Metabolism Makeover
Interview (Part 3b)

Exclusive interview between
Juicing-for-Health.com
and
Expert Nutritionist, Yegyan,
who specializes in difficult weight loss

Question # 14:
You also focus on toxins and how they contribute to weight gain. Can you give a brief introduction to that?

Yes, toxins are another category of weight loss that is virtually overlooked in most diets and weight loss programs.

A toxin is a poison. There are poisons that are produced naturally in nature and within our own bodies. The problem is that the world we live in is a biochemical world. It started in the fifties, when chemical technology became the solution to just about everything.

From medicine to microwavable TV dinners, the miracle of chemistry invaded every single aspect of life in the US and this was exported through the world since.

This subject is so broad that I can easily write a thousand page book about it. I will cover some of the most basic points here.

The concept of a toxin being a poison and a poison being bad for you is easy to understand. Most people already know this. This is what people do not generally know.

There is a term in environmental toxicology called "persistent organic pollutant", or POP. This is a chemical that is man made but is virtually non-biodegradable. This is very important. The reason this is important is that because it cannot biodegrade or takes a very long time to biodegrade, is that they can exist in the environment for decades, travel vast distances, bioaccumulate in tissue and biomagnify through the food chain.

Let me give you an example. A POP is used on a large area of land.  Let’s say it is a pesticide. This chemical is sprayed on the crop and goes into the ground. Since it is in the soil is will go inside the cells of the plants that are grown.

Herbivores consume the plants. Carnivores consume the herbivores. We consume plants, herbivores and carnivores. The toxins biomagnify through the food chain in this manner. It is also a proven fact that toxins are stored in body tissue. Particularly body fat.

The POPs also go into the ocean from the soil. Ocean currents cause these POPs to travel large distances. The are consumed by life forms like plankton, which starts the biomagnification within the marine food chain right on up to our own plates.

So now that I have covered POPs and how the local use of a POP can have effects across a very large geographic range.

Next I want to go into what some of these POPs are and what they do to the body.

There is another category of toxin called "endocrine disruptor". These are chemicals that alter the way hormones work in the body. Many endocrine disruptors are POPs.

Endocrine disruptors are now classified as carcinogens.

When it comes to weight loss, here is where the final dot is connected. There is a class of endocrine disruptor called a xenoestrogen. These are chemicals that chemically resemble estrogen. When this chemical molecule enters the estrogen receptor site, the nervous system registers this as estrogen in the system and will cause the body to respond in that manner. One of the things that estrogen does is to signal the storage of body fat.

One of the troubles with xenoestrogens are that they resemble estrogen enough to cause a physical reaction from the nervous system. But they will not be detected on a hormone panel as estrogen. So a hormone test panel can show "normal" levels of estrogen, yet the body is behaving like there is excess estrogen.

The next usual question at this point is what chemicals are these and where do they come from?

I will go through a few. One is DDT. DDT is a chemical pesticide that was banned after the publication of “Silent Spring.” It was proven to cause cancer. Though it was banned in the US, it is not banned in other countries. In this global economy, a lot of produce imported to the US comes from countries that still use DDT.

DDT is also a POP so it gets leached into the ocean. It is sprayed over hundreds of acres of crop plantations in an aerosol manner, so it stays in the soil for a long time. Because it is in an aerosol form, the wind can also distribute it over vast distances.

Because it is a POP, it will biodegrade over a very long period of time.

Another example is Bisphenol A. Bisphenol A is a chemical used in making polycarbonate plastics. Polycarbonate plastics are mainly plastics that are durable. What are common utensils we use that are made of these plastics? Baby Bottles. Water bottles. Food containers like Rubbermaid containers. Lining on the inside surface of virtually all cans used in canned foods are sprayed with it.

Bisphenol A. Is a xenoestrogen endorine disruptor. It has been proven to cause diabetes and obesity among other illnesses and conditions such as breast cancer, multiple miscarriage, PCOS, endometriosis, child diabetes, child diabetes and infertility.

In fact, when it comes to breast cancer doctors have been able to see breast cancer cells multiply rapidly once BPA was put into the test tube that contained the breast cancer cells.

About 7 billion (that is billion with a “B”) pounds of BPA is produced a year.

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the US found that 95 % of Americans have detectable levels of BPA in their urine.

Doctors that tested BPA on animals that discovered these detrimental effects were using amounts as low as a trillionth of a gram. That is trillionth with a “T.”

There is a very large list of chemicals that I list on my site and also in my book. 

But the point here is that I had to make detoxification a necessary part of my weight loss program just because these toxins were not only causing estrogenic effects in bodies. They were also reducing the thyroid output and preventing the metabolism of thyroid hormones. Thyroid hormones directly affect the rate of your metabolism.

Going organic as much as possible and simplifying the food you eat will be a step in the right direction. The best thing to do if this is news to you, is to get more educated. The lack of knowledge of these toxins is not an accident. There is tremendous profit in the illness industry.

How does this come back to juicing?  High liquid content that is raw, organic, low sugar diet will cause a level of detoxification within the body. I am sorry I had to go through this whole explanation to get back to a very basic suggestion which is to go raw, organic and liquid. It is important information for you to know.