In the Western world, the word “science” is inexorably connected to our notion of progress. Over a few short decades, man has transformed Earth by means of putting scientific principles into practice. The scientific method has been the tool that has allowed people to gain increasing control over their lives—which is viewed by most as being coincidental with “improvement” and “progress.” Indeed, in many ways science has transformed our planet into what our ancestors would surely think of as a “Fantasyland” of imagination—the embodiment of cleaver invention and creation manifesting as automobiles, skyscrapers, jet planes, CAT Scans, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, as well as thousands of additional high-tech wonders.

Few would argue that science has ushered in changes which as a whole have benefitted man greatly. On the other hand, tagging along with the benefits have come many negative consequences, some of which are only recently becoming known. One of the most formidable of these challenges is the degree to which our environment has become poisoned by substances which themselves are the very products of science. This poisoned, toxic environment is where man lives, and we’re finding it increasingly difficult to escape these toxic surroundings, and their attendant consequences.

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Research has shown that about 75% of chronic disease is caused chiefly by environmental influences, with the remainder being attributable to genetic factors.1 Our genes interact with the environment which gives rise to expression. The expression of our genes is polymorphic (having more than one expression), based on the environmental factors to which they are subjected. Every cell in our body contains the genetic information of the entire body, yet depending upon the environmental stimuli to which precursor cells are exposed, some will differentiate into muscle cells, others nervous tissue, and so forth. Just as fish live in the sea, planet Earth is man’s fish bowl. On every level, our health is intimately influenced by the air—and other substances—we breathe; consumer goods that come into contact with our skin—the body’s largest organ; the food we eat; and the water we drink.

Xenobiotics (zee-no-by-AWE-tics) is the term used to describe chemical compounds that are foreign to living organisms. These toxins are referred to as being exogenous, or coming from outside the body, as opposed to endogenous toxins which originate from within. Each year more than 1,000 such new chemicals are synthesized,2 adding to the current total of more than 100,000 xenobiotic substances in our environment. These toxic substances include such familiar classifications of chemicals as food additives; industrial and household chemicals; agricultural chemicals such as fertilizers and pesticides; solvents; and pharmaceutical and recreational drugs. [3]

Industrial Chemicals. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), each year the following numbers of toxic chemicals are pumped into the environment: [4]

• More than 500 million pounds of industrial chemicals are dumped into the public sewage system.
• More than 1 billion pounds of chemicals are released into the ground, threatening to contaminate the ground water that is held in underground aquifers. This ground water is the source of roughly half of our drinkable water supply.
• The other half of our usable water supply is sourced from rivers, streams and reservoirs. Nearly 200 million pounds of chemicals are discharged into surface waters annually.
• Nearly 2.5 billion pounds of toxic emissions are pumped into our atmosphere.
• More than 5.5 trillion total pounds of chemicals are released into the environment.

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Household Chemicals. Once thought to be safe, there is mounting evidence that human exposure to chemicals even at low levels can be harmful. Exposures are linked to adverse biological effects including endocrine disruption, chemical sensitivity, and cancer. Aside from chemicals used in industry, scientists are beginning to understand that household chemicals also pose a threat. Dr. Michael Dufresne, Adjunct and Research Professor at the University of Windsor in Ontario, Canada has recently published data suggesting that thousands of household items previously believed safe are now thought to pose significant health hazards, including carcinogenicity.5 “People are blindly being led in the use of these products. They assume they are tested and safe, and they’re not,” says Dufresne.6 He continues to point out that scientists are discovering exposure to a variety of trace chemicals over the span of many years (or a lifetime) poses a significant threat to good health, and that his greatest worry is the lack of information available to the public about potentially-harmful products used on an everyday basis.

Dr. Dufresne’s research points out that many home cleaning products used on a daily basis in millions of households contain dangerous chemicals. Such products include Ajax;® Arm & Hammer® heavy duty laundry detergent; Joy;® liquid Spray ‘N Wash;® Lysol;® Murphy’s Oil Soap;® Palmolive;® Pledge;® Sunlight;® Tilex;® and many others.7 Today’s home contains more chemicals than a well-stocked laboratory at the turn of the 20th Century. In the mid-1990s, the American Association of Poison Control reported nearly 1.5 million toxic exposures in persons under 19 years of age, and over 1 million poisonings in children less than six years old.[8]

One of the biggest culprits is the cosmetics industry. According to Dufresne, the following is a partial list of products that may pose a health threat: blush, concealer, deodorant, eye shadow/mascara, facial powder, hair-styling products, nail polish, shampoo/conditioner, soap, tampons, and toothpaste.[9] Although cancer-linked chemicals are found in such products, there are virtually no FDA regulations overseeing their production or use.

Agricultural Contamination. The agricultural industry is one of the most significant polluters, with more than 50,000 different pesticide formulations currently in use.[10] The famous British medical journal, the Lancet, recently reported there are more than three million severe pesticide poisonings each year world wide, with 220,000 deaths.[11] In the U.S., pesticide-related illnesses occur at the rate of 150,000-300,000 per year.[12] The EPA has ranked pesticide contamination as the number three cancer risk behind cigarette smoking and radon gas.[13]

Fertilizer contamination is also a problem. According to the recent Seattle Times[14] article “Fear in the Fields,” industrial chemical waste from industries such as cement, metal, paper and wood product companies is being recycled as an ingredient of fertilizer—the same fertilizer that is used in both commercial farming and family gardens. This waste is laden with heavy metals such as aluminum, arsenic, beryllium, cadmium, dioxins, lead, mercury, and titanium.

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Pharmaceutical Drugs. In 2002, physicians wrote Americans over three billion prescriptions for drugs.[15] This is prescription writing at the rate of one each month for every living human being residing in the United States. With Americans spending over USD $200 billion per year on prescription pharmaceutical drugs, we can see there’s a very powerful potential for toxic reactions among the populous.

In the July 2000 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association,[16] Dr. Barbara Starfield of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health confirmed that each year in the United States more than 100,000 hospital deaths occur as the result of adverse reactions to prescription pharmaceutical drugs that are prescribed by physicians in accordance with the directions given by the pharmaceutical companies who manufacture them. These figures do not include data from other medical settings such as doctors’ offices or outpatient deaths. Additionally, these numbers are only for deaths and do not reflect negative effects associated with adverse reactions which do not cause death, but are nevertheless associated with disability and/or pain and discomfort. In addition to the 100,000 annual deaths caused by correctly-prescribed pharmaceutical drugs, an additional 125,000 deaths occur in the U.S. each year as the result of incorrectly-prescribed prescription drugs.[17]

Food Additives. Substances present in the food other than the basic foods themselves are a further source of contamination. The food industry intentionally adds many such substances for a variety of purposes, including extending the shelf-life with preservatives; enhancing or masking flavors to make foods more palatable; and modifying the texture and/or color to make foods more attractive. In 1955, 419 million pounds of chemical additives were used in the U.S. food supply. Today, over one billion pounds of more than 10,000 different chemicals are used, with the average American consuming more than 50 pounds of food-additive chemicals per year.[18] During the last 100 years or so, the American diet has changed so radically that virtually no one younger than an octogenarian can remember what the human diet consisted of prior to the advent of modern foods of convenience.

Other Exogenous Toxifiers. Additional sources of toxicity include alcohol consumption, cigarette smoke, dietary deficiencies, ionizing radiation, iron overload, microbial (viral and bacterial) infection, strenuous exercise, and tissue injury.

Endogenous Toxicity. In addition to the external (exogenous) sources of pollutants, internal (endogenous) pollutants also contribute to toxicity. Normal systemic metabolism can produce lactic acid, pyruvic acid, urea, advanced glycation end products, and other metabolites that add to the overall toxic burden within the body. Even the body’s own normal metabolic functions, including detoxification processes, can produce free radicals that are toxic to cellular structures, hence the body’s major organs.

Combinations of Toxins. It is becoming increasingly clear that chemical substances which accrue in combination are potentially many times more toxic than isolated chemicals by themselves. For example, a single chemical by itself may cause no bodily harm; however, when another chemical or group of chemicals is introduced in combination with the first, the results can be deadly toxic.

As long ago as 1969 Dr. Irving Selikoff, Professor of Environmental Medicine at Mount Sinai School of Medicine, stated that, we may eventually see diseases that we don’t even begin to understand at this time. Also, the sum total of these various low-level contaminants—each in itself not very important—may be to generally shorten life due to the total body burden of environmental contaminants.[19]

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What Dr. Selikoff foresaw more than three decades ago has now come to pass. Since the year 2000, the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has spearheaded a series of studies which detected more than 450 industrial pollutants—pesticides, plasticizers, solvents, and other chemicals—in the blood, urine and breast milk of American citizens. The studies show the level of contamination is universal, affecting every person, every family, and every race, faith, and income group in every state. With an average of seven new xenobiotic chemicals approved for use each day[20]—many of which are not tested for safety—it is not surprising that residents of the U.S. have hundreds of harmful chemicals coursing through their bloodstreams every day—even children and newborns.

In the month preceding a baby’s birth, the umbilical cord—the lifeline between mother and baby—pulses over 300 quarts of blood each day back and forth between the nutrient- and oxygen-rich placenta and the rapidly growing baby. While scientists previously believed the placenta shielded the umbilical cord blood from the developing baby, they now realize the mothers’ contaminated blood carries not only the building blocks of life, but also a steady stream of industrial chemicals and pollutants directly to the developing human life nestled within the mothers’ womb.

In July of 2005, the EWG published the study Body Burden: The Pollution in Newborns.[21] Two hundred and eighty seven xenobiotic chemicals were detected within the umbilical cord blood of American newborns, with an average of 200 chemicals per baby—each baby ranging from 101 to 231 chemicals. Of the 287 total number of chemicals detected, each baby had at least 101 chemicals. Of these 287 chemicals, 108 have been shown to cause cancer in humans and animals; 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system; and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The potential dangers of this toxic brew of carcinogens, neurotoxins, and developmental toxins have never been evaluated.

Included in the 287 xenobiotic chemicals detected are: polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)—18 tested for, 9 detected; polybrominated dibenzodioxins and furans (PBDD/Fs)—12 tested for, 7 detected; perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs)—12 tested for, 9 detected; polychlorinated dibenzodioxins and furans (PBCD/Fs)—17 tested for, 11 detected; organochlorine pesticides (OCs)—28 tested for, 21 detected; polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs)—46 tested for, 32 detected; polychlorinated naphthalenes (PCNs)—70 tested for, 50 detected; polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)—209 tested for, 147 detected; and a range of heavy metals including aluminum, arsenic, cadmium, cesium, mercury, nickel, and strontium.[22]

Although many of these substances have unfamiliar-sounding names to most of us, the following list of sources of these toxic chemicals brings the picture more clearly into focus: stain and grease-resistant coatings used in food wrap, carpets, furniture—Teflon,® Scotchgard,® and Stainmaster® (PFCs); fire retardants—TVs, computers, furniture (PBDEs, PCNs); electrical insulators (PCBs, PCNs); pesticides (OCs, PCNs); garbage incineration and plastic production wastes (PCDD/Fs, PDBB/Fs); automobile emissions and other fossil fuel combustion (PAHs); and power plants, e.g., coal burning (methyl mercury).[23]

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Toxic Consequences. The radical changes in our society over the span of the last 100 years have not come without their significant, detrimental consequences. If it weren’t for these consequences, the endless variety of our modern, high-tech wonders would be a joy, as most currently believe them to be. Little do we realize the toxicity associated with most of our high-tech accouterments are killing us—and making us crazy—even if slowly. For many in the Western world, the connection between our toxic environment and disease, both physical and mental, is not readily apparent. Even those who understand this insidious connection cannot escape their polluted fish bowl Earth.

Over the last 50 years or so, many health conditions of relatively non-obvious origins have skyrocketed, including allergies; asthma; attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADD & ADHD); autism; birth defects (3-5% of U.S. babies are born with birth defects); chronic fatigue syndrome; fibromyalgia; infertility (5-10% of American couples are infertile); insomnia; migraines; neuropathies; and miscarriage (up to 50% of all pregnancies in the U.S. end in miscarriage).[24]

Even more disconcerting is the rise in the more serious conditions of heart disease and cancer, America’s number one and number two killers of humans, respectively. In 1900, heart disease accounted for 8% of all deaths in the U.S., and cancer about 3.5%. Since 1900, the number of cases of heart disease has increased some 400%, and the number of cases of cancer by over 700%. Childhood brain cancer and acute lymphocytic leukemia have increased dramatically over the past 30 years. Mathematically speaking, for a person living in the United States there is a 75% probability for men and more than a 50% probability for women of being afflicted either with heart disease, cancer or both. These are unacceptable odds, even for a confirmed gambler.

In 1900, heart attacks were so rare that most physicians spent their entire careers never having witnessed a single episode. The first mention of the term “heart failure” appeared in the medical literature in 1912.[25] By the early 1920s, heart disease had attained epidemic proportions, and by the 1950s it had become America’s leading cause of death. Presently, this disease supports a $40 + billion per year industry.

Cancer is mentioned neither in the Bible nor the ancient Chinese Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Internal Medicine, a medical treatise dating back some 2,300 years.[26] Presently, the “c” word is the leading cause of death in middle-aged Americans between the ages of 35-55. It is also the leading cause of death in American children between the ages of 1-14,[27] having increased some 20% between the years 1950 to 1990. The most optimistic estimate is that cancer has been rising at an overall rate of at least 1% per year for the last 30 years.[28] According to the National Cancer Institute, more Americans die each year from cancer than combined mortalities from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and both Gulf wars.

The inescapable conclusion is that during the last 100 years, something unprecedented has occurred that has caused such a drastic increase in these two most pernicious diseases, as well as many lesser diseases and illnesses, as discussed. This is confirmed by the present cost of health care in the U.S., which is over $2 trillion annually. Citizens of 20-48 other countries (depending on the source) now have a longer life expectancy than U.S. residents.[29]

Not only do the problems manifest in a physical form of illness. There has been a steady rise in the incidence of mental illness as well, as is evidenced by the fact that more than 10% of the U.S. population has been diagnosed with some form of mental illness, with nearly 25% of adults experiencing a mental health crisis in a given year.[30] As many as 14% of American children experience at least one serious bout of depression before the age of 15.[31]

What clues are to be found that point to the causative factors behind the skyrocketing escalation of illness and disease? One clue is found in certain unique, remote areas of the globe where until recently the inhabitants lived a virtually pollution-free lifestyle. There are at least five known cultures in remote locations whose members routinely lived to be more than 100 years old, and some lived as long as 120-140 years. People of these cultures generally experienced an exceptional state of health, with no presence of the familiar diseases heart disease, cancer, immune dysfunction, diabetes and osteoporosis.[32] Residents of these societies lived in an environment of clean, unpolluted air; they drank clean, unpolluted water and ate simple, uncontaminated, unprocessed, unadulterated foods. In recent years modern civilization has encroached upon these societies, and the health of their residents has deteriorated significantly.

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Detoxification. The term detoxification refers to the elimination of poisons from the body. Throughout the ages the body has evolved complex systems which enable the excretion of a wide range of toxins the body has never previously encountered. These processes involve the bio-transformation of non-water soluble (lipophilic) compounds into water soluble compounds able to be excreted via the urine.

Even though the body has a powerful capability to detoxify itself, the extent of the pollution present in today’s world often exceeds the body’s innate ability. To a considerable extent this is dependent upon the health of an individual and the strength of the immune system, as well as the proper functioning of the kidneys, liver, lungs, and gastrointestinal tract. Researchers recognize that every individual has a specific detoxification profile characterized by his/her own unique detoxification capacity. One’s capacity to detoxify is a function of both individual environmental and genetic factors. This explains why, when presented with the same toxic stimuli, some persons become ill while others do not.

When overly polluted by toxic build-up or an inability to detoxify, the body reacts by producing states of illness and disease. Effects can range from bothersome symptoms such as allergic reactions; gastrointestinal tract irregularities; cold-like symptoms; depression; fatigue; flu-like symptoms; headache; irritability; and muscle and joint pain[33] on the one hand, to more serious maladies such as being a contributing factor to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and arthritis.[34]

Exposure to metals may well underlie persistent, chronic symptoms of allergic hypersensitivity, chronic fatigue, depression, musculo-skeletal pain, neurological disorders, and poor cognitive function/memory.[35] Especially with exposure to toxic metals, overt symptoms may not manifest until later in life. Warning signs indicative of general toxicity include:[36]

• Increase in sensitivity to exogenous exposures such as odors, household chemicals, and medications
• Musculo-skeletal disorders such as fibromyalgia
• Cognitive dysfunction
• Unilateral paresthesia
• Autonomic dysfunction
• Recurrent patterns of edema
• Worsening of symptoms following anesthesia or pregnancy
• Unusual reactions to medications or supplements
• High frequency of illness and/or disease

Although as a society, indeed as a civilization, we’ve made great technological discoveries that have allowed us increasing control of our environment—which in turn reduce the burdens of day-to-day life—it’s clear we as individuals must now begin to take more control of our internal environments so that we may rid ourselves of the many toxic byproducts resulting from our scientific achievements. In a very real way, we have traded external burdens for internal ones.

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