Hidden Toxicities In Your Cells Are Making You Sick

In this special episode of the Health Optimization Medicine Podcast, Dr. Ted Achacoso, Dr. Jup Kuipers, Dr. Allen Bookatz, and Dr. Scott Sherr explore:

• Why can toxicities accumulate over years without producing an obvious acute poisoning event, and how can these subtle exposures eventually affect cellular function and multiple organ systems?
• How can mercury, arsenic, lead, cadmium, and aluminum interfere with the cell’s ability to produce energy and contribute to dysfunction across the brain, heart, muscles, kidneys, and other tissues?
• Why can symptoms such as itching, muscle weakness, abnormal heart rhythms, and cognitive changes be treated as separate problems when they may share an underlying toxic exposure?
• How did chronic mercury accumulation from fish consumption contribute to one clinical case, and how did an imported vitality tea containing high levels of arsenic become the key finding in another?
• Why might conventional blood testing fail to capture the full picture of toxic exposure, and what is the role of intracellular testing in looking at what may be accumulating within cells?
• How can metabolomic testing provide a different view of cellular function, and why does the HOMeHOPe approach emphasize identifying metabolic dysfunction before it progresses to more obvious tissue damage and disease?
• Why does the team argue that treating the affected organ and addressing the underlying cellular environment are not mutually exclusive, and what does it mean to move from disease management toward ongoing health optimization?

What We Discuss:

00:00 – How Toxicities Accumulate Before Symptoms Appear
00:33 – What Is Toxic to the Cell Is Toxic to Every Organ
00:59 – A Case of Subclinical Mercury Poisoning
01:44 – Skin, Heart and Neurological Symptoms from One Cause
02:38 – Why the Mercury Diagnosis Was Initially Ignored
03:29 – Treating Mercury Toxicity When the Hospital Had No Protocol
04:23 – Why Specialists Can Miss the Underlying Cause
05:30 – The Mystery Illness Caused by Arsenic-Contaminated Tea
06:34 – How Cellular Toxicity Affects the Whole System 
07:38 – How Chronic Toxicities Build Over Time
08:02 – Fish Consumption and Gradual Mercury Accumulation
08:46 – Why Testing Before Symptoms Matters
09:18 – Can “Healthy” Fish Consumption Increase Toxicity Risk?
10:16 – Disease Thresholds vs. Health Optimization
10:49 – Intracellular Testing for Mercury, Lead and Arsenic
11:25 – How Heavy Metals Disrupt Cellular Energy
12:17 – Metabolomics as a Window Into the Cell
13:05 – Metabolism, Damage and Pathology
13:44 – Just Because You Aren’t Sick Doesn’t Mean You’re Healthy
14:07 – Disease Is Managed, Health Is Optimized 

Full Transcript:

[00:00:00] Dr. Jup Kuipers: Toxicities accumulate over maybe a decade already, and you don't have to start optimizing your health or correcting these deficiencies and subtle toxicities when symptoms arise. But you can al- already do it years before and measure these metabolites that aren't traditionally seen as like a clinical toxicity, but are slowly damaging all your cells with all these downstreams effects on all these different organ systems.

[00:00:33] Dr. Scott Sherr: Welcome back everybody to the Health Optimization Medicine podcast. We're your hosts, Dr. Jup, Dr. Ted, Dr. Allen, and myself, Dr. Scott. Today we're gonna talk about how what's toxic to the cell is toxic to every organ, and this is such an important piece for all of you listening There's a foundation that everything lies on, and Dr.

[00:00:53] Dr. Scott Sherr: Ted saw this in clinical practice very, very amazingly and terribly on-- with one of your patients. 

[00:00:59] Dr. Ted Achacoso: I had a [00:01:00] patient, late 60s, and he suddenly collapsed, right? Uh, and was brought to the emergency room. And I told them that that looks like an acute exacerbation of a subclinical mercury poisoning, because I have been monitoring his mercury levels over the past few months.

[00:01:21] Dr. Ted Achacoso: But, you know, being a very, very important person, he had a lot of s- specialists. So during the time, he manifested several things. He, he manifested itchiness of the skin, right? Which is, of course, unknown to the dermatologist. Actually, known to the dermatologist, but bo- didn't bother to, to measure it. 

[00:01:43] Dr. Allen Bookatz: Put something 

[00:01:44] Dr. Ted Achacoso: on it.

[00:01:44] Dr. Ted Achacoso: Put something- Uh, yes. And so there was the-- with that one specialty that was, uh, consulted, and then he started having premature ventricular contractions, and so had a cardiologist. And the cardiologist actually, at the endpoint, recommended [00:02:00] ablation. Then he had two neurologists, right? One for muscle weakness, and the other one is for the electrical conductivity testing.

[00:02:09] Dr. Ted Achacoso: So those are by two neurologists. So you could see here already an entire group of specialists. The dermatologist was, uh, just saying pruritus, right? And then the cardiologist said, you know, "BBCs," blah, blah. Neurologist, uh, said, you know, "Well, this is just, you know, weakness from old age," and so on. And when he went to the emergency room, I actually sent all the testing data.

[00:02:38] Dr. Ted Achacoso: I said, "This is, you know, an acute exacerbation of, uh, his subclinical, uh, mercury." It was ignored, right? All the specialists were called. And then when-- What's nice is that some of the specialists, especially the cardiologist, when I spoke to him, I said, "You know, this is-- can be all covered by mercury toxicity.

[00:02:59] Dr. Ted Achacoso: Here is [00:03:00] his levels." And he actually said, "You know what? I take back my recommendation for an ablation," and so on. He said, "Because all of these, uh, signs and symptoms you're having are actually due to mercury toxicity." Right? So at least there's one, uh, shining light over there. And what I had to do was I actually had to take-- They ha- And, and the toxicologist was called last and told me, you know, I am the last person to be called in these kinds of cases.

[00:03:29] Dr. Ted Achacoso: So, so it's actually quite interesting the kind of, uh, medical care that we have right now. And I actually, the Since the hospital had no experience in actually detoxing a patient from, uh, from mercury, I-- the patient had been taken home, and I had to actually create a protocol for the, uh, elimination of as much mercury as I could, right?

[00:03:52] Dr. Ted Achacoso: Which took several sessions. But that shows you how not monitoring for our, uh, heavy metals, [00:04:00] you know, in our, in our blood, they can accumulate there. And so, you know, and illness medicine will look at it from their own special lens, and they're not wrong with their diagnosis. It's just they're, they're wrong with the, with the, uh, etiology of the disease, right?

[00:04:15] Dr. Ted Achacoso: Here you hit one, and you hit everything else. And that's the-- that's a sad story of, uh, what we have right now in terms of heavy metal toxicity. 

[00:04:23] Dr. Scott Sherr: And, uh, Allen, you see this on a regular basis in the ER, right? When somebody comes in with a syndrome or some symptoms, what do you typically do? 

[00:04:33] Dr. Allen Bookatz: Oh, fortunately in the ER, you know, we're not really cast with figuring out what's actually going on with them.

[00:04:39] Dr. Allen Bookatz: It's just stabilize the airway, the breathing, the circulation, and any, you know, systems that are immediate threat, and then we hand it off to someone who's much smarter than us. And then, uh, unfortunately, those people that we're handing it off to are specialists, and they look at it through their own lens, and they're trying to ask, "What can we do?"

[00:04:56] Dr. Allen Bookatz: Right? So it might be a cardiologist saying, "The heart is having irritability. [00:05:00] Let's, let's singe or burn off the pathways that are causing it to be more irritable. The kidneys might be failing, so let's put them on dialysis and replace that." Those aren't wrong. From learning from Dr. Ted and going through the health optimization modules, and the more I ch- change my frame of reference, when I do see a constellation of symptoms, yes, it's important we treat the organ that is being affected that is at threat, but we can also sit back and go, "All right, what-- how did they get here in the first place?"

[00:05:30] Dr. Allen Bookatz: So actually a good example that more on an acute timeframe, we had this lady who came in and she had itching of the skin. She had strange rashes that were showing up. She had a waxing and waning cognition that was- Syphilis. Syphilis. I know, right? Yeah. Syphilis, lupus, and everyone was trying to figure out what was going on.

[00:05:52] Dr. Allen Bookatz: Was it a stroke? Was it a bloodstream infection? You know, everything was coming back normal. And it wasn't until we went back and said, [00:06:00] "You know, is there anything she's been taking?" And we found out that there's some imported, like, vitality tea that she was getting from China, uh, uh, over the last, like, six weeks, and she'd been drinking this tea, and that correlated perfectly, and we got a sample of it.

[00:06:15] Dr. Allen Bookatz: We sent to toxicology, and we found out it had super high levels of arsenic in it. Hmm. So again, that is not something that we would typically be on our shortlist as we're looking at this. Sure. But again, it leads to w- something is blocking her energy production. Something is, is going straight into... Right?

[00:06:34] Dr. Allen Bookatz: If it's affecting the cells, as we talked about, then it's... If, if it's not good for the cells, it's not good for the, the system as a whole, whether those are brain cells, kidney cells, heart cells. What shows up is just, is, is g- is going to show up at that time based on what system has the least amount of resilience.

[00:06:53] Dr. Ted Achacoso: You have a wonderful dog. And, oh, Wally, remember that news [00:07:00] that the dog chews from China were coated with melamine? What did you do then? 

[00:07:06] Dr. Allen Bookatz: Fortunately, Wally has a pure organic raw diet. Um, California studies. He's, he's better than us. The 

[00:07:13] Dr. Scott Sherr: Health Optimization Medicine Conference is happening. Two days of events, October 2nd and 3rd, Chicago, Illinois at the Drake Hotel.

[00:07:21] Dr. Scott Sherr: CMEs available to practitioners who need them. Just 150 people with amazing speakers on the cutting edge of health and wellness. This is a community. It's not your average conference. If you're interested, go to homehope.org and save 25% on your ticket by using conference25 at checkout. I hope to see you there.

[00:07:38] Dr. Jup Kuipers: I, I think what's important here to realize is that in the story you just told, the, the consumption of the toxic was quite acute, but most Often these subtle toxicities or deficiencies, they accumulate 

[00:07:54] Dr. Ted Achacoso: I forgot a background, sorry. The patient was a [00:08:00] pescatarian and ate only fish. 

[00:08:02] Dr. Jup Kuipers: Mm. 

[00:08:02] Dr. Ted Achacoso: And so that was a gradual accumulation of mercury.

[00:08:05] Dr. Ted Achacoso: And the last intake was the one that pushed him over into acute phase. So it was a chronic subclinical, uh, toxicity, and then at the last bite of that tuna- Tuna ... tuna, uh- Swordfish ... you know, is, is the one that, uh, actually put him over. Sure. Uh, but the, the thing is, even if I already advise him to, to take off the fish from his diet, or he have the, uh, have the smash, uh, uh- 

[00:08:32] Dr. Scott Sherr: Smash fish, yes

[00:08:33] Dr. Ted Achacoso: yes, as fish, uh, he still refuse, right? So, uh, and so with that last bite, that was the one that induced him to collapse, right? The severe muscle weakness and so on. So that's the background of that, uh, person. 

[00:08:46] Dr. Jup Kuipers: Well, that feeds exactly into the point I was making- Mm ... that these toxicities accumulate over maybe a decade already.

[00:08:53] Dr. Jup Kuipers: And you don't have to start optimizing your health or- Hmm ... correcting these deficiencies and subtle [00:09:00] toxicities when symptoms arise. But you can al- already do it years before, and measure these metabolites that aren't traditionally seen as, like, a clinical toxicity, but are slowly damaging all your cells with all these downstreams effects on all these different organ systems.

[00:09:18] Dr. Allen Bookatz: I love what you just said, Jup, 'cause we wait for there to be this acute clinical presentation of, you know, their, their neurologic system is failing, their heart's failing, kidney's failing, and it's obvious. But-- And in, in that case that I shared, it is-- it was obvious. But for most of us that are just trying to take care of ourselves, to eat healthy 'cause we're told, "Hey, fish has high levels of omega-3s, so let's go get as much salmon and sushi as possible," bigeye tuna, uh, swordfish, yellowtail, whatever it is, uh, I mean, I'm-- I love sushi, and it's ha- made me rethink some of my own health choices here.

[00:09:56] Dr. Allen Bookatz: But these, you're right, we eat them, and they get these, uh, [00:10:00] these very, very low doses of heavy metals get depot into our fat, and they get stored. And it isn't... You know, and if you were to take a blood mercury test, it might not even show up as positive. You might, you might find that it's in a very-- It's not at any concerning level.

[00:10:16] Dr. Allen Bookatz: And so an illness medicine doctor or toxicology report wouldn't necessarily show acute mercury toxicity. So this is, again, the difference between- When we look at a disease state, which is what we look at in illness medicine versus looking at health, when we back up and say, "What could be blocking our energy production?"

[00:10:35] Dr. Allen Bookatz: Mm. On metabolomics tests, this is routinely done. We look at the urine, and we have very, very low thresholds to detect heavy metals, and anything that might even be a little elevated, you're gonna pick up because the body is subtly excreting those. 

[00:10:49] Dr. Ted Achacoso: For the crucial ones like mercury, lead, arsenic, et cetera, those are intracellularly tested, meaning they actually lyse, uh, the, the cells to actually [00:11:00] release them during testing.

[00:11:01] Dr. Ted Achacoso: So- Hmm ... we know, uh, that, for example, uh, the toxins that you're carrying in your blood are just being transported, but what is really accumulating in your cell is intracellularly tested. So- Hmm ... that's a newer technique that just ar- arose, you know, a few years ago, uh, where you're actually testing it by, by destroying the cells, uh, sample cells and releasing their, uh, toxic content.

[00:11:25] Dr. Scott Sherr: Yeah. I think to kind of bring it all home here, right? When, when you're looking at something like mercury, lead, arsenic, aluminum, et cetera, this is all having a detrimental effect on the basic cell, right? The cell's capacity to make energy. These are really cool diagrams. They're all spaghetti looking, as Ted likes to say.

[00:11:43] Dr. Scott Sherr: But in essence, your citric acid cycle, which is the cycle that helps flip off electrons from our food, every single step along the way is what it-- Can I sell sex for money? 

[00:11:52] Dr. Allen Bookatz: Oh. 

[00:11:53] Dr. Scott Sherr: That's an acronym or a mnemonic, actually, mnemonic for it. But every single step along the way, if you have mercury, if you [00:12:00] have arsenic, if you have lead, it's gonna stop working.

[00:12:02] Dr. Scott Sherr: So why do people feel so bad is that their mitochondria start getting annihilated in the capacity to make energy. So everything else on top of that starts breaking down, your immune system, your heart, your liver, all those organs that we're talking about, right? But in the end, it's all that basic cell.

[00:12:17] Dr. Scott Sherr: And so that's what we do when we look at metabolomic testing. We're looking at that basic cell and understanding that it's not basic. It's just the foundation to everything that there is. And so if you look at that level, you're looking at mercury, you're looking at lead, cadmium, arsenic. I had a patient with interstitial cystitis for 10 years, and then they stopped having aluminum deodorant- Hmm

[00:12:38] Dr. Scott Sherr: and it went away, right? And so aluminum toxicity, all these things can do it, right? This is all sort of foundations on the cellular side. And so metabolomics is what we use as a foundational way of looking at the cell in real time, and doesn't take the place of going to the ER if you need to, or, you know, going To your family medicine doctor or whatever, but it's the foundation of everything.

[00:12:58] Dr. Scott Sherr: That's why I'd say it's not mutually exclusive to [00:13:00] anything you're doing already. It's just the foundation of everything that we think that you can do now and have real actionable data. 

[00:13:05] Dr. Ted Achacoso: Yeah. We like to go back to Aubrey de Grey's model, metabolism, damage, pathology. Pathology started disease. Damage is through what they're doing now with all these new things like exosomes and replacement, SAMe replacement therapy, et cetera.

[00:13:22] Dr. Ted Achacoso: And then now that metabolomics is available, we can actually act on the metabolism itself, and that's where health optimization medicine lies, right? Uh, is to optimize that so that you slow down the progression into damage. And that's not possible, even... This is not possible a decade ago, right? So- 

[00:13:41] Dr. Jup Kuipers: Hmm. Your, your quote hits well on that.

[00:13:44] Dr. Jup Kuipers: You always say, "Just because you're not sick doesn't mean you're healthy, it just means you're not sick." Yeah. And our current healthcare system is very good at managing disease, but what we're missing is- Of course ... the specialty that optimizes health. A [00:14:00] patient should have a disease management plan for when they get sick, and they should have a health optimization plan for always, actually.

[00:14:07] Dr. Jup Kuipers: And that's what a complete healthcare system should 

[00:14:10] Dr. Ted Achacoso: look like, right? Yeah. What do you say? Disease is managed, health is optimized, right? 

[00:14:15] Dr. Scott Sherr: Well said, as always. Hmm. The one-liners you always go with. Thank you everybody for listening to another episode of the Health Optimization Medicine podcast. We'll see you next time

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