CDC report measuring environmental chemicals in human blood and urine

The link below

[www.cdc.gov]

leads to a report from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This report lists 212 chemicals found in blood and urine from several thousand participants.

And the reason that there are so many new chemicals is not necessarily that our exposures have increased but analytical chemists have improved the detection levels of the methods or some smart, curious researcher found it by serendipity.

The levels are very low. In some cases the concentrations are based on the chemical as a percent of blood components such as hemaglobin or lipid. This measure would reduce the actual whole body load to significantly less than that reported.

Don't freak out over this. We are exposed to many chemicals every day esp. drugs that are at many 100's of times the concentrations of the chemicals reported. And these drugs actually have biological activity which may not be the case with these chemicals.

As an example, do any of the supplements you may take carry certificates of analysis of purity that declare any and all minor ingredients? A perfect example would be whether magnesium contains beryllium or strontium - since both are in the same family as magnesium are you taking them also?.

Also note that one of the chemicals found is acrylamide. Found in french fries and other "browned foods".

This is fyi


e

Here's more input about chemicals found in our bodies... titled Cancer from the Kitchen? reviewed by Garry Gordon, MD, DO MD(H). He is well known and respected as the father of chelation and has crusaded his whole medical career for the importance of ridding the body of harmful chemicals. We are exposed to far many more chemicals in the past 30 years than ever before. Jackie

Begin:

No one should practice Oncology without learning these facts. This is just an excerpt from the NY Times where Nicholas Kristof attended a conference at Mt Sinai that had the proof how toxic we all our today.

He says:

"What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air -- or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens? What if the surge in asthma and childhood leukemia reflect, in part, the poisons we impose upon ourselves?

This last week I attended a fascinating symposium at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, exploring whether certain common chemicals are linked to breast cancer and other ailments.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, the chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai, said that the risk that a 50-year-old white woman will develop breast cancer has soared to 12 percent today, from 1 percent in 1975.”

I believe that with these facts that the time has come for all of us to become environmentally aware physicians. Soon we will be able to affordably measure these toxins in our patients. We also know how to lower the body burden of toxins using my FIGHT program. Go to [www.zeoliteanswer.com] to learn how advanced forms of Zeolite such as ZeoGold can enhance all detoxification programs.

It would seem that the combination of ingredients in ZeoGold which include stable, liquid soluble all R Lipoic acid, Humic acid, glutathione and the most advanced from of Ascorbic acid available anywhere, with the most advanced form of Zeolite available anywhere would make it a logical part of any effort to deal with these toxins, which we all have today. There, of course, is a need for oral chelators and more fiber and greens and high dose ascorbic acid to enhance our detoxing as well as exercise and sweating etc, as in saunas.

Also with all the concerns documented here about ENDOCRINE DISRUPTORS,
please remember that PURESTROL from Thailand has been shown to provide anticancer effects while simultaneously dealing with all menopause related issues. Purestrol seems too good to be true, but the evidence is in, search the FACT archives for the research.

Here is an herb with safe estrogenic activity that also helps prevent and possibly even treat breast cancer. With all the nonsense over mammograms in the new health care legislation, they are a mistake and I consider mammograms to cause more cancers than they could even help detect. I hope we can get more of you to offer THERMOGRAMS to your patients and/or maybe use the blood cancer test at www.caprofile.net.

We can do something to encourage the spontaneous remission of breast and other cancers, which are much more common by age 50 in special autopsy studies than are generally reported with all known screening tests. WE ALL HAVE CANCER all the time is the best way to look at this.

So let's do something quite often that might encourage our cancer burden to spontaneously regress!! How about regular detoxification and many will at least use high doses of vitamin C, which are proven effective for detoxification even if fiber and green drink and Zeolite etc all seems to complicated for many patients who really have no idea about the risks we all face that are well described in this article.

WE ARE ALL TOXIC (more proven research on chemicals in newborns will be posted tomorrow)! Those who believe this should be doing something everyday to lower total body burden of all toxins and thus help make our bodies better able to regress our current tumor load.

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com



The New York Times
December 6, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Cancer From the Kitchen?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

The battle over health care focuses on access to insurance, or tempests like the one that erupted over new mammogram guidelines.

But what about broader public health challenges? What if breast cancer in the United States has less to do with insurance or mammograms and more to do with contaminants in our water or air -- or in certain plastic containers in our kitchens? What if the surge in asthma and childhood leukemia reflect, in part, the poisons we impose upon ourselves? This last week I attended a fascinating symposium at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York, exploring whether certain common chemicals are linked to breast cancer and other ailments.

Dr. Philip Landrigan, the chairman of the department of preventive medicine at Mount Sinai, said that the risk that a 50-year-old white woman will develop breast cancer has soared to 12 percent today, from 1 percent in 1975. (Some of that is probably a result of better detection.) Younger people also seem to be developing breast cancer: This year a 10-year-old in California, Hannah, is fighting breast cancer and recording her struggle on a blog.

Likewise, asthma rates have tripled over the last 25 years, Dr. Landrigan said. Childhood leukemia is increasing by 1 percent per year. Obesity has surged. One factor may be lifestyle changes — like less physical exercise and more stress and fast food — but some chemicals may also play a role.

Take breast cancer. One puzzle has been that most women living in Asia have low rates of breast cancer, but ethnic Asian women born and raised in the United States don’t enjoy that benefit. At the symposium, Dr. Alisan Goldfarb, a surgeon specializing in breast cancer, pointed to a chart showing breast cancer rates by ethnicity.

“If an Asian woman moves to New York, her daughters will be in this column,” she said, pointing to “whites.” “It is something to do with the environment.”

What’s happening? One theory starts with the well-known fact that women with more lifetime menstrual cycles are at greater risk for breast cancer, because they’re exposed to more estrogen. For example, a woman who began menstruating before 12 has a 30 percent greater risk of breast cancer than one who began at 15 or later.

It’s also well established that Western women are beginning puberty earlier, and going through menopause later. Dr. Maida Galvez, a pediatrician who runs Mount Sinai’s pediatric environmental health specialty unit, told the symposium that American girls in the year 1800 had their first period, on average, at about age 17. By 1900 that had dropped to 14. Now it is 12.

A number of studies, mostly in animals, have linked early puberty to exposure to pesticides, P.C.B.’s and other chemicals. One class of chemicals that creates concern — although the evidence is not definitive — is endocrine disruptors, which are often similar to estrogen and may fool the body into setting off hormonal changes. This used to be a fringe theory, but it is now being treated with great seriousness by the Endocrine Society, the professional association of hormone specialists in the United States.

These endocrine disruptors are found in everything from certain plastics to various cosmetics. “There’s a ton of stuff around that has estrogenic material in it,” Dr. Goldfarb said. “There’s makeup that you rub into your skin for a youthful appearance that is really estrogen.”

More than 80,000 new chemicals have been developed since World War II, according to the Children’s Environmental Health Center at Mount Sinai. Even of the major chemicals, fewer than 20 percent have been tested for toxicity to children, the center says. Representative Louise Slaughter, the only microbiologist in the House of Representatives, introduced legislation this month that would establish a comprehensive program to monitor endocrine disruptors. That’s an excellent idea, because as long as we’re examining our medical system, there’s a remarkable precedent for a public health effort against a toxic substance. The removal of lead from gasoline resulted in an 80 percent decline in lead levels in our blood since 1976 — along with a six-point gain in children’s I.Q.’s, Dr. Landrigan said.

I asked these doctors what they do in their own homes to reduce risks. They said that they avoid microwaving food in plastic or putting plastics in the dishwasher, because heat may cause chemicals to leach out. And the symposium handed out a reminder card listing “safer plastics” as those marked (usually at the bottom of a container) 1, 2, 4 or 5. It suggests that the “plastics to avoid” are those numbered 3, 6 and 7 (unless they are also marked “BPA-free”). Yes, the evidence is uncertain, but my weekend project is to go through containers in our house and toss out 3’s, 6’s and 7’s.

[www.nytimes.com]

Here's another one - again from Dr. Gordon.
Jackie

More proof on how TOXIC everyone is from the group I have referred you to many times (www.ewg.org) !

Garry F. Gordon MD,DO,MD(H)
President, Gordon Research Institute
www.gordonresearch.com

Gary is going to love this, more fuel for the detox fire.

Scientific American
Greenwire - December 2, 2009

Tests Find More Than 200 Chemicals in Newborn Umbilical Cord Blood Study commissioned by environmental group finds high levels of chemicals in U.S. minority infants By Sara Goodman

U.S. minority infants are born carrying hundreds of chemicals in their bodies, according to a report released today by an environmental group.

The Environmental Working Group's study commissioned five laboratories to examine the umbilical cord blood of 10 babies of African-American, Hispanic and Asian heritage and found more than 200 chemicals in each newborn.

"We know the developing fetus is one of the most vulnerable populations, if not the most vulnerable, to environmental exposure," said Anila Jacobs, EWG senior scientist. "Their organ systems aren't mature and their detox methods are not in place, so cord blood gives us a good picture of exposure during this most vulnerable time of life."

Of particular concern to Jacobs: 21 newly detected contaminants, including the controversial plastics additive bisphenol A, or BPA, which mimics estrogen and has been shown to cause developmental problems and precancerous growth in animals. Last month, researchers reported that male Chinese factory workers exposed to high levels of the chemical experienced erectile dysfunction and other sexual problems.

"BPA is a really important finding because people are really aware about its potential toxicity," Jacobs told reporters. "This is the first study to find BPA in umbilical cord blood, and it correlates with national data on it."

Jacobs said the study focused on minority children to show that chemical exposure is ubiquitous, building on 2005 research on cord blood from 10 anonymous babies. That study found a similar body burden among the babies. This is the first study to look at chemicals in minority newborns.

"Minority groups may have increased exposure to certain chemicals, but here we didn't focus on those chemicals," Jacobs said. "The sample size is too small to see major differences, but we want to increase awareness about chemical exposures."

Leo Trasande, co-director of the Children's Environmental Health Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, said the findings, while preliminary, show that minority communities are often disproportionately affected by chemical exposure. Trasande was not involved in the EWG study.

"Presently, minority communities suffer from a host of chronic disorders, and disproportionate chemical exposures may contribute significantly to the origins of the disparities that exist," Trasande said.

Both he and Jacobs said the findings add momentum for the call to revamp the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, the law regulating the more than 80,000 chemicals on its database. They released the report on the same day that a Senate panel is scheduled to discuss the government's strategy for managing the tens of thousands of chemicals in the marketplace with an eye toward overhauling TSCA.

TSCA does not require most chemicals to be tested for safety before they are approved for widespread use. Because of this, Trasande said, less than half of the 3,000 high-production volume chemicals on the marketplace have toxicity data, and less than one-fifth have toxicity testing data on the effects on developing organs.

"These results are alarming for their implications of health impacts on children," Trasande said.

Another challenge facing chemical regulators is understanding how the different chemicals interact together, which is particularly significant given the number of chemicals found in people.

"What we're finding are complex mixtures of chemicals that sometimes have similar toxicities," Jacobs said. "There's an increased recognition that mixtures are a problem. ... It's very difficult to evaluate, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. We should also try to decrease the toxicity of individual chemicals."
[www.scientificamerican.com]

The author Gordon is NOT AN MD. Others also portray that he is a biochemist but without credential. See the bio from his own page below.

GARRY F. GORDON, MD, DO, MD(H), received his Doctor of Osteopathy in 1958 from the Chicago College of Osteopathy in Illinois. He received his honorary MD degree from the University of California Irvine in 1962 and completed his Radiology Residency from Mt. Zion in San Francisco, California in 1964. For many years, he was the Medical Director of Mineral Lab in Hayward, California, a leading laboratory for trace mineral analysis worldwide.

e

Earl, many people are not doctors, yet may be worth listening to. About chemists in particular, please look at Hans' bio. I do not think that Garry Gordon can be disrespected on that ground without disrespecting Hans as well, which i am sure you did not intend.
PeggyM

Earl - a Doctor of Osteopathy is definitely a medical physician. They just deal with the whole body rather than specialize in one area. The best cardiologist I found for afib after trying several other useless cardiologists was a DO and he was at the Cleveland Clinic-Main Campus in the Cardiology Dept. My primary care is a DO and is also at the Cleveland Clinic.

Further - Dr. Gordon didn't write the articles I’ve provided, he is presenting them as a viewpoint on the many toxic chemicals found in everyone’s body.

Just as a matter of interest, one of our former posters, who is an MD, has consulted with Dr. Gordon in Arizona for his afib and he's had great success with controlling it; not needing an ablation; and is still working in his profession at age 80. I correspond with him regularly.

Jackie

I think my skepticism regarding alternative medicine is the fronts that many in the field put forth. Their associations with various "institutes" that support the same philosophy and how they are the "leading" source of information. I think these associations narrows the diversity of thought necessary to resolve complex issues. Single mindedness probably curses us to make the same mistakes over and over and not recognize advances that can promote better health.

As to Han's bio I believe that he is not a chemist but a chemical engineer. There is a significant difference. I respect him as his bio states that he has taken advantage of his associations and abilities to use literature to research and draw conclusions. His assets are not to be ignored but also to be taken with appropriate scientific skepticism as should all sources.

We all need to draw our own conclusions regarding information. Trusting technical data starts with skepticism.

e

" Trusting technical data starts with skepticism". Well said.

Having spent a lot of time studying many medical journals at the Library of Congress, the National Library of Medicine, and the Agriculture Department library, all, of course, while living in the vicinity of Washington DC of course, at a pre-internet time, i am actually rather skeptical of information found therein. This is because when you are looking at the complete original data as printed in magazine form, it sometimes happens that even i can see that the data do not support the conclusion printed in the Results and the Discussion parts of the paper, and shown in the title of the paper sometimes.This used to bother me quite a lot, but eventually i mentally filed it under Things I Wish Did Not Happen [a very large category], and have made mental allowances for it when reading technical papers ever since.
PeggyM