Heavy Metals
The Invisible Poison
Heavy metal toxins like cadmium invisibly damage our health through enzyme blockade and mitochondrial dysfunction. Learn how to identify sources and reduce your exposure.
Heavy Metals
Heavy metal toxins like cadmium invisibly damage our health through enzyme blockade and mitochondrial dysfunction. Learn how to identify sources and reduce your exposure.
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Many of us experience bodies that don't function as they should. We've accepted much of this as inevitable—part of life. It accumulates gradually into a process we call aging, so we attribute the aches and pains that appear around age 30 to natural aging processes.
Many of us don't actually know what health is, or how long we can remain healthy in life. Although aging research clearly shows we can have a very long health span—contradicting the old saying "it's all downhill after 30"—health disorders are so normalized in our Western world that we can no longer see them as separate problems.
These include:
Just to name a few.
And there's a reason for this. Example: Scientists identified the problem already 20 years ago [source no longer available]:
Increasing environmental pollution from heavy metals probably contributes to the increased incidence of allergic diseases and cancer in urban populations. Our goal should be to identify the mechanisms responsible for lead and cadmium-induced changes in immune response, so that serious pathologies resulting from exposure to these metals might be reduced or minimized.
Heavy metals have been a major topic for us for many years (e.g., [source no longer available] and [source no longer available]). We cannot see heavy metals and initially cannot feel them. They are invisible to us—a Trojan horse. When they land in our bodies, in our cells, they block chemical processes by inhibiting enzymes. In a figurative sense, they gum up and clog cellular functions.
Our biochemistry then simply cannot function normally—which brings us back to the opening statement of this article. Many heavy metals—along with numerous other environmental toxins—accumulate in us with regular exposure over a lifetime. This is partly because cadmium, for example, has a very long half-life in the body, and we simply cannot rapidly eliminate the metal.
The fact that our health apparently deteriorates with age is also rooted in our unwittingly forcing dysfunctions by slowly poisoning our own bodies. However, we don't need to be old to suffer the consequences of heavy metal exposure in daily life.
Cadmium is considered one of the most toxic substances—virtually every tissue is affected by cadmium exposure, particularly the immune system:
Cadmium exposure impairs adaptive immunity mainly through apoptosis of T cells and B cells. In B cells, cadmium exposure impairs surface antigen expression and selectively inhibits antibody synthesis. Thus, cadmium exposure can directly influence the growth and function of immune cells. (cf. [source no longer available])
Here it's stated in black and white: If you're burdened with cadmium, your T cells and B cells—both part of the adaptive, specific immune system—will not function normally. This means, for example, that we cannot properly recover from infections or become seriously ill from them more easily. All from a single heavy metal. Of course, this affects all parts of the immune system—we've only cited some of the research.
Similarly, the function of our mitochondria is affected. They convert energy in our cells, giving us exactly that: life energy. When mitochondrial function is restricted, we not only burn less fat, we also have less energy in daily life, experience food cravings, and probably have a shortened lifespan. Sounds serious? It is:
Thus, longer cadmium exposure even at low doses can cause multi-organ toxicity. Mitochondria are important intracellular targets for cadmium-induced cell toxicity, but the underlying mechanisms are not yet fully understood. (cf. [source no longer available])
We don't experience all of this as acute poisoning. We experience it through health disorders of all kinds—only we rarely understand the underlying causes.
To not ruin your Sunday, here's some good news to finish with. First, most foods contain little cadmium, which is naturally absorbed by plants and animals from the environment. The tolerable weekly intake of 2.5 micrograms per kg of body weight—about 30 μg for an 85-kg person per day—is not something we reach through normal diet.
Exception: Smoking. It's estimated that you inhale 1-2 μg of cadmium per cigarette. Ten cigarettes a day means 10-20 μg of cadmium daily. Additionally, cocoa is one of the strongest cadmium sources on our plate—a recent study [source no longer available] found an average of 4 mg cadmium per kilogram of cocoa beans. Just 10 grams of cocoa per day contributes significantly to cadmium exposure.
This was also confirmed in a [source no longer available] by US consumer magazine Consumer Reports a few months ago. 28 dark chocolate bars were tested for cadmium and lead content. 23 of the examined chocolate bars showed elevated heavy metal levels. Interestingly, two bars from the well-known company Lindt were among them. This heavy metal contamination is a problem for everyone, the authors state.
Which brings us to [source no longer available]. Cocoa and your mitochondria. Unfortunately, many people have made a habit of eating substantial amounts of dark chocolate daily, believing it's totally healthy. Unfortunately, cocoa is also an excellent source of nickel, aluminum, and lead. Many people burden their mitochondria with heavy metals this way and restrict their function.
The best idea would be to minimize cocoa consumption. N-Acetylcysteine, zinc, and selenium have proven to be good cadmium countermeasures. Additionally, exercise helps again: it increases heavy metal excretion. Nothing new, but useful knowledge. Because this is exactly what puts a smile on some people's faces when they manage to control their allergies simply by reducing their cocoa consumption. You only believe it when you experience it. ;-)
