Mercury Causes Immune System Dysfunction

While mercury has long been proven to be neurotoxic, new evidence shows that mercury is toxic to the immune system as well. Several animal model studies have shown that mercury can increase production of antibodies, or anti-nuclear antibodies, or produce lupus-like symptoms--the same manifestations we see in many auto-immune conditions.

Researchers at the John Hopkins University, after studying human subjects in the Amazon basin found:

significantly increased prevalence of antinuclear and antinucleolar antibodies and a positive interaction between mercury and malaria. These results suggest a new model for mercury immunotoxicity, as a co-factor in autoimmune disease, increasing the risks and severity of clinical disease in the presence of other triggering events, either genetic or acquired.

The malaria component of the study is interesting because it suggests that a triggering event, such as malaria or another infection, can begin the auto-immune disease process. Clinically, we often hear of many patients whose auto-immune diseases begin after a bout with EBV, bad flu, or similar infections.