Ten toxic truths about environmental toxins
Our daily exposure to chemicals is an issue we should be paying more attention to. Today, there are over 140’000 chemicals in our environment, with 2’000 new chemicals added each year; and we’re part of a huge and unprecedented human experiment. We rather naively assume that if it sold, it has been tested. When it comes to chemical exposure in our food, personal-care products, or home environment, it’s sobering to realise only a small percentage of those thousands of chemicals have been tested for links to health – and many of them are toxic.
To add to this, the testing of these materials is fraught with problems: How do you test it? What is the health status and age of the person tested? How long do you test for? What happens if one chemical is combined with another?
Just read the label on any product and you will understand that each day we are exposed to a cocktail of chemicals – it’s never just one chemical at a time.
Even more alarmingly, more tests on the harmful effects of a particular chemical are only conducted on a single chemical exposure, over a period of just weeks or months – and often on a young, healthy subject. The synergistic interaction of several chemicals over a lifetime on people of various ages and degrees of health is rarely, if ever, considered. So my advice is: It’s better to be cautious than cavalier.
Ten toxic truths about environmental toxins:
1. Everything is connected, and everyone is affected.
Whether we like it or not, whether we believe it or not, we’re all connected and so we are all affected by toxins in the environment.
2. We don’t know the full extent.
There’s an estimated of 140’000 commercially produced chemicals in our environment, and probably another 500’000 produced inadvertently. These chemicals weren’t in the environment 200 years ago. There is also often a long lag-time before a disease becomes clinically apparent or diagnosed.
3. Very small doses can cause very large effects.
In 2014, the World Health Organisation released a document mentioning that they used to believe that ‘it was the dose that made the poison and, below a certain dose, everything was okay. And if you had small amount of the toxin, it didn’t really matter. Now, we are realising that very, very small amounts can affect our endocrine system, which matters because its our endocrine system that, by producing hormones, controls the regulation of our organs and their growth and development.’
Another document released by the World Health Organisation recognised that these chemicals are in our water, our soil, and our air. They’re in consumer goods, furniture, personal care products, our food, and they have a huge effect on chronic diseases, diabetes, depression, neurological problems, human reproduction and fertility, and childhood development.
4. Chemical cocktails are synergistic.
How toxic is mercury? What if we combine it by lead? If a small dose makes a difference and these chemicals are combined, that becomes a bigger problem. For example, if we give mercury a toxic value of 1 and we give lead a toxic value of 1, mixing both together wouldn’t necessarily give a value of 2. The toxicity of two or more chemicals could equal 10 or 100, the combined effect could be exponential.
5. Timing is important.
It’s not just the dose or mixture of toxic chemicals, but the timing of the exposure. This was seen in the 1970s when pregnant women were prescribed thalidomide for morning sickness. The timing of the chemical exposure meant thousands of children were born without limb buds.
6. Foetuses, children, and the young are at greater risk.
Children have much higher chemical exposure than adults because they literally live closer to the ground, where many toxins are located and they also have much more hand-to-mouth behaviours. While they have a higher exposure, they have less ability to process the toxins, because of immature detoxification and immune systems.
7. Biomagnification happens up the food chain.
This occurs when large organisms consume smaller organisms – big fish eat little fish – magnifying the toxic chemical consumption. There could be tiny amount of mercury in a plankton, for example; but when shrimp eat plankton, it’s aggregated. Then when little fish eat shrimp, it’s aggregated again. Then predatory fish or seabirds eat other fish. In this way, the amount can be magnified by up to 10 million times. When it reaches the top of the food chain – humans – there are much higher concentrations. Another reason to eat plant-based, organically grown food.
8. Bioaccumulation.
Persistent organic pollutants are chemical substances that persist in the environment, bioaccumulate through the food web, and pose adverse effects to human health and the environment. They are stored in fatty tissue.
9. Effects are epigenetic and transgenerational.
When you have a thought, it produces a protein called neurotransmitter that causes a gene to be expressed. This is the epigenetic effect. When a pregnant woman is exposed to a nutrient, a toxin, a thought, it affects how her genes express themselves. That gene expression, the epigenetic effect, can then be passed on to the foetus and even genes in the following generation. You don’t start life with a clean slate, but inherit from your parents’ or grandparents’ exposure. With knowledge comes power, and the science of epigenetics is empowering because it suggests that by taking a precautionary approach, you can influence the way in which genes are expressed.
10. Injustice and accidents happen.
Catastrophic accidents expose populations to chemicals – this is something beyond their control. Examples include the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear-reactor disaster in Ukraine, and the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. There are justifiable concerns when local disasters can have global effects. In March 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami in Japan led to the Fukushima nuclear-reactor disaster, when nuclear waste and toxins from the stricken factory flowed into the sea, and currents carried them around the north Pacific and down the American West coast. Following the events in Japan, marine scientists from Stony Brook University and Stanford University tested 15 Pacific bluefin tuna caught off the coast of southern California and found small amounts of radioactive elements from the Fukushima nuclear power plant in their bodies. According to the research, the migratory tuna were one to two years old and swam in radioactive waters between Japan and California.
This reinforces the number one “toxic-truth” - we are all connected and so we are all affected. Globalisation in the modern world offers us many opportunities, but it also offers us many challenges.
Sourced from “A Life Less Stressed – The five pillars of health and wellness” by Dr Ron Ehrlich - 2018.