Super Human

by Dave Asprey

  This is quite literally happening with heavy metals. We consume this poison little by little, and it weakens us—causing invisible cellular damage while suppressing our immune system and thyroid function. As a result, we feel slightly more sluggish and foggy with each passing year. We say that it’s just age catching up with us, but it’s actually the slow and steady creep of metals building up in our bodies and taxing our systems, aging us unnecessarily.

  THE POISONOUS EFFECTS OF METALS

  Arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury are the most toxic and present metals in our environment. Although the EPA has classified each of them as carcinogens,1 today we are consuming them in considerable quantities. More mercury is present in our food now than ever before, and other heavy metals such as aluminum, nickel, thallium, and even uranium often appear in high concentrations in our bodies. In addition, copper, iron, chromium, and zinc are essential nutrients in the body, but at high levels they, too, are toxic and prevent your cells from functioning optimally.

  Heavy metals are part of the Earth’s crust. Human activities such as mining, smelting, and manufacturing—and in some countries, the continued use of lead in paint, gasoline, and aviation fuel—have brought them out of the crust and into our soil, air, and drinking water. Even worse, sewage sludge from cities is contaminated with high amounts of heavy metals—enough to be considered low-level toxic waste. Private companies controlling waste disposal commonly mix the sludge into fertilizer until it’s diluted just enough to meet EPA limits. Then they spread the metal sludge onto the fields used to grow your food, and the food takes it up. Then your cells do.

  You already know that our mitochondria produce energy via an electrical process. Well, when these metals, which have high electrical conductivity, get in our bodies, they mess with that process, causing a dramatic increase in oxidative stress. This has a direct impact on cellular function,2 leading to premature aging and decline.

  Of course, we know that babies and children are particularly vulnerable to the toxic effects of metals. In children under the age of ten, metals can cross the blood-brain barrier and kill off neurons, leaving these children with cognitive and mental health problems as well as reduced IQs. According to the World Health Organization, when pregnant women are exposed to high levels of metals, the unfortunate results are miscarriage, stillbirth, premature birth, and low birth weight, which can lead to lifelong health problems.3

  We are still learning about all the ways that metals contribute to aging in adults. In 2018, The Lancet released a study that examined the connection between lead exposure and deaths from cardiovascular disease. They analyzed data from over fourteen thousand adults, correcting for variables like age, sex, ethnic origin, location, smoking, diabetes, alcohol intake, and even household income. The results were shocking, revealing that adults with the highest levels of lead exposure had a 70 percent increase in mortality risk from cardiovascular disease and double the mortality risk from coronary heart disease.4 This means that with all else being equal, high levels of lead exposure increases your risk of death from this killer by 70 to 100 percent.

  This is because when lead enters the blood vessels, it damages the cells that line them, hardening arteries and causing plaques to form. Once plaques are present, blood pressure increases, as does the risk of heart disease and stroke. While government agencies have consistently reduced acceptable amounts of lead in the environment since the 1970s, The Lancet concluded that “there is no safe threshold for lead exposure.” And yet, only twenty years ago it was deemed perfectly safe to have levels of lead present in the blood that we now know to be toxic. It pays to be more conservative than government safety standards, which are always influenced by economics and don’t put your health and longevity first.

  Another growing but often overlooked toxic metal is thallium, which is used in rat poison and other insecticides, and which the electronics, glass manufacturing, and pharmaceutical industries use in production. Thallium is called “the poisoner’s poison” because Russian spies have used it to assassinate people. It is colorless and tasteless, and it replaces potassium in your cells, making them fail. Unfortunately, in a shockingly shortsighted move, the oil industry decided to replace the lead in gasoline with thallium, which is way more toxic. Even in smaller doses, it causes degenerative changes in many organs. These adverse effects are the most severe in the nervous system,5 as thallium poisoning can cause lesions in part of the basal ganglia. Damage to this part of the brain leads to problems with speech, movement, and posture.

  Sadly, because of its ubiquitous presence in U.S. soil and fuel, thallium is hiding in plain sight in one of the world’s trendiest vegetables: kale. As kale consumption and harvesting has exploded over the last decade, so has thallium exposure. We’ve known for years that kale and other brassica vegetables such as cabbage are exceptionally good at taking up thallium from soil. A 2006 peer-reviewed paper by Czech researchers confirms this to be true of kale,6 and a 2013 study from China found the same issue in green cabbage.7

  In fact, brassicas are so effective at soaking up thallium that in 2015 Chinese researchers found they could use green cabbage to purify soil of thallium.8 In other words, the cabbage soaked up all the thallium in the soil, leaving the soil itself toxin-free. Think about that the next time someone offers you a kale smoothie or coleslaw made with conventionally grown cabbage!

  Mercury is another common toxin that builds up in your tissues over time. Scientists have clearly established that it causes high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, and neurotoxicity.9 In other words, it makes you more likely to die from two of the Four Killers: heart disease and Alzheimer’s. Mercury can also cause you to experience impaired cognitive function and motor skills. This one is particularly troublesome because it’s found in fish from the ocean, and we must eat fish to get adequate omega-3 fats. But if you eat a lot of fish, you’re getting a lot of mercury.

  Fish are an awesome metaphor for our own bodies. The older the fish, the more heavy metals have bioaccumulated in its tissues. That’s why eating a large halibut, swordfish, or shark is a bad idea. These fish can live for more than a hundred years, and every time they eat a small fish that contains mercury, the mercury sticks around in the tissue of the larger fish. Likewise, if your plan is to live to beyond a hundred with your faculties, you’re not going to want a hundred years of accumulated mercury, lead, and other metals hanging out in your brain.

  But one of the largest sources of mercury exposure in humans is one we’ve created ourselves by using mercury amalgam in “silver fillings” for dentistry. They’re so full of mercury that when a silver filling comes out of your mouth it must be treated as hazardous waste. If you have lots of mercury fillings, there is a 100 percent chance you will not perform at your potential or live as long as possible. It’s that clear. The problem is that removing these fillings improperly will cause a huge spike in your blood mercury levels, likely poisoning your brain in the process. That’s why a mercury-free dentist who knows how to remove fillings safely is a must-have on your Super Human support team.

  Compact fluorescent light bulbs are another common source of mercury. Each bulb has enough mercury vapor to create a hazardous waste cleanup problem according to government safety limits. I’ve taught my kids to literally hold their breath and run out of a room should a bulb break at school or a friend’s house. We don’t allow them in our home.

  The bottom line is, no matter how clean you think your food or your environment is, you’ve undoubtedly been exposed to enough heavy metals to accelerate your aging and increase your risk of succumbing to the Four Killers.10 And the longer you live, the worse it gets. So, the question is: What are you going to do about it? Will you plead ignorance and do nothing just because your doctor never tested you for metals, or will you take action to proactively avoid and reverse the aging these metals cause?

  HEAVY METAL DETOX METHODS

  Exposing yourself to fewer of these toxins is a good strategy, one you must follo
w in order to live longer and become Super Human. The only problem is that many of them are omnipresent, and you simply can’t avoid some degree of exposure. That’s why it is essential to periodically detox from heavy metals and purge them from your system.

  The practice of detoxing has some negative connotations, mostly due to a mix of addiction treatment “detox” centers, random laxative teas, and other “cleanses” full of sugary fruit juice and maple syrup that are somehow supposed to help you purge toxins. As a result, many people turn up their noses at the very concept of detoxing. I get it. But there is a big difference between someone wanting to make a buck by capitalizing on the idea of detoxing and our actual need to help our bodies remove harmful and aging substances.

  Other people resist the idea of detoxing because they believe that our bodies naturally eliminate anything that’s potentially harmful. Perhaps this would be possible if we all still lived in the Garden of Eden and we got our food (and toxins) only from Mother Nature. But that ship has sailed, and a high toxic load from our modern environment makes it tough for your body to clear toxins efficiently. You simply weren’t engineered to live a long time while swimming in the modern soup of man-made chemicals and toxic metals more present in our food supply and in our bodies than Mother Nature ever intended.

  If your digestive system is healthy and you don’t overload your system with an even higher than average toxin load, you will most likely eliminate the majority of the metals you ingest through your stool. But a small percentage of heavy metals are stored in your fat cells. If you’re familiar with compound interest, you know that a small percentage of interest on your savings account compounded for fifty years can create real wealth. Likewise, a small percentage of heavy metal accumulation compounded for fifty years or more will create real aging and biological chaos.

  I’m actually grateful my symptoms of toxicity were so bad that I pursued heavy metal testing because it encouraged me to learn about it and start clearing these aging substances from my body. If you have symptoms of heavy metal toxicity or your health is crappy in general, see a functional medicine practitioner who can evaluate you and guide you through a safe detox process. Detoxing metals the wrong way can be dangerous—it’s possible to accidentally move metals from your tissues into your brain. A functional medicine practitioner will order either a urine test or a hair test for heavy metals. Hair tests are easy to do. They don’t require you to pee in a bottle or take drugs that release the heavy metals you’re storing in your tissues, so they’re harder to interpret and don’t measure your total body burden of toxic metals. Urine tests provide a more accurate picture of your toxin levels and are considered the gold standard.11

  Whether you have proof of your own heavy metal exposure or not, I encourage you to take action to slowly eliminate metals from your body as you age in one or more of the following ways.

  GLUTATHIONE AND OTHER ANTIOXIDANTS

  Back in 1999, the first thing I did to detox from heavy metals was to get an IV of glutathione. This was far less popular and more expensive than it is now. Glutathione is one of the body’s most powerful antioxidants, and it can protect you from heavy metal damage.12 Glutathione is also a natural chelating agent, meaning its molecules can form several bonds to a single metal ion. As you read earlier, chelating agents bind to the metals in your body, inactivating them. Then your body eliminates the metals through urine and bile. Glutathione is particularly helpful because it keeps mercury from entering cells in the first place.13

  Unrelated to heavy metals but worth noting: Glutathione protects fats from oxidation, supports your mitochondria, boosts immunity, and helps your brain function at its peak.14 Glutathione also recharges other antioxidants, making them more effective at fighting inflammation, and is a cofactor for dozens of enzymes that neutralize damaging free radicals.15 The lower your levels of glutathione are, the higher your risk of all the Four Killers climbs.

  Of course, your body makes its own glutathione, but it’s hard for any of us to produce enough of it to keep up with increased free radical production as we age. Add heavy metal exposure to the mix, and there’s a clear case for most of us to take additional glutathione. The first time I got an IV of glutathione I felt massively better right away. From then on, any time I felt like I was getting sick, I went to my doctor and got an IV of glutathione, and it really helped. To this day, I continue to make sure my glutathione levels remain high by taking supplements and occasionally getting glutathione via IV after a long flight. I skip glutathione doses sometimes so my body doesn’t naturally downregulate its own production. Taking it every day for long periods without a break isn’t a good idea.

  Another powerful antioxidant that helps chelate your heavy metals is alpha-lipoic acid (ALA). This antioxidant can cross the blood-brain barrier to protect the membranes of neurons from heavy metal damage.16 ALA also regenerates old glutathione both inside and outside of cells, increasing glutathione levels in the body.17 In addition, ALA helps mitochondrial performance. Some researchers believe that you must take ALA every four hours to avoid redepositing metals in your brain, but most physicians I know do not follow that protocol. We do know that oral doses of up to 1,800 mg per day have no side effects.18

  It’s always a good idea to supplement your detox efforts with vitamin C, the world’s best-known antioxidant, since low vitamin C levels are associated with low levels of glutathione and excess oxidative stress.19 Like ALA, vitamin C recycles used glutathione, elevating antioxidant levels in red blood cells.20 And by itself, vitamin C can help you detox from lead.21 As with glutathione, I skip vitamin C on some days and for twelve hours following high-intensity workouts because the oxidative stress created by a workout is part of the signal to your muscles to grow. If you take it after workouts, vitamin C will disrupt that signal.22 In addition, adequate zinc levels prevent your body from absorbing lead and cadmium,23 which is why I take a mixed zinc and copper orotate capsule daily as a part of my anti-aging program.

  ACTIVATED CHARCOAL

  Another low-hanging fruit of detoxification is activated charcoal, a form of carbon that has a massive surface area and a strong negative charge. Activated charcoal has been used for more than ten thousand years by Chinese medicine healers, Ayurvedic practitioners, and Western medicine doctors alike. It’s still used in emergency rooms today to treat poisoning.

  Charcoal works through a process called adsorption, which means to bind to rather than to absorb. In the body, it binds to chemicals whose molecules have a positive charge. Once the charcoal attaches to these chemicals, you can pass them normally (i.e., poop them out). Many toxins, even those made naturally by bacteria and toxic mold, will bind to charcoal, so you can excrete them before they harm your body.

  When you eat foods containing cadmium, copper, nickel, and lead (but unfortunately not mercury), activated charcoal can bind up these toxic metals before they have a chance to stick to your cells.

  Charcoal can help prevent many of the cellular changes associated with aging. In one study, activated charcoal increased the life-span of older test animals by an average of 34 percent.24 Even if the increase is less dramatic in humans, this is a relatively risk-free intervention with clear anti-aging effects. In fact, a 34 percent increase in life-span is unprecedented from any pharmaceutical. Remember, an increase in life-span is an increase in the maximum amount of time you can live. It’s far more difficult to extend life-span than it is to increase the average amount of time you can expect to live.

  Scientists have known about the effects of activated charcoal on heart health since the 1980s. In one study, patients with high cholesterol who took activated charcoal three times a day showed a 25 percent reduction in total cholesterol and doubled their HDL/LDL cholesterol ratios.25 Yet almost no conventional doctors recommend activated charcoal to their heart patients.

  When I first saw this research many years ago, my only experience with charcoal had been on the slopes of Annapurna in Nepal, where it was sold everywhere because it
relieves symptoms of almost any gastrointestinal problem. When I returned to the United States, there were very few capsules of activated charcoal available on the market. So I bought charcoal in powdered form, mixed it into a beaker full of water, and grimaced as I chugged down the bland-tasting, gritty drink. But the next morning, I woke up noticeably less puffy and more focused. Then I went to the bathroom and thought I was dying because the charcoal passes through your GI tract and turns your poop black, the same color as blood in your stool. Consider yourself warned.

  Keep in mind that the activated charcoal in supplements you’ll find on the market can come from a variety of sources. Charcoal is the result of burning something, and in the case of some charcoal supplements, that thing is farm waste. There are also many different grades of charcoal, ranging from the coarse stuff found in water filters to ultra-fine particles. I prefer (and manufacture) activated charcoal made from the husks of coconuts washed with acid to dissolve any heavy metals present in the coconut husk and then ground into the finest possible particles. The finer the particle, the greater the surface area to bind toxins once ingested. One gram of activated charcoal has a surface area ranging from 950 square meters up to 2,000 square meters.26 In other words, fine-grade charcoal is twice as effective as normal grade. In fact, finer particles are proved to bind to the most carcinogenic substance known to man, the mold toxin aflatoxin.27 I take these capsules almost every day on an empty stomach as part of my overall anti-aging strategy and as a way to continuously detox from chemicals, pesticides, and some heavy metals.

  If you go this route, remember to never take activated charcoal at the same time as prescription medications or some other supplements. Charcoal binds a lot of substances—even the good stuff like prescription medications, vitamins, and minerals. Wait an hour or more after taking charcoal to take other supplements or medications. Talk to your doctor about the details. If you’re on antidepressants, this is even more important. You don’t want to “detox” your antidepressant before it takes action in your brain!