What Is Toxicity?
What does it mean to be “toxic?” It’s when chemicals have built up in the body to a point that the body can no longer metabolize them quickly, resulting in cellular damage and, eventually, damage and malfunction to tissues, glands and organs.
This damage comes primarily through oxidation, which causes cell membranes to become weak and porous. Cellular material then leaks out, and extra cellular fluid leaks in, causing the cells to rupture and die. Toxicity also damages cells by changing them into free radicals, which are very destructive cellular intermediates that can cause a chain reaction of oxidative damage — similar to the starting of a forest fire by the spark of one match.
A toxin is any chemical or substance that, once in the body, causes cellular dysfunction, damage and death. Toxins kill cells, tissues, glands, and organs — either quickly or slowly, depending on how strong the toxin is. Toxins include alcohol, chemicals, preservatives, food coloring, dyes, and hydrogenated fats and oils.
To help illustrate toxicity, look at the liver — the organ that detoxifies (or breaks down) harmful chemicals, turning them into harmless waste products for excretion. This is an amazing picture of the way God designed us. All chemicals and drugs we eat, breathe, or drink go to the detoxifying plant — the liver — where they are changed to harmless waste products and excreted.
Additionally, your body’s metabolism regularly produces chemical byproducts. So your liver must handle not only the load that comes from outside your body, but also those chemical byproducts from inside your body.
Imagine that your liver is like a portable air filter placed in an enclosed room. Suppose there is a fireplace in this room, but the flue is closed, so that smoke cannot escape, entering the room instead. Under normal circumstances, the air filter can do its job, even filtering some smoke. But under these circumstances, the filter cannot possibly keep up with the demand, so the smoke fills the entire room.
This analogy applies to your liver. Like the overworked air filter, the liver cannot keep up once chemicals and toxins in the body reach a certain level. At certain levels, toxins start producing symptoms in many areas of the body, depending on where the toxins accumulate. Toxic buildup in one gland or organ can cause cellular damage, which can lead to tissue damage, which can lead to organ and gland and joint dysfunction — thus, ill health.