Even as controversy swirls
around vaccines and autism, a set of lab tests can now identify many of
the children who are most at risk for the kinds of toxic neurological
injuries that can cause autism, Asperger's, attention deficits, and the
rest of the pervasive developmental delays. Knowledge is power and when
parents know what their children's risks are, they can then make more
rational, evidence-based choices in collaboration with their
pediatrician.
We and our kids live in this increasingly toxic soup of a world. Not
exactly the post-Apocalyptic set of a Kurt Russell movie, but a lot
more toxic than the world our grandparents, our parents, or even we
grew up in.
In the United States, the EPA, FDA, Consumer Product Safety
Commission, and Occupational Safety and Health Administration each
regulate various chemicals that we are exposed to. The Environmental
Protection Agency alone currently tracks more than 83,000 toxic
industrial chemicals under the Toxic Substances Control Act.
These chemicals make their way into our air, food, and water, and even
into the umbilical cord blood of infants according to a 2005 study by the Environmental Working Group.
As the world we live in is becoming more toxic, the challenges to
our natural detoxification systems and to the genetic programming that
creates and maintains those systems is under increasing attack. Some
kids are already showing genetic impairment from several generations of
increasing exposure to environmental poisons. The bad news is that
these kids are more at-risk for adverse effects from further toxic
exposure than other kids. If there is good news, it is that are now
tools to help parents and doctors identify which kids are more at-risk
and which ones are not.
In order to stay alive and healthy, we have to be able to clean
impurities out of our body. Fortunately, we are designed to be able to
do just that. At least, up to a point. Today there is a whole body of
books and publications, like Detox Box by Mark Hyman, MD and Our Toxic World: A Wake Up Call
by Doris Rapp, MD, telling us how to keep those processes working. If
they function properly, we can get rid of most toxins and wastes pretty
well. This is vitally important, which is why we have not one but
several different detox systems in our body designed to protect us from
toxic chemicals from the outside world and from the toxic by-products
of running our inner systems. When someone drinks too much and winds up
"praying at the porcelain altar" or they eat something they shouldn't
and experience "Montezuma's Revenge", we see evidence of our first line
of defense: getting rid of what's noxious as fast as possible. If we
can't simply get rid of the poison out of one end or the other (yes
Mrs. Reidy, I know that's Hardly Dinner Table Conversation), then our
liver has to break it down or "metabolize" it into something that's
safe for our kidneys and other organs of elimination to process and
excrete. If we can't simply 'get rid of it' or 'metabolize' it, then we
hold on to the toxin until our body figures out what to do with it.
Most of this storage takes place in our liver, kidneys, brain,
'adipose' or fat tissues, and mitochondria, the energy factories in
each of our cells. And that is where most of the trouble starts.
The machinery that runs these clean-up systems is programmed to
exist in us, to keep itself running smoothly, and to be able to protect
us from a certain amount of internal and external junk. But just as
cargo ships and supertankers that are built to withstand the usual
storms at sea can be sunk by 100 foot high superwaves, our detox
systems can be overcome by either too many or too-strong toxins. And if
we are exposed to enough pollutants over time, then even our genetic
programming starts to break down and the genes we pass along to the
next generation start showing problems. Think of Rob Schneider's comedy
Multiplicity. As he cloned himself and then cloned the clones,
each successive clone became a little dimmer and less perfect than the
one before it, kind of like copying copies on a Xerox machine.
Our kids' detox pathways are facing two kinds of challenges. One is
that the genetic or "genomic" messages that tell their bodies what and
how to detoxify are getting disrupted as they are being passed from one
increasingly toxic generation to the next and so some of the machinery
may not be running exactly the way it should. The other problem is that
the machinery that may be running not-quite-right already is being
asked to detoxify a larger quantity of more-toxic 'stuff' than ever
before. Combine this with a child's tender and rapidly growing systems
that depend on getting clear genetic messages on how to develop and we
have the background for the current epidemic of autistic spectrum and
attention deficit disorders that is filling our schools and the news.
And it's not just our kids who are taking the hit. It is happening
to us, too. The same toxic patterns of exposure that are showing up in
children are also causing all sorts of auto-immune problems in
increasingly younger adults. Cancers that only used to show up in 60
and 70 year olds are frequently showing up in 40 and 50 year olds3.
Hashimoto's thyroiditis, MS, ALS, lupus, and the rest of the
auto-immune disorders are at an all-time high even with more research
and money being thrown at them than at any other time in history.4
Now, before you throw the towel in, there IS something you can do
about this. Remember that we started this article by stating that
"knowledge is power". One of the best places to start is by doing the
genomic testing that can tell you how intact your child's (or your own)
detox systems are and the functional testing that can tell you how well
they are working. These have become surprisingly affordable in the past
few years with good quality genomic testing being available for under
$450 and liver detoxification function testing being available for less
than $100.
In order to do either of these tests, you simply need to have your
doctor request that the laboratory send them the supplies (called a
"test kit"). If they don't or won't do this type of testing, we can also order the tests for you and help you or your doctor with the interpretation.
For the genomic testing, they will draw and process a small vial of
blood and send it off to the lab that runs the test. It takes a couple
of weeks for the tests to be processed and then the results will come
back to your doctor. You make an appointment with them as usual, and
they can explain the lab results to you so that you will know what your
child's or your own genetic challenges are with detoxification. Because
the detox systems are genetically 'wired for' but not really developed
in infants and very young children, this is a particularly good test to
run for them. We've used this panel with kids as young as 12 months old
whose parents wanted information before giving them some of the
multiple vaccines. No lab test is infallible, but it can give you a big
head-start on understanding what your child's risks are and knowing how
to take care of them and protect their health.
The functional detoxification panel uses saliva and urine and is
probably better for school aged and older kids through adults because
they need to participate a little more to make the test work. They take
a No-Doz tablet and then collect saliva 2 and 8 hours later to test the
first part of their liver detox system. Then, they take a couple of
aspirin and tylenol and collect urine overnight and first thing in the
morning to test the second part of liver detox. The saliva and urine
are sent off to the lab and, like the genomic profile, it takes about
two weeks to get results back. This is less invasive but a little more
complex than the genomic test and it is a better test to use for older
kids and adults because their detoxifying systems are developed fully
enough for the test to be able to measure them and make sense.
Knowledge is power and these lab tests can give you the power to
make wiser, safer choices about your children's and your own health.
PLEASE VOTE POPULAR & BUMP!!!!!!!!
- neonds13
(Original Poster)