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Category: Mental Health - Organic Lifestyle MagazineCategory: Mental Health - Organic Lifestyle Magazine
Measures Taken to Decriminalize Psychedelics in Washington D.C
Earlier this year advances were taken in the early steps to decriminalize many psychedelics in Washington D.C. The Ballot initiative was given initial approval by the Board of Elections, and will now have to get the approval of their title and summary statement. If the ballot initiative goes through, psychedelics will be of the lowest priority in local law enforcement. The measure does not remove any penalties. Decriminalize Nature D.C is the organization behind this ballot initiative and had many advocates speak in favor of decriminalization at its original hearing.
Decriminalization can only bring safety and knowledge around the therapeutic use of substances that are already widely available, It will allow therapist to speak candidly to clients, researchers and students to pursue areas of study without fear of retribution, and an overall more educated society.”
Last year Denver, Colorado became the first city to decriminalize psychedelics and several more cities have followed suit. Many people have advocated the legalization of psilocybin mushrooms because of their therapeutic purposes.
People Who Can’t Read May Be Three Times More Likely to Develop Dementia
Keeping your mind engaged is often suggested as a way for your mind to stave off dementia, and something as simple as reading and writing can make a huge difference. Dr. Jennifer J. Manly, Ph.D., of Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York says,
Being able to read and write allows people to engage in more activities that use the brain, like reading newspapers and helping children and grandchildren with homework…Previous research has shown such activities may reduce the risk of dementia. Our new study provides more evidence that reading and writing may be important factors in helping maintain a healthy brain.”
The Study
Dr. Manly is the author of a new study examining dementia that’s been published in Neurology, the journal published by the American Academy of Neurology. The study administered memory and thinking tests to 983 people in Northern Manhattan with low levels of education and an average age of 77 to determine if literacy affects dementia risk levels. Of those evaluated, 237 people were illiterate.
The test subjects who hadn’t learned to read or write began at a disadvantage. Thirty-five percent of test subjects who couldn’t read began the study with dementia as opposed to only eighteen percent of the literate subjects. The gap between literate and illiterate continued throughout the study. After follow-up evaluations that occurred an average of four years later, 48 percent of the illiterate group had developed dementia while 27 percent of the literature group registered dementia.
Healthy Brain While Aging
Maintaining an active brain is a crucial strategy for lowering the risk of dementia. Crossword puzzles or learning new skills are frequently mentioned as viable options. Researchers at the University of Michigan published a 2017 study that attributed America’s decline in dementia to an increase in levels of higher education. While getting a college degree might not be an option or even something you want, Dr. Manly’s study suggests that even mental activities we take for granted can provide surprising benefits.
Five Ways To Reduce Depression and Improve Your Mental State
When the body is healthy, the brain is healthy. If the brain is impaired it’s pretty difficult to enjoy life. Do not underestimate how your health affects your mind!
For those suffering from depression, there’s situational depression and there’s chronic depression. Situational depression is generally triggered by a traumatic incident like losing a loved one or being unable to find work. Chronic depression often starts with situational depression, but it can also just seem to come out of nowhere. Either way, eliminating depression is much harder and often impossible without a healthy brain. For many who do not address health, the best they can hope for is situational happiness, where sadness or anxiety is the norm and outside influences are needed to trigger positive feelings. Addiction is common for such people.
A healthy gut is necessary to break down food, assimilate nutrients, balance hormones, and supply beneficial microflora throughout the body that keeps pathogenic activity from proliferating. An unhealthy gut prohibits proper nutrient assimilation, causes hormonal imbalances, and leaks unhealthy, infectious microbes and undigested food into the body. Pathogens, undigested food particles, hormonal imbalance, and a lack of proper nutrition balance all lead to inflammation.
If the body is inflamed, the brain is inflamed. Studies have shown that people with depression have higher levels of inflammatory markers compared to people who are not depressed. Chronically higher levels of inflammation due to medical illnesses are also associated with higher rates of depression.
Poor diet hurts brain function in other ways too. The refined sugars found in most processed foods spike insulin and trigger the release of inflammatory cytokines. Pesticides, herbicides, artificial colors and flavors, and other chemicals cause problems in many different ways as well. Each and every toxic ingredient harms our health in multiple ways, which is the nature of toxins. But, gut health usually is the best indicator of overall health.
You can inhibit some of the effects of depression with drugs, for a while, but to truly be well one must heal the gut. Healing the gut requires lots of raw vegetables and herbs along with the elimination of pharmaceuticals and other drugs, as well as refined and processed foods. For more on that check out How To Heal Your Gut.
This is where articles typically go over the benefits of salmon, fresh whole fruits and vegetables, leafy grains, nuts, chocolate, oysters, etc. Readers are expected to pick out a few of their favorite foods that made the list and starting eating more of those foods in a futile attempt to feel better about their lives.
It doesn’t work that way.
Salads are the best thing anyone can eat to heal the gut and the entire body (except for those rare exceptions when someone suffers from things like histamine intolerance, but still, the goal for anyone healing from chronic disease should be to get on daily salads, even if one cannot start off that way). We’re not just talking about lettuce and carrot shreds. Salads should have at least ten vegetables and a few herbs. This article has a recipe for the kind of salads we’re talking about. Other than that, focus on whole foods and diversity. And don’t let corporations make your food for you.
In a nutshell, eat salads, eat whole foods, avoid processed and refined foods, make your own food.
We were meant to squat. And the great thing about squats is you can do them almost anywhere. In nature we squatted to hide, to defecate, to pick things up, and we squatted instead of sitting. In paleo times, if you couldn’t squat you probably wouldn’t be around much longer.
Squatting helps massage and activate organ and glandular function, releases positive hormones, aligns the spine, and helps to get the lymphatic system moving. If you can’t squat, try assisted squats to work on the range of motion, and try “get-ups”, which are done by laying on the ground and getting up. Alternate sides and alternate legs being used each time.
Other exercises that are good for alleviating depression include:
Running: We are also meant to run. The human body should be squatting and running every day. Studies show that aerobic exercise is often as effective as anti-depressants for treating depression. And if you manage to achieve that “runner’s high” you’ll want it again and again.
Hiking In the Woods: Getting outdoors and in nature for some time has also been shown in studies to match or exceed anti-depressants for treating depression. While you’re out there, do some earthing.
Yoga: Studies also show yoga can alleviate depression. We can’t recommend Yoga with Adriene enough.
Resistance Training: Weightlifting and other forms of resistance training have much less research regarding the benefits for depression, but the little bit of research that has been done looks promising. And anyone who can put more than their body weight on their back to squat can attest to how amazing it feels.
HITT: If you want to squeeze the most out of the least amount of time, you can’t beat high-intensity interval training. Try it once and you’ll know why it’s a good routine for alleviating depression.
Most of us are rapid, shallow breathers. We raise our shoulders, pull in our diaphragm, and take a breath that fills only the top portion of our lungs.
When you breathe properly, your diaphragm, your stomach, and your ribcage expand, not the pectoral area. Fully exhaling is important, too. Remember, you are breathing in oxygen-rich air and releasing carbon dioxide and toxins.
Proper breathing dramatically increases stamina and mental clarity, elevates your mood, and helps the body detoxify more efficiently (more toxins are released through breathing than through the pores, urination, and defecation combined).
Supplements For Depression
If you’re looking at supplements to replace a healthy diet, that’s going to work only a little better than skipping exercise for a protein shake. Supplements can certainly help improve symptoms but without the right diet, true health cannot be achieved.
That said, chronic depression indicates a deficiency in the body and pathogenic activity. Most people who suffer from chronic depression also suffer from an abundance of Candida. In fact, most people who suffer from chronic anything have too much Candida. For anything regarding yeast, mold, or fungi, we recommend SF722, second only to a healthy diet with lots of salad. For more on that, see How Candida Leads to Depression.
As stated earlier, healthy gut microbiome is imperative to brain health. Our symbiotic bacteria play a key role in nutrient assimilation, hormone production, immune system functionality, and science has just discovered that our gut bacteria also resides in our brain!
Probiotics can help bring the gut into homeostasis and can help keep pathogenic microbes from flourishing. Probiotics are anti-inflammatory, and some studies have indicated that probiotics may alleviate depression. Be careful though. Don’t just pick up any cheap probiotic and expect good results. A high-quality probiotic along with a prebiotic diet (raw vegetables) can help build a healthy gut biome, while a cheap probiotic can actually feed pathogens and do more harm than good.
Our brain is 60% fat. Our brain, gut, and whole body need a variety of fats to function properly. We need saturated fats, monounsaturated fats (omega 9s), and polyunsaturated fats (omega 6s, 3s). A typical western diet is heavy in trans fats and rancid fats which cause inflammation. Some people don’t get enough fats and most people get too many of the wrong types of fats.
A large Norwegian study showed that people who regularly consumed cod liver oil were about 30% less likely to show signs of depression. The longer the participants took cod liver oil, the less likely they were to have high levels of depression. In another study with 49 patients who had a history of harming themselves, study subjects were randomly assigned to receive either 1200 mg EPA and 900 mg DHA, or a placebo. Both groups also received counseling. The study lasted 12 weeks. In the end, the group receiving the fat supplementation improved significantly more than the placebo group.
Many other studies have shown promise in treating depression and anxiety and other mental health disorders with beneficial fat supplementation. It’s best to get your healthy fats through a healthy diet but supplementation can help speed up healing and have an almost immediate reduction in inflammation and brain health.
Tryptophan is an essential amino acid because it can’t be produced by our body. We need it for anabolic processes and the production of various hormones, including serotonin, and the liver can synthesize niacin from tryptophan. So there’s a lot of competition for tryptophan. For those who are low in serotonin, supplementation may help (but low serotonin levels are an indication of poor gut health). Several studies have shown that low tryptophan levels can lead to a depressive state and cause anxiety.
5-HTP is generally recommended over l-tryptophan because it crosses the blood-brain barrier and gets converted into serotonin more efficiently than l-tryptophan. Studies have shown greater results in alleviating depression with 5-HTP supplementation.
A study looked at selenium and depression with a total of 978 young adults aged 17 to 25. Participants filled out a questionnaire to track their mood daily for two weeks to determine their levels of depression. Blood tests were done to determine their selenium levels. The results showed that when selenium levels are too low or too high depressive symptoms were much more likely. The study also showed that lower concentrations of selenium were found to be more detrimental than higher levels.
Many studies have shown a link between vitamin D deficiency and depression. People with low vitamin D were at a much greater risk of depression. We recommend daily access to sunlight. For those with whom it’s not possible to get enough sunlight, and for those who are overweight, vitamin D supplementation makes sense.
According to some experts, one of the common causes of chronic depression is a lack of or imbalance of B vitamins. Vitamins B3, B6, B9, and B12 are all known to be imperative for proper brain health and hormone production. Taking just one B vitamin for a long period of time can cause an imbalance that can be more detrimental to health than being low in most or all Bs. Poor B vitamin assimilation is a sign of poor gut health.
Laboratory rats were administered imipramine (a common anti-depressant medication) or ashwagandha. The results were almost identical. In another study, ashwagandha was also found to work as well as diazepam with depression and anxiety caused by social isolation. Ashwagandha is an effective anti-depressant without the serious side effects that medication comes with.
Eleuthero has a mild sedative effect and supports the adrenals and inhibits stress hormones. While this herb can be a godsend to some, it also can be overstimulating and is contraindicated in some people, especially those with very high blood pressure.
Holy basil is well known for its ability to reduce inflammation, stress, and anxiety and it can help manage depression. Research has shown that holy basil decreases the amount of cortisol released during stressful events.
Maca root has been shown to help reduce depression and anxiety. A study compared postmenopausal women who took maca root versus those who took a placebo. The study revealed a significant reduction in anxiety, depression, and sexual dysfunction after Maca consumption.
Dubbed “nature’s antidepressant,” St. John’s wort is a very popular alternative to antidepressant medication for those dealing with depression. Multiple studies have shown that this herb can be as effective as medication for mild to moderate depression. It could likely help with severe depression as well but there have not been enough studies done on this yet.
Conclusion
No medications will work to treat chronic depression forever, and the same is true for supplements. There are also many different nutrient deficiencies that can lead to depression. Taking one or two supplements may help for a little while, but the root cause will not be addressed without lifestyle changes. If you suffer from depression, stop letting corporations make your food for you, heal your gut, get outside, and put in the hard work to get well. I know that’s easier said than done. I’ve been there. I’m prone to depression and I’ve had some catastrophic loses in my life. I recommend baby steps. And for me, personally, I found the products below to be most helpful. But again, gut health is paramount! Be sure to check out How To Heal Your Gut.
Antidepressant Use Connected To Antibiotic-Resistance Superbugs
The more fluoxetine an E.coli microbe is exposed to, the more likely that bacteria is to develop multidrug resistance, says a new study from the University of Queensland in Australia. What is fluoxetine, and why is this a big deal?
Fluoxetine is a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and the active ingredient in some of the world’s most prescribed anti-depressants like Prozac and Sarafem. E.coli bacteria were exposed to fluoxetine for 30 days in different concentrations. The bacteria were then exposed to antibiotics like chloramphenicol, amoxicillin, and tetracycline. The microbes exposed to the fluoxetine showed an increased resistance to antibiotics that was 50 million-fold higher than the experiment control. The more the bacteria were exposed to the SSRI, the more quickly the drug resistance developed. Jianhua Guo is one of the authors of the study.
Fluoxetine is a very persistent and well-documented drug in the wider environment, where strong environmental levels can induce multi-drug resistance…This discovery provides strong evidence that fluoxetine directly causes multi-antibiotic resistance via genetic mutation.”
Fluoxetine is an incredibly popular drug. Healthcare practitioners issued more than 28 million prescriptions for it in 2018. It’s almost always among the top 30 medications prescribed worldwide. It’s everywhere, and the link between the antidepressant and antibiotic-resistant bacteria could have serious consequences.
This study is a lab-based study, and it’s fair to wonder how the drug and the bacteria interact in a real-world scenario. Scientists don’t know. When a drug this popular has the potential to hasten the evolution of multidrug-resistant bacteria though, we need more studies.
In People
Most antidepressants are taken for longer than a year. But even a short period on fluoxetine can give harmful bacteria the time they need to develop resistance. Prozac takes longer to exit the body than other SSRI medications like Paxil or Zoloft. While those examples 99 percent out of the body after 5 and 6 days respectively, Prozac takes nearly a month. These medications “fix” problems by disrupting the endocrine system. A disruption like that allows infections to flourish in the body.
We’re not ready for the level of antibiotic-resistant bacteria developing in our society. We know that antibiotics fed to food animals are a major source of those developments. Yet U.S. farmers are still using antibiotics regarded as “crucial to human health.” The authors of this study found that triclosan, an ingredient in antibacterial soaps, causes antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Now antidepressants have been linked to multidrug resistance.
We aren’t taking confirmed causes of this health seriously, and we are constantly finding new potential causes we hadn’t even considered. It’s a recipe for disaster.
Nitrates from Cured Meat Have Been Linked to Mania in New Study
No one mistakes hot dogs for health food, but a new study published in Molecular Psychiatry suggests that they might be even worse for you than previously thought, linking hot dog, beef jerky, salami, and processed meats to mania. Examining 1,101 individuals, researchers at Johns Hopkins noticed that the subjects who had been hospitalized for mania were 3.5 times more likely to have consumed cured meats. The same outcome did not occur with other untreated meats or fish. Researchers then fed rats nitrates in a dose equivalent to what a human would eat in a hot dog or beef jerky. The second part of the study confirmed that nitrates negatively impact gut bacteria and the brain. Dr. Robert Yolken, the lead author of the study and professor of neurovirology in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, says,
We looked at a number of different dietary exposures and cured meat really stood out. It wasn’t just that people with mania have an abnormal diet…There’s growing evidence that germs in the intestines can influence the brain…And this work on nitrates opens the door for future studies on how that may be happening.”
This is not the first time nitrates have been mentioned in conjunction with serious health issues. Past studies have linked the compound with early death, an increased risk of cancer, and male infertility.
Nitrates are more complicated than that, though. Once they’re ingested, they’re turned to nitrites by your oral bacteria. From there these nitrites turn into nitric oxide or N-nitroso compounds. Nitric oxide is a free radical, protecting cell mitochondria, and relaxing blood vessels. Plants like celery, spinach, lettuce, onions, broccoli, and peas are excellent sources of naturally occurring nitrates that don’t turn into carcinogenic N-nitroso compounds, which are carcinogenic. This is because plants are excellent sources of vitamin c and polyphenols, which keep those compounds from forming.
Naughty Nitrates
Meat, on the other hand, has all the conditions needed for nitrites to turn into carcinogenic N-nitroso. There are no anti-oxidants or polyphenols. Meat also has higher quantities of protein and heme. Heme is an iron-containing compound found in hemoglobin and has been in the news recently as the ingredient responsible for the Impossible Burger’s meaty flavor.
Processed meats have nitrites added as a preservative and a coloring. They’re responsible for that pink color you see in so many lunch meats. The World Health Organization has classified processed meats as carcinogenic to humans since 2015. Cooking (especially over high heat) makes the numbers of carcinogenic chemicals worse, making hot dogs the worst (seriously, though, the worst).
Gut-Brain Connection
These researchers found a link between human mental illness and a food group. Then they manufactured the same conditions in rats to find an even deeper connection and a greater risk of long-term health conditions.
Much has been made of our increasing mental issues. Mania is most commonly associated with bipolar disorder, and diagnoses of that disorder have been on the rise for over a decade. Young people have been hit especially hard. Yet the exact cause of that is unknown.
However, not enough attention has been paid to how crucial the gut-brain connection is. The enteric nervous system controls the function of the gastrointestinal tract and has been referred to as the second brain. It follows that what you fuel the gut with profoundly affects both brains. We are losing our the diversity of our gut bacteria at an alarming rate. We are beginning to see what happens when those microbes are permanently lost.
How can we take care of this world, of anything else when we’re constantly on the verge of losing control of our own sanity? We often hear about mental health coping strategies or mental health tools for dealing with situations. Why is diet not one of those tools, indeed the very foundation? The gut dictates brain function. What does your brain food look like?
How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors
The soles of your shoes, the fabric of your clothing, your contact lenses, your chewing gum, your phone, food containers, mattresses – all are made with plastic. It’s everywhere. It’s in our salt and it’s in our water. Plastic may be the most insidious and enduring product we’ve ever produced.
While plastic improves our daily life in countless ways, it is also suffocating our planet and causing catastrophic pollution, much of it hidden and microscopic. Just how bad is it?
Bottled water samples were collected and analyzed by scientists over a ten-month investigation. The study analyzed 259 bottles from 19 locations in nine countries across 11 different brands and found an average of 325 plastic particles for every liter of water being sold.
In one bottle of Nestlé Pure Life, concentrations were as high as 10,000 plastic pieces per litre of water. Of the 259 bottles tested, only 17 were free of plastics, according to the study.” – Drinking Bottled Water Means Drinking Microplastics
This study comes just after a damning study of plastic found in sea salt brands was published in the scientific journal Scientific Reports. Theyanalyzed seventeen commercial salt brands from eight different countries on four continents for plastic particles. They found plastics in all but one brand.
BPA is the starting material for producing polycarbonate plastics. We found out it leaches into the ground and water and causes all kinds of problems. Of course, the manufacturers denied and lied until the mounting evidence was incontrovertible. Then BPS was developed, and was a favored replacement; they thought BPS was more resistant to leaching. But BPS is leaching. Nearly 81 percent of Americans have detectable levels of BPS in their urine. Once it enters the body it can affect cells in ways that parallel BPA.
Microplastics, Endocrine Disrupters, and the Environment
Microplastics are most likely, to varying degrees, already in all of our drinking water and in all of our bodies. Microplastics absorb toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases and release those chemicals into animals that consume it, like fish and humans who eat those fish. Experts say since these fibers have been found in most of our water supply, they have to be in our food as well. From fish to organic vegetables, microplastics are everywhere. At this time, there is no known way to completely filter or contain them.
Plastic waste doesn’t biodegrade. Instead, it breaks down into smaller pieces of itself, down to the nanometer scale (one billionth of a meter). Science knows that particles of this size migrate through intestinal walls and travel to lymph nodes, glands, and bodily organs.
Plastic is toxic. It has been proven to cause cancer. Plastic toxicity weakens the immune system, metabolism, and affects people’s skin, weight, behavior, and much more. Plastic particles will leach into food and drink and is also absorbed through skin and lungs. Plastics leach endocrine disruptors, meaning plastic screws up our hormonal system.
Most plastic products, from dishes to plastic bags to food wraps, have been proven to release estrogenic chemicals. These chemicals are endocrine disrupters that act like the sex hormone estrogen, according to a study in Environmental Health Perspectives. Excessive estrogen, estrogenic chemicals, and other endocrine disruptors have been linked to cancer, fertility problems, male impotence, heart disease, and many other conditions.
Endocrine disruptors (EDs) are chemicals that mimic our own hormones. They bind hormone receptors and disrupt the body’s normal hormonal actions. Endocrine disruptors may cause a more powerful response than the natural hormone would have or a diminished response. In some cases, they cause a completely different response than its natural counterpart would have created. EDs are typically measured in parts per trillion, which is indicative of the fact that very small amounts can have a disrupting effect on us. EDs are very stable. They don’t break down quickly. This is, in large part, why they are in so many products. They also get stored in our fat cells. They tend to stick around for a long time.
The dangers of plastics have not been studied adequately, and the plastic industry has no desire or intention of doing so. A study looking into the effects of BPA on rat testicles found that lipoic acid exerted antioxidant effects that can protect against BPA damage. In the study, BPA was shown to reduce testosterone, testicular weight, protein content, antioxidant activity, and beneficial enzyme activity, while damaging the mitochondria. Fetal exposure to BPA has been associated with obesity, altered reproductive function, and cancers later on in life. BPA was accidentally discovered to be carcinogenic when medical researchers came to find that rats were getting cancer during a study for something else. They found out that it was caused the BPA in the water bottles. And now we are supposed to trust BPA free plastics?
How to Avoid Plastic Toxicity
Many manufacturers have stopped using BPA to harden plastics, replacing it with “BPA-free” alternatives like the most common replacement, BPS (Bisphenol S).
Our research showed that low levels of BPS had a similar impact on the embryo as BPA. In the presence of either BPA or BPS, embryonic development was accelerated. Additionally, BPA caused premature birth.” –Nancy Wayne
You probably can’t avoid plastics. Even if you go to another planet plastic is going to take you there and contaminate that ecosystem. But you can limit plastic consumption and keep your body in a homeostasis state that detoxifies itself at all times. And the good news is that with the right diet and a healthy body, BPA and BPS can be flushed out of your system quickly, some say within 24 hours. A properly working body can process and dispel a lot of toxins. An unhealthy body rids itself of toxins at a slower rate than the toxins are consumed and produced.
Ways to Limit Plastic Contamination & Plastic Use
Keep your home clean, and vacuum regularly
Filter tap water
Always avoid artificial fragrances
Stay away from warm or hot plastics, don’t even breathe near them
Avoid canned foods
Avoid conventional personal care products like shampoos, soaps, moisturizers, makeup
Avoid conventional and big-ag produce (pesticides and herbicides have plastic residues)
Cook your own foods using whole-food ingredients
Stop using plastic straws, even in restaurants
Purchase food, like cereal, pasta, and rice from bulk bins and fill a reusable bag or container
Use paper or your own reusable shopping bags, bulk goods bags, and bring your own mesh produce bags (FYI: I suspect that many paper bags contain BPA and BPS)
No more chewing gum, it’s made of plastic
Buy boxes and glass instead of plastic bottles whenever possible
Use a reusable bottle or mug for your beverages or coffee and soda refills (but you don’t drink that crap, do you?)
Boycott any restaurant that still uses styrofoam – Why is that still a thing?
Use matches or invest in a refillable metal lighter – avoid the plastic disposable ones
Eat real, whole foods – fresh foods equates to less packaging and less previous plastic contact
Don’t use plasticware ever, bring your own if need be
Use cloth diapers – disposable diapers are extremely toxic to the environment and your baby
Did you know that some receipts contain 250 to 1,000 times the amount of BPA typically found in a can of food? If that isn’t scary enough, BPA transfers readily from the receipt to skin and cannot be washed off. Different types of receipts contain varying levels of BPA. If you aren’t sure whether or not a merchant uses BPA in their receipts, either ask directly or let them know early in the transaction that you will not need your receipt. Gas station receipts are particularly notorious for containing huge amounts of BPA.” – Home Maker Chic
How to Detoxify Plastic Byproducts
To eliminate BPS, BPA, and other plastic residues from the body, one must first and foremost, make sure your gut is not leaking! A healthy gut microbiome will breakdown toxins into inert substances. See How To Heal Your Gut for more on that.
The second most important thing you can do is consume lots of salads like these. Incidentally, salads are part of building a healthy gut microbiome. A large salad with 15 different vegetables and herbs will chelate toxic chemicals from the body while providing nutrition and feeding a healthy, diverse microbiome.
Also, eliminate heavy metals and other toxins as well. Toxins tend to disrupt the endocrine system. The endocrine system is your hormonal system (click to learn more), which includes glands like the thyroid, adrenals, and the pancreas. Heavy metal toxicity and other toxins will also inhibit the body’s ability to detoxify other chemicals including plastic residue.
Most people living on a modern, refined diet suffer from candida overgrowth, and consequently, a leaky gut. Ingesting pesticides, GMOs, antibiotics, alcohol, and other toxic foods kill our natural, beneficial gut microbiome. The refined sugars and flours we ingest feed the microbes that survive our toxic lifestyles. These microbes thrive in our toxic bodies because they feed off of simple sugars and weak cells. They also feed off of plastics, heavy metals, and all kinds of toxins. And they are not the microbes that optimize our health. THe best gut bacteria just happen to like the healthiest foods. Nature wouldn’t work if it were any other way.
The diet I recommend may sound extreme. It’s the same diet I advocate for those suffering from cancer, diabetes, depression, any other autoimune disease or infection, or for those who just want to detoxify. If you are sick, no amount of supplements will fix that. But with the right diet, supplements will radically speed up the process of getting well. If you want to live life disease free, save the following articles:
Even if you’re not feeling ill in any way, detoxifying plastic or anything else is done best with raw, fresh vegetables. The right salad will chelate heavy metals, BPAs, BPS, and more, all while replenishing the minerals we need. Garlic, parsley, cilantro, and many other foods show promising chelation properties, but their effects alone are weak. Thr trick is to combine many healthy foods with their many health benefits for a holistic approach. Taking a few cloves of garlic a day will not significantly reduce levels of toxins any more than taking a supplement. In other words, don’t underestimate the importance of the right diet. It must contain a wide variety of fresh, whole foods.
Supplements for BPA and BPS, Heavy Metal Detox, and Other Endocrine Disrupters
Without a proper diet, the right supplements will work, but only to a certain extent, and only for a little while. On the other hand, supplements taken with a healthy diet can radically speed up healing time.
1.) Get thee some probiotics – pronto. I’m not talking celebrity endorsed yogurt here. Chose fermented foods like kimchi, natural sauerkraut, and kefir. A refrigerated, concentrated probiotic supplement helps. Drink kombucha. Bifidobacterium breve and Lactobacillus casei were found to extract BPA from the blood of mammals and were excreted out through the bowels. That is very good news!
Beneficial bacteria strengthen the gut and help break down chemicals like BPA so they can be cleared out. As a bonus, they break down pesticides, another major endocrine-disruptor, and other toxins as well. Probiotics are becoming well known for breaking down endocrine-disruptors and other toxins in the body.
My recommendations (pick one depending on the budget):
Syntol AMD (powerful probiotic with prebiotics and enzymes)
Chelators are small molecules that bind very tightly to metal ions. Activated charcoal is proven to attach to heavy metals including beneficial macrominerals, so mineral supplementation is recommended when consuming activated charcoal, though this can be mitigated with a healthy diet like as mentioned above.
Activated charcoal is highly negatively charged. It seems to bind with positively charged particles. Pathogens typically have a high positive charge associated with them, and so do plastics. Activated charcoal filters have shown to remove BPA from water, but I don’t see any research on its ability to filter BPA from the body, but I think it works.
Like activated charcoal, bentonite clay is negatively charged. Unlike charcoal, bentonite clay provides minerals and other nutrients to the body while it sucks out toxins, as it helps repair the intestinal tract.
Another chelator, and much more. Any self-respecting eco-friendly health-nut has a bag of food-grade DE somewhere. Take it with water to kill pathogens in your gut, and use it outside or indoors for pest control.
Food grade DE is approximately 80-85% silica. Life cannot exist without silica. Most people are silica-deficient.
Chlorella has a well-documented history of helping remove heavy metals and other toxins like dioxin from the body expeditiously. Its high concentration of chlorophyll and fiber seems to be a big part of its exceptional detox benefits. It’s almost certain, considering the mechanism, that Chlorella (and spirulina) help pull out BPAs and other plastic residue.
Chlorella is a good source of protein, GLA, and phytochemicals, B12, B2, B3, iron, magnesium, Beta Carotene, and a bunch of powerful phytochemicals. Chlorella stimulates the growth of friendly bacteria. Furthermore, chlorella’s cell walls act to absorb toxic compounds within the intestines, restoring proper gastrointestinal pH and helping to promote normal peristalsis. And it is another chelator, as it is also very negatively charged, attracting positively charged molecules.
Phytochemicals found within Chlorella pyrenoidosa support the complex network of enzymatic reactions that drive the human detoxification system. This detoxification network involves the Phase I and Phase II enzymatic reactions that take place in nearly all cells in the body, though they are concentrated in the liver cells. Phase I detoxification reactions change non-polar chemicals that are not water-soluble into relatively polar, water-soluble compounds. The Phase I process can result in the formation of reactive chemicals that are typically more toxic than the original compounds. Phase II detoxification is necessary therefore to add chemical groups to the toxic intermediates to make them water-soluble so that they may easily be excreted via urine and/or feces. Phase I and Phase II detoxification pathways must remain functional for the removal of toxins from the body. This research focuses specifically on the Chlorella pyrenoidosa species of green algae recognized for its detoxification properties. – King Hardt Academy
Chlorella is green algae, but spirulina is more of a blue-green in color. These two algae have a lot in common. Chlorella’s green hue demonstrates that it’s richer in chlorophyll than spirulina, and chlorella is said to have stronger detoxification properties. But spirulina is an even better source of protein, and it offers iron, B1, B2, B3, B6, B12, calcium, potassium, zinc, and a host of microminerals.
Digestive enzymes break down food. Metabolic enzymes, also known as systemic enzymes, break down foreign proteins, fibrin, and other toxins, and they clean the blood of impurities. Consider the ramifications of this. Probiotics and enzymes together help breakdown nearly everything in the gut that doesn’t belong. Read more about systemic enzymes here.
Diindolylmethane (DIM) is naturally present in cruciferous vegetables such as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts. It helps metabolize estrogens and hormone-disrupting estrogen mimics. Indolplex is a dietary supplement that contains a patented, bioavailable form of diindolylmethane.
Glucuronidation is a major metabolic reaction, and mainly takes place in the liver, for disposal of a variety of endogenous (such as TH) and exogenous substrates (such as PCBs).
Calcium glucarate is naturally found in fruits and vegetables, especially cruciferous vegetables. Calcium glucarate helps rid the body of toxins and excess hormones while it protects our cells from carcinogens.
My family and I do avoid it as often as we can. Years ago, I spent considerable time trying to completely eliminate plastic from my life. I found that my overall environmental footprint went up a little. Plastics make things so easy and convenient that sometimes it just doesn’t make any sense to do without it. I’m careful, but plastics don’t scare me. The body can handle a remarkable toxic load when the diet is right. I trust my diet to eliminate the BPA, BPS, and whatever else gets in there that shouldn’t be.
That said, I cannot wait for the day when our plastics come from hemp or some other sustainable alternative. There are much better options available to us if we can just get out from under this petroleum-based economy.
Prior to World War II coconut oil was a common cooking oil and an ingredient in many food products. During World War II the Japanese occupied the Philippines and other South Pacific islands. They cut off the U.S.’s supply of coconut oil, and so, American manufacturers used vegetable oils instead. The vegetable oil industry then used advertising to promote vegetable oil as the healthier alternative to tropical oils.
For some time now science has been urging us to rethink our coconut oil stance, and many now consider it a heart-healthy ingredient. But companies selling coconut oil are finding themselves being attacked for claiming that coconut oil is healthy. The FDA does not allow such a claim, even if scientific studies and public awareness back it up. Companies are facing class actions lawsuits as attorneys take advantage of the FDA’s Ruling on Saturated Fats.1
American Heart Association’s Presidential Advisory
The main sources of saturated fat to be decreased are dairy fat (butter), lard (pork), beef tallow, palm oil, palm kernel oil, and coconut oil. Polyunsaturated fats are contained in canola oil, corn oil, soybean oil, peanut oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, and walnuts. However, original high-linoleic varieties of safflower and sunflower oils are uncommon. High-oleic varieties of safflower and sunflower oil, olive oil, avocados, and tree nuts such as almonds, cashews, hazelnuts, pistachios, and pecans have mainly monounsaturated fats and are low in saturated fat. – AHA
Saturated fats are not the problem. They got it wrong when we linked saturated fats to heart disease. There are pros and cons to animal saturated fats, and science is working it out, but saturated fats from plants like coconut oil do not seem to have any health drawbacks.
In the 1940’s farmers tried coconut oil to fatten their animals but discovered that it made them lean and active and increased their appetite. Coconut oil stimulates the thyroid.” – HealthStatus
While research shows coconut oil contains higher amounts of saturated fat and does increase total cholesterol, those amounts do not increase your heart attack or stroke risk. In fact, one study among lean, heart disease- and stroke-free Pacific Islanders who consumed up to 63 percent of their calories from coconut fat found total cholesterol rose but so did their “good” HDL. Other studies found lipid profiles improve on high-fat diets containing coconut oil. Researchers concluded it wasn’t saturated fat from coconuts that negatively impacted cholesterol profile. Instead, the coconut oil’s overall effect raised HDL while lowering triglycerides and small LDL cholesterol particles, which is definitely a good thing.” – Dr. Hyman