The Rain Barrel Effect (I wrote this over 10 years ago, I can only imagine the statistics now)
Current medical care systems, both western and complementary, often operate on a standard assumption that our bodies, whether in a state of disease or health, are operating in an essentially benign and stable environment. Over the course of the past three decades, our culture has seen a dramatic rise in chronic illness, as well as an increased complexity in the nature of illnesses, with which current medical research and treatment models have not been able to keep pace.
The World Health Organization, in a recently released report, consulted 100 experts and combed all available health research to estimate the impact of environmental risk factors on 85 diseases. The evidence of this report shows that 1/4 of all illnesses can be attributed to the environment. In children, environmental risk factors pose an even larger threat: over 1/3 of all illnesses in children are caused by environmental conditions. Every one of us that lives in our society is exposed daily to an onslaught of chemical toxins and pollutants. We breathe, eat, drink, and use personal care products that contain pesticides, heavy metals, formaldehyde, and other substances that our bodies cannot process effectively. Modest estimates show 80,000 different synthetic chemicals in current circulation, a number that does not address the synergistic effects that certain chemicals have with each other.
Rain Barrel
Every person is different; as such, every person has a different innate capacity to detoxify many of the chemicals to which we are exposed. An analogy may be made between our body and a rain barrel. An empty barrel is our bodies, (ideally) free of all toxic residue or synthetic chemical buildup. If our bodies could fully detoxify all synthetic substances to which they are exposed, this barrel might remain permanently empty. However, even the most healthy and adaptable among us, is not evolutionarily equipped to handle all of the toxins in the combinations and at the levels to which we are exposed. Our bodies begin to store the toxins that they cannot break down completely, and our barrel begins to fill. For some people, it takes a long time to notice any symptoms of a filling barrel. To others, they may notice the effects as fatigue, headaches, insomnia, allergies, poor memory, muscle aches and pains and inflammation.
In children, who are particularly susceptible due to immature detoxification facilities and organ systems, symptoms may take the shape of hyperactivity, poor concentration, stomach aches, autistic behaviors. Some peoples’ barrels fill without any noted symptoms, until the barrel ‘overflows’ and manifests in serious autoimmune diseases, cancers, and debilitating illness affecting the immune system. These can manifest as inflammation or arthritic symptoms, chronic fatigue and degenerative illness. In many of us, our barrels are nearly full, and we do not know it. The degree to which our ‘barrel’ has been filled already, represents our level of toxic exposure, referred to as our “body burden”.
In a study led by Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, researchers at two separate laboratories found an average of 91 industrial compounds, pollutants and other chemicals in the blood and urine of nine volunteers, with 167 chemicals found in total. The volunteers did not work with chemicals as part of their jobs, nor live near industrial facilities. Of the 167 chemicals found, 76 of those chemicals are known to cause cancer in humans and/or animals, 94 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 79 cause birth defects or abnormal development. The dangers of these chemicals when combined with one another in the body, have never been studied. We can no longer look at health without looking at how our health interacts with the environment in which we live.
Researchers have found that toxic overload and chemical injury can account for a wide variety of people’s symptoms and illnesses, and is at the heart of the issue for the vast majority of people who come in plagued by ‘disease’ that cannot be explained or cured. Many of my clients do not initially realize that there may be a connection between a myriad of seemingly unrelated conditions; many do not realize that they are not required to ‘just live with’ conditions that they have tolerated their entire lives. Chemical toxicities have become a way of life, and for many of us, they have even been passed down to us in-utero from before our birth.
My focus is to rid your body of the toxic burden that has impeded your optimal health. Before you begin: Detoxification is a tremendous asset to our health; it can also demand a great deal of commitment to detoxify in a balanced and healthy way. Many people who attempt may mobilize toxins in their body without removing them. Many focus on the removal of toxins without replacing the nutrients that the body has secreted in the process. The best, most thorough detoxification requires constant attention to the process with dietary/supplemental adjustments. It can be slow and with very few side effects, now is the time……