Magnesium, Selenium, Iodine and Mercury Connection

There is no disputing the fact that modern pharmaceutical medicine has not solved nor cured any of the modern chronic disease plagues that are morphing out of control into pandemics. What is going on in the areas of cancer, diabetes, heart disease, strokes and neurological disease is painting a horrific image of the failure of contemporary medicine, which seems unable to learn anything about what will make a difference for their patients. They are good to go with words of promise but they don’t deliver and things are only getting worse in terms of public health.

It is difficult to treat any disease today without paying attention to the profound magnesium deficiencies that exist in nearly 100 percent of sufferers of chronic disease. We could easily say the same for bicarbonate and iodine and when we pay attention to all three at the same time our work in helping people recover from their suffering and pain is greatly eased. This is especially true when it comes to neurological diseases.

The central nervous system is extremely sensitive and reacts to a combination of factors that allopathic doctors don’t normally touch down on. Toxic exposures, nutritional deficiencies and emotional anguish converge most pointedly on the nervous system with often catastrophic results. As we will see below one of the main disasters facing people today are wide ranging exposure to both mercury and aluminum; metals at the top of the list that cause neurological damage.

Toxic substances, such as mercury, which the body is chronically exposed to, accumulates in the brain, pituitary gland, CNS, liver, kidneys, etc. and can damage, inhibit, and cause imbalances at very low levels of exposure. Heavy metals can cause major neurological, immunological, and metabolic damage.

Each individual will be seen to have their own unique combination of neurological, endocrine, and enzymatic imbalances along with autoimmunities that result from the above factors. Symptoms will vary resulting in different differential diagnoses: multiple sclerosis (MS), Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), or Parkinson’s Disease (PD), Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE), and eve rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Multiple Sclerosis is difficult to address, both because the symptoms are so variable and treatments are often ineffective. This disease affects the central nervous system by damaging the myelin sheaths surrounding nerves of the brain and spinal cord. Primarily affecting teenagers and young adults of Northern European descent, the disorder begins between ages 10 and 50 in almost all affected individuals. About 400,000 people in the United States have MS; twice as many women as men.

Although the cause remains officially unknown, it is widely thought to begin as an autoimmune inflammation with magnesium deficiency at the core.  In studies it’s been shown that there was a significantly lower value of magnesium than that seen in control cases. The most marked reduction of magnesium content was observed in CNS white matter including demyelinated plaques of MS samples.[1]

Magnesium protects the cells from aluminum, mercury, lead, cadmium, beryllium and nickel. Evidence is mounting that low levels of magnesium contribute to the heavy metal deposition in the brain that precedes Parkinson´s, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer´s. Research has shown that the symptoms of MS are very similar to Mercury poisoning.[2] Mercury is a primary cause of inflammation in our bodies.

The rate of relapse in multiple sclerosis was found to be
decreased with dietary magnesium supplementation.[3]

Magnesium deficiency causes and underpins chronic inflammatory build ups. Inflammation is the missing link to explain the role of magnesium in many pathological conditions. Dr. Mazur says, “Magnesium deficiency contributes to an exaggerated response to immune stress and oxidative stress is the consequence of the inflammatory response.”  Magnesium deficiencies feed the fires of inflammation and pain and it is magnesium that modulates cellular events involved in inflammation. Increases in extracellular magnesium concentration cause a decrease in the inflammatory response while reduction in the extracellular magnesium results in cell activation.

Magnesium is central to immunocompetence and
plays a crucial role in natural and adaptive immunity.[4]

MS sufferers have a wide variety of symptoms that often begin rather abruptly and proceed at a highly variable and unpredictable pace. Common early symptoms include numbness, pins and needles sensations, incoordination, weakness especially in the legs, painful loss of vision in one eye, double vision, dizziness, pain at various sites, urinary symptoms and impotence. Symptoms of MS that are also symptoms of magnesium deficiency include muscle spasms, weakness, twitching, muscle atrophy, an inability to control the bladder, nystagmus (rapid eye movements), hearing loss, and osteoporosis.

What is essential to remember about treating pain with magnesium is
that it treats both the symptom and the cause of pain. Meaning the
cause of the pain can often be traced back to a magnesium deficiency.

Researchers have found oral magnesium therapy effective on patients with multiple sclerosis. In one formally reported case a 35-year-old woman suffered with severe spastic paraplegia resulting from multiple sclerosis (MS). A significant improvement in the spasticity was found after only 1 week from the onset of the treatment on the modified Ashworth scale, an improvement in the range of motion and in the measures of angles at resting position in lower limbs.[5]

Nystagmus is characterized by an involuntary movement of the eyes, often noted as a shaky or wiggly movement and has been directly tied to magnesium deficiencies.  People with MS also have higher rates of epilepsy than controls.  Epilepsy has also been linked to magnesium deficiencies. Without doubt magnesium supplementation accompanied by pH control via diet and the use of sodium bicarbonate will do wonders for not only Multiple Sclerosis patients but also Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease sufferers.

Iodine

The relatively low prevalence of multiple sclerosis in Japan, despite its temperate latitude, has puzzled many researchers. We know though that their soils have some of the world’s highest known levels of iodine caused by the use of seaweed as a fertilizer. Deficiencies of this essential trace element appear to be associated with many diseases, or birth defects, including goitre, cretinism, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and cancer of the thyroid and nervous system. Although the evidence is weaker, iodine deficiency may also be implicated in Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases. It should be obvious to physicians that mineral deficiencies are at the center of chronic diseases, which can be largely avoided if appropriate replenishment is stressed.

People with MS may also have low levels of selenium or of glutathione peroxidase, an enzyme produced from selenium. A theory explaining the pathogenesis of MS concerns an increased stickiness of cellular plasma membranes, hampering normal vascular function of the brain. In agreement with that theory researchers have found significantly lowered selenium values and lowered glutathione peroxidase activities.[6]

MS and Mercury Exposure

Dental amalgam is documented by medical studies and medical lab tests to be the largest source of both inorganic and methyl mercury in most people who have several mercury amalgam fillings. Very low levels of exposure have been found to seriously affect individuals who are immune sensitive to toxic metals, or have an inability to detoxify metals   due to such as deficient sulfoxidation or metallothionein function or other inhibited enzymatic processes related to detoxification or excretion of metals.

Amalgam exposures are commonly above government health guidelines. This is due to continuous vaporization of mercury from amalgam in the mouth, along with galvanic currents from mixed metals in the mouth that deposit the mercury in the gums and oral cavity. Mercury is one of the most toxic substances in existence and is known to bioaccumulate in the body of people and animals that have chronic exposure.

A large epidemiological study of 35,000 Americans by the National Institute of Health, the nation’s principal health statistics agency, found that there was a significant correlation between having a greater than average number of dental amalgam surfaces and having chronic conditions such as epilepsy, MS, or migraine headaches. MS clusters in areas with high metals emissions from facilities such as metal smelters have been documented.

Mercury has been found to accumulate preferentially in the brain, major organs, hormone glands, and primary motor function related areas involved in ALS- such as the brain stem, cerebellum, rhombencephalon, dorsal root ganglia, and anterior horn motor neurons, which enervate the skeletal muscles.

Mercury and magnesium deficiencies are at the root of inflammation so it is important to understand that chelation of mercury will relieve many of the problems caused by it, and that magnesium will protect our cells from the inflammation that mercury causes. Magnesium is a necessary factor in chelation, for without it chelation will not be successful.[7] Heavy metals like cadmium, lead, & mercury compete with nutritional magnesium, keeping it from availability to protect our cells. The healthy cell wall favors intake of nutrients and elimination of waste products and this is one of the reasons magnesium is so important in detoxification and chelation.

Magnesium is a crucial factor in the natural self-
cleansing and detoxification responses of the body

Because magnesium protects cells from aluminum, mercury, lead, cadmium, beryllium and nickel, it explains why re-mineralization is so essential for heavy metal detoxification and chelation. Magnesium protects the cell against oxyradical damage and assists in the absorption and metabolism of B vitamins, vitamin C and E, which are anti-oxidants important in cell protection.

According to Dr. Russell Blaylock, low magnesium is associated with dramatic increases in free radical generation as well as glutathione depletion and this is vital since glutathione is one of the few antioxidant molecules known to neutralize mercury. Chelation of mercury and supplementation of magnesium must take place together.

Other Factors

Eating a deficient diet is not the only way we can strip our body of the minerals it needs to protect itself from heavy metal exposure. Many pharmaceuticals including over the counter medicines drive down magnesium levels creating ripe conditions for neurological devastation. For example in 1992 researchers reported a case of magnesium deficiency associated with acetaminophen abuse. Metabolic studies showed that the patient’s fractional excretion of magnesium was 12% when her serum magnesium level was 1.0 mg/dL. Renal biopsy demonstrated severe tubulointerstitial disease. The significant wasting of magnesium at a time when serum magnesium levels were depressed suggests renal magnesium wasting syndrome. This defect was related to abuse of acetaminophen.[8]

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