Detoxification through the Skin

 

The detox experience can be made
 much easier, shorter and more effective.

 

     Since our exposure to general chemical toxins in the environment is going to only increase through time, as we continue to pollute the environment and use heavy metals like mercury in dentistry and medicine, any reasonable and cost effective method that might reduce tissue loads of toxic metals and other poisonous chemicals in our bodies will prove highly beneficial. Until recently a select few doctors have been using intravenous chelation therapy to eliminate toxic poison loads for both acute and chronic exposures. Recently the movement has been toward oral applications of chelation drugs and even more recently to transdermal applications which seems convient, less expensive, and even more effective. No matter which method of application (IV is very expensive though useful for acute poisoning) synthetic drugs are used that depend on specific biochemical dynamics that include the sequestering of toxic materials out of their hiding places. Once chelated the complex compounds need to be eliminated. Unfortunately this is not easy or automatic and faulty avenues of exit can create a nightmare for both patient and physician. 

 

     Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, one of the founding fathers of chelation therapy, is very clear that there is a difference between mobilization and detoxification. Mobilization, according to Dr. Klinghardt, means stirring mercury up from its hiding places. “Mobilization may lead to excretion. It also may lead to redistribution. Detoxifying or detoxing means mobilizing and moving it out of the body. There are no true detoxifying agents. All we have is mobilizing agents. The body has to do the excreting with the help of the proper agents. The body is not always able to do this! Often perpetuating factors are present that disable the body’s mechanisms to detox.” The term "chelation" generally implies a chemical binding and excretion of mercury and other heavy metals, by DMPS, DMSA, and EDTA and these drugs mobilize mercury and other heavy metals but do not carry them out of the body.

 

     There are other agents, some which help with the mobilization and others that assist the body with the process of elimination. The nutrient ALA (alpha lipoic acid) is a dithiol (with 2 sulfur atoms) compound that is normally used by the body in small amounts as part of the enzymes for producing cellular energy. Because of its two sulfurs, ALA can bind and transport mercury for excretion from the body. The healthy body also uses glutathione stores to detoxify and remove mercury and other poisons from the body. NAC (N-acetylcysteine) is a widely available glutathione precursor that has the ability to directly bind and excrete mercury via its single thiol (sulfur atom) as well as support and increase the body's store of glutathione as a precursor. Thus both glutathione and NAC can be added to the chelation list. We also add selenium for it has a strong affinity with mercury and directly sequesters it rendering it inert. Certain scientists balk at this idea for selenium can actually increase mercury concentrations in the brain. Though this is true it is equally true the mercury bound up with selenium does little or no harm in this form, even when found in the brain.

 

   If accumulation of heavy metals and hundreds if not thousands of other foreign chemicals are infiltrating our systems it is only logical that removing their insulting influences is a medical necessity. If a treatment itself causes more damage, or leads to a long term worsening of problems -- one has to beware, fully informed, and take steps to mitigate risk before fully embarking on any such a treatment. This is certainly the case with amalgam removal, medicine in general, as well as the specific medical area of chelation. In general chelation drugs have proven to be relatively non toxic but that is not everyones experience especially with the IV forms of administration, which is highly shocking to the body. Oral and transdermal applications are softer, work gradually through time and thus are safer even though the drug used is the same.

 

    There are several factors that influence the safety of a chelating substance beyond the method of application. Is a person able to metabolize and excrete the drug with and without mercury attached? What adverse effects does the chelating agent have on other minerals and nutrients in the body? Will the chelating agent cause the redistribution of mercury in an unhealthy way? It is possible to pull mercury from tissues only to have it quickly increase blood serum levels that create acute problems that cannot be controlled. If mercury is not excreted it is reabsorbed and this is a critical in the success or failure of chelation therapy.

 

     In 1904 a Russian Naturopathic Physician by the name of Eli Metchnikof discovered that the body would recycle any toxin that it was not capable of purging. In the recycling process the body would utilize all 7 channels of elimination to try and get the toxic substance removed from the body: lungs, liver, kidneys, the skin, colon, lymphatic system and the blood. If one or more of the body's channels of elimination are not working effectively, or if a physican ingnores one of these essential systems in his deliberations for treatment protocols, the patient will suffer from a lack of dramatic results. Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt says, “The body is constantly trying to eliminate neurotoxins via the available exit routes. However because of the lipophilic/neurotropic nature of the neurotoxins, most are reabsorbed by the abundant nerve endings of the enteric nervous system (ENS) in the intestinal wall.”

 

    Treating heavy metal toxicity is a demanding challenge that tests our responsibility to be incredibly informed about a wide spectrum of issues, many of them complex. One of the most overlooked aspects of elminination is actually the skin which offers a vast exit route to poisons traped in the body. The skin is actually an amazingly complex organ and, by weight, the largest in the body. It covers, on average, some 22 square feet and weighs around nine pounds (roughly 7% of body weight).  The skin provides the front line of defense for the body, as well as being expressive of both physiological conditions and emotional states. The skin is the extension of our nervous system to the outside and defines our existence as a physical form. The skin is involved in dynamic exchange between the internal and external environments through respiration, absorption and elimination. The skin is highly permeable though it has the ability to maintain its important bacteria-inhibiting barrier with the environment. The keratin layer, a tough, compact sheet of interwoven proteins waterproofs the body preventing dehydration. It also keeps water and other foreign substances out. However, under certain circumstances, the permeability changes and allows increasing amounts of fluids, dissolved gases and compounds, to either enter or exit the body through the skin barrier. Small molecules that have both lipid and water solubility can quickly penetrate the skin and enter into the circulatory system and as the scientific community witnessed to its horror - dimethyl-mercury can enter and easily kill through the skin in the smallest quantities. A general principle to apply when it comes to the skin and detoxification is:

 

What gets in through the skin
 can get out through the skin.

 

     Thus it is in a physicians favor to become familiar with the keys to the skin’s permiability. In general heat, activity, and body temperature facilitate the ease with which these “border exchanges” can take place. Herbal poultices, therapeutic baths, steam and dry saunas and now transdermal patches, rely on the permeability of the skin for either introducing substances into systemic circulation via the skin or mucous membranes, or for drawing toxic substances out of the system via the eliminative channels of perspiration.

 

    Thus the skin is an important organ of detoxification and elimination. The lungs are in reality the internal part of the skin and in Chinese medicine the lungs are in direct relationship to the large intestines which is another vitally important organ of elimination that we will deal with in a separate chapter. Both organs are crucial though the skin offers a relatively easy exit route that is more easily controlled than the colon. One of the worst cases of environmental toxicity in U.S. medical history was treated by a Dr. Ziem at the Johns Hopkins Center for Environmental Medicine. The patient was off the charts with cadmium, aluminum, silver, and mercury but was able to receive a complete cure.  The skin on his entire upper body was slate grey. Dr. Ziem had to design a complete protocol from scratch in order to treat him.  This included a strong supplement program, including high doses of Vitamin E and Selenium. No standard chelating agents were used. The most critical part of Ziem's treatment protocol was very simple:  Steam Sauna Therapy.  Dr. Ziem sweated the poison out of the man to the point where the patient literally sweated metals that could be wiped off with a towel. 

     It is commonly thought that sweat from conventional saunas is 95 to 97% water with salt making up a part of the rest. Our skin contains sweat glands and oil glands, both of which help us move things through the skin. Sweat gets rid of water-soluble toxins, and even helps to eliminate toxic heavy metals such as mercury and cadmium as Dr. Zeim successfully demonstrated with his patient. Oil glands help remove oil-soluble toxins such as gasoline, solvents, pesticides and ingredients in toothpaste and personal care products, which the body is not able to dispose of unless heavy sweat is provoked. It is generally thought that the longer the skin is heated, the more oil-soluble toxins are eliminated. Even if one half to one percent of the sweat is carrying out heavy toxins we are greatly assisting the bodies elimination needs with saunas.

 

Far infrared saunas can mobilize mercury in deeper tissues.
                                                                                    Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt

 

     Dr. Klinghardt is combining the use of far-infrared saunas with the chelating agent DMPS in a heavy metal detox protocol. These special saunas are believed to be more effective in moving toxins through the skin than steam saunas because in the far-infrared thermal system only 80 to 85% of the sweat is water with the non-water portion being principly cholesterol, fat-soluable toxins, toxic heavy metals, sulfuric acid, sodium, ammonia and uric acid. Using the skin as an essential aspect of chelation therapy is important and makes complete medical sense. We have to help the body detoxify and the skin should be used as a major instrument and avenue of exit for accumulated heavy metals. It should be obvious that an organ as large as the skin, which is highly permeable when heated (or when heat is generated deep in the body as it is through far infrared therapy) would be useful in heavy metal detoxification. It was reported by National Geographic many years ago that the workers in the Cinnabar mines in Spain used to detoxify themselves through sweat baths after work. It makes perfect sense to bypass as much as possible the kidneys and large intestines, which are already overloaded with toxicity and greatly reduced in their capacity to eliminate toxic substances. If a person is heavy metal toxic it is because their normal channels of elimination have not been able to keep up with the load. When this is the case there are no secure avenues of escape when we chelate and mobilize heavy metals that are locked in the cells.  

 

 

Peer reviewed literature shows that sweating during sauna therapy
 eliminates high levels of toxic metals, organic compounds, dioxin, and other toxins. Sauna therapy is ideal to mobilize toxins from their hiding places.
                                                                        Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt

 

     When we get really serious about detoxification we employ every tool at our disposal to facilitate the process. When it comes to using the skin there is a very natural way of amplifying the skins potential for detoxification. So natural we need as doctors to put it up on the level of water. It would be a disaster and gross medical malpractice to not inform our patients to drink sufficient water during a detoxification process. It should be noted that drinking fluids that will maintain proper balance of electrolyes is very important. Certain minerals can be lost during detoxification treatments and left untreated can cause great damage if not replenished. Water alone is not adequate to maintain electrolyte balance (sodium, potassium, etc) during saunas and clay baths. Equally we do not want our patients eating junk food when we are provoking elimination of metals like lead, mercury or arsenic. Though the AMA and the pharmaceutical companies will not like a natural answer as simple as using water to facilitate healing neither will they like us suggesting strongly to our patients to take a bath with clay in it. The most basic and ancient earth materials can be used to literally suck the poisons through the skin and this can be enormously helpful and safe. Clay, specificially bentonite clay (a very fine volcanic clay), is ideal for this and it is very inexpensive, practical and can be used in a patients own bathtub.

    Bentonite used in a bath, can draw out toxic chemicals through the pores of the skin. The proof of this method of drawing poisons through the skin is not in the scientific literature but in the ring around the tub. When cleaning a tub after taking a bath with pure bentonite clay, if one is toxic one will undoubtedly be astonished to find the clay remaining in the bottom of the tub turned from a light-grey color into a black substance. The dark colored sediment is the mirror of the filth that comes out through the skin and it would not take much to have this tested for heavy metals. As one detoxifies the body the proof of the pudding is in the color. The clay will retain its light grey color when the poisons are gone.

     Recently detox patches that contain an interesting list of natural ingredients[i] have become popular for detoxfying and healing. People apply the patches at night, and see the results in the morning. The patch will be dry before use, but after usage it will range from light brown to almost black, wet and in some cases will have a foul smell, depending on the amount of toxins in your body.  

    The visual evidence after using these pads is not only compelling but give us a low cost method of testing our levels of toxicity while we simultaneously detoxify. By simply removing the patch we can actually see some of the materials that have been “suctioned” out of the body. A persons progress is apparent when we see what comes out onto the pads when used over consecutive days, weeks or months. Though it seems the clay rings in the bathtub have not been tested companies that sell these patches have sent the used pads to the SCR Analytical Lab, which is a highly accredited Environmental Laboratory. The results demonstrated absorption into the patchs of nickel, arsenic and mercury, as well as benzene, isopropyl alcohol, methyl alcohol, aluminum, cadmium, copper, lead, mercury, nickel, thallium, arsenic, asbestos, DAB dye, fast green dye, sudan black dye and PCB (plastic byproduct).

Pink Disease or Mercury Poisoning

    A woman[ii] who had pink disease (mercury poisoning), as a baby  reported, "I tried the (foot) patches for the first time last night and was amazed at what toxins came out overnight! She reported outstanding results with her arthritis in hands, thumbs and fingers gone saying, “I am completely off my arthritis medication after 2 years on VIOOX.” After using 37 of these patches she reported: Her eyes have changed colour from brown/hazel to green/hazel. That the whites of her eyes have changed to clear white from yellowy colour with blood throughout. She also reported increased vitality and general feeling of well being and that the puffiness was gone from her feet so that her shoes became a bit loose.  And most significantly her persistant cough of 2 years duration had completely gone!

 

     These patches, instead of using clay use bamboo and wood vinegars (pyroligneous acids) which essentially are the fluid or sap derived from tree cells which have great absorbing power like clay does. Using natural products like clay with these sap based tree resins makes good sense. Each seems to have properties and methods of application that compliment the other.

 

     Raymond Dextreit, the French naturopath who popularized the clay cure noted that many heavy metals "are positively charged, whereas clay has a negative electrical attraction." He states that, "These toxins cannot resist being drawn toward the clay." The mostly negatively charged clay mineral ions are swapped for the ions of the toxic substance that are mostly positive and this contributes greatly to its power of attraction for everything from pesticides in the blood to heavy metals like mercury. The clay molecule becomes electrically satisfied and holds onto the toxin until our bodies can eliminate both safely. The absorption power of clay acts like a sponge with the clay molecules drawing other substances into its internal structure. Clay then can and does both adsorb and then absorb damaging substances with adsorption being a first step of "getting close" and absorption being the final act of "binding securely" the toxins needing to be elminated.

     Clay has been used for 1000s of years and anyone who puts some on their hands and lets it dry can easily feel is drawing or suction power. Its power is in absorption (see next chapter) and the skin opens easily to its pull. There are literally thousands of chemicals to worry about and many hundreds of them are now identifiable in peoples’ blood streams. Thus it is important for chelation therapists to know that clay baths and far infrared saunas are cabable of covering a broader range of chemicals than any single chelation agent. Chelation is focused almost exclusively on heavy metals while sweat detoxification and clay detoxification pull on all foreign materials that need to be eliminated from the body.

     As most physicians notice the major organs of the body, including the liver and kidneys, are often negatively impacted by any kind of toxic condition in the body.  And due to modern diets the colon is a toxic cesspool with deeply diminished capacity to eliminate toxic loads. So here lies the catch 22 of chelation therapy. Often the treatment increased stress to the elimination organs of the body. It is not enough to pull the contaminants out of the cells only to have them do extensive damage because they are not being eliminated by the kidneys or colon. We need to pull out the heavy metals without dumping them into the body where they do extensive damage on the way out or worse just get redistributed to other organ systems. A slow moving flow through a congested colon will see heavy metals being reabsorbed unless special and sensitive care is taken. During chelation we need to provide support for both the kidneys and the liver directly but indirectly we can take a great load off these overworked organs by opening up an exit channel through the skin.

 

     This is where healing clay treatments come in.  As simple as recommending our patients to increase their water intake we should automatically be suggesting the go home and take a series of baths that can open up the flow of toxins through the skin. Even one short week of clay therapy prior to any other treatment options could make a difference. The same can be augmented by far infrared saunas and even by hot steam saunas during the entire cause of chelation treatments.  Physicians might be more comfortable recommending far infrared because of its FDA approval but clay should never be overlooked as appropriate nutrition should not be, nor proper hydration which is absolutely essential when navigating a body through detoxification. We do not need to send our patients to expensive spas nor resort to chelation IVs unless a patient is suffering from acute heavy metal poisoning and even then the skin as an exit route should never be overlooked and should certainly be favored especially where there are financial concerns, which there almost always is. When it comes to budgeting a person’s financial resourses in treatment, with so many possibilities for valuable agents which cost considerably, it is medically irresponsible to ignore simple low cost solutions.  

 

     Dr. Vesna Humo, who is a surgeon, has all her patients use clay after mastecotmy with radiotherapy. She advises patients to use clay directly on the skin to prevent skin damage and has seen excellent results from this. Importantly she is using clay for bed sores and every necrotic and septic wound also with excellent results. This chapter is introducing two important therapies, one as old as mankind another very new. Both have their useful application in chelation therapy and can easily make heroes out of doctors who are desperate to help patients and even little children with heavy levels of metal and other chemical toxicity. Medicine in general is obsessed with the biochemical dynamics which everyone knows is a tricky business. Using steam and far infrared saunas as well as clay to pump poisons out of the skin brings us into bio-physics and bio-mechanics. When we mix therapeutic approaches utilizing multi-levels approaches we greatly facilitate our successful work with people. From water and clay to DMPS and glutathione precursors we now have a full bag of instruments with which to help our patients recover from difficult diseases that straight allopathic medicine is having great difficulty with. Our responsibilities are first, second and third to our patients not to our medical overlords which would prefer us tow the party line of mainstream modern medicine.

   The detox side-effects experienced when taking detoxification products or when on special diets for the purpose of body detoxification are a result of the extra strain the released toxins put on the eliminatory organs such as the kidneys, liver, digestive system, lungs and skin (referred to as a healing crisis). All of the suggestions in this chapter help to relieve those side effects by removing the toxins through the skin therefore reducing the pressure on those eliminative organs.

 

The Science of the Pure

 

The one and only solution for the
 pollution of the body is purification.

 

     There are many issues in the world that bring science to its knees, staggered with a loss of words to explain the obvious. Often the problem for science and medicine is that an issue is too simple thus defies complex analysis. The use of clay in medicine is one of these issues that is important to have some insight into because its appropriate application is both inexpensive and highly useful for a wide range of human health problems.

     There are certain grades of clay that are excruciatingly pure. Pure pharmaceutical clay is recongnized and approved by the FDA for internal consumption though most doctors scratch their heads wondering what for. In an age where every human being is penetrated by a ‘host’ of chemical toxins, this what for about clay is very important to understand and accept. There are several scientific principles that can be used to describe the action of clay like ionic charges and the extraordinarily large surface areas that clay has. The larger the surface area presented by a substance the greater the interaction with other substances and their surface areas. The essential three words though that best describe and are used in relationship to clay are adsorption, absorption and their root word sorption. Adsorption is the property of a solid or liquid to attract and hold to its surface a gas, liquid, solute, or suspension. It is an adhesion in an extremely thin layer of molecules to the surfaces of solid bodies or liquids with which they are in contact. The accumulating molecules do not actually penetrate the substance they are on but represent a surface assimilation. Absorbtion on the other hand implies an actual movement and uptake of substances into the clay and is a common principle in human physiology. Sorbtion is the process in which one substance takes up or holds another by either absorption or adsorption.

    The absorption power of clay is quite intense pulling toxins into clay’s inner structure and spaces. So the toxins that were formerly only sticking to the surface of the clay’s outer structure through ionic bonding can be pulled inside the clay molecule. The more substances that are pulled into the clay’s inner structure the more the clay expands and swells. Absorbent clays have a charge on their inner layers, which means that charged ions sit between the layers of the clay molecule surrounded by water molecules. The clay expands as foreign substances are absorbed and fill the spaces between the clay molecule’s stacked layers. Absorbent clay will absorb positively charged toxins and impurities and ignore negatively charged nutrients.

 

     But there is another way, perhaps more metaphorical, that describes the action of certain kinds of clay. Though most physicians would not understand there is a special action that comes exclusively from the purity of a substance. When a substance is pure it takes on a quality and action that is different from the same substance when it is impure. A pure substance like clay has a certain effect that is dependent on its purity. Not so different from pure water or pure consciousness. You put one thought in pure consciousness it’s not pure any more. Same with water, the tiniest invasion of mercury devastates water’s purity.

     The science of the impure is much more complicated for it is the study of toxicology and poison. A decade ago researchers and lawmakers agreed that lead was harmful to children at levels one-sixth as high as previously recognized. It took scientists decades to establish the scope and subtlety of lead poisoning. Meaning it took that long to see the true nature of lead as a harmful impurity. Mercury is much more toxic and dangerous than lead and the two together act on each other synergistically. Toxicology, the science of poisonous chemical substances, is to a large degree the study of synergistic effects. “In synergy 1 plus 1 = 100” says Dr. Klinghardt so each and every microgram of impure substances we can pull out of the body is significant. In reality mercury is a pure poison that takes on vastly greater toxicity when it combines with other substances or when it goes organic.

     Mercury in its potency to destroy the pure offers a shocking lesson. A single drop of certain types of mercury placed on the skin can be irreversibly fatal. A tiny vial dropped in a large pristine lake makes it so impure that its fish become unsafe to eat. As a substance that can take a pure environment and make it impure mercury has a distinct place. Nothing is more toxic or so able to travel long distances. What it does to lakes it does to our blood stream and all body tissues in microgram quantities that are easily provided today by our constantly leaking dental fillings or the fish we overeat.

     The essential principle of purity would be its hard drawing power to the impure. The pure and the impure cannot remain separate from each other. Put them together and one wants to become the other so there is an intense exchange that takes place. The pure becomes contaminated while the impure is made more pure. Dr. Walter Russell talked about this a century ago in his philosophic principle called The Law of Rhythmic Balanced Interchange. He saw everything in the physical universe acting along this basic principle. This law of Dr. Russell’s is logical, simple and effectively describes many levels of reality but when it comes to clay and its ability to purify the body of toxicities and impurities it is perfect.

 

      In the last chapter we introduced the use of clay placed in baths using its sorbtion power to pull out toxins and heavy metals through the skin. This same principle can be applied to the internal skin were it is ingested as a medicine to not only clean out the digestive tract but again pull more toxins. This especially would be helpful during chelation when we are mobilizing mercury and need to accelerate its elimination to prevent reabsorbtion. Some people think of the sorbtion power of clay as a powerful vacuum cleaner that runs thru the digestive tract and sucks up the mucus and impacted materials and other impurities, forcing it all down and out in more quickly moving eliminations.  Clay, when introduced into the body, enters into dynamic state of exchange with the environment in the alimentary canal and the tissues that lay beyond.

 

     The medical community has some mixed feelings about clay and actually does not deal with it separately from the ingestion of common dirt or soil. In both medicine and psychology we have what is called Geophagia, which is the deliberate ingestion of soil. Geophagia is thought to be a complex eating behaviour with obscure aetiology and numerous health/medical problems. Geophagia has been recorded in every region of the world both as idiosyncratic behavior of isolated individuals and as culturally prescribed behavior of particular societies. The behavior has long been viewed as pathological by the medical profession, and it has been claimed to be a cause of anemia. But clearly certain medical people believe that “maladaptive consequences of clay consumption may be offset by the adaptive value of its antidiarrheal, detoxification, and mineral supplementation potentials.”[iii] Though a case can be made against using anything but pure pharmaceutical grade clay for internal consumption. Eating common riverbed clay, some of which contain as much as 100 mEq of potassium in 100 gm of clay has been associated with life-threatening hyperkalemia but only in situations or cases where a pre-existing renal deficiency was noted. 

 

 

     The only solution to the pollution of the body is purification - pure clay is ideal for this purpose. Unless we choose to live in a remote mountain cave and live on nothing but wild fruit and spring water, there is no way to avoid the accumulation of toxic residues in our bodies. Even there, in a world now covered with mercury and lead and other highly toxic substances, our state of purity would be in doubt. But as long as the amounts of toxins do not exceed our capacity of our immune and excretory systems to eliminate it, health and vitality are maintained. But for many who live in civilization, sooner or later the toxic overload of daily life exceeds our body's ability to properly cleanse itself of it, and that's when toxemia develops and disease and degeneration begin.

     In the case of internal pollution of the human body, and the state of chronic toxemia that it causes, we have to undergo complete detoxification of the bodily tissues. This is most easily accomplished with pure pharmaceutical grade clay taken internally, in combination with high profile super nutrients like spirulina or chorella, far infrared saunas, and using the same clay in detoxification baths. This is an excellent way to initiate deeper cleaning of heavy metals with the use of strong chelation drugs. When it comes to more serious diseases or toxicologies like mercury poisoning from vaccines or dental amalgam we have to add a list of agents that are important in both the mobilization and elimination of poisons. Selenium, N-acetylcysteine, higher levels of vitamin C, and ALA, as well as certain well chosen foods like garlic and brown rice are often essential.

I fast for greater physical and mental efficiency"
                                                                             Plato

     For thousands of years different forms of fasting have been used to cleanse the body of its impurities. Fasting is the oldest, fastest and safest (biochemical) method of removing poisons from the body.  And as the physical body detoxifies, rejuvenates and regenerates, most people notice that the mind begins to function more efficiently. During a fast, the digestive system has a rest, freeing up energy for other things including elimination.

     According to some purists, fruit fasts are not real fasts. To them fasting means only water. However the Swedish Dr. Ragnar Berg, an authority on nutrition and biochemistry, stated. “During fasting, the body burns up and excretes huge amounts of accumulated wastes. We can help this process by drinking alkaline juices instead of water. Juice fasting is therefore the very best form of fasting,” in the age of toxicity. We are now so toxic that too radical approaches are dangerous because they mobilze poisons too quickly. Diet is important in detoxification, in fact highly significant in that increasing ones liquids and fruit intake up to the point of fasting on fruit juices, at least once a week, or even for a series of days can help the process along quite considerably. When we stop taking in toxins, which junk foods are full of, we give our bodies a chance to turn things around and start eliminating. Organic foods of course are preferable for they are much purer than foods treated with pesticides and chemical fertilizers.

     In the 21^st century we have many tools to seek and maintain a level of purification that will render us healthy into our most advanced years. Our world has never been as toxic as it is today and it will be even more toxic next year and the year after that. No one can maintain a totally pure state but we can approach purity with an intelligence that will protect us from most harm and disease.

---

[i] Brazilian Agaricus Mushroon (Beta-Glucan known for its strong immunity building), Eucalyptus Tree Sap, Bamboo Vinegar, Tourmaline Mineral (imanates far infrared rays to release Negative Ions), Chitosan, Caururus Chinensis Baill, Houttuynia Cordata, Oak Vinegar, Starch.

[ii] Mrs. Heather Thiele. hmthiele@...  

[iii] Reid RM. Cultural and medical perspectives on geophagia. Department of Anthropology, University of Louisville, KY 40292. Med Anthropol. 1992 Jan;13(4):337-51.