Detoxifying the Body and Protecting Against Free Radicals (ROS)

ROS [free radicals, or more properly, reactive oxygen species] are hungry naked electrons that are produced by the chemistry or metabolism of the body. These electrons tenaciously attack any place they can steal another electron. They are only happy and non-destructive when they have a pair of electrons in their outer orbit. If they steal an electron from our genetic structure, DNA, we get a genetic mutation that can cause cancer or any disease. Or if they burn a hole in the cell membrane, the damage can produce a myriad of diseases or just accelerate aging and death of the cell.

When free radicals overwhelm the body's ability to quench or neutralize them, they foster damage that results in symptoms. Normally the body has a delicate balance between the forces of destruction, ROS and its arsenal of anti-oxidants. For antioxidants act like sponges to sop up free radicals to put out their fires of destruction. Unquenched free radicals (reactive oxygen species or ROS) burn holes in our cell membranes, damage hormones, genes and other regulatory proteins that we rely on for total wellness.

Common producers of free radicals or reactive oxygen species are environmental chemicals. We inhale well over 500 every day in the average home environment, and this does not count the office, factory or traffic and the rest of out of doors. Wallace's famous study for the U.S. government's EA analyzed the exhaled breath of urban residents of New Jersey. In this breath analysis they found a scary array of chemicals that are notorious for forcing free radicals to create disease.

When ROS get high enough or persist long enough, the cumulative effect is that they begin the damage that results in common disease. For example, they may damage genes sending the message for a cancer, or they damage an enzyme that is needed to properly metabolize cholesterol. And when our anti-oxidant levels are not high enough to counter this attack, this leaves our arsenal deficient and unable to detoxify the next chemical that comes along. This may provoke a symptom, like a headache or mood swing or muscle ache from the undetoxified chemical. You see how the domino effect of disease gets you on a roll with ROS. It starts a veritable avalanche of symptoms.

Once these naked, wildly destructive electrons are on the loose, they also eat holes in arteries that then attract nature's cholesterol Band-Aid. But instead of seeing the cholesterol as a messenger of ROS overload, or call to arms to find the underlying problem and fix it, we kill the messenger (cholesterol) with drugs. Unfortunately, the cholesterol-lowering drugs, by inhibiting the enzyme HMG COA reductase, also turn off the body's ability to make coenzyme Q10. This deficiency in turn guarantees that the victim will go on to get high blood pressure, heart failure, cancer or other consequences. All drugs initiate the domino effect or avalanche of further symptoms.

ROS also attract special proteins called amyloid in the brain and we call that Alzheimer's disease, or they damage blood vessel linings and we get high blood pressure, or they damage the function of genes to send the message to grow brain cancer, etc. But we don't have to wait powerless until ROS cause damage. We know we are in trouble when the cholesterol level warns us that ROS are on the war-path. We know we are in trouble when we have high blood pressure. For every symptom is a God-given opportunity to find and fix what is broken, versus sentencing the innocent patient to a lifetime of some expensive and damaging drugs. For with drugs, the sick get sicker quicker. Drugs must be metabolized and detoxified, too. And in the process they use up detox nutrients that could have, should have, been used to protect us from the next chemical.

Published with Permission. Excerpt from the book Detoxify or Die by Sherry A. Rogers, M.D. 2002. Sand Key Company, Inc. Sarasota, FL. PP 52-55. 1-800-846-6687 www.prestigepublishing.com

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