EATING IN THE BUFF

SWEAT OUT METAL TOXINS! Native Americans use sweat lodges, the Scandinavians have saunas, and health spas and resorts have used sweat boxes (formerly), saunas, and steam rooms to help kick in fat metabolism to improve their clients' health. Although medical professionals have long touted the cardiovascular benefits of “working out”, little has been said about the benefits of simply sweating. The taboos against sweating are both, cultural and exploited for profit. For example, women in New Zealand claim they don't sweat, but "glow". Also, the anti-perspirant industry makes and spends millions of dollars to convince people that sweating is a bad thing. This couldn't be further from the truth, as far as one's health is concerned. Sweating gets a variety of toxins out of the body through its largest organ, the skin. Thus, the skin is the largest "detoxifying" organ in the body. Metals, especially nickel that is known to cause cancer, sensitizing dermatitis, pneumonitis, and allergic asthma, and other toxins are driven out of the body in the sweat.

PUMP IT! (Those Lymphatics that is…). The lymphatic system, largely ignored by medical professionals unless a metastasis to a lymph node is suspect, is the "sewer system" of the body. When it malfunctions, toxic fluids can back up in the body, as a whole or in a specific limb. Bloating and water retention are mild forms of lymphedema, or "fluid retention" in the lymph system. Mild to moderate exercise can be beneficial, even for cancer patients, because of the peristaltic action of muscles constricting and relaxing during exercise, thereby squeezing the lymphatic system and milking the toxic fluids out of the tissues for excretion from the body.

"Dressed to Kill: The Link Between Breast Cancer and Bras" by Sydney Ross Singer and Soma Grismaijer (Avery Publishing Group, Inc., 1995), indicates that women who wear a bra 24 hours a day are 125 times more likely to develop breast cancer than women who don't wear bras. This has been attributed to elastic compression and blockage by the bra of the lymphatic systems in the chest area.  However, another contributory explanation for this increased risk of breast cancer is that underwires and other hooks and fasteners in the bra contain nickel, a contact carcinogen that absorbs directly through the skin into the affected areas of chest and breast. While every-day perspiration helps release these metals from our systems, the use of anti-perspirants, that prevent the body from sweating the carcinogenic nickel back out of the body, compound the problem.

BUILD THOSE MUSCLES. By increasing muscle mass through exercise, we not only build a pumping ability to clear toxins from our bodies through the lymphatic system, we also accelerate the use of carbohydrates and fats for supporting our exercise requirements. Carbohydrate and fat metabolism for energy is regulated by, and absolutely dependent upon, sulfur biochemistry in the body. The entire pathway for carbohydrate/glucose storage as glycogen also is controlled by the body's sulfur biochemistry. This sulfur biochemistry can be compromised by deficiencies in L-cystine, pantothenic acid and lipoic acid and/or by carcinogenic and otherwise toxic metals that are known to affect sulfur metabolism.  When this occurs, fat cannot be metabolized for energy and slips into the "A moment on the lips, forever on the hips" mode.

We absolutely have to have quality protein or amino acids in our diet to make fat metabolism work. Exercise contributes to this by causing a recycling of muscle protein that can contribute to the availability of L-cystine and other factors needed to make fat and sugar metabolism work properly.

FORTIFY THOSE BONES. The need for weight-bearing and other forms of exercise to maintain strong bones was graphically illustrated by our space program. Without exercise the bones disintegrate and we become more ameboid or jellyfish structurally, and perhaps even in appearance if this was carried to extremes in long space flights. This alone is reason enough to exercise?  But here is more evidence: Dr. David Lawrence has shown that calcium, found in bone, is absolutely necessary for the production of specific antibodies by the immune system. Antibodies, containing significant amounts of L-cystine, have been used to stop cancer and to fight off "dys"ease. Also found in bone, magnesium and phosphate are essential for the production and utilization of food for energy. The problem is that many toxic metals are the same ionic size as either calcium or magnesium and therefore can interfere with these important nutrients. Dense, brittle bone of old age is not healthy, the resilient bones of youth being more honeycombed, lighter, and stronger than in old age. Thus, exercise not only helps to break down weak and toxic bone and to build new, healthier, and resilient bone, but it can also help to get the toxins out of the bone while putting healthy magnesium, phosphate, and calcium back into the bone.  Once these nutrients are properly restored, the body can tap into them as needed to help protect us from disease, and to produce energy from food.

GET COOKING. L-cystine is destroyed by boiling, whereas roasting (soybeans) and braising (bison) may preserve the majority of nutrients in the bean and buff, respectively. Unfortunately for the soy industry, evidence is accumulating that soy protein isolates are poorly digested and therefore not as good a source of protein as promoted. Oats, oatmeal, and oat bran, in contrast, is probably a much safer alternative for vegan protein sources. Brewer's yeast can be a rich source of B vitamins for vegan diets, but only if free of carcinogenic and toxic, nickel, cobalt, and chromium found in the stainless steel vats used to ferment the yeast. For example, vegemite or marmite consumed in large quantities in New Zealand and Australia (like peanut butter, here), could be contributing to the high incidence of skin cancers in those countries if the levels of nickel, especially, are excessive.

SUGAR EXACERBATES health problems by forcing what little L-cystine there is available in deficient and toxic diets into the production of insulin to address the elevated blood sugar insults that accompany sugary diets. A toxic, processed food diet may simply not have enough L-cystine to address the multifaceted challenges that an inadequate diet, carbohydrate loading, and environmental toxins impose upon our health.

DETOXING (Exercise and Sweat – remember?) AND AVOIDING TOXIC METAL EXPOSURES help to improve the availability of L-cystine in the diet. Lastly, when our bodies are toxic with metals, we produce a protein called metallothionine.  Metallothionine works like a security guard to bind up and keep these toxins away from vital organs, the immune system, and the nervous systems.  As with insulin, the overproduction of metallothionine probably depletes our precious L-cystine resources needed to make vitalethine and fight "dys"ease.

We know that environmental toxins and poor nutrition contribute significantly to many forms of disease, including heart disease and cancer.  We now have even more evidence to support exercise and healthy eating habits to prevent disease and restore health.  So, don’t hesitate to “sweat it out”!

Research your own food questions on the USDA's databases.

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