Because our bodies are exposed to the elements they are under attack every day of our lives by the products and pollution of everyday living. We are constantly bombarded by toxins and stressors, many of which are man-made and relatively new to the human condition. Pesticides, herbicides, dyes, food additives, industrial pollutants, and drugs, to name a few, are modern-day poisons that cause a chronic toxic overload. This overload can create havoc in every part of your body, from your digestive system, to your cardiovascular system, to your mental processes, and beyond. Your immune system is overwhelmed by the workload that is required of it.
I've long been a believer that we need help to deal with these new threats to health. Our body's are built with natural mechanisms by virtue of our immune system that are perfectly adequate to deal with normal metabolic products, such as the carbon dioxide we get rid of with every breath and the lactic acid that builds up in muscle tissue after exertion and causes soreness. It's the added modern elements that create the need for support, a process called detoxification.
Modern medicine is fairly competent at dealing with an acute exposure to toxins. There's ipecac to induce vomiting, activated charcoal to absorb poisons, and even chelation therapy for lead poisoning. When it comes to the slow, chronic exposure that comes from everyday life, however, you're pretty much on your own.
I don't want to alarm you , but to impress on you the importance of getting rid of those substances and keeping them from getting back into your body as much as possible. Getting yourself truly clean requires an understanding of what's going on in your body, and how the foreign substances act as toxins.
The Poisons You Have to Deal With
It's practically impossible to say which type of toxin would be of most concern to you. All of them are harmful in their own ways. Which one will matter most to you depends on your own situation, your general health, the health of your specific body systems, your family history and genetic characteristics, and what's happening in your local environment.
Let give you some idea of some of the substances you body will encounter in your day- to-day living.
Mercury
Contamination from this element isn't something new; it's just the awareness that's recent. I can remember that as a child my brother and I played with the mercury (often referred to as "quicksilver" from broken thermometers. We had no idea what we were handling and our parents had no clue either.
In the years since that time, the dangers of mercury contamination have become well-known and documented. Mercury is the second most toxic naturally occurring substance on earth (plutonium is said to be the most toxic), and has been linked to everything from mental impairment in our children to heart disease in adults, and is a possible contributor to the growing epidemic of Alzheimer's.
It has been rumored that fish may have many contaminates, one being mercury. We will only know the final results in the years to come. In the meantime you don't need to stop eating a food as beneficial as fish, but you do want to stick with wild-caught fish whenever possible, and look for younger, smaller fish, ones that haven't yet lived long enough to accumulate high levels of toxic compounds.
What you may want to consider is an immune supplement. One that contains a blend of medicinal mushrooms or one that contains an herb from the Peruvian Amazon called cat's claw or uncaria tomentosa. Cat's claw includes 17 different alkaloids, quinovic acid glycosides, tannins, flavonoids, sterol fractions, and other compounds. It is a very complex herb.
Then there is the controversy about POA (Pentacyclic oxindole alkaloids) and TOA (Tetracyclic oxindole alkaloids). TOA's They always have been part of cat's claw's naturally-occurring chemicals and this not really a good thing. Why? They actually inhibited the function of the POA which was to stimulate of the immunologic system, which has been proved by a substantial percentile phagocytosis increase in the granulocytic test. The TOA's actually inhibited phagocytosis (POA). What this means, bottom line, is that the presence of TOA offset the great immune effects of POA.
This was confirmed by patents filed by Keplinger/Immodal from 1989-1998 which stated "Phagocytosis was enhanced by pteropodine, isomitraphylline and isorhynchophylline. The strongest stimulation was observed with isopteropodine whereas mitraphylline and rhynchophylline had no effect." What this means is that a cat's claw with POA and no TOA would be the best.
Several years ago a company was successful in finding a specific variety of the herb cat's claw without TOA's. This product is currently produced in liquid form and has proved in clinical trials to be a much superior cat's claw than the normal cat's claw that you will find in your neighborhood vitamin store.
