We live in a toxic world. Wherever we reside, wherever we work, wherever we play, wherever our kids go to school, our bodies encounter substances that can damage us, make us sick, even kill us. So many of the things in our lives that we like to take for granted—the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe—can betray our health. Other things we read warnings about—prescription drugs, “recreational drugs,” lawn and garden chemicals—turn out to be more toxic than we could have guessed. Toxic substances poison our organs, draining our energy and causing cancer and other killer diseases. We have to learn to protect ourselves against today's world, if we want to live to a ripe old age. A healthy old age, that is. We must have freedom from toxins. Total Toxic Load Determines Total Toxic Damage Every toxic substance can damage the body, of course, and usually the damage is worse the greater the extent of the exposure. The idea of total toxic load grew out of physicians' observations that small exposures to more than one toxic substance often resulted in large damaging effects on the body. These multiple toxic exposures might occur all at the same time, or at separate times even with periods of months or years between them. But total toxic load predicted accurately, that exposures to more than one toxin in small amounts can be as bad as exposure to a large amount of one toxin. While government and chemical industry scientists continue to talk about thresholds for toxic exposures, total toxic load suggests that any amount of exposure to a toxic substance is bad for human health. The everyday implications from total toxic load is that we have to do everything we can to avoid being exposed to toxins. We can work to develop a lifestyle of toxin awareness and everyday detoxication, or suffer the life-threatening consequences of living in a toxified world. Back in the 1970s, patients began to present so-called “alternative” physicians with bizarre arrays of symptoms related to exposures to toxic chemicals. Most went to the alternative doctors because the mainstream doctors didn't believe them or couldn't help them. These sharp physicians took detailed case histories, and soon discovered patterns of chemical poisoning that were radically different from the textbooks. They found that any toxic chemical could damage multiple organ systems: the nervous system, the liver, the immune system, the lungs and bronchial passages, the intestinal system, the heart and circulation, the muscles and joints, the skin, everywhere. They found that low levels of exposure could cause harm—there were no consistent thresholds for safety. And they found that exposure to one chemical often rendered a patient more vulnerable to others, even at very low exposure levels. Their patients developed a type of chemical allergy called chemical hypersensitivity. Chemical hypersensitivity is a crippling condition. The afflicted individual often cannot be in the presence of any manmade substance, or even with traces of cigarette smoke or chemical cleaners. Their senses of taste and smell are exaggerated; they become sensitive to gases coming out of the carpeting or the walls, to household glues and nail polish and all the other solvent-based materials. Socially, they often can't be around people who smoke or wear perfumes or colognes. As these patients develop spreading sensitivities to more and more different chemicals, exposures to just traces of these will trigger severe reactions. There have been cases of people who committed suicide rather than have to live in isolation to avoid exposure. As the dedicated alternative physicians continued to document their patients' life histories, they came to understand that the symptoms of chemical hypersensitivity and other toxic damage are a net outcome of cumulative damage from all sources of toxicity that reach the body. This was in direct opposition to the mainstream dogma that single chemicals cause toxicity, and then only when the exposure exceeds known threshold levels. They developed a new clinical toxicology model, according to which each human being has only a finite amount of resistance to repeated toxic chemical exposures. Exposure to any chemical, however slight, depletes that patient's pool of resistance and makes him or her more vulnerable to another exposure from the same chemical or a different chemical. According to this zero-tolerance model for toxic exposures, the capacity to resist toxic damage varies from each person to the next. The balance between good health and bad health is very delicate, including for those who are outwardly very healthy. Good health can be dramatically destroyed by one chemical exposure, as occurred at Bhopal in India, or slowly drained away by low-level exposures to the sorts of toxic chemicals that permeate modern life. Soon after the total toxic load concept emerged, in the early 1980s, I had the opportunity to carry out a wide-ranging scientific review of this field. The thousands of already-published experiments and clinical observations convinced me that toxic exposures, whatever their source, were closely linked with free radical load at the biochemical level. Further, whether the primary toxic source is chemical, radiation, infection, or physical trauma, it translates biochemically into free radical attack on the living system. The body uses antioxidant nutrients and enzymes to regulate free radicals and defend against free radical attack, so that dietary supplementation with antioxidants should effectively treat chemically damaged patients. A number of us in alternative medicine came to a consensus on this issue, reaching the same conclusion almost simultaneously, and this was the breakthrough the physicians needed. They became more comfortable to use selenium solutions, buffered vitamin C, glutathione, and other antioxidants on their patients, and recorded spectacular improvements. Unopposed Toxic Load Leads to Disease As the years have passed and more research has come in, it now is clear that health essentially rests on the balance in the body between free radical load and antioxidant reserve. Any toxic exposure, however slight, depletes a portion of the antioxidants that protect all life processes. If no further toxic exposures occur, the antioxidant system may bounce back. If further toxic exposures do occur, further challenge is placed on the antioxidant defenses. However limited each toxic challenge may be, cumulatively they intensify free radical stress and weaken the antioxidant defenses. Unless the antioxidant defenses can be maintained through repletion from the outside, they eventually fail and good health is transformed into ill-health. Chemical hypersensitivity is only one possible consequence of toxic chemical damage. As the antioxidant defenses are overcome, a cascade of cell and tissue damage is set in motion that can damage any or all of the organ systems. The immune system is particularly sensitive to chemicals, and as it becomes impaired the body can become persistently infected with yeasts and viruses if not also protozoa and bacteria. Toxic substances produced by these infectious agents then encourage chronic inflammation that further contributes to the toxic load. If immune impairment continues over years, cancer can emerge. Meanwhile, other organ damage generates other symptom patterns: Damage to the brain and nervous system can manifest in tremors, memory loss, personality changes. Damage to the heart can initiate arrhythmias and compromise function. The symptoms from lung and airway damage resemble asthma and bronchitis. Skin eruptions include reddening and rashes. And so it goes, on and on for every organ system. The spreading spectrum of damage from toxic chemicals doesn't stop unless exposure is severely curtailed and aggressive treatment is put in place. If allowed to continue over long periods, the heightened toxic/free radical load is likely to contribute to just about all the diseases known to science: cancer causation and progression, cataract and retinal degeneration, degenerative heart and vascular diseases, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, lupus and other autoimmune diseases, Parkinson's disease, dementia likely encompassing Alzheimer's. The implications are obvious: The individual of any age wanting to stay healthy over the remaining decades of life expectancy needs a zero-tolerance attitude towards toxic chemical exposures. In the real world, zero-tolerance to toxins is easier said than done. But with awareness of the problem and personal commitment, some progress can be made in this direction. The toxins to which we are most often exposed fall into two major categories: the obvious toxins and the hidden toxins. The Obvious Toxins: Lethal But Avoidable You can begin to implement your own commitment to freedom from toxins by making an honest evaluation of the toxins you know are present in your everyday environment. Begin with a self-assessment: Do you smoke? If you do, be aware that smoking is responsible for more than 80% of all cases of lung cancer and increases the risk of heart and other circulatory diseases by at least 400 percent. One puff of cigarette smoke contains 100,000,000,000,000 (1014) free radicals! Almost as bad, do you live with someone who smokes? If you do, be aware that the smoke you inhale coming off the end of the cigarette is likely to be more toxic than the smoke the smoker inhales, 'cause the carcinogens in it are less thoroughly burned. How much alcohol do you drink? If your answer is more than one glass of wine or 1 beer each day, you're probably drinking too much. Don't be influenced by the studies cited by industry lobbies about alcohol being good for health. The science behind the French Red Wine Paradox claims is shaky, and in any case lots of other drinks (teas, for example, and fruit juices) carry more protective antioxidants and lack the toxic alcohol. Cigarette smoke and alcohol are the greatest obvious toxic threats to human health, but they ought to be the easiest for us as individuals to bring under our control. Among
the drugs, legal or illegal, none exists that is truly and unconditionally
safe to take. Some of the legal ones that we take for granted, for
example Tylenol®, are as toxic as the illegal ones that too many
of us take for granted, for example marijuana or “Ecstasy.”
Drugs drain away the body's energy, and deplete nutrients by reacting
with them. Many of them burn away our protective antioxidants, sometimes
to the point that cells are triggered to give up and commit suicide.
Cheap vitamins often have dyes added to them that are potentially
toxic. The Hidden Toxins: Hard to Eliminate Some toxins are insidious: though well known to science and government they are obscured from public knowledge due to political pressures by parties who profit from their use. Heavy metals, solvents and pesticides, and other synthetic chemicals fall into this category. The hundreds—no, thousands—of substances in these categories are negatively impacting the health of all of us. According to the Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine, authored by Drs. M.T. Murray and J.T. Pizzorno, up to 25 percent of the U.S. population suffers from heavy metal poisoning to some extent. They state that up to 600,000 tons of lead are released into the U.S. atmosphere each year. It's no wonder, then, that most people have more lead in their bodies than is compatible with good health. Numerous human studies have shown a strong relationship between learning disabilities or criminal behavior, and the body load of heavy metals. Other heavy metals common to the everyday human experience are mercury, cadmium, and aluminum. Cadmium comes mainly from cigarette smoke, aluminum from cookware and deodorants and even as flow agents in table salt. Cadmium has been linked to neurological diseases and aluminum to kidney, bone and possibly also brain degeneration. Mercury is still being used in dental fillings (inaccurately known as silver fillings), even though it is known to vaporize from the fillings during chewing and enter the general circulation to threaten the brain and other organs. It's so weird that the regulators now require the dental technicians who handle and dispose of the dental filling materials to wear protective clothing while they do so, yet the very same material is allowed to stay in people's mouths for decades! Among the most carcinogenic and overall toxic substances are the organic solvents. Dr. Walter Crinnion, a naturopathic physician, has just published a major review of the health effects of exposures to solvents.[Alternative Medicine Review, 2000, volume 5, pages 133-143.] This is a very important scientific work, because it pulls no punches in a matter of global importance. These substances are present everywhere—in the air, the water, the soils, the foods. Dr. Crinnion documents that every single person in the U.S. is carrying in their fatty tissues, deposits of xylene, dichlorobenzene, ethylphenol, styrene. These are so-called VOCs (Volatile Organic Compounds), all toxic and linked to life-threatening diseases. The story gets worse: A 1985 study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency established that breath samples consistently contained not just these 4 VOCs but also seven others (see Sidebar). And where do these toxins come from? Most often, the home and the workplace! The indoor environment carries a hodgepodge of VOCs, organic byproducts of combustion, breathable particles of molds, cigarette smoke, infectious agents, along with allergenic animal dander, bioaerosols, and countless other contaminants generated by human (and pet) activity. Building materials are known to emit a long list of VOCs, and new carpeting is often the most toxic vehicle: the very EPA itself learned this when it was picketed by its own workers over SBS (Sick Building Syndrome) and forced to replace 27,000 square yards of carpet. Dr. Crinnion's partial list of chemicals present in carpet amounted to forty; toddlers play in carpet dust that frequently carries the 11 pesticides DDT, aldrin, dieldrin, chlordane, atrazine, carbaryl, heptachlor, chlorpyrifos, o-phenylphenol, proxopur, and diazinon. All these are immune system toxins, and some are known carcinogens as well.
What to do about these toxins? Ask lots of questions about your building and the materials in it. Sometimes a building is so contaminated that the carpets and/or other materials will have to be ripped out and replaced. Try to frequent buildings that are well ventilated and don't have their air drawn from garages or through contaminated HEPA air filters (which can harbor infectious organisms such as the lethal Legionella). Air cleaners can be set up to help remove VOCs, pesticides, cigarette smoke, and other chemicals outgassing from the walls and carpets. More indoor house plants may help—some are particularly adept at removing organic pollutants from indoor air. It may be necessary to set up precautions against tracking in outdoor soil from chemically-sprayed fields or lawns. Incidentally, golf courses are notorious in this regard—their groundskeepers tend to believe in better grass through chemicals. Food Toxicities: Underrated And Important Among the most insidious sources of toxicity we face nowadays, are the foods we eat. It's no secret that today's food supplies are adulterated, impotent, and contaminated beyond reasonable expectation, but most of us don't know just how badly we're being hurt by foods that we trust. On the most gross level, inspections of slaughtered cows are finding contamination with an aggressive Escherichia coli bug on as many as 1 in 4 carcasses. This E. coli has already killed a number of children and others around the country. We tend to think of food toxicity on this level, but just as much toxicity is occurring on the more subtle level of allergies and intolerances to foods. Food allergy reactions (more accurately, food intolerances) are so difficult to manage because they involve complex cascades of free radical generating, biochemical pathways that can trigger wide-ranging symptoms. Often inflammatory cascades are set in motion that can lead to more serious illness. Also, once begun the food intolerance reactions can develop and continue over a period of days to weeks, making it harder to identify the foods that are the actual reaction triggers. As a rule, the foods to which we are most drawn and least able to resist are those to which we are most likely intolerant. Elson Haas, M.D., an expert in medical detoxication and the management of food toxicities, has just released another marvelous book, this one called the False Fat Diet (co-authored with Cameron Stauth, from Ballantine Books). This book is going to help a lot of people, because it very clearly lays out a plan of action for eliminating allergenic and otherwise-toxic foods from the daily diet. Most people, sometimes even trained health professionals, fail to recognize their own food intolerances, allergies, and addictions. This book lists labs that do testing to establish which foods may be implicated for the person involved. Twenty years of experience have taught Dr. Haas that negative reactions to foods can cause tissue swelling, bloating, weight gain, low energy, depressed mood, and numerous other metabolic disturbances, including the dangerous leaky gut syndrome. Page 79 of the book lists 21 serious health conditions that food toxicities can intensify, including asthma, chronic pain, memory impairment, and hyperactivity disorders in children. The book is masterful in detailing the types of supplements to take during the various phases of the program: the cleansing phase, the transition phase, the metabolic balancing phase. Antioxidants and antioxidant cofactor supplements anchor all three phases. [An article by Dr. Haas can be found on page xx of this issue.] Our children are perhaps the most victimized by the deterioration of modern foods. They're still being fed cow's milk at school, though it's known that the majority of people on the planet are allergic to it. Many of the middle ear infections seen in children are linked to inflammatory reactions initiated by allergies to dairy and other common foods. Artificial colorings, MSG, and preservatives widespread in processed foods cause headaches, abdominal pain, even fits, in sensitive children. Aspartame is a major problem, still being swept under the carpets. Sugar acts like a drug on many children, and among hyperactive kids as many as three-quarters have dysglycemic responses to a sugary meal. Hyperactive kids also commonly have allergies to foods containing soybean and chocolate. Children not diagnosed hyperactive can nonetheless have food intolerances that affect their learning and mental vigilance and their susceptibility to infections. “Overactive” children currently number as much as ten percent of the school-age population. It may not be a coincidence that the incidence of hyperactive “ADD” kids has been steadily increasing as the food supply becomes more processed and chemicalized. So has the incidence of children with learning disorders and apparent autism. Children who are raised to consciously avoid toxic foods are likely to develop better, learn better, and be more free of asthma and allergy in later life. Supporting the Liver's Toxin Disposal Systems The liver is our main resource for detoxication—clearing the body of toxins. The liver has sophisticated enzyme systems that work to detoxify potential toxins produced by our own metabolism as well as the xenobiotics—substances foreign to the body. Although all the other organs take part in detoxication, the buck really stops with the liver. To be proactive in reducing your toxic load, you have to help your liver through taking the relevant dietary supplements. The liver is the body's metabolic workhorse, being the main organ responsible for more than 500 metabolic processes. One of its top priorities is the processing of newly-absorbed food molecules, which come to the liver directly from the intestine. These must be further processed, then stored when necessary or repackaged for transport to the tissues. As newly-digested proteins, carbohydrates and fats reach the liver, together with vitamins and minerals, the liver further modifies them into biochemically active units suitable to participate in the life-sustaining metabolic pathways. Hormones regulate and coordinate the body's integrated activities; the recycling or excretion of myriad hormones is handled mainly by the liver, as is the recycling of cholesterol. Pharmaceutical drugs can deplete the body of essential nutrients, and liver failure can be the result (here acetaminophen/Tylenol® is the classic example). Illegal drugs can be just as tough on the liver—witness cocaine's toxicity. Chronic viral infections also increase free radical load, and for the millions of people carrying viruses in their livers it is lifesaving to support the liver functions as much as possible. Synthetic substances—substances made by man—by their very nature are difficult for the liver to clear. Nowadays there are more than 70,000 synthetic chemicals in existence, and thousands of them enter the body on a daily basis. As if this weren't bad enough, even the most organically grown foods can naturally carry potentially-toxic constituents. Thus the reader can understand why we have to think in terms of total toxic load, and why the optimal functioning of the liver's detoxication systems is indispensable to our good health. How we deal with the toxins around us is key to the prevention of cancer, since up to 90 percent of all cancers are linked to environmental carcinogens coming from cigarette smoke, water, food, and air. Detoxication capacity varies widely from person to person, and what one person can effectively detoxify may cause liver damage or cancer in another. Fortunately, the liver is tough and works hard to maintain itself or recover from injury. To be at its best, though, it must have nutritional support. The physical substratum on which the thousands of liver enzymes assemble is provided by cell membranes, and PC (phosphatidylcholine) is a key building block for this intricate molecular system. The liver relies heavily on antioxidants and antioxidant cofactors for its detoxication work, so supplementation with vitamins Bs, C, E, and glutathione precursors has top priority. The herbal milk thistle extract is a flavonoid-rich material proven to help conserve the liver's antioxidant supplies. The personal vitamin program I outlined in the previous issue should provide some liver support; for additional protection and detoxication support these supplements should be added on top of your personal program: •
B complex vitamins, 100 mg/day Liver support should also be complemented by intestinal support, including good choices of water-soluble fiber and especially repletion of probiotic bacteria. The importance of our “friendly bacteria” in gut health and detoxication cannot be overemphasized. Exercise helps improve circulation to the liver and intestines to speed detoxication, and sweating helps move fat-soluble toxins such as organochlorines and some heavy metals out with the sweat. More extensive acute detoxication programs are provided in The False Fat Diet from Stauth and Haas, and Murray and Pizzorno's Encyclopedia of Natural Medicine (1998, Prima Publishing) has a chapter on detoxication that professionals should like. One thing: make sure that any plan for fasting is discussed in advance with your physician, because in the toxified individual fasting can sometimes exacerbate toxic damage. Freedom From Toxins: Individual and Community
As an individual, on your own you can do a whole lot to cut down your exposures to the toxic influences coming from your lifestyle, your home, your workplace. But you also have to be aware of what's going on in your community. After all, you can work hard to be toxin-free in your tidy little home, but then what happens when it is invaded by toxic influences from somewhere else? The clothes you pick up at our local laundry may be carrying residues of highly toxic tetrachloroethylene. The water supplies from your community utility may be contaminated. Your friendly neighbor with his immaculate lawn may not know that those unpronounceable words on the label of his lawn and garden killer stand for chemicals that are highly toxic to all living things. Then again, no community is an island unto itself. Unscrupulous chemical companies pick on poor communities in which to dump their wastes. DDT was banned in the U.S. in the 1970s, but is still sprayed on crops in Mexico and elsewhere. It poisons their people first, then it comes on fruits and vegetables to poison us in our homes. We really need a strong international body to enforce zero tolerance of toxic emissions, because industry and government still don't understand or care about total toxic load. In my community, nearby oil refineries release toxic gases then report to local government that the release was “below the levels recognized as toxic.” To achieve true freedom from toxins, we will have to be aware and active on every level of life. Fact is, the whole Earth is one ecological unit and we're all on it together. The advocacy group Greenpeace has called for an end to the production of toxic chemicals around the entire planet. I support this call. For our own sakes and for our children's, let's work towards this goal. |
