Detox Step One: Reducing Child Exposure to Toxicants

May 12, 2016

When parents first learn about the potential negative effects of the exposure to toxicants and the impaired detoxification processes in their children with neurodevelopmental disorders, a feeling of dread can set in. The sheer volume of toxicants we humans come into contact with every day is enough to overwhelm anyone from taking action. Let’s take a detailed look in this blog, Detox Step One: Reducing Child Exposure to Toxicants, so you can see how even small changes add up to a big impact when it comes to your child’s health.

It’s easy to get so caught up thinking about how to clear toxins from our children’s bodies that we forget the detox step one: removing as many of the toxicants from their daily lives and immediate environment as possible. Our bodies have built-in detox systems, but in children with neurodevelopmental disorders, these systems may not be working very well. So reducing their initial exposure is often critical to recovery.

This is no easy feat, as I mentioned above. We are potentially exposed to tens of thousands of toxicants, very few of which have been studied to determine their effects on human health. To make matters worse, toxicants that have been deemed to be “safe” at certain levels of exposure have never been tested alongside other “safe” toxicants to determine the synergistic impact on health. These studies would be difficult, if not impossible, to conduct given the number of potential combinations of different toxicants that would need to be included. And yet we are exposed to a wide range of toxicants in combination every single day.

Toxicants can be found in the air we breathe, the soil our food is grown in, the food we eat, the water we drink and even in the mattress your child sleeps on which is why it is very important to understand our detox step one. The ubiquity of these toxicants can be downright depressing. Reducing the toxicant burden on our child is the crucial first step towards decreasing their total body burden.

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• Toxicants are all around us, so we must work to minimize or eliminate the exposures wherever possible for our child.
• Children with neurodevelopmental disorders are more sensitive to toxicant exposure because they typically have impaired detox systems, so their bodies are unable to properly clear toxicants.
• An updated review published in the Lancet journal has identified eleven widely used industrial toxicants that are known to cause developmental neurotoxicity. ¹
• Other toxicants, such as plastics, have also been shown to be endocrine disruptors, which impair hormone function and deplete intracellular glutathione, further interfering with the body’s ability to detoxify.
• Do a home and school environment inventory to see where your child’s greatest exposures may be and what you can do to minimize them.

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Toxins and Toxicants—What Are They and Where Are They?

There are two basic types of toxins that need to be detoxed or eliminated from our bodies in order to maintain or promote health which is part of detox step one:

1. Endotoxins and exotoxins: Toxins produced inside the body through normal biochemical processes.

2. Xenobiotics: Foreign chemical substances found within the body that are not normally produced by, or expected to be present in, the body—and are not a food—that can become harmful if they accumulate within the body.

Today we are going to focus on xenobiotics that can be harmful to your child. You will learn where to find them and how to reasonably avoid them. Many different sources of xenobiotics have been identified that can impact neurological health, endocrine health, and mitochondrial function while decreasing glutathione production, resulting in inflammation and oxidative stress.

A systematic review published in the prestigious Lancet medical journal identified eleven industrial chemicals as developmental neurotoxicants: ²

• lead
• methylmercury
• polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)
• arsenic
• toluene (ethanol)
• manganese
• fluoride
• chlorpyrifos
• dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT)
• tetrachloroethylene or perchloroethylene (PERC)
• polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDE)

Of the chemicals and heavy metals listed above, many people believe that their exposure to them is minimal or acceptable. But let’s take a closer look at some of these neurotoxicants.

Lead is first on the list of our detox step one which can be found in household dust, lead paint in older homes (built before 1978), lead crystal, lead ceramics, artificial turf, toys, candies, costume jewelry, contaminated soil and, as Flint, Michigan is now experiencing, in drinking water. There is no known safe level of lead. Exposure occurs via drinking fluids or eating food contaminated with lead, or breathing it in via household dust or outdoor air contaminated by ore and metals processing, leaded aviation fuel, waste incinerators and lead-acid battery manufacturing. Negative impacts of exposure to lead go beyond impairment of neurological health and development. Lead exposure can, depending on the level of severity, adversely affect the nervous system, kidney function, immune system, reproductive and developmental systems and the cardiovascular system. Lead exposure also affects the oxygen carrying capacity of the blood. ³

Mercury comes in two main forms: methylmercury (“organic mercury”), which is typically found in our water supply and has significantly impacted the quality of the fish we eat; and ethylmercury, which is the inorganic form of mercury found in dental amalgams (“silver” fillings) and dental waste, vaccines containing thimerosal, fluorescent light bulbs and ore production. Exposure to mercury occurs when eating certain fish or when chewing with dental amalgams or accidentally breaking a bulb containing mercury.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are now banned, but persist for long periods of time in the environment, and so can be found in contaminated soil and water—and therefore in our drinking water and food.

Arsenic isn’t just in rat poison, it may be found in the chicken you had for lunch. Arsenic is given to young chickens as part of their feed to kill parasites and allow them to grow larger. Because of this treatment, arsenic is also found in chicken faeces, which is used as fertilizer, ending up in the water table and