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Environmental Conditions

In 2006, the World Health Organization issued an important report which declared that almost a quarter of all diseases are caused by environmental exposures.1 What’s more, they recognize that of 102 major diseases, 85 are partly caused by environmental factors. They go on to say that much of this environmental risk can be prevented.

Toxins are everywhere. They are found in food, water, air, clothing, plastics, furniture, housing, automobiles, cleaning products, health and beauty products, office supplies, buildings, medications—toxic chemicals are even found in the umbilical cord blood of babies still in the womb.2 No one is safe.

The chemical industry wants the public to believe that toxins are safe in small amounts. Chemical safety tests are designed around this premise. One toxin is tested in animals (usually mice or rats) at what is assumed to be the equivalent of a very high amount in an adult human. If no serious adverse effects occur at this amount, the toxin is assumed to be safe in adults. A certain fraction of this amount is assumed to be safe in children, based simply on the fact that children are a certain fraction smaller than adults.

There are many faults with these so-called safety tests. One major fault lies in the evaluation of safe levels of toxins in children. These tests do not take into account the developing systems of children. A child that is half the size of an adult does not have half the detoxification abilities of an adult. Children are extremely vulnerable to their environments, and their developing systems are much more susceptible to the harmful effects of toxins.

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Another problem with current chemical safety testing is that only one toxin is tested at a time. It is rare, if not impossible, to come into contact with just one chemical at a time. Everyday thousands of chemicals are encountered. Individually, the levels of many of these toxins are found to be safe. But what happens when these toxins mix, as they do in the air, water, food, products and even inside the body? What new super chemicals are created? This is a major concern, and one that is not addressed with standard chemical safety tests.

Air pollution itself, both indoor and outdoor, causes an estimated 4.6 million deaths per year.3 Air pollution comes from both natural and man-made sources. Natural forms of air pollution include smoke from fire, dust, volcano ash, natural gas and toxins given off during decomposition.

In my book, “The Detox Strategy,” I go into detail about the many chemicals that we encounter on a daily basis, how they negatively a! ect our health, and what we can do about them. I outline a 14-day RENEW plan for total-body rejuvenation:

Reduce exposure to toxins in your environment

Eliminate toxins in your body

Nourish your cells and systems

Energize your body, mind and spirit

Wellness (putting it all together)

Industry currently uses between 75,000 and 100,000 chemicals, introducing about 1,000 more each year. The health effects of less than 10 percent of these have been tested.

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Man-made air pollution comes from transportation, factories, power plants, waste disposal, agricultural aerial spraying, electromagnetic emissions, and the off-gassing from a wide range of indoor and outdoor chemicals. It is virtually impossible to avoid air pollution, but it is possible to minimize it.

Water is polluted with both chemical and microbial toxins. The chemicals come from agriculture, and from air pollution that is carried with rain into groundwater. It also comes from storm water runoff, which carries automobile pollution from parking lots, streets and industrial sites. Water pollution is also caused by human waste. All of these toxins run into streams, rivers, lakes and ground water only to be pumped back out of the ground and treated with yet more chemicals to “purify” it so that humans can have safe water to drink.

Another major water polluter? Prescription and over-the-counter drugs, which are flushed down the toilet and also excreted in urine, make their way into the water supply, so much so that it is thought that this might have something to do with the antibiotic resistance that threatens modern medicine.

Heavy metals are another important source of toxic burden. These include mercury, lead, aluminum, cadmium and arsenic. Heavy metals accumulate in many different bodily tissues, and can be quite difficult for the body to eliminate. Heavy metals have been linked to a wide array of health problems, most notably neurological disturbances. They are encountered in the air, beverages, cooking utensils, dental amalgams, food additives, fish,

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glass, building materials, decorative objects, tap water and vaccines.Toxins affect every system of the body, but, most importantly, they affect the digestive system, critical for total-body health. The body eliminates toxins in a variety of ways. There are seven channels of elimination in the body:

• Liver• Lungs• Lymphatic system• Kidneys• Skin• Blood• Bowel

Though the liver is considered the main detoxifier of the body, the other channels of elimination are equally important. Each plays a vital role in the removal of toxins. Supporting each of these elimination channels is essential in optimizing the body’s ability to detoxify.

The bowel is another main component of the seven channels of elimination. A healthy digestive system is essential to ensure that toxins that enter the system are appropriately and efficiently eliminated. Through proper digestion, regular elimination, a high-fiber diet, balanced intestinal bacteria and optimal omega-3 / omega-6 levels this state of digestive heath can be achieved.

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Below are some excerpts from the recently released Presidential Cancer Panel report, from April 2010, which show that the number of toxins and their direct relation to causing cancer has been greatly underestimated.

Excerpted from the report: “In 2009, alone, approximately 1.5 million American men, women, and children were diagnosed with cancer, and 562,000 died from the disease. With the growing body of evidence linking environmental exposures to cancer, the public is becoming increasingly aware of the unacceptable burden of cancer resulting from environmental and occupational exposures that could have been prevented through appropriate national action.

“The Panel was particularly concerned to find that the true burden of environmentally induced cancer has been grossly underestimated. With nearly 80,000 chemicals on the market in the United States, many of which are used by millions of Americans in their daily lives and are understudied and largely unregulated, exposure to potential environmental carcinogens is widespread. One such ubiquitous chemical, bisphenol A (BPA), is still found in many consumer products, and remains unregulated in the United States despite the growing link between BPA and several diseases including various cancers.”4 This entire 200 plus page position paper is available online5 for those who wish to see what needs to be done to avoid cancer from environmental toxins.

A recent article in the conservative medical journal Pediatrics pointed out that the endless exposure to pesticides in the food, air, and water may be a major cause of childhood ADHD. The study was based on the analysis of pesticide residues found in urine samples of children with ADHD. The article goes on to say, “Higher blood chlorpyrifos concentrations during pregnancy were found to be associated with poorer mental and motor development at 3 years. Greater postnatal exposure to organophosphates was

associated with difficulties in memory, attention, motor tasks, behavior, and reaction time. Prenatal exposure to organophosphates also was associated with poorer mental development at 2 years of age.”6

I think there are many steps that can be taken fairly easily to decrease exposure to environmental toxins. Here are some of them:

• Install water filters for the entire home and point-of-use filters for drinking and bathing water.

• Eat only organic whenever possible. I could see people choosing to live near good health food stores, or farmers markets, to ensure a stable supply of organic food. If you can’t get organic, wash it well with citrus-based detergents to keep the fat soluble toxins on the outside of the food to a minimum.

• Home and auto HEPA air filters are of value in any urban area or rural area known to have high level of air pollutants. To find the pollutants in your area go to www.epa.gov.

• Home colon hydrotherapy units will become more popular as a way to help keep the toxins moving through the intestines, and not being reabsorped via entero-hepatic recirculation, especially when constipated.

• Home infrared saunas will be useful to help sweat out many toxins both from heavy metals and pesticides.

• Aerobic exercise is an important way to eliminate toxins and release our own bone marrow stem cells. Be sure to exercise in clean air. Think about the toxic exposure of running in congested areas with automobile and industrial air pollution in cities. Further, there was a study in London that showed men were more likely to have heart attacks when exposed to polluted air while sitting in traffic.

• There will continue to be more doctors trained in environmental medicine who are well versed in chelation therapy and all of the above technologies to help monitor and minimize body toxic loads. See www.aaem.org, and www.acam.org for starters.

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• Home chelation is already a reality. DMSA and EDTA are available as oral supplements and rectal suppositories. About 500 to 1000 mg 2 to 3 times weeky is considered safe for most people. DMPS is another oral chelator available through most compounding pharmacies with a doctor’s prescription. DMSA and DMPS can have side effects, so take a small test dose of powder from a capsule; put it on your gums, and observe for a reaction for several hours before taking a therapeutic dose. If any side effects occur, stop and discuss with your doctor. You must be monitored closely by a chelation-trained doctor if using any IV chelators. There is some evidence from China that DMPS may be helpful for fat soluble toxins and pesticides as well.7

• There are many natural chelators, such as probiotics and a high-fiber diet. The building blocks for glutathione—N-acetyl cysteine (NAC), glycine, and glutamine—are all needed to make sure that glutathione is made in the body. Glutathione is the body’s main antioxidant detoxifier. Taking glutathione itself orally will bind toxins in the gut, and may help to detoxify the gut lining. Glutathione can only be produced in the body when there is adequate NAC, and to supplement with about 1000 mg/day may keep glutathione levels at adequate levels. The following four nutrients also upregulate glutathione: S-transferase (GSTP), which is a part of phase II detoxification in both the gut and liver; sulforaphane (found in broccoli); diallyl trisulfide-lipoic acid, found in garlic; and both oxidized alpha lipoic acid and reduced or r-lipoic acid.8

• Vitamin C also helps recharge glutathione at 100-300 mg/day or more depending on your condition. Oral vitamin C can be given to bowel tolerance, or the amount needed to create diarrhea as part of a cleansing program, and involves taking 1-2 grams of buffered, reduced vitamin C every hour until diarrhea is reached.9 In addition, Vitamin C can be given in large doses intravenously, 10-50,000 mg a couple of times per week, for many different conditions ranging from toxic overload to viral illnesses and cancer. However, I think people would be wise to find a detox doctor as a health coach to help get on track, and then periodically check toxin levels through blood, urine

tests and challenge tests with the above mentioned chelators.

• Most all micronutrient minerals promote optimum enzyme function, which is essential for detoxification. A recent article showed that selenium can actually help prevent the damage from phthalates, which are the xenoestrogen poisons found in plastics. In the study, it showed that phthalates decreased cell viability, altered antioxidant status, lowered glutathione function and caused DNA damage. Selenium supplementation was highly protective against cytotoxicity, partially prevented gene damage, and restored the antioxidant status.10

• Maintaining good mineral balance is critical. Eating about an 80 to 90 percent plant-based diet with good hydration will create more of an alkaline pH in the blood and urine. The urine pH can be easily monitored with pH paper. The urine will be more acid upon rising, but should come closer to neutral (pH 7) as the day goes on if you eat alkaline foods or take alkalinizing supplements. It has been shown that a more alkaline cellular environment equals better kidney elimination of toxins in the urine.

• The other huge area that needs to be changed is what we put on our bodies, in the form of soap, shampoo, perfume, makeup and sunscreens to name a few. Please visit www.ewg.org for more information on safe personal care products and ingredients.

• Also on the EWG website, you can find where your cell phone stands in terms of microwave toxicity. If you have a more toxic phone with regard to microwave radiation, change it. Regardless of the phone, do not hold it to your head. Use the speaker feature or a wire from phone to ear. Texting is a recommended alternative, because the phone is held away from the head.

So the bottom line is, think green, shop green, and be politically active for healthy green and organic products including everything in your house, car, yard, and workplace. I know it sounds like a huge task, but, little by little, it is manageable. Then, like the implementation of using seat belts, you don’t think about it anymore, you just do it.

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