Detoxify your body

Let's face it: we are soaked in toxins. If you don't minimize your toxic exposure, helping the body to detoxify efficiently, you are exposing yourself to a serious health risk. Toxins are everywhere: in the air you inhale (volatile hydrocarbons, toxic metals, pesticides), in the water you drink (chlorine, fluoride, organic hydrocarbons, pesticides, toxic metals), in the food you eat (pesticides, herbicides, fungicides, synthetic hormones, food additives, dioxins, toxic metals, plasticizers, mycotoxins), on and in your very body (clothing, cosmetics, detergent residues, dental materials).

And this is only a gross generalization: there are literally

hundreds, if not thousands of toxic chemicals in each of us.

Most often they accumulate in the fatty tissues, liver, kidneys, and brain, but also in the skin, bones, blood, cell membranes or any localized body tissues. Why should you worry about it? Because they slowly - or not slowly at all - erode your health.

Why do toxins remain in the body? Simply put, your detox system is overwhelmed, due to excessive level and variety of toxins pouring in day by day, for years and decades, beginning with your earliest age.

Body's detox capability is enormous, but it does have its limits. Constant influx of hundreds of toxins, combined with the shortage of nutrients that body needs to run and protect its detox function, results in accumulation of toxins within the body. This is in particular the case with fat-soluble toxins, which the detox system needs to convert in water-soluble form, for the body to be able to effectively dispose of.

Fat-soluble toxins that are neither neutralized, nor made more water soluble, will roam the body. Some will ultimately end up deposited in the fatty tissues throughout the body. They are causing relatively little harm as long as they remain there, but they'll leak out whenever these fatty deposits start dissolving - when you lose wait, get sick, or have prolonged intense physical activity. 

But fat soluble toxins not neutralized by the detox system can also

 end up in the lipid structures vital for body's functioning,

such as those in the cellular membrane (particularly rich in lipid structure are the nerve cells, whose elongated portion is wrapped up in myelin sheaths, insulating electrical signal pathway). There, they can damage lipid structures and their function, or interfere with nearby cellular processes in some other way. And that is where many diseases and unwell feelings spring from.

Just as damaging as the original toxin - or even more - can be intermediary compounds produced by the detox enzymes. Often times, a toxin undergoes multiple chemical transformations before it is neutralized, or made water soluble and excreted. Ideally, the body will have adequate supply of protective enzymes for each single stage of detoxication process - but in reality some phases of the detox process are lagging behind. The reason can be chronic deficiency in specific nutrients needed for those particular detox stages, an acute deficiency caused by high level toxic exposure, or a genetic glitch.

Such a detox bottleneck

can drastically compromise efficacy of your detoxication,

leaving many toxins and potentially very toxic intermediary compounds roaming through your body. The cycle is broken: instead of being removed, toxins keep accumulating, worsening the damage. The liver, being a crossroad for most toxins that enter the body, is most exposed, but other tissues and organs - intestine, brain, lungs, bones, glands, connective tissue, etc. - are not spared either. Many toxic metabolites are highly reactive: they can cause chains of oxidative reactions destroying millions of body cells. These are especially damaging if you are low in antioxidant nutrients.

Since most of us are exposed to low levels of these toxins, it takes years and decades for them to accumulate and cause a disease. Most body toxins cause diseases by damaging body enzymes, by causing oxidative damage to body cells and tissues, and by interfering with hormonal functions; when these effects become extensive,

it can cause any symptom and disease imaginable:

organ damage, neural dysfunction, musculoskeletal degeneration, DNA damage (cancer, mutagenic), glandular/hormonal dysfunction, chemical sensitivities, suppressed immune system, accelerated aging, and so on.

That is the perfidy of it: most often, it takes long time before symptoms of a disease caused by low-level toxic exposure show up, but by that time the damage is already done. And the prospects of reversing it are poor: all that the official medicine will do is stick its label ("diagnosis") to it, and put you on lifetime of drugs.

Many toxic substances, as well as detoxication process itself are a constant source of so called reactive oxygen species (often called free radicals, or simply radicals, unstable compounds with unpaired electrons) inflicting oxidative damage at the cellular level: peroxidation (burning) of lipids in the cellular membrane, as well as lipid/lipid, lipid/protein and protein/protein cross-linking (so called adducts). If extensive, accumulated damage at the cellular level can literally wreck body functions, including the DNA function. 

 This makes antioxidant enzymes and nutrients an

inherent part of the detox system.

If there is shortage of them, it is not only that cells, tissues and organs suffer oxidative damage, the detox enzymes themselves may become a victim, which all but ensures destruction of health.

In addition, presence of toxins in the body forces it to use its precious nutrients for detoxication. This makes you

more vulnerable to nutritional deficiencies

which, in turn, makes detoxification less efficient. Needless to say, any nutritional deficiency is an illness invitation. The vicious circle is set up, and many are falling victims to it.

Efficient detoxification also requires efficient energy production at the cellular level. If your food metabolism is compromised in any of the three cardinal areas - digestion, bloodstream absorption, cellular assimilation - or if your mitochondria itself is inefficient or damaged, your detoxication will be inefficient too. So it is all very much all related and mutually dependant.

As always, those most vulnerable to chemical toxins are small children - in particular unborn babies - elderly and the sick. But no one is safe. Individual exposure levels and vulnerabilities

vary rather widely.

Fat-soluble toxins tend to leak from their fatty tissue storages, because the adipose tissue cellular membranes are mainly fatty structures as well. Release of accumulated toxins - especially from adipose tissue - can be accelerated by a trauma, or sickness - just when they hurt the most. You can't pay enough of a health insurance to protect yourself from what these toxins can do to you. But you can greatly reduce the risk to your health by

minimizing your toxic exposure on one side,
and boosting your body's detoxification capabilities on the other.

To minimize your toxic exposure, you need to identify toxins in your air, water, food and environment, and follow up with the adequate protective measures.

 And how does one aid body's detoxification system? Simple: make sure that it gets what it needs to do its job. In general, you need adequate intake and assimilation of all essential nutrients: mineral, vitamins, amino and fatty acids. While body's detox system does not directly depend on each single one, they are needed for good overall health. Any serious deficiency, or imbalance in these nutrients will disrupt body processes, including - to some degree - body's detox system.

In particular, there is a number of nutrients that your detox system directly depends on. A healthy, wholesome diet goes long way in providing you with both, so called essential and non-essential nutrients, including those specifically needed by your detox system. Don't forget that water is an active detox agent - make sure it is plentiful in your body, at all times. In addition, balanced, broad spectrum supplementation is a very good idea for most of us.

Still, considering the extent of exposure, controlled specific nutritional supplementation may be necessary to support body's own detox function. In particular, you should do it if you have specific health condition and/or are taking any medications for extended periods of time. Very often it drains your body of specific nutrients. This form of supplementation, however, requires both, nutritional assessment with lab tests and assistance by a qualified health professional.

Having your body well nourished and hydrated gives to your detox system what it needs to function efficiently. Coupled with minimized toxic exposure, it should put you on the safe track. However,

body's detox capabilities alone won't be enough to free you
from years and decades long toxic accumulation,

plaguing your body and compromising your health.

At present levels of toxic exposure, your detox system could keep up with your daily toxic input at best - chances are, not even that much. In order to eliminate accumulated toxins, your body needs your help, and there's a lot that you can do here.

It can be as simple as having a good sweat as often as you can; sweating has important detox function, especially if for any reason your body can't get rid of toxins and keeps depositing them. Significant portion of these toxins ends up in your skin (don't forget that it is the largest body organ). Sweating is so effective in mobilizing and moving toxins out of your body, that can be made a powerful detox protocol of its own.

In addition, there is a number of other detox protocols you can periodically use to reduce your body's toxic accumulation.