Worse Living Through Chemistry

August 01, 2007

Melissa Beal , Post Contributor

There are 80,000 chemicals in use commercially right now, and every five years 10,000 new chemicals are introduced, most of them designed to make life better. Cooking spray makes food easier to remove from the pan, and eases cleaning. Scotchgard makes cleaning furniture a breeze, and keeps carpets spotless. Flame retardant on children's pajamas helps protect children in the event of a fire. However, these chemicals, despite their good intentions, can build up to toxic levels in the body leading to a broad spectrum of ailments from fatigue to cancer.

In their new book, Invisible KILLERS :: The Truth About Environmental Genocide(I.K. Enterprises, Inc. 2007) authors Dr. Stewart Lonky, M.D. and biochemist Rik Deitsch expose the dangers that surround people every day in the air they breathe, the water they drink and the food they eat. Known as environmental toxins, these chemicals accumulate in the body and can cause disease and even death. Lonky and Deitsch seek to identify problems and offer solutions that will help detoxify people, leading to healthier lives.

'We're kind of living this experiment,' Lonky said. 'We keep putting things in the test tube. It's not going to explode yet, but maybe it exploded and we haven't seen it.'

The book focuses on how we can neutralize the effects of toxic chemicals in our bodies. 'Irrespective of what we do to clean the environment, we're never going to clean it up,' said Lonky, who believes that it is more beneficial to help people remove the toxins that will inevitably make their way into their body, rather than try to eliminate those toxins from the environment, which is highly improbable.

Toxins enter the body via air, water and food and can be found everywhere. It is obvious that factories, cars, trucks, buses, power plants and wildfires pollute the air, and that fertilizers, herbicides, insecticides, oil, grease, heavy metals from industrial runoff, pet wastes and faulty septic systems pollute the water. What is made less apparent is that they are also harming human beings, who consume these toxic substances every single day, now more than ever before. We breathe in polluted air, drink or swim in polluted waters and eat foods that have been exposed to the afflicted air and water.

People are not safe indoors either. Many of the most potent toxins are found in the home and in office buildings. Examples include, propane, butane and phenol, which are found in aerosols and room fresheners and can contribute to respiratory disease or cancers; formaldehyde, a known human carcinogen, which is found in latex paint, fingernail polish, furniture and cabinets made of particle board or plywood, new carpets and more.

According to Lonky, the body does one of three things after ingesting toxins. First, it attempts to filter out toxins through urine and sweat. If that doesn't work, the liver will attempt to neutralize the toxins before excreting them. 'Your liver is your best friend,' Lonky said. 'Take good care of your liver.' If that doesn't work, the body stores the toxins in fat, bone, kidney and liver tissues and eventually brain tissue, leading to a plethora of different physical manifestations.

'We've come to the age where as a society, if we want to continue to live healthy and not get Alzheimer's at younger ages and have kidney failure and more anemia because of more of these toxins, we're going to need to start to detox,' Lonky said.

The easiest way to decrease toxicity, is to avoid toxins, but that of course, is much easier said than done. Lonky suggests always washing fruits and vegetables, using water and air filtration systems in the home, drinking bottled water, using more 'green' products in the home and airing out dry cleaning before bringing it inside as simple methods to aid in the detoxification process.

Alternative methods, which are slightly more drastic but necessary for certain toxicity levels, include use of Infra-red sauna, which exposes the body to a safe, but high level of heat causing sweat glands to go into overdrive, forcing toxic substances from the body; colonics and colon cleanses; lymphatic drainage, which is done through 'massage that was created to force improved lymphatic flow and eventual drainage'; acupuncture; chelation, which uses chelating agents, or substances that can chemically bond with toxins, allowing the body to remove them using natural mechanisms of waste product removal; and use of activated liquid zeolites, which are minerals that are formed in volcanic eruptions, and are highly effective chelating agents.

Lonky, a longtime Palisadian, is board certified in internal medicine, pulmonary and critical care medicine and has practiced medicine for more than 35 years. His practice involves the evaluation and treatment of patients with toxic exposures and lung disease. He will be appearing at Village Books on Thursday, August 9 at 7:30 p.m. along with his co-author, Rik Deitsch for an informal presentation to explain the motivation behind writing 'Invisible Killers,' before answering questions and signing books.

'We need to start an industry, a whole approach to getting this stuff minimized in our bodies,' Lonky said. 'I expect 10 years from now, we could list detox products that people would take on a regular basis that help get rid of these [toxins]. That's where we need to go if we're going to reverse this trend.'

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