Highly toxic heavy metals: lead, cadmium, mercury and arsenic are often found in edible plants instead of the magnesium necessary for health. This takes place not only in areas contaminated by the industry for a long time. Heavy metals and other toxins coming from automotive waste as well as sewage and municipal waste pollute our soil, water and air, and indirectly, and edible products.Magnesium is an essential element in many metabolic processes
If it is lacking in the diet and in the body, and eg lead, or increasingly ubiquitous cadmium, gets into the food - the system allows these toxic heavy metals for metabolism instead of life-giving magnesium. With a large magnesium deficit and it threatens damage to the membranes of nerve cells. Metabolism involving heavy metals is manifested by excessive excitability, memory disorders, lack of concentration, and even paralysis of the nervous system.
Magnesium protective barrier
When there is enough magnesium in our body - toxic heavy metals do not have access to it. Conversely, if it is too little and lead or cadmium gets into the body - they can replace magnesium, which threatens poisoning leading even to the initiation of the neoplastic process or paralysis of the nervous system.
Where do heavy metals come from in our environment?
Most of toxic substances, not only metals, produce industry (dusts and fumes) and car traffic (exhaust fumes, tail closures, tires, bearings and other moving parts cured with cadmium, etc.). The environment is increasingly polluted by untreated municipal waste, especially untreated sewage.There are also sources of "rural" pollution some artificial fertilizers, compost fertilizers produced from municipal and industrial waste (in certain areas sewage sludge), plant protection products. Toxic metals and other impurities once introduced into the soil stay in it for a long time, sometimes several hundred years and are absorbed by edible plants.
Heavy metals eagerly accumulate in the leaves of plants, in their roots and fruits.In plants, they accumulate in quantities indifferent to their physiology, but harmful to humans and animals. In particular, vegetables such as carrots, beets, celery, green lettuce, and parsley are particularly vulnerable to infection with toxic metals. Particularly exposed to pollution are crops from their own gardens located on busy arteries or in agglomerations (eg Katowice). A lot of heavy metals are collected in cereal seeds, especially those grown in areas exposed to industrial contamination.
The most harmful are:
Heavy metals are highly toxic: cadmium (Cd); lead (Pb); mercury (Hg) and arsenic (As). We find them more often in edible plants, not only in areas contaminated by the industry. In particular, vegetables such as carrots, beets, lettuce, etc. are particularly vulnerable to poisonous metals.From time to time, quantities of heavy metals in soils and fruits from different regions of Poland are determined
Research shows that fruits are less contaminated than vegetables and cereal seeds. Usually, both for fruits and vegetables, these are amounts not exceeding the allowed standards. The least contaminated with heavy metals are the soils in: Bialystok, Lublin, Olsztyn, Rzeszów and Skierniewice.
The most polluted are agricultural land in: Katowice, Bielsko and Wałbrzych, as well as in some areas of Opole and Cracow. Here, near the industrial plants acceptable limits of heavy metal content in the soil are exceeded and edible plants should not be grown.
How to protect yourself against the harmful effects of metals?
First of all, do not buy food or objects in contact with it of unknown origin (the source of contamination with heavy metals may be, for example, improperly colored plastic, clay pot or metal). Each item in contact with food before admission to trade should be certified by the National Institute of Hygiene.
All products should be thoroughly washed,If possible, peel fruit from the skin, because many impurities are collected on the surface of vegetables and fruits.
Magnesium detoxification barrier
One of the effective ways to protect the body against lead poisoning, cadmium, and other heavy metals may be magnesium supplementation. When there is enough magnesium in our body - carcinogenic heavy metals are displaced by magnesium and are not absorbed into the body. Specifically, when our body has 25 times more Mg than poisonous metals (at any given time!) - this harmful effect of lead, cadmium and other heavy metals is blocked.
Prevention with magnesium
Determining the toxic content of metals in the body is now easy thanks to the increasingly popular hair examination. Hair permanently absorb all metals and therefore average their measurement on a scale of days and weeks. On this basis, it is best to assess the "average" exposure to poisoning and select the appropriate dose - using the manufacturer's instructions from the leaflet.
In pharmacies there are many preparations containing magnesium in various amounts. Among them high absorbability are distinguished by the so-called chelates, e.g. lactates, hydroaspaginates, etc.
When asked why we recommend chelates - the answer is simple.Chelates - mainly lactates and magnesium water hydrogens are special chemical compounds beneficial for human nutrition. They are so persistent that they do not break down in very acidic gastric juice. At the same time, they are not so strongly chemically bound with their rest metallic, aerobic or acidic, such as chlorides or carbonates. A strong compound hinders the absorption of magnesium ions through the walls of the intestine. The relationship with chelate is optimal for the body and allows the ions of the valuable bioelement to be easily absorbed into the body, in this form effectively transported to many cells for which functions and activities are necessary.
Literature 1. Magnesium energy element - dr n.med Henryk Dudek; ed. Pique Eneteia 1999 2. BIOPARTICATES, OR MICRO AND MACRO ELEMENTS; prof. dr hab. med. Andrzej Danysz wyd, LEKI. 3. Iso H, Stampfer MJ, Manson JE, et al. Prospective study of calcium, potassium and magfnesium intake and risk of stroke in women. Stroke 1999, 30, 1772-9. 4. POCKET ATLAS PHYSIOLOGY; Stefan Silbernagl, Agamemnon Despopoulos, PW Lekarskie 1994. 5. VITAMINS, MINERAL INGREDIENTS, E-NUMBERS, U.Unger-Gobel, ed. MUZA SA, 1997 6. Small Encyclopedia of PWN, 2000.
