Tag: toxic threshold

What’s So Bad About Vasoline?

October 22, 2013

One of my girlfriends recommended a lotion to me recently, but as soon as I read the ingredients, I knew I would never use it because the first thing listed was mineral oil.

What’s so bad about mineral oil, the friend asked?

Save this product for automotive or household repairs.

Well, for starters, mineral oil and Vasoline Petroleum Jelly are byproducts from refining oil. Yep, they are pulled out of the sludge found at the bottom of the barrels at oil refineries. They are literally “toxic waste.”

My friend persisted: Why shouldn’t you put petroleum products on your skin? She believed her skin felt softer after using petroleum products, particularly on rough patches of eczema.

Let’s start with the fact that our skin is our largest organ. Skin cells breathe and metabolize just as all of our body cells do, and they absorb chemicals through contact. Adding chemicals to your skin will increase your overall toxic load in your body which could hasten the onset of a health crisis.

Slathering mineral oil or petroleum jelly on skin smothers skin cells and prevents efficient cellular respiration. While you might feel an immediate softening effect, or even feel as if the product is moisturizing, you are in fact simply putting a layer of inorganic oil over your cells and trapping moisture underneath the skin while not allowing any more moisture to enter.

Our bodies were designed to efficiently rid the system of toxins through discharges from the bowels and urinary tract, mucous from the nose or throat, and perspiration and cellular respiration through the skin. Sealing off the skin thwarts this process and traps toxins inside the body.

Zum Kiss Shea Butter Lip Balm is petroleum free and feels great on lips!

Petroleum is found deep underground, often a mile or more below the surface where life exists. For the course of human history, petroleum has been inaccessible and unused until very recently. Mammals did not evolve to need or use petroleum or its byproducts as part of achieving health. Just because Vasoline is a familiar brand doesn’t mean it is safe to use. Marlboro is a familiar brand, too, but that doesn’t mean its products are any safer for having been around for a century.

I cringe every time I hear of another pediatrician recommending feeding a child spoonfuls of mineral oil as a misguided constipation remedy. Mineral oil does not rinse off cleanly; it leave a residual layer of petroleum, which is what makes things slippery. I can’t imagine smothering the cells of the digestive tract with a clinging film in any way helps to improve digestion. It might ease constipation by greasing the chute, but it inhibits nutrient absorption through the intestines in the process. A destructive trade-off, if you ask me.

A recent Huffington Post article by Rebecca Adams brought a comment from a reader addicted to using Vasoline on her lips. She felt disgusted at the thought of how much petroleum she must have directly ingested over the years, but couldn’t think of a safer replacement for her dry lips. I’m a fan of Zum Kiss Shea Butter Lip Balm for safely moisturized lips.

Try almond oil for moisturizing skin for a safe, natural skin softener that heals while it softens and does not inhibit cellular respiration.

Our Toxic World and Our Own Toxic Threshold

June 7, 2013

Jeremy_birth_dad001 — My husband holding my newborn son in 2002.

Every person has a toxic threshold: that level at which their body can no longer handle the toxins it absorbs. It’s when you cross that toxic threshold that things start to go awry and the body that used to function perfectly now starts to show symptoms ranging from hives to asthma to migraines to neurologic disorders or other symptoms.

To protect our health, we want to limit our toxic exposures as much as possible because, even when you are aware and proactive about it, you will still be exposed to some level of toxicity every day through the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the food we eat.

The Environmental Working Group did a study analyzing the cord blood of newborn babies around the U.S. They found that the average baby is born with 200 contaminants already in their cord blood. Two hundred chemicals, including carcinogens, hormone modulators, perfluorochemicals,petrochemicals, pesticides, plastics, BPA, pharmaceuticals, and more.

From birth, our kids are already behind the eight ball and well on their way to crossing their own personal toxic thresholds. It’s no wonder that we are seeing a dramatic increase in kids with allergies because their bodies just can’t cope anymore.

The other night I watched the new movie about Liberace, “Behind the Candlelabra,” starring Michael Douglas and Matt Damon. In one scene, Liberace describes how he became sicker and sicker, and eventually deathly ill, until he realized that the dry cleaning fumes emanating from his elaborate costumes were killing him.

Sometimes something as simple as a course of antibiotics can push someone over their toxic threshold and into a downhill health spiral. You never know what your body can’t handle until it shows up and demands your attention in a negative way.

A friend recently told me that she had started a new medication that gave her hives. She ceased taking the drug, but the hives continued for a while and her doctor started her on daily corticosteroids and an antihistimine. Despite all these efforts, she is still finding hives every so often. She has crossed her toxic threshold and, in my experience, her cascade of health issues is beginning.

I tried to impress on her the importance of acting sooner rather than later to calm her body, before the symptoms escalate. Once you cross that toxic threshold, it takes almost superhuman efforts to bring your body back beneath it. I suspect that, once crossed, the threshold drops significantly, so that now the person must take extra care in their toxin exposure and try to allow the body to heal.

What should you do if you cross your toxin threshold?

1. Eliminate all artificial foods and food additives. Get rid of The Scary 7, GMOs, and processed foods.

2. Eliminate synthetic fragrances and colors from personal care products, laundry soaps, and cleaning products. Stop using dryer sheets.

3. Use all-natural cleaning products, including dish soap, dishwasher soap, laundry detergent, and surface cleaners.

4. Use all-natural, safe personal care products and cosmetics.

5. Filter your water for chlorine and chemical contaminants.

6. Consider a parasite cleanse.

7. Follow an anti-inflammatory diet: good. Better: learn your own individual anti-inflammatory foods because each body is unique.

Your Toxic Threshold

April 12, 2013

There are some 80,000 chemical compounds in our world that didn’t exist 200 years ago.

We are exposed to chemicals at every turn: in the air we breathe; the water we drink; the soaps, cosmetics, and personal products we use; the foods we eat; and even the clothes we wear.

Everyone has an individual tolerance threshold for toxicity that– once you cross that unknown boundary with too many toxic exposures and too much toxicity built up– can cascade into a variety of symptoms and system malfunctions.

Although we can’t control much of what we’re exposed to, we can work to decrease our personal toxic load by choosing pure foods and clean, non-toxic products whenever possible.

Knowledge is power.

Why You Should Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

September 7, 2012

Yesterday I wrote about the surprising prepared/processed/packaged foods that may contain corn syrup or its derivatives. Today I want to touch on why high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) might be harmful for your health.

The last time I wrote about high fructose corn syrup and sugar, I unexpectedly received a large package by snail mail from the corn growers association containing a lot of printed propaganda about the goodness of corn derivatives and how the human body cannot tell the difference between corn syrup and cane sugar. Sweet is sweet, they say.

Don’t fall for it. We have had the wool pulled over our eyes for too long and our population is paying the consequences.

I was not convinced that high fructose corn syrup is the same as sugar because I know that:

* High fructose corn syrup is many times more concentrated than natural sweeteners like sugar. The dose you receive from a soda or candy made with HFCS is intensified and sweeter than it would be from cane sugar..

* It would be hard to eat anywhere near as much corn or sugar as you take in with a small amount of high fructose corn syrup.

* HFCS spikes blood glycemic levels, forcing the pancreas to work overtime producing insulin to process it all. When the pancreas can’t keep up with the demand for insulin, you get Type II Diabetes.

* According to Michigan researchers, brain cells develop insulin resistance, just as body cells do

* Since at least 88% of all corn grown in the United States is now Genetically Modified (GMO), the odds are unavoidably high that the high fructose corn syrup in that packaged food is concentrated GMO corn extraction.

* In a fascinating article in the September/October issue of Psychology Today, Nikhil Swaminathan examines the plight of the bees and how it reflects on human health. He discusses how Round-Up Ready (TM) GMO corn leaches the Round-Up (TM) organophosphate-based chemical pesticides into the kernel, contaminating all of the corn derivative products added to our processed foods. The toxins accumulate with every ingestion of products containing high fructose corn syrup. The stark truth: bees fed high fructose corn syrup laced with organophosphates died. Researchers in Montreal looking for organophosphates in the urine of preschoolers found detectable levels of organophosphates in 96% of kids tested. Basically, everyone is being fed these poisons through our food supply.

* Exposure to the organophosphates used as pesticides with Round-Up Ready (GMO) corn can lead to measurable cognitive deficits in children, hormone disruption, and heightened hypersensitivities, likely due to the additive effects of multiple exposures. The EPA only looks for single exposure limits, but since the toxin can be found in so many additives, typical eaters in our modern society likely receive many exposures over the course of a single day.

At some point, each one of us could inadvertently cross that invisible, personal, toxin threshold that sends our bodies into constant reaction. Until you get there, you really don’t know how lucky you are to have your health and not feel miserable within your own skin almost every day. Once you arrive at this dreadful place, it is a long, arduous climb to cross that constantly lowering threshold again and regain a state of health.

I’ve been there and it resulted in three years of constant hives. A good day would be thirty hives, and a bad day three hundred. So many days were miserable because I was so uncomfortable inside my own skin. I feel lucky that I was able to heal and survive beyond the hives; I remember researching online and finding posts from people who had been suffering with hives for 17 years or longer. It took a lot of effort for me to clear out enough toxins from my life and my body to surmount my threshold and return to health, and I learned a lot about clean and healthy living in the process.

My advice: avoid high fructose corn syrup whenever possible and find out your own particular hypersensitivities.

Tag: toxic threshold

What’s So Bad About Vasoline?

Our Toxic World and Our Own Toxic Threshold

What should you do if you cross your toxin threshold?

Your Toxic Threshold

Why You Should Avoid High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS)

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