Why Bayesian reasoning matters in chronic illness
Traditional medical science moves cautiously: hypothesis → trial → replication → consensus. That timeline often spans decades, while millions edure crippling symptoms. Bayesian reasoning offers a faster route. It updates probabilities as evidence accumulates, asking: “Given what we already know, what’s the most probable explanation right now?” By assigning likelihoods to each hypothesis and updating them dynamically, we can cut through layers of conflicting research and arrive at a working conclusion – long before full consensus.
Fibromyalgia (FM) is the perfect testing ground for this approach. The literature is overflowing with descriptions of downstream effects – neuroinflammation, central sensitisation, gut dysbiosis – but very few attempts to isolate the root insult that starts the cascade. A Bayesian lens lets us score each proposed cause for plausibility and explanatory power, revealing which one best fits the data with the fewest extra assumptions.
Layered model of fibromyalgia: walking through the contenders
Below we evaluate the main root-cause theories using a rough Bayesian scale (0–1) for causal likelihood. Scores reflect biological coherence, reproducibility, and explanatory reach across FM’s hallmark symptoms: widespread pain, fatigue, sleep disturbance, cognitive fog, and autonomic imbalance.
1. Heavy-metal toxicity – the prime mover
Bayesian score = 0.9
Metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, nickel, and aluminium are well-documented neuro- and mito-toxins with exceptionally long biological half-lives. They accumulate in the dorsal-root ganglia, brainstem nuclei, limbic circuits, and small-fibre nerves – exactly the regions that govern pain, fatigue, and autonomic tone.
- Neuronal calcium-channel interference: mercury and lead distort voltage-gated calcium channels, causing erratic neurotransmitter release and hypersensitised pain transmission.
- Mitochondrial blockade: cadmium and mercury inhibit Complex III and pyruvate-dehydrogenase, cutting ATP output in muscle and nerve cells – mirroring the energy crash seen in FM.
- Glial activation: nanomolar mercury or aluminium chronically activate microglia and astrocytes, generating excess glutamate and nitric oxide – the hallmarks of central sensitisation.
- Small-fibre degeneration: lead and cadmium reduce epidermal nerve-fibre density, replicating the small-fibre neuropathy documented in roughly half of FM patients.
- Neuro-endocrine disruption: metals displace zinc and selenium from deiodinases and steroid-receptor proteins, flattening thyroid and adrenal output – producing fatigue, cold intolerance, and stress fragility.
Every one of these mechanisms has been shown experimentally in neurotoxicology, and together they reproduce all major physiological features of fibromyalgia – In Bayesian terms, heavy metals explain more observed data with fewer assumptions than any competing theory – hence the highest causal weight.
2. Chronic infections and vaccination residues – secondary triggers
Bayesian score = 0.6
Persistent infections such as Lyme or mycoplasma can sustain immune and nervous-system activation. Vaccines introduce adjuvants like aluminium and mercury which can lodge in tissues for decades, adding to the total metal burden.
3. Autoimmunity and immune activation – the fire truck, not the arsonist
Bayesian score = 0.3
Autoimmune markers occasionally appear in FM patients, but they behave as a response to persistent irritants –metals, infections, or debris – rather than an independent disease. When the initiating insult is removed, immune activity often normalises.
4. Pesticides and chemical exposures – toxic multipliers
Bayesian score = 0.7
Organophosphates and solvents are neurotoxic and glutathione-depleting. Many contain or mobilise metals, worsening retention and oxidative stress. They act less as a separate cause and more as a load multiplier for heavy-metal toxicity.
5. Mycotoxins (mould) – a load-builder, not initiator
Bayesian score = 0.4
Mycotoxins impair mitochondrial respiration and hepatic detox, compounding an already over-burdened system. However, heavy mycotoxin exposure typically yields broader systemic illness – fever, respiratory and cardiac effects – not the isolated pain profile of FM. They likely worsen, but seldom originate, the syndrome.
6. Genetic or connective-tissue predisposition – susceptibility, not cause
Bayesian score = 0.2
Hypermobility and collagen-gene variants appear in many FM patients but also in healthy controls. These factors create vulnerability to injury and dysautonomia yet do not initiate disease without an environmental stressor. Epigenetically, they can amplify damage once the toxic load exists.
7. Trauma and chronic stress – the physiological amplifier
Bayesian score = 0.5
Psychological or physical trauma can unmask FM by driving sympathetic dominance, reducing vagal tone, impairing bile flow, and limiting hepatic clearance of toxins. It functions as an activator of pre-existing metabolic stress, not its origin.
Synthesising the layers
| Layer | Primary agent | Bayesian weight | Role |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heavy metals (Hg, Pb, Cd, Ni, Al) | 0.9 | Foundational cause – bioaccumulation, multi-system toxicity |
| 2 | Organic toxins (pesticides, solvents) | 0.7 | Synergistic load; depletes antioxidants |
| 3 | Mycotoxins | 0.4 | Secondary load builder |
| 4 | Chronic infections / adjuvants | 0.6 | Re-ignite immune stress on toxic terrain |
| 5 | Genetic & trauma factors | 0.2–0.5 | Modulators, not initiators |
| 6 | Neuroinflammation / small-fibre damage | — | Downstream phenotype |
The combined evidence points to chronic heavy-metal accumulation – amplified by other toxins and hepatic overload – as the most probable root of the fibromyalgia cascade. Everything else behaves as co-factor or consequence.
Evidence base: the research trail
1. Peer-reviewed papers bluntly implicate heavy metals
1.1 Elbeialy et al. 2024 – Rheumatic disease “mostly affected by chronic heavy-metal intoxication”
Paper: Environmental pollution impact on the severity of some rheumatic diseases: a comparative analytical study on inflammatory and non-inflammatory samples (BMC Rheumatology, 2024).
Link: https://bmcrheumatol.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s41927-024-00420-8
This study concluded that both inflammatory and non-inflammatory rheumatic diseases, including fibromyalgia, are “mostly affected by chronic heavy-metal intoxication.” It frames long-term metal exposure as a key upstream factor, not a marginal influence.
1.2 Stejskal & colleagues 2013 – “Metal-induced inflammation triggers fibromyalgia”
Paper: Metal-induced inflammation triggers fibromyalgia in metal-allergic patients (Neuroendocrinology Letters, 2013).
PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24378456/
Summary: https://www.conem.org/2014/04/metal-induced-inflammation-triggers-fibromyalgia-in-metal-allergic-patients/
All FM patients in this study showed hypersensitivity to at least one metal, while controls largely did not. Reducing exposure (eg, replacing dental metals) yielded clinical improvement. The authors propose that metal-induced chronic inflammation can trigger FM in sensitised individuals.
1.3 Al-Khalifa et al. – Disturbed metal profiles and the “mimicry-metal theory”
Paper: Determination of Some Essential & Non-Essential Metals in Patients with Fibromyalgia Syndrome (FMS).
ResearchGate: link
FM patients showed elevated cadmium and lead plus low zinc, magnesium, and calcium. The authors describe a “mimicry-metal” mechanism where toxic metals displace essential ones in enzymes and antioxidant systems, creating oxidative stress and pain amplification.
1.4 Bjørklund et al. 2018 – Toxic metals as aggravators or co-causes
Paper: Fibromyalgia and nutrition: therapeutic possibilities? (Biomedicine & Pharmacotherapy, 2018).
Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2018.04.056
This review details how cadmium and mercury burdens intensify oxidative stress and mitochondrial failure, arguing that heavy metals are potential initiating or aggravating factors in FM rather than incidental findings.
1.5 Bazzichi et al. 2024 – Environmental factors, metals, and ASIA
Paper: Environmental factors and fibromyalgia syndrome: a narrative review (Clinical and Experimental Rheumatology, 2024).
PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38855963/
Lists heavy-metal exposure and metal hypersensitivity among major environmental contributors to FM and CFS, and connects them to the ASIA framework (autoimmune/inflammatory syndrome induced by adjuvants). The review positions metals and adjuvants as upstream triggers of chronic pain syndromes.
2. Integrative and environmental-medicine clinicians
2.1 Dietrich Klinghardt MD PhD
Paper: Case Report and Hypothesis: A Series of Fibromyalgia Cases Treated for Heavy-Metal Toxicity (Journal of Orthopaedic Medicine, 2001).
Link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/1355297X.2001.11736134
Klinghardt documents significant recovery in FM patients following amalgam replacement and chelation, interpreting fibromyalgia as an expression of chronic metal toxicity.
2.2 Joseph Hickey MD
Source: https://platinumenergysystems.ca/index.php/blog/post/recovery-from-fibromyalgia
After six years of clinical observation, Hickey concluded that FM and chronic fatigue are linked to high body levels of mercury, cadmium, lead, and bismuth.
2.3 Other functional and environmental-medicine clinicians
Across multiple case series, practitioners report that FM symptoms seldom remit until heavy-metal burden is actively reduced via bile support, mineral repletion, gentle chelation, and removal of current exposure sources. Within this broader literature, heavy metals are elevated from “possible factor” to central upstream cause of fibromyalgia and related syndromes.
In summary: When we examine competing hypotheses through a Bayesian lens, heavy-metal toxicity stands out as the simplest, most comprehensive, and most evidence-supported root cause of fibromyalgia. It explains the neurochemical, mitochondrial, endocrine, and immune patterns that others describe merely as “downstream findings.” Until disproven, it deserves top prior probability as the logical starting point for prevention and recovery.
Where to from here?
I will be linking a full heavy metals detox protocol here soon. In the meantime there is a very good proprietory product called CLEANSLATE – look it up at therootbrands.com/kakum