Furthermore, physicians label many of today's chronic diseases as being of “unknown etiology,” a fancy way of saying “we are clueless about the cause.” Actually, many new disease conditions can be traced back (either directly or indirectly) to environmental toxins that bioaccumulate in tissues, contribute to toxic overload, disrupt cell chemistry and cause disease.
The Toxic Truths Inside Your Body
Although we are accustomed to thinking about toxins in the outside world, often we forget about the powerful toxins produced within our bodies. The body must eliminate internal toxins to stay healthy.
Under normal, healthy conditions, the body is designed to control those toxins and protect us against harm. Under other circumstances, however, the toxins produced internally can be a serious problem, worse than anything from the outside world. When these internal toxins are produced excessively or cannot be properly detoxified, they build up in the body and cause disease. In almost any chronically ill person, internally generated toxins play a major role.
When toxins are generated in the digestive system (intestinal toxemia), they enter our bloodstream, and if these toxins are present in excess of the liver's ability to detoxify them, they damage cells all over the body. Intestinal toxemia has been associated with AIDS, allergies, asthma, cancer, cardiac arrhythmias, arthritis, eye problems, high blood pressure, mental problems, headaches, various gastrointestinal conditions, senility, skin problems and other diseases. In my own disease process, the internal toxins I was producing were, indeed, a major contributor to my own physical and mental debilitation.
Intestinal toxemia was the “mysterious” ailment plaguing Michael, who had just completed his junior year at Harvard and had gone off to Europe for the summer with friends. As he was traveling around, he began to feel ill, dizzy and fatigued. He went to see a physician in London who prescribed a drug that did not help. Michael saw other physicians in Germany and Switzerland, but he finally returned homeâtoo sick to remain abroad.
A strapping twenty-one-year-old college student should be at the peak of health. Instead, Michael was suffering from debilitating fatigue, he was lightheaded and dizzy, and he had visual disturbances, not to mention various aches and pains. After many thousands of dollars worth of testing (including a brain scan to check for a brain tumor), Michael's physicians were at a loss to explain his condition and referred him to a psychiatrist. Desperately concerned for her son's future and furious with a medical system that was obviously not working, Michael's mother looked for other options; at that point, she called me.
As with any sick person, I knew exactly what was wrong with Michael: his cells were malfunctioning because of a combination of deficiency and toxicity. The question, as always: How to restore his cells to healthy function? I used the six pathways as a guide and eventually discovered that digestive toxinsâa critical aspect of the toxin pathwayâwere the source of Michael's problems.
Digestive toxins are produced in a couple of ways, notably by an abnormal growth of bacteria or yeast in the intestines and by improperly digested food, which putrefies in the digestive system. Intestinal toxemia creates highly poisonous toxins as well as nutritional deficiency. When bad bacteria and yeasts overgrow, they displace the friendly bacteria necessary for producing nutrients such as the B-complex vitamins, vitamin B
12
and vitamin K. Friendly bacteria also help to obtain the nutrients we need from the food we eat. Intestinal toxemia causes deficiency and toxicity in most of us, to some degree, because of damage from antibiotics.
Michael had acne as a teenager. His dermatologist had prescribed an antibiotic (tetracycline), and Michael had taken this drug every day for years. Antibiotics were developed to kill bacteria. The problem is that helpful bacteria in your intestines (normal intestinal flora) are needed for good health. Years of taking antibiotics destroyed these helpful bacteria in Michael's digestive system. (Even one course of antibiotics can have this effect.) This situation allowed the overgrowth of abnormal intestinal flora and a yeast called
Candida albicans.
A yeast infection can produce toxic chemicals that absorb into the bloodstream; also, yeast can physically invade and damage the intestinal tissue in a way that allows other inappropriate materials (undigested food particles, toxic wastes and yeast byproducts) to pass directly into the bloodstream. This condition floods the body with dangerous toxins and allergens, causing food allergies and disrupting the immune system. Some of these toxins are neurotoxic (causing damage to the brain and the nervous system) and may produce symptoms such as fatigue, headaches, apathy, depression, anxiety, mood swings and memory lapses. Intestinal yeast infections also impair the absorption of nutrients, which is a separate but equally serious problem. Disrupting the normal ecology of the gut also invites infection by parasites, which further disrupt gut tissue.
In Michael's case, I suspected problems with internally generated digestive toxins, but to know for certain one must measure. I suggested to Michael that he ask his physician to be tested for candida. (Convincing the physician to do the candida test was not easy. Physicians do not generally look for such infections, and his mother had to put considerable pressure on the doctor.) The test did show that Michael had a candida infection, which he was able to get rid of through natural methods such as taking high-quality probiotics and grapefruit seed extract and by reducing dietary sugar (which was “feeding” the yeast problem). Michael, who had been completely disabled by his disease throughout the summer, was able to go back to Harvard in the fall, complete his senior year and graduate.
Problems such as Michael's are common in America because of the excessive antibiotics that our physicians prescribe. While the use of antibiotics is prudent and necessary in very select cases, for the most part antibiotics unnecessarily damage the digestive system and contribute to intestinal toxemia. This toxemia often subjects us to far more toxicity than the original “germ” that the antibiotic was supposed to kill. Unfortunately, almost everybody in America has taken antibiotics at some point; these drugs are a major cause of health problems, including fatigue and allergies. Intestinal toxemia can be provoked in other ways, by medical drugs such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, including aspirin, ibuprofen, naproxen, ketoprofin, etc.) and oral steroids (cortisone pills, birth control pills, etc.).
Maldigestion of food (exacerbated by medical drugs or not) produces toxins inside your body. A mostly cooked and processed food diet lacking critical enzymes is a common contributor, as is poor chewing of food. Low-fiber diets are also problematic. Whatever the cause, undigested food can rot and poison you while still inside you. Carbohydrates ferment, fats turn rancid and proteins putrefy. The most common symptoms are bloating, constipation, gas, halitosis, heartburn, eye problems, neurological problems and headaches.
Keep protein consumption moderate; diets high in protein, especially cooked meat and pasteurized dairy, overload our digestive systems. We need only 35 to 40 grams of protein per day (more for athletes or those with large body frames), but Americans eat an average of 90 grams of gut-putrefying protein per day. A one-pound slab of roast beef contains more than 100 grams of protein. Large quantities of cooked and denatured proteins, which are harder to digest, can cause an overgrowth of a type of putrefactive bacteria that thrive when food is rotting in the gut. These bacteria produce toxic chemicals such as indole, skatole, phenol and hydrogen sulfide. In addition, these putrefactive bacteria displace friendly bacteria, which are essential to good digestion and health, and the result is intestinal toxemia.
To prevent or eliminate the problems associated with intestinal toxemia:
⢠Avoid the use of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories and steroids (including birth control pills).
⢠Avoid excessive amounts of protein.
⢠Minimize or eliminate processed foods. Eat the right kinds of fats.
⢠Avoid sugar, white flour, coffee, excessive alcohol and fried foods. These substances are hard on the digestive system.
⢠Adhere to proper food combining and chewing; the digestion process must begin in the mouth and in the stomach for the intestines to function properly.
Do you suffer from indigestion, bloating, gas, cramping, loose stools, constipation or gastrointestinal reflux? Any of these can indicate intestinal toxemia and should be addressed before they lead to serious disease.
You can also consider other strategies if you are suffering from symptoms of poor digestion: fasting, exercising, drinking large amounts of water, and taking high-quality supplements, including probiotics, digestive enzymes, and vitamins and minerals. All of these help to detoxify, repair and rebuild healthy tissueâin particular by helping to create an environment in the digestive system conducive to the growth and maintenance of friendly bacteria.
Allergies Should Signal Alarm
Allergies are a common source of internally generated toxins. Every allergic reaction produces metabolic debris that has a toxic effect. We tend to think of allergies as “normal,” a benign inconvenience, because so many people have them. Not so. Healthy people do not have allergies. Allergies are an abnormal immune response to foods and substances in your environment. Most food allergies are the result of an abnormally functioning digestive system, as already mentioned, whereby undigested food molecules are allowed to enter the bloodstream though damaged gut tissue. The immune system recognizes these food particles as foreign, and you have an immune response called an allergy. The body remembers this response; every time you eat the offending food, an allergic reactionâand the toxins created by that reactionâ is produced.
When an offending substance, called an allergen, reacts with an antibody produced by the immune system, large amounts of allergen/antibody (immune) complexes can be formed. If immune complexes are formed in greater quantities than the body can handle, they can be deposited in tissues (such as brain arteries, brain membranes, small blood vessels, the liver, the uterus, the lungs and the kidneys), where they are capable of clogging blood vessels and joints and are known to release chemicals that cause a cascade of health-damaging reactions. Through this mechanism, immune complexes may be responsible for up to 90 percent of all kidney disease.
Allergies are an indication of systemic illness and should be
considered a serious immune dysfunction disease.
If you are allergic (and most Americans have allergies and intolerances, although they may be unaware of it), determine the substances you react to and avoid them. More importantly, strengthen your immune system, through diet and supplements, so these reactions will not occur in the first place; optimize your body's ability to detoxify so that you can minimize damage caused by the allergic reactions you do suffer.
Stress Poisons in Many Ways
Stress can be loosely defined as any demand we place upon the body; the body's reaction to these demands causes us to “feel stressed.” Everybody knows that stress is hard on us, but few people understand why, on a physical level. Chronic stress literally poisons you.
The body's response to stressâoften called the “fight-or-flight response”ârefers to feelings of anger or fear that generate the release of chemicals in your body, designed to give you more strength in an emergency.
In an emergency situation that passes quicklyâfor example, you rush to catch someone who is fallingâthe body is able to detoxify the stress chemicals that are produced. However, when stress is chronic, and we constantly live our lives in stressful ways, these chemicals build up and inflict damage to our cells. Common stress symptoms include muscle wasting, fatigue, osteoporosis, high blood pressure, fragile blood vessels, suppressed immunity, impaired mental function and a host of other problems. What stress is, how it affects you (physically and psychologically) and what you can do about it will be explored more in chapter 7, which explores the psychological pathway.
As we have discussed, the cells in your body naturally produce toxic byproducts that a healthy body is designed to handle. If the body becomes overloaded with toxins, for whatever reason, even normal metabolic toxins can add to the total toxic load and damage cells. Chronic, internally generated stress chemicals can often move us into toxic overload.
Illnesses also stress us with massive amounts of internally generated toxins, which is why we must choose health in the first place. When symptoms of illness do manifest, cells are malfunctioning and the body is struggling desperately to make itself well again. Under these extra stress loads, to minimize the damage done, taking steps to optimize cellular function becomes even more important.
Your Primary Toxic Defense: The Liver
Various organs in the bodyâkidneys, bowels, lungs, lymph system and the skinâare designed to eliminate metabolic waste. Fiber helps “carry out the garbage” in the digestive system, and exercise helps us detoxify via sweating and movement of the lymphatic system. Water promotes detoxification through the kidneys and sweat glands, and saunas assist in removal of both water and oil-soluble toxins.
At any given time, about 25 percent of all the blood in your body is in your liver, awaiting detoxification. This process begins with a sophisticated filtering system that captures and digests foreign debris. Next, enzymes, produced by the liver, deactivate and eliminate toxins. If these enzymes are interfered withâeither deactivated by environmental toxins such as lead and mercury or never manufactured in the first place because of nutrient deficiencyâtoxic overload is certain to result. Liver enzyme detoxification has two phases: In phase one, the liver produces enzymes that take harmful toxins such as alcohol, pesticides, herbicides and prescription drugs, and oxidizes them (burns them) in preparation for removal from the body. This process creates potentially harmful free radicals that must be neutralized with dietary antioxidant nutrients. In phase two, more enzymes are used to combine the oxidized chemicals from phase one with other molecules, which then can be excreted harmlessly in the bile or urine. In both phases, the food we eat supplies the raw materials needed to produce all of these enzymes and other chemicals that are required. These elegant detoxification systems depend on a constant supply of nutrients, which we must obtain from our diet, but we frequently do not.