Toxic Phases of Life (Part 2)

This would be the 2nd part of this post as I will discuss mostly on teenage years, adulthood and senior years. Although I'm not an expert in toxicology, but I'm more then happy to share with you readers about the awareness on toxic exposure which we have been exposed to most of our lives, from my years of knowledge about toxins. 

Now, our internal cleansing systems, which naturally detoxify our bodies, were not designed to eliminate synthetic chemicals. As a result, many of the toxins bioaccumulate in our organs and tissues, and await a trigger to begin the synergistic process that can result in illness and disease. During our teen years, we experiment with an even wider range of chemicals in our bodies and on our bodies, from the first use of personal care products to  tattoo inks and illicit substances. 

Processed Foods - I guess this would be almost every teenage favorite. If you are an average person, your teen years were spent acquiring food habits that would last a lifetime. Fast foods and processed foods are laden with synthetic chemicals, bioaccumulate in your body from childhood and began to reach toxic levels during teenhood. Your mood swings and that went beyond normal hormonal fluctuations became one observable symptom of this toxicity. If you became a hot-dog fanatic as a teenager, and consumed a dozen or so per month, preservative chemicals found in the meat may have bioaccumulated and sharply elevated your risk of developing leukemia. Hot dogs anyone? 

Fast Foods - Teenagers eat more french fries and fast foods than any other age group. French fries have been consumed for generations, but only in year 2005, it was discovered that frying with starches creates a carcinogen. Read my earlier posts relating to fast foods if you want to educated yourself further. 

Overprescribed Antibiotics : Whenever kids are sick, how often does doctors prescribe antibiotics? You know better as parents and guardians as well as whenever you fall sick during your teenage years. On average, every teenager receives at least one prescription of antibiotics every year. This unnecessary usage of antibiotics sets in motion of lifetime of unthinking use, and exposed to deadly strains of resistance bacteria that prey upon immune systems weakened by the overuse of antibiotics. 

Pesticide Exposure - Teenagers who have grown up in agricultural areas or in residential areas that adjoin crop-growing areas, inherit a much higher body burden of chemical pesticides and herbicides. But, everyone is at risk from pesticide residues on supermarket products. Pesticide residues on non-organic foods begin to accumulate in fatty tissues and organs at an early age. Read my post on pesticide to educate yourself further.

Personal Care Products - As a teenager, you experiment with a wide array of personal care products that include shampoos, aftershaves, deodorants, cosmetics, etc. On average, you will be exposed to more then a hundred synthetic chemical from these products. Some of the ingredients, are known as endocrine disrupters, affect hormone levels and lead to mood swings and other effects the behavior and mental acuity. Lotions you lather on your body during the summer contain numerous chemicals that have been found to be carcinogens or endocrine disrupters. 

Body Decorating - Some of you got your first tattoo when you were teenager. Synthetic dyes used in the inks needled into you, were laced with heavy metals. These toxins can migrate into your body and lodge into various body organs, particularly the lungs.


Now, as we mature and venture into adulthood, we are then exposed to different range of toxins. Throughout  your adult life, you continue to accumulate synthetic chemical toxins in your body tissues, building on levels of exposure from the three earlier stages of life. Whether these exposures will trigger diseases and illnesses in you, depends on a variety of factors, including your genetic predisposition and how badly your immune system has been battered by chemical toxins.

Meat Hormones - If you ate meat regularly, there is no doubt what will happen to your endocrine system. Your hormones will be disrupted, as synthetic growth hormones injected into the cows and other meat-based animals. Chicken is no exception, unless all the meats you consumed are organic free range.

Food Additives -  Most processed foods including baby foods, are contaminated with MSG, an excitotoxin. Chewing gums, yogurts, candy bars, peanut butters, cereals are some of the list of processed foods which contains aspartame. Even vitamin supplements now have aspartame being added to the products! Read my posts on MSG and aspartame for more details.

Seafood Consumption - If you have been a regular seafood consumer, two or more a week, and if it contains white canned tuna and swordfish, then your body burden of mercury contamination should be a cause for concern. We are talking about roughly approximately three decades of seafood consumption during adulthood.

Cosmetics Use - If you are a woman and began using cosmetics as a teenager, you have absorbed a broad range of toxins. The FDA estimates that approximately 65% of women's cosmetics contain potentially carcinogenic ingredients.

Occupational Hazards - From various arrays of jobs to choose, farmers are exposed to pesticides and welders exposed to fumes from manganese have a higher then average incidence of Parkinson's disease. Hairdressers are at much higher risk for Alzheimer's because of their contact hair dyes and solvents. We then have aircraft mechanics from their exposures to toxic fuels and solvents as well.


Finally, we move to senior years, or what I call it elderly. Our last phase of life, or sometimes we might call it 'senior citizen'. By retirement, the average person is taking at least one prescription drug a day, to combat any one of dozens of common ailments. At this point in your life, your total body load of chemicals has reached a critical threshold that makes you more susceptible to prostate cancer if you are a man, and breast cancer if you are a woman. I hereby provide you various known exposures of the types of toxins in this final stage of life.

Prescription Drugs - How many of you out there reading this at the age of above 55 years, take prescription drugs to treat any sort of illness or disease?  At least fifty commonly used antibiotics and antihistamines can create disorientation and weaken memory, as well as cognitive abilities in the elderly. If you have abused antibiotics during the course of your life, taking them when they aren't needed, you have inadvertently made your immune system vulnerable to deadly strains of bacteria. Because you kidney and liver functions have diminished with age, the possible synergistic effects of these drugs increase your likelihood of an overdose and of becoming one of the may people who died each year from the synergies and side effects of prescription medications.

Tap Water Bioaccumulation - Throughout your years of life, the fluoride you have ingested and absorbed from municipal water supplies and even during consumption from various mineral bottled waters and 'kopitiam' outlets, has bioaccumulate in your bones and made them more brittle. Your prospects of hip fractures during your senior years have been increased well beyond what you could have expected.

New Car Smells - By retirement age, you have probably already owned more then a few cars in your life. You may have enjoyed the unmistakable aroma of fresh carpeting, plastic, and paint that a new vehicle exudes. Breathing in these fumes may have given you and your passengers a feeling of light-headedness, nausea, drowsiness and headaches. This is because any chemical you can smell, whether it be vinyl in new shower or new cars, is making its way into your bloodstream when you inhale it. All these years you have been adsorbing and inhaling a chemical brew of volatile organic compounds, or known as VOCs, composed of such cancer causing chemicals as styrene and formaldehyde. These gases are even more dangerous on hot days when the windows are rolled up and the air conditioner is operating.


So folks, here you go, a whole complete phase of toxins exposure from the womb to the grave. Whether you like it or not, you can hardly avoid from toxins in life. But, we could minimize the risk and exposure by maintaining a healthy diet and aware of household and personal care products.