Testing For Mercury Amalgam Filling Poisoning

"The urine porphyrin test is perhaps the best indicator of heavy metal toxicity. ...Heavy metals cause in increase in the excretion of porphyrins."

Source: "It's All In Your Head", p 94, by Hal Huggins.

Porphyrins measured in urine serve as such a biomarker. The presence or elevation of various urinary porphyrin species can flag a potentially toxic condition. Metals and other toxic chemicals with prooxidant reactivity can inactivate porphyrinogenic enzymes, deplete glutathione and other antioxidants and increase oxidant stress, all of which lead to damaged membranes, enzymes and other proteins in cells . In addition, porphyrinogens (precursors to porphyrins in the reduced state) themselves are easily nonenzymatically oxidized to porphyrins by toxic metals such as mercury. Thus, the distribution pattern of porphyrins in the urine serves as a functional ‘fingerprint’ of toxicity .

The utility of urinary porphyrins as a diagnostic tool is not new—its use has been documented in the literature since 1934. Specific diseases collectively known as the porphyrias, which can be inherited or acquired (e.g. acute intermittent porphryia, porphyria cutanea tarda, variegate porphyria), are often diagnosed with the aid of information regarding the distribution profile of individual porphyrin species in human urine.

Any patients testing positive on the urinary porphyrins test should be subjected to follow up with more specific testing for a differential diagnosis. Tests that assay toxic metals directly in biological samples (i.e. blood, urine and hair) are essential for confirming whether the toxicity symptoms are caused by a metal. Identification of toxic organic chemicals by laboratory methods is also possible. Ruling out porphyria as the primary cause of porphyria-like symptoms requires tests for porphyrinogenic enzyme activities (e.g. uroporphyrinogen decarboxylase), as well as tests for blood, fecal and urine porphobilinogen (PBG) and delta-aminolevulinic acid (ALA).

http://www.metametrix.com/Publications/Toxic%20Metals/

Some researchers suggest hair offers a better indicator of mercury body burden than blood or urine(279,21ab), though still not totally reliable and may be a better indicator for organic mercury than inorganic. In the early stages of mercury exposure before major systemic damage other than slight fatigue results you usually see high hemoglobin, hemocrit, alkaline phosphatase, and lactic dehydroganese; in later states you usually see marginal hemoglobin, hemocrit, plus low oxyhemoglobin(35).  Hair was found to be significantly correlated with fish consumption, as well as with occupational dental exposure and to be a good medium for monitoring internal mercury exposure, except that external occupational exposure can also affect hair levels.    Mercury hair level in a population sampled in Madrid Spain ranged from 1.3 to 92.5 ppm. This study found a significant positive correlation between maternal hair mercury and mercury level in nursing infants.  Hair mercury levels did not have a significant correlation with urine mercury in one study(340) and did not have a significant correlation to number of fillings(350).  One researcher suggests that mercury levels in hair of greater than 5 ppm are indicative of mercury intoxication.

A new test approved by the FDA for diagnosing damage that has been caused by toxic metals like mercury is the fractionated porphyrin test(260,35), that measures amount of damage as well as likely source. Mercury blocks enzymes needed to convert some types of porphyrins to hemoglobin and  adenosine tri phosphate(ATP).  The pattern of which porphyrins are high gives an indication of likely toxic exposure, with high precoproporphyrin almost always high with mercury toxicity and often coproporphyrin. 

Feces is the major path of excretion of mercury from the body, having a higher correlation tosystemic body burden than urine or blood, which tend to correlate with recent exposure level(6,21abd,35,36,79,80,183,278). For this reason many researchers consider feces to be the most reliable indicator of daily exposure level to mercury or other toxics. The average level of mercury in feces of populations with Amalgam fillings is as much as 1 ppm and approx. 10 times that of a similar group without fillings (79,80,83,335,386,528,25), with significant numbers of those with several filings having over 10 ppm and 150 times those without fillings(80). For those with several fillings daily fecal mercury excretion levels range between 20 to 200 ug/day.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/AMALGAM/EN/SCIENCE/bernie_science.html

Besides the porphyrin fecal and urine testing, another good test is the Melisa test.  It will tell if you have mercury poisoning and the likely source (such as amalgam fillings).  For more information, see www.melisa.org

DMPS and DMSA are called provocation challenge tests.  They test as well as chelate mercury, but they are dangerous, according to Hal Huggins, and should be avoided.  They were invented for military personnel who get heavy metals dumped on them and designed to get it out quick.  It puts toxic loads on the kidneys (even new lower doses being promoted are not safe) and can make you very ill. 

Dr. Thomas Levy is a cardiologist who co-authored Uninformed Consent with Hal Huggins. In the book, Drs. Levy and Huggins discourage the use of synthetic chelators in general, and DMPS in particular. At page 252 they state:

"Heavy metal chelators almost always overaccelerate the detoxification of the post-TDR (total dental revision) patient. DMSA, DMPS, and EDTA can all do this. DMPS is consistently the greatest offender here. Immune declines and clinical illness can result for weeks and sometimes even months after only one injection of DMPS".