Toxins: A Major Source of Inflammation

Have you ever walked down the cleaning aisle at the supermarket? What was your experience? I hate it! In fact, I completely avoid that aisle. If I need something, I hold my breath, quickly get what I need and beat a hasty retreat from that toxic soup.

The soaps, bleaches, softeners and fragrances in the cleaning aisle are all in sealed containers. Yet, they still give off an overwhelming, nauseating stench that may make a person sick for hours. What happens when we bring those containers home? They continue to give off toxins. Only now, the containers are open and the process happens 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Our toxic environment
In North America we are inundated with toxins every moment of every day. Pollution in our air, water and food challenges our ability to detoxify and adapt. Worse still, the place we think of as a haven from stress – our home – is likely the most toxic environment we face in our daily routines. Toxins released from household chemicals, fabric, carpet, fragrances and pesticides seep into our body in tiny amounts even as we sleep.

Toxic waste, like barnacles on the hull of a ship, drags us down. It slows the efficiency of our mitochondria (the energy-producing engines inside our cells). Noxious chemicals create fatigue, headaches, digestive disturbances and moodiness. Eventually, toxins become the focus for inflammation.

Inflammation
Your body uses acute inflammation to try to neutralize toxicity. Think of your reaction to a bee sting: redness, swelling, heat and pain. This is not caused by the toxins in the bee venom. It is the reaction of your body as it tries to eliminate the toxicity:

• Redness is the increase in blood supply to bring in immune system antibodies and remove the neutralized venom.
• Swelling is the lymphatic fluid that dilutes the concentrated poison while providing proteins for repair of the tissue damaged by the toxins.
• Heat comes from immune system activity as it battles the invading contaminant.
• Pain causes us to guard that area from further damage.

Chronic inflammation occurs when the toxins are not completely removed from an area. A good example of this may be found in simple lawn chemicals, like fertilizers and pesticides. Certain fertilizers are potassium-based. Potassium is important for human health. When we are exposed to these fertilizers, our cells may accept the potassium along with the toxic “attachments.” Your immune system will constantly attack these contaminated cells until it destroys them. Clusters of diseases like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis have been linked to these fertilizers.

Home sweet home – isolate and insulate
Neutralizing toxins in the body begins with isolating ourselves from chemical exposure. We must be diligent if we are to protect our family from toxic overload. Chemicals should be stored out of the living area in a place that is well-ventilated. This is especially true if there are children in the home, as developing brains are up to 10 times more likely to suffer damage from toxins than an adult nervous system.

Insulating ourselves against toxic exposure is equally important. Two nutrient classes shine when it comes to protection from pollution:

• Essential fatty acids – Many of the toxins we face are fat-soluble. We need “clean” fats in abundance to displace toxic fats in our brain, liver and other regions of our body.
• Antioxidants – Antioxidants neutralize toxins and Betalain antioxidants found in Nopal figs have two added benefits over standard antioxidants:
  • Betalains drain away the toxin from an affected area
  • Betalains shore up the cell membrane to help promote healing.

Betalains turn out to be our best tool in combating the causes of inflammation: toxins, stress, injury and nutrient deficiency. Use this excellent tool liberally to help you resist the increasing onslaught of toxins both inside and outside of our home sweet home!

Take Control of Your Health Breathe deeply Remove toxins from your living area Use HEPA filters for cleaner air Drink pure water Granular carbon filters remove many toxins Ultraviolet light kills many pathogens Mineralized, alkaline water displaces poisons Eat nutritiously Select organic foods Pre-soak fruits and vegetables Focus on high-antioxidant fruits and vegetables Supplement with Nopalea Betalains help your body neutralize toxins Betalains help your body drain away toxic waste Betalains help your body repair tissue damaged by toxins Supplement with OmegaPrime; at least two capsules per day helps you resist fat-soluble toxins

Upcoming Weekly Wellness Reports…

• Hormone Health
• Vision

Send us your topic suggestions!
If you have specific health topics you’d like Brazos Minshew to discuss in upcoming reports,
click here to submit your suggestions.

Please note that Weekly Wellness Report topics will be chosen at the discretion of Brazos Minshew and based on general relevance.

These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA, and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Healthy Aging

“If I would have known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.”
~ Dean Martin

“None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.”
~ H.D. Thoreau

This is the third in a series of articles on healthy aging. It is the most requested topic for our Weekly Wellness Reports and to me, it is one of the most important topics. You see, health is not about waiting for disease to strike and then battling it. As the World Health Organization said back in 1948, health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Healthy aging
My seventh-grade teacher was an ancient fossil of man – much older than even my parents! I think he was 50. He told me a truth about aging that I have never forgotten: The only way to avoid getting old is to die young. With that in mind I found great wisdom in the words of Benjamin Franklin who said, “All would live long but none would be old.”

So, healthy aging is about living long without being old! To reach that goal we need to take a brief look at the process called “biological aging.”

Biological aging does not happen with the tick of the clock or the pages turning on your calendar; it happens in your cells. During its life cycle a cell may be damaged by exposure to:

• Toxins
• Direct trauma
• Nutrient deficiencies
• Stress

Each of these circumstances causes inflammation and free radical production. Intense nutrition is needed to battle these causes of premature cell death.

Premature biological aging occurs when more cells die than you can replace.

Fighting inflammation
The human body is designed to fight premature aging and remain young. A powerful force called homeostasis mobilizes your immune system, hormones, nerves and other important systems to ignite the healing process. Homeostasis uses focused inflammation to remodel your cells following injury, illness or even the extreme challenges of emotional stress. Once the healing process is complete, homeostasis extinguishes the fire of inflammation and returns your body to a state of dynamic and vital balance – free from the effects of runaway inflammation.

Homeostasis orchestrates the cells in your body to maintain balance under even severe conditions.

However, there are times when your body cannot heal itself. If inflammation overwhelms a cell it may be damaged beyond repair. Damaged, dead cells must be removed or they will become the focus of infection and illness. Betalains, a unique class of nutrient that is both an antioxidant and a protein, assist a special cell called a macrophage (literally “big eater”) to engulf the dead cell and eliminate it from your body. This makes room for a brand-new replacement cell and the cycle of wellness continues.

Intense nutrition
The supplements of healthy aging include four critical components:

1. A balanced multiple vitamin/mineral supplement to establish a solid foundation for healthy aging
2. An essential fatty acid supplement to nourish the arteries and rehydrate the brain
3. A Vitamin C supplement to serve as an antioxidant reserve and keep the immune system active
4. A B-12 supplement to keep the energy level up and the mind bright.

Premature aging is about losing more cells than we replace. Healthy aging is about closing the gap between loss of cells and repair or replacement of our cells as directed by homeostasis and fueled by nutrients.

Take Control of Your Health Learn, live and share the 10 Essentials of Wellness Engage in your community; volunteer often Take your supplements A multiple vitamin/mineral Sublingual B-12 Vitamin C OmegaPrime

Learn More…

• Living to 100
• Activity for your body and mind
• Volunteering

Upcoming Weekly Wellness Reports…

• Toxins: A Major Source of Inflammation
• Hormone Health

Strengthen Your Immunity

You’ve heard that the best defense is a good offense. This is especially true when it comes to your immune system. By practicing healthy lifestyle habits and reducing our exposure to infection (offense), we can better help protect against illness (defense).

What determines if you get sick or not?
Louis Pasteur and Antoine Bechamp – physicians 150 years ago – were keenly aware of the same things you and I experience every year: during the cold and flu season, some people get sick and some people don’t. Pasteur spent his life looking for what makes sick people sick. Bechamp spent his career looking for what keeps healthy people healthy – and how we can be like them! They settled their argument with the discovery that illness visits people with poor habits much more frequently than those who care for their health.

It turns out that microbes prefer to wreak their havoc on people with compromised immune systems. Simple things can compromise our immune system, including:

• An imbalanced diet
• Alcohol and caffeine consumption
• An argument with someone you love

Just as Pasteur and Bechamp discovered more than a century ago, our health revolves around a healthy lifestyle more than the virulence of a microbe.

Help protect against illness
The phrase that describes our vulnerability or resistance to disease is “biological terrain.” The terrain or landscape of our health is made up of our genetics, our environment and, most importantly, our lifestyle. Vigorous application of the 10 Essentials yields the healthiest, most disease-resistant terrain. Skipping even one of these principles will change your terrain and leave you vulnerable to infection.

• A base of healthy nutrients
  Establishing a base of healthy nutrients can provide us with a very resilient terrain. The more dense the base is, the more disease-resistant our terrain will be. Taking a multiple vitamin and mineral supplement every day is an excellent start. Almost all physicians recommend an Omega-3 supplement as well. If your terrain is being remodeled by stress, you may need adaptogens to help you cope while remaining disease-resistant. Indeed, the long-term studies of adaptogens in Russia clearly demonstrated that these plants help you resist infections and speed healing.
• Vitamin C
  Vitamin C is a favorite for protecting against and even treating virus infections. Russell Jaffe, MD, former director of the National Institutes of Health, recommends a loading dose of Vitamin C: one teaspoon of Vitamin C crystals every 15 minutes until you “flush.” By this, he means a complete bowel evacuation. After the flush, he recommends a daily serving of Vitamin C (for one month) that is equivalent to 75% of the amount it took you to flush. This should really improve your terrain!
• Echinacea
  Echinacea is used in a similar way. Significant medical research from Germany suggests that an hourly dose of Echinacea will help reduce symptoms and may help shorten the duration of a virus infection. Taking a gram of Echinacea every hour for three days may even “abort” an infection that has already begun. Continue taking Echinacea three times daily for up to two weeks afterward to protect against a relapse.

Reduce your exposure
Here are some great recommendations for reducing your exposure to infection:

• Wash your hands
  First, the largest contributor to infection is unwashed hands. Washing your hands with soap every few hours will reduce the chance for pathogens to gain access to your system. You should also make sure they are completely dry. Then, use the disposable towel to open the door out of the washroom. Many ugly microbes lurk on door handles – usually from people who have not properly washed and dried their hands.
• Clean surfaces
  Next, disinfect surfaces that are shared by many people. For instance, public telephones bring you within kissing distance of hundreds or even thousands of people. Who knows what their hygiene habits were? In a typical day we may be exposed to germs from as many as 150 countries or more!
• Reduce stress
  Reduce stress. Stress decreases the effectiveness of your immune system. Your immune system may begin to overreact or not react in time to stop an infection when you are under stress. The source of the stress really does not matter. For instance, job stress and an injury may seem like entirely different stresses to your mind but they are treated exactly the same way by your body.

Remember, building up your terrain and reducing your exposure are keys to a great offense… which will help improve your defense!

Take Control of Your Health Aggressively apply the 10 Essentials Take a “base” of nutrients: A multiple vitamin and mineral supplement An Omega-3 fatty acid supplement A stress-specific antioxidant supplement Vitamin C Reduce your exposure Wash your hands every few hours and dry thoroughly Disinfect common area surfaces

Learn More…

• The proper way to wash your hands
  A quick rinse isn’t enough to avoid infection – find out the best technique for washing

Upcoming Weekly Wellness Reports…

• Tremor Triggers
• Healthy Aging

Osteoporosis & Grandparent Guilt

Osteoporosis affects over 10 million people in North America. Two million of these are men. Osteopenia, a reduction in bone mass that usually occurs before osteoporosis, affects over 44 million people, 32% of whom are men.

One out of every two women and one in four men age 50 and older will have an osteoporosis-related fracture in their lifetime. Each year, 80,000 men have a hip fracture and one-third of these men die within a year.

Osteoporosis is responsible for more than 1.5 million fractures annually, including approximately:

• 300,000 hip fractures
• 700,000 vertebral fractures
• 250,000 wrist fractures
• And more than 300,000 fractures at other sites.

No wonder many grandparents are hesitant to lift their grandchildren!

Grandparent guilt
Osteoporosis can effect more than your bones.  For many grandparents, there is a psychological effect too!  The issue of “grandparent guilt” has been discussed for many years. It arises when a grandparent cannot do the things he or she feels is necessary to fulfill their role. Concerns like osteoporosis, arthritis and even incontinence are listed as common reasons for not fully engaging with grandchildren.

Watching the exuberance of youth reminds us of a time in our life when we were more carefree. An old Chinese proverb says, “Even the old horse in the stable yearns to run.” This wistful longing for a body that matches the mind (forever 19) can lead to melancholia and guilt.

But guilt is not necessarily a bad thing.

Benefits of guilt
Guilt is a very misunderstood emotion. Feelings of guilt often arise from unrealistic expectations that we set for ourselves or that others set for us. So it’s important to examine what’s expected within the context of our life.

We can use guilt constructively to remedy situations we feel badly about. Guilt can prompt us to change our behavior. For example, do you believe that aerobic exercise and resistance training could benefit you? Guilt concerning what you should do, what you are able to do and what you have been doing may prompt you to intensify your efforts to exercise more. This will leave you happier, healthier and more able to engage with those rambunctious kids – a very good result!

Use this technique to examine other aspects of your life as well. Ask yourself:

• What do I want?
• Why do I want it?
• What’s so important?
• What should I do?
• What will I do?
• When will I do it?
• Who will support me as I meet this new challenge?

Foundation for longevity
A few helpful hints from centenarians (people over 100 years of age) can help us all stay engaged with grandchildren and others as we go through life:

• Reduce stress
• Stay connected with other people
• Cultivate optimism
• Watch your diet
• Exercise: even a little helps
• Floss your teeth

Proper supplementation aids vitality as well:

• Bone Builder for strong bones
• Sublingual B-12 for brain health
• Vital C for antioxidant and immune support
• OmegaPrime to help increase circulation and reduce inflammation

Conclusion
Another old Chinese proverb says, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” (literally, “from where you stand”). Use that twinge of guilt to awaken you to greater possibilities for yourself and those you love. Decide what you want and why you want it. Then, take the first step!

Take Control of Your Health Listen to your feelings Dare to dream Take care of yourself Build a solid foundation on the 10 Essentials Use Healthy Aging supplements

Learn More…

• Guilty as Charged!

Upcoming Weekly Wellness Reports…

• Tremor triggers
• Healthy aging