Despite his belief in Spritual Healing modern scientists will often quote Paracelsus (1493-1541) and his claim that only "the dose makes the poison" This argument is used to attack anyone who refers to the dangers of chemicals because all of us and everything around us is made of chemicals. The phrase "We are but a complex chemical soup" is a true one but every chemical we take into our bodies as the food we eat or the liquid we drink or the air that we breathe will alter that chemical balance within our bosies to one degree or another.

It is not merely the properties of the chemical that trigger the effects of the toxin but the way the body reacts to the presence of that chemical and such reactions can be dramatic and potentially fatal even at seemingly minute doses.
This is evidenced by the accepted reactions to peanuts, which just happen to have higher maximum permitted levels of man-made toxins than most other foods, an which have triggered life-threatening reactions even by the siomple act of touching the hand of someone who has handled peanuts. Similar reactions have been proven to follow exposures to the chemicals in perfumes for some that have been sensitised to them.

So these reactions and more are not simply due to the dose of a particular toxin but to something far more fundemental and is explained by the biochemiical processes that constantly take place at rapid speed in our bodies.
There is a documented case involving chemicals made and approved for undeclared addition to our food by scientists in which a farmer, himself poisoned by the insecticide, requested copies of the instructions printed on the plastic bags. A long-empty bag was obtained and thoroughly washed and dried. It still gave off the smell of the chemical and so it was washed again with soapy water and hosed out thoroughly. It was then left outside overnight. Next day, when dry, it was packed in a plastic bag, then another, then placed in a Jiffy bag with accompanying note, and posted.
The time in the post exceeded the claimed half-life period.
Some days later the farmer telephoned the sender wearing a chemical-filtered breathing mask.
The smell from the package had filled the postman's van such that he was experiencing effects and the farmer was able to identify the chemical in the bag before he had even opened the parcel. His symptoms worsened - hence the mask.

As with peanut allergy the body can experience cascade effects that are life threatening from seemingly insignificant quantities of triggering agents. It is not the agent but the effect on the biochemistry that is important and enzymes have been shown to be active at concentrations as low as 1 part in 25,000,000.
Enzymes are powerful forces and they can act at extremely low concentrations and at great speeds, changing up to 100,000 molecules per second. It is this action that builds the amino acids that form new proteins, hormones and enzymes. As the London South Bank University stated "There is a similar strange occurrence to homeopathy in enzyme chemistry where an effectively non-existent material still has a major effect; enzymes prepared in buffers of known pH retain (remember) those specific pH-dependent kinetic properties even when effectively dry; these molecules seemingly having an effect in their absence somewhat against common sense at the simplistic level. Water does store and transmit information, concerning solutes, by means of its hydrogen-bonded network. Changes to this clustering network brought about by solutes may take some time to re-equilibrate."

Proteins are remarkable in their uses and the power they possess but they are also sensitive to light to such a degree that simply shining a light on the skin can change the actions of the heart.
The human body can even detect the differing tastes of homeopathic remedies, much as dogs can detect scent trails, despite the fact that such remedies are diluted to a point at which science claims that there are no detectable levels of the original undiluted substance. But then science declared for decades that there was "junk DNA" within us all but later declared that, as with the spaces in text, those bits of "junk" actually had a very important function.
Science does not know as much about the forces of life as scientists would have us believe.

So perhaps a look at the major diseases will find a common factor that could explain why toxins cause illness?

The first thing to consider is that "All poisons mimic natural disease" which is a quote from a 1959 publication of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. That quote still holds true - but why would this be so?
Diseases develop naturally because vital processes in the body fail and it is those failures that trigger the symptoms of illness. The resulting diagnosis will depend upon which processes in the body actually fail, or fail first.
Thus neurological symptoms will result from failures in the enzymes that maintain the nerves, control the synapses in those nerves, or the activitry of the brain; cardio-respiratory disorders will be caused through such things as iron deficiency that prevent oxygen being carried from the lungs; blood sugar disorders resut from failures in the production of insulin; problems with growth or fertility can be caused by hormone imbalance; digestive and immune system disorders xan be triggered by enzyme failure; and the list of similar causes and effecta is long.

Toxins enter the body and disupt the same processes by blocking essential enzyme systems and replacing vital natural chemicals that the systems expect to find with the toxin molecules that do not have the same properties as the natural chemicals they replace. This results in similar system failure as seen in natural disease.
As an example proteins are altered naturally by adding or taking away phosphorus atoms but organophosphorus chemicals will take the place of those atoms and lead to the failure of that process, which in turm may result in the formation of miss-folded proteins that will then be replicated by the body in the normal way and in turn can result in accumulations of protein that can even endanger life. In the nervous system toxins can block the action of the impulses at the synapses leading to paralysis and even death. In the mitochondria the toxins can interfere with the essential energy supply for the cells but, as with organophosphates, they can also provide energy that overheats the system in addition to blocking the normal mechanisms of respiration and energy transfer.
These functions in the body also rely on ion exchange and so anything that can enter the cells and alter the pH balance in the body may also disrupt the vital processes that keep us healthy.

The functioning of the brain depends on it being able to accurately process the information received from the various senses. Memory is a vital component of this system because the brain uses memory to be able to correctly interpret signals from the eyes, ears, taste buds and nervous system. Without memory the brain is unable to process what we see with our eyes for example for vision is not a simple process like a camera. The visual field is divided with the different sections processed deep in the brain and recombined to gove the best interpretation it can from the signals it receives. Those with brain damage have reported the complete loss of one half of the visual field in both eyes while others find that the brain gives a false view of what they actually see and can often not recognise faces or colours. Memory plays a vital role but memory loss is common in exposures to toxins and in those with brain damage because of the changes in brain chemistry, nerve and enzyme function.
With memory loss comes processing difficulty and cognitive changes. It becomes difficult to process information. Holding more than one piece of information while processing another in a related problem becomes impossible. Frustration and stress follow and that merely adds to the confused signals that must be processed.
These issues in turn can result in anger and even violence, possibly even a dual personality where different parts of the process give alternative realities. When the frontal lobes of the brain are damaged it is said that the logical part of the brain reverts to the more primitive instinctive reactions which in themselves may be problematic.
All too often such problems induced by toxins ae then compounded by drug treatments that are designed to counter the symptoms but which react badly in the presence of toxins.

Inportant in this regard is the Cytochrome P450 detoxificaton system which is used by the body to break down toxins that enter the body by whatever means and to render them harmless before they are expelled. Even some foods change the way this system reacts to toxins and any medicines used. The system is not fully understood but what is known is that exposure to one chemical can make the individual some 40 times more susceptible to another seemingly unrelated chemical. This may go some way to explaining allergic reactions as described above and the form of sensitisation that leads to Multiple Chemical Sensitivity. The Cytochrome P450 enzymes are made up themselves of proteins which have specific actions and they are found in the liver, small intestine and in the mitochondria that are vital for all cells. Normally they transform toxins into safer products that can be excreted from the body but sometimes that process changes the toxins into much more dangerous compounds that may have greater toxicity and may be carcinogenic (cancer causing) or teratogenic (causing malformations in the unborn).

In May 1995 the New Scientist magazine published an article they titled "Just obeying orders" in which they discussed to role of proteins in the cause of cancer. "In the early 1980s researchers discovered that mutations in human ras genes contribute to up to one third of all cases of cancer" and that "Mutations [in the protein] that jan Ras in the "on" position contribute to the uncontrolled division of cancer cells." "Biologists have already found about 50 proteins that together form a "Ras superfamily". This host of Ras lookalikes helps to control processes ranging from the structure of a cell's internal skeletoin to the identity of any chemicals it might secrete."

In the previous month a repoort on the suspected causes of Muliple Sclerosis "The Harvard researchers began by analysing the three-dimentional structure of the small region of the nerve cell sheath that is targeted by immune cells in MS patients. Because proteins need not have exactly the same sequence of constituent amino acids to fold up into roughly the same shape, the workers had to work out the range of sequences that would mimic the structure of this peptide.......Most of the suspect peptides had no effect on the cultured cells, but seven viral peptides and one peptide from a bacterium made the T cells start dividing. This jump-started cell division is called immune cell activation and is an important component in botyh normal immune responses and autoimmune reactions....."
Organophosphorus chemicals are known to trigger demyelination of the nerves, as seen in MS.

Those chemicals have also been shown to have adverse effects on the proteolytic enzymes which form essential proteins that form the enzymes and control the metabolism. Pirimiphos methyl for example is acidic (around pH 5.9) and when the pH changes the action of the enzymes making the proteins changes too. Also the change in pH changes the polarisation of the protein. Acidic gives a positive charge and the protein moves towards the negative. High pH gives a negative charge and the opposite action. The change in pH "can also alter the ionisation state at the catalytic site on the enzyme or affect the protein molecule so that its conformation and catalytic activity change."
Enzymes, mainly globular proteins, are also functionally altered by changes in shape and pH.
"Proteins show an exquisite specificity of biological function - a consequence of the uniqueness of the three-dimensional structural shape or conformation of each protein."
The toxicity of poisons depends more on molecular shape than chemical formula.
"In humans, disease states are often related to the altered function of a protein. This is due to an anomaly in the structure of the protein, which in turn may be due to a deficiency in its synthesis."
"Primary structure is the covalent "backbone" of the polypeptide formed by the specific amino acid sequence. This sequence is encoded for in DNA and determines the final three dimensional form....."
"secondary structure is the spacial relationships of neighbouring amino acid residues"
"If Hydrogen bonds form between peptide bonds in the same chain, helical structures develop.......If the Hydrogen bonds form between peptide bonds in different chains, extended structures form such as .....pleated sheet "
So if the OPs inhibit the enzyme process either by direct bonding or by changing the pH of the enzyme it is more than likely that proteins will be miss-formed or even missing altogether."In some cases the variance of just one amino acid can be crucial" to the causation of ill health.
If the missing protein is then added - as in the CJD and mouse scrapie experiments the enzymes may well repair the damage and reverse the disease process as was recently reported.

In the 1960s in her book "Silent Spring" Rachel Carson wrote

. " The fact that chemicals may play a role similar to radiation has scarcely dawned on the public mind, nor in the minds of most medical or scientific workers. For this reason the role of chemicals in general use (rather than in laboratory experiments) has not yet been assessed. It is extremely important that this be done.
Sir Macfarlane is not alone in his estimate of the potential danger. Dr Peter Alexander, an outstanding British authority, has said that the radio-mimetic chemicals 'may well represent a greater danger' than radiation. Dr Muller, with the perspective gained by decades of distinguished work in genetics, warns that various chemicals (including groups represented by pesticides) can raise the mutation frequency as much as radiation....As yet too little is known of the extent to which our genes, under modern conditions of exposure to unusual chemicals, are being subject to such mutagenic influences."

Over 50 years later the use of these chemicals has increased massively but the world is now enduring the additional burden of radioactive contamination of the Oceans, which will only add to the level of cell damaging toxins in our food and our envirionment.

That book was first published in 1962 and on back covers of paperback editions the following comment was quoted
"What we have to face is not an occasional dose of poison which has accidentally got into some article of food, but a persistent and continuous poisoning of the whole human environment"

Dated 4/11/2013

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