Toxic heavy metals are found in the air we breathe, the food we eat, and the houses we live in. They have become so pervasive in our environment that it is no longer a question if a person has heavy metals in his or her body. The question is how much metal and which ones.

Toxic metal exposure can result in a wide array of common mental health disorders that can mimic many psychiatric “diseases” and thus lead to psychoactive prescription drug use or other unnecessary treatments.

Some of the metal-related neuropsychiatric symptoms include memory loss, cognitive impairment, attention deficit disorder, fatigue, irritability, aggressive and violent behavior, bipolar disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, depression, anxiety, and panic attacks.

Neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and multiple sclerosis can also be associated with heavy metals.

Harmful effects beyond the brain can include fungal overgrowth inside the body that is resistant to treatment, liver and kidney damage, and hormone disruption. The list of potentially harmful effects of heavy metals could fill this entire page.

Unfortunately, the majority of clinicians dealing with patients who have mental health issues are unlikely to suspect heavy metal toxicity as a contributing cause of their patients’ problems due to a general lack of knowledge about this subject in the mainstream medical community.

What are heavy metals?

Heavy metals are naturally occurring elements that have a high atomic weight. They are widely dispersed throughout the environment and have become a serious public health concern. Their toxic effects depend on the specific metal, dose of the exposures, and the route of entry.

Some of the most toxic heavy metals include mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium and aluminum. The metals are distributed throughout the body and are stored in the brain, bones and other organs, and in fat cells.

The potential toxic effects that the heavy metals will have on an individual depend on that person’s age, gender, genetics, and nutritional status. Some people are significantly more impacted than others.

Case Studies 

William Walsh, PhD, is an internationally recognized expert in the emerging field of nutrition-based psychiatry. Over the past 30 years, Dr. Walsh has developed biochemical treatments for patients diagnosed with mental illness, autism and dementia. His book, Nutrient Power: Heal Your Biochemistry and Heal Your Brain, describes the system he has developed and the nutrients he uses to treat mental illness and to restore overall brain health.

In the 1970s, Dr. Walsh studied prisoners who were incarcerated for violent behavior. One of his discoveries revealed a significantly higher level of heavy metals in the hair, urine and stool of the violent criminals as compared with the nonviolent ones.

Dr. Walsh went on to study children in 2,400 families. He chose families in which one of their children displayed very violent and disruptive behavior while the other children in the same family behaved normally and did well in school. When Dr. Walsh studied the lab results of the children, he saw that, even though the violent and nonviolent siblings lived in the same home, same environment, and went to the same school, the violent child had much higher levels of heavy metals, like lead, cadmium, and mercury.

Dr. Walsh noted that the violent children lacked the nutrients needed to remove the toxic metals from their bodies, a deficiency explained by their genetic makeup. He went on to develop nutritional protocols that resulted in major improvements in the brain function of the violent children.

Dr. Walsh confessed that initially he had thought that people who were criminals were that way because of some flaw in their life experiences. But then he met the families of the violent criminals. Many of the families seemed to have done everything right and had other children who were outstanding citizens. Each family told Dr. Walsh a similar story. The child who became a future criminal was different from the time he was a toddler and no matter what they did, the child’s behavior did not change.

The perplexing information he received from the families motivated him to dive deep into the scientific literature to find the real causes for the abnormal behaviors. His book, Nutrient Power, summarizes his findings. The book is a very valuable resource for those people who want to help improve the function of their brains and/or help others achieve optimal mental wellbeing.

How do we get exposed to heavy metals?

Heavy metals circulate throughout our environment. Where we get exposed to them depends on the metal. Although many of the heavy metals, such as aluminum and cadmium, have the potential for causing neurodegenerative diseases, there are two metals that are highly associated with mental illness and mood disorders—mercury and lead.

Mercury

One of the deadliest metals in our environment is mercury. Certain studies have found that when nerves are exposed to mercury, the myelin sheath—the fatty substance that surrounds the axon of some nerve cells and helps with electrical signaling—can become severely damaged, interfering with how nerves communicate.

Mercury is the main component of “silver fillings.” Every time we chew, some mercury vapors escape from the fillings. And as the fillings age, they break down and release increasing amounts of mercury vapor into the mouth that gets absorbed into the body. (If you decide to have your fillings removed, it’s important that you find a dentist who is well trained in the proper technique for mercury amalgam removal.)

Our contaminated oceans make eating fish another potential source of mercury and other contaminants, especially found in farm raised fish, but also in large, fatty, wild-caught fish.

Some of the vaccines given to both children and adults contain a preservative called thimerosal that is 50% ethylmercury. Even the vaccines that have had the thimerosal removed still contain “trace amounts” of mercury, according to the package insert. Even trace amounts can pose problems for some susceptible people, given the extreme toxicity of this heavy metal.

Coal-fired power plants spew their mercury-containing exhaust into the sky where currents spread the airborne contaminants far and wide.

Tattoos are another source of mercury and other heavy metals.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with mercury toxicity include:

• Insomnia
• Nervousness
• Hallucinations
• Memory loss
• Headache
• Dizziness
• Anxiety
• Irritability
• Aggressive behavior
• Rage attacks
• Mood swings
• Drowsiness
• Emotional instability
• Depression
• Poor cognitive function

The phrase, “mad as a hatter,” refers to mercury poisoning among the milliners (hat makers) during the 18^th and 19^th century in England. They used a mercury-based compound to make the tall felt hats that were fashionable in those times.

Lead

Chronic exposure to lead can result in significant accumulation in the brain, soft tissue, and bones. Lead stored in the bones releases slowly back into the bloodstream over an extended period of time.

For an indirect estimate of lead levels in the brain, measurements can be taken of lead in the bones. High levels have been shown to be associated with depression, schizophrenia, phobias, and bipolar disorder.

Lead toxicity is extremely common. While lead has been eliminated from the gasoline supply, a common source of lead exposure comes from the millions of homes in the US that contain lead paint. Flakes and microscopic dust from the paint continue to contaminate homes for many years. During renovations, large amounts of lead can be released into the air. Lead can be absorbed through the gastrointestinal tract and also inhaled as small particles.

According to the EPA, an estimated 1.7 million children are currently affected by lead toxicity in United States. The symptoms of lead poisoning in children are strikingly similar to several psychiatric conditions that are on the rise in the U.S., including learning disabilities, hyperactivity, difficulty maintaining attention, and aggressive behavior.

Sadly, a child with these kinds of behaviors is all too often put on a psychoactive drug to suppress the symptoms. The underlying cause goes unaddressed.

It is important to note that childhood exposure to lead can result in adverse effects well into adulthood.

Additional sources of lead include soldered water pipes, pesticides, factory emissions, certain types of pottery, cosmetics, toys made in China, and some canned foods.

The central nervous system appears to be affected the most by lead toxicity, and this can explain the many neuropsychiatric symptoms associated with exposure to this heavy metal.

Neuropsychiatric symptoms of chronic lead exposure in children include:

• Headaches
• Poor memory
• Inability to concentrate
• Attention deficit
• Aggressive behavior
• Irritability
• Temper Tantrums
• Fearfulness
• Insomnia
• Lowered IQ

Children with high lead levels are much more likely to exhibit criminal behavior.

Why are some people more affected by heavy metals than others? 

When two people grow up in the exact same environment, one might be drastically affected by exposures to heavy metals while the other person might not have any discernable symptoms. Each person has his or her own unique biochemistry and genetic makeup that will determine how well the detoxification system can clear the toxins from their bodies.

Diagnosis

Although physicians commonly order blood tests to check levels of heavy metals, these tests do not accurately reflect the total body burden of toxic metals. High blood levels are usually only found during acute toxic metal exposures, or in people exposed to high levels of toxins over a long period of time. Most of the metals are stored in the organs and fat cells.

Practitioners familiar with heavy metal testing and treatment often use hair, urine, and stool testing. Each of the tests has drawbacks. While the hair analysis is a useful and inexpensive screening test, the results only reveal the metals that are actively being excreted through the hair.

More accurate methods of testing involve challenge tests that use a chelating chemical such as DMPS or DMSA. These chelating agents bind to the heavy metals and pull them out of storage. Once they enter the bloodstream, they can be excreted into the urine by the kidneys and into the stools after being processed by the liver. The urine and stool are collected and sent off to a lab and analyzed to determine the amount and type of toxic metals that have been excreted.

Treatment

Our bodies are designed to detoxify naturally as long as the detoxification system is functioning properly and as long as the toxic exposures are not overwhelmingly high.

Many people have detoxification systems that can only process small amounts of toxins at a time. Their detoxification abilities would have been perfectly adequate in bygone times, before our world became saturated with toxic chemicals.

As a result of genetic mutations that affect the detoxification pathway in the liver, many of my patients have to take extra precautions in avoiding toxins, in addition to taking extra measures in order to clear the unavoidable toxins from their system.

Those who are too sensitive to tolerate the chemicals used for chelation, instead implement a gentle heavy metal detox regimen that they continue for life. It involves the following:

–Eating mineral rich foods and taking mineral supplements to avoid any mineral deficiency. Metals will not release if there is a mineral deficiency present.

–Regular use of infrared sauna, following a specific protocol, increasing the time and temperature very slowly to avoid releasing toxins too quickly and overwhelming the detox system.

–Adequate hydration to protect the kidneys from being damaged as they filter out the heavy metals.

–A diet high in sulfur-rich foods like the cruciferous family, eggs, onions, and garlic.

–Precursors to glutathione such as whey powder, in addition to the sulfur-rich foods. Glutathione is one of the most important nutrients in the detox pathway and is often deficient in people with chemical sensitivities and heavy metal poisoning.

–Liposomal glutathione

–N-acetyl cysteine (NAC) is a precursor to glutathione

–Milk Thistle helps support the liver

–Zinc helps remove excess copper. High levels of copper can exacerbate mental illness, especially depression.

–Selenium-rich foods, including garlic and Brazil nuts, help in the production of glutathione.

–Eat plenty of organic cilantro. It can cross the blood-brain barrier and enter into the brain and bind to heavy metals.

–Chlorella is an algae that has a high affinity for heavy metals. It can bind metals in the gut and escort them into the toilet so that they cannot be reabsorbed back into the body.

–Other heavy metal binders include bentonite clay and modified citrus pectin. The clay needs to be taken away from all food and supplements and with psyllium husks to bulk up the stools, along with plenty of water.

–Daily exercise to get the lymphatic system moving.

–Specific supplements based on genetic testing.

There are many different protocols used for heavy metal detoxification, as well as other chelating agents, but that is beyond the scope of this article. For more information on detoxification protocols and testing, you can contact a healthcare practitioner who is well trained and experienced with these procedures.

Conclusion

My hope is that more mental health care providers will include heavy metals in their consideration of possible underlying causes of the mental illnesses they treat. They could refer those patients who are refractory to medication and talk therapy to a practitioner who is knowledgeable about heavy metal testing and treatment. Fortunately, the number of practitioners trained in “functional” medicine is on the rise.

In closing, I want to share with you something that I’ve observed over the many years of practicing medicine. Sometimes people who have “difficult” personalities are simply toxic, perhaps with a heavy body burden of metals or other toxic chemicals. They need our kindness and compassion, even if we don’t like their behavior. We often have no idea of the immense suffering they endure from their various conditions that are often misdiagnosed and out of their control. Many years ago I was one of those people when I worked in a toxic building as a mainstream doctor.

In Part IV of this series, I will be discussing the relationship between mental illness and exposure to mold and other toxic chemicals. Stay tuned!