Transcript
Speaker: I'll give you an overview of how toxins harm the human body, just to give you a better understanding of why it's so important to clean up your child's diet and their environment in the home at the very least. Because once you know what these compounds can do to us, you will see that the recommendations later on in the course are not exaggerated. They're extremely important, not just for your child's health,
Speaker: but your whole family's health your health in the long term. Here's a quote from a paper just to set the scene. In addition, chain reactions of metabolic disruption might occur as one toxic action may prompt another and then another, resulting in a cascade of altered outcomes.
Speaker: For example, toxic chemical agents may induce oxidative stress which may result in mitochondrial damage, which may prevent normal cell death, which may produce inflammatory changes in tissues, which may cause maldigestion or malabsorption in the gastrointestinal tract and subsequent nutritional compromise with assorted signs and symptoms.
Speaker: So that is to say a toxin can cause a problem with something that can cause a problem with something else. And this chain reaction can lead to a vicious cycle where more and more processes are disturbed in the body. And this is why it's so important to be aware of this information.
Speaker: Some of the main mechanisms through which heavy metals and toxic chemicals can harm us include, they can damage cells and their components. That includes their membranes, the nucleus of the cell, the DNA, the mitochondria. They can interfere with energy production. They can affect DNA repair gene expression. They can interfere with important enzymes in the body. They can cause or contribute to oxidative stress
Speaker: They can disturb the hormone systems. They can disrupt our gut microbiota. They can cause disturbances with our neurotransmitter systems. They can interfere with methylation, which we know is often impaired in autistic children. They can disturb the communication between our cells and our organs.
Speaker: They can cause immune activation, immune reactions, inflammation, the production of antibodies which can lead to things like autoimmunity. They can impair detoxification systems and they can even displace nutrients in enzymes or receptor sites which can cause many other negative reactions or processes to happen.
Speaker: and they can dysregulate the nervous system. The thing about toxins is that many of them can accumulate in our tissues. For example, the body is smart enough to move them into fat cells where they can do less damage to things like the brain, the liver and stuff like that. But they can also end up in those organs, including the brain.
Speaker: Certain chemicals like BPA and phthalates, they're known as endocrine disrupting chemicals. Endocrine means referring to the hormonal systems of the body, which means that these endocrine disrupting chemicals can disrupt the function of our hormones or hormone production. And this can affect the thyroid, the adrenals, sexual maturation could be affected, and a ton of other critical processes could be affected.
Speaker: It's also important to understand that many of these toxins are neurotoxic, so they can damage tissues in the brain and the nervous system. Examples include mercury, lead, certain solvents, pesticides, and the endocrine disrupting chemicals can also be neurotoxic.
Speaker: Also, what's important is that tiny amounts of these toxins can do serious damage. So we can't see them. It doesn't mean they're not affecting us. And the other thing is, as I already covered in the previous video, as a doubt, we have more body mass. So we might actually not feel the effects of even significant toxic exposures. We might not feel them for months or even years.
Speaker: before actual visible symptoms appear. But in the case of autistic children, because many of them have a lot of these underlying metabolic imbalances, health challenges, this makes them much more vulnerable to these toxins. This is why this is such an important section of the module.
