Part III of Oxidative Stress & Recovery: Feeding From the Passing Stream

In Part I of this series, I reviewed the frustration many of us have had when we try to detoxify our bodies but get no improvement or very little improvement. Since that article, many of you have written me confirming that same feeling of frustration with your own journey toward recovery. As I have stated before, it is my belief that the lack of progress in recovering lost health is due to a sustained level of oxidative stress that our body is unable to manage. Unmanable oxidative stress keeps our bodies in turmoil. We are unable to maintain or achieve hemodynamics or homeostasis. Even a weak body that has reached hemodynamics, can begin getting well. I listed seven area of oxidative stress that are the primary offenders. They are:

1. Emotional and psychological stress which negatively affects the immune response. This is a very personal issue and relates to allot of different facets of an individualÌs life. It is spiritual as well as environmental. It is attitudinal, one of which is having patience in the recovery process. Remember, chronic disease just didnÌt come one morning without warning. It was a long process of functional detriment and decline until the symptoms became clinically observable. It takes time to reverse this process and allow the body to ÏdecompensateÓ and repair. It requires life-style changes with deferred gratification.

2. Intestinal dysbiosis (leaky gut syndrome and imbalance of bacteria flora).

3. Liver dysfunction; or inability of the liver to detoxify harmful substances.

4. Mitochondrial damage (myopathy) from continued xenobiotic exposure (exogenous and endogenous) . This comes from new exposure to neurotoxins like heavy metals and to continued exposure from what is stored in the bodyÌs tissue (27 year half life in the brain for mercury).

5. Continued physical stress with concomitant hypofunction of the adrenal gland; a major reason that post-removal patients crash after trying to resume a normal lifestyle too quickly.

6. Inappropriate therapy that challenges a body already under stress (i.e. aggressive fasting, taking supplements that are stressful to your body, et al)

7. Organic illness that keeps the body under stress (i.e. cancer, parasitic infections, et al)

There are others, but these are the major players.

In Part II, I discussed PNI (Psychoneuroimmunology). The major tenant of PNI is that the immune system is entwined with the neuroendocrine system, like a triangle with the respective corners being the endocrine system, the immune system and the neurological system. They all effect and are being effected by each other in an incredibly complex dance of neuropeptides, stress, social factors and feedback loops. Attitude and intestinal health both have a profound effect on the immune system. But, without the immune system on your side, getting well is going to be impossible.

With this issue, I will discuss Intestinal Health and its relationship to getting well. If you werenÌt already dealing with mercury in your body, you wouldnÌt be reading this newsletter. Mercury, primarily from our amalgam fillings, has created the symptoms and disease entities that we now have. It has invaded our bodies and stolen our health. Our battle has been to get rid of the source of the mercury and then cleanse our bodies of the mercury residue. But there are other more clandestine dangers that, like a fifth column, can invade our bodies and just as easily steal our health and/or keep us from regaining our health

Your Digestive System , if spread out, has the square foot area of a tennis court. Every cell in this court is replaced each day, every day of your life. Contrast that with the fact that all of your brain cells are with you for life with no replacement. The digestive tract is home to more bacteria than you have cells in your body; that is about 2 1/2 pounds of beneficial bacteria. One half of your bodyÌs immune cells are in your intestinal tract. The Digestive System is a complex, multifaceted organ whose primary responsibility is to keep the crap out while getting the nourishment in! If this function fails, even slightly, then you begin to get toxic waste products into your body and that significantly increases oxidative stress.

You are probably already beginning to see how oxidative stress entering your body through your digestive system can halt your recovery even if you have eliminated the mercury source and chelated this toxic metal out.

The goal that you should focus on is to regain integrity in your Digestive System so you can bring your body back into homeostasis. The integrity of the Digestive System can be breached in many ways. For example, many modern analgesics and antacids may help with symptomatic relief but actually increase the damage to the integrity of the digestive tract.

Dysbiosis: the loss of harmony and the beneficial relationship between the bacteria in your intestinal tract and your body.

Leaky Gut Syndrome: the loss of integrity of the intestinal lining allowing unwanted toxins, immune activators and macromolecules into your blood stream. How the crap gets in.

Intestinal Parasites: foreign invaders that sabotage the normal functioning of your digestive tract so that you become their food source. 40% of people who eat at home are exposed to an intestinal parasite each day. 60% of people who eat out are exposed each day.

Achlorhydria: low stomach acid, 40% of people over 35 have achlorhydria, 80% of people over 65 have achlorhydria.

Food Allergies: intestinal cells respond to allergy inducing foodand bacterial proteins by dying or becoming compromised.

Each one of these areas could have a book written on them. As you already know by your own past experience, recovery means that you take charge of your health . You will have to do some study on your own and become an expert in this area.

First, measure transit time for food through your Digestive System by taking two capsules of activated charcoal (from the health food store) with your next meal and time how long it takes to change the color of your stool. A normal transit time is 18-24 hours. Longer than 24 hours is too long allowing food to putrefy in your Digestive System and much less than 18 is too short not allowing you to assimilate nutrients and may lead to vitamin deficiencies. If your transit time is out of an ideal window, you can be sure that you have one or more of the problems I have already listed. An abnormal transit time should translate to Oxidative Stress and continued illness.

Here are two things for you to act on. Call Great Smokies Diagnostic Laboratory, Client Services, 1.800.522.4762 and ask them for the name(s) of complimentary physicians in your area and secondly call Keats Publishing, Inc. at 1.800.000.0000 and ask for a copy of ÏDigestive WellnessÓ by Elizabeth Lipsik, MS, CCN, 1996, $14.95. Use these two sources to begin a methodical process of regaining digestive integrity.

In review,if you donÌt chew your food properly then your stomach canÌt digest it since the food is still in large particles and not ground amounts. If you have achlorhydria, then you wonÌt be able to digest your food to get the nutrients out of them and unwanted bacteria and parasites make it past the stomach (not being digested) and enter your small intestine to set up house keeping. If you are taking analgesics, antibiotics or consuming food that you are allergic to, then the integrity of your intestinal wall is compromised and macromolecules, toxins and immune activators enter your lymphatic system and portal blood stream. If you have large quantities of these substances breaching the integrity of you digestive tract, then your liver has to detoxify them to keep systemic damage from taking place. If your liver is compromised by medications you are taking and is depleted in the substances you need to detoxify, then these poisons enter into your general circulation and keep your body in oxidative stress as it tries to defend itself. Recovery from mercury toxicity becomes impossible as you are still in oxidative stress, still plugging holes and bailing.

If you are new subscriber to DAMS and would like the copies of the first two articles in this series, send $1.50 to me at the address listed at the bottom of this article and we will mail you copies of the first two articles. I will include my diagnostic protocol and list of required laboratory testing that I ask patients to perform before we begin amalgam removals.

You can send your questions to me at NutriDent, Ltd., 4707 Everhart Rd., Suite 101, Corpus Christi, Tx 78411 or FAX them to 512.853.8561. My E-Mail address is dlowrance@mail.interconnect.net. and internet homepage address, http://www.interconnect.net/dlowrance. I look forward to hearing from you.

Next Issue: ÏFeeding From the Passing StreamÓ continued