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Volume 6 Issue 3

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WHAT QUALIFIES AS A TOXIN? It helps to first examine what the very word toxin means. Traditionally, by definition, a toxin is "a poisonous substance," as the word has its roots in the Greek word "toxikon", which literally translates into "poison." Today the term is used to describe anything that is foreign or poisonous to the body. Environmental toxins include household chemicals, industrial pollutants, food additives, and pesticides. Internal toxins consist of waste products created by normal metabolic processes within the body. Such digestive toxins are produced as a result of breaking down proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Substances you wouldn't normally view as "toxic" or "poisonous" are indeed members of this category. These include pharmaceutical drugs, caffeine, and alcohol. The number of people who died in 2001 as a result of conditions brought on inadvertently by either medical treatment or diagnostic procedures was greater than the number of those who died in that same year of either heart disease or cancer, the number on and two leading causes of death in the United States respectively. Moreover, deaths or injuries related to drug treatments more than doubled between 1998 and 2005 in this country, with painkillers and immune-system boosters accounting for most. So even if you think aspirin, coffee, and red wine are benefiting you, from a purely technical standpoint they are toxins by virtue of the fact they are foreign substances that your body, and especially your liver, has to process. Obviously, there may be a time and place for these substances, and its important to note that not all "toxins" are bad at all times. Understand that detoxifications aims to return the body to a more natural state, in which the toxins that can downgrade your health and put you on a path to physical, emotional, and spiritual illness minimally bombard it. TOXIC EXPOSURE IN THE WOMB Many experts once believed that the womb shielded the developing fetus from toxic exposure, but emerging evidence has proven otherwise. In actuality, the chemicals and pollutants to which the mother is exposed during her pregnancy are transferred from her bloodstream to that of her unborn child through the placenta. Not only has the Human Toxome Project demonstrated this when it found chemicals in cord blood and breast milk, but other studies also have proven that wombs are not safe havens from chemicals such as insecticides, pesticides Abby's Magazine - Volume 6 Issue 3| Page 9

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