Determining specific points to support heavy metal detox

In my opinion this is an incorrect way to think about Chinese Medicine or promoting health in general. The idea of “detox” in particular is a widely touted approach within alternative medicine circles but it lacks much scientific validity as a concept in the multitude of ways that it is often described. Now there definitely is a possibility of heavy metal exposure leading to issues in the body ( 1 ) - but not necessarily to the degree or to any significant end in the general population. While no one would argue that exposure to many of the substances that we face in our modern world is good for us in the ultimate sense, it is far too likely a target when people live very poor lifestyles with poor diets and used as an excuse so to speak for their health issues. On one hand people think that their body is strong enough to handle a dump of material into their body, yet they are weak enough to get accumulations in the first place. In my mind, you can’t have it both ways.

My problem with the concept of detox is that it doesn’t seem to be well thought through many times. If your body contacted things that it didn’t like and stores them in your body in small amounts over time (largely to avoid damaging itself), would you really want to dump them back into your body all at once if such a thing is possible? No, I personally don’t believe you would. But let’s say you did… what then? If your body is strong enough to handle a flushed onslaught of negative chemistry, why wouldn’t it be tough enough to handle the small amounts we are all exposed to?

In my opinion the role of Chinese Medicine in this scenario is that you focus on making the immune system strong (which Chinese Medicine has many valuable ways of doing) and then limit your exposure through proper lifestyle and diet - that’s simply the best the average person can do in my opinion. There certainly are dietary guidelines to help your body deal with the modern environment, and there are many writings on that subject that get into quite a bit of detail.

The idea of targeting a specific physical organ with Chinese Medicine is not impossible, as there are many points that we know affect the physical function or organs, but what message would you really be sending other than what you would send anyway, function well and be strong and do what you know how to do…

Now for people with measured heavy metal toxicity that has been verified through medical tests, chelation is often the route of course - along with some newer approaches. This info sheet from the Oregon public health department seems fairly balanced on the subject.

Now all that said, please don’t misunderstand my response in saying that I think there are no real dangers to the body, there are plenty. But the body, in my opinion, is very skilled at dealing with these and adapting accordingly so long as we work with it and not against it.

While certain points certainly do have somewhat specific effects, that is only in context relative to whatever else is going on as well. For example a point that would move qi, might not move qi at all if the overall qi levels are depleted, or if the person was very weak, or if damp/phlegm was blocking the channel, etc.

So for all practical and clinical purposes, there are no single points that would universally function to target a specific function of a specific organ. As far as I know there is no point or even combination of points to ‘remove arsenic energy from the heart’. That’s not to say there isn’t a possibility that acupuncture could, rather that 1) the theory itself doesn’t really work that way and 2) no research (at least that is published in English that I’m aware of) has been done regarding acupuncture and heavy metals in general much less looking at acupuncture for specific metals in specific organ(s).

That being said, for points commonly used to treat the organs you could look into the back shu, he-sea, and huatuo jiaji.