Do We Really Need to Worry So Much About Toxins?

If So, How Did Our Ancestors Survive Toxin Ignorance?

A Comparison to Our Ancestors

Here is a comment I often hear when I express my concerns regarding the barrage of toxins we currently face in our daily lives and the measures I take to avoid them:  ”It is a wonder our ancestors survived.”  The implication being that if the world were so full of toxins, then our ancestors would not have survived their ignorance of them and that people like me need to relax our toxin avoidance efforts accordingly.  I wholeheartedly disagree with this line of reasoning.  It simply does not stand up to the facts.

Our ancestors were not exposed to the chemicals that are presently in what we eat, drink, wear, slather on our bodies, and breathe, let alone those with which we decorate our homes and often even let our children play.  Most of the present-day threats to our health were either not yet invented or not used in food and consumer products in our ancestors’ time.  A modern-day newborn can be reasonably expected to carry a greater toxic burden in its bloodstream than did the most polluted senior citizen in our ancestors’ time.

Our ancestors also had much stronger immune systems than we do because they consumed fermented foods teeming with probiotics, did not kill their body’s beneficial flora with antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals, and were not exposed to immune-suppressing electromagnetic fields. Not to mention the fact that our ancestors ate meat from healthy animals raised on pasture, as opposed to the sick, antibiotic and hormone ridden, grain fed, feed-lot animals most of us now consume.  Furthermore, fruits and vegetables are no longer as nutritious as they were in our ancestors’ day, because of genetic modifications, soil depletion resulting from irresponsible farming and use of chemical fertilizers and more, and air pollution.

A Polluted People

Humans are now born with +/- 287 chemicals in their bloodstream, including consumer product ingredients; wastes from burning coal, gasoline, and garbage; pesticides from foods that mom ate or air that mom breathed; phthalates that were in mom’s perfume or scented lotion; carcinogenic fire-retardants that were in mom’s furniture; triclosan that was in mom’s soap and toothpaste before it was banned in 2016; toxins from genetically modified crops that mom ingested; PFOA or Teflon from the non-stick pans with which mom cooked; stain-guard treatments from mom’s carpet and upholstered furniture; and many more. Many of these toxins were not around when our ancestors were alive.

According to the EWG: “Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests. The dangers of pre- or post-natal exposure to this complex mixture of carcinogens, developmental toxins and neurotoxins have never been studied.”

However, despite these types of evidence, I was recently yelled at regarding this topic, by an inadequately informed woman who is pregnant with twins. When I expressed concern that she choose a pregnancy support pillow verified to be free of flame retardants and materials that off-gas toxins, “It’s a f*cking pregnancy pillow!” was literally screamed at me.

Ignorance with Consequences

Most parents would never allow a child to drink or eat a known carcinogen.  However, most parents thoughtlessly slather cosmetics on themselves and their children, and some even apparently choose to potentially breathe in toxins from pregnancy pillows of unknown toxicity status when a healthcare professional and avid researcher offers previously solicited advice regarding avoiding toxins while pregnant.  Many moms I know do not think twice about wearing synthetic fragrances around their children, scenting their houses with synthetic fragrances, or spraying scented hair-styling products around their children.  The cosmetic industry is not regulated, and most conventional cosmetics contain known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, and neurotoxins.  Similarly, unsuspecting parents let their children roll all over carpets and couches covered with stain-release treatments and flame retardants containing chemicals that are known to be harmful to human health and even carcinogenic.

You Do Not Have to Swallow the Toxins for Them to Damage You

Chemicals in the air and against our skin may seem harmless compared to chemicals that we might ingest; however, nothing is further from the truth. Most anything absorbed through the skin or via breathing is typically a more potent toxin than if it were swallowed. When you eat or drink something, your liver has a chance to detoxify it somewhat–this is known as “first pass metabolism” and you can read about it in any introductory pharmacology textbook.  When toxins are absorbed through the skin or lungs via inspired air, they bypass the liver and go straight into the bloodstream, full-force, to do their damage. This is why a medication given by a transdermal patch is always given in a lesser dose than that same medication given orally.  With administration via the skin or inspired air, the liver is not able to detoxify substances like it would if they were swallowed, and this can potentially leave the body even more vulnerable than if the toxin were ingested.

Overburdened Organs

As noted above, if you have a fully functioning liver, your liver can help mitigate some of the damage that some toxins might do in your body.  However, many Americans do not have fully functioning livers, as a result of damage due to poor diet, use of prescription drugs, use of alcohol, and constant exposure to environmental toxins.  Even a liver that started out with normal capacity will be taxed after years of toxic burdens.  This is especially true for women.  The kidneys also help to detoxify our blood.  Like the liver, the kidneys can also become dysfunctional as a result of medications and or toxins.

We cannot rely solely on our detoxification organs to protect us, for the reasons stated above.  There are obviously some exposures we simply cannot avoid.  Therefore, shouldn’t we avoid those that we can avoid, so that we will have less burdened organs that can better handle the toxins with which we unintentionally come in contact?

Environmental Toxins Cause Cancer–There is No Longer a Doubt

All of the major cancer research foundations and government-funded cancer advisory organizations now recognize the role that environmental toxins play in cancer.  In case you haven’t heard, cancer is on the rise.  Breast cancer is a prime example.  According to a popular consumer medical publication, in 1940, a woman’s lifetime breast cancer risk was 1 in 20.  Currently, a woman’s lifetime breast cancer risk is 1 in 8.  The rates are expected to worsen for our children’s generation.

Chemicals Mimicking Our Own Hormones and Feeding Cancer

Many cancers are at least somewhat fueled by particular types of estrogen.  Many of the toxic chemicals around us mimic estrogen in the human body and disrupt our hormone balance–this is why they are also known as “endocrine disruptors.”  Endocrine disrupting chemicals are thought to cause cancer, in the same way that the synthetic estrogen in the drug DES did in the offspring of women who used it.  Therefore, endocrine disruptors are a probable contributor to cancer that we can easily avoid by taking care with our purchases.  Most personal care products are loaded with these endocrine disruptors, and so are many home, lawn, and garden products.

Do Not Wait for the Government to Protect You!

Many of the substances in our surroundings are so toxic that they do not even have to disturb our hormones to give us cancer or chronic illness.  Some substances cause severe irritation and inflammation that can lead to cancer and illness through a series of ensuing internal events.  Some common chemicals cause gene mutations practically on contact. Toxic chemicals are all around us and they are hurting health and contributing to deaths every day.  Many known toxins are 100% legal and in your house right now.  Do not expect the government to protect you.  You may die waiting.

Is Ignorance Bliss?

To folks who mock those of us who make every reasonable attempt to avoid environmental toxins, please remember the following.  No one will protect you from developing cancer or some other horrible disease besides you.  No, this is not fun to think about.  Ignorance may indeed be bliss, but what good is that bliss if you are dying of cancer.  As a nurse, I have witnessed patients of all ages suffering painful and horrible deaths from cancer and other preventable diseases.  I have cared for many babies with horrendous deformities that are not genetic, nor are they due to maternal use of illicit drugs.  If you do not understand the fear that some of us have, and the caution with which we are purchasing food, toys for our children, items for our home and yard, and personal care products, then I suggest you do some reading.  Your life may just depend upon it.  You do not want to endure the suffering I have witnessed.  I live this way because I do not want anyone in my family to experience the suffering I have seen.

Lessons in the Suffering

If you just cannot seem to get yourself very concerned about all of these threats, then I suggest you volunteer in a hospital and witness what patients with chronic and terminal diseases endure.  Spend some time in a children’s hematology-oncology unit.  Feel the pain of families watching their loved ones lose their brave battles.  Give some of your time to the March of Dimes, and learn about the relationships between toxic chemicals and birth defects and childhood disorders.  (Be thankful you did not have to watch babies battle such issues first-hand, as I did in the NICU.) Read about this birth defect cluster that happened right here in the U.S., as a result of legal agricultural chemicals.  When you entertain the idea of wanting to prevent such suffering in your own family, start by doing some reading about childhood cancer clusters and birth defect clusters where industrial, agricultural, and/or pesticides are used, particularly around golf courses.  Read about the poisoning of military families at Camp LeJeune, or view the award-winning film, "Semper Fi,"

and learn just how concerned our government is with protecting us from chemicals.  On this educational journey, you will likely fast become like me and want to learn all you can about how to keep your family safe.

The Choice is Obviously Yours, but My Choice Lies with Science

Individuals are, of course, free to decide whether or not to heed the warnings implicit in the mountains of scientific findings generated over the past 30+ years, but please realize that those of us who live this way are doing so for scientifically verifiable reasons.  Do not mock us or act as though we are fear mongers who have nothing better to do than cast gloom.  If we did not have a will to live an enjoyable life, then we would not be trying to protect ourselves and avoid future suffering.  Think about it.

Comparing Oranges to Apples

Whatever one decides to do or not do, the fact remains that the health of our ancestors is in no way justification for our choosing to wear blinders regarding the multitude of threats to our health in this present, more toxic, day.  That is like comparing Earthlings to Martians.  The Earth of our ancestors, is not the Earth of today!  Please do not pretend that it is.  We have changed our planet, our diet, and our lifestyles in ways that would appall our ancestors . . . and hurt their health just as efficiently as they are hurting ours.

Forest Light Wellness Author: Nicole, BSN, BA-Psych, BC-FMP