In Amalgam Illness (p. 30), Andy Cutler includes a table comparing “fast excreters” and “slow excreters,” but he doesn’t explicitly cite the source of these categories. These distinctions actually stem from a landmark paper: “Variation of Biological Half-Life of Methylmercury in Man” by Al-Shahristani and Shihab.
The Iraqi Grain Tragedy
The data comes from a 1970s humanitarian crisis in Iraq. Grain intended for planting had been treated with methylmercury as a preservative. Due to famine and language barriers on the warning labels, the grain was consumed by the local population, leading to widespread acute mercury poisoning. Scientists followed the survivors for 12 months to see how fast their bodies could clear the toxin.
The Findings: A Wide Biological Gap
The study revealed that mercury clearance is highly individualized:
- The “Normal” Group: Most patients had a mercury half-life of 35 to 100 days.
- The “Slow” Group: About 10% of the population took 110 to 120 days to clear half the mercury.
- The Outlier: One patient had a half-life of 189 days.
Why This Matters for People with Amalgam
This paper proves that the time required to detoxify mercury isn’t a fixed constant. If you are a “slow excreter,” your body clears mercury at a fraction of the speed of a “fast excreter.” While your friend might process the mercury from their body efficiently, your “slow” genetics could cause the mercury to build up in your tissues, leading to chronic illness.
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