What are the symp­toms of mer­cury tox­i­c­ity and what are the three best ways to limit your exposure?

Mer­cury expo­sure is an unfor­tu­nate real­ity in today’s indus­tri­al­ized world.

Mer­cury has many well-known health effects.  To begin with, it poi­sons the brain and is par­tic­u­larly dam­ag­ing to devel­op­ing fetuses and young children.

Most wor­ri­some is that no safe level has ever been found for mer­cury expo­sure.

Jane High­tower, MD, a world author­ity on the toxic role of mer­cury, recently shared impor­tant details about the role of envi­ron­men­tal mer­cury in an inter­view con­ducted by Earth Jus­tice.  Here’s a link to what she had to say:

earthjustice.org/features/campaigns/frequently-asked-questions-about-mercury

What are some com­mon mer­cury health effects?

If you suf­fer from excess mer­cury expo­sure, or are par­tic­u­larly sen­si­tive to it, you may expe­ri­ence symp­toms such as

• fatigue
• headache
• mem­ory loss
• trou­ble per­form­ing com­plex tasks
• depressed mood
• metal­lic taste in your mouth
• joint or mus­cle pain
• gas­troin­testi­nal upset
• chest pain or palpitations
• dizzi­ness or faint-headedness, or
• insom­nia.

If you expe­ri­ence a com­bi­na­tion of these, you should dis­cuss the symp­toms with your doc­tor. Of course, any of these symp­toms can occur with ill­nesses unre­lated to mer­cury poisoning.

What can you do to limit your mer­cury exposure?

1. Cur­tail your intake of fish, espe­cially those fish at the top of the aquatic food chain that tend to have higher mer­cury lev­els in their flesh.  It’s rec­om­mended that you elim­i­nate your intake of those species at the top of the mer­cury scale alto­gether. (Or limit them to less than one serv­ing per month.)  These vari­eties include sword­fish, tile fish, king mack­erel, and shark.You should also limit your intake of fish con­sid­ered to be medium high in their mer­cury con­cen­tra­tion (tuna, hal­ibut, grouper, north­ern pike, bass) to 4–5 ounces per week depend­ing on your body weight.  And if you’re preg­nant, nurs­ing, or might get preg­nant, these num­bers should be close to zero. It’s a darn shame, because in other respects these fish could be a part of a healthy diet.  As an alter­na­tive, many peo­ple could ben­e­fit from a high qual­ity fish oil sup­ple­ment to get their com­ple­ment of essen­tial omega-3 fatty acids with­out the mercury.
2. Don’t rush out to have the mer­cury in your den­tal fill­ings replaced.  It’s unclear if there’s any health ben­e­fit to replac­ing your exist­ing fill­ings — and the pro­ce­dure could even make your sit­u­a­tion worse by spilling more mer­cury into your blood stream dur­ing the extrac­tion process. On the other hand, if you need a new fill­ing, or need to replace an old one, you should be able to find a den­tist today who doesn’t use mercury-laced amalgam.
3. A third major con­trib­u­tor to envi­ron­men­tal mer­cury is coal burn­ing power plants.  In fact, burn­ing coal is the sin­gle largest human-generated source of toxic mer­cury in water, air, soil, and the ocean.  As long as coal con­tin­ues to sup­ply 40–50% of our national elec­tric­ity needs, there’s not too much you can do to avoid this mer­cury exposure.But now you have a choice. In many states, con­sumers can opt to receive their elec­tric power from a vari­ety of sup­pli­ers.  And there’s one elec­tric­ity sup­plier in par­tic­u­lar that’s com­mit­ted to switch­ing Amer­ica to 100% renew­able power. Today, only a small frac­tion of elec­tric­ity con­sumers make a con­scious choice to shake our addic­tion to coal, nat­ural gas, or nuclear power plants.  But once that small frac­tion grows to 10%…20%…30%…or more, the eco­nom­ics of scale begin to shift dra­mat­i­cally in favor of wind power and other renew­able tech­nolo­gies. Here’s a link which makes it easy for you to switch:  napower.biz/127136

Lim­it­ing your expo­sure to mer­cury is one more way you can take con­trol of your health and the health of the nation as a whole.