Tuna is loaded full of mercury and contributes to poor hormonal health.
Recently, I got a hair test analysis back for a patient that showed an unusually high amount of mercury.
When asked about this, the reason became clear instantly. Tuna was consumed multiple times per week.
If you have health symptoms related to hormone imbalance or thyroid dysfunction, eating tuna is not recommended. Tuna will make hypothyroidism, diabetes, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, PMS, menopause, adrenal fatigue, and Graves disease much worse.
Mercury is also found in dental amalgams (fillings), certain medications, contaminated drinking water, and it can also be passed along from mother to fetus via the placenta and breast milk.
Tuna contains more mercury than many other types of seafood. The reason for this is because tuna is a bigger fish and consumes many other small fish and has time to accumulate mercury throughout its lifetime.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says that 0.045 mcg of mercury per pound (0.1 mcg per kg) of body weight per day is the maximum safe dose of mercury.
A daily reference dose for mercury depends on your body weight. Multiplying that number by seven gives you your weekly mercury limit.
Therefore a single 3 ounce serving of tuna can exceed the safe amount of mercury you should expose yourself to for an entire week.
Clinically, I have found that mercury is one of the hardest metals to pull out of the body. Because it is so toxic, the liver has to go to extraordinary lengths to keep it from affecting the rest of the body.
Mercury impairs mitochondrial function (energy), contributes to cell death, and damages neurons in the brain, impairing fine motor skills, memory and focus. Mercury will drain your body of energy. So if you are fatigued, mercury could be a prime suspect.
This is why it is critical to cleanse out the liver, lymphatic system and the rest of the body of mercury
One study of 129 people that measured mercury in the hair (same test I use clinically) found that “hair mercury levels were associated with detectable alterations in performance on tests of fine motor speed and dexterity, and concentration. Some aspects of verbal learning and memory were also disrupted by mercury exposure. The magnitude of the effects increased with hair mercury concentration, consistent with a dose-dependent effect.”
Another study of 1800 men measuring hair and urine excretion of mercury found that those who ate the most fish and had the highest mercury concentrations were two times more likely to die from heart attacks and heart disease.
What should you eat instead of tuna?
Seafood that contains lower amounts of mercury are scallops, salmon, sardines, clam, shrimp, oysters, pollock and mackerel. Smaller fish have less time to be able to grow and accumulate mercury.
If you eat lots of tuna and/or have mercury fillings or other sources of mercury, I’d love to work together with you to safely pull it out of your system. Schedule a free no obligation 15 minute phone conversation to see if we are a good fit to work together.
