"How Long to Detox From Fish Before Pregnancy?"
Increased fish consumption of mothers
before and during pregnancy leads to increased exposure
to both mercury and the long-chain omega 3 DHA.
Mercury may negatively affect brain development
in one's unborn baby,
whereas DHA may stimulate brain development.
As we saw, though, the results of this study
showed that the negative effect of mercury
outweighs the beneficial effect of DHA for most species of fish.
Unfortunately, in the last two national surveys
women of childbearing age
were less aware and knowledgeable about this problem
than other women, despite FDA and EPA campaigns
to inform every OB/GYN and pediatrician in the United States
about the potential risks of mercury in fish.
But I wanted to highlight the "before".
Not just during pregnancy,
but even before one gets pregnant.
Since mercury sticks around,
women may want to avoid polluted fish consumption
for a year before they get pregnant
in addition to just during pregnancy.
The reason they suggest a year before getting pregnant
is because the half-life of mercury in the body
is estimated to be about two months.
They fed folks 2 servings a week of tuna
and other high mercury fish to push their mercury levels up,
and then stopped the fish at week 14
and slowly but surely their levels came back down.
I know a lot of moms are concerned about
exposing their children to mercury containing vaccines,
but if they just ate a single serving a week or less
of fish during pregnancy,
the latest data shows their infants end up
with substantially more mercury in their bodies
than getting injected with up to
6 mercury containing vaccines.
But, with a 2-month half-life,
within a year of stopping fish consumption
your body can detox nearly 99% of the mercury.
Unfortunately, the other industrial pollutants in fish
can take longer for our body to get rid of—
— a half life as long as 10 years for certain dioxins,
and PCBs, and DDT metabolites found in fish.
So to get that same 99% drop could take 120 years,
which is a long time to delay one’s first child.
What do these other pollutants do?
Well, high concentrations of industrial contaminants
are associated with 38 times the odds of diabetes.
That's as strong as the relationship
between smoking and lung cancer!
Isn't diabetes mostly about obesity, though?
Well, these are fat-soluble pollutants,
and so as people get fatter
the retention and toxicity of persistent organic pollutants
related to the risk of diabetes may increase,
suggesting the shocking possibility
that obesity may only be a vehicle for such chemicals.
We may be storing pollutants in our spare tire
like a hazardous waste dump.
Now the pollutants could just be a marker
of animal product consumption—
maybe that's why there’s such higher diabetes risk
since more than 90% of the persistent organic pollutants
comes from animal foods,
unless you work in a chemical factory
or stumble across some toxic waste.
And indeed in the U.S. every serving of fish a week
is associated with a 5% increased risk of diabetes,
which makes fish consumption about 80% worse
than red meat.