But several visits to Md.'s yielded no solution. So, when one of his friends recommended a naturopathic doctor, John, at wit's end, agreed.

After hearing his story, the naturopath recognized that John was probably suffering from heavy metal poisoning-from the paint he was scraping off houses and the toxic solvents he inhaled from the paint as it dried.

The doctor took a sample of hair from the nape of John's neck and sent it to a laboratory for heavy metal analysis. The tests showed high levels of lead and mercury. The naturopath placed him on a program to chelate the heavy metals out of his body and improve his liver function. The program required John to increase his consumption of beans, eat more vitamin C-rich foods (such as citrus, kiwi fruit and strawberries) as well as pectin (fruits), and seaweed products. These foods contain compounds that bind to heavy metals and help the body excrete them.

Drinking dandelion tea and supplementing his diet with vitamin C and B complex also helped his liver eliminate the toxins from his body. In addition, he consumed the herb milk thistle. For more information on these nutrients see Detox.

A few months later, John's hair analysis showed that the heavy metals were slowly leaving his body. He continued to paint during the summers. But, the summertime increase in his body's heavy metals did not occur as it had before he adopted the program to help remove these toxins from his body.

John's exposure to environmental toxins is only one example of our bombardment by deleterious chemicals in our environment. Today, people are exposed to chemicals in far greater Concentrations than were previous generations. As a result of the industrial revolution and the post-World War II petrochemical revolution, toxins have accumulated in the human system faster than they can be eliminated.

"People now carry within their bodies a modern-day chemical cocktail derived from industrial chemicals, pesticides, food additives, heavy metals, anesthetics and the residues of legal and illegal drugs," says Marshall Mandell, M.D., father of the field of bioecologic medicine. "The current level of chemicals in food and water and the indoor and outdoor environment has lowered our threshold of resistance to disease and has altered our metabolism, causing enzyme dysfunction, nutritional deficiencies and hormonal imbalances."

"A body with a healthy immune system, efficient organs of elimination and detoxification and a sound circulatory and nervous system can handle a great deal of toxicity," says Leon Chaitow, ND., D.O. "But damage from chronic exposure to pollutants means that restoring these functions to organs and systems can be accomplished only through detoxification, including fasting, chelation and nutritional, herbal and homeopathic methods. These methods accelerate the body's own natural cleansing processes. These therapies will dominate medical thinking in the years to come. 

Why is fasting so beneficial? It effectively removes toxins from fat when fat-soluble toxins are rapidly released during fasting. However, its most useful benefits are immune system enhancement, removal of immune complexes from the blood and elimination of food allergens from the intestines.

"My idea is to create 'healing hospital environments,'" adds Haas. "People can check in and if they have a certain condition, they'll be provided with medicine or surgery if necessary. But it will also be a place where people can go to learn how to make changes in their lives so they can clear up the problems that they already have and avoid those that they don't. Detoxification would be a major part of that process. Click here for Cleansing Products

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