Everyday, everyone, everywhere – toxins you don’t know are there!
What you don’t see, can hurt you! Lurking toxins might not be the first thing on your mind as you wake up and go throughout your day, but that doesn’t mean you aren’t coming into contact with them on a regular basis. In our modern day culture, we are surrounded by hidden sources of toxins and chemicals everywhere – the air you breathe, the water you drink, the products you put on your skin. These hidden sources of toxins and chemical exposure can significantly affect your health. While we are not called to live in fear, it is important to be knowledgeable about where these exposures occur, what you can do to avoid them, and how you can support your body to clear toxins.
Improve fatigue/inflammation, hormone balance, and chronic disease risk
Let’s gain a little perspective on this topic. Not only are we exposed to numerous chemicals throughout our lifetime, but studies have shown that a mother passes toxins to her unborn child while still in the womb. Newborns in America have over 200 chemicals present in their blood at the time of birth! Throughout our lives, we are exposed to an estimated 1-3 million xenobiotics, a specific type of toxin that mimics estrogen hormones, competes with enzymes, and increases fat storage, disrupting our natural hormone balance and function. These xenobiotics have an affinity for fat cells, which includes the fatty tissue of our brain and nervous system leading to brain fog, dementia risk, neurodegenerative diseases, and chronic metabolic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, inflammation, autoimmunity, and cancer. By affecting our metabolism, toxins cause us to store more fat and at the same time they are stored within fat cells, which perpetuates the problem of gaining more weight, becoming more toxic, and making it harder to lose weight.
Toxic effects in children
Childhood and adolescence is a time of rapid growth and maturity of our vital organ systems, like reproductive, bone, and endocrine health. Toxin exposure in kids is linked to disruption of hormones responsible for growth/reproduction/fertility, abnormal development of the brain, early puberty onset, obesity, asthma/allergies, inflammation, and chronic disease risk throughout adulthood. Small amounts of toxins have a greater impact in children due to proportionately smaller body size and relatively greater toxic burden.
What’s the big deal about toxins?
Our body has a threshold of what it can process to maintain balance and a healthy environment. Toxins stimulate either an overreaction of the immune system leading to inflammation or an underreaction that doesn’t clear infectious pathogens or damaged cells adequately.
Across the world, each country has regulations in place to monitor toxic exposure to its citizens. Compared to Europe and other countries, the U.S. has very lenient rules for toxin regulation. The EU has banned over 1600 chemicals from personal care products, while the FDA only bans nine for safety hazards and concerns. The regulations are based on assessing a single toxin and it’s hazardous effects independently at various amounts of exposure. What they don’t take into consideration is the additive effect when combined together causing exponentially greater damage in our bodies. The sum is far worse than the parts.
Avoid toxin exposure to protect yourself and your family.
Where do these toxins come from? Everywhere!
- Herbicides, pesticides – farming practices, non-organic food sources, produce shipped around the world and sprayed for preservation to prevent spoilage
- Plastics like BPA found in the lining of food cans, receipts, food storage containers, bottled water
- Personal care products – hygiene products like soap, shampoo/conditioner, skincare, lotion, makeup, deodorant
- Fumes from exhaust, gasoline, burning coal/garbage, smoking, pollution, aerosols
- Food – additives, preservatives, GMOs, ripening sprays, fertilizer, glyphosate, processed vegetable oils
- Household cleaning products – chemicals spread on household surface and released into the air
- Water – heavy metals, pesticide run off, bleach, chlorine, fluoride, especially in city water supplies
Reduce your toxic load/burden
Let’s look at what we can do to avoid toxins as much as possible.
- Shop organic – check out the “Clean 15, Dirty 12” list to learn what foods have the greatest pesticide exposure, be wise with your food budget and invest where it matters most for your health
- Natural household cleaners and personal products – use the Environmental Working Group online resource or app to look at ratings on allergens, endocrine/hormone disruptors, and cancer risk in your household products
- Air and water filtration – have your water checked for contaminants and get a filtration system in place. Filters can be free standing counter units, attached to a faucet or shower head, or connected to your home water supply (like reverse osmosis). Be sure to add minerals back into your water if you have reverse osmosis.
- Avoid plastics/BPA – look for glass or stainless steel containers instead of plastics that release chemicals into your food or beverage, especially when exposed to heat
- Limit alcohol consumption and avoid smoking – these known carcinogens are low hanging fruit when looking for ways to decrease toxins in your body. They make your lungs and liver work overtime to detoxify while reducing the capacity to clear other toxins out of the body.
Clear Toxins Safely and Effectively (How to safely and effectively clear toxins)
How do you start to work on clearing out these stored toxins? Remember that toxins love fat tissue. If you are overweight, losing fat will release toxins into your bloodstream so your liver and gut can excrete them. The liver plays a significant role in filtering out toxins (like a lint catcher on your dryer) and converting them into a form that can be excreted from the body (like taking out the trash) so they are not reabsorbed back into the bloodstream.
Different types of toxins exit the body through different routes. We must have the exit pathways open and working well to safely clear toxins. That means regular daily bowel movements, good hydration with water and minerals, and sweating regularly through exercise and/or sauna use. If you don’t have optimal liver and gut function, as the toxins are released into your bloodstream, they can be reabsorbed back into your circulation and actually make you sick or more toxic.
Not only do the exit pathways need to be open, but we need some vehicles to grab ahold of the toxins and help them leave the body. One primary source is fiber! There are many benefits of consuming more fiber: improved gut health, lower risk of heart attack/stroke, clearing “junkie” estrogens, regulating cholesterol, decreasing obesity and diabetes with improved blood sugar control, and reducing the risk of some cancers.
Fiber: Supernutrient for Detoxification
The average American today consumes very little fiber, thanks to highly processed foods and decreased soil nutrient density. In comparison to our hunter-gatherer ancestors that ate over 100 grams a day, we eat a measly 15 grams per day on average, or about a tenth of our ancestors. The recommended target for most people is around 30-45 grams a day.
Food sources include: fruits, vegetables, beans, nuts, seeds. Even with eating well, most of us are still lower than the recommended fiber amount. Consider supplementing with psyllium, chia seeds, or flax for gluten free options to add to shakes or smoothies. Remember fiber feeds your gut bacteria, so introduce it gradually and allow your system to adjust.
Minimize detox reactions and optimize your health
As we release and clear toxins from our body, it is common to experience detox symptoms by way of headaches, fatigue, bowel changes, mood swings, upset stomach, hormone shifts, disrupted sleep, or change in bowel function. It’s important to go slow and support your body appropriately. Binders are one of the ways to help minimize those effects.
There are several binders beyond fiber that are used to help clear toxins. It’s important to recognize that different toxins and chemicals bind to different substances as our body works to clear them. A few others include: activated charcoal, bentonite clay, zeolite, pectin (found in the skin of apples and citrus), chitosan, diatomaceous earth, and chlorella, just to name a few! We like to use binders that have a combination of different forms to give a broader benefit of clearance. Be aware that binders aren’t just grabbing the toxins, they can also bind to medications or nutrients from supplements or food. It is recommended to separate them by 1-2 hours, sometimes more depending on the medication. Please use them with guidance from a medical professional.
Optimizing detoxification is key to optimal health. Please reach out to us for a customized plan to support your body’s unique needs and assist your body safely and effectively to function as it was designed to do. Start living your optimal life now.
