Heavy metal toxicity.

[hairyfairy]

Iv`e been reading various stuff on the internet about how wer`e all being slowly poisoned by heavy metals like mercury & aliminium. Apparantly these metals are in stuff like toothpaste, deoderant, & amalgam fillings. I can`t afford to have my fillings replaced with other materials, & I do wonder if there`s a way of testing for heavy metal poisoning, & also removing them from my body without having to do anything drastic.

[Damian]

That's one of my worries, give it back!

I did actually worry about this a few years ago, before my anxiety moved on to other things. What I was able to find out was:

Aluminium is poisonous, but only if it's in a form that can dissolve in water. The aluminium in things like deodorant is an insoluble powder, so it couldn't be absorbed by your body even if you accidentally swallowed some.

Mercury is definitely poisonous, but the amount used in amalgam fillings is thought to be small enough that it won't have an effect. The problem is that amalgam is still the best dental material for some types of fillings, so it's not as simple as just using resin instead. (I had an incompetent dentist once, who did a resin filling where he should have done an amalgam one. It got broken within a few months because the resin was too brittle.)