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News from Dr. John C. Lowe |
Organochlorines: |
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Some organochlorines occur naturally. For example, they occur in the hot areas around forest fires and volcanoes, where lightening has started
fires, and during the decomposition of biological matter. Researchers have isolated them in marine algae and tree frogs.
Most organochlorines, however, are man made. They're
produced as products of combustion, as in car engines, and chemists have
tailor made them for
industrial processes. As the New Zealand Ministry for the
Environment wrote, “. . . the vast majority have been specifically
manufactured for a wide range of uses, including pharmaceuticals,
pesticides, plastics, and solvents.” Pesticide residues on food are a major source of
human organochlorine exposure.[5] Even the
compounds that
have been banned for decades are show up consistently in food samples
tested by the U.S. FDA.[6]
Most of the compounds decompose and disperse through the environment.
But some are stable chemicals that break down slowly. These remain in
our environment for a long time. Research has shown that some are toxic
to humans and other animals.
As the Ministry for the Environment notes, some organochlorines form vapor. Air currents carry the
vapor for long distances.
Eventually it condenses and deposits on land and water, especially
in cold regions. “When organochlorines contaminate the food supply of
animals, the organochlorines become more concentrated as they move up
through the food chain. For this reason the highest levels of
organochlorines are found in species at the top of the food chain: human
beings, fish-eating birds and marine mammals. They build up in the fatty
tissues and stay in the body for a long time because they are only
slowly metabolised and excreted.” The Ministry cites the four properties of organochlorines: they
persist in the environment and in animals, many become vapor,
they are toxic, and they're more concentrated as they move up the food chain. They are an
international problem of serious concern.
Organochlorines as Thyroid and Glucose
Disruptors. Researchers in Slovakia conducted a study of the
effects of organochlorines on the thyroid and glucose-regulation systems
in humans.[2]
The investigators studied young adults from an area heavily polluted
with organochlorines. I’ll call these people the “organochlorine group.”
The group consisted of 137 females and 94 males aged 21-to-35 years. (This
group of people also had “strikingly” high levels of other contaminants
called PCBs, DDE, and HCB.)
The researchers compared the organochlorine group with another group of
young adults. This second group consisted of 116 females and 107 males.
They lived in another geographic area, one polluted with PCBs, DDE, HCB,
and far less organochlorines than in the area where the organochlorine
group lived. I’ll call these people the
“background-pollution group.”
Compared to the background group, the organochlorine group had a
significantly higher incidence of four abnormalities: enlarged thyroid
glands, a higher incidence of thyroid-peroxidase antibodies, more
prevalent TSH-receptor antibodies, and impaired fasting glucose
regulation.
The researchers compared the pollution levels of the two groups of young
adults to their parents. The parents lived in the two respective areas
and were aged 41-to-55 years. Despite the lower level of organochlorines in people of the background group, they had about the
same incidence of the abnormalities as their parents.
Because the background group had about the same incidence of
abnormalities as all the parents, the investigators made another
comparison. They measured the level of PCB pollution in all young adults
in the background group. Then they selected for comparison members of
the organochlorine groups who had nearly the same level of PCB
pollution. Young adults in both groups had lower levels of the
pollutants called DDE and HCB. However, despite roughly the same PCB,
DDE, and HCB levels in the two groups, those in the organochlorine group
had significantly higher incidences of enlarged thyroid glands, thyroid-peroxidase
antibodies, TSH-receptor antibodies, and impaired fasting glucose.
The researchers reasoned that because the organochlorine group was more
polluted with the compound, the group had a higher incidence of the
abnormalities. However, the similar incidence of the abnormalities
between the parents and the background group means that the adverse
effects in young adults from organochlorine exposure didn’t result from
their actual body levels of the compounds, which were lower than in the
organochlorine group. Instead, the abnormalities probably had another
cause: exposure of their mothers to high levels of organochlorines
during the young adults prenatal and perinatal life, that is, during
gestation, especially after the 28th day.
The investigators thus noted that their findings are consistent with a
recent view of other organochlorine researchers: that organochlorines are
endocrine disruptors that cause thyroid and glucose abnormalities that
are transmitted from generation-to-generation. In the case of their
study subjects, the likely transmission was from pregnant mothers to
offspring.
Avoiding Organochlorines.
Compared to a single dose of a particular organochlorine compound,
repeated exposure caused the average body level to rise 500 times. Unfortunately, avoiding the compounds means avoiding sea food. The rate of reduction of organochlorines from the land is slow. Partial clearance from coastal and closed seas has been slow, but measurements of organochlorine concentrations in river fish suggest that the clearance rate is rapid in water after the source is restricted. However, samples from oceanic areas indicate a continuous input of organochlorines from land. As Loganathand and Kannan wrote, "the open ocean continues to serve as a sink for these compounds."[4] References
Our Educational If you want to discuss the educational consulting service we provide for
patients and clinicians, please contact
me. You can reach me by email at
Tammy@drlowe.com or by phone at 603-391-6061. Our fax number
is 303-496-6200. © 2010 Dr. John C. Lowe, LLC. All rights
reserved. This email newsletter may be copied and distributed subject to
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Podcasts of Janie
Bowthorpe
Janie Bowthorpe of
Stop-the-Thyroid-Madness
interviewed Dr. John C. Lowe on January 7 and January 14, 2010. Janie
provides recordings of the interviews. You can either listen or download
the recordings. The recordings are available at the following website:
http://www.talkshoe.com/talkshoe/web/talkCast.jsp?masterId=62603&cmd=tc When you reach the page, look for
“Episode 8" (1 hour 36 minutes) and “Episode 9" (2 hours 7 minutes). To
download the recordings, click on the download buttons; to listen to
them, click on the listen buttons. |
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 U.S. Inspection Standards are Substandard.
In 2008, Mexico turned away a
shipment of U.S. beef because of its high and potentially toxic copper
levels. The rejected beef, however, could still be sold to US
consumers. The reason is that the US has no limit on how much copper
can be in beef.
I encourage those who still eat non-organic US beef to listen to the
current word of caution from the Inspector General of the US
Department of Agriculture. His report states that US government standards are
too lax or even nonexistent. The standards don’t adequately guard
against the contamination of meat by traces of heavy metals,
antibiotics, and pesticides. I beg to differ! As the Inspector General’s report shows, the US government is simply lax in its inspection standards. For example, US inspectors test for traces of only one type of pesticide while cows are potentially exposed to dozens of pesticides from run off from nearby agricultural facilities. Also, as with copper, the US hasn’t set limits for some heavy metals. Moreover, as the Inspector General noted, the US government also isn’t fully guarding against contamination of beef by traces of antibiotics. And this means that US beef consumers are subjected to potential harm from all three contaminants—heavy metals, antibiotics, and pesticides. Despite the Cattlemen Association’s statement, some other countries have stricter inspection standards than the US. Among those countries, New Zealand distinguishes itself. Our research tells us that New Zealand beef is second to none in terms of animal quality and inspection standards. That is why we chose New Zealand bovine thyroid tissue for Thyro-Gold.
The thyroid powder in Thyro-Gold comes from free-range, pasture-fed New
Zealand cows. New Zealand is a major dairy-producing country that has banned Monsanto’s rbST,[1] which is now owned by Eli Lilly and Company. rbST stands for
“recombinant bovine somatotropin.” (Somatotropin is a synonym for growth
hormone.) Natural somatotropin stimulates the
growth of calves and lactation in adult cows. The industrial production
of rbST is a genetic manipulation. Chemists insert the gene that codes
for somatotropin into bacteria. The bacteria then produce the hormone in
large quantities. The plentiful supply of rbST enables beef producers to
artificially stimulate the growth and milk production of cows.
References
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