The post below has been revised as of July 2018. I’ve been meaning to update it for some time: the content below, with revisions is now Part 1. There is a link at the end to Part 2, which covers the resolution to arthritis.

Rheumatoid Arthritis (R.A.) is a condition that is based on a misunderstanding of what is going on in the bone marrow, in the same way that osteoporosis fails to grasp where the bone minerals are going. Even so, you may well ask why the header image for this article is that of an ancient Cornwall tin mine. As you’ll see, I was trying to be clever.

This article will quantify the disease aspect of R.A. and Part 2 will address the resolution to the disease.

To place this in its proper historical context, here’s a quick history of rheumatoid arthritis.

A Brief History of Rheumatoid Arthritis

R.A. is one of the oldest known medical conditions in the world, with references to rheumatoid-like conditions stretching back to Ancient Egypt (1500BC) and possible evidence of R.A. in Egyptian mummies. There seem to be descriptions of arthritic conditions in the Hippocratic texts of ancient Greece (400BC) and by about 200AD the Roman medical writer Galen had coined the term “rheumatismus”.

There weren’t any advances in understanding the condition until the Swiss-German physician Paracelsus (1500AD) suggested that it was caused by something failing to be excreted through the urine and instead getting stored and collected in the bones and joints.

Despite this insightful observation, the predisposition of medical thinking moving into modern times was to devote attention to cataloging the symptoms of conditions, collecting those symptoms into a governing term and allowing the term to represent a static condition that was more or less thought to cause itself, despite the glaring philosophical contradiction that entailed (a symptom cannot cause itself).

By this time society was well aware of Gout (of King Henry the 8th fame), Osteoarthritis and possibly Osteoporosis, but the symptoms of R.A. were unique in the warping and bending effect produced in the bones. In 1858 the English physician Alfred Garrod is credited with having coined the term Rheumatoid Arthritis to describe the condition and by the 1940s a new branch of medical practitioners, Rheumatologists, had risen up to combat this new terror.

The speculations of Paracelsus had long been forgotten.

Elements of R.A.

There is an extent to which Paracelsus was correct but the current conception is that there is no cure for R.A.: that the immune system produces permanent antibodies against the bone marrow and/or the lining of the joints and attacks them.

A heavy metal analysis of all R.A. patients reveals a single metal (or element) in common: Tin, the same element #50 that used to be mined in the ancient Cornish tin mine featured above. Tin has lain in the rock strata for billions of years and is readily available from a toxicity standpoint. When that element gets into human bone tissue it causes a set of symptoms that is currently described by the term rheumatoid arthritis.

So how is it getting in and why?

We’ll get to that, but first let’s further analyze the tin problem.

Sources of Tin

The fact that instances of R.A. have been recorded as far back as 1500BC, and that the widespread mining and usage of tin started around that time would seem to indicate a correlation between tin mining and manufacture and the rise of the conditions tin causes. Tin drinking cups could have been an early contributor. However, it could as easily have percolated into drinking water from the rock strata and since tin is in some degree spread throughout the globe, there is widespread opportunity to be exposed via that source. Regardless of exposure, genetics must play a big part in who absorbs tin because while rheumatoid arthritis runs in families, it does not appear to be precisely regional (although some countries have higher R.A. counts than others). Gender clearly plays a part as well, since something like 3x more woman absorb enough tin to be told they have R.A. than men do.

Environmentally, tin is sourced from a mineral called Cassiterite but more often municipal tap water systems will have higher amounts of it because at some point in the hydrology cycle the water passes through a deposit of this mineral.

However, there are so many common, universally available modern sources of tin in our environment that whatever the source may have been in the ancient world, we have now far surpassed the era when we could realistically blame minerals in the bedrock or tin mines in Cornwall.

Here are the most common (though unlabelled) sources of tin in the modern world:

A: Digestive Sources: primary source is drinking water. Also, luncheon meats, powdered soup bases, carbonated beverages and canned energy drinks (presumably made with tap water). Ironically it is not typically found in tin cans, they have been made from aluminum since the 1980s. They’re just called tin cans out of nostalgia.

To this day, tin is found in 50/50 (tin/lead) soft solder, the sealant used by plumbers to join copper pipes and this is possibly the most significant dietary source of it. Hundreds of trillions of tin ions leach out of this sealant into the drinking water in homes, workplaces and the pipes of your local coffee shop. Boiling doesn’t get tin out, the boiling point of water is 100°C, the boiling point of tin is 2602°C. If you boil your water long enough, all that will be left is the tin. What did you think that white residue at the bottom of the pan was?

B: Breathing Sources: soap, shampoo, hair conditioners, perfume/cologne, laundry detergent, dish soap, dishwasher soap, toothpaste, baby oil and skin creams.

Companies are not going to state on their ingredients list that the product contains tin. They may not even know it’s there. As an end-consumer, getting products chemically tested for tin could cost thousands of dollars per item, which is not practical for a $5 bottle of shampoo. Really, the cheapest and easiest way to test your products is to muscle test them. If tin is your trigger, it will produce a suppressing effect on your bioelectric field, and this will elicit a weak muscle testing response, so just test all your stuff: and as per the golden rule of muscle testing, if it tests weak don’t use it anymore. That’s the best and most accurate way to avoid all tin sources.

If a product produces a weak muscle testing response, that’s not a guarantee that it has tin, only that it is bad for you in general. A single person can have multiple element triggers (lead, mercury, etc) so it is advisable to test all the products you use on a regular basis.

How to Remove Tin From the Body

Before I outline how the tin is getting in, it might be interesting to take a look at ways of managing tin levels, since the final solution I’ll present in Part 2 of this article series won’t be available to everyone. Managing the symptom, although not solving the root cause, is better than not managing the symptom.

The method of extracting tin is the same as the method of extracting lead outlined in this article on lead poisoning. To remove tin, we simply need to introduce a 4-valence binder that soaks the tin up like a sponge and gently draws it out of the body. About 60% of people need activated charcoal and 40% need chlorella. There is no way to know which group you will fall into as there is no obvious relationship between age, gender or race. 100% Of people would benefit from DMSA but it is often sold by prescription only and can be harder on the body as it is a chemical.

Here is a summary of the 3 binders that work on tin:

1. DMSA: I don’t know why this isn’t standard-issue for all cases of advanced R.A., it would most certainly slow the condition’s advance. It is usually only available by prescription but since rheumatologists are giving out prescriptions anyway, why not prescribe something that actually helps?
Dosage: 500mg once/day for up to 30 days. Standard dosage for DMSA is 2 weeks maximum but bones take longer to release tin than a muscle or organ would.
Cautions: Extended dosing of DMSA (more than 2 weeks) should be monitored for vitamin deficiency, typically through the medical supervision of blood test results. Also, the original source of tin toxicity needs to be identified and eliminated or the DMSA will only clear the way for new tin to accumulate in the bones.
Side-Effects: Possible migraines and nausea, hence not ideal. Also, a heightened sensation of deep bone aching, also not ideal.

2. ACTIVATED CHARCOAL: Charcoal is pure carbon so this is the closest nutritional form to elemental carbon. Charcoal soaks through the entire body and facilitates the extraction of tin from the bones because carbon and tin are in the same family of elements. They have an affinity for each other.
Dosage: Can range from 250mg to 1250mg, depending on the severity of tin toxicity. This amount can be taken once/day or twice/day for up to 6 weeks at a time.
Cautions: Should not be taken for longer than 4 weeks without medical supervision. Also, after that it may lose its effectiveness in some cases.
Side-Effects: Could cause either the loosening of the stools or constipation. Individual reactions can vary widely. Headaches are not uncommon. Also, as with DMSA, a heightened sensation of deep bone aching as the tin is being withdrawn.

3. CHLORELLA: This is a green algae that has performs a role similar to charcoal in that it is effective at binding to 4-valence electron elements such as tin.
Dosage: Range from 500mg to 5000mg. Powder or pill form are both fine, there’s no difference in bioavailability.
Cautions: Should not be taken for longer than 5 weeks at high doses. After that, like charcoal it loses its effectiveness. Also like charcoal, side effects can become more noticeable post-week 4.
Side-Effects: Constipation. As with DMSA and Charcoal, a heightened sensation of deep bone aching as the tin is being withdrawn. There is no harm in taking it when you don’t need it as long as it’s not taken in excess.

But really, let’s be clear that each of these is managing the symptom, not the solution. You can go out today and manage your tin levels, and that might take the edge off your R.A. symptoms, but it won’t solve anything long term because understanding that tin is involved with R.A. isn’t the deepest level to analyze the problem at.

There is a deeper level.

Limitations of Metal Toxicity Analysis

The lingering question about tin, and about metal toxicity in general is that of why it sticks to some people and not others. As it turns out, your bones absorb tin if you have a tin-loving bacteria in them. This bacteria is not native to the human body as tin is highly toxic.

So where did the bacteria come from? Parasites, and in this case, parasites that have got into the bone marrow. Let’s leave tin in the past where it belongs and look at the real problem with R.A.: multiple species of parasites in the bone marrow.

This article is continued in An Analysis of Rheumatoid Arthritis: Part 2 – The Cure