The error with lead was the opposite one. It was a moral panic that's lead to the current health crisis, both mental and physical. People need heavy metals, they are essential.
They’ve been advocating heavy metals for a while. IT’s a really bizarre infatuation, but far enough from reality that it’s unlikely to make any difference and harm anyone.
It’s interesting in that I can’t think of any political or cultural conflict it ties into? They just enjoy their daily cadmium, it appears.
Are you talking about the obesity epidemic? There was a recent paper discussed on HN talking about how it was probably an environmental change, but I don’t think they mentioned heavy metals. I think they mentioned plastics and lithium as possibilities. Was lead widespread in the environment before the 20th century? I don’t remember pre-20th century photographs showing widespread obesity.
The reason why I think so is that the versions of proteins with heavy metals seem to be superior to those with the supposedly "correct" metal, as well as the heavy metal being extremely strongly preferred by the metabolism.
In the case of lead, it seems to be necessary for glucose transport, and seems to have effects similar to Rapamycin. It seems that Rapamycin basically only works by compensating for lead deficiency to some degree.
