Time For Your Toxic Heavy Metals Detox, Step by Step

Yes, you and me and our kids and everybody else are filled with toxic heavy metals and chemicals and pesticides. These things age us prematurely and can cause disease. Time to detox, one step at a time.

Give the kid a chance

HOW MANY times have you heard a friend say that (s)he did a “detox” and feels great?

Or maybe you’ve read some inspiring story about someone who jump started a new set of healthy habits by first committing to some detox protocol?

Inspired, yes, but enough to try it yourself?

Well, the purpose of this post is to nudge you a step closer to beginning a detox program.  By “step closer” I mean just that — read about the many things you can do now to detoxify your life, and choose just one.

Perhaps the one you choose will be to by an air-purifying houseplant, or to start your morning with warm lemon water. What you start with doesn’t matter. That you choose one thing and do it, does matter.

Let that first action begin an avalanche.

Why bother?

Because of chemistry and heavy metals.

A baby born today begins life in the industrialized world with a body filled with more than 200 chemicals and heavy metals. Over the years, more of this alien, harmful stuff accumulates.  As adults, it’s estimated that we have over 700 various contaminants in our bodies. (Source)

This situation does not bode well for a long and hale life.

A clear and succinct explanation for how toxic heavy metals can ruin our health is provided by Dr. Marty Ross, who says this:

Heavy metals like lead and mercury get into our body when we breath, eat, or touch (absorbed through the skin) them in. Once in our blood, the majority of them are filtered out of the body by the kidneys. However some remain and our moved inside of our cells. Heavy metals have an elimination half-life of about 24 years. This means once they are in our cells, it takes 24 years for half of what is there to leave our bodies. So a person can have multiple small exposures over a life time that build up.

Inside the cells, heavy metals attach to sulfur. Areas rich in sulfur are the energy factories called mitochondria. Sulfur is found on many of the enzymes that mitochondria use to create cell fuel. When heavy metals attach to these enzymes the mitochondria have a harder time making cell fuel. As a result, there can be fatigue. In addition all cells will not function properly so you can even have immune suppression or neurologic dysfunction.

Source

You can not eliminate exposure to toxins, but you can work to eliminate what you absorb and dramatically reduce the amount of toxins to which you’re exposed.

The rest of this article will touch upon:

  • Clean air
  • Pure water
  • Toxins at work and home
  • Electromagnetic radiation exposure
  • Heavy metals
  • Detox cleansing foods
  • Detox cleansing supplements

So, let’s get cracking… and remember, as you read, make a conscious decision about which of these “interventions” you will do, as your step #1.

 

Clean Air

Most of us live in or near industrialized cities, and the air we breathe is not pure.

This is true of the air outdoors and in our homes.

Everyone can point to cars, trucks, planes, trains, factories and power plants as being among the biggest outdoor polluters, but do you know about indoor pollution?

Energy efficiency is great; however, those tightly sealed homes that seal out the cold, not only keep in the heat, but also indoor pollutants, including out-gassing from plastics and other materials, vapors from solvents and household cleaners, and — perish the thought — tobacco smoke.

You could use your vote to elect politicians most committed to the environment, but even then this would do little to improve the quality of your indoor air, because much of what affects indoor air is created in the house itself.

Consider trying out a few of the following suggestions to help remove indoor airborne toxins:

– Replace those typically toxic glass, oven, toilet cleaners and detergents with…

  • 1/2 cup of borax dissolved in a gallon of hot water plus a tablespoon of lemon juice for a general household cleaner.
  • Mix equal amounts of rubbing alcohol and water for a household disinfectant.
  • Use baking soda or borax for laundry detergent rather than laundry bleach.
  • Mix equal parts of white vinegar and water for glass cleaner.

– Use botanical-based insect repellent to chase the insects away, or put some cayenne pepper in water in spray bottle.

– Place printers and copiers away from where you sit and work, and ventilate these areas. The ultra fine particles released from toner cartridges are inhaled into the lungs at a rate equivalent to cigarette smoke.

– If you must dry clean your clothes, let them outgas outside or in your garage, or use a dry cleaner that does not use perchloroethylene, a suspected carcinogen.

– Improve your indoor air quality by buying air-cleaning plants and an air purifiers that removes both large and microscopic particles, such as bacteria, viruses, and fungi.

The selection of air purifiers are mind boggling. First decide on whether you want to filter the whole house or a specific room. Then determine your budget.  Finally, select among those most highly rated.  I often use Amazon.com to do this, given the rating system maintained by actual users of the products.

The Whirlpool Whispure HEPA Air Cleaner will purify the air of a 500 square foot room just under five times per hour, and has a 4.3 of 5 rating by 558 customers.

The Winix WAC9500 Ultimate HEPA Air Cleaner with PlasmaWave Technology is another highly rated choice, getting a rating of 4.5 from 271 customers.

– Most importantly -> ask smokers to smoke outside.

 

Reduce Electromagnetic Radiation

There’s no escaping it. Your body absorbs electromagnetic radiation every minute from cell phone towers, cell phones, computer monitors, hair dryers, electric razors, water bed heaters, electric blankets, satellite transmitters, radio, TV and radar antenna.

Researchers debate how consequential all this exposure might be, but some evidence points to changes in biological tissue function that may result in many adverse health effects, including DNA and brain cell damage.

One solution is to live in a lead box.  If that’s undesirable, try this:

  • Use the speaker function on your cell phone, or Dr Mercola’s Blue Tube Earphones.
  • Substitute flat screen computer monitors for tube based ones.
  • Reduce the time using electric hair dryers, shavers, etc.
  • Stay more than 10 feet away from wide-screen TVs
  • Don’t live nearby high-voltage electric or transmission lines.

 

Drink Pure Water

The only way you can be sure that the water you drink is pure is to filter it.  Half the bottled water sold is no better than average tap water, and even the half that may be superior to tap water is bottled in BPA-producing plastic (that gets thrown in dumps), and is transported by carbon-spewing trucks all over the country.  So do your body and environment a favor and get a water filter.

The choices available in water filters boggle the imagination.  First decide on whether you want to filter all your tap water or just what you drink and cook with.  Then determine your budget.  Finally, select among those most highly rated.

Turning again to Amazon for guidance:

You can start with a simple, inexpensive Brita Slim Water Filter Pitcher with a 4.1 rating, 1,120 customer reviews, or go nuts with the $405 Waterwise 8800 Water Distiller Purifier, rated a 4 by 47 customers.

If you’re not convinced that neither tap water nor plastic bottled water need be replaced by your own filtered water, check out my two articles:

The Seduction of Plastic Water Bottles, and

Plastic Water Has Got To Go For Your Sake

 

Expunge Your Toxic Heavy Metals

The only heavy metal I want in my life is the metal I lift.

Unfortunately, I have a mouth full of silver-mercury “amalgam” filing that I fear may be messing with me. (This is a big story and undoubtedly will be the topic of future articles.)

It used to be that nearly all dentists would swear on their mamas that the mercury in amalgams is inert and therefore could do a body harm.  But now around half of the dentists in the U.S. use alternatives to amalgam, and its use is outlawed in several European countries.

Mercury is toxic and harmful in even tiny amounts. Like lead, arsenic, beryllium, cadium, cobalt, chromium and nickel — mercury is a “heavy metal” to avoid with extreme prejudice.

Toxic heavy metals have been shown to increase free radical activity, leading to premature aging and degenerative diseases. Other direct consequences of toxic heavy metals include mood disorders, abnormal immune function, neurodegenerative diseases, poor concentration, fatigue and hair loss; these just a few from a long list.

Like everything else you’d like to detox from your life, hit this with the two-punch of reduce and remove:

  • Reduce your consumption of high-mercury fish, which is any predator fish at or near the top of its food chain, such as tuna, swordfish, king mackerel and shark. Low-mercury fish include anchovies, herring, salmon, sardines, squid and fresh water trout.
  • Test your home for lead paint, particularly if you have young children.
  • Find a “biologic” dentist in your area that will remove and replace your amalgam filings with composites using the Huggins Protocol.
  • Filter your drinking water.
  • Don’t use aluminum, either in cookware or anti-antiperspirants.
  • Consume plenty of heavy metal detoxifying foods and supplements.

 

Detoxifying Nutrition and Supplement Recommendations

You can reduce some and eliminate some toxins that enter your body, but what about what’s already there?

Let’s begin with diet:
  • Start adding as many cruciferous vegetables as you are willing to eat, such as kale, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage and Brussels sprouts.  Just about any food from billionaire David Murdock’s and Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s list of the worlds best foods will do.
  • Consume as much green tea, garlic, onion, lemons, cilantro and parsley as you can muster. Also a tablespoon of spirulina a day, perhaps put into a veggie/fruit smoothie, or sprinkled on vegetables or a salad.
Now to supplements:

 

Move and Bathe

Yes, these bodies of ours are built to move, strange as that may seem to many.

If you’re not accustomed to moving with vigor, go grab a buddy and commit to helping each other stick to a consistent, progressive plan. Move in a way that you will sweat for 20 minutes or more, to start.

The skin is our largest organ of elimination, so use it.

Which brings me to bathing. Now that you’re all stinky and sweaty, go take a bath, a detox bath. For “how to” instructions, just go here and scroll down.

For extra credit, find yourself a infra red sauna and use it. It’s a great detoxifier.

 

Your Takeaway

Change is hard because we’re all well rooted in our ruts.  So, make the change easier on yourself by making the change small.  Choose one thing among all this detox advice about which you can mutter,

“Hell, this would be easy for me to do”.

And then do it.

If you’d like to make a game of it, check out, How to Make Tiny Habits Big.

After you’ve made that one change habitual, add another, and so on.

It took years for us to get all those chemicals and heavy metals in us, and it will take time to get them out.  Might as well start today, one step at a time.

Yep.

P.S. For more about detox cleansing, go the the sidebar on the right and click “Detoxification and Cleansing” under “Categories”.

P.P.S. Thanks to Ray Kurzweil and Dr. Terry Grossman for their excellent book, Transcend: Nine Steps to Living Well Forever, from which some of this information was summarized.

Last Updated on April 11, 2023 by Joe Garma

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Joe Garma
 

I help people live with more vitality and strength. I'm a big believer in sustainability, and am a bit nutty about optimizing my diet, supplements, hormones and exercise. To get exclusive Updates, tips and be on your way to a stronger, more youthful body, join my weekly Newsletter. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram.

Click Here to Leave a Comment Below 1 comments
KRis - June 9, 2014

Thanks for these tips. I’m glad to learn that my current diet is good for detoxing. I make sure to get a good amount of sulfur veggies daily. And green tea too.
I’m going to try the bath!

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