oisons in u oies an the otance o Lie an iney uot in the Teatent o utis an the Chonic Conitions


by: David J. Getoff, CCN, CTN, FAAIM


Studies have clearly and conclusively proven that the human body, beginning prior to birth and possibly at conception, begins to accumulate a plethora of toxic substances often referred to as its “Toxic ody urden.”


Some of the best research in this eld has been funded and published by the Environmental Working roup, a non-prot watchdog organiation which deserves a great deal more funding and coverage in the press. Among the poisons which accumulate in the body tissues we can include numerous pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, solvents, heavy metals, and pharmaceutical drug residues. For those wishing to read some of the research, I direct you to two web sites. The rst is the organiation ust mentioned at www.EW.org. The second is the ATSDR which is the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, a division of our own government’s Centers for Disease Control. A third excellent site is the Center for Food Safety (.org).


Why are our body tissues accumulating all these poisons; in what way does this have a possible or probable negative or causal effect on Autism and other chronic conditions; and what steps can we take to aid our liver and kidneys in the elimination/detoxication process These uestions and issues are the reasons for this article.


According to the dictionary, a toxin (as opposed to a poison) is substance produced by living cells or organisms. In common usage however, it is something which is toxic or poisonous in some way to our bodies. I will therefore use the words toxin and poison interchangeably throughout this article, although, if this was being published in a peer reviewed scientic ournal, I would need to differentiate between these two words.


Some toxins/poisons can cause death rapidly, such as a bite from certain extremely poisonous snakes or other venomous reptiles, or breathing in the vapor from an extremely toxic poisonous gas in a high concentration.


THE ORIGINAL INTERNIST MARCH 201


Most toxic substances to which humans are generally exposed are far more insidious and take years or even decades worth of slow continual exposure and accumulation, before any noticeable symptoms begin to appear.


A poison is always dose-dependant. itrous oxide (laughing gas) is very poisonous in high concentrations, but in low concentrations and when mixed with adeuate air or oxygen, has been used for decades as an anesthetic in the general dentistry. The rotten egg smell which is observed with even minute concentrations of hydrogen sulde gas becomes extremely deadly when this gas is in inhaled at higher concentrations and has been used in chemical warfare. Chlorine and uorine gasses can easily blister or kill a person fairly rapidly at high concentrations. When they exist dissolved in our water, as they are used in the municipal water supplies of many cites in the nited States, they will take decades before they show any increase in cancer rates for those who bathe in and drink these same poisons. Similarly, the amount of chlorine gas which is breathed due to our use of this toxic chemical in household cleansers and bleaches generally does not cause an acute reaction. I, however, will not use chlorine containing products (bleaches, steriliing cleansers, etc.) in my home or ofce. These are ust a few examples of how we unconsciously expose ourselves to poisons in our daily lives.


The second issue regards the length or time of the exposure. It is well documented that inhaling smoke from chemically treated tobacco used in commercial cigarettes may increase the risk of lung cancer. Will this risk increase if only one or two cigarettes have been smoked in an entire lifetime I would highly doubt it. It takes many years of regular smoking before obvious damage becomes noticeable. Even after a decade, it is only seen in a small percentage of individuals and most often, not in those with truly adeuate intakes of protective nutrients. This may be why the Japanese, with their high consumption of nutrient and antioxidant dense seaweeds, have a much lower rate of lung cancer than the .S., even though they have a much HIHER per capita rate of cigarette smoking. Similar examples could be shown for pesticide and asbestos exposures versus the health (disease) conditions that long term exposures have been shown to cause.


In addition to cumulative exposure, an even more im- portant issue is interactive exposure of multiple toxins. In many cases, one poison may be only mildly toxic at a specic concentration, but when it exists in the body in combination with a second or third (or doens) of other mildly toxic poisons, the effects become multiplied hundreds or even many thousands of times. One excellent example of this was an experiment done with rats. The LD-1 of lead (the dose which would kill one rat out of one hundred) was mixed with the LD-1 of mercury, and these two combined to give a tiny lead and mercury dose which instead of killing ust two rats out of 100, it killed the entire 100 This is why the few safety studies which have been carried out on cleaning products, pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and other chemicals are basically worthless.


1


They always test only single chemicals and (Continued on page 17)


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