The Institute of Functional Medicine held the first ever Detox Summit which brought together experts such as Dr Mark Hyman, Dr Amy Meyers, Dr Jeffery Bland, and Dr David Perlmutter. The focus of the summit was to gain an understanding of the environmental toxins we are faced with on a daily basis, how they can affect our health, and what we can do to detox and limit our exposure. I’ve made a series of posts with a summary of all the important points I learned from watching over 30 experts discuss detoxification and our health. Enjoy!
Notes from The Detox Summit: Part 1
Dr Jeffery Bland, MD – The Biochemistry of Detoxification
- Dr Bland is world-renowned as the “Father of Functional Medicine” and he founded the Institute for Functional Medicine
- Functional Medicine defined – A systems biology approach to medicine that looks at the body from a cellular and subcellular level
- Chronic disease is often related to the accumulation of low levels of toxins that concentrate in tissues and interfere with normal physiology and cause disease
- It is unlikely we will ever be able to completely eliminate our daily exposure to environmental toxins, but we can optimize our bodies processes for managing exposure to toxic substances by improving detoxification
- Biotransformation or detoxification of drugs and alcohol uses the same metabolic pathways and processes as detoxification of environmental toxins
- Historically, detoxification has been focused on detoxifying drugs and alcohol, however, more recently, the focus has shifted to the detoxification of environmental toxins
- It was only recently in 1955 that scientists first discovered the cytochrome P450 enzyme pathway in the liver, which we now know as the Phase 1 detoxification pathway, which helps remove all the xenobiotics we are exposed to on a daily basis
- These enzymes detoxify both foreign substances as well as our own natural substances that the body normally produces and must eliminate
- When an enzyme is bombarded with foreign chemicals and is busy trying to detoxify them, that means it can’t perform its normal daily housekeeping of transforming and eliminating internally produced substances
- Fasting is only beneficial if you are very well nourished
- Without adequate body stores of the various nutrients that are cofactors in detoxification pathways, fasting will compromise the detoxification process
- The term “healing crisis” is a misnomer, and it should really just be called a crisis. Commonly this refers to adverse effects from detoxification such as headaches, anxiety, sleep disturbances, GI issues, pain, and just feeling horrible.
- Any acute time a person is in an acute state during a detoxification process, this is a crisis, not healing
- It is much more effective to provide a low-allergy, calorie restricted medical detoxification food with adequate nutrients and support for phase I and II detox pathways
- Protein up-regulates detox pathways
- A study showed that a nutrient supported detox was more successful than fasting
- The addition of supportive nutrients are key for an effective and safe detox
- Detox enzymes work best when the diet is mostly alkaline
- A medically supervised detox program is beneficial for most individuals
- Molecular toxicology looks at low level exposures that influence cellular function and cause chronic disease but that are not considered to be at levels which induce acute poisoning
- Low level exposures can modify cellular functions, cause inflammation and insulin resistance, and can be cancerous and induce chronic illness like diabetes
- Gamma-glutamyl transferase (GGT), a commonly used lab marker, is an indirect measure of toxin exposure of environmental chemicals that concentrate in the liver and alter detoxification functions.
- Elevated GGT indicates that glutathione levels are depleted
- Glutathione is very important for detoxification
- Low levels of toxins poison our mitochondria ,which interferes with energy production and shifts our energy metabolism to fat storage. This leads to an inability to manage blood sugar effectively, insulin resistance, and ultimately diabetes.
- Clinical detoxification is the only solution to low level environmental toxicity in the prevention of chronic disease
- Personalization is the key to proper detoxification. There is no such thing as one detox program for everyone. Each individuals detox program must be designed for the individuals needs and biochemical individuality
- Genetic differences influence how an individual metabolizes and eliminates different toxins
Dr Mark Hyman – Author of The 10-Day Detox Solution and The Blood Sugar Solution
- Detox is about repairing, renewing, and rejuvenating the body
- In conventional medicine there is no way to diagnose and assess body burden, diagnosis toxicity, or assess our genetics for detoxification capacity and biotransformation. In functional medicine, we have used these types of clinical tools for years.
- Mood disorders, obesity, autoimmunity, diabetes, and parkinsons are all linked to environmental toxins. The patients need to be detoxified.
- Toxins, like BPA found in plastics and receipts, interfere with metabolism, blood sugar, insulin levels, and appetite and can be linked to obesity and diabetes
- It’s about more than diet
- The most prevalent and harmful toxin present in the environment that we can accurately measure is mercury
- Sugar is a biological toxin and in high doses it can be poisonous
- White flour is worse than sugar
- Sugar is the #1 cause of liver failure in North America
- Fatty liver is the biggest undiagnosed problem today
- We can use nutrients like NAC, glutathione, alpha lipoic acid, and milk thistle to help our livers detoxify
- 10 days of detox is enough time to see change, create a significant shift and motivate you to continue
- Remove sugar, gluten, grains, dairy, processed foods, refined oils, caffeine, and alcohol, which are all inflammatory foods
- Basic daily recommended supplements include multivitamin, fish oil, vitamin D, PGX fiber, cinnamon, green tea extract, magnesium
- Detoxification is the bio-transforming on one molecule into another so we can eliminate toxins from the body and this process requires enzymes and cofactor nutrients
- Cofactor nutrients, which are vitamins and minerals, regulate the speed at which the detox pathways work
- Glutathione is key to detox
- Detox foods include broccoli, kale, cabbage, brussel sprouts, leafy greens, garlic, onions, and green tea
- Food is medicine and when used in the right way we see profound changes in health
- Increased energy levels and improved sleep is one of the first thing people notice on a detox program
- On a detox, blood sugars levels can lower, blood pressure may decrease, you may need to decrease your meds. You should work closely with a doctor when doing a medical detox program.
- Toxic thoughts and feelings change our genetic expression and can be poisonous to us
- Changing your thoughts and beliefs change your health
- Connecting with others, such as a detox program done in a group setting, amplifies positive results and increases success
Dr Aristo Vojdani, PHD – Director of Cyrex Laboratories
- Dr Vojdani is the father of “Functional Immunology” and has been in the field for 45 years
- Less than 5% of all chemicals used today have been studied to evaluate their toxic effects on humans
- We are developing 2,500 new chemicals each year without studies to determine their toxicity
- Chemicals can go through phase I to be detoxified, but their metabolites can bind to human tissue, leading to antibody production which triggers an immune reaction against our own tissue and eventually autoimmune disease
- Infants are the most vulnerable to environmental toxicants and seem to be the most toxic
- Chemicals accumulate in our body fat and tissue and creates a “body burden” which is correlated to autoimmunity
- Doctors are not aware of this connection between environmental toxins and autoimmunity
- Rheumatoid Factor is our own IgM antibodies produced against aggregated IgG antibodies. This reaction occurs because of foods in our diet (lectins and agglutinates), infections, and toxic chemicals bind to IgG antibodies and aggregate leading to IgM production against these aggregates, which is exactly what rheumatoid factor is; this test is commonly used in the diagnosis of Rheumatoid Arthritis
- We make antibodies against our DNA (called anti-double stranded DNA antibodies), such as in Lupus, if some foreign antigen gets bound to our DNA, leading to antibody production and tissue destruction
- In a study of 300,000 patient blood samples who were exposed to toxins, 50% showed signs of early autoimmunity
- Aflatoxin is a toxin that is a known carcinogen and often found in peanuts and corn
- Diet sodas and artificial sweeteners are more acidic than vinegars
- The steps we should take to determine our body burden is to measure the antibodies, test for chemical exposure, remove our exposure to toxins, and detoxify.
- Chemicals in personal care products like lipsticks or makeup, can be connected to autoimmune diseases like lupus, which is on the rise
- Women are more susceptible to autoimmune disease because chemicals act like estrogens in the body, activate lymphocytes and increase antibody production, leading to autoimmune reactivity in our tissues and eventually autoimmune disease.
- Autoimmunity in women is reduced during pregnancy because of changes in hormone levels and immune regulation
- Important triggers of autoimmunity include chemicals, chronic low-grade viral and bacterial infections, dietary proteins and peptides, and food additives
- A loss of “self-tolerance” to our own tissues from exposure to foreign antigens is what triggers autoimmunity
- The body is not to blame for the increase in the loss of self-tolerance and autoimmunity. It is the modification of the foods, hormones in the animals we consume, pesticides, loss of GI tract integrity, microbiome changes,
- Food additives impair the ability of our digestive enzymes to digest our foods because food colorings can bind to the proteins we eat and the enzymes cannot work properly to breakdown foods
- Autism, ADD, and ADHD starts in the gut, but manifests in the brain
- The results of digestive enzymes that do not work are improperly digested foods, abnormal microflora with too much bad bacteria that release endotoxins, leaky gut, a leaky blood brain barrier, and this results in behavioral disturbances.
- Food colorings are toxic materials
- Leaky gut can be measured through at lab test called Array #2 from Cyrex Laboratory. This test measure endotoxin antibodies.
- Endotoxins damage the tight junctions in the gut, creating a “leaky gut”
- Antibodies to endotoxins levels are stable levels in the blood for a few months, whereas endotoxin levels vary on a hourly basis. This is why we measure the antibodies and not the endotoxins themselves.
- Steps to take: Detect, Repair, Remove
- Look for gut permeability (Array #2 from Cyrex)
- Look for the triggers such as foods and dietary proteins/peptides (Array #2, 3 and 4 from Cyrex), toxic chemicals (Array #11 from Cyrex), and infectious agents (new Array coming soon from Cyrex)
- Look for autoimmune reactivity (Array #5 from Cyrex)
- Remove the triggers
- Array #5 can detect autoimmune reactivity 5 – 10 years before symptoms of autoimmunity starts
- To test for toxic chemicals, you do not want to measure the level of these chemicals in the body, you want to measure the antibodies against toxic chemicals that are bound to human tissue proteins like albumin
- Every 1 out 2 people will suffer from an autoimmune condition
- Environmental triggers à imbalanced gut microbiome and release of endotoxins à loss of immune tolerance, gut inflammation and leaky gut à entry of unwanted antigens from the gut into the blood stream à immune response is triggered à antigens cross react with human tissue à multi-organ tissue inflammation à autoimmunity, allergies, and neurobehavioral disorders