More Toxins
Pesticides
It's estimated that the average person in the UK swallows around 4.5 litres (1 gallon) of pesticides each year in the food they consume. But, according to pressure group PAN UK, British people also expose themselves to over 4,306 tonnes of pesticides in their own homes through the use of insecticides, garden products and insect sprays. Other developed countries have similar statistics. Exactly what effects pesticides have on the body is still not understood, but fatigue, allergies, skin irritation and, at the most severe end of the spectrum, some forms of cancer have been linked to high exposure levels. Whether we ever reach such high levels in normal life is a matter of huge debate, but one thing is known - your body finds it very hard to detox pesticides naturally. Reducing exposure to them is therefore potentially more important than trying to eliminate them through strict diets.
Food Intolerances
Can't lose weight? Fed up with the size of your stomach? Food intolerances could be the cause. These occur when the body loses the ability to digest a food properly. This results in the food staying in the system longer than it should. It then ferments, which allows toxins to be reabsorbed into the system. Intolerances have been linked to a head-to-toe map of symptoms, including headache, skin problems, weight gain, fluid retention, and even up to 65 per cent of cases of irritable bowel syndrome. Intolerances develop when you are over-exposed to a food, which may explain why the two most common intol¬erances are wheat and dairy products, the staple foods of most of our diets since childhood.
One misunderstanding about food intolerance, though, is that once you find out you're intolerant to a food you can never eat it again. The good news, if you can't think of life without crusty French bread or a big plate of pasta, is that this is simply not true.
Pollutants
Whether in the form of chemicals, hormones or heavy metals (like lead, mercury or aluminium), pollutants are creeping into all our lives. They may come from the air around us or from products we use in the home, or they may have found their way into our food through the soil or water. Pollutants can be very harmful to our systems. At the simplest level, research from the Children's Health Study in the USA has shown that on days when air pollution is at its highest, the rates of respiratory problems like sore throats and coughs in children increase. Pollutants are also a major cause of the harmful compounds called free radicals. These are unstable molecules that attack healthy cells in the body, creating damage. Free radicals have been linked to a host of problems, ranging from wrinkling of the skin to heart disease. The good news is that there has been a huge amount of research into the effects pollutants have on our bodies.