John Dempster, ND, is interviewed on the Anxiety Summit by host of the Anxiety Summit, Trudy Scott, Food Mood Expert and Nutritionist, author of The Antianxiety Food Solution.
Anxiety and heavy metals: chelation of mercury and lead
- The connection between toxic metals (mercury and lead) and anxiety
- How to effectively measure toxic metals with a provoked urine challenge
- The do’s and don’ts of chelation and watching for mineral depletion
- A bipolar/anxiety case study
Here are some gems from our interview:
So I kind of want to shed some light on some of these areas and how it can affect anxiety directly. One of the big areas is mercury itself is a neurotoxin. So how does that impact our biochemistry and our physiology? Well what it’s going to do it’s going to start to disrupt on an endocrine and a neurotransmitter level some of our pathways. And one of the big pathways is actually the glutamate connection and the glutamate pathway. And glutamate is something that’s known as an excitatory neurotransmitter and this is something that if we have too much of it or it’s not being reuptake properly in our synapses we start to exhibit different types of symptoms of anxiety. And of course that’s just one possible trigger for anxiety.
….to speak of mercury specifically amalgams are a source. Silver amalgam fillings are a source of metal, metal mercury. But we are also seeing that there are trace amounts in certain vaccinations. There are trace amounts in certain food groups such as fish. And this may not come as a surprise to many of you listeners but it is still a problem and we’re still seeing people – high amounts of mercury come into my clinic pretty much every day that are continuing to be exposed to these levels. And there are a number of other different possible source that are on a smaller scale. We might actually be breathing it in which is scary but depending on where you live in the world we may be exposed to some industrial sources of mercury as well. But the biggest ones that we can take charge of immediately are what’s in our mouth, what’s in our food and what goes in or on our body.
In this sample of young adults with low levels of lead exposure, higher blood lead was associated with increased odds of major depression and panic disorder. Exposure to lead at levels generally considered safe could result in adverse mental health outcomes.
Dr. Dempster describes the chelator DMSA as a magnet:
DMSA is a very safe but effective way of dragging metals out of the body. And what we want to do is when we provoke that we actually drag this compound through our tissues. Not just our bloodstream. It goes through – it kind of rinses through our tissues and acts as a magnet and it draws these metals out at the other end that we can collect.
Here are some studies on heavy metals and chelation with DMSA:
- DMSA a non-toxic water soluble treatment for heavy metal toxicity
- Chelation therapy in intoxications with mercury, lead and copper
- Efficacy of DMSA Therapy in a Sample of Arab Children with Autistic Spectrum Disorder.
Here is information on the Mental Wellness Summit that Dr. Dempster and Ross McKenzie co-hosted
And Ross McKenzie’s incredible movie Bipolarized
Here is the Wellness Without Limits ebook
If you are not already registered for the Anxiety Summit you can get live access to the speakers of the day here: www.theAnxietySummit.com
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