Prepare to have your health questions answered
here on Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with
Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center
in downtown Ventura. Now, here's Dr. Todd. Good
afternoon, I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, board certified
doctor of non -force chiropractic and practitioner
of functional medicine. Functional medicine means
using standard diagnostic tests to identify conditions
most doctors miss, or far too many doctors miss,
in large part because they don't order those
tests to find something. you must first look
for it. And most doctors are limited because
they're employees of corporations and boards
of directors, governing boards that limit their
treatment decisions and their test ordering decisions.
Most medical doctors are actually penalized for
ordering tests to identify whether or not you're
healthy. How is that possible? How does that
even make any sense? Why would any doctor be
prevented from ordering tests by any organization
to determine whether or not their patients are
healthy? Well, simply because the practice of
medicine has nothing to do with identifying whether
or not you're healthy. or restoring health. It
has to do with the diagnosis. The definition
of medicine is the diagnosis and treatment of
disease. disease you already have, disease that's
bad enough to justify the risks and costs of
pharmaceuticals and surgery and expensive tests.
So if you want to be proactive, unfortunately
you have to often pay for that proactivity yourself,
insurance, there's no such thing as health insurance.
What goes under the guise of health insurance
is medical insurance. It pays for medical care
to treat a medical condition in a crisis, an
acute condition, an infection, an accident, or
an injury, or a diagnosis of a severe enough
chronic condition that requires hospitalization,
pharmaceutical, cancer, heart disease, surgery,
et cetera. It's a sad fact, but it's true. So
the purpose of the show is to help you take better
care of yourself to identify ways that you can
improve your health, restore your health, maintain
your health, avoid becoming dependent on pharmaceuticals
and mainstream medicine for the rest of your
life. The title of today's episode is Synergistic
Toxins. I just heard this on a fantastic film
that I just saw called Intoxicated as Mercury
Rises. all about the unavoidable exposure to
mercury that Everyone is exposed to from dental
amalgams from fish in the oceans which comes
from coal -fired power plants It's a detailed
examination of this problem and features many
experts among them a man I'm happy to call my
colleague and friend for many years. Dr. Robin
Bernhoft if you go to PubMed as I often recommend
many people do, this is the location, the most
accessible location of real peer -reviewed literature.
If you go to PubMed and punch in Mercury Toxicity,
the first article that comes up is Mercury Toxicity
and Treatment, a review of the literature by
Dr. Robin Bernhoft. Dr. Bernhoff is a former
general surgeon with a subspecialty training
in liver and pancreatic surgery who received
his undergraduate degree from Harvard and his
medical degree from Washington University at
St. Louis and completed his residency. at University
of California, San Francisco, where he practiced
many years as an ER physician. He and I became
colleagues and friends at a functional medicine
conference many years ago. And I've been privileged
to utilize his expertise, especially regarding
treating, diagnosing and treating environmental
toxicities like mercury and several others for
over a decade now. The link to the film is intoxicatedmovie
.com. I've been getting some pretty good reviews
from my coverage of the toxins, wildfires, things
that we're commonly exposed to. But I often wonder,
am I making people miserable? We need a cause
for hope. What are we going to do about all these
toxins that we're constantly exposed to? So awareness
is part of it, but I want to stress that there
is always a way. to identify yours but what do
you know how what does this mean to you it's
the most important thing is to identify your
body burden of toxins they're bad they're everywhere
it's important to know that but when people hear
that i feel like sometimes they just shut it
out figure what can i do well what you can do
is get tested to identify your body burden or
a member of your family, especially those who
are most sensitive to toxins, pregnant women,
young children, the elderly, anyone with a chronic
neurodegenerative condition like Alzheimer's
or Parkinson's, but also people with autoimmune
conditions like multiple sclerosis. lupus, rheumatoid
arthritis, or Hashimoto's thyroiditis, even low
thyroid, these things are often the result of
accumulation of toxins in your body and if you
have been diagnosed and treated with a condition
like this and no one else can figure out how
to treat it or you've been taking the medications
for it and no one can figure out why it's not
working, then heavy metal toxicities are often
the cause. And mood disorders, which is a huge
category. So basically any your brain, your brain
is the most sensitive organ to any toxic exposure
and any nutrient deficiency. And toxic exposures
and nutrient deficiencies go hand in hand. Does
one cause the other? Well, toxic exposures doesn't
cause nutrient deficiencies. I hope that's obvious,
but nutrient deficiencies dramatically increases
the... the effects of toxic exposure. So that's
the most frustrating thing. There's so much misinformation,
confusing information out there in the world
about toxin exposure. Oh, there's nothing wrong
with that. That stuff's not bad at all. A thousand
people, a hundred thousand people were exposed
to this or that toxin and it had no effect on
them. So we're told by government agencies, by
various so -called health authorities, and the
thing that everyone needs to know is that toxins
are tested just like drugs. They're tested one
at a time in isolation. on a few people. Anytime
you hear that this has been tested and proved
as safe, you can, if you go to PubMed or wherever
these people have to cite their references, look
up, look it up and you'll find they're tested
on maybe a few hundred people and cited as safe
because no one has died yet and that's also a
really not a very good indicator of safety. No
one died. The fact that no one died does not
mean that after three months of taking a single
substance is not necessarily a very good indicator
of whether or not something is safe. And I know
I'm being a little facetious right now, but it's
not too far from the truth of how so many things
are tested and reported as safe. They test one
toxin at a time on how many people? Sometimes
a few hundred, sometimes a few thousand, but
not millions. When drugs are approved, they're
tested on a few hundred people, sometimes a few
thousand. Then when they go out into the market
and millions of people take them, they're recalled
for causing way too many deaths to be considered
safe and acceptable. It's always a crap shoot.
You're a guinea pig, especially if you try new
drugs. So that's a little bit of a sidebar, a
little bit of a discursion in the subject, but
drugs are toxins. What's the difference between
a drug and a nutrient? Drugs are necessary to
save your life in a crisis. I'm not against drugs.
Everyone needs drugs when they're in a crisis
to save their life, but they have toxic effects,
and that is why It's a double -edged sword. They
have an immediate effect by taking control of
your physiology, but because they take control
of your physiology and override normal defense
mechanisms and control mechanisms, they also
have toxic effects that kill 100 ,000 people
a year. The number varies year to year, but on
average, year to year, in the United States alone,
about 100 ,000 people die from properly prescribed
medications. I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. You're listening
to safe effective natural solutions to almost
any health challenge. The smoldering symphony
of Los Angeles is the headline for a recent medical
article about how this is the devastating effects
of the fires in Los Angeles. This wildfire is
not like. any other in California history in
its scope and people need to be reminded. I'm
hoping to impress upon listeners that this includes
a slew of toxic chemicals that are released into
the air, including particulates, byproducts of
plastic, fire retardant materials, asbestos,
a host of thousands of chemicals that are found
in commercial and residential properties, there's
been a recent uptick in hospital admissions for
inhalant injuries and inconsistent use of personal
protective equipment in the community. It's something
that people need to be aware of. So it's, anyone
who lives in Southern California has seen the
fires come and go over the years, they're becoming
more frequent, but the long -term effects of
the mass release of these chemicals is resulting
in increased concerns about cancer. risks and
immunological effects in the first responders
as well as those in direct proximity to the wildfires
as similar to the World Trade Center aftermath
but also all of us throughout Southern California
if you smell smoke if you see smoke some people
are sensitive to this more sensitive than others
I'm super sensitive to it And it's a healthy
response to be, to notice something toxic that
is, you know, bothering your lungs and then...
make you want to cough that stuff out or hopefully
inspire you to close your windows and put on
a help a filter filter that stuff out your body
reacts to these things for a reason and even
if you're not noticing a reaction just pay attention
to the news go to air gov website look up your
air quality and protect yourself from this stuff
so ash left left behind the los angeles wildfires
might be toxic is another headline from a recent
medical report experts warned that blazes unleashed
a complex chemical reactions on paint furniture
materials cars electronics and other belongings
turning ordinary objects into potentially toxic
ash well it's not potential it's it's toxic ash
that requires protective gear to handle safely.
The ash includes harmful lead, asbestos, arsenic,
and other newer synthetic materials. Some of
these chemicals are linked to cardiovascular
disease and reduced lung function. and the toxic
effects of inhaling arsenic, chromium, and benzene.
Exposure to magnetite, which can form when fire
burns iron, has been linked to Alzheimer's disease.
So many researchers reported on the long -term
effects of linked to dust. From September 11th,
for example, Jackson Webster, PhD, who studies
fire aftermath, professor of civil engineering.
at California State University at Chico, quote,
I always kind of reminded myself of all the people
that ran into the World Trade Center on 9 -11
and were really there for not that long period
of time, but the effect on their total exposure.
Increasing cases of all kinds of different diseases,
illness, and sickness. More studies are necessary,
but early reports are not encouraging. And many
scientists wonder where all this waste will go.
Potentially hazardous waste materials end up
in drinking water and even flow into the ocean.
Contaminated drinking water is a growing concern
for cities facing wildfires is another headline
of recent medical study. Pasadena Water and Power
recently issued a do not drink notice to about
a third of its customers for the first time since
it began distributing water more than a century
ago with at least one burned pump, several damaged
storage tanks and burned homes. They knew it
was a chance to toxic chemicals that toxic chemicals
had. entered the pipes. This week they lifted
the notice after most of the area had undergone
testing showing that the water was safe. But
why does this happen? How do urban fires cause
a risk to drinking water? Well, when large fires
burn in towns and cities, rather than in forests
and grasslands, the infrastructure can be heavily
damaged because drinking water systems can have,
there's ash, smoke, soot, and other debris gases
that get sucked into the piping network. So says
Dr. Andrew Welton, PhD, Purdue University engineering
professor who researches water contamination
in communities hit by fire. These toxic elements
can be particularly bad because chemically engineered
plastics, synthetics and building materials in
households are heating, burning and releasing
particles and gases and some of these chemicals
are harmful even at very low concentrations but
how do these things get into the pipes that deliver
our water? Well, water systems are typically
under pressure. They're always under pressure.
You turn on your faucet, the water is under pressure.
You notice if it's not. And so that pressure
itself is usually enough to keep harmful elements
out. But that critical pressure can easily be
lost in many ways during a fire, just from people
turning on their own garden hose to try and fight
the fire. Obviously, the firefighters use a lot
of water. But pipes in burned buildings can also
be damaged, spewing water. Power losses can cause
pressure loss when pumps stop working. It's really
hard, if not impossible, to keep up the power
supply to the whole water system in the event
of a fire because you're either shutting off
the power because power can contribute to the
fire or it just goes out, says Greg Pierce, professor
of urban environmental policy at the University
of California. This happened in the Maui fires
in 2023. So what's the health risk? Well, toxic
chemicals and drinking water after a fire pose
risks ranging from temporary nausea, to cancer.
Dr. Lynn Goldman, MD, MPH, Dean of the Milken
Institute of Public Health at George Washington
University, referring to the campfire that burned
most of Paradise, California said there were
benzene levels high enough to acutely give a
child a blood disorder. Well, that's a quiet
reference to what would most likely be leukemia
or lymphoma, common cancers that children are
vulnerable to. So in terms of cancer risk, what
we're really interested in is the cumulative
effect that you're exposed to over an entire
lifetime. Says dr. Goldman and the safe level
even very low levels of chemicals like benzene
can cause a concern and known carcinogen safe
level and drinking water less than one part per
billion. So much higher levels of that can occur
after a fire damage to the water systems like
this. Individuals employed in industries that
could make or use benzene can be exposed to the
highest levels. As many as 238 ,000 people may
be occupationally exposed to benzene in the US,
especially individuals employed in the petroleum
refining, chemical manufacturing, rubber tire
manufacturing, workers in the steel industry.
printers, rubber workers, shoe manufacturers,
laboratory technicians, firefighters, and gas
station employees. So benzene and similar compounds
are known as volatile organic compounds because
they tend to become airborne. Like gasoline that
turns to vapor when it drips from the pump onto
the ground when you're gassing up your car. A
group of heavier compounds called semi -volatile.
organic compounds were found in water pipes in
Louisville, Colorado after the 2021 Marshall
fire, even when benzene and better known chemicals
weren't. So it's important to test for these
things. there are ways commercially available
ways to test your drinking water directly but
more importantly there are ways to test your
body and those of those who you love of your
body burden of these toxic chemicals which we're
all exposed to whenever I run urine tests for
chemical toxicities or hair tests or urine to
and or urine tests for heavy metal toxicities
we're all exposed to these things and it's just
a matter of knowing your body burden by By testing,
by your exposure from your job, your lifestyle,
things that you've been exposed to that you know
about or may not know about, it's important to
take an assessment. Sometimes even just from
your case history, your case history may indicate
a huge risk of exposure to these things. Mood
disorders, inability to lose weight for no apparent
reason. anxiety and depression chronic chronic
neurodegenerative conditions like Alzheimer's
and Parkinson's autoimmune conditions these are
all things that are not solely caused by any
stretch by environmental toxins like I've been
talking about but if you have those things and
you've tried quote -unquote tried everything
else and not found anything that's working for
you, then looking at toxic exposure is always
an important step to identifying what could help
you live long and live well by identifying things
that you can correct with better food, exercise,
and supplements. But even if you're not prepared
to do testing right now, one thing that anyone
can do right now, all of you can do, is get a
good water filter to filter out those things
that end up in public water systems after a fire
and filter out the things that are in public
water systems right now even when there aren't
fires. Tap water is really not fit for drinking.
It's important to drink water. I'm always encouraging
people to drink more water. But it's really important
to drink clean water for your short -term health.
People come in with kidney dysfunction, for example,
so many times. I see patients who come in, and
their blood tests show kidney dysfunction, and
they say, oh yeah, my doctor told me my kidneys
aren't working properly, but there's nothing
they can do about it. Well, a lot of times the
solution is just to drink more water. People
need to drink more water, but it's also really
helpful if you drink. clean water that has been
properly filtered. And the best form of filter
that you can get to make clean water that is
alkaline, not acidic, alkaline water, is a solid
carbon block, multi -pure. water filter. This
is the one that I recommend. This is what I use
at my home and my office. Most people are familiar
with reverse osmosis systems that are three or
four chambers underneath their sink. That's fine.
That's better than nothing. Reverse osmosis systems
will filter out most of the toxins that are in
the water, but they also slowly clog up and eventually
spill. Toxins into the water that are filtered
out by that third chamber. That's why it's three
chambers instead of one a solid carbon block
multi -pure filter It has nano sized particles
that filter out all the bad stuff and leave some
of the mineral minerals in so that the water
remains alkaline which is what we all want and
Email me if you'd like I can send you a link
to get a discount on those filters multi -pure
water filters I'm Dr. Todd Binkley. You're listening
to Safe Effective Natural Solutions to almost
any health challenge. We're talking again, unfortunately,
about all these toxins that we're all constantly
exposed to, but there is some hope. You can,
another way, in addition to getting a good water
filter to reduce your risk of exposure to these
toxins and the accumulation of them in your body,
is by eating clean vegetables and cleaning. the
fruits and vegetables that you eat. So learn
about the Dirty Dozen and the Clean 15 in America.
We hear about these published, the Dirty Dozen
and the Clean 15, published by the environmentalworkinggroup
.org. It used to be really easy to go on to EWG,
environmentalworkinggroup .org, and get this
list. Now they've, I don't know, the last time
I just checked yesterday, it's a little more
difficult now. They're really aggressive about
making sure they get your email. and wanting
to send you newsletters and maybe have you do
a questionnaire. I don't know, I got a little
frustrated with that. But if you just Google
the dirty dozen, you'll get and do an image search.
You'll see printed image versions of those lists.
They vary slightly from year to year. Top of
the list is always strawberries, kale, spinach.
peaches, things with thin skins, and some some
surprising things, fruits and vegetables. I'll
list them again later. We're going to run out
of time before I get through all of this. I just
wanted to let you know that that exists and to
check it out. And more importantly, I'm going
to come back to this as well. I found the ewg
.org list is great, but panuk The Pesticide Action
Network in the UK seems even more compelling
to me because they list vegetables that have
multiple toxicities. So we're bringing this back
to the title that I began with. Synergistic toxins.
So I always like to explain to people how synergistic
nutrients are important because unlike drugs,
nutrients work in combinations with one another.
But also, paradoxically, unlike drugs, or sort
of confusingly unlike drugs, Toxins also have
synergistic effects. Synergistic is usually a
good thing. But drugs, so people, all these drugs,
the toxic effects of mercury and lead and arsenic
and cadmium and pesticides, all the studies and
the government research and the recommendations
for what is considered safe are based on studies
that only look at one drug at a time and they
ignore the fact that when you are exposed to
more than one of these drugs, at the same time,
the toxic effects effect on your body increases
exponentially. So talk about more more about
that next week. Thank you for tuning in. I'm
Dr. Todd Binkley. You're listening to Safe Effective
Natural Solutions. Have a fabulous weekend. You've
been listening to Safe Effective Natural Solutions
with Dr. Todd Binkley. If you have a health question
you want discussed on the show, email your health
questions to drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter
.com. Take advantage of this opportunity to ask
questions for yourself and for your loved ones
because our health matters. Join him next Friday
at 2 p .m. for safe, effective natural solutions,
here on 98 .3 FM, The Word.