The Trouble of Toxins

A toxin can simply be defined as something found in the body that is not supposed to be there.  The trouble is that most toxins we experience are things you cannot see, smell, or feel and you don’t know they are there until you come down with a chronic disease.  Over 3000 chemicals are added to our food supply and another 10,000 are used as solvents and preservatives.  Add this to the heavy metals and the 77,000 other chemicals produced in North America and you can see that toxicity is unavoidable and is a common denominator in chronic disease.  In fact, the British Medical Journal estimates that about 75% of all cancers are caused by environmental and lifestyle toxins and Americans have somewhere between 400 and 800 chemicals stored in their bodies.

What can you do about this?  The first objective should be to reduce the toxic load.  This means watching everything you eat and drink.  You should eliminate all processed and fast-food and eat only real food that walks on or grows from the earth.  Your food sources should be organic and free-range.  You should drink mostly purified water from a reverse osmosis source.  You need to watch your household products as well.  There are more and more companies that sell natural cleaning products.  You should try to use natural sources of toothpaste, cosmetics, antiperspirants, soaps and shampoos as well.  While you cannot necessarily control the quality of the air you breathe outside, you can get a filter for your inside air – most agree that this is the primary source of airborne toxins anyway. 

In the end, toxicity is a fact of life even if you take these measures.  For this reason, I also recommend that you do a detoxification at least once per year.  Numerous herbs and minerals are known to bind to toxins and help eliminate them from your body.  There are numerous programs out there that work.  But don’t forget one of the simplest ways to clean out your system – regular exercise is as important as anything.  Next week I’ll share some of the most common sources of the most dangerous toxins.