I’ve been warning you about toxins in our environment for years.
And how they trigger inflammation… lead to accelerated aging of the lungs, heart, and brain… make you gain weight… cause you to feel fatigued… and are responsible for as many as 5 million premature deaths every year.1
There are over 80,000 synthetic chemicals produced and used in the U.S. Right now, the average adult has about 700 chemical contaminants in the body.
Do you know how many of these chemicals require testing by the EPA? Just 200… and only five have been regulated.
Every woman, man, and child now bears a slew of synthetic chemicals and heavy metals. This is known as our chemical body burden.
You may think that because you don’t live in a “polluted urban area,” you’re safe from pollution…
That may have been true at the start of the industrial revolution. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.
Today, 160 million Americans live in areas with dangerous levels of pollution. Persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are non-biodegradable compounds that stay in the atmosphere forever. Even if you choose to live on a mountaintop or a deserted island, wind and water currents will guarantee these pollutants soon find their way to you.
One of the most dangerous and insidious ways these poisons enter our bodies is through the air we breathe. And this invisible contamination is leading to several diseases and conditions, including one of the fasting-growing epidemics of the century — Alzheimer’s and dementia.
For years, I’ve been saying that our toxic environment is driving up rates of Alzheimer’s. Now research is finally catching up…
A new study from researchers at the University of Southern California found that older women who lived in areas of high pollution were 81% more likely to experience cognitive decline and 92
% more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease than those who lived in less polluted areas.2The USC researchers estimate that more than 20% of dementia cases worldwide may be due to air pollution.
You see, in areas with heavy traffic and exhaust fumes, the air is loaded with “particulate matter,” or PM. These are tiny particles of toxins like sulfate, nitrate, ammonium, black carbon, and heavy metals. They’re 30 times smaller than the width of human hair.
And when it comes to toxins, size matters. The smaller the particles, the more oxidative stress they cause in your cells.
But there’s another reason… Because they’re so small, they can travel along nerve byways directly to your brain after you inhale them through your nose. Once there, they begin to wreak havoc.
A 2015 analysis of MRI brain scans by researchers at Harvard Medical School found that the closer people lived to a major road, the more their brains shrank.
And recently, The Lancet published a study that looked at dementia rates in the Canadian province of Ontario. Researchers found that people living within 50 meters of a major road —where levels of PM are often ten times higher than just 150 meters away — were 12% more likely to develop dementia than people living more than 200 meters away.
But it’s not just Alzheimer’s… Further diseases caused by particulate matter, pollutants, and unhealthy air include:
- Heart disease
- Stroke
- Diabetes
- Obesity
- Acute and chronic respiratory disease
3 ways to detox pollutants and safeguard your future
-
- Cleanse your body with intravenous chelation: I offer safe intravenous (IV) chelation to just about every patient I see. Studies show chelation restores brain function lost from mercury poisoning. It’s also proven to reverse symptoms of Alzheimer’s. For IV chelation, I inject calcium disodium EDTA directly into your bloodstream. In no time at all, EDTA grabs toxins and drags them out — painlessly. If you are interested in flushing these brain-destroying toxins from your body, please contact the Sears Institute for Anti-Aging Medicine at 561-784-7852. My staff will be happy to schedule a chelation appointment for you.
- Supplement with N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC): This powerful detoxifier boosts your levels of glutathione, your body’s strongest antioxidant. NAC directly elevates cells’ defenses against lead, aluminum, and other heavy metals in your organs and bloodstream. When researchers bathed cells in lead, the DNA of the NAC-treated cells lived longer and had their DNA better protected from damage. I recommend 500 mg per day. After a couple of weeks, take 1,000 mg a day.
- Protect yourself from future pollution. To find out if pollution where you live has reached a dangerous level, download IQAir on your smartphone. This app provides air pollution data from all over the world. And don’t forget to filter your indoor air. Look for a home filter that rates a nine or higher on the MERV scale (Minimum Efficiency Reporting Values). When sitting in traffic, use the recycled-air setting on your air conditioner, so you don’t breathe in fumes.
To Your Good Health,
Al Sears, MD, CNS
References:
1. “Health impacts of air pollution.” www.edf.org/health/health-impacts-air-pollution. Accessed on October 4, 2022.
2. Cacciottolo M, et al. “Particulate air pollutants, APOE alleles and their contributions to cognitive impairment in older women and to amyloidogenesis in experimental models.” Trans Psych. 2017 Jan 31;7(1):e1022. doi: 10.1038/tp.2016.280.