What we need to know about environmental toxins

"Even low dose mercury toxicity can be harmful to human health in a variety of ways: enhanced free radical stress, reduced glutathione levels, increase in apolipoprotein E g4 genotype expression, promotion of neurofibrillary tangles and altered immune sensitivity. It has been implicated in contributing to autism, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinsonism, and even lupus erythematosus, an autoimmune disease that may have neurologic involvement. Mercury toxicity has been reported as an occupational risk to dental staff, goldminers, and chloralkali factory workers. My father, a dentist, developed neurological symptoms of mercury poisoning after handling many dental amalgams, so I have some firsthand experience with its danger. Even in remote parts of the world like the Amazonian basin evidence of neurotoxic levels of methyl mercury contamination has been observed. Testing adults in a remote village on the Tapajos River, investigators found that loss of manual dexterity and visual contrast acuity correlated with mercury levels even in a range considered non-toxic."

Arnold R. Eiser is an internal medicine physician.

He shares his story and discusses his book, Preserving Brain Health in a Toxic Age: New Insights from Neuroscience, Integrative Medicine, and Public Health.

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