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Can You Lighten Your Toxic Load?

10 Ways to Lower Your Toxic Exposure
Whatever you think about detoxing, both critics and proponents agree on one thing: The best way to reduce the level of chemicals in your body is to limit the number that gain entrance. Crinnion compares the body to a boat with a hole in it: "You’re better off patching the hole in the side before you start bailing." In short, reducing your daily toxic exposure may be the best detox of all. Here’s how.

Don’t smoke. Tobacco smoke contains more than 4,000 compounds, including 40 known carcinogens, and it’s the leading source of indoor air pollution. If you can’t break the habit, at least smoke outside and spare your family and friends.

Cut down on mold. Inhaled mold spores can cause allergies, asthma, and other respiratory diseases, so ventilate bathrooms, launder area rugs regularly, and thoroughly clean water-damaged carpets. Also, keep moisture levels to a minimum; an indoor humidity level below 50 percent is best. (Hardware stores sell devices that measure humidity, as well as dehumidifiers that lower humidity levels.)

Eat organic fruits and vegetables. If your budget balks at the idea of relying exclusively on organic produce, consider substituting organics for the worst offenders. According to the Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington, D.C., the 12 most pesticide-laden fruits and vegetables are strawberries, bell peppers, spinach, cherries, peaches, cantaloupe (from Mexico), celery, apples, apricots, green beans, grapes (from Chile), and cucumbers. For a list of the 12 least contaminated produce picks, visit the group’s website at [www.ewg.org]

Use sink and shower filters to reduce your exposure to chlorine. Chlorination byproducts are linked to elevated risks of birth defects, miscarriage, and bladder cancer.

Leave dry cleaning to ventilate outside of its bag for a day or two in the garage, on a deck, or inside the trunk of your car. Within 48 hours after you hang dry-cleaned garments in your closet, your home will actually contain elevated levels of solvents. The EPA lists tetrachloroethylene, a common dry cleaning solvent, as a probable carcinogen.

Scrutinize your cosmetics, deodorant, and hair spray. Last year, 52 out of 72 name-brand beauty products were found to contain phthalates, a family of chemicals known to cause birth defects. Unfortunately for consumers, a loophole allows companies to leave phthalates off of ingredient lists. For a list of phthalate-free cosmetics, visit [www.nottoopretty.org]

Use nontoxic bug repellents. Long-term effects of pesticide exposure may include damage to both the liver and the central nervous system as well as cancer.

Substitute all-natural household cleansers and detergents for chemical- laden, overly scented ones. Look for products at health food stores, or, for scrubbing, make your own mix of water, vinegar, and baking soda.

Limit your use of paint, varnish, and wax, all of which contain cancer-causing organic chemicals. When you must use them, be sure to ventilate the area as thoroughly as possible. Or choose non-toxic paints.

Don’t buy products presoaked in formaldehyde, such as particleboard, plywood, and permanent-press fabrics. Formaldehyde is a suspected carcinogen that can cause everything from nausea to headaches to asthma attacks.

Courtesy of Alternative Medicine
http://www.alternativemedicine.com

On the Edge—The Case for Chelation

By Burton Goldberg

Earlier this year, two groundbreaking studies released staggering results on the presence of toxic substances in our bodies. One, conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, looked at individual chemicals in a multitude of people; the other, led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City along with the Environmental Working Group and Commonweal, examined individual people for a multitude of chemicals. The CDC study looked for 116 different contaminants in the blood and urine of 2,500 people, and found every single one. The Mount Sinai study identified an average of 91 metals, industrial compounds, and other chemicals in the blood and urine of all nine volunteers. Scientists refer to this as a person’s "body burden."

It’s not clear how many of these contaminants affect our health, but alternative medicine has long offered a way to remove some of those known to be harmful from our bodies. It’s a process known as chelation; the word comes from chele, the Greek word meaning claw, for the ability of a synthetic amino acid called EDTA to wrap itself like a claw around a heavy metal molecule and carry it out of the body. In the customary method of chelation, patients are injected with a solution of EDTA, along with certain vitamins and minerals. But a gentler version has been developed, too, one that allows people to take supplements that perform the same function, though more slowly.

First used in the 1950s to treat lead poisoning in sailors who painted ships with lead-based paint, EDTA has been approved by the FDA only for lead overdose. But early researchers noticed that patients treated for lead poisoning who also had atherosclerosis showed improved circulation after chelation. Since then, the primary use of EDTA chelation, which accounted for 800,000 patient visits in the United States in 1997, has been for heart disease and circulatory problems. It has numerous other uses as well: I’ve seen it cure patients with high blood pressure, kidney disease, psoriasis, gangrene from diabetes, and even autoimmune diseases. Many patients have saved limbs from amputation with chelation therapy.

The procedure remains highly controversial, partly because no one knows exactly how chelation achieves its beneficial effects. But experts have signed on to the therapy. A chapter in the textbook Current Cardiovascular Drug Therapy, by Franz H. Messerli, recommends intravenous chelation. And various peer-reviewed articles support using it to treat heart disease because of the observed effects on patients. A meta-analysis of 19 studies on chelation published in the fall 1994 Journal of Advancement in Medicine, for instance, showed improvement in 88 percent of cases. Large studies showing clear evidence of benefits for heart disease have not been conducted, but that’s about to change. The National Institutes of Health has determined that enough people are using intravenous chelation for coronary artery disease that more definitive research is warranted; it recently launched a $30 million five-year study on the therapy’s efficacy and safety.

Meanwhile, recent studies continue to support the association of heavy metals—particularly lead—with serious disease. "The average level of lead in the bones today is 1,000 times what it was four or five hundred years ago," says Arizona-based physician, homeopath, and osteopath Garry Gordon, one of the founders of the chelation therapy movement. He notes findings from the New England Journal of Medicine in April that concluded there may be no safe level of this highly toxic heavy metal. It’s now well established that lead can cause permanent neurological and behavioral problems and affects every system in the body. "There’s significant IQ loss in children exposed to levels well below the CDC limit of 10 micrograms per deciliter," Gordon says.

To treat patients, he uses an oral form of chelation that contains EDTA as well as garlic powder, red yeast, red algae, vitamin B-6, niacin, and apple acid. The pills sop up metals from the gut so they get excreted rather than reabsorbed into the bloodstream. He maintains that children treated for lead with his approach may be cured of hyperactivity and aggression, and don’t need Ritalin. He says he knows the process works because he finds high levels of minerals in patients�?urine and feces after treatment.

In addition to booting out lead, intravenous and oral chelation can remove iron, mercury, cadmium, and other metals. "Everyone could benefit from the continuous lifetime ingestion of EDTA and other natural chelators, including garlic, vitamin C, and malic acid (apple acid)," says Gordon. "It would help offset the increasing burden of toxic metals coming from our degraded environment."

I personally have had 150 intravenous chelation treatments and take Gordon’s supplements, and I believe chelation’s anti-aging effects are the reason people often take me for looking years younger than my chronological age.

Courtesy of Alternative Medicine http://www.alternativemedicine.com

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