A couple weeks ago I sent out an email about the benefits of eating various types of clays, which was one of the tips inside of 101 Advanced Steps to Radiant Health.
I got a response from a man named Dan, which began a thread, that I figured you might also be interested in:
In my experience, a lot of the clays people take internally contain significant, sometimes seriously large, amounts of naturally occurring Aluminum.
With the link between Aluminum and dementia / Alzheimer’s, I felt it was not wise to continue consuming these products.
I asked numerous so called “Clay / natural health experts” about the chances of the clay increasing dementia and Alzheimer’s in later years. None of them could give me any information about this issue and the safety of taking clay, or similar products like diatomaceous earth.
What are your feelings about promoting the use of Clay when there is nothing supporting the safety of using clays in regards to Aluminum content.
I wrote an extensive article about this topic because of the same concerns with shilajit.
Let me know if that doesn’t address all your questions on the topic.
I had a read and essentially what you appear to be saying is we get so much aluminum from our environment that we shouldn’t really worry about getting more. Isn’t that a little fatalistic. If we have a significant amount of natural exposure, shouldn’t we be attempting to lower or keep our exposure in that normal range given the risks.
I don’t think you read the article carefully enough. The point was that aluminum is generally not absorbed through digestion, that it is a much bigger issue in it being air and water, than in foods and clays.
The point is that you’re going to get more aluminum from regular eating than you would in supplementing with clay.
You initiated this conversation saying:
“In my experience, a lot of the clays people take internally contain significant, sometimes seriously large, amounts of naturally occurring Aluminum.”
This is true.
“With the link between Aluminum and dementia / Alzheimer’s, I felt it was not wise to continue consuming these products.”
Here is the error in thinking. Just because aluminum is showing up in brains of patients with Alzheimer’s doesn’t necessarily mean you can extrapolate that anything with aluminum in it is causative of this. That kind of thinking led us to thinking eating cholesterol was bad, because cholesterol was in clogged up arteries, when the fact is that eating cholesterol really doesn’t change our levels internally much. The body is much more complex than that.
Several indigenous human groups have regularly consumed things like clays throughout their lifetimes. I ask you, are these the people that are getting Alzhiemer’s and dementia? Is that not evidence supporting clay’s safety?
At that point I didn’t hear back.
So, either I convinced him and he went about his way…or he wouldn’t be convinced. No matter, I share this with you because I figure it might be beneficial to do so.
Helping support your detoxification is one of the most important things you can do to be healthy.
And if you’re healthier, over time, this means you have far more opportunity to be stronger and more fit.
That’s why I plan to talk about this subject even more so in the future. Tomorrow, I’ll cover something that helps with detox, relaxation and so much more.
Comments
I feel the need to chime in on this one too.
I have been using a machine called Electro-Magnetic Resonance Scanner since last year to track how my body works, due to issues emanating from candida overgrowth and parasite infection. My body was really so overloaded with these pathogens that my body organs were failing.
In May of this year, I started using bentonite clay. At that point, the scanner showed that I had 24kg of Inorganic Matter. I concluded that was unwanted waste products from killing the pathogens, since they release their poisons when they die. Anyway, I started taking the bentonite clay(1 tbs) each morning and evening, then juiced greens sometime during the day. The following week, the scanner showed that I had only 4 kg of Inorganic matter. I concluded that the juice and clay reduced the Inorganic matter.
My aluminum levels did not change, they remained normal throughout. I am still taking the clay, and I have not seen any change in aluminum levels in my body. However, I have only been using this since May this year.
Regards,
Russia
Sorry to rain on your parade. Aluminum contained in ingested clay makes its way to the blood stream.
After absorbed, aluminum has a half-life of several hours in the blood; it is almost completely eliminated in urine over the course of several days. A small amount of aluminum (about 1%) is stored in the bones and brain.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2963977/
Thanks for sharing this research, I had not seen it. Some of my points from the above were:
1. “The point was that aluminum is generally not absorbed through digestion, that it is a much bigger issue in it being air and water, than in foods and clays.”
This is backed up in what you linked to. They said “Aluminum ingestion, whether dietary or medical, is followed by very low levels of absorption in the digestive tract of the order of 1%.”
I did not say that none of it can get into the blood or the brain. However, this leads to my next point…
2. “The point is that you’re going to get more aluminum from regular eating than you would in supplementing with clay.”
Nothing is said here, that discounts this point. It seemed that many of these women were eating very large amounts of earth, not the smaller amounts of clay that are typically recommended.
And if you look at the chart you indeed see that while there is higher blood levels of aluminum there are equally or even higher levels or urinary excretion.
Lastly, this study was on anemic, malnourished, pregnant women without access to even clean water. The results of which can not necessarily be construed to be the same across the average population.
A few other quotes from this paper that I found interesting:
“Because of their unusual chemical structure, clays form colloidal suspensions with water, and they are able to absorb all sorts of toxic substances on their surfaces and exchange cations with the surrounding environment.7,19,20 These exchanges are the cause of the iron deficiency of geophagous women through the chelation of iron ions by the clay matrix.3,21 Hooda and Henry,1 who investigated the movements of iron, copper, and zinc in the digestive tract of geophagous individuals, concluded that, despite being rich in metallic micronutrients, clays tend to aggravate various mineral deficiencies by decreasing their intestinal bioavailability; this is particularly true for iron.”
This supports why people eat clay in the first place, to pull out heavy metals specifically. Until reading this, I didn’t know it pulled out iron so much too.
This is good information but just a start.
Hey friend,
I was thinking , Zeolite might help you extract heavy metals. Who knows, some Amazon reviewers have said some amazing things. God bless.