Summer has come, and ideas of healthy living are looming as images of that tiny bikini we want to fit in to start popping into our heads. We’ve already covered detoxing, which is a wonderful way to reprogram our lifestyles and get us ready for bathing suit season. Yet there are other, perhaps more significant, reasons to detox and those are to rid our bodies of heavy metals.
So what is a heavy metal and why are they in our bodies?
Heavy metals are metals that are toxic to humans such as lead, arsenic, cadmium, mercury and aluminum. Unfortunately, heavy metals, although sometimes just trace amounts, can be found pretty much everywhere. We can be exposed to heavy metals through our environment, food, water cosmetics, jewelry, and other consumer products. We don’t hear about heavy metal toxicity very often because in order for it to cause alarm, it has to come to the point of poisoning someone. What many people don’t consider is that any exposure to a heavy metal can harm our brains as well as our bodies.
What the FDA has to say about heavy metals:
The FDA is in charge of monitoring the amount of heavy metals in anything we ingest in or apply to our bodies. They have different rules based on different heavy metals to determine how much of what is safe. What the FDA does not consider is the accumulation of heavy metals in our bodies, people with compromised detoxification pathways, genetic variation, nor varying states of wellness. That is why, as consumers, we need to become more knowledgeable about heavy metals so we can assess our own risk factors and how we can minimize them.
Here’s the scoop…
The next blog articles, will hone in some of the most significant heavy metals: lead, mercury, aluminum, cadmium, and arsenic. In these articles you’ll find the risk factors for exposure and symptoms of exposure. In the last article I will focus on therapies for treating heavy metal toxicity such as detoxification and chelation. In the meantime, if you have questions about treatments for heavy metal toxicity, don’t hesitate to contact Starkel Nutrition!
Read our other posts on heavy metal toxicity: Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
By Nutrition Student Marieve
Image Source: