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Multiple Chemical Sensitivity - What Is It? Part 2Last month I gave you the definition of MCS and told you generally what people were thinking. The responses that I received were mixed. Some of you thought the information that I gave was wonderful. Others thought that I was agreeing that MCS was a psychological concern. Still others thought that I didn’t cover the subject thoroughly enough. I must admit that I made a mistake in separating this article into two parts. For that I apologize. However, after you read this second part, I am sure that you will understand that I am a firm believer that MCS is not a psychological phenomenon, and I hope that you will have a complete understanding of what MCS is and what people are saying.BBC News Online did an article March 15th,00, called Household Chemicals Health Warning by Alex Kirby. In the article, it talks about Drs. Keith Eaton and Honor Anthony who are the authors of the report Multiple Chemical Sensitivity Recognition and Management that was published in the British Society for Allergy, Environmental and Nutritional Medicine. " Drs. Eaton and Anthony urge the British government to tighten the regulation of chemical use, including stricter controls on the authorization of new chemicals and the removal of persistent chemicals from food." Interestingly, only 14% of the most heavily used chemicals used in Europe have a full set of basic safety data publicly available. I find that incredible. One of the television news magazine’s here in the US did an hour show on Sick Building Syndrome. It featured the total disruption of families because of fungus growing rampant in their house. The other story that they did was the family disrupted and forced to move out of their house because they had their house sprayed for termites. These are real phenomenon, no one would ever imagine this. Because of all the chemicals in the products that are put in our buildings, the US Environmental Protection Agency calls indoor air quality one of the top five environmental health risks of our time. Amazingly, the federal government has no effective standards for indoor air quality in offices. Benzene and formaldehyde both, both carcinogens are only protected by OSHA which is the Occupational Health & Safety Administration in a white collar setting. Elissa Feldman, EPA’s associate director of Indoor Environments Div. states "There is no federally guaranteed protection from exposure to unhealthy air indoors." Feldman also calls the air going through the buildings "chemical soup. Of course, there are many other ways and many other chemicals that can cause Sick Building Syndrome. I’m limiting it simply because of space. Let us talk for a minute about formaldehyde. Another name for it is embalming fluid. It’s a preservative. I tell you, it is everywhere, from foods to drinks to walls, just everywhere. Remember, I said in the previous paragraph that it is carcinogenic. That means cancer causing. Amazingly, there are only two beers that I have found that does not have formaldehyde in it. What about pesticides that are known cancer causing agents? Sure, the US government bans them from being used on produce in the US, but we still import produce from other countries that those harmful pesticides. I ask why? People who are affected by MCS usually have experienced toxic amounts of substances through repeated exposure to synthetic chemicals. Remember, in part one of this article, I stated that you can have either a repeated exposure to small amounts or a one time exposure to a large amount. Notice I said synthetic chemicals. Man- made products are causing this to happen to us. We are doing this to ourselves. It’s the odor of the chemical for the most part that causes the damage. This includes many of the common household products that are in our cabinets now. From what I can gather, MCS affects about 16% of the population. Now that is a huge percentage of the population. Why though only those 16%. No one can say for certain. Obviously, the 16% have some sort of vulnerability, maybe some genetic predisposition. That is the conclusion that I come to. When MCS occurs through the odor of the chemical, it effects the oldfactory (nasal) system. Now remember from the first article that MCS is a multi-system condition. This being because it affects the Central Nervous System, the brain if you will. The odor then goes from the nose to the different parts of the brain. That is how it reaches the multiple systems. Not a good thing! Again, we are doing this to ourselves. When MCS occurs through the ingestion of the chemical for an example in our food, it is treated like any other chemical that enters our body and causes a reaction. What about food? Much of our food is chemically treated so that it is more profitable to the companies. Ingesting these foods and chemicals can cause a myriad of health concerns. Most of these pesticides are neurotoxic which means that they adversely effect the Central Nervous System of the insects that are targeted to kill. An individual who is vulnerable will have an adverse reaction. Also, just as a side bar, simply because a fruit or vegetable is classified as organic doesn’t mean it doesn’t have pesticides. Some organic growers spray the soil not the plant itself and call it organic. You have to be an investigator. There is much discussion about Phorphyrin Metabolism problems as they relate to MCS. From the Porphyria Educational Services Bulletin, Vol. 1 No. 39, Sept 22, 1999. To paraphrase, it states" that chemicals do indeed play a large part in triggering acute attacks of porphyria in today’s modern environmentally unsafe world. However, porphyria as a disease on it’s own was around long before chemicals played a roll in the increase of the disease. The well known MCS writer, Cynthia Wilson who spent her life in research and writing on our toxic world, found her research that there are 3,700 toxins that are directly linked to porphyria. As you can see, the chemical toxicity causes the porpyria, the porpyria doesn’t cause the chemical toxicity. Researchers at the University of Washington and The University of California at Los Angeles in August of 1998 as reported in the Journal Nature, began mapping out how differently people react to the same pesticides and chemicals. They found through their research that one person can be 100 times as sensitive to a particular chemical than another person. "A little bit of difference in metabolism can make a lot of difference in response," says Clem Furlone, a professor in the UW’s Department of Environmental Health. They concluded that the difference in people stem from an enzyme in the body. This enzyme apparently is a contributing factor for vascular disease and also regulates resistance to some pesticides. "Someone with low levels of this enzyme would be very susceptible to those pesticides," says Furlong. This is an explanation of why individuals are sensitive only to some pesticides. Logical deduction would lead on to believe that MCS sufferers have deficiencies in different kinds of enzymes that make them susceptible to a particular one or group of chemicals. In 1998, a research group lead by Diane M Shih found that mice lacking an enzyme called serum paraoxonase are susceptible to organophosphate toxicity. I believe we are getting there people. Only closed minds will prevent us from understanding more and more about this disease as time goes on My husband who was a chiropractic, homeopathic and acupuncture physician prior to his disability keeps pointing out to me while writing this article is that in his opinion, the MCS patient is hypersensitized. What does he mean by that? In this case, hypersensitized means that you can and or will react to almost anything. Does that mean that your toxicity is to everything? No! My husband says that because of the toxicity to the one or 2 chemicals, your system is now sensitive to any and every chemical. In my husband’s opinion, the Multiple Chemical Sensitivity comes from being hypersensitive to multiple chemicals because of the toxic overload by one or two chemicals to your system. My husband goes on to describe two types of unfavorable reactions in the body. A histamine reaction which we all know as allergies that are treated for the most part by antihistamines, and a kinin reaction. Histamine reactions are caused by pollens, dust, mites, etc. Kinin reactions are cause by chemicals and such. It is the kinin release that caused the hypersensitivity. Because of this, my husband believes that finding the chemical that cause the initial kinin release is imperative.
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