Episode 289 — Toxic Load BLOCKS the Breakthrough
Guest: Dr. Anju Usman Singh • Date: January 8, 2026
Episode Overview
Children struggle when their immune systems stay switched “on,” and today’s guest explains exactly why this happens — and what hidden triggers keep kids stuck. Dr. Anju Usman Singh shares decades of experience uncovering the toxic load, infections, and environmental factors that quietly drive neuroimmune activation.
About Dr. Anju Usman Singh
Dr. Anju Usman Singh is a globally respected physician with nearly three decades of experience caring for children with autism, PANS/PANDAS, developmental delays, allergies, and complex neuroimmune conditions. She is widely recognized for her deep clinical expertise in environmental toxicity, chronic infections, immune dysregulation, detoxification, and the biomedical factors that drive inflammation in the brain and body. As a leading faculty member of the Medical Academy of Pediatric Special Needs (MAPS), Dr. Usman Singh trains and mentors clinicians from around the world, helping advance more thoughtful, root-cause–oriented care for this generation of children. Her work bridges rigorous clinical experience with practical guidance for families navigating complex health challenges.
Learn more:
https://truehealthmedical.com
You’ll Discover
How Chronic Immune Activation Creates Excitation in the Brain and Behavior (8:36)
Why Low-Level Lead Exposure Is Far More Common Than Most Parents Realize (9:51)
Why Standard Lab Testing Misses Hidden Metal Burdens (12:55)
The Most Surprising Everyday Sources Of Lead and Other Toxins (17:27)
What Signs Suggest Your Child May Be Carrying A Toxic Burden (25:36)
Referenced in This Episode
Full Transcript
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 0:00
One in three children have a lead level that is not normal. If you think of one in three children, it's 800 million children. 800 million children can be affected by lead.
Len Arcuri 0:20
If you're a parent of a child with autism, you are being called to rise with love, courage and clarity. This journey isn't easy, and most parents aren't equipped, but you can be this podcast is your invitation to rise higher, because how you navigate matters. I'm Len, and this is autism parenting secrets, where you become the parent your child needs. Now, hello and welcome to autism parenting Secrets. Today, we're going to take a closer look at something that drives many of the challenges our kids face, yet it rarely gets talked about, clearly chronic immune activation and toxins like low level lead, allergens and persistent infections can keep the immune system switched on, creating inflammation in the brain, disrupting behavior and blocking progress. And this episode was inspired by a conversation I had with today's guest at the taca conference, where she brought incredible clarity to this topic. Dr Anju uzman Singh is the medical director at True Health Medical Center in Naperville, Illinois, and she's a leading faculty member of a Medical Academy of Pediatric special needs, where she trains clinicians around the world. Her work centers on identifying the root drivers of neuro immune challenges, including toxic load, chronic infections, biofilm, mast cell activation and the cell danger response. She has helped 1000s of children by reducing the triggers that keep the immune system stuck in overdrive, and today, she's here to help you understand toxic load, especially low level lead in a whole new way, and how lowering it can unlock meaningful progress for your child. The secret this week is toxic load blocks the breakthrough. Welcome, Dr Anju,
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 2:13
thank you so much for having me on your podcast. I love the other episodes. I refer my patients to listen to you, and so I'm really honored to be here today.
Len Arcuri 2:24
Well, I am super excited because you've been on my list for quite a while. I'm so glad we're having this conversation now, and I just know 100% our listeners are definitely going to benefit from your perspective. So I know I gave a lengthy tee up to this, and I know this was kind of the topic you you focused on at the taka conference, at maps conferences. So let me just turn it to you to to go deeper on that bottom line insight you felt. You feel like parents really need to know, if they're looking at their child and trying to figure out where to focus, what would you share with them?
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 3:00
You know, that's a huge question, because when we think about what is the root driving force, as you mentioned, or the root cause, there's probably not just one root. There's an accumulation or a combination of various things. But I've been working in my practice at True Health Medical Centers. It started in 2003 and before that, I was working with children on the autism spectrum since 1995 so a really long time. And what I found is one of the big driving forces is
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 3:39
toxicity, and toxicity can take so many forms, and while there's other root causes that are at a high level, that's the one though that you feel like, is it toxicity being something that you think often parents miss, or is it just more important than we may think it is?
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 3:58
I do think that parents that listen to your podcast or that are in this world, they understand the depth of what toxicity kind of means. But when we see a child with, say, add ADHD, autism developmental delays, we see mental symptoms and our first thought is not toxicity. We don't think, oh, you know, you see a kid out there stimming, or you see a kid out there aggressive or not paying attention. You don't think, oh, that kid must be toxic. And I think that toxicity sets the stage for the immune system to act, apparently, and there's probably some genetic predisposition, and kind of a genetic susceptibility to how we manage toxins and how our immune system handles it.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 4:54
Got it No, that's very elegantly put. And so with that knowledge in terms. Terms of parents understanding, yes, that toxins matter. But I guess, like me, early on, I thought that was a side issue, compared to like, what might be a more pressing area to focus. So could you just maybe go a little bit deeper in terms of the immune system specifically, and the role the immune system, because you hear a lot of times, especially recently, people talk about an overactive immune system, and they talk about perhaps a dysregulated nervous system, which are two different things. So when you talk about the immune system and its relationship to toxicity, can you just go a little bit deeper on that connection?
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 5:39
So when most people think about things that activate the immune system, the first thing they think about is an infection, right? So I had, I have a virus, and now my immune system is turned on to fight this virus. But what people don't realize is there are other triggers for the immune system to turn on or activate, and this turning on of the immune system, or activation of the immune system, can be described in different ways. One way is that there are these cells in the body called mast M, A, S, T cells, and these mast cells, for whatever reason, can overreact. So most of the time, we think of mast cells and we think of histamine. Yes, we think, Okay, we have an allergy, and it turned on our mast cells, and now our mast cells are producing histamine, but mas mast cells release histamine and maybe 100 other chemicals. And these are all like what we call pro inflammatory cytokines, or pro inflammatory cells. And it's not just allergens that can stimulate mast cells. Toxins can stimulate mast cells, allergens can stimulate mast cells and infections. So when I when I tell my patients about immune activation, I usually say, think about what's triggering the immune system to act weird or apparently, and we think of autism as a neuro immune inflammatory condition, and the three most common things in my experience, are allergen, infection and toxin. And so in our head, I think, oh allergen, histamine, mast cells, oh infection, our immune system gets activated. But what happens to us when we get exposed to a toxin? What happens to us? And I just want to share some statistics on these things. Because, you know, we all know in the autism world, I started out in the 1980s in med school at Cook County Hospital in the inner city, and I remember studying this, and we didn't even talk about autism, because it was one in 1001 in 500 and then I started getting involved in defeat Autism NOW and back then, we were really concerned. This is in the early 2000s we were really concerned because it was one in 100 the statistics, and now it's one in 31 and so the question is, why? And we really are looking at the environment like we all, we have this genetic susceptibility, but genetics don't cause these epidemics, and so we have to, we have to look at what's happening in the environment, and what are these environmental insults, right, that are triggering our immune system to act inherently. And then what we do see is these symptoms we call autism, which is really excitation and inflammation and the gut and the brain like we talk about. And so I also tell my families inflammation triggers excitation, what's causing the inflammation, and what do you see as excitation? I see OCD, I see anxiety, I see stimming, I see aggression, I see poor stress handling to me, that's the excitation. But the bottom line is inflammation. And then if you take it further back, what's causing it
Len Arcuri 9:26
right and what's causing that inflammation in terms of toxins, and this environmental piece that you're referring to, toxins can take many forms. So perhaps now's a good time to go into in terms of if toxins, environmental toxins, are problematic, and I know they're all potentially problematic. Are there any that jump to mind for you in terms of whether it's chemicals, pesticides, electromagnetic fields? Can you paint a clearer picture of those potential environmental triggers?
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 9:57
Yeah, so everything you mentioned is a potential trigger. Trigger to the immune system. However, if you take it into perspective, one in three children have a lead level that is not normal. If you think of one in three children, it's 800 million children. 800 million children can be affected by lead. And again, the question is, what do we do about it, and what's it causing and how do we manage this? And in my autism population, when my patients are struggling so much we know metabolically, they aren't good at methylating. They they are having trouble making glutathione so they aren't getting rid of things, chemicals, mold, toxins, heavy metals. When we already have that. It's not it's not so simple as how we used to think about in the past, that the dose makes the poison. And if you have a certain dose, or a certain number of like, say, a lead level of 80 in the 1980s that was considered normal, anything above that was toxic, they changed that lead level to 60, then they changed it to 40, then they changed it to 20, then they changed it to 10, then they changed it to five. And now if you look on labs, when you get a blood lead level done, it says less than 3.5 but even the World Health Organization says there's no safe level of lead, and the most decrease in intelligence or IQ occurs from zero to one of lead. So it's the low level lead exposure. That is really an issue there, and it's so prevalent. So if one in three children have this problem, we should be looking at it. We should be testing in all our patients. The problem with the test is what I just said. You know, when you do a blood lead level, you're only able to measure the last 90 days of lead exposure. That's what's in the that's the life of the red blood cell. So 90 days say you're get exposed to lead when you're, you know, a toddler, and you're crawling around and putting things in your mouth or getting exposed to, you know, things that you're exploring again with your mouth, and then we do the lead level A year later, we won't see it, but it's stored in our body. It's stored in our bones, potentially in our brain. So we have to have a high degree of suspicion for these kinds of issues. And in our autism population, what we end up doing is we end up doing what we call provocative testing. It's considered a challenge, where we give a medicine that's been FDA approved for lead, like DMSA, and then we give a dose of that, and then we collect the urine for six hours and we see what comes out, because if we're not good at detoxing, we're not good at methylation, we're not good at making glutathione. When we get exposed to these low levels of toxins, we can't get rid of them, and then they get stored in our body. And if we get exposed to these toxins while we're on something like acetaminophen, which inhibits our detoxification pathways even further, then that's like a double Grammy. Nobody's really studied synergistic effects of all of these things. We study these things very linearly, like, Oh, here's the toxic level of lead and here's a toxic level of mercury. But Boyd Haley kind of looked at this in a mouse model, and when he put a toxic level of lead together with a toxic level of mercury, it wasn't one plus one equals two. Was one plus one equaled 100 so they're exponential. They're not additive.
Len Arcuri 14:29
Yeah, they're synergistic, in terms of, like, the impact of the combination. And I, I'm glad you brought that up, because when people at the take to take a few steps back, if people think that metals, heavy metals are an issue. Frankly, I don't think lead pops up on many people's radar at least as quickly as something like mercury or aluminum. And so it's interesting with your focus on lead, because that's very personal for me right now with my son, he's 18, He's wild. Unrecognizable compared to who he was, but his nervous system and immune system are still running really fast, and so we did a urine challenge to see what was coming out of his body. And we did that about four months ago, and I was looking, I was assuming that aluminum or mercury might pop up based on his history, but the thing that popped up the most was lead and and so now we've been doing a an IV chelation to help, you know, help him detoxify, to see how that might reduce his burden. But lead was surprising to me only because, you know, if you go back a couple decades, people knew, Okay, lead paint on the walls and what a child might put in their mouth, that that was an issue, but you don't really hear about that anymore. And right now, for my son, with why, I guess the big question I want to focus on now is, why do these kids have a big lead burden? And I'd love to hear what, what you think is perhaps potential sources. But for my son, I'm convinced that the reason his level lead levels were very high is because for the last five years, he's intuitively always added sea salt to his water whenever he drinks water. And seemed like a great thing, right from a hydration perspective, but then it came out about a year ago that there's certain brands of sea salt that seem very pure, but they have naturally very high levels of lead. And that was one of the brands that was a specific brand that he used. So right now, lead is very much on my radar, and that's just my son's specific story, but for a parent who's listening wondering, Hey, is it possible my child might have a lead burden, whether it's high or low level, what would be some of those sources?
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 16:45
Yeah, traditionally, we had thought of like kids living in the inner city sucking on lead based paint chips, and that's how they got lead, right? I don't know if you know lead safe mama, her website. I've heard, yeah,
Len Arcuri 17:01
I've heard of I've seen it. It's everything, right?
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 17:04
She tests everything. And I remember, like, when I was on maybe about 20 years ago, I was watching some news article, and one grandmother noticed the baby like chewing on the bib a lot, and kept chewing on this bib and wouldn't use any other bibs, and was chewing on a specific bib. She had that bib tested, and it was high in lead. And so we are getting exposed to things that we don't even know of. And I don't know the Flint Michigan story, where the whole city was exposed to lead, and in Chicago, they're very quietly not talking about it, but we have lead based piping in the city, and there's a there's hundreds and 1000s of people who are being exposed to lead on a chronic basis, and they don't know how it's affecting their health, because it really hasn't been studied widely. I feel like this is a it's a huge problem. Your son may have been exposed to low level lead exposure from the sea salt, but I would say, if he's coming from the autism spectrum and now neurotypical, he probably got exposed very early on and didn't get rid of it and then had it stored. And when you go through puberty, your bones, you're growing. And we see a lot of regression during puberty too, and I think some of that regression is these toxins coming out of the bones, because they do hide in the bones, especially lead and aluminum. And so puberty gets to be a little bit of a time, and another big time. I just had my lead level checked, and it was high. And I, you know, I'm like, OCD,
Len Arcuri 18:51
yeah, I'm sure you're pristine with your water, your food.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 18:54
I have a daughter with multiple chemical sensitivities. I have a daughter with type one diabetes. I've had a daughter with asthma and severe, you know, just my kids are super sensitive. I have a daughter who actually passed from a peanut allergy, so I'm, like, super, super, super diligent, and for me to to have high level levels of lead in my system, I had like, a 1.5 and I my integrative doctor, and I surmise that it's probably from menopause that I was born in India. I remember pumping leaded gasoline for my dad, because we would go to the gas we would go get our car fills, and I would say, lead it or unleaded. And my dad would say, Oh, get leaded. It's cheaper. It's before we had unleaded gas. That shows you how old I am. But one of the sources of lead, I tell my parents also not to buy anything from the dollar store, because the quality of those things are very it's very low, and it's. In kind of these, like jewelry and painted items. So anything ceramic, anything from China, India or Mexico, is suspect. Some of in my culture, spices, we found it in turmeric. So if you're going to use turmeric or curcumin, make sure you buy organic. That's a big one, because it likes to bind also things like cilantro and parsley. They like to bind metals. So make sure you get organic when you're using those types of things.
Len Arcuri 20:32
Is cinnamon, something also that you would that might levels.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 20:37
Cinnamon is not a huge binder of metals. But, you know, in general, I do tell my patients to if they're using spices to buy spices organic, they can get moldy too. So anything, any kind of lead based cookware, pottery or ceramics, those are kind of the biggies. Some of my I had a whole Texan crew and my families, we were looking at this, and they bought, like, this kind of a machine that could detect lead, and it was like a Geiger counter, but it was for, like, metals, and so it was really expensive. But, like, there were like, 30 families that went in together, and they they, like rented the machine, and everybody took it to their house. We ended up finding lead and a lot of metal furniture, like the beds and like tables as well that are metal and painted and and so that was a kind of an eye opening one. So for me, yeah, spices. But of course, clean air, clean water, clean food, are kind of basic, and they do have, like, lead testing kits, like these Q tip tests that you could get online or at Home Depot, where you can test things. And it did just change a color if there's there's lead in those items. I think they found it in crock pots and so anything like ceramic like that, just, just be careful with
Len Arcuri 22:10
no that's interesting and yet, and being able to test and assess is so powerful if you can do it. And I was going to, I'm going to share the story now, because you touched on it when you talked about the dollar store and the kind of quality of the items that are there, but early on, and this goes back probably to 2010 when we first were, you know, I was at conferences listening to people like you at the defeat Autism NOW conference and the like being aware of toxins and metals and what might be especially in toys, right? The let the level in toys. So I did with another parent invested in renting an XRF gun, which is that probably what I was talking about. Yeah, and it not only showed lead, but it would show you 1010, different metals and what the level was. And my wife, Cass and I, we did that, we tested everything in our house at the time, and it was insane, the high levels of lead and cadmium and fill in the blank in the most innocent looking items, particularly toys, whether it's like a Hot Wheels car or whether it's other figures that were made by very reputable sounding companies. And the one thing that really struck me is that, as we were testing all the different toys and items in the house, cookware, all that the one place that we tested, because our daughter came along after my son. So she was quite young, in a pack and play. And she would, she would be in the pack and play, bouncing around, but she would always focus and bite right where the two bars like intersected in the front of the pack. And play. Was just odd that that was the one place that she would always bite on. And then, of course, we brought that, that XRF gun, that that measuring device to that specific area, and the whole pack and play was fine, except for that one place. So it's odd that it seems like kids are actually drawn to the metals that are in a lot of these innocent looking items. And again, not to scare people about it. And again, to rent these devices is quite expensive, but it's just reason to be very wary of products and to ensure that you're buying the higher quality products as much as you can, because something very innocent looking might really be a source of toxic exposure that you know with diligence you can do something about.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 24:39
Yeah, we had those kids where the parents would say they would bite on their crib and chew like the paint off the crib, and that's just another red flag. And I have these patients with apraxia. They're non speaking patients, but they have a lot of sensory needs in their mouth, so they're always like needing a bug. And chew on things. And I think that they get a lot of exposure, because they end up getting putting things in their mouth that like cords and, you know, plastic items that they they end up doing that just because of some of their their sensory issues. So yeah, that the classic symptoms would be things like pica. Putting inedible objects in your mouth would be a big red flag. Putting things in your mouth in general, would be another red flag of you know, potentially not just lead level lead exposure, but other toxic exposures.
Len Arcuri 25:39
I know that that's helpful, and that's very relevant for my son. Early on, pika was the issue. He would put things in his mouth. So So a very significant clue for us. And even now, again, he's he's progressed. But I guess that brings us to the question, okay, there's exposures. It's in a variety of different forms. You do your best as a parent to play defense, other than, you know, ratcheting up your game to play more defense now to prevent any ongoing exposure. What are the options for parents to help their child if they have high or even a low level of toxicity
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 26:14
in the traditional approach? Like I said, I did my residency at Cook County Hospital in the 80s, so I worked at a lead clinic, and I used to prescribe DMSA, which is the medicine that is approved for lead toxicity. And my patients used to have lead levels of 8090, you know, those were those, those patients, and our goal was to get their lead level down to 20. And if you look at the studies on treating lead, the studies treat lead to a level of 20, then they say that treating lead doesn't improve neurodevelopment or IQ, so they didn't get it to zero. They try to mitigate it in the home, but there's a big lead burden in the in the bones, as I mentioned. So during growth, these things leave. So how do you treat it? You know? How do you treat it? Number one would be just like any other toxin, you don't want to get exposed to it, so play your defense. How do I treat it? As an integrated physician who's been working with children was this issue for a long time? I treat metal toxicity by supporting detoxification pathways. Number one. So I want to make sure they don't have genomics or snips involved in poor detoxification, and then support that piece. But that might not be enough if we have a big load. You know, getting the body to do it over time takes time. So there's different protocols that have been developed, and there's no great studies on this. There is one study that we did, Dr Bradstreet is named in the study, and Dr Adams on using DMSA to treat autism. I think that they should have said, to use DMSA to treat children who have autism with and lead burden, but they were DMSA does not treat autism. I just want people to understand that it's not treatment for autism, but it is a treatment for lead. And a lot of our kids with autism have
Len Arcuri 28:42
led right? And really, just generally, isn't that pretty good advice to be not treating autism, per se, as much as it is what's the underlying root cause? Because autism is just a label, and that's where, yes, if you can get specific on what is the root cause, to focus on toxicity overall, very much underappreciated how much that matters, and specifically with what's going on with your child, whether it's lead or something else, having adequate testing that can show you what might be the areas to focus on is key, which is why working with a practitioner like you is so important.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 29:18
Yeah, so DMSA is a good chelating agent for lead. It's also very good for mercury, and it's also good for arsenic. And usually, if we have one metal, then we have others. And what you might see with your sun is as you get the lead down, then you'll see the mercury come up again, or something else, because there's led there's kind of a, you know, the these key leaders have their favorites, and they go after their favorites, or they go after low hanging fruit, whatever they can reach first on those challenges. So, you know, there. Are different protocols using chelation for low level lead exposure. There's that. There's not a lot of studies. And out there, there was a protocol called the ACC protocol, the Andy Cutler chelation, oh yeah, which was a low dose of DMSA and a nutrient called ala alpha lipoic acid, and Andy Cutler had a huge following for Mercury toxic individuals, and so a lot of the families have used this ACC protocol, and I've used this particular protocol on for patients with low level lead exposure, metal exposure. Then there's the Dan protocol. That's the one in the particular paper that I mentioned that that Dr Bradstreet and Dr Adams put out there on using DMSA for metals. And that particular protocol uses DMSA and ala at higher doses every other weekend, and then we follow that with safety lab, CBC, CMP, you know, checking their zinc and so supporting the system during detox involves giving things like minerals liver support. But probably the number one side effect that I see with kind of detox strategies is dysbiosis. So what that means is you have this toxin. It comes out from your lymph, goes into your liver, goes into your bile, then it dumps into your gut. And when the toxin dumps into your gut, we end up over growing things like yeast and bacteria and the small intestines, and so with any type of detox strategy, I always want something in the gut to protect the gut, and I think that's my number one issue with these types of oral chelators, is yeast. And then we have other types of chelators as well. For lead. I also like a chelator called calcium disodium EDTA. When I was at Cook County. We use that in extremely ill individuals who are extremely toxic, and we used to use it intravenously. And you mentioned intravenous chelation with your child, if I bet they've used, they've used something like that for him. And so we have DMSA orally. We have calcium EDTA as IVs and suppositories as well available. And the third chelator that we tend to use a lot of is called DMPS. And DMPS is pretty good for mercury and aluminum in particular. So calcium EDTA is good for lead and aluminum. DMPS is good for mercury and aluminum, and DMSA is good for lead and mercury. So you kind of have to pick and choose.
Len Arcuri 33:10
Well, I appreciate you painting that the picture of the different options. And again, this, that's why the great news is there are a lot of options here. The bad news is it can be a little bit overwhelming, again, where you really want to have somebody that you can really who has a lot deep experience with this to help you choose the right strategy, if any, for your child, and even for my son, this is something we've known has been an issue for him for a while, but a road I was, at least I was reluctant to go down, you know, I instead, you know, along with my wife, Cass, had the strategy of, if we just feed our son really good, high quality food, make sure he's getting the right nutrients, and just help his body naturally detoxify. That we were hoping that this metals burden, that his body would find a way, because we're big, both big fans of the body's natural ability to heal. But I think what I've learned is that if, for whatever reason, in my son's case, the burden's so high, the body may not be able to do that on its own without some help, which is why we're going down the path we are now. But I appreciate you painting the picture of the different ways that are available. If this is an issue that's that's relevant for your child and and the stats that you gave at the beginning are very concerning. If it's literally a third of kids have this potential burden with lead, let alone other metals, what a massive, massive issue this is.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 34:37
Yeah, and the sad part is that there's not a lot of doctors who understand this concept of low level toxin exposure, and they, you know, when, when you have a level, say, of three or four or five, they'll say, that's normal, right? And then the patient. Never really get things don't get addressed except to avoid lead. But in our world, you know, we can clean up their diet, clean up their environment, work on some of the foundational pieces. Lead thinks it's calcium and it thinks it's magnesium, so just by giving things like calcium and magnesium, we can displace lead. Lead also disrupts vitamin D and leads to things like osteoporosis. So vitamin D is really important, too. And then some of these kind of gentle holder strategies, like you mentioned, methylation support, glutathione, even detoxifying agent. You know, a lot of people talk about things like zeolite and cilantro and Marella, but I think they're somewhat valuable. There's just not a lot of research on them. There's just not a lot of research. So again, I have a child with autism who has really severe symptoms. I suspect they have a lead issue. I'm going to work on these simple strategies just to see how far they get. But if they're not getting where I want them to go, then I'm going to recommend, you know, something a little bit more aggressive for them. Great.
Len Arcuri 36:08
No, I think I'm learning a lot in this episode. It's, you know, I'm constantly learning and growing and and trying to understand this road. And I think you touched on a lot of really key things, especially when it comes to the lab testing that you're doing to even identify whether there's an issue. I know lab testing can get very costly, and so wherever you can, yes, run labs that may be through the main quest or lab core that will be covered by insurance, but a lot of times, if you even do that testing, the ranges that are provided in that standard lab testing might be so crazy off, which is why, you know, testing from more of a specialized company with maybe a different way of assessing what's going on, with maybe more realistic ranges of what's concerning and what's not, is an important First call, like, what? What data do you require and and will help you make an informed decision? You touched on the idea that there was a blood testing if people do other testing, let's say urine testing or even hair samples to assess levels of lead or other metals. Do you feel like blood testing is the most reliable of those forms,
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 37:20
I think blood testing is an important start, because at least we know we're not getting exposed. So if I do a lead level and it's zero, I feel confident that in the last 90 days, they haven't been exposed, or they're not being exposed to lead. Now, if it's high, then I already know. So if it's normal and I'm still suspecting an issue, then I would want to do some other specialty type of testing, like you mentioned. Sometimes if you do a urine test, it may not show up because it's stuck in the body, it's not coming out. So if we do a urine test for metals, we usually do a provocation. So I wouldn't do a urine test without a provocation. I don't think it's that helpful.
Len Arcuri 38:05
Yeah, and to go deeper on that concept, right? If metals are a problem or or something that's burdening your child, they're likely those metals are likely not to be in the urine or this dual or the hair, because they're in the body, they're stored in the tissues or in the brain, perhaps. So that's why just regular testing may give you a false positive when there really is a burden, it's just not showing up in the sample, correct.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 38:32
Yeah, yeah. False negative. False negative. I do do a lot of hair tests. I do like them, because if I it's another three month window of what's coming out in the hair. And a lot of my patients, we've started some of those strategies where we're working on detoxification, we're working on methylation. I give them a few months, and I said, Okay, let's see if you know, let's do a hair test. Now, let's see if we see something coming out of the hair, then there's two possibilities. One is, there's exposure to those things. The other thing is, there's a body burden, and now it's coming out. If there's not anything coming out, then we're stuck where you and I are talking about that, they're just it's still in the body, stored in tissue, creating havoc, decreasing IQ, causing attention issues, causing developmental issues with cognition and processing. I use the term get the let out. Get the let out means somebody slow and sluggish in the way they think and process. But on the other hand, I see a lot of add symptoms with lead too. So can have hyperactivity on the other hand too, and constipation is a big one. So if I have all those symptoms, then I'm going to do I personally, probably. We would do a hair test, nothing showing up. I'll do the provocation,
Len Arcuri 40:05
the urine provocation,
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 40:07
okay, yeah. And then I always start with the least aggressive approach to the most aggressive approach. And you know, the least aggressive approach would be some gentler detoxifying agents, and then things like orals or suppositories, and then
Len Arcuri 40:26
IVs, All right, great. No, that's that's very, very helpful. And I always try on these in these discussions, not to make everything about my son, but there's so much that's relevant. And I know, as you mentioned at the outset, in terms of your own history with your daughter, the idea of allergies and life threatening allergies and my heart goes out to you about your daughter. Thank you and my son, honestly, his life threatening peanut allergy keeps me up at night more than autism ever did. Is there some correlation between these allergies, particularly life threatening ones, and metals exposure as a root cause of even how those are presenting.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 41:06
I don't think there's enough studies on that. So if you you know, look at the literature, aluminum is associated. Aluminum is associated with immune activation in terms of asthma and allergies, eczema, right type of things. They haven't really correlated that with lead, but I don't know if they've actually looked at it. It's just like when I was looking at some statistics for this talk, when I was looking at like, chemicals in the environment, 219 million chemicals. 350,000 are common. 80,000 are common in the US, and only a few 100 of those chemicals were tested. And then we talk about synergy, additive effects. And then we call we talk about vulnerable periods of development, when in these vulnerable periods of development, you get exposed to these types of things, it affects you for the rest of your life. And now my dad's a sociologist. My dad used to say that we were born as a blank slate, that's called tabla rasa. We are born clean and blank, and then we get filled up. But now, when they test babies their cord blood, they're full of chemicals and micro plastics. So our kids with autism are showing us that they're They're fragile, they're extremely fragile, and they are toxic. And any child with autism, and add, in my mind, needs to have some type of a good detox strategy in place.
Len Arcuri 42:50
No, I think that's, that's a very great way to bottom line, you know, the whole opportunity here and again, especially if you do that to look more closely, particularly at metals and and again, I appreciate you shedding light on what this road may look like. And again, I think for the people who are listening, they're very curious, open and this, I know you're going to give everyone other aspects to think about that maybe haven't been on their radar yet. So I am delighted that you're you've graced us with your presence. I mean, honestly, I can't tell you how much I appreciate your decades of being out there for these families and just so appreciate all the work that you're doing.
Speaker 1 43:32
You're welcome. I hope, as I get older, to continue to work to educate people. I think that's my goal in life, and those families out there to, you know, send their practitioners to med maps, Medical Academy for pediatrics and special needs, because we really need to train the next generation of doctors, and that's our goal.
Len Arcuri 43:53
That's right, no, an incredible organization. And again, if you're listening and you have a practitioner or a pediatrician you're working with that you're excited about, especially someone who's curious, please share this with them that the Medical Academy of Pediatric special needs, that organization, is all about helping practitioners to have more tools in the toolbox and to be even more equipped to help this generation of kids with very complex challenges. So So again, I appreciate you sharing that and for the work that you're doing with that team. Again, just delighted to have you on the podcast.
Dr. Anju Usman Singh 44:29
You're very welcome.
Len Arcuri 44:31
Your child needs you running on all cylinders now, and the fastest way to rise is with personalized one on one. Support. Get started today. Go to elevatehowyounavigate.com. You.
