Toxic World

I am 58 years old. It doesn’t take an environmental scientist or health specialist to observe the dramatic changes that have occurred in our planetary environment and human health since way back in 1953. Our planet is sick, and so are we.

Quite simply, “there is no separation between environmental issues and human health.”

Back in the 60’s we used to say: when you throw something away…there is NO away. Another lesson we never learned. At only increasing rates, we continue to dump billions of tons of toxic wastes into our lakes and waterways, our soil, air, and food supply. And, either stupidly or naively, we believe it doesn’t harm the planet, or our health or the health of our children. 

“One of the most alarming disasters facing us today is the invasion of man made chemicals into every corner of the world, including our own bodies.”

Our planet and our bodies are under siege of a toxic load they can no longer bear. The evidence abounds before our eyes, yet we fail to see it, let alone act to change anything. Increased incidence of extreme weather is devastating the planet and becoming the norm, just like the rapidly rising incidences and pandemics of cancers-obesity-diabetes-and heart disease are ravaging the human population.

“A child born today faces high odds of developing at least one of the following ailments: ADHD, autism, learning disabilities, diabetes, obesity, cancers, abnormal genitalia development, infertility, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s diseases. All have been linked with prenatal exposures to toxic chemicals.”

 Our delusional response is to increase medical testing and screening for earlier detection and treatment. This after-the-fact disease-care model conveniently generates massive profits for the health care industry (companies which, all too often, are either the same companies, or have strong ties to the companies, that are generating the toxic wastes creating disease) but does nothing to find solutions that stem the rising tide of disease.

           

Better to declare a war on cancer, and create another multi-billion dollar industry, than force industries to spend billions to stop polluting and clean up their toxic dumps. Corporations and their political minions will do nothing to adversely affect the bottom line or the economy. It is tough to realize that human life, and life on the planet, really don’t matter.

Our best corporate-sponsored scientists scratch their heads and write scientific papers authoritatively broadcast by the media as fact;  linking these diseases to the sun, animal fats, red meat, our genes, etc…all things natural; and never to corporate byproducts of toxic wastes, chemically raised foods and  artificial food concoctions, and toxic home and personal hygiene products.

While they struggle for explanations and answers, this third-grader’s science experiment lays it out for all to see with a simple elegance, that most often, characterizes the truth.

 As difficult as it may be to believe, it was President Richard Nixon who championed major environmental laws, including the Clean Air Act of 1970, which included national fuel economy standards for cars. He also created the Environmental Protection Agency. He called for new laws “that ensure that the price of goods…be made to include the costs of producing and disposing of them without damage to the environment.”

We would do well to heed the words of his 1970 State of the Union Address:

“The great question is, shall we surrender to our surroundings, or shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations, for we still think of air as free. But clean air is not free, and neither is clean water. The price tag on pollution control is high. Through our years of past carelessness we incurred a debt to nature, and that debt is being called.”

*Here is an interesting link to “to obtain your community report on land contamination.”

http://scorecard.goodguide.com/env-releases/land/community.tcl

ADDING HEALTH vs Fighting Disease

ADDING HEALTH vs. Fighting Disease

In the video below, Terry Wahls, MD describes her experience with MS. As an MD she was able to access the latest and best therapies for MS, but her disease remained unabated, following its usual course of progressive degeneration.

Dr. Wahls realized the limits of medical treatment and delved into her own research. She found “that brains afflicted with MS, Huntington's chorea, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's shrank with time,” consistent with the fact that their mitochondria (the power houses that manage the energy supply of the cells) did not work well. With ongoing research and self-experimentation, she took mitochondria-protective supplements (omega 3 fish oil, creatine, and co-enzyme Q) resulting in a slowing of her decline.

With continued research she discovered other nutrients vital to optimal mitochondrial/brain health and function and added them to her growing list of supplements. Then she had an epiphany, that she could “get all of these and possibly hundreds, maybe thousands, of other compounds that science had yet to name and identify that would be helpful to my brain and mitochondria.” Interestingly, she states that the medical and food science texts that she consulted were of no use in pointing her in the right direction as to where, in the food supply, to get these vital nutrients.

She goes on to demonstrate that the typical American diet is starving the body of vital nutrients necessary for the complex biochemical reactions that keep us healthy (let alone, consuming a myriad of processed toxic chemical foods), setting the stage for most chronic diseases.

Ultimately, Dr. Wahls found the Paleolithic diet, the diet of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. You see, our genes have not changed in 43,000 years and are consistent with those of our Paleolithic ancestors; meaning that our DNA has the same genetic requirements for health (in terms of diet and exercise) now, as it did then.

The Paleolithic hunter-gatherer diet consisted of fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, meats, and water. Note the absence of diary and grains, especially wheat and corn (not to mention processed chemical concoctions masquerading as food). These were all foods that were added with the beginning of agriculture, about 10,000 years ago. Our genes have not caught up with these foods and, as such, these foods create food allergies that are responsible for a host of misdiagnosed, undiagnosed, unrecognized, and therefore mis-treated, health problems people suffer.

The short of it is that Dr. Wahl was successful in restoring her health and reversing the effects of MS. At this point, when I tell this to patients, they all respond: “Wow!”

1.      While this kind of progress would not be seen in everyone, this diet clearly needs to be incorporated into the healing regimen of everyone…i.e.: to change the paradigm from fighting disease to adding health through diet, exercise and stress control.

2.      While it is amazing that Dr. Wahl was able to reverse her MS, know that the body is hardwired for survival, to be self-regulating and self-healing…that health is nature’s default. Therefore, if we give the genetic blueprint what it requires in a pure form and sufficient quantity, and stop poisoning it…it will invariably make us healthier. How far back it can bring us is influenced by how much damage was done, how long we have had it, age, etc.

3.      What is more amazing, that most of us don’t see, is the everyday occurrence—the 350 pound person eating a diet of processed chemical foods, smoking cigarettes, living a sedentary life, popping a cocktail of prescription drugs. Their body is so hardwired for survival, while at one and the same time it is being deprived of the essential ingredients for health and being consistently poisoned, it still manages to keep this person alive, the best it can—trying to buy time until the person changes their habits—until it can no longer do so. And only then, systems failure begins…and the ravages of chronic disease progress. Now, that’s amazing!

Sadly, we have been trained to be so focused on fighting disease that we have lost sight of how to nurture our birthright of health.