First Line Comprehensive Care Part II:

Anthropogenic Xenobiotics in Functional Medicine.

Managing Persisting Bio-accumulating Pollutants: Toxic Minerals, Biocides, Hormone Mimics, Solvents, and Chemical Disruptors

Russell Jaffe, MD, PhD, CCN, NACB

First line comprehensive care is an increasingly sought choice by patients, clinicians, and frontier scientists, looking functionally for causes; recognizing the role of the integration of mind and body; appreciating our adaptation to our environment; using predictive and provocative labs tests and procedures that are more sensitive, specific, and reliable than usual conventional tests. This article focuses on the approach taken by integrative medicine to manage anthropogenic xenobiotic toxins and clinically useful antitoxin strategies and tactics.

Xenobiotics are biologically active synthetic chemicals, many of which compromise human health. The public health burden due to anthropogenic xenobiotics, which come primarily from toxic minerals (TMs) and persisting organic pollutants (POPs), is an acquired and reversible health tax for over 200 million Americans. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), over 104,000 synthetic chemicals have been introduced into the environment in the past century. Barely 4,000 (about 4%) have been studied for their toxicities. Only a handful have been studied for their interactions.

The human cost is a reduction of 8.8 years of life for the average person due to the effects of these toxicants. This is a biological tax of 10% of most people’s life span. The direct disease care costs induced by TMs are calculated, in aggregate, to be in excess of $100 billion annually (EPA, 2000; Princeton University, 2001). The public health risk from TMs is even yet greater due to observed but not extensively defined or replicated synergies of mineral toxicities.3 The direct disease care costs induced by POPs are less precisely known yet are about the same cost as TMs. Read more.