Aluminum, mercury, lead, cadmium, arsenic, and more…
In today’s world, heavy metals are all around us. They have become very difficult to avoid. Heavy metals end up in the soil near roads each time you tap the breaks on your car. Heavy metals in pots, pans, utensils, and other cooking tools leach into our foods. You might be putting some directly on your skin each time you apply your deodorant. Some of us have heavy metals in our mouths in the form of fillings. Heavy metals are found in vaccinations. On top of all of the man-made ways we encounter these metals, they can also be found naturally occurring in the environments we live in, such as in the water supply.
No matter where we encounter these metals though, heavy metals are toxic to our bodies. Unfortunately, because they are so toxic and because most of us do not have openly flowing elimination channels, when we encounter heavy metals our bodies have no choice but to store them. This is often in places that are not easily detoxified. Over time, we wind up with stores all over our bodies that cause illness and disease as they interfere with the body’s natural processes.
What’s even scarier about heavy metals is that more and more research is starting to show that not only do we carry around the metals we are directly exposed to, but we inherit the heavy metal toxicities from past generations as well. So maybe you never lived in a house with lead-based paint, but if your parents did and they accumulated lead in their bodies that was not detoxified, you could carry that same toxicity. As a mother myself, this terrified me. I certainly want to be sure that I am not passing down heavy metal poisons to my children. If I have to deal with toxicities that I’ve collected myself, I can handle that. If I am passing those along to the little ones in my home, that is not okay with me. I’ve worked so hard to create a toxic-free home so that my family can thrive, and yet heavy metals can still sneak their way in unknowingly.
The symptoms of heavy metal build-up can vary from person to person depending on the specific metals exposed to as well as where in the body they are being stored. Fatigue, headaches, and brain fog are common symptoms, but chronic pain and disease can be as well. However, some people don’t have any symptoms at all. Keep in mind though, that doesn’t mean metals are not present just because your body isn’t experiencing toxic symptoms, and it doesn’t mean they are not causing harm. Our bodies are not meant to store toxins, and doing so will affect our health in one way or another.
Thankfully, as we learn more about heavy metals and the impact they have on our health, we have more options for detoxifying.