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Exploring High Mercury content
Mercury is a naturally occurring element found in air, water, and soil—but when it enters the human body, even in small amounts, it can cause serious harm. “Elevated mercury” refers to higher-than-normal levels detected in the blood, urine, or hair—an indicator of toxic exposure. The degree of elevation often reveals how, and how long, someone has been exposed.
At the mildest end, mercury levels may rise from frequent consumption of high-mercury fish such as tuna, swordfish, mackerel, or shark. These exposures are usually dietary and gradual, affecting individuals who eat fish several times per week. Mercury from fish (methylmercury) is highly absorbable and accumulates in tissues, particularly in the brain and kidneys, potentially causing fatigue, brain fog, tingling, or mood changes.
More moderate exposure may stem from dental amalgams (“silver fillings”), broken thermometers, fluorescent bulbs, or industrial pollution. Inhalation of mercury vapors during home renovations or lab work can raise internal levels quickly. Pregnant women, children, and those with compromised detoxification capacity (such as certain genetic polymorphisms) are especially at risk.
The most severe cases appear in military or occupational settings. Service members, miners, welders, factory workers, and demolition specialists may inhale inorganic mercury dust or vaporized metal through repeated contact with ammunition, electronic components, or chemical solvents. In these cases, mercury can damage the nervous system, endocrine glands, and cardiovascular system, mimicking other chronic illnesses.
Mitigation and Recovery
Reducing exposure is the first step—limit high-mercury fish, replace old dental amalgams safely (by a biologic dentist), and ensure proper ventilation in industrial or laboratory environments. Testing through urine, blood, or OligoScan technology helps identify body burden.
Medical management often involves detoxification under professional supervision. Functional or integrative physicians, environmental medicine specialists, and endocrinologists are well-equipped to assess systemic impact—especially on thyroid, adrenal, and reproductive hormones, which mercury can disrupt.
Supplemental support may include:
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Selenium, which binds mercury and protects cells.
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Alpha-lipoic acid (ALA) and N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), supporting liver detox pathways.
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Glutathione, the body’s master antioxidant.
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Chlorella and spirulina, natural chelators that bind heavy metals.
For advanced cases, supervised chelation therapy (e.g., with DMSA or DMPS) may be considered, though it must be carefully monitored.
Ultimately, elevated mercury is both a warning and an opportunity—to identify toxic exposure early, restore balance through guided detox, and protect the body from long-term neurological and endocrine damage.
References
(1) Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. (2021). Toxicological profile for mercury. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp46.pdf (2) Clarkson, T. W., Magos, L., & Myers, G. J. (2003). The toxicology of mercury—Current exposures and clinical manifestations. New England Journal of Medicine, 349(18), 1731–1737. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMra022471 (3) U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (2023). Fish and shellfish advisories and safe eating guidelines. https://www.epa.gov/choose-fish-and-shellfish-wisely (4) Mutter, J., Naumann, J., Sadaghiani, C., Schneider, R., & Walach, H. (2004). Amalgam studies: Disregarding basic principles of mercury toxicity. International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health, 207(4), 391–397. https://doi.org/10.1078/1438-4639-00293 (5) Houston, M. C. (2011). The role of mercury and cadmium heavy metals in vascular disease, hypertension, coronary heart disease, and myocardial infarction. Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine, 17(2), 64–69.
F E A T U R E
The Emerging Role of OligoScan Screening in Radiology
By Robert L. Bard, MD, diagnostic imaging specialist
Edited by: Lennard M. Goetze, Ed.D | Roberta Kline, MD
Environmental toxins and heavy metals represent one of the fastest-growing yet consistently under-recognized drivers of chronic disease. Mercury, arsenic, aluminum, lead, cadmium, gadolinium contrast agents, and airborne particulates from industrial and occupational exposures have all been linked to systemic inflammation, endocrine disruption, carcinogenesis, and autoimmune dysregulation.¹⁻³ Traditional laboratory testing for these exposures is slow, invasive, and often incomplete. Metals may deposit in tissues even when blood and urine tests appear normal, leaving clinicians with a blind spot between exposure and disease expression. Dr. Robert Bard emphasizes that modern environmental medicine requires faster screening, earlier suspicion, and imaging-based confirmation to change outcomes before irreversible pathology takes hold.
Performance Test: OligoScan, a non-invasive spectrophotometric device that analyzes mineral balance and toxic metal burden through the skin in minutes, offers a promising first step in a two-tier diagnostic strategy: screen rapidly, then diagnose precisely. By pairing OligoScan’s instant biochemical snapshot with high-resolution ultrasound, 3D Doppler, and elastography, Dr. Bard proposes a more proactive paradigm for toxin-related disease: screen → confirm → map → monitor.
SCANNING FOR "GOOD & BAD" ELEMENTS
Aluminum (Al) Antimony (Sb)
Arsenic (As Barium (Ba)
Beryllium (Be) Bismuth (Bi)
Cadmium (Cd) Lead (Pb)
DAY 1: OLIGOSCAN AS A SCREENING TOOL FOR METAL BURDEN AND MINERAL IMBALANCE
Dr. Bard identifies several clinical advantages that make OligoScan valuable as the front end of a diagnostic protocol:
· Non-invasive and painless
· Results in minutes instead of days or weeks
· Ability to repeat frequently for monitoring
· Simultaneous assessment of essential minerals and toxic metals
Unlike traditional tests, OligoScan distinguishes beneficial minerals—such as zinc, magnesium, selenium, copper, and iron—from toxic metals including mercury, arsenic, cadmium, aluminum, and lead.
This distinction is biologically critical. Mineral ratio imbalance contributes to oxidative stress, fibrosis, hepatic injury, immune dysregulation, and inflammatory skin disease, while toxic metals directly accumulate in soft tissue, endocrine organs, and microvascular beds.
Dr. Bard notes that exposure risk is especially elevated in:
· First responders, who inhale, absorb, and ingest particulates from fires, wreckage, and combustion materials
· Military personnel
· Dental and surgical implant patients
· Individuals with high fish intake (mercury)
· Patients repeatedly exposed to gadolinium through MRI contrast
OligoScan’s speed allows clinicians to identify biochemical red flags and immediately decide where to look and what to image next.
PART 2
FROM SCREENING TO DIAGNOSTIC CERTAINTY:
THE ROLE OF ULTRASOUND
OligoScan does not diagnose disease—its value is in directing what must be confirmed, ruled out, or mapped anatomically. Dr. Bard emphasizes ultrasound as the superior next step because it is:
· Real-time
· Radiation-free
· Able to visualize tissue architecture, vascularity, inflammation, fibrosis, and calcifications
In cases where metal toxicity is suspected, ultrasound can reveal:
· Dermal and subdermal deposits
· Fibrotic tissue changes
· Microcalcifications
· Microvascular abnormalities
· Endocrine damage, including early autoimmune thyroid changes
This is where screening becomes diagnosis.
THE “STARRY NIGHT” PHENOMENON IN HIGH-RESOLUTION ULTRASOUND
High-resolution ultrasound has transformed dermatologic imaging by allowing clinicians to visualize architectural and biochemical changes in the skin at the micron level. Common dermatologic conditions—including arsenical keratosis, melanosis, leukomelanosis, and hyperkeratosis—demonstrate reproducible sonographic patterns when inflammation, scarring, or mineral deposition is present.
· Arsenical keratosis often produces hyperkeratotic plaques that can eventually calcify; on ultrasound these appear as dense, bright echogenic foci corresponding to surface plaques and underlying mineral changes.
· Melanosis (hyperpigmentation) results from pigment and inflammatory injury that can thicken and stiffen the dermis. These regions may develop microcalcifications or fibrotic strands beneath the surface as a response to chronic irritation or toxic insult.
· Leukomelanosis, by contrast, presents as hypopigmented macules on the surface, but deeper layers may show dermal scarring and early fibrosis, detectable before the condition becomes clinically advanced.
· Hyperkeratosis, particularly on the palms and soles, can lead to significant thickening. When chronic, it forms fissures, scarring, and occasional calcific points, which are readily identified by ultrasound due to their high echogenic contrast.
While these conditions create larger focal abnormalities, advances in digital transducer technology have revealed a second category of findings—microparticulate signatures not visible to the naked eye. Beginning in 2015, European imaging groups reported that modern 18–70 MHz ultrasound could reliably detect structures as small as 50 microns, approximately 1/20th of a millimeter, including metallic microparticles, micro-calcifications, and fibrotic echo clusters.
Dr. Bard refers to the resulting pattern as a “Starry Night”, a visual constellation of punctate, hyper-echogenic dots distributed through the dermis and subdermis. Unlike the larger calcifications of keratosis or trauma scarring, Starry Night reflects micro-debris and micro-damage—often from:
· toxic metal deposition
· environmental particulates
· dermal injury from chronic inflammation
· early post-injury fibrosis
· micro-necrotic changes seen in aggressive tumors
With modern elasticity mapping and Doppler correlation, the Starry Night signature provides three critical diagnostic advantages:
1. Early Detection – identifying microscopic pathology before macroscopic skin changes appear
2. Source Differentiation – distinguishing calcific scarring from metallic particulate deposition or malignancy-associated changes
3. Aggression Assessment – when paired with microvascular Doppler, Starry Night density correlates with inflammatory or tumor activity
In environmental exposure and oncology alike, this micron-level visibility allows clinicians to see the damage that toxins leave behind—bridging the gap between biochemical suspicion and anatomical proof.
INTEGRATION WITH ELASTOGRAPHY AND LONG-TERM MONITORING
Elastography adds a quantitative measurement of stiffness, allowing clinicians to track:
· Fibrosis from chronic inflammation
· Regression of toxicity after detox protocols
· Response to focal therapies
This creates a full closed-loop system:
Screen (OligoScan) → Diagnose and Map (Ultrasound + Doppler + Elastography) → Monitor (Repeat OligoScan + Imaging)
DETOXING TECHNIQUES (part 1)
PROVOCATIVE CHELATION PREDICTORS & TREATMENTS: DMSA , EDTA & DMPS
Basic cellular biology dictates that our circulatory system travels all minerals and nutrients through our bloodstream. In best cases, our immune system should maintain the distribution balance of all these minerals from any potential overload. This overload may reach toxic (and hazardous) levels- whereas solutions such as CHELATION THERAPY may be recommended.
Therapy options include the induction of a synthetic solutions- the first is called EDTA (ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid) and is injected into the bloodstream to remove heavy metals and/or minerals from the body. [3] Another medication is DMSA (dimercaptosuccinic acid) which is recognized to mobilise and enhance the excretion of lead from the storage sites in the body that are most directly relevant to the health effects of lead. The intravenous application of DMPS (dimercapto-1-propanesulfonic acid) is most useful for the diagnosis of multiple metal overexposure. It is also the treatment of choice for Antimony (Sb), Arsenic (As), Cadmium (Cd), Lead (Pb), Mercury (Hg) and Copper (Cu) binding ability of the chelators tested. [4]
A provocative chelation test with DMSA could thus have wide potential application in clinical care and epidemiological studies. (see NCBI/NIH). Over-the-counter prescription versions are available for DMSA to rarely treat severe overdoses of lead and other heavy metal poisoning and the compounds of each are also available in health food stores as supplements.
Conclusion
Heavy metal and toxin-related disease is no longer rare, and it is no longer theoretical. Modern exposures—from food, implants, medical contrast agents, occupation, and environment—are overwhelming detox pathways and silently driving inflammatory, autoimmune, endocrine, and oncologic disorders. Traditional lab testing alone cannot meet this challenge.
By adopting OligoScan as a fast, non-invasive screening tool and following with ultrasound-based diagnostic confirmation and mapping, Dr. Bard advances a clinically responsible and data-driven model: suspect earlier, detect earlier, intervene earlier. The Starry Night signature and associated imaging modalities extend this paradigm by visualizing what toxins leave behind—changes in tissue, architecture, and microvasculature that can finally be seen, measured, and tracked.
This two-tier approach—biochemical screening plus visual diagnostics—represents a new pathway for precision environmental medicine, giving clinicians actionable insight and patients a chance at prevention instead of late discovery.
References
1. Grandjean P, Landrigan PJ. Neurobehavioural effects of developmental toxicity. Lancet. 2014.
2. Rajpurkar A, Jiang X. Heavy metals and chronic disease. Clin Rev Toxicol. 2020.
3. Filippini T, et al. Mercury exposure and human health. Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2018.
4. Runge VM. Safety of Gadolinium-Based Contrast Agents. Top Magn Reson Imaging. 2016.
5. Weber MA, et al. Ultrasound elastography in clinical practice. Radiology. 2018.
6. Bard R. Clinical statements on OligoScan and Starry Night findings.
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