Increasing environmental exposure and EHS/MCS as the tip of the iceberg
Clinical environmental medicine is a new branch of modern medicine that deals with the complex and manifold influences of the environment on health.
Who actually is a “clinical environmental physician”?
He is in search of the causes and is not immediately satisfied with a diagnosis. An environmental physician is like a “Sherlock Holmes” who tirelessly searches for the causes of the symptoms.
He knows the role of environmental factors in health and that people’s reactions to environmental factors can be quite different.
One aim of an environmental physician is, where possible, an aetiological (causal) therapy. The top priority is the reduction or an elimination of the exposure, and (if possible) an elimination of the toxins stored in the body so far. Promotion of the body’s own “defence systems”.
Close to the heart of a cause-oriented physician is above all primary prevention. He sees human beings and nature as a continuum.
Environmental physicians also deal with topics that are currently (unfortunately) still “controversial”, such as electrohypersensitivity (EHS), multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS), chronic fatigue (CFS), fibromyalgia (FMS), sick building syndrome (SBS), and with diseases or symptoms possibly caused by the environment.
Environmental exposures today
In the industrialised countries, the burden on people from chemical and physical impairments is constantly increasing. Newly developed chemical products, ever stronger electromagnetic fields and processed foods increasingly burden our bodies. According to the WHO (Report 2018), almost 24% of deaths worldwide are caused by environmental factors!1 If you want to be healthy (again), you must inform yourself thoroughly, actively avoid the harmful substances and remove the existing burdens in your surroundings and in your body. It is estimated that, as a tip of the iceberg, there are currently 3-5% very sensitive people in Switzerland who react even to the lowest concentrations of chemical substances, e.g. to fragrances or varnishes, or to weak electromagnetic fields, with various symptoms such as exhaustion, poor concentration, forgetfulness or pain. These people often suffer from so-called electrohypersensitivity (EHS) or from multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) and act as a warning signal that we should take environmental exposures seriously. Unfortunately, EHS and MCS are still not officially recognised as illnesses, despite the enormous body of data and despite the enormous suffering of those affected. Although many of you know the MCS/EHS-suitable flats in Zurich Leimbach, many of those so affected often do not know that they are ill because of the environment, and very often these people are not taken seriously by those around them and by doctors.
Chronically ill from heavy metals?
Are you tired, exhausted, listless, depressed, or do you have impaired concentration, memory loss, or is your performance simply reduced? Do you suffer from migraine, muscle pain or joint pain, and nobody has yet found out what the cause is? Or are you prone to infections, do you have an autoimmune disease or an allergy? In the majority of cases the decisive cause is not found. Your complaints and illnesses are treated symptomatically. Without medication, however, your complaints return with full force, and you often have to increase the dose over time in order to suppress the symptoms effectively. Did you know that all these problems and many others, such as childlessness, impotence, high blood pressure, cardiac arrhythmias or dizziness, could in many cases be caused by insidious poisons from the environment and for the most part also by heavy metal exposure?4 Some heavy metals damage, directly or indirectly, the vital “power stations” (mitochondria) of our cells, which leads to the variety of symptoms. It is known that heavy metals markedly increase sensitivity to chemical substances and electromagnetic fields.
What can we do for you?
In the consultation for clinical environmental medicine we offer competent and highly individualised cause-oriented support based on the latest scientific findings, under the motto: “Healthy in harmony with nature”. We can search at all relevant levels for the possible burdens both in your surroundings and in your body. In our clinic, effective detoxification methods and holistic health-promoting therapies are available to you.
You have our guarantee that, with the most modern diagnostic and therapeutic approaches from the field of applied environmental medicine, we will do everything we can for you to improve your quality of life!
Environmental medical burdens
And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and God saw that it was good.
This quotation from the first book of Moses 1.12. has hardly lost any of its validity today. On the contrary. This text wants to tell us nothing other than that what the earth gives us by natural means is good for us.
Whereas in earlier times it was epidemics and famines that carried off humankind, in the last century it has increasingly been burdening factors made not by God but by man that trouble us.
In principle - with the exception of genetic diseases - a human being is born healthy. With a sound way of life without unnatural harmful influences from outside, the normal ageing process is the limiting factor. With the advances of modern civilisation we are increasingly confronted with influences which are probably mostly well meant, but which in the long term have still been researched too little to rule out with certainty an impairment of our health.
The difference between the burdening factors of environmental and internal-environment medicine and acute illnesses or accidents lies solely in the factor of time. Whereas acute illnesses such as influenza, pneumonia or a sprained ankle are relatively easy to understand in their origin, chronic illnesses may develop only after many years or decades. Thus a connection can hardly be derived reliably, and certainly not scientifically.
With chronic influences we must distinguish two kinds of consequences for health.
1. Disturbance of bodily functions
2. Destruction of bodily functions
Disturbance of bodily functions
An illness due to harmful substances always begins with a disturbance of a bodily function. If this is recognised in time and neutralised by detoxification, a complete cure is possible. Such complaints can range from unclear gastrointestinal complaints through chronic exhaustion to rheumatic complaints.
For example, enzymes are inhibited by heavy metals. They can then no longer fulfil their function. If this inhibition takes place in the digestive enzymes, corresponding bowel problems are possible. If the complex functions in the energy production of the mitochondria are inhibited, energy production fails and we feel exhaustion.
Other environmental pollutants must also be questioned. We are now confronted with well over 100,000 different toxic substances in our daily lives, not to mention the many E-number substances, some of which are questionable.
The actual therapy therefore lies in investigating the sources of the burdens. Is it processed foods, environmental influences at the workplace such as in a cleaning firm or chemical laboratory, is it the dust generated on the building site or mercury vapour in the course of dental treatments?
Not to be forgotten either are the countless medications that we receive from the doctor with increasing age. If we are unlucky, further medications are then prescribed which “treat” the side effects of the others. Many of the SGK’s patients were “cured” simply by an overmedication being recognised and removed.
Unfortunately, however, it can also happen, if these factors remain unrecognised or are primarily so toxic, that permanent damage develops in the body. This brings us to consequence #2.
Destruction of bodily functions
Long-lasting burdens of environmental and internal-environment medicine can, after the stage of functional burden has gone unrecognised, cause lasting damage. On the other hand, there are interventions in our organism which are either tolerated, which will probably be the most frequent case, or which can nevertheless trigger illnesses in certain individuals. These again include certain dental applications such as amalgams or the placing of non-vital teeth. Vaccinations, too, must be questioned in the development of illnesses, above all on an immunological basis. Nerve damage also occurs with heavy metal exposure. These metals are deposited in the nerve cells, which are then perceived by the immune system as altered. The immune system thus does what it is intended to do, namely to eliminate what is foreign from the body. This is accomplished by way of inflammation. And already we have arrived at diseases such as multiple sclerosis or ALS. These diseases are incurable in traditional medicine and, even with knowledge of their possible origin via environmental medical burdens, can hardly be influenced by detoxification. Nevertheless it is worthwhile at least to try this therapeutic path. At the SGK, patients with such neurological diseases have already been treated successfully.
The treatment
It goes without saying that this form of medicine can only be an individual one. We take the time to find out all possible factors with you and to bring them into a possible relation to the illness. Once recognised, the burdening factors must be either avoided or eliminated. This can become a great challenge, depending on their importance in the life of each individual.
The next step is to eliminate the toxins that have been deposited in the tissue in the course of life by means of medication and infusions. For this, a wide range of options is available to you at the SGK.