Hi Fuggles, I find it confusing too and I have been on here for years and tried many different ways to detox the mercury.

But from what I understand, DMSA, DMPS, Alpha lipoic acid are the main chelators. These have a stronger grip on the metals.

The mobilisers are the sulfury foods and sulfur supplements - chlorella, sulfur amino acids like cysteine, methionine, NAC, onions, garlic, leek, cabbage, eggs, broccoli, etc. These have an affinity for mercury and can move it, but dont have a very strong grip on it.

But again, some people have done natural detox with mercury using products like that (the mobilisers) and reckon they have detoxed their mercury!

So perhaps their systems have better abilities to excrete the mobilised mercury.

But others don't cope well with this and dont excrete the stirred up mercury as well, so most may recirculate and get reabsorbed. Most of us may require the strong more stable chelators.

But there are people who simply do not tolerate the DMSA, perhaps allergy or whatever reason who may not wish to use it. DMPS is often better tolerated (Oral), but is much more expensive and harder to get hold of. But again, some may not tolerate that either.

Even if the strong chelators are used, if they are not used correctly, they too can cause redistribution (moving mercury around into worse areas).

If there was a perfect substance that had an iron grip on mercury and never let go? it would be brilliant, but no such stuff (as yet).

So I'll just type a list of chelators/mobilisers.

Chlorella
garlic
cysteine
methionine
NAC
alpha lipoic acid
DMSA
DMPS
sulfur foods to some extent
essiac tea (another one that apparently can aid detoxing mercury)
homeopathic detox kit (company is called "Heels")
selenium (to some extent by displacing mercury)
vitamin C powder (can sometimes encourage a bit, but mainly provides antioxidant protection like selenium)
glutathione
NDF (nanoised chlorella and cilantro etc)
cilantro