The UltraMind Solution (73 page)

These factors and how they related to George’s genetic background gave me the hints I needed to help him heal.

How the Environment Affects Your Genes: George’s Mercury Poisoning

Your specific genetic variations set the stage for health or disease, including heart problems or depression, diabetes or dementia.

When it comes to dementia specifically (and keep in mind this is just an example of how
all
disease works), many genes have been found to contribute to the condition. Chronic diseases like these are usually multigene disorders. No one gene is responsible, but the interaction between many genes, their variations (or single nucleotide polymorphisms), and the way these genetic variations interact with the environment, can put someone at risk for a chronic disease such as dementia.

That is why we will
never
find
the
gene for Alzheimer’s, or heart disease, or cancer, or autism, or depression. There isn’t one. There are many genes that influence our predisposition to certain systemic imbalances and many others that determine how these systemic imbalances show up in each of us as a “disease.”

This is the loaded gun each of us lives with. But we don’t have to pull the trigger. It is our environmental influences (our diet, stress levels, toxic exposure, the amount we exercise, etc.) that do that for us. Even if we are predisposed to certain illnesses, that doesn’t mean we are
destined
to have them.

Remember:

Genes + Environment = Disease

We know that many things affect how our genes function—our diet, vitamins and minerals, toxins, allergens, infections, stress, lack of sleep, exercise, and more.

Even though no long-term studies have been done that look at treating dementia based on genes and environmental influences, there are many scientific threads creating a picture of how and why our brains age and what genes are involved.

For George, whose mind and life were evaporating, I looked deeply into his genes and the biochemistry his genes controlled and found places where we could improve things.

He had a gene called apo E4, which is a high-risk gene for Alzheimer’s disease,
³
one that also made it hard for him to lower his cholesterol or detoxify mercury from his brain.

This gene predisposes people to dementia for many reasons. One of them may be that people with this gene cannot easily remove mercury from their brains.
⁴
This certainly seemed to be the case for George, who had some of the highest levels of mercury poisoning I have ever seen.

When your brain can’t detoxify mercury, the mercury accumulates there over a lifetime. This mercury may come from many sources, including vaporization of dental fillings, environmental exposures, tuna fish, or air pollution.
⁵
Wherever it comes from, the effect can be severe.

In one study of 465 patients with chronic mercury toxicity, 32 percent had severe fatigue, 88 percent had memory loss, and almost 30 percent had depression. These symptoms and mercury poisoning were much more common in people with the apo E4 gene. Today about 20 percent of the population has this gene.

The good news that came out of this study is that removal of amalgam
fillings combined with a mercury detoxification program resulted in significant symptom reduction.
⁶

However, apo E4 was only the beginning of George’s genetic problems.

Some genes are critical for optimal detoxification of metals and other toxins. One of the most important is the GST gene. George had a version of this gene (glutathione-S-transferase, or GST)
⁷
that was very inefficient. This gene helps increase the levels of glutathione, the body’s main detoxifier and antioxidant. George’s inefficient GST gene made George accumulate even more toxins over his lifetime.

Having the combination of a problem with GST and apo E4 puts people at even more risk for dementia.
^8
;
9

In another study, people with an absent GST gene were likely to have much higher levels of mercury in their system.
¹⁰
So the interaction between genes and the environment is the problem. People like George aren’t genetically programmed to have dementia, but they are living with a loaded gun, and their toxic environment pulls the trigger.

Luckily, we know how to work around these genes that are better adapted to a pollution-free world. We do it with diet, supplements, and other detoxification methods.

George also had another gene we found through his blood tests called MTHFR,
¹¹
which made him require very high doses of a special kind of folate (MTHF) to lower homocysteine in his blood, which is a substance that is very toxic to the brain.

Again we see problems with methylation show up (I discussed these problems in detail in
chapter 6
).

The very
core
of nearly all chronic illness is the breakdown in the process of moving around methyl groups (CH3) in the body (the methylation train), and creating the most important detoxifier and antioxidant in our bodies—
glutathione
(the sulfation train, which I will discuss in detail later in this chapter).

Amazingly, these two biochemical cycles are completely tied together. All the biochemical steps along the way have to work in order for you to methylate and to sulfate, which is the process by which your body produces glutathione, the mother of all detoxifiers and antioxidants.

For the glutathione in the body to be produced, you must have enough folate, B
₆
, and B
₁₂
and the methylation train must run efficiently. As I have said many times, everything is tied together.

Figure 12: Connections between detoxification, oxidative stress, and inflammation

Often problems with these same metabolic pathways show up in very different diseases—such as autism or Alzheimer’s—but the underlying mechanisms are the same: jammed-up biochemistry leads to oxidative stress and inflammation common to all psychiatric and neurological illness (and to all other diseases), because these are the final common mechanisms of destruction in the body. And they are all connected at the core by a deficiency of glutathione.

The last gene George had a problem with is called CETP. This gene is involved in cholesterol transport and we know that high cholesterol promotes Alzheimer’s. People who have a problem with this gene don’t make enough of the HDL, or good cholesterol, to shuttle out the bad cholesterol. We know high cholesterol leads to dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. Combine this gene with the apo E4 gene and your risk of dementia goes way up.
¹²

So George seemed to be a genetic train wreck. Every gene made him in one way or another susceptible to environmental insults from mercury overload, folate, or B
₁₂
deficiency, and elevated cholesterol.

The good news is that these genes are not static, but are highly influenced by the way we live, the food we eat, our nutritional status, and our level of toxicity. We can address all these environmental factors and reduce the risk significantly. We can even stop or reverse the effects of toxicity.

That is what I did for George. But to understand how, you need to know a little more about what George, specifically, was facing.

George grew up and lived his life in steel country, so he had long-term exposure to coal-burning steel plants. He and I were very much alike in this regard. Coal-burning industrial plants or heating homes with coal is the major source of mercury in the environment—it is the same environmental factor I was exposed to in China that caused me to get chronic fatigue syndrome. George, it turned out, was suffering from severe, chronic mercury poisoning.
¹³

We found that he had high levels of mercury. After we gave him a test for mercury using DMPS (a heavymetal binding or chelating agent),
*
we found he had a level of 350 mcg/g of creatinine. Normal is less than 3. This was one of the highest levels of mercury I had ever seen.

Taking a blood sample tells you only what is floating around in your blood if you have been breathing polluted air, or eating too much sushi, but a challenge test (sort of like a cardiac-stress test or glucose-tolerance test for diabetes) picks up buried problems—in this case mercury. Studies have found that using DMPS increases mercury excretion from 3 to 107-fold.
¹⁴
The chelating agents or drugs, DMPS and DMSA, are both used to test for and to treat heavy metal toxicity.

Just doing one thing wouldn’t help George. So we worked hard to get everything in balance. The most important thing we did was to have his dental fillings
¹⁵
removed safely
^†
and slowly chelate out the mercury. Mercury toxicity was the core of his problem, and solving it would be the core of his solution.

We helped him detoxify from this mercury poisoning with foods such as kale, watercress, and cilantro; herbs such as milk thistle; nutrients such as selenium and zinc; and chelating medications that helped him overcome his genetic difficulties getting rid of toxins.

We lowered his cholesterol with diet, herbs, and exercise.

We lowered his homocysteine with high doses of folate, B
₁₂
, and B
₆
to overcome his weak MTHFR gene. And we added an extra, special form of folate called methylfolate, the active form that bypasses the ineffective gene. After a year of aggressive therapy that was matched to his genes and his own quirky biochemical train wrecks—not his diagnosis—he had a remarkable and dramatic recovery.

Before I saw him, he could not manage his business, nor did his grandchildren want to be around him. After matching his treatment to his genes, he was again able to function, and his grandchildren loved being with him. His memory improved, he could read and remember what he read, and run his business affairs. He no
longer isolated himself at home, but became an engaged member of his family and community.