Heavy Metal Test – Mosaic Diagnostics – Latin America

While certain elements are vital for the proper functioning of the body, others such as mercury, lead, cadmium, aluminum and arsenic are toxic to the human body and interfere with its functioning. These toxic metals have no known physiological functions and can cause damage to organ systems.

Which patients could benefit from heavy metal testing?

Heavy metals can accumulate within the body after exposure, binding to cells preventing them from performing their functions, causing symptoms that could be life-threatening without treatment.

Signs and symptoms vary for each type of metal and their severity varies depending on an individual's exposure; Symptoms may include:

• Alopecia 
• Anemia 
• Arrhythmia 
• Shaking chills 
• Low body temperature 
• Dehydration 
• dental amalgams 
• Difficulty breathing 
• Fatigue 
• Gastrointestinal symptoms 
• Hypertension 
• Impaired renal function 
• Inflammation 
• Memory loss 
• Nausea or vomiting 
• Numbness or itchy feeling in hands and feet 
• Parkinson's-like symptoms 
• Risk of developing certain types of cancer 
• Vision problems 
• Weakness

Why test with urine?

Urine element analysis has long been used to assess exposure to potentially harmful elements and excretion of essential nutrients. Additionally, comparison of urinary element levels before and after chelation therapy may provide an estimate of net retention of toxic elements. Follow-up urine element testing after chelation therapy can be used to monitor the effectiveness of metal detoxification treatment. Test results may be presented as 24-hour excretion levels or normalized by creatinine concentration to account for variations in urine dilution.

Why choose urine?

Toxic metals can accumulate in the body over time, causing adverse health effects and chronic diseases. Therefore, it is essential to objectively evaluate the accumulation of toxic metals. Analysis of urinary element concentrations before and after administration of a metal detoxifying agent can help estimate the net retention of potentially toxic elements. The goal is to determine if an individual's net metal retention exceeds physiological tolerance, since toxicity occurs when the rate of assimilation exceeds the rate of excretion.

Pharmaceutical metal detoxifying agents such as EDTA, DMSA or DMPS can sequester “hidden” metals from deep tissue stores and mobilize them to the kidneys for excretion in urine. However, different compounds have different affinities for specific metals. To assess net retention, it is important to perform pre- and post-challenge urinalysis to distinguish between continuous metal exposures and net body retention.

It is also useful to analyze essential element levels in urine to evaluate nutritional status and the effectiveness of mineral supplementation during metal detoxification therapy. However, metal detoxifying agents can increase the excretion of specific nutrient elements such as zinc, copper, manganese and molybdenum. Additionally, urinary loss of essential elements such as magnesium, calcium, potassium, and sodium in an unprovoked urine sample may indicate early renal dysfunction.

Since urine volume can vary significantly, urine elements are usually expressed per unit of creatinine for timed collections to compensate for variation in urine dilution. For 24-hour collections, items are reported in both units per 24 hours and units per creatinine.

Analytes

Please refer to the list provided below to identify the metals contained for urine samples:

Essentials: 38 metals

• Boron
• Calcium
• Chrome
• Cobalt
• Copper
• Germanium
• Iodine
• Iron
• Lithium
• Magnesium
• Manganese
• Molybdenum
• Match
• Potassium
• Rubidium
• Selenium
• Sodium
• Strontium
• Sulfur
• Vanadium
• Zinc
• Zirconium

Toxic: 38 metals

• Aluminum
• Antimony
• Arsenic
• Barium
• Beryllium
• Bismuth
• Cadmium
• Cesium
• Chrome
• Cobalt
• Copper
• Gadolinium
• Lead
• Manganese
• Mercury
• Nickel
• Palladium
• Platinum
• Silver
• Tellurium
• Thallium
• Thorium
• Tin
• Titanium
• Tungsten
• Uranium

Proportions:

• Calcium/Magnesium
• Potassium sodium
• Zinc/Copper
• Zinc/Cadmium
• Calcium/Phosphorus