There’s an old saying: You are what you eat. Well, it may be more accurate to say that you are what goes into your body—and that includes all of the chemicals you ingest and absorb over the course of a lifetime. The trouble is, most of us don’t have much of an idea what those chemicals are, or how they are affecting our bodies.
Consider this statistic: There are about 84,000 synthetic chemicals manufactured in the United States every year, with about a thousand more being added annually. You might assume that these chemicals all receive some pretty thorough vetting, ensuring their safety before they are released to the market. But not so fast. While there are six universally agreed-upon tests for toxicity, only seven percent of the HPV chemicals made in the U.S. go through all six of ‘em. And close to half of those chemicals are not put through any toxicity tests whatsoever.
How the Law Lets Harmful Chemicals Through
You may wonder how that can even be legal. Well, we can tell you: The law only requires that a chemical be tested if there is evidence that it could be dangerous. And if it’s released to the market and only then found to be dangerous, it’s alarmingly hard to have it removed from the market.
As a result of those weird and ineffective laws, American companies release billions upon billions of pounds of chemicals each year, and many of those chemicals are known to cause cancer and other illnesses. That’s reason enough to be concerned about what’s really in your body.
But I Feel Healthy!
Of course, you may feel perfectly healthy—but that doesn’t change the fact that your body could be filled with toxins, affecting your health in subtle and insidious ways.
For instance: If you had your blood and urine analyzed for toxic content, you’d almost certainly find DDT—a pesticide that was banned a long time ago because it’s known to cause cancer in humans. Although it was outlawed, it’s so saturated in the environment that the journal Environmental Health Perspectives declared there was not a single living person whose body did not contain some element of DDT.
And that’s to say nothing of the hundreds of other industrial chemicals that have doubtless found their way into your system. The question is, how are all of these chemicals actually impacting your body?
Bodily Poisons
For one thing, constant exposure to these chemicals increases oxidative stress. That is, it boosts the stress put on your body from the constant bombardment of free radicals.
As such, your free radicals multiply over time. Now, free radicals are not bad in and of themselves. Actually, your body needs them to destroy harmful viruses and bacteria.
But as ever, balance is key—and the problem with bodily toxins is that they lead to higher and higher levels of free radicals, to the point where your body is increasingly prone to disease, cellular breakdown, and an advanced aging process. Consider this: Nearly all chronic diseases, from cancer to Parkinson’s, are linked to oxidative stress.
That’s why these chemicals matter; that’s why they’re so bad for you.
Is There Any Hope?
The good news is, there are things you can do to fight back against these toxins. Eating organic foods—looking for foods that are grown without pesticides, and eating as few synthetic or lab-grown foods as you can—is a great place to start.
Throwing out your non-stick pans—most of which are made with potentially harmful toxins on the surface—is another step.
A final thought: Make sure you know the difference between natural and synthetic substances. The hormones we use in our hormone replacement therapy, for example, are Bioidentical and naturally based, not created through a synthesized process. That’s what gives them their healthy edge. Embracing natural organic compounds that your body is programmed for over synthetically derived chemicals is a significant way to reduce those ingested toxins.
