BEHAVIORAL TOXICOLOGY:
Pollutants in our Environment
by Dr. William Vayda
The theory of evolution may not be accepted by everybody, but it seems evident that the human body has evolved over millions of years and has had to adapt itself to the environment during that time. Originally, although life may have been extraordinarily harsh, the environment was nevertheless quite clean: clean air, a natural diet, plenty of physical activity, and a total absence of manufactured, synthetic substances characterized our ecosystem. The changes that have occurred over very long time spans have allowed for a painstakingly slow, but essential, process of adaptation.
Changes in the Environment
In the past few years we have begun to modify our environment at a frightening and ever-accelerating rate. Dr. Bernard Rimland, a world authority on behavioral toxicology, made the following comments in an address on pollution in San Diego, California: "I use the word 'modify' although on first writing I used the word 'violating,' then considered alternatives such as 'degrading' or 'poisoning' before settling on the ostensibly neutral term 'modify'. I hope my message gets across."
Modern industry is now using more than 100,000 chemicals, of which 575 have already been declared dangerous by the U.S. government. While it is true that many of these chemicals need to be present in reasonably large amounts before they affect our health, there are also some that can cause serious problems at very low levels of exposure.
Most, if not all, chemicals can interact with one another so that their effect becomes greater than the sum of their parts. This is called the "synergistic effect." In practical terms, it simply means that when combined, these can damage our health even at levels considered totally harmless for any of the chemicals alone.
An individual may be capable of coping with two very late nights each and every week without affecting his work output. The same individual may also have the flu once or twice each year, again without suffering any substantial ill effects. But what about if he has the flu and two consecutive late nights? It may just be too much!
Different Types of Pollution
The science that deals with the effects of toxic chemicals on human behavior is named behavioral toxicology, and it is an integral part of orthomolecular medicine and psychiatry.
Among the thousands of cases we see and treat at the Complementary and Environmental Medicine Center, a considerable proportion of so-called psychiatric or behavioral problems, especially among children, are found to be directly or indirectly related to some form of "pollution".
Polluted air and water are all too well known. The lesser known forms, usually not even considered to be manifestations of pollution, are to an increasing degree turning out to be important causes of mental and physical handicap in the human population, especially when the impact occurs during the prenatal or early developmental stages.
Nutritional pollution includes sins of both omission and commission. It includes the omission from the diet of crucially important vitamins and minerals, especially vitamin C, the B vitamins, as well as vitamin E and such minerals as magnesium, iron, and zinc. The effects are tragic. Foods supplying these nutrients, which are needed for proper health and development, have been replaced with junk foods, gross and damaging amounts of sugar, and other additives that are designed to be attractive to the eye and taste buds, whatever the cost to the rest of the body.
This last statement reminds me of a cartoon I saw once in a magazine that showed a man standing in front of a supermarket shouting, "Come and get it . . . beautiful foods . . . fresh from the factory!"
Dr. Rimland also tells us that we must include in a list of pollution constituents those factors that could be called inadvertent. These forms of pollution include excess copper from water pipes, lead from auto exhausts, pipes, paints, toothpaste tubes and tinned foods, as well as pesticides and plastics.
Then there is the case of medical pollution. According to Dr. Rimland, medically prescribed and over-the-counter drugs kill more people than breast cancer, while some 50 million hospital-patient days per year are attributable to drug side effects in the United States. And that was in 1975. The numbers have been climbing steadily since, and are currently around 20 percent of all hospital admissions.
Living organisms have a considerable capacity for adaptation, and the human organism has indeed adapted in many ways. For example, as we chew less raw food, our mandibles and teeth have undergone considerable changes, but our capacity to adapt is far from infinite and requires long periods of time.
We all inherit some limitations regarding what foods we can eat. Some of us, for example, lack the suitable enzymes to digest milk, while others acquire limitations for various reasons, ranging from self-imposed restrictions due to religious beliefs to degenerative diseases like diabetes.
Quite apart from these specific limitations, we live in a world that has enough natural poisons without having to cope with the considerable amounts of chemical poisons we have introduced, thus making life even more hazardous than it would naturally be.
Environmental Poisons and Toxicology
Traditionally, toxicology deals with the immediate effects?including death?attributable, directly or indirectly, to ingestion or contact with a poison. However, as a scientific approach, toxicology is not without flaws.
To begin with, most substances are tested singly. The effect of each separate substance is noted, but no allowance is made for the fact thatthe combined effect of two or three or more chemicals may be quite different from that of a single one. And, when you think of it, this is plain common sense. Mix any two foods or drinks, and you get a taste that is often quite different from that of any of its constituents.
Food additives are tested to see if they produce pathological changes in animals. Blood defects, developmental rates, and certain crucial physiological parameters, such as liver functions, may be examined. From such studies toxicologists calculate quantities of one single substance that can be ingested without causing any measurable abnormality. The resulting figure is then divided by ten to allow for differences among various species, and again by ten for human safety.
This then becomes the allowable daily intake for humans. However, the effects, if any, on the behavior of these animals are almost never measured. Dr. David Ball, director of the National Institute for Environmental Health Sciences, is fond of pointing out that if the effect of thalidomide had been to lower the capacity for academic ability by, say, 10 percent, it would never have been detected.
There is also another very important flaw in the way we test the toxicity of most potential pollutants. Humans are exposed to, and consume, a large amount of chemicals and additives (colorings, preservatives, and so on). The exposed population includes the very young, the very old, the healthy, and the infirm. It also includes the constitutionally strong as well as people with disabilities or predispositions?genetic or otherwise?that may render them more susceptible than others.
Some may have a degree of exposure that is far greater than average. School children are much more likely to eat large amounts of coloring agents from lollipops, popsicles, soft drinks, and similar foods than are adults. Because they are shorter, and therefore closer to the ground, children are exposed to greater amounts of lead pollution from car exhausts than adults. Their metabolic rate, and the fact that they tend to be in constant physical motion, also makes lead all the more dangerous for them. At least until a certain age, they are more likely to place dirty and dusty objects, including their fingers, into their mouths.
However, when a substance is being tested by a toxicologist, the usual procedure is to choose a group of healthy animals, quite similar to each other in age, who are then fed a similar and nutritious diet. These are then challenged with one single agent.
The results are bound to be quite different when an average cross section of the population, including the young and old people on different diets, is exposed to dozens, even hundreds of substances simultaneously.
This article is excerpted from William Vayda's book "Mood Foods", published by
Ulysses Press, PO Box 3440, Berkeley CA 94703. Books can be ordered from the
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About The Author
William Vayda, one of Australia's pioneers in Orthomolecular medicine and psychiatry, specializes in nutritional and environmental medicine. He is particularly involved in the treatment of chronic fatigue, postviral syndromes, and disorders of immunity, especially allergic syndromes (asthma, candida, arthritis), and psychiatric disorders related to nutritional problems. He is a contributing editor of Wellbeing magazine and has written several best-selling books, including Health for Life: Are You Allergic to the 20th Century?, The Candida Questions and Answers Book, Chronic Fatigue, the Silent Epidemic and Attack Asthma : How to Conquer Environmental Illnesses and Allergies Without Drugs.
