We have talked about various compounds to detoxify mercury from the body and brain. What do they have in common? Sulfur! That is an element mercury loves to bind with due to sulfur having a -2 charge and mercury having a +2 charge in Hg2+. But it cannot be just any old sulfur. It needs to be a specific type of organic sulfur however.
Glutathione is major antioxdant
Glutathione is a very important sulfur containing antioxidant. It works together with vitamin C and E to fight free radicals and detoxify mercury. Your body’s cells make it from raw materials like meat, fish, chicken, yogurt, milk, cheese, whey protein, broccoli and avocado. These are items that contain sulfur containing amino acid cysteine. So if you provide sulfur amino acid as raw materials your body can produce it. Good. In theory.
However glutathione stores can become depleted due to
- Low vitamin C levels
- Too many free radicals, toxins or heavy metals overwhelming production ability
- Old age. As we age the body’s cells produce less.
So the production can be slower than we need. Then damages and heavy metals start to build up. Keep in mind mercury binds to enzymes including ones that make glutathione. So not only does it use up glutathione it can block enzymes used to make it worsening symptoms. You can help increase levels by doing the following.
- Provide raw materials by eating sulfur rich proteins like whey protein, yogurt, meat
- Provide glutathione precursors like N-acetylcysteine. I have no idea where to buy this. They give this in case of Tylenol /acetaminophen overdose as it replenishes glutathione as it is the closest precursor.
- Take glutathione supplements. However this is not as easy as it seems. If you buy glutathione pills it just gets broken down into the constituent amino acids via your stomach acids. In that case you might as well just eat steak or drink a mega man whey protein shake. It will taste better and you will get way more raw materials for the money. Not good. Now if there only was a way to get it past the stomach somehow. Hmm.
You can indeed find a way to get glutathione into the body without it breaking down in the stomach
Now doctors will use intravenous glutathione but you don’t have access to that. However you have access to the next best thing.
That thing is liposomal glutathione. A liposome is a tiny ball of fat with something inside it. The fat protects what is inside the ball from the stomach acids. The liposome gets absorbed by the gut along with its precious cargo. Once in the bloodstream the liposome breaks open and releases the cargo. In this case that cargo is glutathione but it could be any drug. This is a novel and new drug delivery method.
Can I get liposomal glutathione? Yes. However it is not cheap. Plan about 40 dollars per 60 capsules. It also is not allowed to be sold in all countries. It is available though as people use it for skin lightening and as a general antioxidant. Taken with vitamin C it can help prevent melanin formation via blocking an enzyme. But we don’t care about that as we want to remove mercury.
How should I take liposomal glutathione?
- Take it with vitamin C. 500 mg vitamin C for 250 mg of glutathione. They work together. 2:1 ratio or more. Take a few hours afterward.
- Take vitamin E also as a fat soluble antioxidant. Again hours after.
- Take it with food during meals for absorption
- Drink plenty of fluids
Liposomal glutathione does work well. I have taken it. It seems to work clean out the nerves in the body like the nose, face, throat and neck ie places most exposed to mercury vapor and in saliva from fillings as you breathe it. These are sensory neurons that get doused in mercury. You can tell because you will feel more the cold of the water, the texture of the food etc. I am sure it also cleans out the kidneys, liver, lungs. How much gets into the brain I don’t know. It seems to works for that too. Likely that has something to do with the liposome helping it to enter cells. For cleaning out the body it works well.
Here is the proof and details in mostly scientific article PDF form.
What other organic sulfur compounds can I use?
The sulfur compound in cilantro/coriander leaf is also capable to removing mercury
Why cilantro? Because it contains a molecule that contains sulfur and appears to be both fat soluble. That means it is capable of crossing the blood brain barrier to bind mercury and bring it out. It was discovered in an experiment that men who ate a Vietnamese soup excreted aluminum and heavy metals in their urine at much higher doses than before eating the soup. They narrowed the ingredient down to cilantro leaves. But what is in those leaves that does this? A study of the 50 chemicals in cilantro leaf was done by a group of scientists in Bangladesh using a mass spec instrument. That study is here below. Of the 50 compounds identified only two are thiol compounds meaning chemicals that contain sulfur which mercury loves to bind with. Only one has a long fatty acid tail which would make it fat soluble like say vitamin E or A. That chemical in my view is likely gamma thiodecalactone (also known as 5-Hexyltetrahydrofuran-2-thione or 5-Hexyldihydro-2(3H)-furanthione) . Cilantro is also known as coriander. Cilantro leaf also has lots of vitamin A and K. Both are fat soluble antioxidants that will help you to detox. Recall the brain is heavy in fats so the chemicals need to be fat soluble to get in. (2-Ethyl-3-methylthiophene is the other sulfur containing ring compound per the study in cilantro leaf but it has no fatty tail so is likely not fat soluble)
How come this compound is able to get into the brain when it is not a known antioxidant?
Well low molecular weight, fat soluble molecules can pass through the blood brain barrier by passive diffusion. One that has a sulfur end would be capable of binding mercury. Does it meet these criteria?
- Low molecular weight/ meaning small? Yes
- Fat soluble? Yes
- Contains sulfur binding end? Yes
So the cilantro compound qualifies as an mercury antioxidant. It would pull out mercury via passive diffusion. Meaning diffuse in grab mercury and diffuse out. Now you see why I say to never do this with amalgam fillings in your mouth and after they have been out for like twelve months. You don’t want mercury going in, only out. I think it is one of the few detox agents that can penetrate blood brain barrier.
How can I eat cilantro?
Go to the local grocery and a buy a bunch of fresh cilantro leaves. This should cost about two to three dollars tops. Harvest about half a cup of leaves into a cup. Now add those leaves to your meal or just plain eat them as part of a salad or on a sandwich like a Bahn Mi. Or buy such a dish from the restaurant with fresh leaves on top. Then you wait to see what you feel over the next few hours. If you don’t have mercury you will feel nothing and just get a tasty meal. However if you have mercury in the brain the chemicals in cilantro will begin to mobilize mercury. In doing you so you may feel the following.
1 . Recall memories from a long time ago in detail
2. Tingling or itching in the head or body
3. Nervousness, tension or other mercury like symptoms
After this has run its course you can take some vitamin C and E pills to help your body detox. These are both antioxidants. E is fat soluble and C is water soluble. Eat plenty of fiber like fruits and veggies to push the toxin out and drink plenty of fluids like water. You can also add some chlorella tablets to your diet to help absorb it and eliminate it. Finally some fish oil/DHA pills to repair any damage of neurons from where the mercury came from.
The Mechanism of How it Works
So basically what we are doing is moving mercury from in the brain where it is trapped into the body where it can be gotten rid of via normal means. When mercury vapor from dental amalgam gets into the brain via the blood stream it gets bound up with sulfur containing enzymes and binding sites after oxidation and stuck there. The brain cannot get rid of it except very slowly thus the long half life of many years. The articles below show this. However in the body the half life is on the order of 90 days or less. So we are moving the mercury into the body from the brain to via a fat soluble sulfur compound to excrete it much faster. This doesn’t appear to be a true chelator but more of mobilizer but that is good enough to move it out of the brain. So that means you also need an absorber like chlorella and lots of fiber.
Never do this with mercury amalgam dental fillings in your mouth as you don’t want to move mercury into the brain! Also wait at least six to twelve months after removal to try! The body needs to be clean first. Also this is only for low level chronic mercury poisoning. For acute poisoning you need to see a doctor ASAP. If you work with heavy metals in a foundry this is not for you. This is for low level dental exposure and from eating fish.
Now if you get symptoms then what? Well it is possible you do have some residual mercury in the brain. If you have had mercury amalgam fillings in the past this is likely the case as we see from the autopsy study below. The next step then is to keep adding some cilantro to your meals every few days or once a week until you don’t feel the impacts any longer as it has been moved out. Make sense? This could take several months. Go slowly at first. Maybe on weekends when you don’t have to work. My view is to move it out and get rid of it given the connection to Alzheimers. Don’t engage in any other chelation therapy. Keep it natural and safe. Let your body do that work after you move it out of the brain. At worst you will get some tasty meals with the cilantro/ corriander if it doesn’t work. Or you can just buy meals that have it fresh cilantro in it like a bahn mi or on tacos. At best you will get rid of any residual mercury in the brain and in more deeply stored tissues. There are also people that sell tinctures made with extract of cilantro leaves that should also work. My method is to buy fresh leaves and add them to food. This is inexpensive and I am cheap. Go with fresh instead of cooked as you don’t want to cook the active ingredient.
Why half a cup of leaves or more?
That seems like a lot. Yes, but keep in mind the chemical we likely need is only 0.16% per the study of the leaves per the study. So if you eat only one leaf you get very little. You need a solid handful to get enough to see any impacts. One thing that studies miss is that they don’t focus on the thiol compounds meaning sulfur compounds in cilantro focusing on the other organics that don’t have binding capability. Charged inorganic mercury is Hg +2. We need a minus -2 to bind to it thus S -2 sulfur or Se -2 (selenium). Powerful antioxidant glutathione also uses sulfur to bind to mercury. Note the Thio in the name. Think of it this way. If you want to bind iron you will need a magnet not a piece of wood or brick. Of course you don’t see results if the doses are low. You need higher doses to get enough of the active compound to do the job. They also look for the mercury in urine but most is removed via the bowels which is how the liver gets rid of fat soluble things via the bile. Recall mercury is fat soluble. I hope this makes sense. One just needs to think about things a bit.
I have done this myself with the cilantro leaves working my way up to a full cup or two eaten with potato chips. You want to eat it with something greasy to help absorbtion of this fat soluble compound like potato chips, Cheetos and Doritos. Ideally you want a strong taste to mask the cilantro flavor unless you really like it.
There is reason people recommend cilantro for mercury detox and many tinctures and chelation agents have it. Fat soluble sulfur is the reason. This is the reason with the chemical theory to back it up. This is just my theory but it seems to work . Do your own research if you want. There are real medical chelators out there used for acute poisoning like DMSA but you should not mess with them without a doctor as they will wreck your kidneys. I am not sure they can penetrate the brain though as they don’t look fat soluble. Whatever is in cilantro seems to be. BTW DMSA also uses sulfur to bind mercury.
The number one thing is prevention to exposure. Do not get mercury amalgam dental fillings! The give off mercury vapor which you breathe and then some of that vapor gets oxidized and trapped in your brain.
If you have them my advice is get them changed out with some other material.
Supporting Articles in PDF form for you reading pleasure
Chemical composition of cilantro/corriander
Retention of mercury in the brain autopsy studies
Mr. Cash Hoarder 