Toxic Environment and obesity – Are we justified to blame environmental toxins

Toxic environment is associated with the prevalence of obesity. All that we feed on appears to be contaminated by the toxic environment

The world around us is not the way it was some four or five decades ago thanks to technology that has made industrialization to take root of each economy in the world over. One of the measures used to establish the economy of any given nation is how well she is able to add value to her natural resources like agricultural produce and mineral deposits. The process of adding value to this natural produce has been one of the most sources of pollution of the environment in all dimensions. The air, the water and the land are all victims of pollution ingredients emanating from the various industries processing different products we consume today. It is on this background that we want to discuss the effects of toxic environment to obesity as a health condition.

Toxic Environment and obesity – We are surrounded by toxins

I will begin by asking a question “What is in that fat when you lose it? Interesting indeed we are rapidly being exposed to internal and external toxins.

External toxins – these are those elements derived from the environment and may enter the body due to the body being subjected to a overwhelming array of chemicals, pesticides, and herbicides that contaminate practically everything we come into contact with like the air we breathe, the water we drink and the food we eat.

Internal toxins – these arises from the gut as breakdown products of our own metabolism.

Under normal circumstances in the past our ancestors were able to stay healthy by detoxifying their bodies using the endogenous detoxification mechanisms something we find very difficult doing today. What we would call our endogenous detoxification mechanisms are so much overloaded that the excess toxins are stored in our fat depots.

When a person loses weight (fat) these stored toxins (e.g. bisphenol, DDT etc.) are released back into the body where further interfering with normal metabolism. It has even been suggested that the release of toxins during fat loss may be responsible for slowing down weight loss and even stopping it altogether in some cases. Looking at the increase of toxins we often released into our body systems when losing weight it is necessary that our mothers and ladies in general should embrace weight loss before the can plan having children i.e. getting pregnant. This will prevent the possible damage to the unborn child’s brain.

Toxic Environment and obesity – Effects of toxins

The presence of toxins in our may change metabolism in many ways like:

• Disrupt the function of hormones
• Damage the mitochondria in our cells
• Increase inflammation and oxidative stress
• Lower the levels of the thyroid hormones we produce
• Change our circadian rhythms and the autonomic nervous system

All of these changes can eventually hamper the most important weight control mechanisms in the human body. According to researchers, writing in the Italian Journal of Pediatrics, recent accumulating evidence indicates that obesity may present an adverse health consequence of exposure during the critical developmental window to environmental chemicals disrupting endocrine function. The critical developmental window is the period from conception through fetal development in the mother’s womb until the end of the first two years of life. Infants and young children are probably the most vulnerable group when it comes to exposure to harmful chemicals and endocrine disrupters.

Bisphenol A is one of the environmental pollutants which have been implicated in the development of obesity and hyperlipidemia (raised blood fat levels which are associated with heart disease). It also appears to affect the transport of glucose in fat cells and inhibits the release of an important adipokine (a compound which prevents development of the metabolic syndrome).

Toxic Environment and obesity – Organotins

Some experts describe the many potentially obesogenic actions of a variety of chemicals that contaminate our environment. For example, the most important environmental sources of so-called organotins which interfere with normal fat metabolism can be found in marine paints, wood catalysts and plasticizers, slime-preventing chemicals in industrial water systems and fungicides in foods. It is believed that the major environmental sources of organotins are contaminated seafood, agricultural products, drinking water and leaching from plastics.

Toxic Environment and obesity – Solutions

At the moment there are no general solutions to this problem. Faced with ever increasing contamination of our water supplies, foods and the atmosphere, many nations and the entire global population seem to be helpless to stop this attack on our fat-regulation systems. Until more research is done to pinpoint the most dangerous chemicals and ways are found to reduce their presence in our water, food and air, the human race appears to be defenseless but to continue gaining weight under these circumstances.

For example, if we had to remove the hundreds of chemicals found in the water supply, water would become so expensive that most of us could not afford it. Many years ago I attended a congress dedicated to water purification. As delegates we were taken on a visit to a local water purification plant. The engineer in charge showed us the various processes that were then used to remove undesirable solid waste from the water and to disinfect it against the majority of pathogens. He then smilingly presented us with a glass of clear recycled water and asked who would like a drink! No one volunteered, so he downed the glass of water himself.

When I asked this same engineer what processes were available to remove chemicals and contaminants such as estrogens derivatives from the water before it was recycled, he said that although such processes existed, they were prohibitively expensive as they required the water to be passed through resin columns. Such processes (reverse osmosis filtration, Nano filtration or granular activated carbon filtration), are probably even more expensive nowadays, so most people will continue to be exposed to organotins and other obesogenic compounds.

Let’s support actions to keep our precious water supply as clean as we can because once a nation’s water supply becomes toxic, the food supply also becomes contaminated and toxic. With acid drainage from the mines, millions of women using hormones and collapsing waste purification systems in many municipalities across nations we appear to be helpless to avoid the effects of obesogens in our environment. It is painful to know that in some nations and majority for that matter things are coming to the point of helplessness. What then can you do on your part? If you know of any of your friends or family members struggling with obesity irrespective of how they became obese you can talk to doctor Akoury the founder of AWAREmed Health and Wellness Resource Center who is an experience medical professional of over two decades and she will help you in the most natural way possible while focusing on Neuroendocrine Restoration (NER) to reinstate normality through realization of the oneness of Spirit, Mind, and Body, Unifying the threesome into ONE.

Toxic Environment and obesity – Are we justified to blame environmental toxins