Posted by Larry Hoover on November 2, 2003, at 11:54:47
In reply to Re: Mercury/Inuit/Selenium » Larry Hoover, posted by JLx on November 2, 2003, at 11:26:39
> >Just this week, I read an article that investigated the health of a particular Inuit community in Canada. The population has adopted many of Western society's worst behaviours, including smoking, alcohol abuse, junk food, sedentary behaviour, and so on. At the same time, this population was exposed to a huge toxin burden, because they are at the top of the Arctic food chain. Similar populations had huge problems with coronary heart disease, and mercury toxicity from natural foods. They wanted to find out how bad this particular population was doing. Surprise! Surprise! No evidence of coronary heart disease. Low blood cholesterol. Low triglycerides. Better than the average for all Canadians, in fact. They said to themselves "We've got to figure out why!" And, they did. The answer was muktuk, beluga whale skin, a local delicacy. It contains huge amounts of selenium. When people from this group were hospitalized, they quickly developed all the signs of mercury toxicity. The reason is that the half-life of mercury in the blood is three months, whereas the half-life of selenium is one day. By day three, the mercury began to do its dirty work. The treatment? They had some muktuk shipped to the hospital, and the mercury poisoning immediately reversed itself.
>
> Fascinating and heartening to see such a dramatic and clear example. Is there any reason why the supplementation form of selenium wouldn't be as effective?No, I think supplements would work just as well. When I was reading the article, they kept talking about a special substance in the muktuk, and I was thinking something biochemically unique to belugas, or perhaps just the omega3 content. It was in the third last paragraph of the lengthy piece where they revealed the identity of the "special substance".
> I have amalgam fillings and worse yet as I understand it, also a gold crown. I've just started taking 200 mg/day of selenium.
Good idea. It just seems prudent to take selenium if you've got amalgam in your mouth. Why are you concerned about the gold crown?
Environ Res. 2001 Dec;87(3):141-6.
Dental amalgam and selenium in blood.
Hol PJ, Vamnes JS, Gjerdet NR, Eide R, Isrenn R.
Department of Odontology-Dental Biomaterials, University of Bergen, Aarstadveien 17, Bergen, N-5009, Norway.
It has been suggested that selenium (Se) exhibits protective effects against mercury (Hg) toxicity in humans due to formation of a Hg-Se complex bound to selenoprotein P in blood. The aim of the present study was to investigate Se concentrations in persons who had been examined with respect to general health problems associated with dental amalgam fillings. The Se concentrations were determined in whole-blood samples of 80 individuals by hydride generation atomic absorption spectrometry. The subjects comprised two main groups: 21 healthy controls with amalgam fillings and 20 patients who claimed symptoms from existing amalgam fillings. The median concentration of Se in blood (119.2 microg/L) was statistically significantly lower in subjects who claimed symptoms of mercury amalgam illness than in healthy subjects with amalgam (130.3 microg/L). The difference was more evident in individuals with more than 35 amalgam surfaces (P=0.003). Additional control groups without amalgam fillings comprised 19 healthy controls without amalgam experience and 20 subjects who have had amalgam fillings removed due to suspected symptoms associated with amalgam. The Se concentrations in these groups were not different from those with amalgam. It is indicated that persons with ill health self-related to dental amalgam might have a Se metabolism different from that of healthy people.
poster:Larry Hoover
thread:269189
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/alter/20031023/msgs/275783.html