Detoxification
Detoxification, or "detox" is a general term referring to any procedure which rids the body of toxins. Exogenous toxins are those molecular structures that enter the body from the environment for which the body has no use and which may also cause damage. Endogenous toxins are products of metabolism of which the body must rid itself.
Exogenous toxins are primarily products of the petrochemical and industrial ages. Industry has brought with it high exposure to toxic heavy metals, namely aluminum, antimony, arsenic, beryllium, bismuth, cadmium, lead, mercury, nickel, platinum, silver, thallium, thorium, tin, and uranium. In the pre-industrial age man had almost no exposure these elements except perhaps for silver and lead. In our evolution the exposure has been so meager that human biochemistry has made no use of these metals. Therefore when they enter the human body the only thing they can do is replace the nutritional metals (such as manganese, magnesium, etc.) in enzyme systems. As replacements toxic heavy metals stop the function of the enzymes with which they are associated and this is their toxic effect. Mercury is on of the most toxic off the heavy metals. Amalgam dental fillings are composed of around 50% mercury and are routinely used to fill dental cavities in the U.S. although the practice is banned in many European countries. Removed amalgam fillings must even be legally disposed of as toxic waste.
Other toxins we are exposed to are the halogens. The body can make use of only one halogen: iodine which is used to make thyroid hormone. The other halogens, e.g. fluorine and chlorine, are worse than useless to the body. Using biased studies, the aluminum industry has persuaded the American public that its very own waste byproduct , fluorine (as fluoride), should be painted onto and brushed into teeth, and swallowed with every drink of water. Epidemiological studies show that fluoride intake is directly linked with cancer and thyroid disorders. Likewise chlorine which is dumped wholesale into most water supplies is linked with cancer.
From the 1890s until the 1940s, organic chemicals were produced by the fractional distillation of coal and tar. No new chemicals were produced, only those already present in coal and tar were isolated. The petrochemical era was born in the 1940s. In 1940, by using new technology, synthetic chemicals were created which had never existed before. With the advent of thermal and catalytic cracking, it became possible to take petroleum, fractionate it, isolate particular chemicals and then, with a process of molecular splicing and recombination to produce any chemical you wanted to produce.
In 1940, we produced about one billion pounds of new synthetic chemicals. By 1950, the figure had reached fifty billion pounds, and by the late 1980s, it became 500 billion pounds, including a wide range of toxic, carcinogenic, neurotoxic and other chemicals. Most of these chemicals have never been tested for toxic, carcinogenic or environmental effects. We have been able to identify around 600 of these chemicals which are carcinogenic.
Its hardly necessary to talk about all the pesticides and herbicides used in conventional farming with are stored in EVERYONE'S body in the U.S. and elsewhere.
While some readers may find this hard to believe, cooking food produces many toxic substances. As confirmed by hundreds of researches cited in the prestigious National Academy of Sciences National Research Council's book, Diet, Nutrition and Cancer, "all high temperature cooking quickly generates mutagens and carcinogens in foods".
Heated fats are especially damaging because they are altered to form acrylamides, free radicals and other mutagens and carcinogens as confirmed in Diet, Nutrition and Cancer.
Practically the entire population is toxic. You can detect this by simply noticing the number of people with foul breath. Foul breath is almost always due to the presence of toxins, particularly when concentrated in the colon.
In American culture, there is a kind of taboo about the colon. This overworked organ is doing all it can to rid your body of toxins and if you are typical you haven't even thought about it, much less thanked it or gave it some help.
Detoxification
Considering all of the above, the most important thing a person can do for his or her general health is to begin immediately on a program of detoxification. This program should include: intake of distilled or reverse osmosis water containing a pinch of mineral-rich sea salt, changing the diet to include many organic raw fresh fruits and vegetables, vegetable juices such as carrot and celery juice, raw fats such as coconut oil, raw grass fed butter, and cod liver oil which are healthy fats that act as solvents to remove oil soluable toxins, proper removal of amalgam (silver colored) dental fillings, bed rest and deep sleep, colon cleansing, silymarin (milk thistle extract) to help detox the liver, juice fasting, saunas, the consumption of foods that contain the sulfur aminos like taurine and cysteine which the liver needs to carry out many detox reactions. These amino acids are abundant in eggs, fish, and meat, and milk .I eat raw organic eggs, organic raw grass fed meat, and organic raw goat yogurt or kefir, but poached eggs and meat cooked in water to 160 degrees F is also a healthy way of cooking meat without causing fats to oxidize and cancer causing chemicals to be created which happens with high heat. When I added these animal products to my formerly vegan diet, my health improved tremendously. Due to high levels of lead in my body due to occupational exposure, I did a series of I.V. EDTA chelation treatments which included vitamins and minerals and as a result my health improved dramatically.
Many people have made great progress with very hard to treat illnesses through detoxification. In fact, if you are ill, and you are not in a detoxification program, probably whatever else you are doing is not going to work as well or at all.