Within the last 100 years, we have unleashed a deluge upon our environment with thousands of toxins, including pesticides, herbicides, and chemicals from building products, household products, furniture, carpets, and industrial waste (1) – many of which did not exist in nature before humans synthesised them, and consequently we haven’t evolved the mechanisms to deal with them.
These toxic chemicals may be triggering the recent increases in neuro-developmental disabilities among children — such as autism, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and dyslexia — according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.(2)
The authors of the study, however, suggest that the greatest concern is the large numbers of children who are affected by toxic damage to brain development in the absence of a formal diagnosis. Many children are suffering from reduced attention span, delayed development, and poor school performance, yet they fall just shy of the diagnostic criteria for outright diagnosis of these conditions – Industrial chemicals are now emerging as a likely cause.
The report follows up on a similar review conducted by the authors in 2006 that newly identified five industrial chemicals as ‘developmental neuro-toxicants’ or chemicals that can cause brain deficits – in addition to the 202 known before that point. The new study offers updated findings about those chemicals and adds information on six newly recognised ones, including manganese, fluoride, chlorpyrifos and DDT (pesticides), tetrachloroethylene (a solvent), and the polybrominated diphenyl ethers (flame retardants) – which has brought the total of industrial chemicals known to be toxic to the human nervous system up to 214.
The study outlines possible links between these newly recognised neuro-toxicants and negative health effects on children, including: Manganese – associated with diminished intellectual function and impaired motor skills; Raised levels of Fluoride – associated with a 7 point decrease in IQ; Solvents – linked to hyperactivity and aggressive behaviour; and Pesticides – increasingly being correlated with cognitive delays.
Many of these chemicals enter our systems through the food, drink and air we take into our bodies. However, your body does have exquisite ways in which to rid itself of toxins, and if not, other ways to minimise their effect upon the body. Many of the toxic chemicals are lipophilic – that is they are readily incorporated into fatty structures within your body including your brain. The majority however (thankfully) is stored in body-fat, in which it doesn’t affect function immediately, but does have a massively insidious effect over time, primarily through chronic inflammation.
To remove these toxins, your body has an integrated number of systems that together collectively perform what is known as metabolic detoxification. Please, however, do not confuse this with the marketplace ‘definition’ of ‘detox’ which usually come complete with ‘proprietary’ juice cleanses – I’ve previously written about these ‘detox’s’, and their potential issues.(3) Metabolic detoxification, on the other hand, is firmly seated in physiology.
The process occurs in pathways divided into 3 phases (Phase 1, Phase 2 and Phase 3). Phase 1 is the initial process that enables us to remove toxins from our body. The lipid membrane of our cells presents almost no barrier to lipid-soluble compounds, which can freely pass through it. Potentially damaging lipid-soluble toxins can therefore gain free access to cellular interiors, and are much more difficult to remove.
The metabolic detoxification systems address this problem by converting lipid-soluble toxins into water-soluble metabolites. The ‘solubilisation’ of a toxin is accomplished by enzymes which attach (conjugate) additional water-soluble molecules to the lipid-soluble toxin. Following the solubilisation reactions, the chemically-modified toxin is transported out of the cell and excreted.
The transport and excretion of phase 1 products is dependent upon sufficient water being present in the body. Your body is 75% water, as is your brain, muscles are 82% and (those supposedly dry as a) bone – 25% water. Almost all of your biochemical reactions can only take place in water – with one caveat, it has to be clean.
The quality of your body is dependent on the quality of the water you drink. You cannot function optimally, nor clean your body without clean water.
Tap water in the UK is in all fairness better than much of the world, but it is still not perfect. The treatment plants can only reduce the level of many contaminants down to specified agreed safe levels, and in the process of doing so have to often add in, or as a by-product create other toxins in an attempt to reduce others. Chlorine is the major method of treating water and there is no specified limit to how much the water companies can add – the way they discern an upper level is by taste quality. The by-products of chlorine reactions with compounds present in the water are recognised as being strongly linked to gastrointestinal and urinary tract cancers.(4-6)
The other issue is after it has left the treatment plant and makes its way through the pipe system to your home. Many of the pipes are antiquated and present their own source of contamination. Looking at the local report for my water supplier, the mains pipes in five areas are being overhauled due to problems with excessive levels of iron, manganese, nitrates and bacterium.*
Despite the good job that the workers of the water treatment plants perform, they are fighting an increasingly polluted raw material, and increasing demand as population grows, which will overwhelm the ability of the current treatment plants to clean your water.
So what can you do to prevent toxins from entering your child’s body and help support the removal of the ones already present? Bottled water isn’t the answer, many brands are simply tap water conditioned to make it taste better. And then there’s the processing, storage and packaging of these products which is causing increasing concern in the scientific community. (7)
The only real option is to clean your own drinking water.
Like much bottled water, common water (charcoal) filter jugs really only condition the water to reduce some of the chlorine, taste and odour – they do not remove most of the toxins. To do that you need a system that can purify your water to a higher standard – the two best ways are reverse osmosis and distillation.
A well maintained reverse osmosis system can produce water that is 10-20 times cleaner than the tap water that enters. You can find a good reverse osmosis system here: Reverse Osmosis Water Filter
The best method of producing clean water is through steam distillation, which can produce water that is 40-600 times cleaner than the tap water prior to distillation. Previously home distillation units were expensive, cumbersome machines, but as technology has improved, and consequently become cheaper and less obtuse, they have become a viable option for home use. A good counter-top distiller now costs no more than an entry level tablet device and is immeasurably more important to the development of your child. A good example of a counter-top distiller can be found here: Water Distiller (replace the collection jug with a good quality glass version)
Simply put, the most important nutrient in the body is water – for optimal performance and health of your family, make sure it’s pure.
*All water companies in the UK have to produce an annual water quality report in which they disclose details regarding method of treatment, the guidelines for acceptable levels of materials within the water, and known incidences of contamination and the current status of action in rectifying the issue.
References:
1- Jandacek RJ, Tso P. Factors affecting the storage and excretion of toxic lipophilic xenobiotics. Lipids. 2001 Dec;36(12):1289-305. Review. PubMed PMID: 11834080.
2 – Philippe Grandjean, Philip Landrigan. Neurobehavioural effects of developmental toxicity. Lancet Neurology, February 2014 DOI: 10.1016/S1474-4422(13)70278-3
3- http://humanperformanceconsulting-uk.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/what-your-detox-guru-doesnt-tell-you.html
4- Neale PA, Antony A, Bartkow ME, Farré MJ, Heitz A, Kristiana I, Tang JY, Escher BI. Bioanalytical assessment of the formation of disinfection byproducts in a drinking water treatment plant. Environ Sci Technol. 2012 Sep 18;46(18):10317-25. doi: 10.1021/es302126t. Epub 2012 Aug 24. PubMed PMID: 22873573.
5- Zhao Y, Anichina J, Lu X, Bull RJ, Krasner SW, Hrudey SE, Li XF. Occurrence and formation of chloro- and bromo-benzoquinones during drinking water disinfection. Water Res. 2012 Sep 15;46(14):4351-60. doi: 10.1016/j.watres.2012.05.032. Epub 2012 Jun 2. PubMed PMID: 22739498.
6- Bull RJ, Birnbaum LS, Cantor KP, Rose JB, Butterworth BE, Pegram R, Tuomisto J. Water chlorination: essential process or cancer hazard? Fundam Appl Toxicol. 1995 Dec;28(2):155-66. PubMed PMID: 8835225.
7- J. Muncke, J. Peterson Myers, M. Scheringer, M. Porta. Food packaging and migration of food contact materials: will epidemiologists rise to the neotoxic challenge? Epidemiology and Community Health, 2014 (in press) DOI: 10.1136/jech-2013-202593
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