HealthMattersBlog.com

Pleasant topic, no doubt.

But the fact is, there are lots of dear people that are struggling desperately with Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), Crohn’s Disease and Colitis.

Am I positing that these are all the same thing. Not exactly.  I’m not saying they’re not either.  Truthfully, I am not sure one way or the other.   I am sure that most Doctor’s don’t know the cause of any of them.  These terms are convenient labels for a set of symptoms for which conventional medicine knows no cause.  They only know medications that temper some of the symptoms.  Sometimes at great risk to the entire body.

Now let’s see. What would be a source of mercury that could end up being utilized in our intestinal wall?

Fish? Amalgam Fillings (which constantly methylate? Given that both sources go primarily into your digestive tract, they are certainly two potential significant sources of mercury that your body might unwittingly use in constructing your gut wall.

How much research is there to back this up? Frankly, I don’t know. But I do like following a logical path. If you ingest a substance, isn’t it highly probable that your body will try to utilize it? Sure thing! Now shouldn’t your body know better than to use mercury to construct body parts? Well yes, but from the reading I have done, some forms of mercury can trick your body into thinking it is usable where it is in fact not healthful.

Mercury interferes with the enzymatic processes of digestion. So if your gut has a lot of mercury in the lining, how well do you think you will digest your food?

“Not well” is my conclusion.

Provocative title I suppose.

Well, not chock full o’ mercury, no. But many popular types of fish do have a significant quantity of mercury.

Tuna Fish.

And what a shame too. Tuna fish was one of my favorite lunches when I was a kid. Confession: with plenty of unhealthy mayonnaise.

When I eat fish now, as often as every few days, I eat it plain. Nearly plain that is, just with a wee bit of salt. And it is delicious.

My preference would be to eat less fish and more vegetables, but I have learned, by experimenting, that I am at my best and feel my best if I make sure to eat a fair amount of high protein foods. I suppose that means I am a protein type.

Anyway, I eat veggies and I eat one kind of fish that has been tested for mercury. The mercury levels are so low that, as my chemical engineering friend says “it nearly amounts to nothing”. I probably get more from walking down the street a few blocks than I do from eating this particular Salmon.

Back to the question: Are Fish Full of Mercury?

The short answer is no. But we ought to ask another question after we answer this one…

Fresh or Frozen Tuna Fish contains 0.38 ppm of mercury on average

Canned Tuna Fish contains 0.20 ppm mercury on average

Swordfish and Shark contain much higher levels.

So, perhaps the average person doesn’t have to be overly paranoid about mercury levels in the average fish. However, some folks are more sensitive than others, I being one of them.

So, while I do eat fish, I am highly selective about which type and from where I get it.

The other question, we should probably ask is: Just How Much Mercury Do You Want In Your Body Anyway?

That will be good for another post.

If you want to know what fish I eat, it is Wild Alaska Sockeye Salmon. If you want to know where I get it, click here and you can help support my blog and if you do, thank you very much.

1 Mercury levels came from http://www.fda.gov/fdac/reprints/mercury.html