Toxicity

TOXICITY

Understanding Toxicity

When people get sick we have two things we can do to help them. We can add something that’s not

there,

that’s missing, or we can take away something that’s there that should not be there. The body

was made

perfect, using a perfect blueprint. Because of that, the body has a self-healing mechanism.

It already knows

how to get well. It needs to get well. Of course, good food and good water are

necessary for being healthy,

however when the system is no longer working perfectly then

homeopathic medicine looks at what’s inside

that needs to be taken out.

Let's suppose someone gives you a brand new car and you drive it off; you notice its near empty so you

go to

the gas station and fill up the tank but the car won't start.. You try to figure out why in the world a

brand new car

wouldn’t start. You suddenly realize your car was a diesel and you filled it up with regular

gasoline. So you

now have the wrong fuel in your new car. The car is not broken, there are no parts

that need to be repaired,

there’s nothing that has to be added or improved upon. All that needs to be

done is to change what was put in

that’s toxic to that system. The car was perfect to start with, but

something was put into the system that didn’t

belong there. The human body is the same way. If the

body is not working, then taking out parts is not

necessarily the answer. Adding, trying to find what’s

missing to put into the body, may not be the answer

either.

The Science Of Detox

The science of detoxification looks at what is in the body that doesn’t belong there. The process of

removing

toxins is known as detoxification. If the body knows how to detoxify something then it can’t be

a problem for

you. One reason arsenic is a problem and why it qualifies as a toxin is that the body

doesn’t know how to get

rid of arsenic quickly. Therefore it builds up in the system and begins to

damage the cells. If the body could

clear arsenic rapidly and easily, then arsenic wouldn’t be listed as

a poison. By definition, something that is

toxic or poisonous is something that can damage the body

because the body doesn’t have a way of dealing

with it, the body can’t neutralize it or can’t excrete it.

The body has many biochemical pathways to flush out

many substances. The body has a lot of tricks,

many of which take place in the liver that can get rid of toxins.

The toxins are broken down, they are

changed into a harmless form and then if they do need to leave the body

they have four avenues.

Toxins can be eliminated through the skin, through breath, through the bowel and

through the

kidney/bladder.

If there is a problem then we know that whatever got into the system the body did not know what to do

with it

and stored it. It was added to the body and is in the body causing problems. Being quite liberal

with the

definition of toxin, I’m talking about anything that enters the system that is causing damage

and the body can’t

deal with it. It could be a physical toxic substance, something that entered the body

through the skin, through

inhaling something in the air, something ingested in food or water, or

something injected. It could also be a

toxic thought. There’s such a thing as toxic thoughts or beliefs.

How negative emotions affect the body has

been studied in great detail. They can cause incredible

problems in the body. We are looking at the four

levels of being, the Physical, the Emotional, the

Mental and the Spiritual. Toxicity can come in at any of these

levels. Just one toxin can cause

problems in many areas of the body as well as on multiple levels.

Another Angle

Another approach to healing is to boost the immune system and make the body stronger. To make the

body

more efficient in order to more easily handle toxicity. Unfortunately, that alone is not enough many

times. An

example would be this: Every time you jump into a large swimming pool you sink right to the

bottom because

you are wearing chains around your ankles. You have to use your arms to tread water

to get to the surface and

you have trouble doing that. You go to the gym and workout, lift weights and

use machines until your arms and

upper chest become very strong. After a few months you are able to

jump into the pool with the chains around

your ankles and can swim very quickly to the surface and

stay there. It takes a lot of effort, but you can do that

because you’ve been working out. The problem

with this is obvious: why not just remove the chains from the

ankles and easily swim to the surface?

Then if you workout, you can more easily and efficiently stay on top of

the water.

The most powerful way to treat the body is to simultaneously build up the body, making sure it has

everything

that it needs to heal (sufficient water intake, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, sunlight, air) and

to cleanse the

body. There are exceptions. There are examples where the body may be so debilitated

that one may need to

focus in the beginning on building up the body so it can more easily, efficiently

and safely detoxify. Other than

that, with most people, there is better success if the processes are

simultaneous. Determine what toxins are

in the body that need to come out and what nutrients are

missing from the body and put those together and

start a customized program. A tailored program for

that particular person. For that reason no one is going to

have the same program that someone else

has done.

Two Toxin Categories

There are two general categories of toxins. There are external toxins and internal toxins. Internal toxins

are

products that the body makes that

allowed to

buil

up in the system

can make the body sick. An

example

would be uric

acid, something which the body makes. If for some reason this were to build

up in the

body it creates a

condition known as gout. Gout can be a very serious problem, it can be very

painful

and cause arthritis. The

body also makes cholesterol. You can’t live without cholesterol.

However, if

you have too much cholesterol,

that can become a problem.

External toxins are environmental. They are toxins that come into the body from the outside. They can

ingested, inhaled, injected, or absorbed through the skin. When we talk about toxins we are

including things

such as organic and inorganic chemicals, food additives and colorings, heavy metals

such as lead, aluminum

and mercury, prescription and over-the-counter drug residues (things that we

have taken in the past that were

not properly processed by the body), pesticides, different kinds of

bacteria and viruses, rickettsia, prions, fungi,

mycoplasmas, nanobacteria, yeasts such as candida,

and numerous parasites that get into the body.

Detox Sequence and Virulence

Just as some bacteria and viruses in the body are stronger and more dangerous or virulent,

in order to

detoxify

you must consider

two things:

what is the most toxic thing in the body and how do you get rid of

it quickly and safely

This concept is

very important because toxins need to come out of the body in a

particular sequence.

Many times if that rule is

not followed there are problems. I’ve seen many

examples where the toxins

would either not come out at all

or come out very slowly because of

improper sequence. Sometimes

you want to take out some of the less

virulent toxins first, sometimes

the most virulent. An example

would be an acute poisoning from a pesticide.

Let’s say a small child

drinks something in the home

and they have maybe one hour to live. Obviously that is

an emergency

and that toxin is the one that

needs to come out. That would be an example of a toxin needing

to come

out very quickly.

Other toxins are very slow and insidious, like the build up of heavy metals, which can cause very

serious

health issues

. I

t can take 20 to 30 years for that to happen. So the type of toxin to be

removed

first must be

considered. If you have a ball of yarn you want to unravel

AND

you know

where the end is

you can

simply hang onto it and flick the ball across the room and it will unravel very

quickly and easily.

If you can’t find

the end of the yarn and you start snipping and digging, looking for

the end, and cutting

and lifting and pulling

little pieces of yarn up trying to find where it unravels, you

end up with a gigantic

mess.

oxins

of course

will cause health issues, which will eventually

cause symptoms. We don’t

generally have immediate

symptoms unless we take in something

extremely poisonous. Many times

we’re talking about slow-acting

toxins in food, water and air which

over a long period of time cause

problems.

The Stages of Disease

With any toxin there will be problems with the energetic make up of the body, the energy grid that’s in

and

around the body. That takes place instantly even though the person may not notice it. If a toxin is

strong and it

stays in place for a long time it will eventually disrupt the chemistry of the body and the

functioning of the cells.

This in turn will affect the function of the organs and other tissues. After that

point there may or may not be a

symptom stage. The person may become conscious that something

is not right. The next stage is the

disease stage where there is actual tissue damage. What happens

is the toxins get into the system, they

become deposited in the tissues of the body and around the cells

and if they stay there long enough they can

actually find their way into the cells and then the cells begin

to dysfunction and that affects the biochemistry of

the body. In later stages if the toxins are not removed

you begin to have cells that multiply in an improper way.

We call that neoplasia which is of course

another name for cancer.

The Life-Death Scale

If we were to use a chart, picture a straight line on a graph that goes from 0 to 100. 100 represents

death.

Treatment would be too late at 100. At 0, one is healthy, completely healthy. When you hit

number 1, you're

sick, but you won't actually know that until you reach the number 70. At our arbitrary

number of 70, let's say that

you notice

that

something's wrong. When you go to a physician

he tells you

all tests and

exams

are

negative

. Why? B

ecause from

0 to 70 you are in the realm of

functional

medicine

(see

Functional Medicine, Volume 1,

The Origin and

Treatment of Chronic Diseases

, By

Helmut W.

Schimmel, M.D., D.M.D.)

If zero is health, then at 70, you are very sick and uncomfortably close to the

number 100. But isn't it

interesting

that medical tests are negative. So you take a "feel good" drug,

either over-the-counter or

prescription, all the

while the actual CAUSE of the symptom or symptoms is

marching right along. At

80, everything hits the fan...

drugs no longer work, AND, when you get tested

again....guess what? You

are told you have some dreaded

disease. Heroic measures are now

needed, which may or may not

work. But why was nothing done at

number 10, or 20, or 30? Because

medical doctors are not trained

to find and diagnose disease at the

functional level, they don't have the

training, equipment,

knowledge, AND....they wouldn't know what to do with

the problem if they found it.

Why? Because their

expertise is with drugs and surgery and these were not

designed to impact

disease at the functional

level. They are the wrong tools...it's as simple as that.

The most

dangerous

thing you could ever do

to yourself is to direct treatment towards the symptom

. The result will

pain, suffering and

perhaps death. The symptom is not the problem....it's only the messenger!

Definition of Health

The usual definition that most people operate under for the word health is wrong. Most people use the

definition that health is the absence of symptoms. One can be very sick and have no symptoms. In

fact, how

many times have we heard the story that someone just died after proclaiming a week earlier

that they were

doing fantastic, never looked better, never felt better? High blood pressure can have no

symptoms until it gets

severe. There are six million people that have diabetes and don’t even know it.

Many people are walking

around right now with brain tumors and have no symptoms, no headaches,

no dizziness, nothing. Many

people have extremely high cholesterol, a very dangerous situation to be

in, yet many people with high

cholesterol have no symptoms. So we have to be very careful about

symptoms.

On our graph we mentioned earlier, 0 is not just the absence of symptoms, but perfect

health. When you get

to one, two, three or four we say you are becoming toxic. The body is now sick

and there is a health problem.

t would be difficult to find at this point and there may be no symptoms,

but you are no longer healthy. If the

body is toxic and its beginning to create a problem in the body,

AND, this problem is not corrected, the health

issues will get worse, moving further from 0 and closer

towards 100. And this is just one toxin. One can have

several different toxins and issues going on in

the body from different sources at once. If toxins continue to

build and we reach 70, this represents the

point where we actually have symptoms. Nine times out of ten,

people ignore symptoms if they are

mild. Usually they wait until symptoms are severe, debilitating, interfering

with their work or if it scares

them. Then they’ll go and try to find a solution

. When I give a patient a consultation,

they will

start off

insisting

they have no symptoms and by the time

I'm

done I’ll find between 30 to 50 symptoms. As

rule,

people do not recognize symptoms as symptoms.

In Review

To review...from 0 to 70 we need functional medicine. We have symptoms, we know something is not

right,

however, when traditional testing is done such as urinalysis, blood work, ultrasounds,

scans,

MRIs, x-rays

and routine physical diagnoses, as we mentioned before, everything comes up negative.

The person appears

healthy, but they have symptoms. Their choice is either to ignore it or to eliminate

the symptom. The cause is

still not known. Many people choose to treat the symptom. The sad thing

about this is that most people will

ignore the symptom or self-medicate. They still have no idea what’s

causing the symptom but they are taking

something and at that point the over-the-counter medication

will work well and the person will assume the

symptom is not a big deal and will continue to take that

product. Even though the warning instructions on the

back of aspirin or acetaminophen will say one

needs to seek medical attention if the symptoms persist after 4

or 5 days, few will heed this warning.

We know this because all one has to do is look up the annual sales of

aspirin and acetaminophen and

ibuprofen.

Pain relievers make up a

mutli-billion

dollar market.

At stage 80 (at 100 you’re dead), there is some kind of pathology or damage to the body. This can now

discovered with traditional testing. Sadder still, in traditional medicine, only the symptoms will be

treated.

Which is no different than what the person was doing earlier with the over-the-counter

medication. They are

going to use some prescription medications, which are much stronger, but

basically do the same thing, they’ll

treat the symptoms. They are still operating under the definition of

health being the absence of symptoms.

What this means is that many times the 80 gradually begins

to creep up to 100. When that person dies, if they

happen to be old, then we say they died of old age.

No one has died of old age in this country in years. No

one dies of old age anymore, they die of

something. They die because the heart quit, because the arteries

clogged up, because the heart valve

no longer works, something that no longer worked properly. If one dies

before age 120 to 150, then

one didn’t die of old age. The body is designed to function to at least 120 years

old. If one dies before

that, something had broken down, ha

become diseased, due to toxicity. If those toxins

had been

removed earlier, that person would have lived longer. That is why in healing,

almost

ALL

holistic

doctors

either focus on toxicity, or at least incorporate it into their healing approach.

Remember that toxins can be physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. There are different approaches and
systems that can be utilized to remove toxins from all four of these levels.

A More In Depth Look At The Stages of Disease

Let’s talk about how toxins work in the body. (There have been several books written on this). We have

six

stages of health and disease. When toxins come into the body, the body usually gets rid of them.

For

example, toxins that are inhaled and get into the nose are flushed out by the body creating mucus.

Urine can

carry out toxins. There are many ways that the body has to get rid of toxins. The body moves

the toxins from

inside to outside. When you get a virus and it gets into the nasal area the body has

techniques to get rid of the

virus.

First there is an increase in the production of mucus to flush out the

virus. The body also sends white blood

cells to the area to inactivate the virus and sometimes as it

does that this turns the mucus thicker and cloudy.

The body can function better when the temperature

is elevated. We can get a fever, which is perfectly normal

and healthy. (The last thing you want to do is

take something to eliminate the fever when you have a cold!).

These substances that come into the

area to fight the virus or bacteria, many times the tissues will become

irritated and they will swell.

Inflammation and swelling, and many times accompanying pain, and fever are

normal responses of

the body. These allow the body to get rid of whatever it is that shouldn’t be there. The

body is normally

and automatically flushing out toxins. Once in a while the body has to rally around and attack

a toxin.

Let’s refer to these as stages.

Stage 1

is the normal stage. Toxins are eliminated by the body continuously.

Stage 2

is the reactive

stage.

The body is reacting to a toxin. For whatever reason that toxin is too strong and the body can’t

handle it or the

person will do or take something that damages the body’s ability to flush toxins. That

toxin will be stored away

in tissues and substances that are in between the cells. This is

stage 3

Once the body stores the toxin there,

it can stay there for years or the body may figure out a way

somewhere along the line to back it up from

stage 3

stage 2

. The person would feel sick which

would actually be a good thing as they move towards health! At

stage 3

there may be no symptoms. If

those toxins stay stored long enough, we have discovered that it can get

into the cells at

stage 4

. Its

now a little bit more serious. The body could find a way of reversing that or the

person could detoxify

and move back towards health. The person might choose to change the way they think

or join a health

club and start exercising or start drinking extra water or taking vitamins. These things might

aid the

body in reversing to a healthier stage. If the toxin stays in the cell for a while we get a breakdown of the

cells at

stage 5

, degeneration. Its much more serious now and much more difficult to move back

towards

health. If that degeneration continues long enough it can actually reach a level where the cells

begin to

behave abnormally. They take on different shapes and multiply abnormally. At

stage 6

this is

cancer. Toxicity

causes cancer and this how it happens. With detoxification we can bring people back

stage 1

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