I remember a number of years ago hearing that polar bears in Canada's
arctic region had been found to have traces of toxic chemicals in
them. If bears in remote regions of Canada are toxic, what about us
humans?
A new report released by Health Canada shows
that children as young as three years old have traces of lead in their
blood and bisphenol A (BPA) in their urine. The concentrations of lead
have decreased slightly from when we last tested the Canadian population
in 1978-1979. This is a positive sign, but lead in any amounts have
been shown to be detrimental to humans, especially growing children.
The levels of BPA are still high despite despite being
added to Canada's toxic substances list in Oct. 2010. BPA was detected
in a whopping 95% of Canadians ages 3 to 79. BPA found in the urine is
an indication of RECENT exposure.
Making some lifestyle
changes can have a meaningful impact on the levels of such toxins in
your system. Few patients or even other health care practitioners know
or realize how these toxins impact your health. Patients with multiple
chemical sensitivities, fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue, etc. can all
benefit from this. Here in my practice, we've tested the levels of
toxic chemicals such as phthalates, parabens, benzene, etc. in patients'
urine (environmental pollutants profile) and have instituted changes accordingly for each patient, kind of like an episode of Dateline I recently saw.
Please watch this Dateline episode
about "detoxing" or going "chemical free" and the difference it makes
to the reporter's urine samples and that of her young children. Quite
eye-opening.
Yours in Health,
Ian Koo, ND
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www.NaturopathicEssentials.com
"The care you want, the health you need."
Showing posts with label Toxins. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toxins. Show all posts
Weight Loss: Why slow and steady is Best!
I find that the goal of most patients who come in to lose weight at the clinic is to do it quickly. We've seen shows like the 'Biggest Loser' where the participants shed pounds like crazy and want to get the same results. First off, unless you have the whole day to exercise and have all of your meals made for you, it's not necessarily realistic to be dropping 20 pounds in a week.
But there's another reason why slow and steady weight loss is important as well. As I've always conveyed to my patients, it's important to lose weight slowly because fat cells hold a lot of toxins and one does not want to disperse all of this too quickly into the blood stream. This is a concept that most people are not aware of, but a quick search of the medical literature shows that there is ample research to back up this line of thinking.
In the Sept 2010 issue of the International Journal of Obesity, researchers at the department of medicine at the Kyungpook National University in Daegu, South Korea show that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are released in high concentrations when one loses a lot of weight in a short period of time. POPs are known to increase the risk of various chronic diseases (ie. rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease have all been cited) and unfortunately, they along with other toxins such as mercury accumulate in our fat cells. The study showed that those who had lost weight had higher concentrations of the pollutants than at baseline, while those who had lost weight had a lower concentration of POPs.
Now we should not jump to the conclusion that weight loss is a bad thing. Reducing body fat is still a great goal and has many benefits, but ideally one should do it slowly. We can also use herbs or other nutritional supplements to help the body with the detoxification of POPs and other toxins.
The concept of detoxification if often frowned upon by some in the health care field, but again, there is ample scientific research to show that we can actually reduce the body burden of heavy metals, organochlorides, etc... We can touch upon this another day.
Yours in health,
Ian Koo, ND
Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine
Naturopathic Essentials Health Centre
"The care you want, the health you need"
But there's another reason why slow and steady weight loss is important as well. As I've always conveyed to my patients, it's important to lose weight slowly because fat cells hold a lot of toxins and one does not want to disperse all of this too quickly into the blood stream. This is a concept that most people are not aware of, but a quick search of the medical literature shows that there is ample research to back up this line of thinking.
In the Sept 2010 issue of the International Journal of Obesity, researchers at the department of medicine at the Kyungpook National University in Daegu, South Korea show that persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are released in high concentrations when one loses a lot of weight in a short period of time. POPs are known to increase the risk of various chronic diseases (ie. rheumatoid arthritis, hypertension, type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease have all been cited) and unfortunately, they along with other toxins such as mercury accumulate in our fat cells. The study showed that those who had lost weight had higher concentrations of the pollutants than at baseline, while those who had lost weight had a lower concentration of POPs.
Now we should not jump to the conclusion that weight loss is a bad thing. Reducing body fat is still a great goal and has many benefits, but ideally one should do it slowly. We can also use herbs or other nutritional supplements to help the body with the detoxification of POPs and other toxins.
The concept of detoxification if often frowned upon by some in the health care field, but again, there is ample scientific research to show that we can actually reduce the body burden of heavy metals, organochlorides, etc... We can touch upon this another day.
Yours in health,
Ian Koo, ND
Doctor of Naturopathic Medicine
Naturopathic Essentials Health Centre
"The care you want, the health you need"
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