Subject was diagnosed with early stage prostate cancer. Paragon was asked to determine potential causes and treatment along-side the patient’s attending physician.
Comprehensive metabolic testing revealed significant ongoing mercury loading, elevated homocysteine, elevated dihydro-testosterone (DHT), abnormal iron metabolism, and impaired liver function. (This was all ultimately shown to be caused by the consumption of contaminated predator fish.)
The body quickly moves excess toxins from the blood into storage within the cells. This homeostatic regulation keeps our blood supply relatively “clean” & balanced. This filtering & balancing is done by the body’s organs and tissue cells, all of which can become chemically imbalanced and/or dirty when exposed to poor nutrition and/or toxic exposure. Poisonous heavy metals like lead, cadmium, arsenic, mercury, uranium, and many others, as well as other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) like PCBs, dioxins and other toxins & carcinogens are stored in tissue cells this way. This makes it important to test tissue cells, and not blood or urine alone, for both nutritional balance and toxin exposure.
HTMA is the best tool for uncovering ongoing exposure to heavy metals. Even though the body quickly moves such toxins from the blood into the body’s cells, despite the short period of time they are in the blood they still get absorbed by growing hair. The gradual accumulation over 90-120 days of hair growth can be easily measured and identified. For this reason HTMA is the best indicator of lower-level, ongoing heavy metal poisoning. It will detect significant levels of poisoning that will not show up in regular blood or urine tests.
This patient's test results clearly indicated that heavy metal toxicities were a key factor behind both the subject’s prostate and previous skin cancers, and liver malfunction. The heavy metals caused several chain reactions of events.
(1) The toxicity overwhelmed the body’s primary detoxification cycle (SAMe cycle), resulting in elevated homocysteine. While laboratory reference range for normal homocysteine can range from 3 to 15 micromoles per liter of blood, epidemiological data reveal that homocysteine levels above 6.3 cause a steep, progressive risk of heart attack (the American Heart Association's journal Circulation, Nov. 15, 1995, 2825-30). One study found each 3-unit increase in homocysteine equals a 35% increase in myocardial-infarction (heart-attack) risk (American Journal of Epidemiology, 1996, 143[9]:845-59). In another study, using a baseline homocysteine level of 9.0 umol/L, researchers have found that for every 5.0 umol/L increment increase in homocysteine levels, all-cause mortality increased by 49%, cardiovascular mortality by 50%, cancer mortality by 26%, and deaths from other causes (respiratory, gastrointestinal and central nervous system diseases) by 104%.)
This patient’s homocysteine was 13.0, more than two 3-unit increases above 6.3.
Excess homocysteine causes oxidative damage to tissues, as well as nutritional deficiencies related to a lack of its conversion to methionine, maintenance of the SAMe cycle, and detoxification. Elevated homocysteine indicates homocysteine is not being converted into methionine. Methionine is required for biosynthesis of all enzymes, receptor and transport proteins, and structural proteins; is necessary to clear heavy metals; and for the synthesis of cysteine, which is necessary for the formation of N-acetyl cysteine, and from that, all-important glutathione, which is necessary for proper liver health & detoxification function. This was indicative that the subject’s heavy metals clearing and liver function were suffering.
Elevated homocysteine levels, whether due to nutrient deficiencies, toxicity induced deficiency, or defective genes, can be quickly normalized in virtually all cases, simply and inexpensively, using a combination of nutritional supplements. The most effective defence against homocysteine build-up is a combination of vitamins B-6 and B-12, folic acid and trimethylglycine (TMG).48,49
(2) Mercury and zinc are antagonistic to each other’s uptake in the body. Mercury interferes with zinc metabolism, preventing its proper absorption and function. On the other hand adequate zinc intake can prevent mercury absorption in the tissues.
(Side note: Zinc is also critical to skin health— the patient’s mercury toxicity was preventing its proper absorption and utilization.)
The prostate gland uses 10 times more zinc than any other organ. Zinc also decreases the conversion of testosterone to toxic dihydro-testosterone (DHT).50 DHT is an androgenic (growth promoting) steroid 20 times more potent than testosterone. DHT has been implicated in both melanoma and prostate cancers.51 An enzyme, 5-alpha-reductase, converts testosterone to DHT, which is far more active than testosterone in binding to sites in prostate cells that stimulate cell growth.52 The patient’s DHT was 9.0 compared to the normal range of 1.4 — 4.0.
The prostate problems, elevated DHT, and elevated mercury all indicated (1) the beneficial action of zinc was being inhibited and (2) a need for additional zinc supplementation to make up for this.
(3) High mercury also interferes with iron metabolism and oxygen transport. In turn, cancers require low oxygen anaerobic environments to thrive.
Other Paragon case studies and research studies have shown that balanced nutrient supplementation will usually return abnormal iron metabolism, and elevated homocysteine, DHT, & mercury to normal levels. As such, a nutritional intervention to counter the above elevations was begun.
All but the patient’s mercury elevation responded very positively to the initial nutritional intervention, as testing 3 months later showed. DHT dropped form 9.0 to 3.9, well within the normal range of 1.4 - 4.7. The patient’s homocysteine was lower as expected, dropping from 13.2 to 9.0., but still slightly higher than the 6-7 level we were targeting. We suspected the homocysteine was most likely being affected by the continued increase in mercury toxicity, which remained a mystery, as the patient had been instructed to eliminate all foods known to contain higher levels of mercury.
A 3rd HTMA (Hair Tissue Mineral Analysis), showed the mercury level continuing to climb even higher. A 4thHTMA showed it was still climbing. At that point Paragon organized DMSA chelation treatments to aid in detoxifying the patient. This provided a temporary lowering of the subject’s mercury levels in the HTMA that immediately followed.
The patient’s homocysteine was re-elevated at 13.4 in the next test that was done, despite more than adequate levels of nutrients to lower it (high levels of folic/folinic complex (5mg/1mg), (B6 300mg / 75mg P5P), B12 (sublingual 3mg methylcobalamin and 2mg adenosylcobalamin, and TMG - 1500mg). Paragon immediately suspected continued high mercury, so we ordered an HTMA for both the subject and his wife, because we were now pretty convinced there was a serious level of local mercury poisoning coming from somewhere.
This was confirmed. The subject’s levels of mercury on the HTMA was about 60% higher than the previous one. Further, his wife’s mercury levels were almost as high as his were.
The couple was then re-interviewed at length about their dietary intake and other lifestyle habits to determine what they might be inadvertently doing to poison themselves. This found the problems. Despite having been repeatedly warned not too eat any predator fish, a few months after the initial Paragon nutritional intervention began. the couple had begun increasing consumption of swordfish and other predator fish as many as 3 times a week. They mistakenly thought that eating any fish must be better than eating meat. Further, other investigative research Paragon did on their behalf showed the waters where they live and where the fish were form are particularly polluted in mercury, due to coal smoke fallout and local mining operations.
All this data indicated the principle cause of the elevated homocysteine was a mercury-induced blockage of this detoxification cycle.
Based on this new information, and since the patient had received such a high does of mercury over a prolonged period of time we, we were now concerned about the total body burden of heavy metal potentially stored deep in his tissues. We decided to use Dr. Clapp’s 8 day fasting & cleansing protocol for problem toxicity to help rid his body of the metals, as it has been used safely and successfully on thousands of patients.
This specific 8 day fasting protocol is designed to flush the body at specific times in the day and causes toxins to flow out of the body (instead of into your body with the constant inflow of food).
We took another hair sample immediately after the fast. We expected to see potentially high levels of mercury in the new hair, as a result of that metal temporarily moving from sequestration deep in other cells back into the blood (where it would register in the hair), and then finally into the bowels and kidneys where it would be excreted.
That HTMA taken a few days after the cleanse indicated the mercury was exiting the body well, as the registered level was only half as high as on the previous tests. Unexpectedly, there were extremely high levels of highly toxic lead found in the hair, despite no lead seen in any of the 5 previous tests, indicating it had been sequestered in the patients tissues for years.
The next tests done after the fast showed a marked improvement. Free PSA/ total ratio rose from a low and abnormal 10%, to a borderline normal 17%, and the elevated Homocysteine (that indicated blockage in detoxification) dropped in half to just above normal levels.