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Psychological Reports, 1994, 74, Psychometric Evidence That Mercury From Silver Dental Fillings May Be An Etiological Factor In Depression Excessive Anger, Anxiety by Robert L. Siblerad, John MotI, Eldon Kienholz

Underlying the scientific quest, which has revealed links to abnormal brain chemistry, is the growing suspicion that dentistry unwittingly may be feeding the nation's growing epidemic of depression, anger, anxiety, violence, alcoholism, the need to smoke and other impulse disorders.

Serotonin is the brain's master impulse modulator for all of our emotions and drives. It especially keeps aggression in line.

When serotonin levels fall, violence rises, like some long-subdued monster breaking free of its bonds.

Paralleling the Rocky Mountain study, several other studies have shown that when serotonin levels decline impulsive aggression is unleashed.

Normal aggression has a set point, like body temperature, which is regulated by brain chemicals.

Most people are born with a balance of these chemicals that enables them to react to events in reasonable ways. But changing that set point can increase or lower depression, anger, anxiety or violence. Researchers are learning how this set point can be altered and they have found that the mechanism for change, an imbalance of neuro-transmitters, is shared by humans and animals and can be successfully manipulated to increase or decrease violent behavior.

While low serotonin levels increase impulsiveness, normal levels are associated with clear thinking and social success. One reason we may mellow with age is that serotonin levels increase.

A low serotonin level also can dry up the wellsprings of life's happiness, withering a person's interest in his existence and increasing the risk of depression and suicide.

A growing body of evidence indicates that low levels of serotonin are implicated in a lack of control, the kind of behavior that typically manifests itself as irritability loss of temper and explosive rage. It is the type of impulsive aggression that is escalating at an unprecedented pace in the U.S.

According to the FBI, while the U.S. population increased by 40% from 1960 through 1991, violent crime increased 560%, murders increased 170%, rapes 520% and aggravated assaults 600%. But the dramatic statistics tell nothing of what is going on inside the brain.

Almost half of Americans experience mental illness at some time in their lives, and almost one third are afflicted in any one year, according to a University of Michigan study, published in January's issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry.

In addition, alcoholism, sleeplessness, sexual deviance, fire-setting, obesity and other impulse control disorders also have been laid at the doorstep of low serotonin.

Alcohol initially raises serotonin levels so that a person feels more mellow for a brief time, however, continued drinking precipitates a drop in serotonin.

Several Swedish studies also suggest that exposure to mercury from amalgams may be linked to alcoholism, which may explain why some people have reported a lessening desire to drink following amalgam removal.

A previous study at the Rocky Mountain Institute associated dental amalgams and smoking. Nicotine increases the levels of dopamine, serotonin, acetyl-choline, epinephrine and norepinephrine which have highly desirable effects on the brain. Since mercury reduces the function of neurotransmitters, people will smoke more to relieve their anxious feelings.

In all these recent studies, the lowering of serotonin, a potent brain chemical, is the key factor that may trigger depression, anger, anxiety, aggression, violence, alcoholism, a need to smoke, insomnia, obesity and other impulse disorders.

Mercury from amalgam dental fillings has the capacity to reduce the function of serotonin and other neurotransmitters and may possibly be the root cause behind the dramatic statistics quoted by the FBI on violent criminal behavior and the University of Michigan on mental illness.

Until now, scientists have been stymied. The possible answer may lie in the biochemical changes triggered by exposure to mercury from silver amalgam dental fillings.