How Toxicity Affects Your Immune System

Is toxicity weakening your immune system?

In light of COVID-19, we’re all trying to ensure our immune system is as strong as possible.

What if yours isn’t?

• Are you someone who gets ill easily?
• Do you seem to “always” get what’s going around?

You’re not alone, but of course, that doesn’t make it a normal condition.

Unfortunately, millions of Americans are suffering from an immune system that isn’t strong. That certainly doesn’t mean you’ll contract COVID-19, but it puts you at greater risk for it and of course other infections.

There’s never been a better time to strengthen your immune system

Our current environment has us focusing on the immune system like never before, which isn’t a bad thing, especially if we can approach it rationally without becoming overly stressed.

Let’s take this time to really tease apart why your immune system may not be as robust as you need it to be.

What I want to focus on in this particular blog is a situation that is frequently missed when addressing the cause of weakened immunity.

Your immune cells use “bleach” to kill bad organisms

A healthy immune system requires a strong ability to kill “bad guys”. Whether they’re viruses, bacteria, or cancer cells, we need to kill them quickly and completely.

This action is pro-oxidant in nature. Your immune cells utilize the same active ingredient in bleach, hypochlorous acid, as part of a “toxic cocktail” to kill bacteria.

In much the way you are likely using bleach to keep your surfaces clean, your immune cells employ this chemical as well.

Immune cells use inflammation to get the job done

This is an inflammatory reaction but it’s a “good inflammation”. Your body is aggressively killing pathogens with this pro-oxidant action. This is normal and healthy.

There’s a downside inflammation however and that’s when it becomes chronic. When you have chronic, deep infections, inflammation, and pro-oxidant activities will be turned on chronically.

Inflammation blocks detoxification

When inflammation ratchets up, detoxification is blocked, because detoxification is an anti-oxidant activity. As we just mentioned, inflammation is pro-oxidant in nature (remember the bleach).

In summary: when inflammation goes up, detoxification goes down.

Said another way: whenever there’s chronic inflammation present, your body is accumulating toxins.

Your immune system will weaken if you’re toxic

When you’re toxic it puts a great burden on all aspects of your body, including your immune system.
If you’re someone whose immune system is in a weakened state, the missing link might be toxicity.
This is a big deal.

Conditions associated with chronic inflammation

Chronic inflammation is an epidemic in our country.
Some diseases associated with it are:

• Heart disease
• Type 2 diabetes
• Obesity
• Auto-immune disease
• Arthritis
• Cancer
• Celiac disease
• IBD
• Asthma
• Crohn’s disease and Ulcerative colitis
• Gingivitis
• Joint pain
• and many more

How does inflammation thwart detoxification?

Your liver transports toxins out of your body via your digestive tract when everything is working well. But if you suffer from inflammation, that process is not working well. The “drainage” from your liver cells of toxins, into the bile and then into your gut where you then excrete the toxins, has slowed dangerously. So too has the more minor drainage of toxins from the blood to your kidney and out via your urine.

This transportation of toxins is most commonly blocked by your gut, the center of 80 percent of your immune system.

As is so often the case, it centers on the health of your gut

It’s really a catch-22 where your unhealthy gut is “leaky”, allowing something called endotoxins to get into your blood. Endotoxins are toxins that were present inside a bacterial cell but are released when the cell disintegrates. They should be promptly excreted, but due to an unhealthy gut and strained immune system, they escape out into your bloodstream.

The transporters of toxins are blocked by inflammation and the most common source such blockage is endotoxins.

Despite the fact the endotoxins are just little parts of gram-negative bacteria circulating in your bloodstream, your immune system perceives them as whole bacteria and it puts you into a pro-inflammatory state as if you have a systemic infection.

Movement of toxins is blocked

This reaction, in turn, blocks the movement of toxins from your liver cells into your bile flow, into your gut and out into the toilet where toxins belong.

Alas, this is all blocked and toxins are accumulating.

Symptoms of toxicity

You may notice the accumulation of toxins in your body from a variety of symptoms:

• Fatigue
• Brain fog
• Wired yet tired
• Very stressed
• Thyroid disease
• Insomnia
• Weak immune system

In summary: you have a reduced quality of life

It’s a dangerous catch-22

It’s dangerous to cycle. Without adequate detoxification, toxins can cause mutations of your cells and put you at risk of cancer.

Toxins hold you down on a neurological level, an immunological level, an energy level, and your general well-being.

Stress blocks the movement of toxins and toxins shift you into a stress mode. Yikes – what a mess!

How can you get out of this mess?

We have to work on both systems in a coordinated and intelligent fashion.

And we MUST identify any unknown toxins that are pushing on your body.

Common toxins are heavy metals and mold.

The “dance” of push and catch (thank you Christopher Shade, Ph.D.)

It’s a delicate dance doing this correctly. You can properly identify a toxin such as heavy metal, but if your liver and gut aren’t ready to get it out of your body, all you’ve done is mobilize a toxin that is going to make you sicker.

You MUST work with a clinician who understands the “dance” of push and catch.

Push the toxins out of the cells

You must identify the toxin correctly and use astute nutrition to effectively push it out.

Toxins are pushed out into your blood and the lymph. Next, they need to be filtered using your liver, kidneys, and GI tract, even your skin to a lesser degree.

Next to catch the toxins

You must catch the toxins and excrete them. Again, you’re using sophisticated nutrition to effectively grab on to the toxins and excrete them.

Push and catch; and don’t push more out than you can catch at any one time because then you’ll just worsen the toxicity level.

Make sure the drainage systems of your body are working first

Needless to say, the first thing to do is to get the drainage mechanisms to work. You don’t want to start mobilizing toxins when your bloodstream or liver or gut is already overloaded.

Therefore, there’s a precise order to this. Doing it incorrectly can be quite devastating.

We know what to do

As you’ve hopefully gleaned there is a knowledge, sophistication and experience level that can make this process go smoothly, or turn into a nightmare.

We have testing that allows us to assess all aspects of this process:

• Are you toxic?
• What toxins are present?
• Is your bloodstream overloaded with toxins?
• Can your liver and bile process toxins that are mobilized?
• Is your gut able to excrete toxins?
• Are your kidneys up to the task?

Nothing should be done until you’ve accurately answered all the above questions.

Toxicity and detoxification timing

Of course, nothing is difficult when you know how, but toxicity is common and each of us needs to be detoxified a little differently. Some people must move very slowly through the process, for others they can move faster.

It’s more than just toxic exposure

We used to think it was obvious if someone had been exposed to toxins.

What we’ve learned is that it’s not just the exposure, but how your body reacts to it.

As an example, you and your best friend can enjoy eating fish, let’s say sushi. You both eat the same amount, but your sick from mercury toxicity, and your friend is fine.

Let’s say you have mold in your home. You’re sick and the other three members of your family are fine.

In both cases, you’re suffering due to your inability to detoxify and excrete the toxin.

So yes, exposure is important, but most important is your body’s ability to detoxify and excrete.

Do you need detoxification to strengthen your immune system?

If you have a weak immune system or any of the inflammatory conditions mentioned above, your ability to detoxify may very well be compromised.

The two conditions are playing against one another and will continue to until you get control.

We can help you gain control.

It’s actually not hard; we know what to do, how to diagnose all contributing factors, how to monitor you, and the speed at which to move you through the program.

Let’s get started

We have excellent success in treating toxicity and chronic inflammation. You know if you fit this category; we reviewed the symptoms above.

Whether it’s the strength of your immune system, feeling over-stressed, digestive problems, or fatigue; it’s time to make a change.

We’re here to help

We have the tools to discover why you’re having trouble. It’s not difficult as long as you’re ready to make some dietary and lifestyle changes. If that sounds daunting, don’t worry. We will hold your hand through the changes and make each step of change an easy one.

Contact us for a Free Consultation – Call (408) 733-0400.

If you are not local to us you can still receive help. It is the reason we created our Destination Clinic that treats patients from across the country and internationally.

We help the world’s busiest people regain, retain, and reclaim their health, energy, and resilience.

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