What's Out There Making Us Sick?

Abstract

Throughout the continuum of medical and scientific history, repeated evidence has confirmed that the main etiological determinants of disease are nutritional deficiency, toxicant exposures, genetic predisposition, infectious agents, and psychological dysfunction. Contemporary conventional medicine generally operates within a genetic predestination paradigm, attributing most chronic and degenerative illness to genomic factors, while incorporating pathogens and psychological disorder in specific situations. Toxicity and deficiency states often receive insufficient attention as common source causes of chronic disease in the developed world. Recent scientific evidence in health disciplines including molecular medicine, epigenetics, and environmental health sciences, however, reveal ineluctable evidence that deficiency and toxicity states feature prominently as common etiological determinants of contemporary ill-health. Incorporating evidence from historical and emerging science, it is evident that a reevaluation of conventional wisdom on the current construct of disease origins should be considered and that new knowledge should receive expeditious translation into clinical strategies for disease management and health promotion. An analysis of almost any scientific problem leads automatically to a study of its history.—Ernst Mayr

The Importance of Magnesium in Clinical Healthcare

“…According to the medical literature, we are currently experiencing two concomitant phenomena: (i) a “neglected epidemic of chronic disease” [1] and (ii) a widespread deficiency of selected nutrients [2–4]. While the importance of magnesium (Mg) and other required elements for the human organism is often well discussed in educational programs for trainees in physiology, nutrition, and dietetics, the importance of acquiring the tools necessary for credible assessment and practical management of nutrient compromise in clinical care can sometimes be lost in the education process for physicians [5].…”

Religion, ‘nature’ and environmental ethics in ancient India: archaeologies of human:non-human suffering and well-being in early Buddhist and Hindu contexts

“…Whilst the Mass Media discusses the 'probable' carcinogenic properties of isolated herbicides, the broader link between synthetic chemicals and human illness, well attested within Environmental Health circles (Samsel & Seneff 2013;Downs 2015;2016b), receives less emphasis. Similarly, regulations for pesticide spraying focus more on the protection of hedgerow species than of humans (Downs 2015), against the growing support for an environmental model of disease aetiology (Steingraber 1997;Giasson & Lee 2000;Genuis 2012;Mostafalou & Abdollahi 2013;Samsel & Seneff 2013;Goodson et al 2015;DellaValle 2016).…”

Epigenetic Treatment of Neuropsychiatric Disorders: Autism and Schizophrenia

“…ASD is considered a heritable disorder, with some studies showing heritability rates as high as 90% [Bailey et al, ; Bauer and Msall, ; Heger, ; Gürkan and Hagerman, ; Prasad et al, ; Constantino et al, ; Craig, ; Hogenson, ; Stein et al, ; Berg and Dobyns, ; Brandler and Sebat, ; Chen et al, ; Yuen et al, ]. However, a recently completed Swedish population‐based longitudinal study estimates heritability to be closer to 50% [Sandin et al, ], implying that environmental and epigenetic factors also contribute to disease manifestations [Smith and Mill, ; Genuis, ; Newschaffer et al, ; Smith and Ehlers, ; Ecker et al, ; Nardone et al, ; Raff, ]. The diverse phenotypic and genotypic presentations of ASD speak against a purely genetic cause [Rossignol and Frye, ].…”