The UltraMind Solution (21 page)

Mold exposure is also a threat to our brains. I have seen many patients whose brains malfunction from mold toxins (known as mycotoxins), common in homes and office buildings. Remember, that was part of Clayton’s story in chapter 2 (page 28). His home was infected with toxic mold.

The suffering and symptoms caused by these molds are well described as “sick building syndrome.”
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These mold toxins cause nerve damage and provoke the body to produce autoimmunity or autoantibodies against its own nerves and brain tissue.

In a study in the
Archives of Environmental Health
,
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scientists studied one hundred patients who had been exposed to toxic molds in their homes. The most common molds were Alternaria, Cladosporium, Aspergillus, Penicillium, Stachybotrys (also known as the toxic black mold), Curvularia, Basidiomycetes, Myxomycetes, Epicoccus, Fusarium, Bipolaris, and Rhizopus.

Sounds like an invasion!

These scientists found that more than 80 percent of the people living with these molds had immune system abnormalities, and 64 percent had respiratory system problems like sinus problems and wheezing.

More alarming was that 70 percent had severe symptoms of brain damage,
including an inability to walk in a straight line with their eyes closed, difficulty standing on their toes, and short-term memory loss.

More alarming still was the finding, in 100 percent of patients, of autonomic nervous system abnormalities (this is the automatic nervous system that controls all your basic life functions like heart rate and breathing).

If that weren’t enough, brain scans were abnormal in 86 percent of those studied and objective neuropsychological testing of brain function was abnormal in 100 percent of them. This included findings of short-term memory loss and impairment of executive function/judgment, concentration, and hand-eye coordination.
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So if you think you may be exposed to mold, be extremely aggressive in addressing it.

Unfortunately, we live not only in a sea of toxic chemicals but also of toxic metals, including mercury, lead, arsenic, cadmium, and aluminum.

Two of the most braindamaging compounds known are both heavy metals—mercury and lead. The research on these is abundant and frightening. Dr. David Bellinger, a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, reviewed this research in his paper “Children’s Cognitive Health: The Influence of Environmental Chemical Exposures.”
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Lead was the first toxic heavy metal to be identified, and some action has been taken regarding lead exposure in our society. Before lead paint and leaded gasoline were banned, exposure levels were much higher. However, they are still a major problem.

Toxic metals, like lead and mercury, are highly persistent in the environment and can be carried far distances in the atmosphere, getting deposited far from their place of origin.

For example, coal-burning, lead-and mercury-belching smokestacks in China send their toxic load to the most remote and wild areas of America. Lead and mercury from facilities like these also end up on our driveways and streets and on our carpets and floors where children play. (That’s not to mention all the lead-painted toys from China.)

Dr. Herbert Needleman examined the effects of lead on 2,146 children in first and second grade in Alabama.
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He looked at lead levels in teeth, not in blood, to assess long-term exposure.

Not only did the children with the highest levels of lead have the lowest IQs, but they were also more distractible, dependent, disorganized, hyperactive,
and impulsive, and had difficulty following simple directions. There were no children in the high-lead group that had IQs over 125, while 5 percent in the low-lead group did.

Dr. Needleman did a follow-up study
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on these children that found the lead-exposed children experienced serious consequences when they got older. They faced a higher rate of high school dropout, a greater likelihood of reading disability, lower class standing in high school, increased absenteeism, lower vocabulary and grammatical-reasoning scores, poorer hand-eye coordination, longer reaction times, and slower finger tapping.

They were also more likely to have episodes of juvenile delinquency.

In the 1950s the American government set safe levels of lead at 60 micrograms per deciliter of blood as the upper limit of “normal.” Considering severe brain damage occurs at 100 micrograms per deciliter, and death at 150 micrograms per deciliter, this decision is perplexing.

The “safe” level was decreased to 40 in 1971, 30 in 1975, 25 in 1985, and 10 in 1991.

But recent studies show that the greatest drop-off in IQ scores happens between a level of 1 and 10 micrograms per deciliter.
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This is particularly scary since more than 10 percent of poor and inner-city children have lead exposure levels over 10 micrograms per deciliter!

Of course, children aren’t the only population at risk. Lead exposure in adults has been linked to severe depression and schizophrenia. One factory that produced tetraethyl lead was known as the “House of Butterflies,” because so many workers had hallucinations.

Lead exposure has also been linked to depression, irritability, interpersonal conflict, fatigue, anger, tension, and even decreased sex drive.

And it has been linked to degenerative changes in the brain on MRI. In fact, evidence shows that much of what we think of as “normal” age-related decline in mental and cognitive function is actually due to chronic lead toxicity and the resultant loss of brain function.
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Understand that since lead was removed from gasoline, and house paint, blood levels of the average person have dropped tenfold in the last few decades.

However, lead is still dramatically higher in people today than it was in those who lived before the industrial age. We continue to be exposed to it in our soil and water, as well as from our own bones, where it is stored.

And it is lethal.

Blood lead levels were measured in a nationally representative sample of 13,946 adult participants of the Third National Health and Nutrition
Examination Survey (NHANES III), recruited in 1988 to 1994 and followed for up to twelve years to track what diseases people developed and why they died.
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The NHANES III study found that any level over 2 micrograms per deciliter (not 10 or 40) in the blood caused dramatic increases in heart attacks, strokes, and death.

In fact, after controlling for all other risk factors including cholesterol, high blood pressure, smoking, and inflammation, the study found that the risk of death from all causes increased by 25 percent, deaths from heart disease increased by 55 percent, risk of heart attacks increased by 151 percent, and risk of stroke increased by 89 percent.

What was even more remarkable is that it is estimated that nearly 40 percent of all Americans have toxic levels of lead high enough to cause these problems.

The good news is that using chelation therapy (an underused medical treatment to help the body bind and excrete metals) has been effective in reversing many of these problems.
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So we know lead is an extremely toxic substance. What about mercury?

Well, I’ve already told you it’s the second most toxic substance after plutonium. But in case that isn’t enough...

Mercury, I believe (because of the hundreds of patients I have seen with mercury toxicity), is one of the most serious threats to our brain, and is responsible for or contributes to much of the modern epidemic of autism, ADHD, depression, dementia, and other versions of broken brains. Finding it and getting rid of it in my patients is one of the most effective ways I have to improve mood, attention, and memory.

Mercury is emitted from coal-burning industrial facilities at the rate of 2,900 tons (or over 6 million pounds) per year. As you consider that, keep in mind mercury is toxic at greater than 1 part per million, and that the EPA has declared the “safe” level of mercury exposure to be less than 0.1 micrograms/kilogram body weight/day.

That means we are in big trouble based on our exposure.

After testing mercury levels in thousands of patients, I believe that a large majority of us have some level of mercury toxicity.

Mercury has been implicated in severe neurologic injury. This was well demonstrated in the Minamata Bay exposures (from toxic dumping into the ocean) and the Iraq grain contamination disaster (mercury was applied to prevent spoilage of grain used for planting, but the grain was eaten by accident).

But mercury is also toxic at very low doses. We have already looked at
mercury in dental amalgams and vaccines, but environmental exposures are also significant risks.

The largest is from consumption of large fish contaminated with mercury such as tuna, swordfish, shark, tilefish, and sea bass, as well as nearly all river fish.

Remember you are whatever you ate. Big fish eat smaller fish and so on. Toxins bioconcentrate up the food chain. The bigger the fish, the higher dose of mercury you are likely to get. So eat only fish that are small enough to fit in your frying pan. Sardines are my favorite.

Studies of fish-consuming populations directly correlate levels of mercury in the umbilical cord blood with lower IQ, attention deficits, and impairment in language and memory. So if you don’t think the amount of mercury you are exposed to in the fish you eat is a problem, think again.

What’s most frightening are autopsy studies on mercury-exposed people. Adult brains show damage in only a few areas—the ones responsible for dementia and depression. But if exposure to mercury occurred in the womb or early in life, it was deposited in the entire brain and completely disrupted normal brain development.
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Clearly exposure to toxic metals is damaging to the brain. We need to be very smart about reducing emissions and exposures, as well as treating heavy metal toxicity.

We will review the role of all toxins in our health in more detail in Part II, where I explain how problems with detoxification and toxic exposures are linked to most of the worst neurological disorders (like Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s), mood or psychological disorders (including depression anxiety, insomnia, and more), as well as autism and ADHD.