Diagnosing any disease is simple, because there is only one disease: malfunctioning
cells. David’s problem had to be a large number of malfunctioning cells, that much I
knew. The critical questions were: Why were they malfunctioning, and how to
restore them to normal function? Four hours into our conversation, David provided a key piece of information that
gave me the answer. David said he liked tuna fish, liked it so much that he typically
ate two cans per day. This statement set off alarm bells in my mind because tuna fish
contains a significant amount of mercury—a highly toxic heavy metal that poisons
cells and deactivates key enzymes, causing numerous physical and mental problems,
including suicidal tendencies. Mercury pollution in our oceans bioaccumulates (gradually builds up) in fish and
is especially concentrated in large fish such as tuna. In fact, the average can of tuna
fish contains the maximum allowable daily dose of mercury, and David was eating
two cans of tuna fish almost every day. Constant exposure like this results in a toxic
bioaccumulation, so I began to suspect that mercury poisoning was at the root of
David’s problems. His mercury exposure did not end with his taste for tuna; David had many silver
amalgam dental fillings, and these amalgams contain about 50 percent mercury. His
dental fillings (in addition to the tuna fish) had been exposing David to smallamounts of mercury for most of his life. Finally, the straw that broke the camel’s
back was a dental procedure. David had to replace his aging mercury fillings and
was exposed to high levels of mercury during this procedure because of the dentist’s
poor removal technique. This large exposure, combined with years of chronic, low-
level exposure from the tuna fish and the dental fillings, was too much for David’s
body to handle. He fell into a state of toxic overload and his cells began to
malfunction seriously. David’s failing health, chronic fatigue, emotional distress and suicidal tendencies
were all symptoms of his toxic overload. The solution? I suggested nutritional
supplements that would support David’s natural ability to detoxify, and I also
searched for and found a medical doctor who was an expert in mercury
detoxification. Subsequently, David was cured of his mercury poisoning (through a
process called chelation, which uses a chemical to react with the mercury and
remove it from the body), and ultimately he was able to return to his life, his career
and, most importantly, his family. Killing Him Slowly
David is an excellent example of toxic overload in our modern society. He was
chronically exposed to a specific toxin (mercury), which was slowly
bioaccumulating in his cells. Already weakened by and sensitive to this toxin, he
was suddenly exposed to a large amount, which pushed him over the brink. Another
factor to be considered is David’s biochemical individuality; he might have been
born with a greater sensitivity to mercury than the average person. Virtually all Americans are now in a state of toxic overload. No wonder our
population is becoming sicker and sicker. Small toxic exposures each day (from
common sources such as breakfast cereal, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, perfume,
deodorant, hair dye, newspapers, magazines, exhaust fumes, carpets, new mattresses,
dry cleaning or a newly painted bedroom) will increasingly exceed and even
incapacitate your body’s ability to detoxify, causing these chemicals to accumulate
to a level that will make you sick. Man-made toxins are so prevalent today that they are impossible to avoid,
regardless of where you live or what you do. Over the last one hundred years, we
have introduced tens of thousands of man-made toxins to our environment, thus
changing it dramatically. Our bodies are not genetically designed to deal with these
levels and types of poisons that are accumulating in our tissues faster than we can
rid ourselves of them. Environmental toxins are not our only problem. We also generate powerful toxins
inside our bodies. Unless we can minimize our exposure and maximize our bodies’
detoxification systems, we will become sick. An extreme overload may even kill us:• Only recently have researchers and health practitioners begun to understand
the long-term effects of the thousands of chemicals we now encounter in our
daily lives. At the time of my birth, the majority of these chemicals did not
exist. Now they are all-pervasive. • A growing body of scientific evidence links toxins to a wide variety of
symptoms and syndromes, such as mental and behavioral disorders, learning
disabilities, fatigue, migraines, allergies, rashes and gastrointestinal disorders. • Frightening new evidence suggests that low-level exposures to certain
environmental chemicals are causing hormone disruptions, resulting in serious
problems that range from birth defects to cancer. • Many of the diseases that baffle our physicians (often called “diseases of
aging” or “diseases of civilization”) are the results of the toxic overload caused
by modern industrialized society. These diseases are difficult to diagnose and
impossible to cure using conventional medical approaches that just treat
symptoms, rather than minimizing toxic exposure and optimizing
detoxification. • Chemicals posing little cancer risk can trigger cancer when combined
together. • Some chemicals and metals are toxic in any amount; others are beneficial or
even essential in small amounts— such as vitamin A—but toxic in large
amounts. In the nineteenth century, less than 1 percent of all deaths in the United States
were caused by cancer, and even at the turn of the twentieth century, only 3 percent
of the population was affected. Today, more than four in ten people will develop
cancer in their lifetime, and one in four will die from cancer. The good news? Many of the strongest cancer-causing chemicals have been
identified, and we can avoid them. The National Academy of Sciences sums up the
challenge: “It is abundantly clear that the incidence of all the common cancers in
humans is being determined by . . . potentially controllable external factors.”
The Poisons Within
Toxins from the outside world—in our food, water, air, homes and workplaces—
are known as 
environmental toxins. Our bodies also manufacture a sea of internal
toxins as a result of normal metabolism, which our bodies must eliminate in order to
stay healthy. Few people realize that their own bodies can be a source of dangerous
toxins—mostly in the digestive system, but also from allergic reactions, stress and
other sources. Internal toxins are being generated at unprecedented rates as a result
of modern diets, lifestyles and medical treatments. Just like an automobile produces
exhaust, your body produces these toxins naturally and is designed to handle them;however, if abnormal amounts of toxins are produced or your ability to deal with
them is impaired, you become sick. Understanding the body’s natural abilities to cleanse itself and how these abilities
can be supported by diet, exercise and other means is important. By learning how to
support your detoxification systems, you can reverse the effects of toxic overload; as
toxic load decreases, cell function improves and disease often disappears. Not all toxins, however, affect all people in the same manner. Just as each of us
has unique needs for nutrients, each of us also has unique tolerances and
susceptibilities to toxins. Toxin levels that can put one person into overload might
not be particularly serious or even noticeable for someone else. Genetic
predisposition, nutritional status, stress levels and lifestyle all influence toxin levels. Because currently we have no way to predict the effects that specific toxins (or
combinations) have on any individual, the solution is to minimize exposure to all
toxins and to take steps to support the body’s detoxification mechanisms. A Buildup of External Toxins
Chronic exposure to small amounts of seemingly harmless toxins presents a
problem more dangerous than people realize. Even in trace amounts, toxins can
build up and overload our cells, causing malfunction. The average American is
building up (bioaccumulating) between three and five hundred manmade chemicals,
most of which did not exist prior to World War II and have never before been in
human tissue. Therefore, the combined toxic effects of these chemicals are
impossible to calculate. Physicians rarely consider toxic buildup as a primary cause of disease and rarely
test for toxic underlying problems. In fact, about the only time the medical
community will cite toxicity as a primary cause of disease is when somebody dies or
becomes obviously ill from massive toxic exposure, such as a chemical spill. Subtle
and gradual toxic exposures typically go undetected, which explains how people
suffering from toxic overload can go to their doctors repeatedly (with persistent, if
vague, complaints of “not feeling quite right”) and never receive a correct diagnosis. When people finally do become sick from their bioaccumu-lated toxins, following
the path of their illness back to the myriad toxic sources is nearly impossible. If
these toxins weren’t so insidious and if they made us sick or killed us quicker and
more straightforwardly, we would understand more readily the need to avoid them. Instead, we expose ourselves unknowingly and we lay the groundwork for massive
cellular malfunction, little by little. Combine these external toxins with those
generated inside the body, and the eventual result is toxic overload. A chilling example: Environmental and dietary toxins bioaccumulate in a
mother’s fatty tissues throughout her life. When she starts nursing, her toxin-loadedfatty tissues produce cancer-causing breast milk. In his 1987 book 
Diet for a New
America, 
John Robbins notes that the milk of most American mothers is so
contaminated with chemicals (PCBs, dioxins and various pesticides) that “it would
be subject to confiscation and destruction by the FDA were it to be sold across state
lines.” Robbins also says “the EPA has concluded that the average American breast-
fed infant ingests nine times the permissible level of dieldrin, one of the most potent
of all cancer-causing agents known to modern science.” Fortunately, dieldrin, which
was used on crops, has now been removed from the market, but the average mother’s
milk (while still far better than infant formula) remains contaminated with
numerous toxic chemicals. No One Is Safe
At present, toxic chemicals can be found in trace amounts in the tissues of
virtually everyone in America—including you. These chemicals include: plastics
such as styrene (disposable Styrofoam cups), 1,4-dichlorobenzene (mothballs,
deodorizers), sodium lauryl sulfate (synthetic detergent from soaps, shampoos,
toothpastes), pesticides, PCBs, dioxins, phthalates (plastics), formaldehyde
(plywood, particleboard, permanent-press clothing), prescription drugs and organic
solvents. No place on earth—and no modern home—is free from man-made toxic
contamination. Molecules of the pesticide DDT, for example, blanket the entire
planet. Henry Schroeder, M.D., a former professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical
School and author of 
The Poisons Around Us, 
wrote that “five toxic trace metals:
antimony, beryllium, cadmium, lead, and mercury are involved in at least half the
deaths in the U.S. and much of the disabling disease.” In all, more than one hundred
thousand chemicals are now in commercial use, at least 25 percent of which are
known to be hazardous; many others have never been tested at all! Even when chemicals are tested for safety, studies are virtually always short-term
and tested individually; few have examined the long-term effects of chemicals, or
how they react in the body in combination with each other. Yet these long-term,
combined effects are the reality of living in America today. In other words, the
testing programs are flawed. Adverse effects are not necessarily observed in small
groups of animals, nor do experimental animals necessarily react to toxins the same
as humans. Ultimately, any chemical that is not normal and natural to our bodies
puts a load on our detoxification systems and may damage cell function. Most people make little effort to avoid toxins because officially established
tolerances presume that toxin levels are within safe limits. Unless you make special
choices, you constantly eat foods with trace toxins, you constantly drink water with
trace toxins, you constantly use personal products with trace toxins, and youconstantly breathe toxic air. By the end of each day, these toxic contaminants often
reach a substantial cumulative total. EPA scientists found that 
the total toxic
residues in our daily diet can exceed 500 percent of the recommended daily
maximum, even if each individual food is within “safe” limits! A Poison Gas Chamber of Her Very Own
Several years ago, a young married couple from Chicago asked me to help their
three-year-old daughter, Anne, who was experiencing seizures. Anne had been
examined by at least a dozen specialists, but their only recommendations were anti-
seizure medications that made Anne sick, yet failed to stop the seizures. The
desperate parents called me, a complete stranger two thousand miles away. They
begged me for help, even though I am not a physician. Because there is only one disease, I knew that Anne’s problem was
malfunctioning cells. But why were they malfunctioning? Although I asked many
questions about Anne’s history, nothing seemed unusual about her birth, background
or development. She had been breast-fed (a good thing; even though breast milk is
toxic, it is still preferable to the alternatives), and her diet was actually better than
average. In fact, she had been remarkably healthy ever since birth—until the
seizures started. I began to ask questions about her environment. As it turned out, during most of
her young life, Anne had been sleeping in a crib in her parents’ bedroom. When she
outgrew the crib, her parents decided she should have her own bedroom, and they
refurbished a room. Knowing that brand-new room furnishings can be quite toxic, I
focused on environmental toxins as the probable cause of the little girl’s problems. I
learned that before the onset of the seizures, Anne’s new bedroom had been given a
fresh coat of paint and was furnished with new wall-to-wall carpeting, a new
television set and new furniture, including a new bed and mattress. In fact, that new
bedroom had just about every amenity that any set of loving parents could give to
their beloved daughter, but it was also a poison gas chamber! The new paint, carpet,
mattress, television and furniture (constructed of particleboard, which contains
formaldehyde) were all giving off toxic gases. You recognize the typical “new paint
smell,” that “new carpet smell” and that “new furniture smell.” They are all toxic,
especially when they are brand-new, at which time they emit higher concentrations
of chemicals. Shut anybody inside a bedroom like little Anne’s for eight or ten hours
a night, and the person is exposed to a lot of toxins. Anne was in toxic overload, and her seizures were the result. Often, in a case like
this, when you remove the source of the toxins, you cure the disease. Instead, Anne’s
physicians had prescribed antiseizure medications, which added to her toxic
overload, making her sicker. I suggested an experiment to Anne’s parents: Close offthe toxic bedroom and allow Anne to sleep in another room for a few weeks. The
result: The seizures stopped, and Anne returned to being a normal and healthy child. Fight Back with Foods
Why isn’t our society taking more action to protect us from toxins? Why don’t
our physicians routinely warn us about toxins and check for them? One explanation
lies in a 1988 report issued by the National Academy of Sciences titled, 
Role of the
Primary Care Physician in Occupational Environmental Medicine, 
which concluded
that while toxic environmental chemicals play an increasingly important role in
modern chronic diseases, almost all physicians are ignorant about the degree to
which low-level toxins affect health. One of the most direct sources of our toxic exposures is the foods we eat. A meal
that looks, smells and tastes good is a wonderful thing, but you owe your body more. You need to make sure your food is free of toxins and filled with nutrients that
support your body’s natural ability to detoxify. You need to find out what is in your
food, where your food came from and how your food has been altered from the way
nature provided. One of the best ways to minimize the toxins is to buy organic foods. Organic is a
method of growing and producing food free from chemical fertilizers and pesticides,
artificial ripening agents, preservatives, genetic modification and radiation. The
term “organic” applies to more than fruits, vegetables and grains; organically grown
animals are fed organic feed and are produced without the customary use of
antibiotics, hormones or other supplemental medications. Organic foods may be
more expensive and somewhat more difficult to obtain, but they almost always
contain fewer toxins and better nutrition. Read labels; the U.S. Department of
Agriculture has approved organic certification and the label should bear the logo. Unless a product clearly says that it is organic, it almost certainly is not. If you live
in an urban area, organic foods purchased at local farmers’ markets are most likely
the freshest, most nutritious, least toxic foods you can obtain. Despite that, almost
90 percent of the food dollars spent in America today are spent on toxic, processed
foods that are not organic. To make matters worse, we eat almost no fresh food,
limiting the nutrients available to help us detoxify all the bad stuff we constantly
take in. Feeding into Behavior Problems
Several years ago, a grandmother came up to me at a break in one of my
workshops and asked what to do about her psychotic four-year-old grandson, Gerald. She described the boy’s fits of uncontrollable anger and said that he would strike out
at everyone and everything in his path. Gerald had been taken to a number ofmedical centers and examined by numerous physicians, who only offered powerful
tranquilizers to calm the psychotic behavior. As is often the case, the prescribed
drugs did not solve the problem; they just compounded it. The drugs made Gerald
sick and lethargic, but did not eliminate his terrifying behavior. The boy faced an uncertain future. That Gerald could ever be able to attend a
regular school or hold a regular job seemed unlikely. I asked Gerald’s grandmother
many questions but was unable to find any obvious explanation for his psychotic
behavior. One thing I learned about Gerald was that he drank a lot of milk and apple
juice. Walking back to the podium to continue my presentation, I told the
grandmother that while I honestly did not know what was wrong with her grandson, I
did know that both milk and apple juice contain a lot of toxic chemical residues. Regardless of what was wrong, feeding him toxins was certainly not going to help
him improve. I recommended a simple experiment: Stop feeding Gerald milk and
apple juice. About six months later, I was speaking at a meeting and, out of the corner of my
eye, I spied Gerald’s grandmother running toward me with an enthusiasm and a rate
of speed that was almost alarming. She breathlessly exclaimed great news about the
health of her grandson. Milk and apple juice were completely eliminated from the
boy’s diet, and he made a miraculous recovery. The psychotic behavior disappeared,
and Gerald has been well ever since. How the removal of milk and apple juice (two presumably healthful foods) from a
boy’s diet could make such a difference is hard to imagine. We have no way,
however, to know exactly how much damage the toxins in our food are causing. Too
many factors are involved, and each person’s biochemistry is unique. Some people,
like this little boy, can be more sensitive to certain toxins, such as the ad exec David
may have been to mercury. The solution, regardless of individual biochemistry, is to
choose a diet that is low in toxins. A diet should consist of organic, fresh,
whole/raw/unprocessed foods, pure water and avoidance of heavily
processed/cooked foods. Clean Up an Unrecognized Toxic Site:
Your Pantry
The hard part is to obtain accurate information about what is good for you and
what is not. A woman who had studied extensively in the fields of health and
nutrition reminded me of this fact in a startling way. Even with her background, she
had little understanding of how to select a nontoxic diet. I met Cynthia at one of my all-day seminars. By the end of the day she was
motivated to make major changes in her life and asked if she could purchase a day of
my time so that I could teach her how to shop for healthful foods. Despite all of her
previous study, she felt overwhelmed with information and confused about how tomake healthy choices. My day with Cynthia and her husband, Tom, serves as a general guide for you to
start on a path toward a life-sustaining, nontoxic diet. The first thing I did with the
couple was to clean out all toxic foods from their refrigerator and pantry. We ended
up with several boxes filled with foods to be discarded; a lot of it was toxin-loaded
breakfast cereal that her children would have eaten. Then we headed to the local health food store. We went down each aisle and
examined foods, read labels and discussed how to select foods that are either
nontoxic or at least less toxic than supermarket alternatives. For example, a healthy
substitute for the boxed cereals was found in the grain section of the health food
store. We purchased a variety of organic, whole grains that could be cooked like rice
and fed to the children. (By the way, the kids loved it.) As Cynthia, Tom and I walked through the store, I began to explain principles that
would help them in the future. Almost any type of food that has been packaged—in a
box, jar, can or bottle—has been processed and is likely to contain toxic chemicals. These toxic chemicals either can be deliberately added to the foods (food additives),
or they can result from food production practices (chemical residues). Whatever the
source of these chemicals, processed foods (such as breakfast cereal, bread, canned
foods, frozen foods, oils and vegetable shortenings, soft drinks, ice cream, cookies,
cake and candy) are loaded with them. In addition to their lack of nutrition, the high
toxic content in processed foods makes them a poor choice. A variety of food additives are used to enhance flavor, color and texture; to help
foods process better; and to extend their shelf life. In all, more than three thousand
FDA-approved additives are in use today, and the average American ingests more
than ten pounds of them per year. Imagining someone eating ten pounds of toxic,
synthetic chemicals a year is difficult, but we do it—a little at a time, without
realizing how it adds up. Although food additives must be approved for safety,
frequently they are initially determined to be safe, only to be removed later from the
market due to unanticipated harmful effects. Do not assume that food additives are
safe just because the FDA has approved them. Furthermore, researchers usually test one additive at a time, even though we eat
them in combination. Almost no research goes into studying the safety of food
additive combinations. Our modern exposure to many different combinations of
food additives is a gigantic and dangerous chemistry experiment. The combined
toxic effects of food additives were reported in a study conducted by B. H. Ershoff
(published in a 1976 
Journal of Food Science
) that examined three different FDA-
approved food additives: an artificial color, an artificial sweetener and an emulsifier
(a substance that keeps oil and water from separating). When fed one at a time, these
food additives caused no readily observable side effects in experimental animals. But, when two of the additives were consumed at the same time, the animals becamesick. When all three were combined, the test animals died in less than two weeks! Bearing this in mind, pick up an average box of breakfast cereal (or just about any
other highly processed food) and count how many additives are in the product. Obviously, you are eating these additives in combination. After examining the labels
on boxes of breakfast cereal in Cynthia and Tom’s pantry, we discarded all of them
because the labels showed that they contained artificial colors, flavors, preservatives
and hydrogenated oils. Read the labels on the foods that you buy.When a food
contains artificial colors, flavors, preservatives or other additives, do not buy it. What would happen if we eliminated certain food additives from our diet? A study
reported in a 1986 issue of the 
International Journal of Biosocial Research
addressed this question. Between 1979 and 1983, the New York City public school
system gradually removed foods containing artificial colors and flavors from the
school lunches served to more than one million children. During this same period,
without any other changes being introduced, the schoolchildren’s academic
performance skyrocketed. New York City schools experienced the largest four-year
gain in academic performance ever measured in any city school district in U.S.
history. How was such improvement possible? Food additives are toxic; they poison
cells. When you stop poisoning cells, health improves. As the health of brain cells
improves, so does the ability to think, learn and remember. A contributing factor to
today’s poor academic performance is the burden of toxic exposure on the
developing minds of our young people. Unfortunately, once the experiment was
over, because of political pressure from conventional food suppliers, the New York
City schools reverted to “normal” foods, and these extraordinary gains were lost. Another risk in processed foods you do not find on the label: toxic chemical
residues. The manufacturer does not deliberately add these chemicals, but they are
present in almost all ordinary commercial foods. If manufacturers do not add it, they
do not have to list it. (Recall David’s exposure to mercury in tuna fish; obviously,
mercury is not listed on the label but it is in there, because it was in the fish.) Chemical residues come from many different sources, including industrial chemical
and pesticide residues, herbicides, fungicides, artificial ripening agents, hormones
and other veterinary drugs and packaging materials. On our “tour” of hidden toxic residues, Cynthia, Tom and I took a walk down the
frozen foods aisle. According to the 1982–1986 
FDA Total Diet Study, 
frozen french
fries contained 70 different pesticide residues. Frozen pizzas had 67 industrial and
pesticide residues. Frozen chocolate cake contained 61 toxic residues and milk
chocolate had 93. Peanut butter had a whopping 183, including highly carcinogenic
aflatoxin, which is produced by a mold that grows on peanuts. Lurking in all the aisles was another overlooked danger: packaging materials. The
toxins in packaging materials (such as plastic wrap, plastic bottles, milk containers,
juice boxes, Styrofoam and epoxy can linings) can leach toxins into our foods beforewe eat them. Foods coming into contact with packaging materials that contain water
or oil-soluble toxic chemicals can absorb these chemicals, and then the consumer
ingests them. Portions of the polymers, plasticizers, stabilizers, fillers and even
colorants in plastic wrap can dissolve into the food. Avoid foods packaged in plastic. Choose foods packaged in more appropriate materials, such as paper and glass. It’s
ironic that people sometimes spend extra money to buy organic foods, yet the foods
may be wrapped in toxic packaging. Why purchase organic meat in a Styrofoam tray
topped with plastic shrink-wrap, or organic canned goods in an epoxy-lined can? Unfortunately, these conveniences come at a price, and that price is the
bioaccumulation of toxic chemicals in your body and subsequent disease. Choosing Your Oils: A Slippery Slope
We continued our shopping trip, learning how to avoid foods that invite sickness. In the oils and salad dressings section, I reminded Cynthia and Tom that almost all
oils on supermarket shelves are processed and toxic. These toxic oils also find their
way into a variety of prepared and processed foods, including salad dressings,
canned and baked goods. Most oils, especially peanut, cottonseed and soybean, are highly contaminated
with pesticide residues toxic to the nervous system. Many modern oils use chemical
extraction methods, which leave solvent residues that are lung irritants, nerve
depressants and detrimental to health in general. Even oils that have been cold-
pressed (rather than chemically extracted) often are refined with toxic chemicals and
exposed to high temperatures in their bleaching and deodorizing processes, making
the oils toxic. Exposed to high temperatures, nutrients in these oils are altered and
turned into toxic, trans-fatty acids and a variety of other toxins (aldehydes, ketones
and hydroperoxides). About one-third of all the oil sold—whether bottled or
contained in margarine, vegetable shortenings, baked goods, breakfast cereals,
peanut butter, etc.—has been hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated and contains
toxic trans-fatty acids and numerous other toxic chemicals. Since these processed oils have come into widespread use, the incidence of
myocardial infarction (a type of heart attack) has increased eightyfold, and heart
disease, formerly rare, has become a leading cause of death. Coincidence? According to Udo Erasmus, author of 
Fats That Heal, Fats That Kill, 
the reason for
these burgeoning health problems is that processed oils promote a condition known
as “fatty degeneration.” In this book, Erasmus wrote: “Sixty-eight percent of people
die from just three conditions that involve fatty degeneration: cardiovascular
disease, cancer and diabetes.” Only a handful of healthful fats and oils are on the
market: organic butter or ghee, high-quality olive oil (difficult to find), and high-
quality essential fatty acid products such as flaxseed oil (see appendix C for my
personal choices).Dangers in Dairy and Meat
Our little group arrived at the dairy section. As you recall, milk and dairy products
are not appropriate for human consumption and should be avoided by everyone,
especially infants and young children. Toxic bioaccumulation is a problem; virtually
all of the toxins to which a cow is exposed during its life bioaccumulate in its
tissues, and these toxins are then present in its milk. You should regard milk as a
toxic soup filled with pesticides, antibiotics, dioxins, hormones, sulfa drugs,
tranquilizers and other contaminants. Worse, the practice of pasteurization (a heat
treatment done to virtually all milk products to kill bacteria) alters the physical and
chemical properties of the milk. Pasteurization not only renders the nutrients less
useful to your body but creates toxins as well. Between the toxic bioaccumulation,
the pasteurization and the fact that milk products make up 25 to 50 percent of many
Americans’ diets, milk is a major contributing factor to our high rates of infectious,
allergic and chronic disease. In fact, milk consumption has been linked to many
diseases, including osteoporosis, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, heart disease and
cancer. My recommendation to Cynthia and Tom was that they eliminate milk and
milk products from their family diet; I recommend the same to you. Milk does not
do your body good. Animal products were our next stop. Meat and eggs can have serious toxicity
problems. Though animal products contain essential nutrients (and I do not
recommend a diet devoid of them), you must choose your sources carefully. The
nutritional value of a food source should always be weighed against the toxins it
contains or is likely to contain. Commercial livestock contain many toxins, which become concentrated in their
tissues. Foods from commercial cattle (and their milk), chickens (and their eggs)
and most farmed fish are all poor food choices. All their lives, these animals are fed
foods that are lacking in nutrition and toxic (contaminated with pesticides and other
agricultural chemicals). Pound for pound, livestock feed is substantially more toxic
than the foods we eat, not to mention that large animals like cattle eat a lot more
food than we do. When you eat these highly toxic animals, or products derived from
them, the toxins enter you. In 1976, the EPA studied human breast milk and found
that the toxic contaminants in the milk of vegetarian mothers was only 1 to 2 percent
of the national average. The solution is to minimize toxic exposure by selecting
organically produced meat, poultry, eggs and wild fish from relatively nonpolluted
deep-water ocean areas rather than those harvested from polluted coastal areas or
farmed. Selecting organically produced animal products almost certainly requires a trip to
a well-stocked, reputable health food store. The foods are more expensive, but the
extra money buys protection from toxins, as well as contributes to better nutrition
and a more environmentally responsible method of farming.Health is a choice. You can pay now for good food, or pay later for doctors and
hospitals. If you cannot find ideal foods, however, often you can make better
choices; if you cannot find high-quality (organic) animal products, then minimize
your consumption. Remember that the overwhelming majority of our toxic pesticide
exposure is from nonorganic animal products such as poultry, meat, eggs and milk
products. I do not recommend a totally vegetarian or vegan diet, because both lack essential
nutrients; however, a primarily vegetarian diet is desirable. An organic vegetarian
diet is the simplest and easiest way to minimize toxins and maximize your nutrient
intake. When you eat animal products, select free-ranging, organic animal products
whenever possible. Anticipating Food Invaders
Toward the end of our shopping trip, I shared a fundamental yet largely
unrecognized food shopping concept. Selecting nontoxic foods means selecting foods
that are not contaminated with bacteria and molds, 
which produce toxins. When
bacteria and molds contaminate our foods, they damage our health. As part of their
normal metabolism, bacteria produce toxins that place a burden on the immune
system and contribute to toxic overload, disease and even death. The most serious
cases of bacterial food poisoning can result in death, such as the toxins produced by
the 
Clostridium botulinum, 
the botulism bacteria (found mainly in improperly
canned foods), the 
E. coli 
bacterium (found in improperly handled meat and a
variety of other foods) and others, including the most common contaminations from
staphylococcal and salmonella. Death from these infective pathogens is rare, but
quite common is the exposure to low levels of bacterial toxins present in foods,
particularly animal products. Always smell meat, fish and poultry. A rank, fishy or
rotten scent means that the product is too old or has not been properly stored;
bacteria are growing and producing toxins, and the oils are rancid and toxic. Never
eat such foods. Commercial milk products are contaminated with bacteria. Government
regulations state that after pasteurization milk should contain no more than 20,000
bacteria per milliliter. Out of twenty-five milk samples analyzed by 
Consumer
Reports, 
seven samples had in excess of 130,000 bacteria per milliliter; one sample
had almost 3,000,000; and other samples had too many bacteria to count! When you
consider the toxins produced by these bacteria, combined with the toxins already
present from agricultural and industrial sources, why would anyone still believe cow
milk is good for infants and children? Cynthia and Tom were familiar with the problems of bacterial contamination, but
they, like most people, had almost no knowledge of the problems with mold. Not
that mold problems are new: Stories from the Middle Ages tell of whole villagesracing around in hallucinogenic madness after being poisoned by a type of mold,
ergot, that grows on rye. Ergot produces a neurotoxin that poisons the brain and
central nervous system. These sick people would sometimes go to a local monastery
where the monks would take them in and pray for them—and they would be cured! How? The monasteries were built on better land at the tops of hills, whereas the
farmers lived in the lowlands. When the monks harvested their grain on the hills, it
was drier than the farmers’ grain in the wet lowlands, hence less moldy. When the
sick farmers ate uncontaminated grains, they became well. The bizarre behavior of
children in Salem, thought to be witchcraft, now is thought to have been cause by
ergotism. Although we do not run around in hallucinogenic madness today, at least
not from food mold, the problem of mold in the food supply persists. Molds can develop if crops are moist when harvested or stored. Food often spends
weeks in the distribution process and becomes moldy by the time it reaches the
store, even if it was not contaminated when harvested. Food has further opportunity
to mold in your kitchen. Fresh, living plants protect themselves from mold growth
(just as we humans have an immune system to protect ourselves from disease), but
as food ages and dies, molds grow. People eat these moldy foods (especially when
the mold is not visible), unaware of the toxic loads they put on their bodies. Worse,
many people have become allergic to molds, causing not only a toxic exposure but
also a toxic allergic reaction. In fact, people allergic to molds are often fine when
they eat a freshly harvested berry or grape but suffer an allergic reaction when eating
the same foods purchased in a grocery store. If you believe that a food is moldy, do
not smell it. Inhaled mold causes serious health problems. Wrap the suspect food
and dispose of it carefully. Mycotoxins (toxins produced by molds) can injure and kill cells, and they are
known causes of cancer, especially liver cancer. Because knowing the level of mold
contamination in a particular food is difficult, the best approach is to avoid or
minimize consumption of foods prone to becoming moldy, such as corn, nuts,
grapes, raisins and all dried fruits, berries, beer and other fermented foods, and
cheeses. Bottled apple juice frequently is moldy. Apple juice drinkers are so
accustomed to its taste that they fail to recognize the presence of this toxin. If you bite into a nut and it tastes bad, spit it out. It is toxic. If there is any visible
mold on any part of a food, throw the entire food away. Don’t just cut off the mold. When a mold infection takes place, foods naturally protect themselves by producing
antimold toxins that are also toxic to you. Antimold toxins are produced throughout
the food, not just the part you cut off. In general, susceptible products such as fresh
berries must be purchased in season, freshly harvested from local growers; otherwise
they are too old and too moldy—even if you cannot see the mold. I observe people in
my local health food store purchasing a basket of “fresh” berries that already have
visible mold. Obviously, they have no idea of how poisonous that is.One type of mold that grows on grains and nuts (particularly corn, peanuts,
walnuts and pistachios) produces a mycotoxin called aflatoxin, which is known to
cause cancer. Although our government tries to regulate aflatoxin levels, highly
contaminated crops are constantly finding their way into our food supply. The
chilling reality is that aflatoxin is most commonly found in some of the foods that
we most frequently feed to our children—corn flakes, other corn products, peanuts
and peanut butter. Some Cooking Methods Can Create Toxins
Once we obtain high-quality foods, we still must prepare them properly. The first
step in nontoxic food preparation is to wash or peel foods in order to remove
agricultural chemicals, bacteria and molds. Waxed foods (such as most cucumbers,
eggplant, turnips and apples) definitely should be peeled, because the wax often is
covering surface residues of pesticides and fungicides that are applied before the
wax is applied; also, questions abound about the safety of some of the waxes. For
foods that cannot be peeled, washing under running water for a minute or two does a
relatively good cleaning job; using a pure, liquid castile soap (a mild soap made
from olive oil and sodium hydroxide) cleans even better. For foods like lettuce,
discard the outer layers and wash the leaves separately. Rinsing briefly in a vinegar
solution lowers bacteria levels. Few people are going to eat 100 percent of their diet raw (I eat about 80 percent of
mine raw), but whenever you choose to eat a raw food in place of a highly cooked or
processed one, you obtain better nutrition and less toxic exposure. Cook foods
lightly. Ideally, food should not be cooked at temperatures higher than boiling water
or steam. Foods change fundamentally when they are cooked; they can become more
toxic, less nutritious and even more difficult to digest. Avoid browned or charred
foods, which are highly toxic. Unfortunately, many Americans have developed a
taste for charbroiled, toasted or barbecued foods, which develop mutagens that
contribute to cancer. When food is heated above 375 degrees (as it usually is in toasting, frying,
grilling, broiling and barbecuing), a number of toxic compounds can be produced,
including heterocyclic aromatic amines (HAAs). HAAs are among the most
powerful carcinogens ever discovered, and even minute amounts of them can
damage your DNA. The rule of thumb is that the higher the temperature and the longer the cooking
time, the more HAAs are formed. Thus, medium rare is safer than well done, and
blackened foods are absolutely not acceptable. If ever I am served food that is black,
I cut off the blackened parts. Even toast is dangerous. Experiments at Lawrence
Livermore Laboratory showed that a well-toasted piece of bread had 20 percent of
the cancer-causing activity of a well-done hamburger. Dosage and frequency are theproblems; many people eat several slices of toasted bread or bagel every morning
for breakfast, which is like laying out a welcome mat for cancer. Microwaves: A Fast Track to Trouble
Cooking food is not a good idea, especially at high temperatures, but cooking in
microwave ovens may be even worse. While not browning or blackening food like
conventional cooking, microwaving changes the chemistry of food fundamentally,
lowering nutritional content and producing unique toxins. A lot more goes on inside
a microwave than just making things hot. Microwaves “zap” food with enormous
amounts of energy—enough to break apart water molecules and cause them to react
with the food in ways they would not do otherwise. These reactions create a lot of
strange, new molecules that are unnatural to the human body; some of them are toxic
and carcinogenic. Research in Switzerland, the former Soviet Union and the United
States all suggest that eating microwaved food may promote certain types of
cancers, hormone imbalances, lymphatic disorders, digestive disorders, immune and
blood abnormalities, emotional problems, permanent brain damage, and even heart
disease. In 1992, at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, volunteers who ate
microwaved food experienced decreased hemoglobin content of their blood and an
increased white cell count. Thus, microwaved food decreases the amount of oxygen
available to our cells and stresses the immune system. Also, microwaves have been
demonstrated to damage nutrients. Research at the Institute of Radio Technology at
Kinsk, in the former Soviet Union, found that microwaves reduce the nutritional
content of food by 60 to 90 percent. When reheating food, use the stovetop or oven. Modern foods are already nutrient deficient. Why make them worse by using a
microwave? Use the right cookware. The best pots and pans are those made of glass or
ceramics such as Corning Ware. Other materials interact with foods and introduce
some level of toxins into the food. Stainless steel contains nickel—both an allergen
and a carcinogen. A study in the 
Journal of the American Dietetic Association 
found
that toxic chemicals from stainless steel pots, including nickel, iron and chromium,
enter food during cooking. Aluminum—from pots, pans and aluminum foil—is
another toxic contaminant. Teflon coatings on cookware also present problems,
especially when such cookware is heated to higher temperatures. Of course, not all meals come from your own kitchen. Americans eat an enormous
percentage of food at restaurants. Making optimal food choices when eating at
restaurants is almost impossible. However, with care in menu selection, you can
usually do fairly well. As a rule of thumb, upscale restaurants usually have fresher
and better prepared foods, while fast-food restaurant offerings are more toxic andless nutritious. Many restaurants do not even “cook” for you; they merely serve
prepared and processed foods that are reheated (perhaps in a microwave, so be sure
to ask). Very few restaurants use high-quality organic meats. Bear this in mind the next
time you ponder a menu. Deep-water ocean fish is probably your best choice, but
only if it is fresh. Fresh-water fish is likely to be contaminated with toxins, and
farmed fish are neither nutritious nor free of toxins. When ordering out, I often
select large salads or freshly harvested fish, with vegetables. Many restaurants are
willing to make up a vegetarian entrée on request. Avoid anything that is
“blackened,” as well as selections containing meat and, particularly, dairy products. Make simple selections, and be able to identify all the ingredients. Caution: This Water Is 
Hazardous to Your Health
In addition to food, water is an essential ingredient for life and good health. Adequate water intake helps rid your body of toxins, both through the kidneys and
through sweat. Shockingly, however, in a highly developed nation such as the United
States, almost all of the water is toxic; it adds poisons to your body and is unfit to
drink. Toxins from landfill runoff, sewage pollutants, industrial chemicals such as PCBs
and vinyl chloride, agricultural runoff (particularly pesticides), leakage from
gasoline storage tanks, and other pollutants contaminate our water. Some researchers
believe chronic low-level exposure to these chemicals contributes to our cancer
epidemic. Even those of us fortunate enough to live near a high-quality water source
would probably be disappointed to learn that our local water supplier takes perfectly
good water and contaminates it with toxins such as chlorine, fluoride, arsenic and
aluminum. Water then travels through municipal and household pipelines, which can
add contaminants such as lead, cadmium, copper, asbestos, iron and nickel. Although these toxins exist in minute amounts, we drink water (or beverages
made with water) daily, so we are exposed chronically. This exposure leads to toxic
bioaccumulation, cellular malfunction and disease. Minimize tap-water
consumption; drink high-quality distilled or spring water (preferably in glass
containers to avoid toxins from plastics). Purchase from companies willing to
provide you with a chemical analysis of their water. Another alternative is to drink
tap water purified by a filter that uses reverse osmosis. Remember that commercial
fruit juices and other beverage products are usually made with tap water. Pure water
is what your body needs; when you can get it, choose it.What Is in Your Drinking Water? How do some of the toxins commonly added to municipal water supplies harm
your health? About 80 percent of the drinking water in the United States is
chlorinated. Chlorine is an extremely toxic and volatile chemical that reacts with
organic matter in tap water to form carcinogenic compounds called trihalomethanes. These compounds bioaccumulate in fatty tissues and are capable of causing genetic
mutations, suppressing immune function, and interfering with the natural controls of
cell growth. Long-term consumers of chlorinated water have been shown to have
higher risks of rectal, bladder, kidney, intestinal, liver, pancreatic and urinary tract
cancers, as well as spontaneous abortions. The Department of Health Services in
California reports that women who drink bottled or filtered water have substantially
lower rates of birth defects and miscarriages compared to women who drink tap
water. Just opening the tap to wash your hands releases toxic chlorine fumes that,
when breathed, damage your health; taking a shower is many times worse. I use a
charcoal filter in my shower to filter out the chlorine and organic pollutants. Fluoride is more toxic than lead and only slightly less toxic than arsenic, yet we
have been conditioned to believe that fluoride is good for us. Presumably, we put
fluoride in our water to prevent tooth decay. Although tooth decay has indeed
declined worldwide since the 1970s—an event for which fluoride is often wrongly
credited—the real reason for the decline remains unknown, because tooth decay has
declined at the same rate in countries that do not use fluoride. Most people are
unaware that in more than fifty years of testing and widespread use, no one has ever
been able to prove that fluoride is either safe or effective, which is why fluoride has
never been approved by the FDA. After half a century of use, the FDA still classifies
fluoride as an “unapproved new drug.” Once again, we are guinea pigs in a vast
medical experiment gone awry. The truth is, fluoridation of drinking water is
making us sick, but no one is ready to admit it because of the almost unthinkable
legal liability. Do you think it is a coincidence that toothpastes now have toxicity
warnings about their fluoride content? Many young children swallow toothpaste,
unless supervised by adults. The truth about fluoride is gradually being revealed; a number of large-scale
studies suggest that fluoride does not prevent and may even cause dental problems. Fluoride bioaccumulates in the body and has been shown to damage teeth, bones,
kidneys, muscles, nerves, genes and immune function. In fact, fluoride toxicity is
causing diseases such as dental and skeletal fluorosis. Dental fluorosis is a
malformation of tooth enamel characterized by brittleness and discoloration,
ultimately damaging the health of the teeth. Dentists tell people that fluorosis is
“merely” a cosmetic problem. In reality, fluorosis is a sign of systemic fluoride
poisoning. More than one out of five U.S. schoolchildren now have some degree of
dental fluorosis, and X rays of children with dental fluorosis often show boneabnormalities (skeletal fluorosis) elsewhere in the body. Skeletal fluorosis weakens
bones in a manner similar to osteoporosis. Early stages usually are misdiagnosed as
arthritis, and advanced stages usually are misdiagnosed as osteoporosis. The
minimum crippling fluoride dosage (the dosage that can cause skeletal fluorosis) is
5 milligrams per day for twenty to forty years, according to the National Academies
for the Advancement of Science, yet Americans living in fluoridated areas average
up to 6.6 milligrams per day! Fluoride is a powerful enzyme poison that fundamentally damages cell function,
thereby causing disease and death. Mortality rates are higher in fluoridated
communities. A 1978 study in the 
New England Journal of Medicine 
found that:
“This pattern of a higher crude death rate in the cities with fluoridated water
supplies was apparent for all categories of death except for those by accidental
means and suicide.” According to Dr. William Marcus, a senior scientist at the EPA,
fluoride is the only substance known to cause bone cancer, and bone cancer rates are
80 to 600 percent higher in communities with fluoridated water. Similarly, new
research connects fluoride intake to Alzheimer’s disease by implicating a reaction
that happens between aluminum and low-dose fluoride. Most home water filters do
not remove this toxin. You need to use reverse osmosis or buy bottled water that
does not contain fluoride. Another toxin in our drinking water is arsenic. Arsenic, a contaminant in the
chemicals used to fluoridate water, is known to cause cancer and to damage the
digestive, cardiovascular, neurological, reproductive and immune systems. Aluminum salt (alum) is added to water to “purify” it by helping to settle and
remove particulate and organic matter. A study in the 
Journal of Epidemiology
found that the risk of developing Alzheimer’s is increased in individuals who drink
water with high aluminum concentrations. Foods That Tamper with Destiny
No discussion of food toxins would be complete without mention of the potential
for poisoning the entire population with genetically modified foods. Genetic
engineering is the process of disrupting the genetic blueprints of living organisms by
inserting genetic information from other organisms to obtain some “desirable
characteristic,” such as resistance to herbicides or insects. These foods are novel and
totally unnatural, and we have no idea what the future health consequences may be,
yet avoiding genetically modified foods is difficult. Insertion of genes into genetic material is not a precise process. It is all too easy
to obtain unintended results that lower nutritional content, create harmful allergens
or lead to the creation of unique toxins. The effects of these toxins may not become
known for years, while irreparable harm is being done. The best way to avoid thesefoods is to eat organically produced foods. (More on this subject in chapter 9, on the
genetic pathway.) Beware of the Air in Your Home
We have already discussed how toxic your food pantry and cupboards may be, but
your home—while it may be your castle—may be more like a toxic waste dump. In
fact, our greatest exposure to volatile organic compounds occurs in the home. Toxicity from indoor air pollution affects most Americans’ health to some degree
and produces a wide variety of symptoms, including anxiety, depression, fatigue,
headaches, poor concentration and mental acuity, and bodily aches and pains. When
people complain of these symptoms to their doctor, however, indoor pollutants are
almost never suggested as a probable (or even possible) cause. Learn to recognize toxins in your home. Seemingly benign items can produce
dangerous toxins that pollute your indoor air, 
such as the off-gasses of mattresses,
pillows, televisions, clothes, furniture, carpets and tap water. Toxins from these
sources expose us to even higher concentrations than outdoor air pollution. In fact,
the level of indoor pollutants in your home may be hundreds of times greater than
outside air. Because most Americans spend about 90 percent of their time indoors,
this toxic load can substantially contribute to toxic overload, resulting in disease. As mentioned earlier, I used to suffer from an extreme case of multiple chemical
sensitivities, and I was easily incapacitated by exposure to even minute quantities of
toxins in my own home. I was able to restore my health only after years of
minimizing toxins and improving my nutrition. One of the most profound things I
learned from my illness is that all of us are chemically sensitive in varying degrees. This experience led me to research how the fumes from cleansing agents, air
fresheners, fragrances and body care products injure our delicate detoxification
mechanisms and use up the body’s nutrient reserves that are required to operate
these systems and prevent toxic damage. There are multiple sources of indoor pollutants: new carpets, new paint, household
cleansers, furniture, mattresses, copy machines, printers, electronic equipment, dry
cleaning, newspapers and magazines. Anything you can smell that is not a natural
smell is probably toxic. The longer you breathe it, and the more concentrated it is,
the more damage it inflicts. Indoor air is a health risk because of the combined
effects of multiple toxic sources concentrated in a confined space. Few people know better the incredible amount of damage that can be done by
indoor air pollution than Sally, a young newlywed. Sally was truly “brought” to my
office. Her husband had to carry her from their car. She did not have enough energy
to walk or even to hold her head up straight while seated. Sally was suffering from
acute chronic fatigue, a condition that physicians are not trained to recognize orunderstand. She and her husband had already spent many thousands of dollars on
consultations with physicians and diagnostic tests. Unable to find anything
“physically wrong,” Sally’s doctors referred her to a psychiatrist. Of course, Sally was not crazy, but she was very sick. Her cells were
malfunctioning so badly that she had become totally disabled. The couple’s
responses to my questions, in addition to my own experience with chemical
sensitivity, allowed me to understand what was wrong. First (like most of us), Sally
had frequently been given antibiotics throughout her life. (Antibiotics cause
fundamental and damaging changes to human physiology.) This intake resulted in a
heightened susceptibility to environmental toxins. I asked many questions about
Sally’s medical history, diet, lifestyle and environment before focusing on the toxin
pathway as the most important factor. Sally was a writer, and her husband had converted their oversize laundry room
into an office for her. Also in that room was a gas-fired water heater. Natural gas
appliances release toxic gases, including nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and
small amounts of the natural gas itself. With insufficient ventilation, the gases
became concentrated, and poor Sally was breathing them all day long. She began to
suffer from sore throats, eye irritations, respiratory problems, headaches and,
eventually, chronic fatigue. I recommended they install an electric hot water heater. Sally’s worst symptoms
immediately were alleviated, although significant damage had already been done
(both by the gases and the antibiotics). Her health was restored eventually after she
worked to reverse the damage through improved diet and nutritional
supplementation. One of the great joys in my life is to watch someone like Sally go from being sick
and disabled, with little to look forward to, to smiling once again and enjoying life. I
am saddened to think how many people remain sick because their physicians do not
understand the toxin pathway and have no idea how to help them. In fact, physicians
who prescribe antibiotics and other medications often create susceptibility to such
problems in the first place. Gas-fired appliances (hot water heaters, ovens, stoves, furnaces, fireplaces or
clothes dryers) diffuse toxic gases into the surrounding air. If you have such
appliances, try to keep them out of your living space and put furnaces, clothes dryers
and water heaters in a garage, shed or breezeway along with stored volatiles such as
paints and cleaning fluids. A gas stove, because it is in your living space, should be
replaced or at least very well ventilated. In my own recovery process, I had to
convert from a gas to an electric water heater because I had become so sensitive to
these toxins. Giving off toxic gasses is an especially common problem with products when they
are new. At one of my seminars, a woman named Diane raised her hand andexplained that she was suffering from splitting headaches. After hearing the story
about Sally, Diane realized that her headaches coincided with the purchase of a new
car; she suspected a connection. Her new car was off-gassing toxins, producing the
“new car” smell. Diane’s family had two cars, so I suggested that she drive the older
car until the odor subsided. Her headaches went away. Some highly sensitive people
retrofit their cars with safer materials. Consider the risk of new products: a new carpet, a freshly painted room, a new TV
set, a new mattress. New products give off high levels of toxic chemicals. With the
passage of time, the volume of toxic chemicals being off-gassed drops dramatically. Often you can accelerate the off-gassing process simply by applying heat. For
example, the chemicals contained in a new car’s plastics, adhesives and seating
materials pollute the interior air of the car. During the first few months, try to leave
a new car parked in the hot sun with the windows up to bake out the toxins. Air it out
regularly, and be sure to air it out before and while you drive. The risk of new paint is something my friend Jim discovered when he went from
being generally in good spirits to suffering the worst depression of his life. Actually,
he felt suicidal. I immediately tried to isolate the cause of Jim’s malfunctioning
cells. I discovered that Jim just had the interior of his house painted; paint off-gasses
neurotoxins that can affect moods and mental function. New paint takes at least two
months to reach reasonable levels of safety for most people (depending on
biochemical individuality), which is why it is best to paint only one room at a time
and to close freshly painted rooms off as much as possible while they are off-
gassing. Absolutely do not sleep in a freshly painted room! A good idea is to
schedule painting just before leaving on a vacation. Jim stayed at his son’s house for
several weeks, and his problem was solved. Another example of toxic off-gassing was brought to my attention when a woman
suffering flulike symptoms came to me for help. Ellen Marie had “caught the flu”
around Christmas time the previous year and still was not well. Her physicians were
dumbfounded, as anyone would be if they focused only on mitigating her symptoms. I discovered that Ellen Marie had moved into a newly constructed luxury home
four months prior to coming down with “the flu.” Her new home was constructed
with particleboard, which off-gasses formaldehyde—a highly toxic and carcinogenic
chemical. Plywood also will off-gas formaldehyde, but far less of it. (Some new
man-made building materials no longer contain formaldehyde, but the substitutes
used, such as iso-cyanates, are also toxic.) This poor woman was suffering from
subtle and constant formaldehyde poisoning. Her symptoms included immune
suppression, respiratory problems, coughing, throat irritation, headaches, insomnia,
nausea and fatigue. I suggested to Ellen Marie that she sell her new home and move
to a safer environment. She chose not to move and she remained ill. Always select
building materials and furniture that are made from real wood or at least plywood,but not particleboard. Inventory Your Home’s Hazards
Do you have carpets in your home and, if so, from what are those carpets made? Carpets made from synthetic fibers (plastics such as nylon, acrylic or polyester),
especially when new, off-gas large amounts of toxins. Carpets are among the most
significant contributors to the toxicity of indoor air. The plastic fibers used to make
carpets are very thin, thus creating an enormous amount of surface area from which
off-gassing can occur. Chemicals used in the adhesive backing and those in the foam
padding underlayer also off-gas. Carpets are treated with toxic soil and stain
repellents, moisture repellents, mothproofing and other finishes. These chemicals
are effective for their intended purposes, but toxic—an important consideration if
you are looking for new floor coverings or considering a move into a newly carpeted
space. That “new carpet smell” is toxic, and the best solution is to use carpets made
only of natural fibers 
(wool is a good choice, though make sure it is not treated with
toxic mothproofing chemicals). Hardwood or tile floors with natural-fiber area rugs
are good alternatives. How about the air quality in your bedroom, which you typically breathe for eight
consecutive hours every day? What is the composition of your mattress? We spend
one-third of our lives in bed, and spending most of that time immediately next to
even mildly toxic chemicals can take a huge toll. Most mattresses today are made of
synthetic materials (polyester, polyurethane, treated with dyes, flame retardants,
etc. ), which can off-gas for years and poison you while you are sleeping. Fortunately, 100 percent natural mattresses are available. Also, with a doctor’s
prescription you can obtain mattresses manufactured without toxic flame retardants
that otherwise are required by law. At the very least, if you purchase a standard
mattress, put it in the garage and allow it to off-gas for a few months before sleeping
on it. Also, enclose the mattress with a thin polyethylene drop cloth or a tightly
woven barrier-cloth that limits the amount of toxins you breathe nightly. Also, use
pillows made from natural materials, such as down. Next, look in your bathrooms. It’s likely that enough toxic chemicals are there to
make anybody sick. The toxic products include not only toilet bowl cleaners and air
fresheners, but items such as toothpaste, mouthwash, hair spray, cosmetics, shampoo
and soap (not to mention the toxic chlorinated water coming out of the tap).
Never_Be_Sick_Again_by_Raymond_Francis.txt
Summarize the following text section accurately and concisely. Maintain specific details and numerical information, and use anti-repetition mechanisms:

        Diagnosing any disease is simple, because there is only one disease: malfunctioning
cells. David’s problem had to be a large number of malfunctioning cells, that much I
knew. The critical questions were: Why were they malfunctioning, and how to
restore them to normal function. Four hours into our conversation, David provided a key piece of information that
gave me the answer. David said he liked tuna fish, liked it so much that he typically
ate two cans per day. This statement set off alarm bells in my mind because tuna fish
contains a significant amount of mercury—a highly toxic heavy metal that poisons
cells and deactivates key enzymes, causing numerous physical and mental problems,
including suicidal tendencies. Mercury pollution in our oceans bioaccumulates (gradually builds up) in fish and
is especially concentrated in large fish such as tuna. In fact, the average can of tuna
fish contains the maximum allowable daily dose of mercury, and David was eating
two cans of tuna fish almost every day. Constant exposure like this results in a toxic
bioaccumulation, so I began to suspect that mercury poisoning was at the root of
David’s problems. His mercury exposure did not end with his taste for tuna; David had many silver
amalgam dental fillings, and these amalgams contain about 50 percent mercury. His
dental fillings (in addition to the tuna fish) had been exposing David to smallamounts of mercury for most of his life. Finally, the straw that broke the camel’s
back was a dental procedure. David had to replace his aging mercury fillings and
was exposed to high levels of mercury during this procedure because of the dentist’s
poor removal technique. This large exposure, combined with years of chronic, low-
level exposure from the tuna fish and the dental fillings, was too much for David’s
body to handle. He fell into a state of toxic overload and his cells began to
malfunction seriously. David’s failing health, chronic fatigue, emotional distress and suicidal tendencies
were all symptoms of his toxic overload. The solution. I suggested nutritional
supplements that would support David’s natural ability to detoxify, and I also
searched for and found a medical doctor who was an expert in mercury
detoxification. Subsequently, David was cured of his mercury poisoning (through a
process called chelation, which uses a chemical to react with the mercury and
remove it from the body), and ultimately he was able to return to his life, his career
and, most importantly, his family. Killing Him Slowly
David is an excellent example of toxic overload in our modern society. He was
chronically exposed to a specific toxin (mercury), which was slowly
bioaccumulating in his cells. Already weakened by and sensitive to this toxin, he
was suddenly exposed to a large amount, which pushed him over the brink. Another
factor to be considered is David’s biochemical individuality; he might have been
born with a greater sensitivity to mercury than the average person. Virtually all Americans are now in a state of toxic overload. No wonder our
population is becoming sicker and sicker. Small toxic exposures each day (from
common sources such as breakfast cereal, toothpaste, shampoo, soap, perfume,
deodorant, hair dye, newspapers, magazines, exhaust fumes, carpets, new mattresses,
dry cleaning or a newly painted bedroom) will increasingly exceed and even
incapacitate your body’s ability to detoxify, causing these chemicals to accumulate
to a level that will make you sick. Man-made toxins are so prevalent today that they are impossible to avoid,
regardless of where you live or what you do. Over the last one hundred years, we
have introduced tens of thousands of man-made toxins to our environment, thus
changing it dramatically. Our bodies are not genetically designed to deal with these
levels and types of poisons that are accumulating in our tissues faster than we can
rid ourselves of them. Environmental toxins are not our only problem. We also generate powerful toxins
inside our bodies. Unless we can minimize our exposure and maximize our bodies’
detoxification systems, we will become sick. An extreme overload may even kill us:• Only recently have researchers and health practitioners begun to understand
the long-term effects of the thousands of chemicals we now encounter in our
daily lives. At the time of my birth, the majority of these chemicals did not
exist. Now they are all-pervasive. • A growing body of scientific evidence links toxins to a wide variety of
symptoms and syndromes, such as mental and behavioral disorders, learning
disabilities, fatigue, migraines, allergies, rashes and gastrointestinal disorders. • Frightening new evidence suggests that low-level exposures to certain
environmental chemicals are causing hormone disruptions, resulting in serious
problems that range from birth defects to cancer. • Many of the diseases that baffle our physicians (often called “diseases of
aging” or “diseases of civilization”) are the results of the toxic overload caused
by modern industrialized society. These diseases are difficult to diagnose and
impossible to cure using conventional medical approaches that just treat
symptoms, rather than minimizing toxic exposure and optimizing
detoxification. • Chemicals posing little cancer risk can trigger cancer when combined
together. • Some chemicals and metals are toxic in any amount; others are beneficial or
even essential in small amounts— such as vitamin A—but toxic in large
amounts. In the nineteenth century, less than 1 percent of all deaths in the United States
were caused by cancer, and even at the turn of the twentieth century, only 3 percent
of the population was affected. Today, more than four in ten people will develop
cancer in their lifetime, and one in four will die from cancer. The good news. Many of the strongest cancer-causing chemicals have been
identified, and we can avoid them. The National Academy of Sciences sums up the
challenge: “It is abundantly clear that the incidence of all the common cancers in
humans is being determined by. potentially controllable external factors. ”
The Poisons Within
Toxins from the outside world—in our food, water, air, homes and workplaces—
are known as 
environmental toxins. Our bodies also manufacture a sea of internal
toxins as a result of normal metabolism, which our bodies must eliminate in order to
stay healthy. Few people realize that their own bodies can be a source of dangerous
toxins—mostly in the digestive system, but also from allergic reactions, stress and
other sources. Internal toxins are being generated at unprecedented rates as a result
of modern diets, lifestyles and medical treatments. Just like an automobile produces
exhaust, your body produces these toxins naturally and is designed to handle them;however, if abnormal amounts of toxins are produced or your ability to deal with
them is impaired, you become sick. Understanding the body’s natural abilities to cleanse itself and how these abilities
can be supported by diet, exercise and other means is important. By learning how to
support your detoxification systems, you can reverse the effects of toxic overload; as
toxic load decreases, cell function improves and disease often disappears. Not all toxins, however, affect all people in the same manner. Just as each of us
has unique needs for nutrients, each of us also has unique tolerances and
susceptibilities to toxins. Toxin levels that can put one person into overload might
not be particularly serious or even noticeable for someone else. Genetic
predisposition, nutritional status, stress levels and lifestyle all influence toxin levels. Because currently we have no way to predict the effects that specific toxins (or
combinations) have on any individual, the solution is to minimize exposure to all
toxins and to take steps to support the body’s detoxification mechanisms. A Buildup of External Toxins
Chronic exposure to small amounts of seemingly harmless toxins presents a
problem more dangerous than people realize. Even in trace amounts, toxins can
build up and overload our cells, causing malfunction. The average American is
building up (bioaccumulating) between three and five hundred manmade chemicals,
most of which did not exist prior to World War II and have never before been in
human tissue. Therefore, the combined toxic effects of these chemicals are
impossible to calculate. Physicians rarely consider toxic buildup as a primary cause of disease and rarely
test for toxic underlying problems. In fact, about the only time the medical
community will cite toxicity as a primary cause of disease is when somebody dies or
becomes obviously ill from massive toxic exposure, such as a chemical spill. Subtle
and gradual toxic exposures typically go undetected, which explains how people
suffering from toxic overload can go to their doctors repeatedly (with persistent, if
vague, complaints of “not feeling quite right”) and never receive a correct diagnosis. When people finally do become sick from their bioaccumu-lated toxins, following
the path of their illness back to the myriad toxic sources is nearly impossible. If
these toxins weren’t so insidious and if they made us sick or killed us quicker and
more straightforwardly, we would understand more readily the need to avoid them. Instead, we expose ourselves unknowingly and we lay the groundwork for massive
cellular malfunction, little by little. Combine these external toxins with those
generated inside the body, and the eventual result is toxic overload. A chilling example: Environmental and dietary toxins bioaccumulate in a
mother’s fatty tissues throughout her life. When she starts nursing, her toxin-loadedfatty tissues produce cancer-causing breast milk. In his 1987 book 
Diet for a New
America, 
John Robbins notes that the milk of most American mothers is so
contaminated with chemicals (PCBs, dioxins and various pesticides) that “it would
be subject to confiscation and destruction by the FDA were it to be sold across state
lines. ” Robbins also says “the EPA has concluded that the average American breast-
fed infant ingests nine times the permissible level of dieldrin, one of the most potent
of all cancer-causing agents known to modern science. ” Fortunately, dieldrin, which
was used on crops, has now been removed from the market, but the average mother’s
milk (while still far better than infant formula) remains contaminated with
numerous toxic chemicals. No One Is Safe
At present, toxic chemicals can be found in trace amounts in the tissues of
virtually everyone in America—including you. These chemicals include: plastics
such as styrene (disposable Styrofoam cups), 1,4-dichlorobenzene (mothballs,
deodorizers), sodium lauryl sulfate (synthetic detergent from soaps, shampoos,
toothpastes), pesticides, PCBs, dioxins, phthalates (plastics), formaldehyde
(plywood, particleboard, permanent-press clothing), prescription drugs and organic
solvents. No place on earth—and no modern home—is free from man-made toxic
contamination. Molecules of the pesticide DDT, for example, blanket the entire
planet. Henry Schroeder, M. D. , a former professor of medicine at Dartmouth Medical
School and author of 
The Poisons Around Us, 
wrote that “five toxic trace metals:
antimony, beryllium, cadmium, lead, and mercury are involved in at least half the
deaths in the U. S. and much of the disabling disease. ” In all, more than one hundred
thousand chemicals are now in commercial use, at least 25 percent of which are
known to be hazardous; many others have never been tested at all. Even when chemicals are tested for safety, studies are virtually always short-term
and tested individually; few have examined the long-term effects of chemicals, or
how they react in the body in combination with each other. Yet these long-term,
combined effects are the reality of living in America today. In other words, the
testing programs are flawed. Adverse effects are not necessarily observed in small
groups of animals, nor do experimental animals necessarily react to toxins the same
as humans. Ultimately, any chemical that is not normal and natural to our bodies
puts a load on our detoxification systems and may damage cell function. Most people make little effort to avoid toxins because officially established
tolerances presume that toxin levels are within safe limits. Unless you make special
choices, you constantly eat foods with trace toxins, you constantly drink water with
trace toxins, you constantly use personal products with trace toxins, and youconstantly breathe toxic air. By the end of each day, these toxic contaminants often
reach a substantial cumulative total. EPA scientists found that 
the total toxic
residues in our daily diet can exceed 500 percent of the recommended daily
maximum, even if each individual food is within “safe” limits. A Poison Gas Chamber of Her Very Own
Several years ago, a young married couple from Chicago asked me to help their
three-year-old daughter, Anne, who was experiencing seizures. Anne had been
examined by at least a dozen specialists, but their only recommendations were anti-
seizure medications that made Anne sick, yet failed to stop the seizures. The
desperate parents called me, a complete stranger two thousand miles away. They
begged me for help, even though I am not a physician. Because there is only one disease, I knew that Anne’s problem was
malfunctioning cells. But why were they malfunctioning. Although I asked many
questions about Anne’s history, nothing seemed unusual about her birth, background
or development. She had been breast-fed (a good thing; even though breast milk is
toxic, it is still preferable to the alternatives), and her diet was actually better than
average. In fact, she had been remarkably healthy ever since birth—until the
seizures started. I began to ask questions about her environment. As it turned out, during most of
her young life, Anne had been sleeping in a crib in her parents’ bedroom. When she
outgrew the crib, her parents decided she should have her own bedroom, and they
refurbished a room. Knowing that brand-new room furnishings can be quite toxic, I
focused on environmental toxins as the probable cause of the little girl’s problems. I
learned that before the onset of the seizures, Anne’s new bedroom had been given a
fresh coat of paint and was furnished with new wall-to-wall carpeting, a new
television set and new furniture, including a new bed and mattress. In fact, that new
bedroom had just about every amenity that any set of loving parents could give to
their beloved daughter, but it was also a poison gas chamber. The new paint, carpet,
mattress, television and furniture (constructed of particleboard, which contains
formaldehyde) were all giving off toxic gases. You recognize the typical “new paint
smell,” that “new carpet smell” and that “new furniture smell. ” They are all toxic,
especially when they are brand-new, at which time they emit higher concentrations
of chemicals. Shut anybody inside a bedroom like little Anne’s for eight or ten hours
a night, and the person is exposed to a lot of toxins. Anne was in toxic overload, and her seizures were the result. Often, in a case like
this, when you remove the source of the toxins, you cure the disease. Instead, Anne’s
physicians had prescribed antiseizure medications, which added to her toxic
overload, making her sicker. I suggested an experiment to Anne’s parents: Close offthe toxic bedroom and allow Anne to sleep in another room for a few weeks. The
result: The seizures stopped, and Anne returned to being a normal and healthy child. Fight Back with Foods
Why isn’t our society taking more action to protect us from toxins. Why don’t
our physicians routinely warn us about toxins and check for them. One explanation
lies in a 1988 report issued by the National Academy of Sciences titled, 
Role of the
Primary Care Physician in Occupational Environmental Medicine, 
which concluded
that while toxic environmental chemicals play an increasingly important role in
modern chronic diseases, almost all physicians are ignorant about the degree to
which low-level toxins affect health. One of the most direct sources of our toxic exposures is the foods we eat. A meal
that looks, smells and tastes good is a wonderful thing, but you owe your body more. You need to make sure your food is free of toxins and filled with nutrients that
support your body’s natural ability to detoxify. You need to find out what is in your
food, where your food came from and how your food has been altered from the way
nature provided. One of the best ways to minimize the toxins is to buy organic foods. Organic is a
method of growing and producing food free from chemical fertilizers and pesticides,
artificial ripening agents, preservatives, genetic modification and radiation. The
term “organic” applies to more than fruits, vegetables and grains; organically grown
animals are fed organic feed and are produced without the customary use of
antibiotics, hormones or other supplemental medications. Organic foods may be
more expensive and somewhat more difficult to obtain, but they almost always
contain fewer toxins and better nutrition. Read labels; the U.
David's love for tuna fish, which contains a significant amount of mercury, a highly toxic and carcinogenic metal that can cause cell malfunction and disease.
Why did the author suspect that David's problems were caused by mercury poisoning?
The toxic gases emitted by the new bedroom furniture, carpet, and mattress, which were all made of toxic materials and caused her cells to malfunction.
What was the primary cause of Anne's seizures?
Because milk and dairy products are not only toxic but also contain a high level of pesticide residues, which can cause cell malfunction and disease.
Why did the author recommend that Cynthia and Tom eliminate milk and milk products from their diet?
The author suggests minimizing exposure to toxins by selecting organic and natural products, avoiding processed and packaged foods, and using natural materials for home construction and furniture.
What is the author's advice for reducing exposure to toxins in the home?
The author discovered that the new home was constructed with particleboard and formaldehyde, which were off-gassing toxic chemicals that were poisoning her, causing her symptoms.
Why did the author recommend that Ellen Marie not move out of her new home?