In 4 years of co-hosting The Randy and Christa Show, we’ve had some amazingly knowledgeable, inspiring guests who are at the forefront of enlightening the masses as to how to heal from the root cause. While I love all of our guests, today’s was far and away my favorite.
Dr. Joseph Pizzorno is the father of science-based natural medicine. He has been involved in natural medicine for over half a century and is the founder of one of the largest naturopathic colleges in the U.S., Bastyr University.
He has trained generations of naturopathic doctors that are exponentially contributing to an improved state of health care in our country.
Today he comes to us with new information on toxins – where we find them, how to stop ingesting them, how to prepare the body to cleanse them, how to do a proper and safe detox once the body is prepared, and how to make sure they don't find their way back into your body.
Every person needs to learn this information to protect his or her health, and there's no better person to learn from on this topic.
Dr. Joe talks about how people used to get sick because of active determinants of health, meaning their choices. Maybe they smoked cigarettes, drank too much alcohol, didn’t exercise, or consumed too much sugar. These are active decisions that in excess can lead to sickness. But what’s the story with otherwise healthy people, who are making healthy decisions and still getting sick?
We’re living in a different world with exposure to all kinds of toxins we weren’t living with previously, and we’re paying for it with our health and quality of life.
The rise of diabetes explains a bit about what’s happening.
Fifty years ago, diabetes was found in less than 1% of the population and now it’s 10-20 times more common depending upon the research.
Sugar is not the only thing to blame. While we are consuming exponentially more sugar than ever before, our much larger exposure to chemical and environmental toxins is blocking insulin receptor sites, forcing the pancreas to overproduce insulin, thus burning it out over time.
Dr. Joe explains that the primary toxins that are doing this to our insulin receptor sites are arsenic and BPAs (Bisphenol-A).
He says that 10% of the public water supply in the US has arsenic levels high enough to induce disease in humans – and one of those diseases is diabetes.
Canned soup is also high amongst the ranks because it contains a toxin called BPA that lines most cans. It also binds to insulin receptor sites, so they stop working (not to mention drives up estrogen in the body, increasing the likelihood of breast cancer).
To offset this, drink purified or mineral water and use glass whenever possible until food manufacturers catch up and clean up their packaging.
Current projections show that if we keep going the way we’ve been going, that each person in the US has a 35% chance of getting diabetes before they die.
Other toxins we discuss are heavy metals.
The Center for Disease Control lists the worst three toxins as – lead, mercury, and arsenic, with cadmium not too far down the list.
Arsenic ranks #1 and besides in our water supply, it's often found in conventionally-raised chicken because it's added to the feed to plump the chickens up, but also to kill any parasites. While the USDA advises stopping this practice, it has not yet been made a mandatory rule.
Conventional rice is another common source of arsenic because it absorbs the water it's cooked in. Then farm-raised fish is also a concern to a lesser degree.
Research shows how big a problem this has become because 25% of people in the US have arsenic levels in their blood that can double the risk for a wide range of diseases.
Until we can improve our food and water supply, safeguarding yourself with pasture-raised chicken and eco-farmed organic rice is the safest bet.
If you want to understand your exposure and threat with arsenic, you can take a urine test to see what your current levels may be. Luckily the half-life of arsenic is only two days, so the body is good at getting rid of it. However, this puts an additional and regular burden on the kidneys.
Dr. Joe recommended a toenail sample test to look at the average arsenic exposure over time.
He goes on to discuss other toxin loads with a much longer half-life (2-25 years) like DDT and PCBs.
All of this is not to scare you or present our current world with such a “doom and gloom” outlook, but rather to serve as a source of knowledge, so that you can stop the input of toxins and the additional toxic load on your digestive system, liver and kidneys, and so that you can cleanse the deeper toxins and truly live a vibrant life.
So Step 1 of The Toxin Solution is to stop the input of toxins, while Step 2 is to prepare the body (gut, liver, and kidneys) to release them.
Dr. Joe’s mentors said years ago that death begins in the bowel. The wrong kind of bacteria in your gut produces toxins that damage physiology, so the first step is healing the gut.
Dr. Joe touches on how to kill the bad bacteria with goldenseal while leaving the good bacteria alone. He uses bentonite clay or activated charcoal to absorb toxins so that they can be released from the body.
His favorite food as medicine to heal the gut is cabbage juice, which is very high in glutamine.
After the gut, it’s time to clean up the liver because the biggest source of toxins to the liver is an unhealthy gut. By taking enough B vitamins and iron along with herbal medicines like dandelion, the liver gets the support it needs. We also love glutathione for liver health.
The third part of the detox prep is the kidneys. We went from renal failure being unusual years ago to having an abundance of dialysis centers, and Dr. Joe attributes this to the toxic load we’ve subjected ourselves to that has overloaded the kidneys.
Most damage to the kidneys comes from less blood supply coming to them. Dr. Joe loves using beet juice because it’s so high in the amino acid arginine, which helps dilate blood vessels to kidneys.
Blueberries (and blueberry juice) are another kidney superfood. They contain antioxidants called anthocyanidins, which decrease inflammation in blood vessels going to kidneys, thus allowing more blood flow.
Both of these nutrients improve how well the kidneys cleanse themselves.
In Step 3, the real cleansing of the deeper toxins begins with alkalizing a person’s body. We know it’s not the food we’re eating but how it’s metabolized in the body that makes up the contribution to an acid or an alkaline state. For example, lemons are an acid, but when mixed with human biochemistry they alkalize the body, hence the importance of starting your day with lemon water.
This type of diet naturally allows the body to release toxins and then we can rev it up by regularly sweating profusely.
Toxins found in sweat include:
Step 4
Live toxin free.
Clean out your cabinets and upgrade your health and beauty aids. Get the free app called Think Dirty that will use a barcode scanner to measure the toxic danger of products. Get the chemicals out of the yard and cleaning supplies and eliminate all plastics in the kitchen. Eat organically grown food and store it in safe containers.
Get good air and water filters in your house, especially if you’re living in a city. People who live in urban areas have more DNA damage than those residing in the country.
This is a lot to take in all once, so please be sure to get The Toxin Solution and then you can focus on one step each month or even each quarter. That way you can take it at your own pace, but also safeguard your health and prevent future disease.
Also, check out part 2 with Dr. Joseph Pizzorno on modern day toxicity here.
