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Environmental Health:
A Contradiction in Terms!

There is a serial killer on the prowl

and its name is "Environment" Environmental Health is on track to trigger the next Black Plague of the civilized world. Future death certificates may start showing cause of death as "Death by Environment".

Environmental health is what I call the effect that our surroundings have on our health.

It's not some nebulous concept. It is everything that touches our lives; everything we put into our bodies, on our bodies, the air we breathe, the water we drink, our living and working spaces, school rooms, hospitals, and playgrounds.

The environment is our world.

A perfect storm of three converging fronts is poisoning our population at an exponential rate. Those "fronts" are the environmental poisoning by the chemical, pharmaceutical and processed food industries.

The chemical output of these industries has literally poisoned everything we come in contact with.

Our bodies are contaminated with toxic loads unheard of just a few decades ago. Randall Fitzgerald, in his book "The Hundred-Year Lie", documents many truly alarming findings. He shows that...

Tests conducted on thousands of volunteers by five public agencies showed that every resident of industrialized countries are carrying an average of 700 synthetic chemicals, all absorbed from our food, air and water.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has confirmed toxic loads in thousands of test subjects with children showing higher toxic loads than adults.

Random testing of newborn babies in U.S. hospitals found an average of 200 synthetic chemicals in their umbilical-cord blood.

Numerous researchers have independently concluded that whether we ingest these toxins through our stomachs, skin or lungs, their effects are cumulative and setting the stage for a new wave of fatalities that can't be traced to any one cause.

Our bodies were not designed to handle this chemical onslaught and cannot process, remove and repair their damage fast enough.

Chemical toxins eventually end up at the liver where some are stored, some are filtered and eliminated but most end up being stored in body fat where they continue to accumulate day after day.

The inevitable result is rising levels of cancerous tumors, liver and kidney failure, dramatic increases of disease in children and central nervous system or cognitive disorders. Many of these we are experiencing now, others are fast approaching.

The Way Nature Intended It!

Don't Let the Radicals Run Free!

Free Radicals, also known as unbound electrons, increase exponentially as environmental Health declines.

"Oxidative Stress" is the name given to the cellular damage caused by ionization of an oxygen atom. In it's stable state, oxygen has no charge; it's eight positively charged protons in the nucleus are exactly balanced by its eight orbital negatively charged electrons.

When ionized, the oxygen atom picks up an extra electron giving it a net negative charge or loses an outer shell electron giving it a net positive charge.

That free electron is now called a "free radical" and it's on the loose. It can, and will, react with or damage adjacent cells. It is similar to rusting of metal.

When we have an excess of free radicals in the body, not enough antioxidant protection to remove them and failure to repair cellular damage caused by the free radicals, we have all the elements present to promote catastrophic diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and cancer.

Even if they don't result in some terrible disease, they will greatly accelerate the aging process.

Blueberries: Nature's Best Antioxidant

Fortunately for us, nature gave us Blueberries and a few other Superfoods with extraordinary antioxidant capabilities.

Today these must be a part of everyone's diet.

The bottom line is that oxidative stress from the environment is growing to the extent that our body's defenses can no longer keep up.

Even with the superfood antioxidants, it is still very difficult to get adequate antioxidant protection from our normal food supply and supplementation with a high quality antioxidant is mandatory.

If you can only love (or afford) one dietary supplement, make it an antioxidant.

Genetically Modified Organisms...

The Coming Environmental Health Holocaust

GMO isn't shorthand for "Gitmo", or "Government Medical Organization" or "General Motors Outsourcing".

It's worse than all of those...it's "Genetically Modified Organism" and it is a scary development in environmental health brought to us by Monsanto.

Ostensibly, Monsanto would have us believe that they are developing super seeds to increase crop yields and save the world from hunger. Both are worthy pursuits but unfortunately, that's just not the case.

Monsanto is possibly the largest agro-business in the world but even that label is misleading. Monsanto is an agro-chemical company among other things providing a wide variety of herbicides and pesticides to the food growing industry.

It appears that the effort to engineer crop seeds is more directed at making them more tolerant of the toxic chemicals that are sprayed on and around the plants than on increasing crop yield.

The objective appears to be aimed at finding a way for Monsanto to sell more chemicals by cornering the market in mutant seeds; affectionately known as "frankenfood". The last thing the environmental health of the world needs is more chemicals.

Why should we care?

First is that the environmental health of the earth can't stand such increases in dangerous chemicals being sprayed on it. The toxins don't stay put...they runoff into our natural waterways where they cause death or mutation of all life that comes into contact with it.

For us, it means when we eat the contaminated fish and cattle, our DNA is exposed to damage by the toxins and strange DNA we consume.

Second, the chemicals don't just sit on the ground or on the leaves of plants. They get absorbed and become part of the plant that we eat. Remember that we are what we eat. How much Round Up would you like with your corn flakes?

Third, the way that the seeds (organisms) are being modified is unnatural. They aren't just cross-breeding similar specifies of plants; they are injecting totally foreign DNA from other species. This does not occur in nature and the long-term results hold the danger of some frightening unintended consequences.

The big lie that genetically modified foods are just the same as conventionally grown foods is being spread by a friendly media as well as the company's own slick marketing. Research tells a different story.

In the "Seeds of Destruction” by Jeffery Smith, we read that food related illnesses doubled between 1994 and 2001; about the same time that GMO foods started appearing on the market.

He shows that such foods contribute to increases in allergies; are carcinogenic; toxic and can decrease nutritional intake.

Cited research is that GMO peas caused lung cancer in mice, GMO potatoes were linked to cancer in lab rats and bacteria in our GI tract was shown to take up the DNA from modified foods under the right conditions.

Fourth is that, just like the superbugs, crop pests and weeds have developed a tolerance for the most widely used herbicides and pesticides. This means that more and more of the chemical must be used to control pests, with a corresponding decline in not only environmental health but our health as well.

There is data showing that genetically modified crops have resulted in a 50 million pound increase in pesticide use from 1994 to 2005. Who knows what it has increased to by now?

Fifth and possibly the most important argument against GMO crops is that the genome (the collection of 26,000 or so human genes and over 3 million chemical base pairs that make up those genes) is not constant.

Genetic researchers have found that our genome, in fact any genome, is very dynamic and changes in response to the environment.

Environmental stimulus such as toxins, chemicals, mutated DNA can turn various genes on or off or damage the base pairs of DNA which is passed on to later generations.

The bisexual fish and deer with five legs aren't just rare oddities. They are a sign of trouble in the environmental health of our wild areas. They are a wakeup call that something is happening to the DNA structure in wildlife and if it is happening in the wild, it is happening to us as well.

GMO food is more widespread that anyone would ever imagine. So far, soy, corn, cottonseed and canola are the most prevalent. In the July 15, 2009 issue of the Wall Street Journal, is an article that Monsanto is again going after genetically modified wheat.

The effort was dropped five years ago due to resistance from the food industry but now "they're baaack"!

Genetically modified corn is showing up at local farmers markets now. Produce we buy at farmers markets is typically thought of as organic but can we say that genetically engineered food is organic? I think not. Now the environmental health of the wheat fields will be reflected in all our baked goods.

The "Future of Food" 10-minute u-tube video embedded below is an introduction to a longer 58 minute video on the future of food.

At least watch the introduction to see how the green revolution in agriculture became the gene revolution and how Monsanto is working to control the worlds food supply through it patents on seed. Scary, scary stuff. It has to be stopped.

Environmental Health and Water Contamination

There seems to be some madness sweeping the country. Symptoms include fits of temper, episodes of lying, cognitive impairment, inability to remember historical events, and blame shifting.

Is there something in the water or is it just election season again? Well, yes it is election season and the inmates are running the asylum...

BUT there most definitely is something in the water.

For starters, there are the chemicals we add to our water supply on purpose like chlorine and flouride. Then there's a whole host of toxins that our treatment plants aren't equipped to handle. These include a whole raft of pharmaceuticals in our water, such as estrogen, antibiotics and trihalomethanes. The latter are compounds formed when chlorine reacts with organic matter and are known carcinogens.

It's not just our municipal water systems that are at risk. Our country's natural water courses are quite contaminated from airborne particulates, chemical runoff from agricultural operations and industrial effluents. The observed effects on wildlife should have set off some very loud alarms by now...in fact, they have, but is anyone listening?

Follow the link to ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH AND WATER to read about the scope of the problem and learn what choices are available to us for some measure of protection against these hazards.

A lot of links are included in the site to navigate to various pages but for greater efficiency in searching the site, use the Google Search Box below. Just type in the box what you are looking for, hit "Search", and a new window will open with a list of page URLs at the bottom of the window. Click on the that looks appropriate to your search and it will take you there.

Custom Search Environmental Health and Air Pollution According to AIRNow, "Quality of Air Means Quality of Life" and that sums it up nicely. Nevertheless, air quality is but one of several environmental factors having a tremendous impact on our lives. We know the air quality surrounding major population centers leaves a lot to be desired but the surprising thing is that, because of how tightly sealed and insulated our homes are today, air quality inside our homes is often worse than the outside air. Our homes now have a major effect on our personal environmental health. Pure, clean air is nitrogen, oxygen, a little argon, carbon dioxide and tiny amounts of trace gases. In our homes and even in nature, there's no such thing as "pure air". So what is it that is contaminating our air, where is it coming from, what does it do to us and what can we do about it? Consider formaldehyde as just one example. From the U.S. Public Interest Research Groups (PIRG), "cars, trucks, and non-road engines release more than 165,000 tons of formaldehyde into the environment or 56 percent of total formaldehyde emissions. Formaldehyde may cause lung, nose, and throat cancers, as well as adverse respiratory effects". Click on Effects of Home and Environmental Air Pollution on our Health to get answers to the questions raised above. I'm living in a toxic waste dump! Personal and Environmental Health: Seriously degraded by household products. If the EPA were to inspect the average American's home, it would probably be declared an environmental health disaster area. Take a home inventory of all the cleansers, pesticides, paints and thinners, solvents, lubricants, sprays, dry cleaning in the closet, and any other chemical laden product in the house. Don't forget the basement, garage, and storage shed. The list will reveal an unbelievable amount of toxins that we are surrounded with...breathing, touching, ingesting, living and sleeping with. Household air pollution is discussed in more detail in the page on Air Pollution in the Home and home air filtration systems. Navigate there to see how many common items that we use everyday are harming us and the choices we can make to protect ourselves. Workplace toxins Pickup where the home left off Environmental health is a major consideration in where we work; office, factory, farm, store, hospital, home office? Are you a student or teacher sitting in a classroom several hours a day? Do you drive for a living; truck, car, delivery van? It doesn't matter all that much. No matter where we work, the environmental health of our workplace exposes us to a whole host of toxins. Many are similar to those in our homes, others are unique to whatever profession we are engaged in. Factory workers are exposed to chemicals relative to production; farmers are exposed to some really nasty agricultural sprays and fertilizers; hospital workers have a whole different set of toxins to deal with; and it so it goes for each job and profession.