Don't know much about MERCURY POISONING!

Zedd, What was the prescription he claims will help lessen the toxic effects of mercury? Doesn't seem possible from what little I know. However, there was an incidence in Japan about 50-60 years ago where many people got poisoning from mercury that they consumed from eating seafood. It affected the fetus, and many died or came out deformed. On our recent trip to Japan, we learned the bishop of a sect of buddhism, Gobo Daishi, killed himself by injesting mercury at age 62. He thought the mercury would preserve his body.

Sounds like some kind of chelate therapy, as used for lead poisoning. Ask famerman. He'll know.

GPs missed diagnosing Coeliacs disease for my kids over 30 visits in 1.5 years.

Eventually the yougest who would scream all night from 1am - dawn was old enough to say it was left of his tummy. We marked the spot and it was teh same 3 days running.

Finally the GPs couldn't ignore us or say its stress, or post natal depression etc. We were all sleep deprived as hell at that time.

We got a referal to pediatric specialist who diagnosed Coeliacs desease (Gluten intolerance) and next day removed all traces of Gluten from the house. Within 24 hours our children were totally changed. The yougest slept normally and the middle stopped sleeping 21 hours a day and came out of her perputal daze and presented as quite a sharp, determined child.

How we loathe those GPs that sent us away empty and depressed for over a year opf regular visits, always with us always worried over the strain behaviours, development and pain our children suffered.

Cicerone...I really don't know what exactly were the conteractions for mercury poisoning. My professor did say that he wrote a testimony about his experience so the next time I have class with this teacher, I will try to read it and let you all know about this. This situation really scared me, I mean, I am a seafood freak myself...and I love fish because there's this rumour out there that it's good for your brain.

So yea, I can really feel my professors pain. But what I don't get is, how come fish affects the mercury level in one person but not so much in others? Is it their genetic make up that affect them or what? Why isn't this topic a wide known topic throughout the country? Are we in danger of mercury poisoning if we continue to consume fish in a large amount?

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g_day...I read what you posted...that's aweful. I hate those ppl who just refer you to this person and then that person as if he doesn't care about you and your kids. I can't really believe that this is happening to our medical fields. There are thousands of really good schools out there which supposedly trained and educated all of the highly professional doctors out there who expects high pay. But i just don't see how I can feel comfortable putting my life into someone so clueless. I guess this is the flaws of this society.

Zedd, I have read reports that claims wild fish are safer than farmed fish, and the location the fish comes from also makes a difference. It seems tuna and salmon can have high mercury content - again depending on where they were fished. I've also read that it's safe to eat fish about two times a week. I also love fish/seafood. I think moderation is the key for good health.

C.I. is right, farmed fish are those that can be dangerous and it's possible that some specific locations of wild fish may be related to larger amount of mercury
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I mean, here in Europe it's well known that healthiest people are Mediterraneans and their diet in most countries includes A LOT of fish

by the way, slightly off the topic, C.I., when visiting Vukovar, if they don't prepare for all your group "fish paprikash" with river fish from Danube then strongly demand your money back
But they will for sure

MOU, Thanks for the head's up; I'll be looking forward to fish paprikash. Made a hard copy of your post to take with me; my memory needs assistance more frequently.

They do say that one mans meat is another man's poison, so humans do vary over a wide range of requirements and tolerance of excess. Apparently we have no requirement for mercury nor lead and most of the heavy metals. The bodies of most of us can dispose of a few micrograms per day of these poisons, but larger inputs accumulate until they cause health problems that can lead to death. Some alternative medicine practioners, test hair folicals to determine the level of toxicity, and use chelation to remove the excess. Main stream AMA type doctors typically reject both the hair folical test and the chelation treatment perhaps for good reasons unknown to me, except chelation can cause deficiencies of other essential minerals which are removed along with the toxic minerals. Frequent deep enemas with distilled or deionized water, also remove toxins, but also carry the risk of dietary deficiencies, especially minerals. Sorry, I have no more details, and am unsure of what I posted. My guess is moderation is best for most of us, but who would expect gluton to be a problem.
The increasing use of genetically modified foods, especially gene slicing may lead to increased but still rare food allergies which will be difficult to diognous. Neil

neil, Good point about chelatin removing other essential minerals from our body.

Hey, thanks fore replying all...
about this moderation...i'm taking this Nutrition and Health class here and we are also talking about moderation...you know, it's so hard to really measure moderation. How can you tell that you have had enough? Is their a criterion?

and CI, about the safer wild fish thing...what makes wild fish more healthy than farmed fish? I thought the water pollution that fish have to endure can be really unhealthy for your body. What makes mercury level go up in farmed fish?

Would it be possible for a person to eventually be immune to high level of mercury if they just keep eating fish? Why isn't mercury poisoning as much discussed as the other poisonings like lead poisoning and such?

well that's one thing why I'm lucky to be in Croatia - no genetically modified food, plenty of naturally grown food, plenty of clean natural water.
We are one of very few countries where:
a) you can drink water from pipe wherever you found one.
b) opposite to many other countries it's almost better to buy fruits and vegetables on open markets instead of shopping centers (almost because in shops food is also okay, but not that healthy)
c) although less then before - in smaller towns you can still find fruit trees that don't belong to anyone or better - belong to everyone - completely grown by nature - no pesticides, nothing...apples and plums are still available, unfortunately it's pretty hard to find cherries today However, I am not kid anymore, so I wouldn't climb even if I find it

Zedd, it's hard to say all the reasons. Neil can be quite right that it's more about individual's then about fish itself - although you may have point with water pollution - one important thing in Mediterranean is also that most parts of it are perfectly clean, so that's also fact one have to have in mind.

But, then again...it can be just different reaction in some people. I eat strawberries during summer (natural ones, not those big like smaller apples you can by in stores ) and I enjoy it. Someone is allergic and can even die from one strawberry.
Of course, allergies are different because they are abnormal response of body to harmless substances, but it can be something alike with mercury as well - because with normal fish it shouldn't be level anyone could be harmed with. Now, if some oceans are poisoned so much that fish became poisoned so much, that's different problem.
And what are they giving to fish on fish farms...

My guess is the ocean fish industry might lie to discourage competition from fish farns. On the other hand bad practices by fish farmers and their food suppliers could lead to dangerious levels of toxins including Mercury. ie they might feed their fish scraps that cat food producers refused because of excessive mercury. The vegetarian type fish should have very low mercury unless the water supply the fish farmer uses is contaminated heavilly. I think some fish varieties are mostly vegetarians and eaters of flying insects which might also be low in mercury, but high in pesticides? Neil

Another thing I heard was that canned tuna has more mercury than fresh tuno, so consumers should limit the eating of canned tuna. I buy canned tuna, but eat it only about six or seven times a year.

Here's an interesting link on mercury and fish.
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/corpaffr/foodfacts/mercurye.shtml

Hi Zedd: Back about 30 years ago there was a big scare about mercury. I think the problem was partly solved by the price of mercury increasing about ten times = most users found an alternative, and it became profitable to recover parts per million of mercury from waste water. The media and their keepers seem to give us one or two disasters at a time, so they have dropped a hundred or so old things to be scared about.

CI, i read the article u suggested...it was really good...it cleared some stuff up.

This is a little off the topic, but do you guys know of any other foods that are high in something and if consumed a lot will cause some disease or disorder?

The alternative medicine crowd have a long list of common foods they consider dangerous to eat including sugar and aspertane. Aspertane is the artificial sweetener in many diet soft drinks, and in most sugar substitutes. www.drday.com may be the best source of details. Also try Nurse Joyce Reilly
You can get a good over view from Dr. Day's website without buying any of her tapes or books. ie Attention deficit disorder (scroll down about 4 screens and choose from items on the right half of the page. The treatment for most any ailment is similar. Paste follows:

PREVENTION AND TREATMENT

The following steps are ways to help prevent ADD and ADHD and to reverse the factors that cause them:

1) Change the child's diet to all natural whole foods. This means fruit, grains and vegetables full of natural vitamins, minerals and enzymes.

2) Eliminate dairy products and other animal products because these contain hormones, pesticides, antibiotics and the diseases of the animal itself.

3) Eliminate caffeine, sugar and other sweets, processed food, MSG, aspartame (Nutrasweet) and other sugar substitutes and any foods that contain preservatives, food dyes or other chemicals.

4) Eliminate eating at fast food restaurants as most of these apparently use MSG and preservatives, plus the food in many restaurants often contains less nutrition, but many harmful chemicals.

5) Encourage the child to eat a lot of raw fruit and vegetables because they are full of health-producing enzymes, vitamins and minerals.

6. Drink water, and fresh home-made vegetable and home-made fruit juice. Eliminate soda pop, caffeinated beverages or milk from cows or any other animal. Rice Drean (rice milk) from your health food store is a reasonable substitute.

7. No white bread. Only whole grain bread, either home baked or from a health food store.

8. No white rice. Only whole grain brown rice and other whole grains.

9. No peanut butter: It contains aflatoxin, a fungus that causes cancer. Instead use Almond butter (It spreads like peanut butter and tastes just as good) from your health food store or other store. Also you can make home-made cashew nut butter.

10. Get proper rest. Children need a lot of rest and should go to bed early.

11. Get proper exercise daily, outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine.

12. Eliminate TV watching. It is reported that children watch an average of 43 hours of TV per week, that's longer than the average adult work week. While watching, they rapidly become almost hypnotized. It has been shown scientifically that within minutes of beginning to watch TV, the brain changes from the alert brain waves (beta waves) to the hypnotic waves (alpha waves) where the judgment center of the brain is bypassed. So the violence and decadence that the child sees, bypasses the judgment center in the brain and is implanted in the child's brain without any ability on the child's part to decide whether what they are seeing is right or wrong. The violence and decadence are accepted by the brain without any moral judgment being applied to it. It then becomes part of the child's permanent subconscious. What goes into a child's mind is just as important as what goes into his or her mouth!