How Does Mercury Poisoning Affect Your Health?
Mercury is uniquely both a heavy metal and a liquid at room temperature. Only three other elements are liquids at room temperature. Its atomic number is 80. Other metals near it on the Periodic Chart include silver, gold, cadmium, and lead. Gold is the only one of these that is more dense. Being both a metal and liquid had made it both useful and harmful. The usefulness has been known for centuries. The harm we are only beginning to learn.
Mercury has been around for a long time. It was known in ancient China and India and was found in Egyptian tombs built 3500 years ago. Mercury metal is extracted from cinnabar, or mercury sulfide. Cinnabar is mined mostly in Texas, California, Spain and Italy. The metal has been used for years in thermometers, sphygmomanometers, and barometers because it responds to temperature and pressure changes uniformly and because 13 times less mercury is needed in the measuring column than if it contained water. The down side of this is that mercury, mercury vapor, and all soluble salts of mercury are extreme poisons.
The poisonous nature of mercury has not kept it from being used in a wide variety of products. Blue light street lights are generally mercury vapor lights. Mercury sulfide, in the form of vermillion, is used as a paint to slow the growth of barnacles on ships. Mercury is also used in fluorescent lights. When they are broken indoors, enough poisonous mercury vapor is given off to be a health risk. Mercury is still used in some cosmetics and dental amalgams. Not so many years ago, it was common to paint mercurochrome on a wound to prevent infection. Greater awareness of the effects of mercury poisoning has outlawed such tinctures.
Today we are much more aware of the far reaching negative effects of heavy metals on health. In fact, these metals have no known need in the body. Their presence is nearly always negative. They get into our bodies in a variety of ways. More specific for this article, the abundant use of mercury in the past has now poisoned water, land, and seas. Mercury poisoning in fish, especially tuna and swordfish, is a problem and fish must be monitored continually.
These are a few common products containing mercury in some form. Each poses a threat to cause mercury poisoning: algaecides, body powders, calomel lotions, dental amalgams, felt, germicides, insecticides, manufacture of paper and chlorine, paper products, polluted water, skin lightening creams, and tanning leather.
These are a few of the effects of mercury poisoning on the body: allergy, anxiety, cataracts, depression, dizziness, emotional disturbances, fatigue, kidney damage, pain in limbs, suicidal tendencies, and others. These heavy metals can actually damage DNA increasing the risk of cancer.
Symptoms typically include sensory impairment (vision, hearing, speech), disturbed sensation, and a lack of coordination. This does not mean if you suffer from one or more of these that you have heavy metal poisoning. But it does mean you could be poisoned and you should see a doctor to be tested.
The multitude of products that once used or presently use a form of mercury is staggering. How many of these are in landfills today leaching their poisons into the ground water? Yes, city water systems are monitored for mercury poisoning. But what are wells and springs?
The facts are alarming. The affects of these metals may not be seen for years but they are doing their damaging work just the same in yourself and your children. Of course, we can do nothing to eliminate the damaging compounds dumped in landfills in the past. Neither can we deal with present products that are health concerns. But we can limit or eliminate the intake of these metals in ourselves and our families. One sure way to do this is to filter all drinking or cooking water. As an example, an effective activated charcoal filter promises through adsorption, to remove 95% of any mercury and other heavy metals in the water. A low cost activated charcoal filter will not only lower the risk of future problems, but can give present peace of mind. That would be a worthwhile investment!