As we observed last week, whatever we take in through our five senses gets transformed into our own physiology—in essence, we metabolize our environment. Even if we buy only organic food and prepare it freshly each day, it is almost impossible to completely escape toxic exposure from plastics, pesticides and additives to our water and household products. The air we breathe, the rains that falls, often even the furniture we sit on, are all full of harmful chemicals.
Dangerous compounds like insecticides, PCB’s, heavy metals, benzene, dioxin, phthalates, pesticides, DDT metabolites, flame retardants, styrene, xylene and dichlorobenzene have routinely been found in blood and stool samples, not just in the US, but around the world.
Back in 2005, the American Red Cross took samples of fetal cord blood from 10 newborns and found a shocking 287 chemicals inside the samples, including dioxins, phthalates, pesticides, Teflon byproducts, mercury, lead, flame retardants, DDT (a pesticide that was banned in the us over 25 years ago, and many others.
This toxic burden has a high cost in terms of our health: these chemicals can lead to cancer, infertility, weight gain, severe inflammation, accelerated aging, liver damage, and more.
What can we do?
Yearly Panchakarma treatments
A study on the traditional Ayurveda detoxification treatments (Panchakarma) given at The Raj Ayurveda Health Center was published in Alternative Therapies in Health and Medicine in its September/October 2002. It showed that a 5-day program greatly reduced the levels of 14 important lipophilic (fat-soluble) toxic and carcinogenic chemicals in the body, chemicals which would otherwise remain in the body for a very long time.
This study represents a great breakthrough, being the first ever to find significant reductions in these harmful toxins in a short period of time. Lipophilic toxicants can cause hormone disruption, immune system suppression, reproductive disorders, and several types of cancer. While other methods of detoxification can target water-soluble toxicants, no other method of detox offers a timely and viable solution to the removal of these pervasive, disease-causing chemicals.
Daily home oil massage with warm sesame oil or olive oil (depending on your body type) can help modify the build up of chemicals in the system.
Add Turmeric to Your Diet
Turmeric used predominantly in Indian cuisine, has dozens of health benefits, including acting as a powerful, all-natural anti-inflammatory agent. Your liver acts as a natural detoxifier. Turmeric can assist your liver’s enzymes in flushing out toxins from your body.
A poor functioning liver can make your feel lethargic as it is responsible for the elimination of drugs, pesticides, and environmental chemicals from your body.
In addition to helping you maintain a healthy functioning liver, research indicates curcumin, a chemical found in turmeric may help inflammation. Turmeric has been shown to help relieve pain in those who suffer from rheumatoid arthritis and who have painful swelling in the knees. Many diseases, such as colon cancer and other types of cancer, are now being traced to inflammation.
Curcumin is fat-soluble. Taking the essential ingredients of turmeric in pill-form does not allow for the full absorbtion of turmeric’s healing properties. The best way to use turmeric is to use it in cooking. Once you heat oil and add turmeric to it, it becomes completely bio-available to you.
Eat Cruciferous Vegetables
Cruciferous vegetables contain a naturally occurring ingredient called 3,3′-Diindolylmethane or DIM for short. DIM is strongly anti-estrogenic, so it helps block xenoestrogens. Xenoestrogens are environmental toxins that mimic the effect of estrogen in cells, altering hormonal activity and creating estrogen dominant symptoms.
Xenoestrogens can lead to uterine fibroid tumors and fibrocystic breasts, glandular dysfunction, weight gain, inability to shed fat, hair loss and depression, lowered libido and impotency, to name just a few.
DIM not only wards of off bad estrogen, it also acts as an immunostimulant, naturally “boosting” your immune system —and research now indicates it had various potent cancer-fighting properties.
Make sure your daily diet includes broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and cabbage, brussels sprouts, swiss chard, arugula, collard greens, bok choy, kale, or watercress.
DIM is also fat-soluble. You can enhance the absorption of these health-promoting vegetables by eating them with olive oil, ghee or organic butter.
For more information on Panchakarma treatments, visit The Raj Ayurveda Health Spa website:
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( Picture of bok choy salad. Source: Google Advance Image Search.
Creative Commons. The image is used under the terms of Googles Creative Commons rules:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en. This photograph and credit do not constitute an endorsement of this blog or products mentioned.)
STAYING HEALTHY WITH AYURVEDA 