About seventy-seven thousand chemicals are produced in North America.ON APRIL 20, 2010, AN OIL RIG CALLED DEEPWATER HORIZON exploded in the Gulf of Mexico’s waters and took nearly three months to contain. Each day that the oil spill remained active, anywhere from 53,000 to 62,000 barrels of oil spilled into the ocean’s waters, resulting in a total of 4.9 million barrels (or 205.8 million gallons) of oil spilled by the time the well was capped.1 Pictures of oil-drenched fish, birds, and pelicans circulated the Internet during those three unpredictable months, testifying to the sickening pollutants at work in the gulf waters. By late June, more than four hundred oil-exposure complaints and one hundred oil-spill-related illnesses had been reported to poison-control centers.2
Less than one year later, on March 11, 2011, a 9.0-magnitude earthquake and its resulting tsunami in Japan led to an explosion in the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, causing a fuel meltdown in three of its four reactors and leading to a radiation leak into the ocean and surrounding land. More than 170,000 residents within a twelve-mile radius were evacuated from their homes, and at least 200 people were exposed to radiation within the first few days of the explosion.3 Later, we learned that two workers at the nuclear plant were exposed to two times the government limit of radiation—their exposure equaling more than the radiation effect of having one thoudand abdominal X-rays.4 As of the printing of this book, the evacuation zone areas around the Daiichi plant have been declared uninhabitable and are likely to remain so for years, possibly decades.5
Take a mental trip back in time with me and consider this: in less than ten years’ time we’ve witnessed disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, tsunamis in Thailand and Japan, flooding in Tennessee and Alabama, earthquakes in Haiti and Japan, plus a major oil spill and nuclear plant explosion. What is the health impact on humans when such disasters strike? Ought we be worried about their short- and long-term effects? What do we need to know to help our bodies thrive despite these occurrences? These are the kind of new questions we face in a time when natural and man-made disasters are prevalent on our planet.
And yet, there’s even more to be considered. Beyond the catastrophic natural and man-made disasters that have crashed into our lives this last decade, the ongoing sad reality is that we live in a toxic world. Plain and simple, our toxic planet is taking a heavy toll upon our bodies every day, whether we know it or not.
Think about these facts. Due to our technological advances since the Industrial Revolution, we have continued to pour dangerous chemicals and pollutants into our streams, soil, and air. At this moment you probably have some amount of lead in your body, usually stored in your bones—all of us do.6 Most of us have small amounts of DDT (or its metabolite DDE, which is what it changes into during metabolism) in our fatty tissues.
Existing environmental lead levels are at least five hundred times greater than prehistoric levels.7 Lead, one of the most commonly used metals (other than iron), is used for manufacturing batteries, chemicals, and other metal products. Lead has actually contaminated our entire planet. Lead has even been found in some of the most remote areas on the planet such as the Arctic Ice Cap and in the New Guinea aborigines that live far away from any sources of lead exposure. The contamination is most likely due to airborne pollution. It has actually been established that we have between five hundred to seven hundred times more lead in our bones than our ancestors did.8
Unfortunately, much of our water, food, and air is polluted by chemicals that are nonbiodegradable, or that take many years to break down. Not only is it difficult for the earth to break down these chemicals, but also it is difficult for your body to detoxify or eliminate them efficiently. Sometimes we lack the detoxifying enzymes required to detoxify them. Thus, these chemicals become stored in our bodies, especially in fatty tissues, and are even stored in the brain, which is made of about 60 percent lipids, which are fatlike substances.
If our earth is sick and toxic, then there is a very good chance that most of us will be sick and toxic. Unfortunately, we are usually unable to smell, taste, see or sense most of the toxic chemicals to which we are exposed on a daily basis. As a result, it becomes increasingly difficult to avoid exposure.
Every day we are exposed to thousands of toxins, and they are slowly accumulating in our bodies. If we do not get toxic relief, these poisons may eventually kill us through sickness and disease.
But we are not hopeless. We do not need to sit passively by while our immune systems break down under the heavy burden. Toxic relief is available. You can cleanse your body from years of accumulated toxins and their effects by learning to support your body’s own elaborate system of detoxification.
Let’s take a closer look at the toxins with which our bodies must deal in an ongoing way.
The sad fact is, we don’t actually yet know how much damage a major oil spill can wreak on the human body. Although we have witnessed more than thirty major oil spills in the last fifty years, very little research has been conducted on the effect these spills have on the human body.9 What’s more, the research that was conducted on a fraction of those thirty spills often used small samples without group comparisons and never examined any long-term consequences.10
Those close to the spills, such as cleanup workers, often report symptoms such as stinging eyes, rashes, nausea, dizziness, headaches, coughs, and other respiratory concerns after working in spill regions.11 But these are all conditions that researchers feel confident can be reversed. As further confirmation that spill effects on humans are likely reversible, one study conducted in the aftermath of the shipwreck of an oil tanker called Prestige off the coast of Galicia in 2002 evidenced a marked increase of DNA damage in individuals who had been exposed to the spill, but the damage was shown to have been reversed just months after the initial tests were run.12 For the moment, then, researchers seem optimistic that damage to exposed humans in the wake of an oil spill is reversible and nonpermanent.
Still, the concern about human health as a result of an oil spill is far-ranging. Those who work to clean up the damage wonder how breathing in the oil fumes and handling the tarballs will affect the quality of their ongoing health. Parents wonder how such fumes and chemicals will affect the health of their small children. And everyone seems to wonder when the time will be safe to consume seafood again!13
When an oil spill happens, a few toxic chemicals are immediately released that can affect the human body. The first of these are benzene and toluene. Benzene is associated with leukemia. Both of these are volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which evaporate quickly once the oil hits the surface of the water but can cause respiratory distress when coming in contact with humans.14 Other chemical substances, called polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), can linger in the water much longer and provide more cause for concern.15 When it comes to an oil spill’s effect on the food chain, we face potentially long-term risks. For instance, we know that vertebrate species in the water can generally filter out PAHs without much difficulty, but invertebrate species (such as oysters and shrimp) have a much harder time of it, and the PAH chemicals can accumulate in those organisms for years.16 In a place like Louisiana, where the Deepwater Horizon spill happened, knowledge of this fact can be especially helpful, since oysters and shrimp make up much of the fishing industry there.
Due to the magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon spill of 2010 and the resulting discovery that not much research had historically been conducted on any oil spill’s effect on human health, the Department of Health and Human Services earmarked $10 million for tracking oil-spillrelated illnesses in the aftermath of the 2010 spill, and more than 14,000 employees of the BP oil company responsible for the spill volunteered to be part of a tracking system.17 Scientists have been tracking the effects of the spill since it happened, but conclusions will take some time to be seen.
For further protocols on how to protect yourself from an oil spill’s effects, see Appendix A.
What Happens in Nuclear Explosions?
When the news broke that a 9.0-magnitude earthquake had hit Japan, you may have watched in near disbelief, as I did, the footage of the major tsunami wave crashing its way onto Japan’s shores. And as devastating and unbelievable as that catastrophe was, it seems no one was prepared for what happened next: the announcement of the explosions at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Suddenly the world collectively wondered, Will this be Chernobyl again?
With a nuclear meltdown like the one that happened in Japan in March 2011, two major concerns worry health officials most. The first is the release of radioactive iodine that causes thyroid cancer. The second is the release of cesium, which is absorbed throughout the body and stays in the organs, tissue, and atmosphere much longer than the radioactive iodine.18 The Chernobyl explosion in Ukraine in 1986 brought with it the second threat of the release of cesium, and it is actually through that explosion that we learned of cesium’s long-term damaging effects. Prior to the Chernobyl explosion, it was believed the cesium would be diluted or washed out with rain. But rather than being washed out, it accumulated in vegetation. Once animals fed on that vegetation, they too became contaminated, which affected our meat and milk as a result.19
Exposure to radioactive iodine, while harmful, is clearly the less threatening of the two possibilities. Not only does it have a half-life of eight days, meaning that every eight days it breaks down harmlessly and ultimately becomes a nonissue within a couple months, but it also can be countered with potassium iodide tablets taken within the first twentyfour hours.20 Conversely, cesium can remain in the soil for up to thirty years and can have immensely damaging effects on the body, such as burns, acute radiation sickness, and even death.21
In the incident of the Fukushima explosion, we learned about three months after the explosion that the release of radiation was double that which was originally predicted—770,000 terabecquerels, as opposed to 370,000 terabecquerels.22 We also learned that children over thirty-two miles from the explosion site suffered fatigue, diarrhea, and nosebleeds—the three most common of eight radiation signs—testifying to the greater susceptibility of children to the effects of radiation in the environment.23 Additionally, another radioactive chemical, strontium 90, was detected in soil at eleven locations just sixty-two kilometers from the nuclear power plant.24 Radioactive strontium 90 accumulates in bones and is believed to cause bone cancer and leukemia.25
Clearly, nuclear explosions pose a serious concern for health, but thankfully the incidences of such explosions are rare. Refer to Appendix A for further considerations and protocols to follow in the event of being exposed to radiation.
Our bodies are battling an onslaught of toxic chemicals of staggering proportions. In 2009, nearly one billion pounds of toxic chemicals were released into our air, according to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory of 2009.26 Think about these statistics:
About seventy-seven thousand chemicals are produced in North America.
Over three thousand chemicals have been added to our food supply.
More than ten thousand solvents, emulsifiers, and preservatives are used in food processing.
About one thousand new chemicals are introduced each year.27
What’s more, a study in the British Medical Journal in 2004 estimated 75 percent of cancers are caused by environmental and lifestyle factors. Another report by the Columbia University School of Public Health estimated diet and toxins in the environment cause 95 percent of cancer.28 Estimates also show Americans holding between four hundred and eight hundred chemicals in their bodies at any given time, most of them stored in fat cells.29
The air you breathe may be polluted by exhaust from our cars, buses, trains, and planes, and by industrial air pollution, air pollution from waste disposal, and more. Carbon monoxide makes up about half of our air pollutants. Most of this comes from fuel. This dangerous gas has been directly linked to heart disease.30
Heavy metals and other pollutants are emitted from smelting plants, oil refineries, and incinerators. Ozone is the main chemical offender in smog. It irritates the eyes as well as the respiratory tract. The smog and air pollution in Los Angeles County is so high at times in the summer months that residents are warned against exercising outside. The air can become so thick with chemicals that at times it can be difficult to see.
You can live for weeks without food and days without water, but only minutes without air. If the air you are inhaling contains smog, chemicals, carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and other pollutants, then it passes into your nose, into your lungs, and on through your bloodstream. With each breath, toxic chemicals are actually being pumped by the heart to every cell in your body via the bloodstream.
Industrial plants, incinerators, and hazardous waste sites release volatile organic chemicals. These may include benzene, formaldehyde, vinyl chloride, toluene, carbon tetrachloride, and other volatile organic chemicals. Many of these can cause cancer.
In addition, the American Lung Association recently reported that coal-fired plants are estimated to kill thirteen thousand people per year, with more than 386,000 tons of air pollutants emitted from more than four hundred plants in the United States per year. These coal-fired plants are also the culprits for emitting airborne mercury, which often enters the human food chain through fish and wildlife. High levels of mercury can lead to brain damage, birth defects, and damage to the nervous system, and the air pollutants from coal plants are believed to cause heart attacks, strokes, lung cancer, birth defects, and premature death.31 (See Appendix A.)
If you think that pollution is only found out of doors, you are wrong. Indoor pollution is often even more dangerous to your health than what you inhale outside. Let’s look.
Most people spend about 90 percent of their time inside homes, office buildings, restaurants, factories, and school buildings. In these places, indoor toxins, chemicals, and bacteria are trapped and recirculated throughout the heating and air conditioning systems of these structures and may create a much greater health risk.
Today’s buildings are much more airtight and well insulated than they were years ago, making them vaults for germs, bacteria, and chemical toxins. If you travel with your job or business, you could be even worse off. Sealed-tight airplanes can seal in germs, bacteria, and pollutants collected from people around the globe.
Think you’re safer because your office building is new? I hate to have to be the one to inform you, but you couldn’t be more wrong. Volatile organic compounds such as benzene, styrene, carbon tetrachloride, and other chemicals are as much as one hundred times greater in new buildings compared to the levels found outdoors.
New buildings are the worst. Building materials emit gasses into the air through a process known as “out-gassing.” New carpets release formaldehyde. Paints release solvents such as toluene and formaldehyde, and furniture made from pressed wood releases formaldehyde into the air as well. Additionally, out-gassing may also occur from fabrics, couches, curtains, carpet padding, glues, and more.
The many chemicals released through out-gassing from carpets, paints, and glues can become so strong that those who work in these buildings can get really ill. When a building’s indoor pollution level rises this high, you are more likely to become ill with sick building syndrome. Sick building syndrome is defined as “the occurrence of excessive workor school-related illness among workers or students in buildings of recent construction.” With time, however, these toxic levels gradually decrease.
High amounts of volatile organic compounds can also be found in offices. These compounds are emitted from copying machines, laser printers, computers, and other office equipment.
Have you been experiencing headaches that get more severe at work? Are your eyes itchy, red, and watery? What about a sore throat, dizziness, nausea, and problems concentrating? These are just a few of the many symptoms associated with sick building syndrome.
Other symptoms of sick building syndrome include nasal congestion, shortness of breath, problems with memory and concentration, fatigue, and itching. In addition, carpet glues as well as particleboard, which is also made from glues and chemicals that contain formaldehyde, commonly cause both fatigue and headaches.
Are You Breathing in Bacteria, Mold, and Yeast?
New materials are not the only cause of sick building syndrome. Airborne mold, bacteria, and the poisons given off by yeast can also cause sick building syndrome. Many people remember the mysterious deaths in 1976 of 182 Legionnaires who were staying at a Philadelphia hotel while attending a conference. It was later determined that this group of people contracted pneumonia from legionella bacteria that had contaminated the hotel’s air conditioning system. Before this event, occurrences of sick building syndrome were virtually unheard of.
Nevertheless, many, if not most, air conditioning units and heating systems contain some amount of mold. Significant amounts are frequently found in them, and the spores from that mold can travel throughout a building.
Mold grows wherever dampness is found, which makes air conditioning units incubators for it. Damp homes not only breed mold, but they also breed dust mites. Dust mites are the most common airborne allergy.
Dampness is not the only danger to a healthful indoor environment. Dangerous indoor pollution is also created with the ever-increasing use of pesticides, which can be found in some really surprising products.
Believe it or not, pesticides can be found in disposable diapers, shampoos, air fresheners, mattresses, and carpets. You are being exposed to pesticides every day. You may even have your home sprayed regularly with pesticides to control bugs.
The most common pesticides in use today are of a variety called organophosphates. This group includes diazinon, which was pulled off the market as of December 31, 2004 by the EPA. The University of California recently found that prenatal exposure to organophosphate pesticides is related to lower intelligence scores in children by age seven.32 Researchers have also suggested a link between exposure to organophosphate pesticides and ADHD in children.33
Pesticides are easily absorbed into your body through contact with your skin, by breathing them into your lungs, and by ingesting them through your mouth. Even though your body is designed to eliminate such dangerous poisons, the sheer amount of them that you encounter daily is far more than your body was ever designed to deal with. Therefore, pesticides, their metabolites, and other dangerous toxins eventually build up in your body over time. And the greater the buildup, the more difficult it becomes for your body to eliminate them. When such a residue of pesticides builds up in your body, you can begin to experience the following symptoms or diseases:
Memory loss
Depression
Anxiety
Psychosis and other forms of mental illness
Parkinson’s and other forms of neurological degeneration
Possibly hormone-sensitive cancers such as breast and prostate cancer
Are You Being Forced to Inhale Secondhand Smoke?
Another powerful offender is cigarette smoke. The smoke from a burning cigarette as it sits lit in an ashtray contains a higher toxic concentration of gasses than what the smoker actually inhales.34
Secondhand cigarette smoke contains cadmium, cyanide, lead, arsenic, tars, radioactive material, dioxin (which is a toxic pesticide), carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, nitrogen oxides, nicotine, sulfur oxides, and about seven thousand other chemicals.
Nicotine in the cigarette smoke is the main cause for the cigarette addiction. However, nicotine also constricts blood vessels and stimulates the cardiovascular system and the nervous system. The cancer-causing substances and toxins found in the tars in smoke are the main dangers of cigarette smoke.
As careful as most of us—especially women—are to protect our skin with a measure of SPF protection every day, a recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that most sunscreens, moisturizers, lip balms, lipsticks, fragrances, and other cosmetics often contain a damaging chemical called oxybenzone.35 This chemical has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, and cell damage, as well as low birth weight in baby girls whose mothers are exposed to the chemical during pregnancy.
Additionally, oxybenzone is a penetration enhancer, which means it eases the penetration of the skin for other chemicals with which it is combined.
Take care with the sunscreen and cosmetic products you choose to use on your skin—choose natural products that don’t contain oxybenzone!
Pesticides continue to be sprayed onto our land, subsequently making their way into our food supply. As we eat pesticide-tainted fruits and vegetables, and especially fatty meats, pesticides become stored in our fatty tissues, which not only include our adipose tissue but also the brain, the breasts, and the prostate gland.
Every year approximately 877 million pounds of pesticides and herbicides are sprayed on the crops in America that make up our food supply—that’s close to 1 billion pounds of toxic chemicals intentionally introduced into our environment and food supply each year!36 In addition, the herbicide glyphosate has more than doubled in use between 2001 and 2007, from 85–90 million pounds per year to 180–185 million pounds. Chlorine and hypochlorites make up 51 percent of the pesticides used in the United States.37
The farmers who work closely with these chemicals are at a greatly increased risk of developing certain cancers, especially brain cancer, prostate cancer, leukemia, and lymphoma. Studies on farmers reveal that as their exposure to pesticides and herbicides is increased, so is their risk for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.38
Furthermore, a recent report by the Pesticide Action Network North America and Commonwealth found that Americans are exposed to up to seventy residues of persistent organic pollutants (POPs) per day in their diets. “Exposure to POPs has been linked to serious disease and developmental disorders, including breast and other types of cancer, immune system suppression, nervous system disorders, reproductive damage, and disruption of hormonal systems.”39
Although POPs have been banned in the United States, other countries still manufacture and use the chemicals, and their residues are leaked into our air and water supplies. This has led to the finding that virtually all foods are contaminated with the POPs that have been banned from the United States—it isn’t uncommon for our daily diet to contain food items touched by three to seven POPs.40
Some of these dangerous substances are known to last for hundreds and even thousands of years before breaking down.
DDT is an example of a chemical that doesn’t break down. It was used in this country on a large scale from the early 1940s to 1972. It is an extremely dangerous poison that was banned in 1972 due to its devastating effect on wildlife, causing multiple abnormalities in the egg shells of many birds and deformities of reproductive organs of many other animals. Bald eagles, condors, alligators, and other animals developed deformities, and their populations decreased dramatically. Nevertheless, DDT residues are still present in the bodies of practically all Americans. DDT belongs to the class. of pesticides known as organochlorines. Many of these have been known to cause cancer and birth defects. They are also stored in the body’s fatty tissues.
In 1962, environmentalist Rachel Carson wrote a book called Silent Spring, which demonstrated the toxic and deadly effect that DDT has on our food chain.41
Carson warned us that if pesticides could have such harmful and dramatic effects on animals and birds, then their effects upon humans would be no different. Nearly forty years ago, this insightful woman actually predicted the global consequences of environmental pollution in her eye-opening book.
Despite the ban of DDT, it still found its way into our soil and our vegetables, especially root vegetables such as potatoes and carrots.
There are over six hundred pesticides used in the United States. However, the Environmental Protection Agency has named sixty-four pesticides as potentially cancer-causing compounds. For more information on pesticides in our food please refer to my book Living in Divine Health.
As I stated before, all of us here in the United States have residues of DDT, or its close relative DDE, in our fatty tissues.42 Tragically, even though many of these extremely dangerous toxic pesticides were banned for use in the United States, manufacturers are still permitted to export them abroad. We send these poisons to Mexico and other third-world countries for their crops, and then import foods tainted with them back into this country.
Dairy products are one of the main sources of DDT in our diets, and freshwater fish is usually tainted with DDT and PCB.
Pesticides have been linked to a lower sperm count in men and to higher amounts of xenoestrogen in women. Xenoestrogens are chemical counterfeits that fool the body into accepting them as genuine estrogen. These estrogens are more potent than the estrogen made by the ovaries. When this occurs, a woman’s hormones can get way out of balance, leading to symptoms of PMS, fibrocystic breast diseases, and potentially endometriosis. It can even have a stimulating effect on breast cancer and endometrial cancer.43
No doubt you’ve tried to wash off a shiny red apple or a dark green cucumber, only to find that it was covered with a layer of waxy film that’s nearly impossible to wash off.
Growers do this on purpose. Thick waxes are applied to nearly everything we buy in the produce section of our grocery stores. The wax keeps the produce from dehydrating by sealing in water and also gives vegetables more eye appeal. Fruits and vegetables that have been waxed look bright, shiny, and healthy.
Many of these waxes, however, contain powerful pesticides or fungicides that have been added to keep the food from spoiling. These waxes are made to stay on, not wash off. Nevertheless, if you want to stay healthy, remove them. Also be aware that some fruits and vegetables are more prone to be awash in pesticides than others. The greatest culprits are known as the “dirty dozen,” indicated in the chart below44 —when consuming these fruits and vegetables, be sure to buy organic. And better yet, choose many fruits and vegetables from the “clean fifteen” list on a regular basis. Research has shown that those who eat from the “clean fifteen” list ingest fewer than two pesticides daily, compared with ten pesticides a day when eating from the “dirty dozen” list.
YOUR GUIDE TO PESTICIDES IN FRUITS AND VEGETABLE
| Dirty Dozen Most Pesticides |
Clean Fifteen Least Pesticides |
| Apples | Onions |
| Celery | Sweet corn |
| Strawberries | Pineapple |
| Peaches | Avocado |
| Spinach | Asparagus |
| Nectarines | Sweet peas |
| Grapes (imported) | Mangoes |
| Bell peppers | Eggplant |
| Potatoes | Cantaloupe |
| Blueberries | Kiwi |
| Lettuce | Cabbage |
| Kale/collard greens | Watermelon |
| Sweet potatoes | |
| Grapefruit | |
| Mushrooms |
Not only can heavy concentrations of pesticides be found in the fruits and vegetables we eat, but they are also in animal feed. Therefore our meat supply ends up tainted with pesticides too.
Pesticide chemicals accumulate in the fatty tissues of the animals we eat. When we bite into a fatty piece of steak, a greasy hamburger, sausages, bacon, or even butter and cream, we are ingesting even more pesticide residues.
One of the greatest culprits found in animal feed is, believe it or not, arsenic—more commonly known as poison. In research conducted by the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, arsenic was detected in 55 percent of uncooked chicken purchased from local grocery stores. The most contaminated products had ten times a higher arsenic level than the least contaminated products. Tyson and Foster Farms were among the brands with the least detectable traces of arsenic.45
Are you overweight, even a little? Your body is designed to eliminate the toxins you eat. But when pesticides are not broken down and eliminated from your body, they usually become stored in your fatty tissues. Consider those love handles a hiding place for stored toxins and poisons. In other words, fat is usually toxic too.
Since your brain is composed of about 60 percent fat, some of these poisons will end up being stored in it as well as in the breasts, prostate gland, and any other fatty tissue in the body.
Many of those suffering with neurological diseases probably have higher levels of pesticides stored in their brains and other fatty tissues.
Have you ever gone on a diet, only to find that you feel more forgetful, foggy-minded, and fatigued? When you diet, those pesticides stored in your fatty tissues can be released and may be deposited in the fatty tissue of the brain. You see, often the liver is unable to break down and eliminate adequately the pesticides that have been liberated from your fatty tissues. This can send even more of these residues to the brain as they seek a place to be stored.
As I mentioned, certain pesticides can pass themselves off in the body as the female hormone estrogen. Therefore, such toxins are called xenoestrogens.
Since high levels of estrogen are linked to breast cancer, high levels of counterfeit estrogens, or xenoestrogens, can also promote cancer. Xenoestrogens mimic estrogen by stimulating estrogen receptors in the body. Therefore, when you ingest increasing levels of certain pesticides, the incidence of breast cancer rises.
For example, a study from Israel showed a decline in the incidence of breast cancer among Israeli women following the enactment of a law against using pesticides.46
Here in the United States, we manufacture more than 1.3 billion pounds of pesticides every year. That means each one of us is exposed to pesticides every day. Various types of pesticides can actually act even more powerfully as they are combined with others, dramatically increasing their toxicity.
Most chemicals that have been emitted into our air, sprayed on our farmlands, or dumped in our landfills will eventually end up in our water. Rains wash these chemicals out of the air and off our land into our lakes and rivers.
Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers, which contain nitrates, eventually end up in underground aquifers. The toxins gathered in chemical waste sites and dump sites, including landfills, can also eventually seep into our water supplies and contaminate them. Even underground storage tanks that hold gasoline can leak into the ground water. Rainstorms can actually wash these toxic chemicals into streams and larger bodies of water. Sooner or later, they find their way into our drinking water supply.
The Kellogg Report stated that the growth of industry in this century has been responsible for the introduction of new, complex, and sometimes lethal pollutants into our nation’s water systems. Municipal treatment plants neither detect nor detoxify the water supply of the majority of chemical pollutants, according to the report.47
Undrinkable water is now a major problem in the United States due to chemical pollution. About 50 percent of our underground water, or ground water, is contaminated.
Ground water supplies drinking water for approximately half of the people in America. Often municipalities treat ground water with aluminum to remove organic material, and traces of aluminum remain in the drinking water.
Chlorine is added to the water to kill microorganisms. Chlorine can also combine with organic materials to form trihalomethanes, which are cancer-promoting substances. We increase our risk of developing bladder and rectal cancer by drinking chlorinated water. In fact, the risk increases as our intake of chlorinated water increases.
Trihalomethanes such as chloroform evaporate out of the water during a hot shower and are then inhaled. In fact, a ten-minute hot shower can increase the chloroform absorbed into our bodies more than drinking one-half gallon of chlorinated tap water.
Although chlorine kills most bacteria, it does not kill viruses and parasites. Parasites include protozoa such as amoeba, giardia, and cryptosporidium. Parasites also include the helminths, which are worms, and arthropods, which are ticks, mites, and other bugs. Giardia is one of the major causes of diarrhea in day-care centers. Giardia contaminates many of the lakes and streams in America. You may be drinking them in your own water.
TOP 10 MOST COMMON TOXINS
IN THE AIR, WATER, OR FOOD SUPPLY48
| Toxin | Major Sources | Risks |
| PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) | Farm-raised salmon | Cancer, impaired fetal brain development |
| Pesticides | Fruits, vegetables, commercially raised meats, bug sprays | Cancer, Parkinsonís disease, miscarriage, nerve damage, birth defects, blocking absorption of food nutrients |
| Mold and Fungus | Contaminated buildings, peanuts, wheat, corn, alcoholic beverages | Cancer, heart disease, asthma, multiple sclerosis, diabetes |
| Toxin | Major Sources | Risks |
| Phthalates | Plastic wrap, plastic bottles, plastic food storage containers | Endocrine system damage |
| VOCs | Drinking water, carpet, paints, deodorants, cleaning fluids, varnishes, cosmetics, dry-cleaned clothing, moth repellants, air fresheners | Cancer, eye and respiratory tract irritation, headaches, dizziness, visual disorders, memory impairment |
| Dioxins | Animal fats | Cancer, reproductive and developmental disorders, chloracne, skin rashes, skin discoloration, excessive body hair, mild liver damage |
| Asbestos | Insulation on floors and ceilings, water pipes and heating ducts from the 1950sñ1970s | Cancer, scarring of lung tissue |
| Heavy metals | Drinking water, fish, vaccines, pesticides, preserved wood, antiperspirant, building materials, dental amalgams, chlorine plants | Cancer, neurological disorders, Alzheimerís disease, foggy head, fatigue, nausea, vomiting, decreased red and white blood cells, abnormal heart rhythm, damage to blood vessels |
| Chloroform | Air, drinking water, food | Cancer, reproductive damage, birth defects, dizziness, fatigue, headache, liver and kidney damage |
| Chlorine | Household cleaners, drinking water | Sore throat, coughing, eye and skin irritation, rapid breathing, wheezing, lung collapse |
Pesticides, solvents, industrial chemicals, industrial waste, petroleum products, and thousands of other chemicals are already exacting a terrible toll on our wildlife.
Here in Florida where I live, we saw this close up at Lake Apopka, a beautiful body of water I drive by often.
In the book Our Stolen Future, Theo Colborn recorded the effects of a pesticide spill that occurred in 1980 in Lake Apopka. Following the spill, the alligator population was studied by a biologist from the University of Florida, along with a biologist from the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the Florida Game and Freshwater Fish Commission. They found that the female alligators’ ovaries had abnormalities in both their eggs and egg follicles, similar to what happens in humans who are exposed to DES early in childhood.
The male alligators revealed structural abnormalities as well. Their testes and penises were smaller than normal. In addition, the males also had elevated levels of estrogen and significantly reduced levels of testosterone.49
The pesticide spill also affected turtles in Lake Apopka. Researchers found a striking absence of male turtles. They found many female turtles in the lake and many turtles that were neither male nor female, which resulted from a large-scale hormonal disruption due to the pesticide in the lake. The turtles that should have become males ended up being neither male nor female and therefore remained unable to reproduce.50
This study has scary implications for more than just wildlife, for if the hormonal disruption of reptiles can create such effects, what might happen to people over the long term? It’s certainly worth thinking about.
Nevertheless, if the poisoning of our planet by all these pesticides isn’t enough to create alarm, they are not the only environmental toxins your body must battle. Solvents found in cleaners may also contain dangerous poisons as well.
Solvents, which are chemicals used in cleaning products, are everywhere. Solvents dissolve other materials that otherwise would not be soluble in water.
Solvents can injure your kidneys and liver. They can also depress the elaborate central nervous system of your body.
Like pesticides, solvents are fat-soluble, which simply means that they are likely to be stored in your fatty tissues, including, of course, your brain.
Solvents have the ability to dissolve into the membranes of your cells, especially your fat cells, and accumulate there. Formaldehyde is commonly used as a solvent in many different ways. Manufacturers use it to make drapes, carpet, and particleboard—even cosmetics!
Phenol is another common solvent widely found in cleaning products. This dangerous chemical is actually used in making aspirin and sulfa drugs. Your skin easily absorbs phenol.
Toluene is another solvent that is similar to benzene. It is used for making a variety of different glues and typewriter correction fluids. If you have elevated levels of toluene in your body, you might experience arrhythmias of the heart as well as nerve damage.
Benzene is a solvent used in making dyes and insecticides. Long-term exposure to benzene can cause leukemia.
The final solvent we are going to look at is vinyl chloride, which is used in the manufacture of PVC pipes and plastic food wrappers. This chemical has been linked to several types of cancers and sarcomas.
Other common toxins include the industrial chemical PCB, which was banned in 1977. Many lakes and streams are contaminated with PCB. Increased amounts of PCB in the body are associated with an increased risk of cancer, including liver cancer and melanoma. A great percentage of people have PCB in their fatty tissues.
Heavy metals such as mercury, lead, cadmium, and arsenic are also commonly stored in our bodies due to our toxic environment.
Not only are we exposed to pesticides and solvents, but also our bodies must deal with about three thousand different chemical food additives.
For many reasons, exposure to mercury has become a chronic and dangerous reality. When exposed to the central nervous system, mercury can cause psychological, neurological, and immunological problems, not to mention having a long half-life in the body of fifteen to thirty years. Toxic exposure to mercury has been associated with Alzheimer’s disease, autoimmune disease, kidney dysfunction, infertility, food allergies, multiple sclerosis, and an impaired immune system.51
Dental amalgams are likely the worst culprit for our exposure to mercury, with one dental amalgam filling releasing up to 15 micrograms of mercury per day. For the average individual, who has up to eight amalgam fillings, this means an individual potentially absorbs up to 120 micrograms of mercury per day from this one source that passes readily through cell membranes and into the blood brain barrier.52 The mercury continually releases vapors throughout the life of the filling, and activities such as chewing, brushing, and the intake of hot fluids stimulate its release. I highly recommend that you consult with a dentist specially trained in the removal of amalgam fillings. (See Appendix D.)
A second high-risk source of mercury is in our food supply through the consumption of fish and shellfish. Although fish and shellfish contain high-quality protein and are a good source of omega-3 fatty acids, nearly all fish and shellfish contain traces of mercury, as mercury is released into the atmosphere in great measure through pollution and then poisons our water sources.53 My strongest suggestions would be to avoid eating shark, mackerel, swordfish, and tilefish, which have been shown to contain very high levels of mercury, and to instead choose wild Alaskan salmon. A high-quality fish oil supplement is also a wonderful alternative to fish consumption.
One additional powerful way to combat the toxicity of mercury in our bodies is through increasing the amount of the antioxidant glutathione, which we will explore in a later chapter.
Food additives are a long list of chemical substances that are added to your food for flavor, color, to make it last longer, and for a host of other reasons. The largest group of food additives is the flavorings. Most of these flavoring agents are synthetic versions made from chemicals. Another group of food additives includes coloring agents, and most of these are also synthetic chemicals.
This may surprise you, but chemical food additives are usually made from petroleum or coal tar products!
Other food additives include preservatives, phosphates, bleaching agents, emulsifiers, texturizers, humectants, and ripening agents, such as ethylene gas, which is sprayed on bananas to make them ripen faster.
Tips to Avoid Toxins54
1. Choose organic produce and free-range, organic meat. If you can only purchase one organic product, choose eggs or milk. If possible, always purchase free-range, organic chicken and beef.
2. Choose quality fish oil rather than fish. Fish is often contaminated with PCBs and mercury, so choose a high-quality fish oil instead.
3. Avoid processed foods. Remember, they’re processed with chemicals!
4. Only use natural cleaning products. Most health food stores have natural cleaning products available.
5. Switch to natural brands of toiletries. This includes shampoo, toothpaste, deodorants, and cosmetics. Again, they’re available at your local health food store.
6. Avoid insect repellants that contain DEET. Instead, choose a safe, effective, and natural alternative.
7. Gradually remove metal fillings in your teeth. These are a major source of mercury, which promotes toxic buildup in your body. Consult with a biological dentist. (See Appendix D.)
8. Avoid artificial air fresheners, dryer sheets, fabric softeners, or other synthetic fragrances. These can pollute the air you’re breathing.
9. Avoid artificial food additives. This includes artificial sweeteners and MSG.
10. Get safe amounts of natural sun exposure (10–20 minutes a day) to boost your vitamin D. This will also boost your immune system!
So you can see that even your immune system is being bombarded with toxic chemicals from every direction. You are being exposed to pesticides, food additives, solvents, and other chemicals through both your food and environment every day.
If that were not enough, your body must also contend with another entire array of toxins that it produces itself from within. Let’s go to the next chapter and take a look.