Toxic Time Bombs: The Pollution In You

Fatigue, allergies, joint aches or mood swings got you down? Although concern over the effects of pollution on the environment has held our attention for decades, new research is detecting chemical toxins in most people.[1;2] While industry furiously challenges the evidence, scientists argue that low-level chemical exposures are linked with these subtle but all too common problems, not to mention diseases such as autism, ADHD, and cancer, to name a few. Long term, low level exposures to chemicals cause an accumulation in the body referred to as “body burden.”

As we gain increasing understanding about the adverse effects of body burden on health what remains less clear is when the time bomb may go off. The medical community is trained to look to yesterday’s exposure to explain today’s symptoms. Yet, body burden, accumulations of toxic chemicals, may have more subtle but important health effects that are not seen for years, or even lifetimes. Because of this time delay, it is not uncommon for a chemical to be banned for safety concerns after decades of use — a real world experiment.

Studies link ZIP codes near waste sites with low-birth-weight babies, thyroid disease in women and female reproductive disorders such as endometriosis — even in regions with higher per capita income, less smoking, better diet and more exercise.[3] The same researchers have data linking living near waste sites to elevated risks for stroke, ischemic heart disease, high blood pressure and cancer.

Our life support system: Better living through chemistry?
You don’t live near an industrial waste site? The truth is that even if you do, you probably get most of your toxins as pesticides and additives in your food or each time you apply various consumer cosmetic products. Your home, your cars and even the water you drink slowly leak chemicals into your life.

There has been a staggering proliferation of toxic chemicals produced without due regard for testing for long-term health effects of low level exposures. Thousands of new synthetic chemicals come into manufactured consumer products every year with little to no safety testing or public approval process. According to the World Health Organization, there are over 100,000 synthetic chemicals in use in consumer products today with 1,000 to 2,000 being added to the list each year.

We breathe these chemicals through our lungs, absorb them through our skin and ingest them in the food we eat and water we drink. We are soaking up chemicals that we'd be hard-pressed to spell or pronounce, if we could even find out what they were.

The body burden problem
Toxic chemicals know no boundaries. Chemicals contaminate not only wildlife and the environment, but people, breast milk and the unborn child yet most people are unaware that they carry chemical compounds in their bodies. Each of us has some load of industrial chemicals stored in or passing through our bodies. Human fat tissue sampled in the United States contained 700 contaminants that have not been chemically identified.[4]

According to Michael McCally, M.D. Ph.D., of Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, “Current ‘normal’ body burdens of dioxin and several other well-studied organochlorides are at or near the range at which toxic effects occur in laboratory animals.” A recent Mt Sinai study found 167 chemicals in the blood and urine of volunteers; chemicals used in consumer products and found in industrial pollution.[2] Of the 167 chemicals discovered, 94 are toxic to the brain or nervous system, 76 are carcinogenic (cancer-causing) and 79 are linked to birth defects. None of the participants worked with chemicals or lived near an industrial facility. In other words, these toxins represent the average body burden of the ordinary American citizen.

This is not a uniquely American problem. A 2005 British study funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature and the Co-Operative Bank found chemicals including banned pesticides like DDT, flame retardants and the PFOA chemical found in Teflon and used on nonstick pans and stain repellents.

If the body burden of adults isn’t enough cause for alarm, it is shocking to learn the effects on future generations. In 2005, the US Environmental Working Group [5] reported that umbilical cord blood samples taken from newborn babies were all heavily contaminated. A total of 287 contaminants were detected. Many of these were known or suspected carcinogens, neurotoxins or linked with birth defects if present in high concentrations. Meanwhile, an exhaustive review of the evidence points to prenatal exposures as a source of postnatal mental deficits.[6]

Scientists have never assessed the effects of exposures to the endless combinations of chemicals found in people. One reason why measuring such effects is difficult is that these chemicals are persistent (meaning they do not break down) and bioaccumulative (meaning they tend to build up in living things, particularly areas of the body rich in fat such as fatty tissue, brain and other organs).

Our understanding of when a chemical is toxic is changing and concerned individuals are calling for laws to regulate these compounds more carefully. However, because of their widespread use, tendency to persist and accumulation in body tissues — especially fat — even regulatory changes will not remove them from our world very quickly.

While we wait for industry, government and science to reach agreement, the vast increase of chemicals in our environment, foods, cosmetics and medicines puts an enormous burden on our bodies’ natural abilities to break down and remove toxins. With the exception of certain minerals, these chemicals do not belong in the body. While minerals are needed at low levels for normal function, some are now found measured at high or even toxic concentrations.

Most people wait too long to do something about it
The good news is that something can be done about the toxins in our bodies. Our livers, lungs, kidneys are constantly working overtime to remove the onslaught of chemicals. To function properly, these systems require broad nutritional support. When we don’t give our body what it needs to help it eliminate these chemicals or when we expose it to more than it can handle, it just can’t keep up. Symptoms such as fatigue, aches, allergies, asthma, mood swings, foggy thinking, and more set in. Before this happens — and even afterwards — the correct detoxification program can make all the difference.

The Maulfair Medical Center uses the Hubbard method of detoxification, the most thorough and scientifically validated regimen available. This precise regimen combines exercise, sauna bathing, and vitamin and mineral supplementation to increase the elimination of chemicals while rebuilding and repairing your body. Its safety and effectiveness in treating a wide range of exposures have been established for more than two decades.[7;8]

Originally developed by Hubbard in 1979, this program has been successfully used to aid individuals exposed during large-scale environmental contaminations, including those resulting from the 2001 World Trade Center disaster [9] and the 1986 Chernobyl incident [10]. Thousands of people have enjoyed relief from symptoms caused by more gradual build-up of toxins.

Sauna detoxification at the Maulfair Medical Center
Dr. Maulfair gets you started on your sauna program with a thorough medical examination and a series of key tests plus a complete physical exam. Tests may include a pre and post assessment of toxic body burden and some tests may be repeated periodically, to monitor your status while on the regimen.

Dr. Maulfair has over thirty years experience utilizing detoxification regimens to treat chronic disease. Join those clients of the Maulfair Medical Center’s program who have gained back their quality of life, enjoy restored energy, clear thinking, motivation and an overall sense of well being. For more information see www.drmaulfair.com

Dr. Conrad Maulfair
Maulfair Medical Center, Topton, PA

Reference List

1. Calafat AM, Wong LY, Kuklenyik Z, Reidy JA, Needham LL: Polyfluoroalkyl chemicals in the U.S. population: data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) 2003-2004 and comparisons with NHANES 1999-2000. Environ Health Perspect 2007; 115: 1596-602.
2. Environmental Working Group. Body Burden: The pollution in people [Web Page]. 2003; Accessed 2008 Feb 20. Available at: http://archive.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden1/ 
3. Baibergenova A, Kudyakov R, Zdeb M, Carpenter DO: Low birth weight and residential proximity to PCB-contaminated waste sites. Environ Health Perspect 2003; 111: 1352-7.
4. Onstot, J., Ayling, R., and Stanley, J. Characterization of HRCG/MS unidentified peaks from the analysis of human adipose tissue. Vol. 1: Technical Approach. 87. Washington DC, US Environmental Protection Agency Office of toxic Substances. 
5. Environmental Working Group. Body Burden: The pollution in newborns [Web Page]. 2005; Accessed 2008 Feb 20. Available at: http://archive.ewg.org/reports/bodyburden2/execsumm.php. 
6. Williams JH, Ross L: Consequences of prenatal toxin exposure for mental health in children and adolescents: a systematic review. Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry 2007; 16: 243-53.
7. Schnare DW, Denk G, Shields M, Brunton S: Evaluation of a detoxification regimen for fat stored xenobiotics. Med Hypotheses 1982; 9: 265-82.
8. Schnare, D. W., Ben, M., and Shields, M. G. Body Burden Reduction of PCBs, PBBs and Chlorinated Pesticides in Human Subjects. Ambio 1984; 13(5-6): 378-380.
9. Cecchini MA, Root DA, Rachunow JR, Gelb PM: Chemical Exposures at the World Trade Center: Use of the Hubbard Sauna Detoxification Regimen to Improve the Health Status of New York City Rescue Workers Exposed to Toxicants. Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients 2006; 273: 58-65.
10. Tsyb, A. F., Parshkov, E. M., Barnes, J., Yarzutkin, V. V. , Vorontsov, N. V., and Dedov, V. I. Rehabilitation of a Chernobyl Affected Population Using a Detoxification Method. Proceedings of the 1998 International Radiological Postemergency Response Issues Conference. 1998. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Where Do Toxins Go When They Die?

They don’t, you do.  Most toxins, if they are eliminated from the body, and most are not, find their way into the municipal water treatment plant.  Some metals and pharmaceutical drugs are not able to be removed with normal processes so they may be incinerated and/or they wind up on the family farm in form of sludge.  Plants uptake the toxins while they grow and you eat the crops, or the animals that ate the crops, and there you are again.  Processing toxins.
Your body is able to eliminate some toxins but if you have an impaired liver you will not do a good job of it.  If  you are eating poorly and in a toxic work place you may harbor an overload of toxins your body cannot eliminate;  they will be stored in your fat tissue.  Adipose tissue has a very poor blood supply so the body in its wisdom disposes of toxins by directing their storage in fat tissue.  The storage of toxins in fats includes storage in the myelin sheath surrounding your nerves.  This very well may explain the problems of m.s..  When stored in fat tissue they are relatively out of the way, not circulating the blood stream, until you miss a meal, exercise, or for any reason burn the fat the toxin is stored in.  When that happens the toxin recirculates in the blood stream, causing new problems and is again directed into fat storage by the body’s safety mechanisms.

Best understood when you talk about drugs like LSD.  People may experiment with LSD a few times in college and then leave those days behind.  Ten years later they are jogging down their street after work for exercise and they burn fat tissue for energy that is storing molecules of LSD from ten years ago.  They experience a “flashback”.  This is not a mental phenomenon but rather the physical occurence of the drug being re-released into the blood stream and causing a brand new hallucination.

This recirculation can happen with all toxins stored in adipose tissue.  You can develop symptoms that are only the result of this physical process and see a doctor for a symptom and guess what?!  The doctor gives you another toxin in the form of a prescription and there you go again.  Can you imagine what you might feel like if you start to experience an anesthesia coming out of fat storage?  Think of all the medical drugs, alcohol, street drugs, pain killers, deadening agents, solvents, cleaning fluids, food additives, preservatives, heavy metals like mercury, cadmium in the air we breathe …... it goes on and on.  Think of how those things made you feel, you will feel like that again, same woosyness, same headache, same lack of ambition, same lack of energy.

So it does matter … your diet, your nutrient supplements, your medical habits, your exercise, clean air and water, your view of farm fields… it all matters a great deal.  You are remaining healthy because you pay attention to these things or if not, you are slowly losing your edge against symptoms and problems of aging.  If you are in our area, come to our seminars or visit our center for a tour.  We do not ignore the contaminants that may be making you sick.

Your Health Depends on Answers - Not Prescriptions

What counts now, with the advent of Obamacare in action, is your ability to direct  your own health care with providers you trust.  Doctors have less leeway and must follow protocols  dictated by the big government recipes.  When there is a recommendation that varies from the routine of “this complaint = this drug”, you and your doctor will have to fight for the right to select another route.  Remember, the cheapest way to treat health problems is to prescribe a drug.  It is cheap.
The DSM V for emotional problems is expanded and deserves your attention.  You do not want to talk with doctors about social problems or emotional problems and life situations, do not.  They are the last group to go to for advice, they are trained in physical health.  They have no formal training in nutrition.  If you have a troubled child you need to research the actual results of the care in the hands of psychiatry or family medicine.  The field of psychiatry “treats” kids in trouble and when the treatments result in a crazed act of violence they rush in to “treat” the victims that are left to pick up the pieces.  They create their own patients.  When the violence is not enough in the world around them to generate the income they need, they decide a child whose parents and school have failed at teaching them how to read is a mental patient and needs treatment, a drug.  The fraud in medicine continues.  In the DSM IV code 315.00 Reading Disorder, 315.1 Mathematics Disorder, and, of course, 315.2 Disorder of Written Expression are money makers for family physicians who prescribe psyche drugs and the psyches.  School fails to educate students, parents fail to make sure their kids are succeeding and we have a cash cow for the psyches.

A child who has been unable to read, write and do math at a level expected for their age is now insured of failure because the drugs they take give them side-affects like inability to sleep, bed wetting, stunted growth and heart problems.  These are people whose internal organs and brain are still developing and they should be growing like weeds.  Tell me this is not big business making money off of our misfortune.

If you have few resources, if you are under the influence of the system; realize that free care, handouts, and government programs stifle self-reliance, initiative and worse, you can be made mad for life if you get into the wrong hands.  Happy living only happens when you make a difference somewhere, somehow.  If no one needs your help, if you are not setting and reaching goals the emptiness of government-run health care and other programs does not build self-esteem, it destroys it.

There are many doctors who practice sane medical care and help their patients a great deal.  They wonder why someone has headaches, can’t sleep or has poor digestion or bad circulation.  They do not jump in with the latest drug recommended for that symptom.  They wonder why.  They so searching diagnostics.  If you have migraines why take a pain-killer?  Does the pain-killer handle the reason you have headaches?  It does nothing if the reason is your unbalanced hormones or your lack of magnesium or your subluxation.  See?  You need to wonder why and you need to insist your doctors have discovered the basic problems.  When you handle the cause your symptoms vanish and you have no need for drugs.  There is not one drug your body has a shortage of.   They are all toxic to one degree or another.

Coleen Maulfair

Maddening Organics

Truth is hard to come by when you are talking business.  News today includes a study of conventional crops and organics having no difference in nutrient value.  On the face of this it is hard to buy.  If you have better soil and you do not trouble the crop with chemicals that linger and you provide microbes needed for plant health and the plants do better in drought conditions and they taste better to amateur foodies, maybe they are better.  This study was done by Standford University doctors and it states there was no funding from an outside source of the study.  It is published in the Annals of Internal Medicine.
Here is one; we have a study we cite that we like because the author looked at 50 years of  literature comparing the nutrient values of conventional and organic crops.  It was published in 1998 in Alternative Therapies.  That’s right.  The quack rag that has actual unsponsored studies to bring to the doctors who seek this kind of info.  In this case the author is clinical nutritionist who served on the board of the Price-Pottenger Nutrition Foundation.  There was a trend in the data indicating higher nutrient content in organically grown crops.  The author called for further research.  She did note “Animal studies showed  better growth and reproduction in animals fed organically grown feed compared with those fed conventionally grown feed.”

This attack on organics might come from a relationship with a business interest contrary to good food and organics.  Maybe a chemical company.  Sounds just like the naysayers who always say your food is enough for your health needs and that you do not need additional vitamins and minerals.  You know if you have adequate vitamins and minerals and other important nutrients you do not become ill as readily and it cuts across the sale of drugs and trips to the doctors.  Having a strong immune system is better than a vaccination.

I, for one, am a Mom and us moms know something about food and health.  In our medical center I hear people commenting about the benefits of avoiding junk food and eating whole, organic foods.  They are stronger.  After all, people do know their own mind and should rely on their own experience.  I have serious concerns about chemical contamination but more seriously the effects of genetically engineered crops throughout our food supply.

International College of Integrative Medicine is holding a conference September 21-23 where these issues will be discussed.  Check out Diet and Nutrition: What a Clinician Needs to Know about Nutrient Density, Pesticides and Genetically Engineered Foods- Dr. Andersen was first a soil scientist and agricultural consultant, then a physician. He specializes in nutritional management of crops and advises farmers in “building biology.” His book, Real Medicine, Real Health, draws on his wide-ranging expertise to share a vision of healing based on creating a sound body through solid nutrition and a healthier environment.