Is Modern Society Killing You?

By Leonard J. Wong

Through the ages, humankind has adapted to its’ environment in ways that promote health and well-being. An example of this adaptive ability is the development of ever increasing intelligence. Intelligence has promoted our use of tools with which we control our environment. When scientists evaluate the intellectual development of other species, tool use is considered as a hallmark of true advanced mental capability. While our advanced intellect has allowed us to become the most successful animals that have ever existed on earth, we have in many different ways imperiled our continued success as a species and health and our well-being as individuals by unwise use of our tools.

We have polluted our environment by the introduction of man-made and natural toxins into our environment. We have disrupted the natural biological cycles of our planet resulting in habitat destruction and species extinction. We have also altered our way of life in ways that our ancestors would be unable to recognize. Over time, our bodies (genes) adapted to a way of life that involved strenuous physical activity, and consumption of natural foods of the types that we were able to hunt or find. Our genes adapted over thousands of generations to give us the best reproductive advantage. At some point, one of our ingenious ancestors, likely a woman, initiated the cultivation of foodstuffs in a controlled environment and thus began the age of agriculture. Suddenly, it was no longer necessary for us to roam far and wide in search of sustenance. We were able to remain more or less in a given area through out the year instead of being forced to follow the migration of herd animals with the changing seasons. It should be borne in mind that this transition occurred very rapidly on an evolutionary time scale, with only a few thousands of years separating the hunter-gatherers from the farmers.

Several thousand years is not sufficiently long for genetic adaptation to occur. Archaeological evidence indicates that the diseases of our hunter-gatherer ancestors show the signs of a strong people who lived short violent lives, while the remains of later farming societies show types of diseases commonly associated with a more sedentary lifestyle. Due to our relatively low level of technology, life was still quite strenuous and everyone still ate natural or equivalent foods. The advent of technology that fueled the industrial revolution heralded yet another stage of the development of humanity. Suddenly we were transformed from an agrarian society having a relatively uniform lifestyle from generation to generation involving individual production of the means of sustenance to one in which people became the servants of production based industries that generated all of the modern luxuries which we then began to enjoy. This change from an agrarian society to an urban industrial society occurred in only a few short generations. Again, our genes were unable to adapt to our rapidly changing lifestyle.

While modern technology (our tools) has allowed us to master many of the diseases and disorders that plagued our ancestors, the changes in lifestyle that have accompanied these changes have left us subject to a whole new range of diseases due to the changes in our lifestyles and the changes we induced in our environment. It is widely known that the average height of people has been increasing steadily over the last century. Continuous improvements in health and nutrition have caused succeeding generations to be larger and more robust than their parents. What is less widely known is the fact that prior to the industrial revolution, and the rise of urban culture, people were taller than we are today.

This observation is clear evidence that while technology has benefited us in certain ways, it has had drastic negative effects in many other ways. Our shortsightedness in this area has caused us as a species to develop numerous problems. For instance, at the turn of the century lung cancer was such a rare disorder that the autopsy of a man with the disease at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine drew an audience of physicians and scientists from the entire eastern seaboard. Now lung cancer is a depressingly common affliction. Diabetes, obesity, heart disease and cancer are among the more prominent diseases that have apparently become more common since the industrial revolution.

What you may ask can be done about the changes that we have brought on ourselves and our environment short of returning to wandering the plains in search of sustenance? Fortunately, the industrial revolution has benefited us by allowing us the tools to study and understand with ever increasing accuracy how our bodies function and what the body needs to attain a state of optimal performance. We have learned which nutrients are essential to our health and perhaps more importantly we have learned a great deal, often by misfortune, about substances in our environment which are detrimental to our health. Every passing week seems to bring new information concerning the hazards of substances that were previously thought benign. For example, tobacco, eggs (cholesterol), salt (sodium), chlorine in our water and many others are now known to be either hazardous or must be carefully regulated in the diet. The world is now filled with one hundred years of toxic industrial by-products that have polluted even the most remote and inhospitable regions of the earth.

Fortunately, our bodies have mechanisms by which it is possible for us to cope with the toxins present in our environment, which means that exposure to toxins is nothing new for us. The continuous barrage of toxins in the modern environment can however overwhelm our body’s natural defenses. It is for this reason that we, Liquid Health Solutions, have made available to you this specially formulated mixture that not only supplements the body with daily vitamin and mineral requirements, but also provides you with a special admixture of compounds known to be useful in helping the body to detoxify environmental poisons.

The basis for our health enhancing formulation is a complete and balanced mixture of essential vitamins, minerals and amino acids. It is well known that modern techniques of food handling and processing cause many of the naturally occurring vitamins present in foods in their raw state to be degraded or destroyed. Currently, it is recommended that we consume, if possible, nine servings of fruits and vegetables per day to maintain optimal nutritional balance. Unfortunately, due to modern agricultural methods taking in such a large quantity of fruits and vegetables may in fact be hazardous to ones health due to the levels of pesticides and environmental toxins that have been found to be so prevalent in the products of our industrial agriculture. Studies have shown that the pesticide residues present in many fruits and vegetables are concentrated in the skins, which coincidentally is where in many products most of the nutrients are contained. Thus if you peel an apple to get rid of the majority of the toxins you also remove a significant portion of the nutritional content of the fruit. Likewise, boiling vegetables leaches out or destroys nutrients, with the result that the water used to boil the vegetables ends up containing more vitamins than the cooked vegetables..

It is also difficult with the demands of modern life to find the time necessary to purchase and prepare a sufficient quantity of fresh produce. Because of these difficulties many people reach to supplements to be certain that all of their nutritional needs are fulfilled. Our formulation contains at least 100% of the recommended daily value of all essential vitamins and minerals with augmented levels of those nutrients that have been shown in the latest health literature to have beneficial effects at higher levels. Simultaneously we have studiously avoided over supplementation with those components that have been shown to be deleterious at high levels, for example Vitamins A and E which are both known to have negative side effects at higher dosages.

Finally, and most importantly, we have included a number of important supplements designed to aid your body in the detoxification of environmental contaminants (xenobiotic toxins) and aid in the prevention of the damage that overexposure to them can cause.

The first of these supplements is N-Acetylcysteine or NAc. Our body has several natural mechanisms by which it detoxifies and disposes of environmental toxins. Principal among these is the Glutathione-Glutathione-S-transferase system. Many environmental contaminants enter the body and do damage by chemically reacting with various molecules essential to cellular metabolism. Glutathione (GSH) catalyzed by the enzyme glutathione-S-transferase (GST) reacts with these chemically reactive toxins and prevents them from damaging essential cellular molecules. N-Acetylcysteine is the biochemical precursor of glutathione and provides the body with an essential resource of toxin neutralizing potential at times of extreme physiological or xenobiotic toxin stress. It has been learned that reducing the levels of glutathione present in cells to 30% of the normal average level causes cell death. Unfortunately it is all too easy to deplete our glutathione stores. Simply taking two 500 mg acetaminophen tablets can deplete cellular glutathione levels to a significant degree. Thus supplementing your diet with NAc will make sure that your body has adequate raw materials available to produce the glutathione it needs to deal with the numerous toxins it is faced with.

The second detoxicant that is included is Selenomethionine. Selenomethionine is the selenium containing analog of the naturally occurring amino acid Methionine. Selenium is now known to be an essential nutrient due to the incorporation of the element into selenium containing amino acids such as Selenomethionine where an atom of selenium replaces the sulfur atom present in Methionine. Selenopeptides, i.e. proteins containing selenium containing amino acids, are known cancer fighters due to their chemical reactivity toward environmentally derived toxins, reacting in much the same way with them as does GSH. Recently, the healthful nature of garlic was touted as a cancer fighter. The reason is the high levels of seleno-peptides present in natural garlic. At Liquid Health we have opted to leave out the more unpleasant garlic extract and instead replace it with pure Selenomethionine.

A third important chemoprotective agent is Indole-3-carbinol. Indole-3-carbinol is a naturally occurring alkaloid found in the highest concentrations in the cruciferous vegetables. Cruciferous vegetables are cabbage, cauliflower, broccoli and brussels sprouts. Indole-3-carbinol is an effective inducer of Glutathione-S-Transferase (discussed above) which leads to increased levels of active conjugating enzyme present in the cytoplasm which aids significantly in detoxifying various xenobiotic toxins.

Lycopene and lutein are both carotenoids, molecules related to Vitamin A, that have been found to possess significant beneficial properties. Both molecules are derived from plant sources, Lycopene comes from red fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes and pink grapefruit. Lutein comes from yellow and green vegetables such as squash and spinach. Both Lycopene and Lutein are potent free radical scavengers. Free radicals are formed in the body in the normal course of cellular respiration. Excess free radicals are formed when the cell or body is subjected to stress, or in the presence of some xenobiotic toxins. Free radicals are electron deficient species, usually containing one or more atoms of oxygen, that are very chemically reactive. Unfortunately, cells are filled with important molecules that are very rich in electrons. Thus the electron deficient free radicals react vigorously with the electron rich biomolecules. The resulting damage to the essential biomolecules can result in serious problems for the cell. Our cells have mechanisms to cope with both free radicals and the damaged biomolecules that are produced when free radicals attack. For example there is an enzyme, superoxide dismutase, that converts the free radical superoxide to water, rendering it harmless. Unfortunately though some free radicals escape detoxification and attack our biomolecules.

For example DNA is a very electron rich molecule and thus is a prime target for free radicals seeking electrons. Each free radical molecule that escapes detoxification and attacks DNA causes irreversible damage to the DNA at the site of reaction. Our cells fortunately are able to repair such damage if it is found in time. The cells have enzymes that continuously travel up and down the DNA strands looking for damage sites. When a damage site is found the enzymes stop and replace the damaged DNA. Unfortunately, not all of these repairs are perfect, with the result that the original nature of the DNA changes resulting in a “mutation.” Mutations are not good as DNA serves as the blueprint for everything that we are. Fortunately, both Lycopene and Lutein have been shown in numerous studies to biologically available free radical scavengers which cause significant reductions in the damage to biological molecules due to free radicals.

Grape seed extract is widely known for the antioxidant properties of the numerous polyphenols present that have been found to aid in the inhibition of free radical mediated oxidation of lipids, which play a key role in the formation of atherosclerotic plaques, a major cause of cardiovascular disease. Grape seed polyphenols serve much the same role in the circulatory system as Lycopene and Lutein serve in intracellular biochemistry. Grape seed polyphenols serve as free radical scavengers that prevent reactive oxygen species from wreaking havoc on the circulatory endothelium (blood vessels).

Coenzyme Q10 is an essential component of cellular energy production. The body is capable of manufacturing COQ10, but deficiency states have been reported, especially in individuals with cardiac failure. In these individuals, supplementation with COQ10 has been shown to have significant positive effects on cardiac health. For example in one study of people suffering from angina pectoris, supplementation with COQ10 reduced the frequency of subsequent angina attacks by over fifty percent. In addition, COQ10 has been shown to benefit individuals suffering with hypertension, diabetes, male infertility and as a supporting agent for people undergoing cancer chemotherapy.

top