Mercury Pandemic: Avoiding Toxic Levels of Daily Exposure

With today’s manufacturing there are many chemicals and toxins that are both purposefully added to products, as well as those unintentionally added.

Mercury is one of those unintended additions to many of the products people consume and topically apply every day. In order to avoid exposure to this heavy metal, and in turn avoid the risk of any heavy metal toxicity, you need to know where the metal resides in order to avoid it.

Mercury Highly Present in Many Foods and Consumer Products

One of the most significant places you may find mercury is in processed foods.

In 2009, a study found that almost half of commercial high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) contained mercury — a carcinogenic chemical element that is toxic in all its forms to the human body.

Even more troubling, nearly a third of 55 popular brand-name food and beverage products that listed HFCS as the first or second ingredient were found to contain mercury as a whole. With an incredible amount of processed foods and fast foods containing this ingredient, the result could be described as a mercury pandemic.

Instead of addressing this major public health concern, the FDA is focusing their time on crushing beneficial supplements through NDI regulations that threaten the entire infrastructure of the nutraceuticals industry.

Mercury is also very present in skin whitening creams and body care products. Mercury has been found in some of these products at levels as high as 300,000 parts per million.

A newspaper sent 50 skin-lightening creams to a certified lab for testing. Six were found to contain amounts of mercury banned by federal law. Five of the six had more than 6,000 parts per million — enough to potentially cause kidney damage over time.

Another everyday product you may want to avoid is compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). Only months after it was found that energy saving compact fluorescent bulbs release carcinogenic chemicals into the air, a new study has found that these harmful chemicals are continually released from the bulbs over a period of weeks to months. Furthermore, the study also found that the levels of mercury released exceed those that are considered safe for humans.

Avoiding these products will not only result in better overall health, but you will also dramatically reduce your exposure to mercury. Along with this avoidance, dental amalgam fillings, multi-dose vaccines, and seafood should also be avoided.

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