Know Your Poisons – Arsenic

Arsenic is a powerful nerve and enzyme poison, affecting the adrenal glands. It interferes with how our bodies regulate oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfer. It is a common toxic metal and found virtually everywhere. Chicken feed, pig products, rice, wome water, soils, herbs, shellfish and seafood to name but a few. This can be remedied by following a complete mineral nutritional balancing program.

INTRODUCTION

Arsenic is a common toxic metal.  Many people have an excessive amount of arsenic in their bodies.  It is somewhat difficult to detect and often causes vague symptoms such as weakness, fatigue and malaise.  It also takes away a person’s will to resist.  For this reason, it can be called the slave mineral.

Slow death.  We also call arsenic the slow death mineral, because it causes rather vague symptoms that slowly poison a person.  It affects the brain significantly, and perhaps should be called the dullness mineral because it causes mental dullness and apathy.

Left-sided.  Arsenic is a left-side poison.  This means it affects the heart and the left brain or thinking brain, and it is a masculine mineral that affects men perhaps more than women.

An old human poison.  Arsenic was famous in Victorian novels as the method of choice to kill a person one did not like.  You simply added a little arsenic to his or her food.  It is quite colorless, odorless and tasteless, so it makes a good poison in food.  It caused vague symptoms that were hard to trace.

Not persistent.  Unlike cadmium and mercury, arsenic is eliminated by the body to a significant degree.  Therefore, it must be “re-applied” as a poison frequently to do its dirty work.

SOURCES OF ARSENIC POISONING

Chicken and pig products.  Arsenic added to chicken feed was banned in Europe in 1990 and in the United States in 2013.  However, it may still be added to chicken feed to kill parasites and fatten the chickens in some nations.

Salt.  Arsenic is added to some salt by those who control certain companies.  Adding a little arsenic to salt is one of the most common ways to use this mineral to poison people.  I have read reports of China using it in salt, particularly in Australia, to weaken the people.  Since this may be true, please avoid regular table salt in Australia and instead try to use a natural sea salt and note if it looks as if it has been tampered with.

Himalayan salt in America, as well as others, may also be slightly tainted with arsenic.

Herbs.  Many herbs take up arsenic from the soil and from the water used to irrigate them.

Water supplies.  Arsenic from agricultural use finds its way into most water supplies.  Some spring waters are also high in arsenic.  One is Castle Creek Spring Water.

Fish and all seafood.  Many lakes are contaminated with arsenic, which gets into the fish.  A common symptom of eating fish contaminated with arsenic is stomach pain.

Coastal waters are often contaminated with agricultural runoff.  This gets into the shellfish and seafood.  Arsenic poisoning is one reason we don’t recommend any seafood whatsoever.  Deep ocean fish are less likely to be contaminated with arsenic, but are contaminated with mercury today.

Milk and butter.  These foods are also somewhat contaminated.  Challenge butter is one of the best.

Pesticide in wine and beer.  Arsenic was, and is still used in the beer and wine industries.  It is commonly sprayed on grapes used to make wine.  Even organic wine is often contaminated with it because the soil the grapes are grown on is saturated with arsenic from years of using it on grapes before the vineyard changed to the organic method.

Thanks to arsenic, wine is probably the most toxic alcoholic beverage, and best avoided, even the organic wines.

Other fruits. It is still used as a pesticide on other fruits besides grapes.

Tobacco. Lead arsenate pesticide is commonly used on tobacco and is one of the worst problems with smoking or chewing tobacco.  If you must smoke, which is horrible for the body, use an organically grown tobacco.  The problem is that even the organic products are contaminated because:

1. The soil was formally farmed chemically, and the arsenic residue often remains and finds its way into the plants.
2. Companies can lie about organic farming.  If there is an outbreak of disease in the crop, they may use the arsenic and just not tell anyone.

Treated and preserved wood. Arsenic was formally used extensively to treat wood so that insects and termites would not eat the wood.  This use has diminished as the government has realized how toxic it is.  However, some construction timbers and poles are still treated with arsenic to resist insect infestation.  The wood often has a green tint to it.

Paints. Arsenic compounds have a yellow or greenish color, and may be in some paints of these colors.

Leather.  Arsenic is used in tanning leather because it is an excellent preservative.

Mining.  Arsenic is also used in mining operations.

A hardener.  Arsenic may be added to other metals to make them harder and more corrosion-resistant.

Electronics.  Some arsenic is used in transistors and integrated circuits.

Medical drugs.  Arsenic was formerly used as a medical remedy for gonorrhea and syphilis.

Natural contamination.  Arsenic can be a natural contaminant of some drinking water and soils. With this introduction, let us discuss more specific issues to do with arsenic.

METABOLIC ACTION OF ARSENIC

Periodic table location.  Arsenic is found just below nitrogen and phosphorus.  It is also just to the left and below oxygen and sulfur.  This means it “looks like” these elements.  For this reason, it can replace these elements in the body fairly easily, and this is one way it poisons the body.

Type of poison:

1. Arsenic is a powerful nerve and enzyme poison.
2. It affects the adrenal glands.
3. Arsenic complexes with and thus interferes specifically with oxygen, nitrogen, phosphorus and sulfur.

These minerals have to do with proteins, energy production and detoxification in the body, among other functions.

4. It is an iodine antagonist.

SYMPTOMS OF ARSENIC TOXICITY

These are often vague, at first.  Arsenic is associated with hundreds of symptoms, beginning with what may be called malaise, fatigue, vague aches and pains, weakness, dizziness and many neurological symptoms.  It can also cause blood disorders such as anemias, blood sugar disorders, and is implicated in several forms of cancer.

Specific toxic symptoms include:

• enzyme inhibition
• anorexia
• weakness
• diarrhea
• edema
• keratosis
• impaired healing
• dermatitis
• stomatitis
• liver dysfunction
• hair loss
• sore throat
• kidney damage
• vasodilation
• peripheral neuritis
• goiter
• vitiligo
• fluid loss
• headache
• vertigo
• muscle spasm
• stupor
• fever
• pallor
• jaundice
• abdominal pain
• herpes
• abnormal ECG
• interferes with uptake of folic acid
• inhibition of sulfhydryl enzymes

ARSENIC REMOVAL FROM THE BODY

Arsenic is fairly easy to remove from the body with a corrective healing program.  We do this on a daily basis with thousands of people.  Coffee enemas are particularly helpful to speed its removal.

Arsenic removal with can take up to a number of years.  This may be because it can settle deep in the nervous system, where it can cause many vague, unusual symptoms that vanish as the arsenic is slowly removed from the body.

Chelation therapy is used for arsenic removal by some holistic doctors, but not by us.  In our view, it is not very effective and somewhat toxic.

ARSENIC ANTAGONISTS

These include iodine, selenium, and vitamin C, to some degree.

HAIR ANALYSIS NOTES

• The ideal hair arsenic level.  Please go to Mineral Idealsfor the most recent ideal and normal ranges of arsenic that we use.
• Arsenic, as with all the toxic metals, may not be revealed on early hair tests when one is on a development program.  It is revealed later as some of it is eliminated from the body through the skin and hair.  This means that some people have arsenic overload, even if the hair arsenic level appears low or normal, especially on a initial hair mineral test.
• At times, a very low arsenic reading appears on a hair mineral analysis.  This indicates a Poor Eliminator Patternrelated to arsenic. This means that a person has arsenic toxicity and is unable to eliminate it adequately.  This is an important pattern related to arsenic toxicity.