Exploring the Nature of Toxins and Their Adverse Effects On Our Health
Alternative physicians know that removing toxins from the body is an essential phase in restoring their patients to health and vitality. Each year, people are exposed to thousands of toxic chemicals and pollutants (from our air, food, water and soil). People today carry within their bodies a 'chemical cocktail' made up of industrial chemicals, pesticides, food additives, heavy metals, and the residue of conventional pharmaceuticals, alcohol, tobacco and caffeine.
Today people are exposed to chemicals in far greater concentrations than previous generations. For example, over 70 million North Americans live in areas that exceed smog standards; most municipal drinking water contains over 700 chemicals, including excessive levels of lead. Some 3,000 chemicals are added to the food supply, and as many as 10,000 chemicals - in the form of solvents, emulsifiers, and preservatives - are used in food processing and storage. These substances can remain in the body for many years.
Increasingly, toxicity is being identified as the predisposing factor in a long list of acute and chronic illnesses, including environmental illness and chronic fatigue, degenerative diseases and cancer. 'The current supply and the indoor and outdoor environment has lowered our threshold of resistance to disease and has altered our body's metabolism, causing enzyme dysfunction, nutritional deficiencies, and hormonal imbalances,' says Marshall Mandell, M.D., a pioneer of environmental medicine based in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Where do all the toxins come from? Toxins come from a polluted environment (air, water and food), lack of water, over consumption of food, a faulty and nutritionally inadequate diet, lack of exercise, accumulated stress, excess antibiotic use and poor elimination.
Bioaccumulation (a buildup in the body of foreign substances) seriously compromises physiological and psychological health. Since 1945, toxins have accumulated in the human system faster than they can be naturally eliminated, which means the body now needs assistance in its detoxification processes.
In addition, intestinal toxicity is intimately related to immune dysfunction. The small and large intestines are actually part of the immune system. In fact, 'the intestinal mucosa and some of its submucosal structures constitute the largest immunological system of the body', states Dr. Serafina Corsello, director of the Corsello Centers for Nutritional Complementary Medicine in New York City and Huntington, New York. The intestines' mucous layers trap debris and pathogens and represent the active front of immune function. 'The small and large intestines - at 25 feet long, they are the body's largest internal organ - together represent a key part of the body's immune system', says Dr. Corsello, 'accounting for perhaps 80% of our body's lymphatic - immune resources.The lymphatic system and the lymph capillaries help in getting oxygen and nutrients to the cells by removing dead cells, poisons, toxins, and excess water from the tissue spaces around the cells. All of our body tissue cells are bathed in this fluid or water derived from our bloodstream. Blood is about 92 percent water. In 24 hours 42 pints of the fluid passes from the bloodstream through the capillaries into the body tissues. This bathes the cells and provides oxygen and nutrients to the cells and then most of the fluid passes back into the bloodstream carrying carbon dioxide and waste products. About six pints of the remaining fluid goes into the lymphatic system (go to links for additional sources on the lymphatic system}. The digestive system is one of the first screening systems against the daily load of contact with bacteria, viruses, and parasites, that, if left unchecked, would constitute a grave threat to our entire immune system.' A healthy intestine is immunologically vigilant against undesirable pathogens and toxins.
The intestines consist of a complex and delicately balanced population of mixed microflora in which the friendly beneficial bacteria should outnumber the harmful ones. But this ecology is easily upset, says Dr. Corsello, leading to a condition of imbalance called dysbiosis. 'At the Center, we have observed an almost immediate relationship between stressful events and the exponential growth of dysbiotic organisms such as Candida albicans and other pathogens.' Another factor that upsets intestinal ecology is parasites. 'There is and overwhelming lack of awareness of this by Western physicians, especially North American - trained physicians, who refuse to acknowledge that parasitosis (parasite infestation) is a major factor in systemic illness.'
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control divide the causes of illness into these categories: heredity 18%, environment 19%, medical intervention 10%, and lifestyle 53%. This means that 82% of the causes of disease are within your control: improving your environment, avoiding medical interventions, and changing how you live.
A body with a healthy immune system, efficient organs of elimination and detoxification, and sound circulatory and nervous systems can handle a great deal of unwanted toxins in the body.
One of the body's natural means of staying healthy is its ability to detoxify itself. Many of the harmful substances we absorb, inhale or create are rendered harmless and expelled from the body. The organs of detoxification are the bowels, liver, kidney, lungs, and skin. Avoiding harmful substances as well as supporting the organs in their detoxifying action is vital in maintaining and restoring health. Sufficient fluid intake (filtered water) supports the eliminating function of the kidneys, the bowel, and the skin.
Healthy circulatory and lymphatic systems support detoxification. When these become sluggish, many waste products are left behind in the tissues.
If your body cannot remove toxins through normal excretion (its first line of defense), it will take additional measures to protect itself. This is when you begin to get colitis, sinusitis, gastritis, bronchitis, and appendicitis, to name just a few. Inflammation is your body's second line of healing defense - a way of healing itself by killing off foreign invaders such as germs and allergens, diluting injurious substances such as toxins, walling off a problem area to prevent it from spreading, or simply stabilizing a weakened or injured area. When your second line of defense is ineffective at expelling waste, toxins begin to accumulate in your body in polyps, cysts, and tumors, which can progress to cancer.
Autointoxication is the process of the body poisoning itself with toxins from internal sources, that cannot be processed by the body's elimination systems because they are overloaded, undernourished, genetically compromised, or diseased. If the organs of elimination are not functioning properly the waste matter will not be eliminated and the toxic residue will be reabsorbed into the bloodstream. This can cause chronic poor health symptoms and effects.
A poorly functioning digestive tract can turn even the best of foods into metabolic poisons in the form of acids, gases, alcohol and carcinogens. This kind of digestive trouble is becoming a major source of internal toxicity in many North Americans. The fastest and surest way to detoxify your system is through improving the quality of your digestion.
Toxins
Food, which is meant to nourish us, has become a significant source of internal pollution, some by design and some by carelessness. Some 2,800 additives are intentionally added to what we eat. According to the book, 'Well Body, Well Earth', the average North American consumes about 14 pounds of additives a year. As many as 10,000 more additives or toxins find their way into food indirectly as it is grown, processed, packaged and stored. These chemicals include hormones and antibiotics fed to animals, pesticides used on plants and crops (the average person ingests up to one gallon pesticides a year), residues from substances used to clean equipment, molecules from plastic wrap and lead from soldered cans. The FDA and Health Canada do not require that these dangerous chemicals be listed on labels.
Household and other Personal Toxins
There is a phenomenon known as 'outgassing' of toxic vapors from material found in the home and office. Examples include:
formaldehyde (particleboard furniture), volatile organic compounds - VOCs (stains and varnishes on wood items and paint on the walls), resins (adhesives that hold furniture), numerous compounds (plastic household, office items), cleaning products, household pesticides, synthetic carpets, drapes and upholstery.
Your greatest exposure to chlorine and other toxic compounds is not just from drinking water, but from taking baths and showers. Other personal concerns are root canals and mercury amalgam fillings.
Environmental Toxins
All body systems are connected and influence each other. It is virtually impossible to escape toxic substances. Air is circulated everywhere. Water evaporates into the atmosphere, circulates and precipitates onto the earth's surface, where it drains into streams, rivers, and oceans. Strong air and water currents carry pollution to the furthest reaches of the north and south poles.
Humans eat at the top of the food chain, which means eating other animals, birds and fish as opposed to eating plants and algae exclusively. Like humans, plants and animals store toxins in their fatty parts. Toxins move up the food chain from plants, bugs, and algae to small fish or mammal, which is then eaten by a large fish or mammal, which is consumed by a human. Toxins are also passed on to a newborn through mother's milk. At each level of the food chain, the toxins become more concentrated.
Steve Hollanday, an immunotoxicologist at Virginia-Maryland Regional College of Veterinary Medicine states, 'We're probably all, and I mean the whole doggoned planet, are immunosuppressed'. Immunosuppression is a condition in which the body does not have the strength and resilience to fight off bacteria, viruses, and parasites. As a result, cells that have been damaged by pollution and drugs will not be recognized and destroyed. If damaged cells are not destroyed they may multiply and divide, reproducing themselves as mutated cells, which may in turn develop into cancer.
Men should pay particular attention to the chemical effects that decrease male potency and cause malformation of male sex organs. Sperm counts are dropping for all species across the planet.
Often we hear news reports about a new contamination problem in the water supplies throughout North America. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are nearly 200,000 active surface impoundments (ground level collection sites) of which about 26,000 are unlined and may be leaking a wide variety of toxic chemicals into underground water supplies. John Skinner, a director of the EPA's office of Solid Waste Programs, reported in a congressional hearing that ninety-five percent of all operation surface impoundments are located within a quarter (1/4) mile of drinking water supplies. Once ground water has become contaminated, it is almost impossible to purify.
We must strive to reduce the negative effects these many different toxins have on our health. The best courses of action are the maintenance of a healthy diet, regular exercise to keep our immune systems strong, as well as engaging in a Detox program of regular weekly maintenance to promote the expulsion of the unwanted toxins that accumulate in our bodies.
PLEASE NOTE: Information provided on this website is not meant to replace the services of your physician, but only to offer educational information.
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