How to test for heavy metals
What's the best test for heavy metals? It depends on what you are looking for... read more in this article.
Heavy metals are difficult to test for and currently, there are no gold standard testing methods. If you go to a conventional medical doctor, they will probably run blood tests (or maybe even roll their eyes at you).
Whilst there's nothing wrong with blood tests, you really need to know what it is you are looking for in order to know the best test to adopt. With the exception of lead, blood tests are not great ways to test for chronic heavy metal burden in your body because heavy metals, like many other toxins, are lipophilic (they are fat-soluble) which means that they have an affinity for our tissues rather than stay in the bloodstream for long.
Mercury, for example, gets bound up to the sulphydryl groups on amino acids which are present in many tissues, and it also likes to hang out in the brain & thyroid. If you run a blood test for mercury, it’ll tell you how much mercury you have come into contact with/ingested in the last month or so (e.g. if you ate tuna the night before, it’ll probably be high – but it will not accurately reflect how much mercury you have been exposed to during your lifetime, and how much is bound up in your tissues, aka the body burden.
Aside from the acute toxicity which is measurable from blood tests, the body burden is important and relevant because it is through the binding to enzymes and proteins in our tissues, and interfering with neurotransmitters and hormones that heavy metals exert their toxic effects, for example, affecting ATP production in the mitochondria, leading to fatigue, brain fog etc.)
I’m going to focus mainly on mercury here.