicity.

What are heavy metals

Humans constant come into contact with heavy metals in their environment. While this contact can occur through food and water, it can also occur through air pollution, cosmetics, medications, and even many common items in the home and work environment. And although the body can naturally detoxify and eliminate many of these toxic substances, when levels become too high, they can begin to adversely affect an individual's health.

Part of the toxic tendency of heavy metals is to compete with the essential minerals the body needs for normal function. By comparing the levels of important nutritional minerals to the levels of heavy metals, one can better assess how these toxic substances can have a negative impact on health and wellbeing.

Heavy metals are natural elements found in the earth's crust and throughout its soil. Their concentration often depends on the geographic region where they are found. Although scientists classify heavy metals based on their atomic weight, more generally they are classified based on their toxicity. The most well-known heavy metals are lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic, but there are others. The problem is that heavy metals are not confined to staying in the ground. They migrate to other areas of the environment, like the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat. While most of the heavy metal content in the environment is due to human activity, natural phenomena like volcanic eruptions also contribute to heavy metal levels in the environment.

The World Health Organization has stated that the increasing presence of heavy metals in the environment is "...associated to different degrees with a wide range of conditions, including kidney and bone damage, developmental and neuro-behavioral disorders, elevated blood pressure, and potentially even lung cancer."

Exposure to heavy metal can comes from a variety of sources, including:

• Air pollution from vehicle exhaust, release of industrial waste, and coal-fired power plants

• Cigarette smoke

• Contaminated fish from polluted water sources

• Food grown in contaminated soil

• Physical contact with contaminated soil

• Residential paint (from older homes with lead-based paint)

• Residential water (from older homes with copper or lead pipes)

• Water pollution from industrial waste

How the biomarkers we measure impact your health

Mercury

Mercury is a silvery, metallic, liquid element that is very toxic, even in extremely small amounts. Unfortunately, mercury is ubiquitous in the environment, due to its wide industrial use, making it virtually impossible to eliminate this toxic heavy metal from our environment.

The brain and nervous system are especially sensitive to long-term mercury exposure, and babies and young children are the most sensitive to mercury's negative health effects. Chronic mercury exposure is associated with hypertension, cardiovascular disease, inflammation, arrhythmias, stroke, and atherosclerosis. Mercury toxicity also reduces the activity of a key enzyme that normally metabolizes the neurotransmitters epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine. In general, mercury taints enzyme systems throughout the body by binding with the enzyme's active receptor sites, resulting in the enzyme being unable to perform its function.

Lead

Lead is less ubiquitous in the developed world than mercury, mostly because lead is no longer used as an additive in gasoline in the United States and is no longer being used as a paint additive. However, lead does remain a problem in developing countries. Although lead-based paints were banned in the United State in 1978, homes built prior to the ban can still contain lead-based paints, which, if disturbed, can cause contamination and toxicity. Exposure is also possible from car batteries, old lead pipes or copper pipes soldered with lead, and some hair dyes and cosmetics. Although an individual might not be exposed to as much lead today, a person can still retain a body burden of lead acquired from childhood. This lead can be stored in tissues, such as bone, and might not show up in a routine test for lead. Stored metals can also be released into the bloodstream from hormonal changes (menopause, pregnancy), bone loss, bone injury, or significant weight loss.

Children are particularly vulnerable to lead's harmful effects, which can result in serious developmental delays and nervous system damage. Lead exposure can also result in fatigue, weakness, neurological challenges, poor circulatory health, GI and kidney issues, and thyroid dysfunction.

Cadmium

Cadmium is used in battery manufacturing and many other industries. Tobacco smoking or "vaping" can expose a smoker to cadmium because tobacco plants can concentrate cadmium from cadmium-contaminated soil. Rice also tends to accumulate cadmium, especially when the rice is grown in areas irrigated with cadmium-polluted water, or in an area that formerly grew tobacco, as in some areas in the southeastern United States. Gasoline and motor oil, some cookware, some processed foods and drinks, batteries, fertilizers, and shellfish can also contain cadmium. Like mercury, lead, and the mineral zinc, cadmium occurs in the earth's crust in ores with lead and zinc.

Although cadmium accumulates predominantly in the kidney, liver, and bones, the kidney is the organ most damaged by cadmium toxicity, potentially resulting in chronic kidney disease. Long-term exposure to cadmium is also associated with metabolic syndrome, diabetes mellitus, hypertension, heart failure, cancer, osteomalacia, osteoporosis, decreased sperm viability, and an increased risk of death from all causes.

Zinc

While high levels of heavy metals can be toxic, there are essential nutrients that help balance the levels of these toxic elements. Zinc, a vital antioxidant mineral involved in more than 200 enzymatic reactions in the body, is an essential element for growth, immune function, and testosterone production. A zinc deficiency can result in poor immune function, inhibited growth, and reduced nerve development ‐ and can also increase the toxicity of heavy metals.

While zinc toxicity is rare, very high levels of zinc are associated with a higher risk for metabolic syndrome.

Copper

Copper is an essential element for the health of the bones, blood vessels, connective tissue, heart, brain, and skin, and normal lipid metabolism. A deficiency of copper can result in anemia, blood vessel weakening, muscle weakness, and an inability to produce melanin.

Copper can also be present in excess. Sources of excess copper can include drinking water from copper pipes and uncoated copper cookware. A chronically high level of copper can negatively affect immune health, reproductive health (in both men and women), and bone health, as well as result in a zinc deficiency.

Zinc/Copper ratio

High levels of copper can reduce zinc levels, while adequate amounts of zinc can reduce toxic levels of copper in the body. For this reason, Thorne's Heavy Metal Test measures the ratio of zinc to copper, as well as the individual minerals to make sure they are well balanced.

Selenium

Selenium is a vital mineral for normal thyroid function, antioxidant function as a cofactor for glutathione, and cellular health. Selenium is also associated with heart health and connective tissue, eye, and liver function. A healthy level of selenium is protective against mercury, cadmium, and other heavy metal toxicities.

Although selenium is essential for good health, it is also possible to get too much selenium. This can occur from eating too many Brazil nuts, for example. Each Brazil nut has about 90 mcg of selenium, so regular snacking on more than a couple nuts a day could be enough over time to push one over the limit.

Magnesium

Magnesium is present in all cells of the body and is involved as a nutrient cofactor in more than 600 biochemical reactions, including energy production. Magnesium is also essential for maintaining normal bone density, normal heart rhythm, healthy lung function, and normal blood sugar regulation. Unfortunately, it is estimated that 75 percent of U.S. adults are deficient in magnesium. Low blood levels of magnesium have been associated with cadmium exposure. Maintaining an optimal blood magnesium level might be protective of the cellular damage caused by lead or cadmium toxicity.

The Science

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