There are some problems with the testing that is being done for both arsenic & cadmium right now in Portland.
1) Cadmium:
The testing that ARUP is doing with regards to cadmium is not sensitive enough. The problem is that the state (OHA) has adopted the EPA’s levels for safe. But the research does not support those levels. The research shows that a urine cadmium > 0.5 mcg/g creatinine in adults, increases the risk of all sorts of conditions (including lots of cancers, osteoporosis, hypertension, diabetes. . . . ).
ARUP is only testing to 3.0 in adults, which is obviously much higher than 0.5. And that is more than double what the CDC found testing random folks (see the CDC NHANES below). So if you’ve gotten a test result back that just says “not detected below 3.0”, you need another test.
2) Arsenic:
The problem with arsenic is that there are 2 main forms – organic & inorganic. The organic arsenic is pretty harmless. It comes from seafood & button mushrooms. If you avoid this for 4 days or so, the urine test you do after that should just be inorganic arsenic.
Inorganic arsenic is not safe above 15-17 mcg/L. And in fact, this is once again what the CDC found in testing random folks. However, if you are just testing total arsenic and not avoiding seafood or button mushrooms, you may get a much higher level.
3) CDC NHANES 4th report:
This is the fouth national report on human exposure to environmental chemicals. Made by the CDC. They collected blood & urine on thousands of folks and analyzed it for lots of different chemicals. Then they published it. It is over 1000 pages long and it contains values of blood & urine for adults & kids for both cadmium & arsenic, starting in 1999.
The way to read it is as follows: find the thing that you are looking for (eg: urine cadmium). Make sure that you are looking at the right one: blood or urine – total or creatinine corrected. On the left there will be various categories – years tested, ages, race/ethnicities, smokers, non-smokers, etc. Across the top you will see percentiles. Find the number you are comparing & see what percentile it compares to. If the percentile is 90th% – that means that 90% of folks tested were at or below that number. That means you are in the top 10% highest.
For urine cadmium, creatinine corrected, the 95% is at or below 1.0 mcg/g creatinine (page 216). So 95% of folks all across the USA are below 1.0 – so then why are we only being tested to 3.0 mcg/gm creatinine? You will also see that kids 6-11 yrs old are only at 0.2 mcg/gm creatinine. Much lower than the 1.0 mcg/gm creatinine that ARUP is testing for.
4) Finally:
All testing is flawed when it comes to answering the following questions:
– what was I exposed to?
– how much is still in my body?
– are my health problems caused by this?
The reason why is this: there is no actual way to show how much you’ve been exposed to and there is no way to tell how much you still have in you. We can only use the tests as guidelines.
For example: arsenic. Inorganic arsenic needs to be methylated in order to become non toxic. In fact, it needs to be methylated several times and some of those intermediate forms are even more toxic and we can’t test for those intermediate forms. If you were exposed to arsenic, the arsenic comes into the body, does its damage, gets methylated multiple times, and then leaves. If you are tested weeks after the exposure, you may look to have normal amounts of arsenic – but you may have had elevated levels for years prior to this.
And we all come to these exposures with our own abilities to clear toxins (methylate, etc). That is why 2 folks living in the same home with the same exposures can have such different lab results & even different health concerns.
So, talk to your doctor about your values. And check out your numbers compared to the rest of the US in the NHANES 4th report which you can find here: http://www.cdc.gov/biomonitoring/pdf/FourthReport_UpdatedTables_Feb2015.pdf
