Fast-5 Diet and Lifestyle: [fast5] OT:mercury was Re: Oh man, you guys HAVE to see this!!!

I liked reading this. Did anyone else here play with mercury as a kid? Dh and I talk about that all the time as we remember it well :). The first time we heard people were concerned about it, we actually had to laugh.....

But we take all of the usual precautions now that most health-focused people do.....we just have to wonder a bit :)

Chantelle

ps-I've heard (not sure of the validity or point of it , or if the point is accurate rather I would say) that the hat making issue is where "mad as a hatter" came from as they thought it drove people mad.....I used to know MORE about that, but that is the only snippet I'm able to pull out at the moment and the "real point" has gone by the wayside....

On Mar 13, 2011, at 9:40 PM, Heather Twist wrote:

It's possible, but reading the historical accounts, people in the past were
amazingly cavalier about mercury. They burned high-mercury coal. They
burned mercury ore to "cleanse" the air. People played with liquid

mercury (I read some old books about recommended experiments
for children involving, say, a pound of mercury). They used it in tinctures
too. And hat-making.

In Asia, esp. Japan, they tend to eat some of the fish that are higher

in mercury (like tuna, dolphin, and whale). The Chinese are burning
high-mercury coal at an unfortunately high rate.

So they probably got way more of it than we get from whatever amount

leaks out of fillings. There is a similar issue with fluoride: it is found
in fairly high levels in some well water, to the point it stains the teeth.
Some people no doubt got health effects from all that mercury and

fluoride. But not the huge health effects we are seeing now. In Japan,
Africa, most of Asia etc. people generally had wide faces and healthy
teeth. The bone problems are mostly found in Britain and some other

parts of Europe, and it seems to me (based on cursory views of
populations, but someone should study it!) that the peoples with
bone problems are mostly the ones eating a beef/mutton/wheat/barley based diet,

while the healthier peoples are eating fish/poultry/rice based diet.

That makes sense to me, because bone health (and tooth health) is
associated with Vit D. You get some Vit D from fish, even if you live

in Norway or Japan or Alaska. But wheat tends to rob the body of Vit D for at
least some percentage of the population.

Also, thyroid problems are often associated with lack of iodine, which

simply can't happen on an seafood-based diet. And, people who
react to wheat gluten often produce anti-thyroid antibodies, which, as
their name suggests, attack the thyroid gland. These antibodies go

away when the person stops eating wheat.

I *know* that I personally am celiac, and that it's genetic. I strongly
suspect my Dad was too, as he had most of the symptoms. So his

mother and/or father had the genes also ... but they did not eat wheat.
My grandpa would say "Wheat is for rich people. Poor people eat oats".
It is amazing, but he didn't actually get to eat much wheat at all until

he was in his late 20's, at which point it would likely affect him less.

As a side note, I stopped feeding my kids wheat when they were
quite young. They stopped having tooth problems at that point ... my

daughter, who was having a cavity filled every time she went to the dentist,
stopped getting cavities. Her teeth straightened out too, and she is
the only person in our extended family to NOT need braces. My son never

has had a cavity at all. They both eat sugar. Also neither has a weight problem,
or a thyroid problem. They do get mercury, in the form of seafood! And
fluoride from tea.

So that's my long explanation ... I don't really like the idea of amalgam
fillings, partially because they are *ugly*. But I don't think fillings of any
kind should be necessary, in a healthy body. Teeth in most places in

the world are amazingly strong and robust, even where people eat a lot
of starch and sweet stuff.

On Fri, Mar 11, 2011 at 9:21 AM, RickS <rstewart@iaff.org> wrote:

Heather, I was reading on a naturopathic dental website yesterday about how mercury from amalgam fillings has many adverse effects on the body but notably it can cause the thyroid to malfunction. I have also read that fluoride in the water is a REAL danger to not only our bones but to our thyroid.

I wonder if other countries in Asia and for instance in your case, the Germans of old, had no amalgam fillings, fluoride, or yearly radiation from dental visits? It seems to me that modern medicine (dentists for instance) don't treat the body holistically and put thinks in us that really have no business being there.

Thoughts?

-Rick

--- In fast5@yahoogroups.com, Heather Twist <HeatherTwist@...> wrote:
>

> It's really interesting seeing what happens to the Asians on an American
> diet. You can see the older generation ... usually not speaking much
> English, and shorter, but very active and alert and healthy. And the
> generation brought up in America ... usually much taller, but also less
> healthy (acne, overweight, crooked teeth). It's a question I'm really
> interested in finding the answer to. My own grandmother came from the "old
> country" (in this case, Germany), was very short, active, and lived to be 96
> ... she never did have any kind of high blood pressure, heart disease, or
> blood sugar problems. Her son, my Dad, was raised here and had myriad health
> problems. And his kids (me and my sibs) have even more health problems. So
> what, exactly, changed?
>
> For that matter, what, exactly, is it that makes McDonald's food bad? I
> mean, we have this intuitive sense that it is bad for us, and I can say that
> experientially, it doesn't work for me either. But why? It's not the carbs
> ... white rice does fine in the Asian diet. It's not the tiny bit of meat
> ... people talk about McDonald's like there is a ton of beef in it, but
> there is in fact very little actual meat. It does have too many of the wrong
> kinds of fats (the kind that go rancid), and the food goes through some odd
> processes that might increase things like acrylamides. But in Thailand, they
> have "fast food" down to an art and that doesn't seem to be impacting the
> health of the population at all ... they do deep-fried shrimp and tarantulas
> or whatever.
>
> I think if we could answer that one question it would go a long way to
> solving this mystery!

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Heather Twist
http://eatingoffthefoodgrid.blogspot.com/