No matter how clean your diet, no matter how much physical activity you get, no matter how balanced your lifestyle, you’re exposed to a crazy cocktail of environmental toxins every day – including heavy metals such as lead, copper, cadmium, and arsenic.
Such metals can build up in the body over time and prove a detriment to health in a variety of ways. Mercury toxicity, for instance, can manifest through neurological symptoms, cognitive difficulties, mental illness, and autoimmune disorders.
The specific health problems, of course, depend not only upon the type(s) of metals involved but the length and amount of exposure and the individual’s health history, including any other present physical burdens.
One new study in the BMJ takes a closer look at the impact of heavy metals on heart health in particular – a meta-analysis of 37 previous studies involving nearly 350,000 patients.
As a report on MDLinx summarized,
Compared to people with the lowest levels of arsenic exposure, those with the highest exposure were 30% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease. The highest levels of lead exposure were tied to a 43% higher risk, top levels of cadmium were linked to 33% higher risk, and the greatest level of copper exposure was associated with 81% higher risk.
“These findings reinforce the fact that environmental exposures are equally important (beyond conventional behavioral risk factors such as physical activity or diet) for cardiovascular risk, and should not be ignored,” said lead author Dr. Rajiv Chowdhury of the University of Cambridge in the UK.
Interestingly, the authors didn’t find a link between mercury exposure and CVD – perhaps, suggested Dr. Chowdhury, because so much of our mercury exposure comes through eating fish. The healthy fats in fish may offset any heart-related issues from mercury exposure, though not necessarily other mercury-related health problems.
This link between heavy metal exposure and heart health further reinforces the findings of the important TACT study done some years back, which showed that chelation therapy – a kind of detox using synthetic amino acids to eliminate heavy metals in the body – was both safe and beneficial. Heart attacks were reduced by 23%; heart-related hospitalizations by 28%; and strokes by 23%.
The results were even more impressive among patients with diabetes. They experienced a 41% overall reduction in the risk of any cardiovascular event, a 52% reduction in recurrent heart attack, and a 43% reduction in death from any cause.
Chelation is just one of the detox therapies we provide here in our West Los Angeles holistic health clinic to support not just our patients’ heart health but their overall health and wellness. There is evidence, for instance, that EDTA – one of the common chelators we use – enhances brain function and stimulates mitochondrial activity. It’s also been shown to optimize nitric acid production, which supports healthy circulation and enhances oxygen delivery to the tissues of your body.
While chelation can be done orally, with suppositories, or through IV drip, the latter – IV – is generally recommended when pursued to support heart health. You can learn more about other drip therapies we offer here.