Detox Your Children From Environmental Poisons

By Mark Schauss, MBA, DB

Our children, our future, are living in a trying time made especially so because of the heavy load of environmental toxins to which they are being exposed. According to the Environmental Working Group, a study on newborn babies found up to 287 chemicals in the cord blood of randomly selected children.¹ Additionally, Dr. Leonardo Trasande, co-director of the Children’s Environmental Health Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, when interviewed on CNN, said “We are in an epidemic of environmentally mediated disease among American children today. Rates of asthma, childhood cancers, birth defects and developmental disorders have exponentially increased, and it can’t be explained by changes in the human genome. So what has changed? All the chemicals we’re being exposed to.”

Children are the most sensitive to even the minutest amounts of toxins, which can affect their health for the rest of their lives. Toxins can be extremely damaging to our children’s neurological systems. Dramatic increases in ADHD, autism and epilepsy are being seen and much of the scientific research being done has suggested that toxins do play a role in the rise in neurological issues.²

Toxins’ Surprising Role in Obesity

Another troubling trend is a huge increase in the incidence of childhood obesity. According to research, the number of children who are clinically obese has risen three fold in the past 30 years.^3-5 Surprisingly, this trend may not be due to poor diet and a lack of exercise alone. Chemicals such as Bisphenol A and phthalates, known endocrine disruptors, have been implicated as possible factors in the increased numbers of obese children.⁶ These chemicals are now being called “obesogens” because of the disruption of normal development of controls over the regulation of energy production.⁷

The concern is so great that the largest prospective study (a study that follows over time a group of similar individuals) on children ever was started in 2009 called the National Children’s Study (NCS). It will be following 100,000 children over a 21-year period to try to understand the role the environment has on the development of obesity.⁸

In my book, Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World, I explain one of the mechanisms of how weight gain can occur even when a person eats a healthy diet.⁹ When food is eaten, the cells in our bodies create energy through a process known as the Citric Acid Cycle (CAC), which powers all the processes that occur in our bodies. In 2002, while working with a clinical nutritionist friend who was concerned about gaining weight despite keeping her caloric intake down, I noticed that her levels of toxicity were elevated and that her CAC markers were abnormal. Digging deeper, I found that it is commonly known in toxicity research that when laboratory animals are exposed to toxic chemicals, their metabolisms slow down and their body temperatures go down. There has been a trend that many doctors have seen in that the average temperature of people is going down, something that the toxicity model predicts.

If our metabolism slows down and our ability to derive energy from our food is impacted, what can we do? The impact on children is likely to be greater, which may be part of the explanation for why the percentage of children between the ages of 6 and 11 who are obese rose from 6.5 percent in 1980 to 19.6 percent in 2008. In children between 12 and 19, obesity rates rose from 5.0 percent to 19.1 percent during the same time period.^10-11 To put this in perspective, today, one out of every 5 children are not just overweight but they are clinically obese, which means that they are 20-30 percent above the normal weight for their height. The percentages for overweight children are much higher.

So what does this obesity issue mean for the health of our children? According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), being an obese child can mean the following:

• Obese youth are more likely to have risk factors for cardiovascular disease, such as high cholesterol or high blood pressure. In a population-based sample of 5- to 17-year-olds, 70 percent of obese youth had at least one risk factor for cardiovascular disease.¹²

• Children and adolescents who are obese are at greater risk for bone and joint problems, sleep apnea and social and psychological problems such as stigmatization and poor self-esteem.^13-14

• Obese youth are more likely than youth of normal weight to become overweight or obese adults, and therefore more at risk for associated adult health problems, including heart disease, type 2 diabetes, stroke, several types of cancer and osteoarthritis.¹²

Reducing Exposure

Given this daunting and disturbing data, what can we do as parents to help raise a child in this increasingly toxic world? Thankfully, there have been a great number of researchers not just looking at what is wrong and its ramifications, but an equal number looking at and reporting what successful programs are available to lessen the burden on our children as well as helping them to excrete the toxins more efficiently.

First, what I talk about at every seminar I give around the world is that before you can detoxify you need to make sure you are not knowingly continuing to pollute your bodies with products and with behavior patterns that worsen the situation. The way to begin, of course, is with the diet.

According to the Environmental Working Group, there are certain fruits and vegetables that should be avoided unless they are organic because of the levels of pesticides found in them. The so-called dirty dozen are: celery, peaches, strawberries, apples, blueberries, nectarines, bell peppers, spinach, cherries, kale/collard greens, potatoes and imported grapes. The clean 15, which are the lowest in pesticides are: onions, avocado, sweet corn, pineapple, mangos, sweet peas, asparagus, kiwi, cabbage, eggplant, cantaloupe, watermelon, grapefruit, sweet potato and honeydew melon. In their research at EWG, they found that those who ate fruits and vegetables from the dirty dozen consumed 10 pesticides per day and those who ate from the clean 15 averaged less than 2.

When it comes to fish, the ones to avoid include: salmon, farmed or Atlantic, shark, swordfish, tilefish from the Gulf of Mexico/South Atlantic, bigeye/yellowfin tuna, and bluefin tuna. There are others to avoid and some that are less toxic with heavy metals and other toxins that would be too long to list but you can find a complete list at http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=1521.

So what else can we do to protect ourselves and our children? A major source of toxins in the home are personal care products that contain phthalates (pronounced th’al’ates), parabens and xylene to name a few. There is a database you can access to see if the products you have in your home are safe as well as those that are good alternatives available from http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com/. There are many other things you can do to lower your exposure to toxic chemicals but it is best to start slowly and take your time in changing your lifestyle.

Detoxifying Harmful Chemicals

After reducing adults’ and children’s exposure to toxic chemicals, then the process of improving the ability to detoxify can begin. A number of well-designed products can help you and your child eliminate the toxic overload.

In an ideal world, it would be best to start the detoxification process before a child is even conceived. Building a solid foundation by using a broad spectrum multivitamin like Extend Core, Extend One, Extend Plus or Extend Ultra is a good place to start.

Glutathione is one of the most important cellular antioxidants, which is critical when dealing with toxic exposures.¹⁵ Cellular glutathione can be depleted when exposed to air pollution, heavy metals and cigarette smoke. Adding LipoCeutical™ Glutathione to the daily regimen can help keep the effects of the toxic environment at bay.¹⁶ With children, it is always a challenge to get them to take supplements. Children are more likely to take LipoCeutical Glutathione as it comes in a liquid form and can be added to you and your child’s favorite drink. Use ½ a teaspoon per day for children over the age of four. Adults can use 1 teaspoon daily or as recommended by a healthcare professional.

Another environmental pollutant is acetaldehyde. This toxin can be found in candida (yeast) overgrowth, vehicle exhaust, tobacco and wood smoke, synthetic fragrances and air fresheners. Acetaldehyde depletes a number of important nutrients that most of us, especially children, can ill afford to lose. Both thiamin (vitamin B1) and the mineral molybdenum are lost because of the body’s need to metabolize this toxin. Thiamin deficiencies can lead to a number of brain-related symptoms such as emotional instability, confusion, fatigue, irritability and sensitivity to noise. Molybdenum is essential for the proper function of a number of enzymes and a deficiency can make a person more sulfite sensitive. Other nutrients needed to help clear acetaldehyde include niacin (B3), pyridoxine (B6), riboflavin (B2) and zinc. Each of these nutrients are found in AL-Neutralizer™, a powerful way to protect kids and their adult caretakers from acetaldehyde exposure.

Conclusion

Raising healthy children in our toxic world is complex but achievable. Knowing when to purchase organically grown foods instead of high volume, pesticide-laden ones is vitally important. Avoiding the numerous toxic exposures in our home by purchasing non-toxic personal care products is crucial as well. Finally, making detoxification a daily event for every member of the family by using safe and effective nutritional supplements rounds out the process and will give you and your children the opportunity to have the healthiest and most vibrant life possible in today’s toxic world.

References

1. Environmental Working Group website, www.ewg.org, accessed online September 10, 2010.

2. Kuehn BM. Increased risk of ADHD associated with early exposure to pesticides, PCBs. JAMA. 2010 Jul 7;304(1):27-8.

3. Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Flegal KM. 2008. High body mass index for age among US children and adolescents, 2003–2006. JAMA 299(20):2401-2405.

4. Strauss W LJ, Menkedick J, Ryan L, Pivetz T, McMillan N, Pierce B, et al. 2004. White Paper on Evaluation of Sampling Design Options for the National Children’s Study. Available: http://www.nationalchildrensstudy.gov/research/analytic_reports/upload/Executive-Summary-for-the-White-Paper-on-Evaluation-of-Sampling-Design-Options-for-the-National-Children-s-Study.pdf [accessed 1 May 2007].

5. Troiano RP, Flegal KM, Kuczmarski RJ, Campbell SM, Johnson CL. 1995. Overweight prevalence and trends for children and adolescents. The National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys, 1963 to 1991. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med 149(10):1085-1091.

6. Grün F, Blumberg B. Endocrine disrupters as obesogens Mol Cell Endocrinol. 2009 May 25;304(1-2):19-29. Epub 2009 Mar 9. Review. PMID: 19433244

7. Chen, JQ, Brown TR. Regulation of energy metabolism pathways by estrogens and estrogenic chemicals and potential implications in obesity associated with increased exposure to endocrine disruptors. Biochimica et biophysica acta. 2009 Jul;1793(7):1128-43.

8. Trasande L, Cronk C, Durkin M, Weiss M, Schoeller DA, et al. 2008 Environment and Obesity in the National Children’s Study. Environ Health Perspect 117(2): doi:10.1289/ehp.11839.

9. Schauss M. Achieving Victory Over a Toxic World. Bloomington, IN, AuthorHouse, 2008.

10. Ogden CL, Carroll MD, Curtin LR, Lamb MM, Flegal KM. Prevalence of high body mass index in US children and adolescents, 2007-2008. JAMA 2010;303(3):242-9.

11. National Center for Health Statistics. Health, United States, 2004 with Chartbook on Trends in the Health of Americans [pdf 3.8M]. Hyattsville, MD; 2004.

12. Freedman DS, Zuguo M, Srinivasan SR, Berenson GS, Dietz WH. Cardiovascular risk factors and excess adiposity among overweight children and adolescents: the Bogalusa Heart Study. Journal of Pediatrics 2007;150(1):12-17

13. Daniels SR, Arnett DK, Eckel RH, et al. Overweight in children and adolescents: pathophysiology, consequences, prevention, and treatment. Circulation. 2005;111;1999-2002.

14. U.S. Surgeon General. Overweight and Obesity: Health Consequences. Rockville: MD; 2001.

15. Kidd PM. Glutathione: systemic protectant against oxidative and free radical damage. Altern Med Rev 1997;1:155-176.

16. Lomaestro BM, Malone M. Glutathione in health and disease: pharmacotherapeutic issues. Ann Pharmacother 1995;29:1263-73.