April 10th, 2010 | Posted in Triggers
Today (April 10, 2010) I came across MS related news, published April 8, 2010. Being actively involved in everything MS-related, I started reading at once.
As an example, www.sciencedaily. com in article Does Smoking Compound Other Multiple Sclerosis Risk Factors? presented results of newest investigations:
“…study shows that smoking may increase the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS) in people who also have specific established risk factors for MS. The research is found in the April 7, 2010, online issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology…”
Later some details are presented: number of participants – MS sufferers and in control group, etc. Finally researchers explain influence of a specific gene… Leader of research group explains:
“The consistency of an association between MS, smoking and the body’s immune response… suggests this finding is not due to chance”, said study author Claire Simon, ScD, with Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. “This relationship may provide clues as to why certain individuals develop MS while others do not.”
Some more specifically scientific information has been included…
* * *
Earlier scientific discoveries are rather controversial:
So perhaps humanity arrived at a threshold of a giant discovery?
Or maybe not?
What’s in cigarette smoke?
Being neither a smoker, nor cigarette smoke researcher I had no idea, what makes this smoke so poisonous. Consequently I went to Google and typed a phrase: ” cigarette smoke pollutant ” – and I was provided with over 300,000 articles.
Immediately I entered an article Have You Ever Wondered What’s In a Cigarette? It provides plenty of required information.
Just look:
- Nicotine is highly addictive. Smoke containing nicotine is inhaled into the lungs, and the nicotine reaches brain in as little as 6 seconds
- Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 chemicals, including 43 known carcinogenic (cancer-causing) compounds and 400 other toxins -nicotine, tar, and carbon monoxide, and formaldehyde, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, arsenic, DDT etc
- Nicotine in small doses acts as a stimulant to the brain. In large doses, it’s a depressant, inhibiting the flow of signals between nerve cells. In even larger doses, it’s a lethal poison, affecting the heart, blood vessels, and hormones
- Most of the chemicals inhaled in cigarette smoke stay in the lungs. The more you inhale, the better it feels—and the greater the damage to lungs . . .
Cigarette Maker Now Lists Ingredients
For the first time, an American tobacco company has begun listing long-secret ingredients contained in its cigarettes directly on the label… List includes:
“…high fructose corn syrup, sugar, natural and artificial licorice flavor, menthol, artificial milk chocolate and natural chocolate flavor, valerian root extract, molasses and vanilla extracts, and cedarwood oil. Less familiar additives include glycerol, propylene glycol, isovaleric acid, hexanoic acid and 3-methylpentanoic acid…”
What researchers say
“…not all of the chemicals in your cigarettes are there for taste enhancement. For example, a chemical very similar to rocket fuel helps keep the tip of the cigarette burning at an extremely hot temperature. This allows the nicotine in tobacco to turn into a vapor so your lungs can absorb it more easily.”
“Toilet Bowl Cleaner? Most people prefer to use ammonia for things such as cleaning windows and toilet bowls. You may be surprised to learn that the tobacco industry has found some additional uses for this household product. By adding ammonia to your cigarettes, nicotine in its vapor form can be absorbed through your lungs more quickly. This, in turn, means your brain can get a higher dose of nicotine with each puff.”
The complete list of chemicals added to your cigarettes is too long to list here. Here are some examples that will surprise you:
- Fungicides and pesticides — Cause many types of cancers and birth defects
- Cadmium — Linked to lung and prostate cancer
- Benzene — Linked to leukemia
- Formaldehyde — Linked to lung cancer
- Nickel — Causes increased susceptibility to lung infections
If you are angry that so many things have been added to the cigarettes you enjoy so much, you should be. Many of these chemicals were added to make you better able to tolerate toxic amounts of cigarette smoke. They were added without regard to your health and with the intent to keep you addicted.
As the tobacco industry saying goes:
An addicted customer is a customer for life,
no matter how short that life is
More information – in article.
Smoking and MS – conclusions
I have started analysing possible triggers of MS in 2006 – just when I’ve started my website Beyond MS.
Key idea beyond all listed triggers is rather simple:
There are so many ways to worsen one’s health
and to deregulate immune system…
Just look at all these triggers – you’ll see regularities.
But why some so-called MS researchers refuse to see results of other researchers?
Why they exclude a common sense?
Or is it political correctness?
April 30th, 2008 | Posted in Triggers
Toxic heavy metals pose the second worst environmental health problem in the United States according to a 300 page study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
There are 35 metals that concern us because of occupational or residential exposure; 23 of these are the heavy metals…
For some heavy metals, toxic levels can be just above the background concentrations naturally found in nature. Therefore, it is important for us to inform ourselves about the heavy metals and to take protective measures against excessive exposure…
Commonly Encountered Toxic Heavy Metals:
- Arsenic – Chronic or lower levels of exposure can lead to progressive peripheral and central nervous changes…
- Lead – Chronic exposure to lead may result in birth defects, mental retardation, autism, psychosis, allergies, dyslexia…
- Mercury – Chronic exposure to mercury may result in permanent damage to the central nervous system. Metallic mercury used by dentists to manufacture dental amalgam is shipped as a hazardous material to dental offices…
- Cadmium
- Iron
- Aluminum – Environmental exposure is frequent, leading to concerns about accumulative effects and a possible connection with Alzheimer’s disease…
Chronic toxicity to heavy metals results from repeated or continuous exposure, leading to an accumulation of the toxic substance in the body. Chronic exposure may result from contaminated food, air, water, or dust; living near a hazardous waste site; spending time in areas with deteriorating lead paint; maternal transfer in the womb; or from participating in hobbies that use lead paint or solder. Chronic exposure may occur in either the home or workplace…
Information from Life extension foundation website
Multiple Sclerosis is a disease of civilized man, and, like many other diseases of our modern age, it is a disease of an overactive and misdirected immune system. The specific reasons for this are unclear, but a prominent theory relates heavy metals like mercury, lead and aluminum as the agents that might replace normal molecules in the myelin sheaths, leading to an onslaught of free radical damage which destroys the myelin sheaths, resulting in MS. In addition, the immune system now sees this tissue as foreign, because of the replacement of heavy metals, and produces antibodies which attack the myelin, leading to further damage.
The toxic effects of heavy metals and chemicals are increasingly being recognized by the medical profession as the root cause underlying much of mankind’s suffering. The December 1992 issue of The American Family Physician, published by the American Academy of Family Physicians, devoted an entire article to the signs, symptoms and causes of mercury toxicity, and also recommended chelation therapy as the treatment of choice for this affliction. In January 1993, the journal spoke of the ill effects of lead toxicity and recommended chelation therapy for this problem as well. Both mercury and lead can inflict terrible damage upon any tissue.
Read more about heavy metal toxicity, symptoms and chelation
There exists very strong and widening opinion that heavy metals, especially mercury, can trigger multiple sclerosis
If you want to know more about mercury (the most poisonous heavy metal) influence on health, please take a look at Mercury Exposure website – very well written and presented! Here is just one excerpt:
Research published 1st March 2006 shows neurodevelopmental disorders in children has decreased following removal of thimerosal, a preservative containing the neurotoxin mercury, from American childhood vaccines…
April 30th, 2008 | Posted in Triggers
Our bodies have become virtual dumping grounds for the hundreds of thousands of toxic compounds that invade our air, water, and even the soil that nurtures our food
More than 77,000 chemicals are in active production in North America. More than 3,000 chemicals are added to our food supply; and more than 10,000 chemicals in the form of solvents, emulsifiers, and preservatives are used in food processing, packaging, wrapping, and storage.
Every day, all of us ingest tiny amounts of these chemicals. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA, USA) estimates there are more than 20,000 chemicals that our bodies cannot metabolize. Chemicals not metabolized are stored in the fat cells throughout our bodies where they continue to accumulate. As these chemicals build up, they alter our metabolism, cause enzyme dysfunction and nutritional deficiencies, create hormonal imbalances, damage brain chemistry, and cause cancer. Because the chemicals accumulate in different parts of the body and at different rates and in different combinations, there is a disturbingly large variety of different chronic illnesses that can result.
Today, our environment is toxic and the foods we eat, even the air we breathe and the water we drink is laden with chemicals foreign to our system.
Our body is designed to utilize natural substances, which includes foods, herbs and phytochemicals. Any foreign substance will serve as a stimulus to our immune system, which has the function of removing these substances.
Man has neglected one fundamental biological rule; to check and see if the organism is adapting to its new environment. We obviously are the first generation to be exposed to such an unprecedented number of chemicals. The work of detoxifying these causes serious deficiencies. This maladaptation in turn has resulted in chronic disease. But disease is not a drug deficiency.
Dr. Sherry Rogers, a fellow of the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology and a diplomat of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine, says in her book Detoxify or Die that …
bio-accumulated toxic load in the human body is responsible for all disease not attributable to bacteria or virus
Probably the most accurate and up-to-date description of modern life realities has been presented in the article “Blood tests show chemical toxins“:
A number of toxic man-made chemicals were found in the blood of every person tested during a survey by an environmental pressure group.
Environmental pressure group WWF said long-banned substances such as DDT, which has been associated with cancers and nervous and immune system disorders, were still being found.
There is very little information available about the safety and health risks posed by the vast majority of chemicals in use
“We just don’t know what might be considered a safe level of exposure to these chemicals, especially when they persist in the body for long periods and react together inside the body in a potentially dangerous cocktail.”
WWF’s survey shows that our bodies are being used as toxic chemical dumps
Our contaminated blood is proof that it’s time for the government and chemical companies to phase out the production and use of these chemicals and develop new safe alternatives
April 26th, 2008 | Posted in Basics
- Included information has been known for over 500 years now
- Probably just after reading this short article you will change your attitude concerning:
- food and food additives you eat
- any drugs you take
- any supplements you consume etc
- Most probably careful insight into what you put into your mouth could reduce health problems…
All substances are poisons; there is none which is not a poison
The right dose differentiates a poison….
Paracelsus (1493-1541)
A substance can produce the harmful effect associated with its toxic properties only if it reaches a susceptible biological system within your body in a sufficient concentration (a high enough dose). The toxic effect of a substance increases as the exposure (or dose) to the susceptible biological system increases. For all chemicals there is a dose response curve, or a range of doses that result in a graded effect between the extremes of no effect and 100% response (toxic effect). All chemical substances will exhibit a toxic effect given a large enough dose. If the dose is low enough even a highly toxic substance will cease to cause a harmful effect. The toxic potency of a chemical is thus ultimately defined by the dose (the amount) of the chemical that will produce a specific response in a specific biological system.
http://learn.caim.yale.edu/chemsafe/references/dose.html
Toxicology is the study of poisons or toxicants and their adverse effects on various organs and tissues of the body. The term “toxin” is often used as a synonym for poison, but some specialists prefer to reserve that name for poisons of biological origin, like snake venom or poison ivy.
With advances in imaging technologies and in chemical measurement technologies, the scope of toxicology is progressively broadening to subsume more subtle, subclinical effects of toxicants.
Paracelsus was a medieval alchemist who is often recognized as both the “father of toxicology” and the “father of pharmacology” because of his pioneering work in systematizing the study of effects of chemicals and drugs.
Paracelsus stated that
- all substances are poisons
- that only the dose differentiates a poison and a remedy.
This notion of dose is critical for understanding toxic effects.
At very low doses, even the most toxic chemicals known will cause no discernable effect on humans, while at very high doses, even essential substances like oxygen and water will harm or kill. In between, different amounts will cause different degrees of harm
http://www.lectlaw.com/filesh/tabcaus.htm
To health and wellness -
Dr. Czes Kulvis
