Magnesium, Iodine, Mercury Exposure & MS, a disease seen through a Vascular Surgeon's Eyes, by Dr. Mark Sircus

Magnesium

Although the cause remains officially unknown, multiple sclerosis is widely thought to begin as an autoimmune inflammation with magnesium deficiency at the core. In studies it's been shown that there was a significantly lower value of magnesium than that seen in control cases. The most marked reduction of magnesium content was observed in CNS white matter including demyelinated plaques of MS samples.

Magnesium protects the cells from aluminum, mercury, lead, cadmium, beryllium and nickel. Evidence is mounting that low levels of magnesium contribute to the heavy metal deposition in the brain that precedes Parkinson's, multiple sclerosis and Alzheimer's. Research has shown that the symptoms of MS are very similar to mercury poisoning. Mercury contamination is one major cause of inflammation in our bodies.


The rate of relapse in multiple sclerosis was found to be
decreased with dietary magnesium supplementation.

Magnesium deficiency causes and underpins chronic inflammatory syndrome. Inflammation is the missing link to explain the role of magnesium in many pathological conditions. Dr. Mazur says, "Magnesium deficiency contributes to an exaggerated response to immune stress and oxidative stress is the consequence of the inflammatory response." Magnesium deficiencies feed the fires of inflammation and pain and it is magnesium that modulates cellular events involved in inflammation. Increases in extracellular magnesium concentration cause a decrease in the inflammatory response while reduction in the extracellular magnesium results in cell activation.


Magnesium is central to immunocompetence and
plays a crucial role in natural and adaptive immunity.

MS sufferers have a wide variety of symptoms that often begin rather abruptly and proceed at a highly variable and unpredictable pace. Common early symptoms include numbness, pins and needles sensations, incoordination, weakness especially in the legs, painful loss of vision in one eye, double vision, dizziness, pain at various sites, urinary symptoms and impotence. Symptoms of MS that are also symptoms of magnesium deficiency include muscle spasms, weakness, twitching, muscle atrophy, an inability to control the bladder, nystagmus (rapid eye movements), hearing loss, and osteoporosis.


What is essential to remember about treating pain with
magnesium is it treats both the symptom and the cause of pain.

Researchers have found oral magnesium therapy effective on patients with multiple sclerosis. In one formally reported case a 35-year-old woman suffered with severe spastic paraplegia resulting from multiple sclerosis (MS). A significant improvement in the spasticity was found after only one week from the onset of the treatment on the modified Ashworth scale, an improvement in the range of motion and in the measures of angles at resting position in the lower limbs.

Nystagmus is characterized by an involuntary movement of the eyes, often noted as a shaky or wiggly movement and has been directly tied to magnesium deficiencies. People with MS also have higher rates of epilepsy than controls. Epilepsy has also been linked to magnesium deficiencies. Without doubt magnesium supplementation accompanied by pH control via diet and the use of sodium bicarbonate will do wonders for not only multiple sclerosis patients but also Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease sufferers.

Iodine

The relatively low prevalence of multiple sclerosis in Japan, despite its temperate latitude, has puzzled many researchers. We know though that their soils have some of the world's highest known levels of iodine caused by the use of seaweed as a fertilizer. Deficiencies of this essential trace element appear to be associated with many diseases, or birth defects, including goiter, cretinism, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis and cancer of the thyroid and nervous system. People with MS may also have low levels of selenium or of glutathione peroxidase, an enzyme produced from selenium. A theory explaining the pathogenesis of MS concerns an increased stickiness of cellular plasma membranes, hampering normal vascular function of the brain. In agreement with that theory researchers have found significantly lowered selenium values and lowered glutathione peroxidase activities.

MS and Mercury Exposure

The central nervous system is extremely sensitive and reacts to a combination of factors that allopathic doctors don't normally consider or address. Toxic exposures, nutritional deficiencies and emotional anguish converge most pointedly on the nervous system with often catastrophic results. Toxic substances such as mercury, which the body is chronically exposed to, accumulates in the brain, pituitary gland, CNS, liver, kidneys, etc. and can damage, inhibit, and cause imbalances at very low levels of exposure. Heavy metals can cause major neurological, immunological, and metabolic damage.

Each individual will be seen to have their own unique combination of neurological, endocrine, and enzymatic imbalances along with autoimmunities that result from the above factors. Symptoms will vary resulting in different diagnoses: multiple sclerosis (MS), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease (AD), or Parkinson's disease (PD), systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), and even rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

Dental amalgam is documented by medical studies and medical lab tests to be the largest source of both inorganic and methyl mercury in most people who have several mercury amalgam fillings. Very low levels of exposure have been found to seriously affect individuals who are immune sensitive to toxic metals, or have an inability to detoxify metals due to deficient sulfoxidation or metallothionein function or other inhibited enzymatic processes related to detoxification or excretion of metals.

Amalgam exposures are commonly above government health guidelines. This is due to continuous vaporization of mercury from amalgam in the mouth, along with galvanic currents from mixed metals in the mouth that deposit the mercury in the gums and oral cavity. Mercury is one of the most toxic substances in existence and is known to bioaccumulate in the body of people and animals that have chronic exposure.

A large epidemiological study of 35,000 Americans by the National Institutes of Health, the nation's principal health statistics agency, found that there was a significant correlation between having a greater than average number of dental amalgam surfaces and having chronic conditions such as epilepsy, MS, or migraine headaches. MS clusters in areas with high metals emissions from facilities such as metal smelters have been documented.

Mercury has been found to accumulate preferentially in the brain, major organs, hormone glands, and primary motor function related areas involved in ALS -- such as the brain stem, cerebellum, rhombencephalon, dorsal root ganglia, and anterior horn motor neurons, which enervate the skeletal muscles.

Exposure to mercury and magnesium deficiencies are at the root of inflammation. Chelation of mercury will relieve many of the problems caused by it and restoring magnesium levels will protect our cells from the inflammation that mercury causes. Magnesium is a necessary factor in chelation, for without it chelation will not be successful. Heavy metals like cadmium, lead, and mercury compete with nutritional magnesium, keeping it from availability to protect our cells. The healthy cell wall favors intake of nutrients and elimination of waste products and this is one of the reasons magnesium is so important in detoxification and chelation.

MS Seen through a Vascular Surgeon's Eyes

Dr. Paolo Zamboni, a former vascular surgeon and professor at the University of Ferrara in northern Italy, has come upon an entirely new idea about what causes MS and how to treat it. He found that scientists who had studied the brains of MS patients had noticed higher levels of iron in their brain, not accounted for by age. The iron deposits had a unique pattern, often forming in the core of the brain, clustered around the veins that normally drain blood from the head. No one had ever fully explained this phenomenon, considering the excess iron a toxic byproduct of the MS itself. Using Doppler ultrasound, Dr. Zamboni began examining the necks of MS patients and found that almost 100 percent of the patients had a narrowing, twisting or outright blockage of the veins that are supposed to flush blood from the brain. He then checked these veins in healthy people, and found none of these malformations. Nor did he find these blockages in those with other neurological conditions.

What was astounding was that not only was the blood not flowing out of the brain, it was "refluxing" or reversing and flowing back upwards. Zamboni dubbed the vein disorder he discovered CCSVI, or chronic cerebrospinal venous insufficiency, and began publishing his preliminary research in neurology journals. He soon found that the severity of the vein blockages corresponded to the severity of the patient's symptoms. Patients with only one vein blocked usually had milder forms of the disease; those with two or more damaged veins had more severe illness.

If key veins of MS patients are blocked, perhaps we can open them and restore normal blood flow? Yes doctors use balloons to open up blocked arteries that feed blood from the heart but there are many natural treatments that can help, such as using niacin and different enzymes as well as removing the heavy-metal buildups with chelation.

sources & more articles at: http://drsircus.com

The DrSircus.com is a site dedicated to research and instruction of a new form of medicine to people and physicians around the world. What we have discovered, like magnesium defiency, magnesium contraindications and alternative cancer treatments, offers a revolution in medicine and freedom from phar...