While a great deal of attention has been focused on the damaging
effects of mercury, at least in alternative medicine circles,
the other major toxic metal – lead – may have been overlooked.
Recently, two very interesting articles on this topic were
published in the journal Alternative Medicine Review. The
abstracts for both articles can be found at PubMed by searching
under Altern Med Rev. 2006 Mar; 11 (1): 2-22 and Altern Med Rev.
2006 Jun; 11 (2): 114-127. To obtain the full articles with
citations, contact the publisher at www.thorne.com. The
following piece will summarize parts of these articles while
adding some of my personal observations and experiences, but no
citations are included. The thought of lead toxicity evokes
images of lead in paint and gasoline, and since both of these
were phased out decades ago, it is only understandable that many
of us think of lead as a problem of the past. It is also a fact
that since lead was removed from gasoline and paint blood levels
of lead in Americans have dropp