Test Your Body's Toxic Burden - Bio-Individual Wellness

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You don't have to have a major exposure to toxic substances to develop a significant toxic burden in your body. It can develop gradually over time.

And your body's toxic burden is one of the main influences on how you feel, your general health, persistent symptoms that are hard to resolve, and your risks of developing serious diseases.

So it's important to understand hidden and little-known contributors to toxic burden and ways to test your toxic burden so that you can take appropriate action if necessary.

In this you will learn the following:

Ways that toxic burden can develop gradually over time, some of which you might never have considered
Ways to test toxicants, and one of the most all-inclusive and convenient ways to do it
The three main types of toxicants you can readily test
Two examples of test results that showed high levels of toxicants that were unexpected

How Toxic Burden Can Develop Gradually Over Time

Here are some of the ways that toxic burden can develop gradually over time:

Many genetic polymorphisms (SNPs) can slow down the body's detoxification pathways or affect the assimilation of nutrients necessary for detoxification processes.
Deficiencies in vitamins and minerals used in detoxification processes can impair the elimination of toxins.
Mineral deficiencies can lead to an accumulation of heavy metals with a similar electrical valence.
Intestinal permeability increases absorption of heavy metals.
Psychological trauma can increase absorption of heavy metals and cause them to be retained until the trauma is resolved.
Chronic stress chronically impairs detoxification processes by reducing the amount of time the body is in its "rest, repair, digest, and detoxify" mode.
Mercury amalgam fillings constantly leach mercury into the body.
Invisible and odorless mold and mycotoxins in home and work environments often go undetected even as symptoms develop that are not suspected of having been caused by mold.
Jawbone cavitations due to extractions, root canals, and implants dysregulate organs connected by energy meridians to those parts of the jawbone, and the bacteria in necrotic pockets of jawbone produce biotoxins that can inhibit detoxification enzymes.
Scars can interrupt energy meridians in the body, impairing the function of organs of digestion, detoxification, and elimination.
Dysbiosis, intestinal inflammation, and intestinal hyperpermeability inflame the liver and cause liver/gallbladder congestion (cholestasis), reducing bile flow and the ability to expel toxins in the bile.
Personal care and cosmetic products, household cleaning products, food packaging, and cookware are often sources of hundreds of toxic compounds, some of which are very difficult for the body to expel.
Drinking water can be a significant source of toxic metals, persistent organic pollutants, and fluoride.
Soy and chocolate products can be a significant source of cadmium.
Rice products can be a significant source of arsenic.
Cruciferous vegetables can be a significant source of thallium.
In older people who were alive when lead was added to gasoline, as their bones demineralize, lead stored in bone is released into circulation.

Toxicants to Test

Toxicants are toxic substances other than those naturally produced by an organism. The main types of toxicants that we are exposed to include the following:

Toxic elements (toxic metals, radioactive elements, halides like fluoride)
Persistent organic pollutants (carbon-containing chemicals like pesticides, other man-made chemicals, byproducts of the petroleum industry)
Biotoxins, including mycotoxins (toxins produced by mold)

We cannot test for all toxicants in these categories, but we can test for many of them.

Ways to Test Your Toxic Burden

Toxic elements can be tested in blood serum, red blood cells, urine, hair, and the tissue of the hand.

Biotoxins (e.g. mycotoxins) and metabolites of persistent organic pollutants are nearly always tested in urine. When it comes to testing toxic elements, there are multiple options.

Testing toxic elements in blood serum reveals recent exposure. Testing them in red blood cells reveals more long term exposure. Urine can reveal either recent exposure or body burden if the urine sample is "provoked" by stimulating the body to release stored toxins. Hair can reveal recent exposure or body burden of toxic elements, but many people with a high toxic burden do not efficiently mobilize and excrete toxins, so their burden of toxic elements may not show well in hair samples.

The best way available to consumers to test toxic elements is via the tissue of the hand, using a device called Oligoscan. But there are not many Oligoscan practitioners, so it is often not possible to find a local practitioner who provides this form of testing.

The most convenient, all-in-one, and quite detailed test of toxic burden is the Total Toxic Burden test from Vibrant Wellness. This is a urine test of toxic elements, mycotoxins, and persistent organic pollutants.

By the way, when it comes to testing mycotoxins (mold toxins), this test includes the most extensive set of mycotoxins of any test that I know of. The image below shows mycotoxins that were elevated on the test of a person being exposed to mold without realizing it, or at least not realizing the degree of exposure. The image shows only the ones that were significantly elevated, not the complete set of mycotoxins tested, which included more than twice as many mycotoxins.

Make Toxicants "Visible"

Testing the body's toxicants makes them "visible" to you so that you are no longer wondering, guessing, or totally in the dark about your toxic burden, which toxins are present, and where they might be coming from.

Often, a Total Toxic Burden test can reveal toxins that were not expected. For example, the test result below shows high levels of perchlorate (PERC) and phenyl glyoxylic acid (PGO).

PERC is both naturally-occurring and man-made and is a potent oxidizing agent used in rocket fuel and in food packaging that can accumulate in water supplies and vegetables. It can affect thyroid gland function and has been linked to lung toxicity and aplastic anemia.

PGO is a metabolite of styrene, which is used in the manufacture of plastics and is found in building materials and car exhaust fumes. Styrene is a carcinogen and can cause problems in the central nervous system and kidneys, including headaches, depression, fatigue, hearing loss, balance and concentration problems, and cancer.

The person with the test result above had all of the symptoms listed above except for cancer. In most cases, without this test the person would never have known to suspect styrene as a possible cause or contributor to these symptoms. In this case, the person had previously run a different test that also showed elevated styrene, but they had forgotten about the previous test until after this test had been run.

Do You Have Hidden Toxicants?

Hidden toxicant are those that are not yet known to you, not yet visible to you. The only way to find out if you have hidden toxicants is to test for them. If you have been struggling with a chronic health challenge, I encourage you to test your body's toxic burden as one of the things you do to resolve the situation.

By the way, do not stop at testing toxic elements like heavy metals, and do not rely on a hair test as a measure of your burden of toxic elements (something that many people unfortunately do). I do use hair testing, but I do not rely on it as a definitive test of toxic elements or nutritional minerals. A hair test can be very misleading.

If you would like to test your toxic burden, schedule a free consultation to discuss options for toxic burden testing. You can schedule a free 15-minute consultation, or if you would like to have a more detailed conversation about more extensive testing and/or coaching, you can schedule a 45-minute meeting, but only if you have already downloaded the Bio-Individual Blueprint Roadmap and watched the walkthrough video.

To learn about my approach to resolving health challenges and optimizing energy, sleep, immunity, and more, download the Bio-Individual Blueprint Roadmap and watch the walkthrough video.