IMMUNE FOR LIFE: POISONING YOUR “DOCTOR WITHIN”

Our “doctor within” is also forced to deal with the multitude of environmental pollutants that abound in our chemical world. When I taught a class in Physical Diagnosis to a group of medical students, I used to paraphrase Hippocrates: “When you go to patients’ houses, you should ask them what sort of pains they have, what brought them on, how many days they have been ill, are their bowels working and what sort of food do they eat?” Today we have to ask an additional question: What toxins (poisons) are you exposed to in your home and workplace? We live in an environment saturated with man-made chemicals, many of them very dangerous to our health. They’re in our food, our air, our water, our homes, our clothes, our cars, our offices.

I see more and more people who are complaining of vague symptoms and recurrent illnesses that can be traced to the chemical poisoning of our immune system. Laboratory test results often show high levels of pesticides, solvents and other toxic chemicals in patients. Lead, mercury, chloroform, DDT, DDE and many other substances have a depressing effect upon the “doctor within.” Quite often the symptoms—fatigue, loss of energy, forgetfulness, personality changes, depression—give us only general clues as to the identity of the culprit.

How much is too much? When it comes to chemical poisoning of the body, we just don’t know. New chemical compounds are being introduced at a fast and furious pace. If scientists were to start conducting the rigorous tests they should have been doing all along, they would probably never catch up with all the new chemicals.

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