How to remove persistent organic pollutants from the body?

A Strong Dose-Response Relation Between Serum Concentrations of Persistent Organic Pollutants and Diabetes

http://care.diabetesjournals.org/content/29/7/1638.full

OBJECTIVE—Low-level exposure to some persistent organic pollutants (POPs) has recently become a focus because of their possible link with the risk of diabetes.

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—Cross-sectional associations of the serum concentrations of POPs with diabetes prevalence were investigated in 2,016 adult participants in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey 1999–2002. Six POPs (2,2′,4,4′,5,5′-hexachlorobiphenyl, 1,2,3,4,6,7,8-heptachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9-octachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, oxychlordane, p,p′-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, and trans-nonachlor) were selected, because they were detectable in ≥80% of participants.

RESULTS—Compared with subjects with serum concentrations below the limit of detection, after adjustment for age, sex, race and ethnicity, poverty income ratio, BMI, and waist circumference, diabetes prevalence was strongly positively associated with lipid-adjusted serum concentrations of all six POPs. When the participants were classified according to the sum of category numbers of the six POPs, adjusted odds ratios were 1.0, 14.0, 14.7, 38.3, and 37.7 (P for trend < 0.001). The association was consistent in stratified analyses and stronger in younger participants, Mexican Americans, and obese individuals.

CONCLUSIONS—There were striking dose-response relations between serum concentrations of six selected POPs and the prevalence of diabetes. The strong graded association could offer a compelling challenge to future epidemiologic and toxicological research.




How do we get rid of these things?

That's astounding. The group with highest concentrations of POPS in the blood had a 40X increased risk of diabetes compared to the group with the lowest concentrations.

Insulin resistance, fatty liver, etc. That's what our problems are all about.

Another one on rats

http://ehp03.niehs.nih.gov/article/info:doi/10.1289/ehp.0901321

Background: The incidence of the insulin resistance syndrome has increased at an alarming rate worldwide, creating a serious challenge to public health care in the 21st century. Recently, epidemiological studies have associated the prevalence of type 2 diabetes with elevated body burdens of persistent organic pollutants (POPs). However, experimental evidence demonstrating a causal link between POPs and the development of insulin resistance is lacking.

Objective: We investigated whether exposure to POPs contributes to insulin resistance and metabolic disorders.

Methods: Sprague-Dawley rats were exposed for 28 days to lipophilic POPs through the consumption of a high-fat diet containing either refined or crude fish oil obtained from farmed Atlantic salmon. In addition, differentiated adipocytes were exposed to several POP mixtures that mimicked the relative abundance of organic pollutants present in crude salmon oil. We measured body weight, whole-body insulin sensitivity, POP accumulation, lipid and glucose homeostasis, and gene expression and we performed microarray analysis.

Results: Adult male rats exposed to crude, but not refined, salmon oil developed insulin resistance, abdominal obesity, and hepatosteatosis. The contribution of POPs to insulin resistance was confirmed in cultured adipocytes where POPs, especially organochlorine pesticides, led to robust inhibition of insulin action. Moreover, POPs induced down-regulation of insulin-induced gene-1 (Insig-1) and Lpin1, two master regulators of lipid homeostasis.

Conclusion: Our findings provide evidence that exposure to POPs commonly present in food chains leads to insulin resistance and associated metabolic disorders.

Thank you

My Question is how to lower Persistent Organic Pollutants in our body and how to protect the animals we eat from it ?

medohat wrote:Thank you

My Question is how to lower Persistent Organic Pollutants in our body and how to protect the animals we eat from it ?

Good question, that's exactly what I'd like to know. The more I read, the more it seems like everything comes back to the liver. I think this is the rationale behind some of the supplements in CausticSymmetry's: increase liver detoxification. Often this involves trying to boost glutathione (potent detoxification enzyme).

Here's another nice abstract.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/er6v618g7h531872/

Can persistent organic pollutants explain the association between serum γ-glutamyltransferase and type 2 diabetes?

Decrease body-fat! Body-fat sucks up toxins (out of circulation, which is good) but then stores them in the fat-cells (which is bad because they are then stuck in the body, unable to be excreted). Also studies done on monkeys show that when fed poison along with a low-fiber-diet compared to a high-fiber-diet, the low-fiber-monkeys died, while the high-fiber-monkeys, survived, but were very ill however. The fiber acts like a sponge, which not only binds excess hormones, fat and cholesterol, but also toxins, parasites, and other harmful-substances.

misterE, although its definitely a good idea to get/stay lean, I don't know if its as simple as that.

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/200376/Diets-How-they-can-raise-cancer-risk

DIETING can raise the risk of cancer, diabetes and other fatal diseases by releasing toxins into the body, alarming research has found.

(BTW, if anyone can find the actual study, please post it)

Also, in the first study I posted in this thread, for people with the lowest levels of circulating POPs, obesity was not associated with diabetes.

This leads me to believe that some people have stronger detoxification pathways than others, and its those with poor detox pathways that tend towards metabolic syndrome (and subsequent weight gain).

Also, in the first study I posted in this thread, for people with the lowest levels of circulating POPs, obesity was not associated with diabetes.

This leads me to believe that some people have stronger detoxification pathways than others, and its those with poor detox pathways that tend towards metabolic syndrome (and subsequent weight gain).

crincrin- what I found disturbing when I read this study was this

no association between obesity and diabetes among subjects with nondetectable levels of POPs, despite the substantial numbers at risk in each BMI category.

Obesisty may come with its own set of problems but is obesity the culprit in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, auto-immune disease? We have contaminated our food supply from the bottom the of the food chain all the way to our plates. Have we been barking up the wrong tree when it comes to low fat high/fat/low carb/high carb diets when the real culprit is the persistent organic pesticides all along?[i]

tonyj wrote:
Obesisty may come with its own set of problems but is obesity the culprit in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, auto-immune disease? We have contaminated our food supply from the bottom the of the food chain all the way to our plates. Have we been barking up the wrong tree when it comes to low fat high/fat/low carb/high carb diets when the real culprit is the persistent organic pesticides all along?

Exactly what I'm thinking, at least for certain subsets of the population.

I don't want to get carried away, but it's possible to come up with all kinds of theories based on this idea.

-Why the explosion of metabolic syndrome in the past few decades? Increased environmental toxins.

-Why do studies show saturated fat to be bad? Saturated fat sources are generally from animals. Food from animals is subject to bioaccumulation and thus higher concentrations of POPs when compared to food from plants.

-Why did the Japanese experience an increase in MPB (and other diseases of metabolism) post-WWII? Industrialization brought with it the widespread use of organic compounds and industrial toxins.

-Why the increased incidence of autism? Autism is associated with inhibited detox pathways.

-Non-alcohol fatty liver disease is a disease that was characterized only 30 years ago. Where did this disease pop up from? You get the idea.

tonyj wrote:

Obesisty may come with its own set of problems but is obesity the culprit in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, auto-immune disease? We have contaminated our food supply from the bottom the of the food chain all the way to our plates. Have we been barking up the wrong tree when it comes to low fat high/fat/low carb/high carb diets when the real culprit is the persistent organic pesticides all along?

The higher up the food chain you go the more and more concentrated the contaminates get. Also in regards to the xenoestrogens in plastics and pesticides... xenoestrogens are nowhere near as powerful as the natural estrogen you make in your fat-cells like estradiol or 16-hydroxyestrone, so xenoestrogens do need to be avoided (as much as possible) but real-estrogens (the kind that you make from the conversion of free-testosterone by aromatase) are much more deadly and powerful than any xenoestrogen, nearly thousands of times more potent! High-fat diets (especially animal-fat) increase real-estrogens by enlarging the fat-cells, which contains aromatase.

crincrin wrote:Good question, that's exactly what I'd like to know. The more I read, the more it seems like everything comes back to the liver. I think this is the rationale behind some of the supplements in CausticSymmetry's: increase liver detoxification. Often this involves trying to boost glutathione (potent detoxification enzyme).

This is why I'm considering lipo-spheric glutathione. I know there are other (and cheaper) methods but I haven't noticed much difference on them and I feel like my body may need the direct approach. Does anyone have any experience with it?

diffuse wrote:
This is why I'm considering lipo-spheric glutathione. I know there are other (and cheaper) methods but I haven't noticed much difference on them and I feel like my body may need the direct approach. Does anyone have any experience with it?

Some things to consider.

What's special about their particular formulation of glutathione (GSH) that it will be absorbed by the cell, and do they have any studies to show that it works? Normally, GSH doesn't survive the stomach. Then, for cells to transfer GSH from the extracellular space into the cell, they need to break it down into its constituent parts anyway, absorb the parts, and then resynthesize glutathione. Synthesis is limited by cysteine concentrations. That's why N-AcetylCysteine (NAC) is used as a supplement to raise glutathione.

They charge $80/(450mg * 30servings) = ~$6/gram GSH.
You can buy NAC at $10/(600mg * 50 servings) = ~$.34/gram NAC. Remember that cysteine is only one of the three amino acids needed for GSH. 1 gram of NAC yields about 2 grams of GSH. So $.34/gram NAC becomes $.17/gram GSH. You're paying 34X markup with that product.

IV NAC is known to convert into glutathione. Its used in emergency rooms for acetominophen (tylenol) overdose. Oral NAC supplementation has been shown to have a number of benefits, so even if bioavailability is low, we know that some of it is still getting absorbed and most likely converted to GSH. What supplements, brands, and doses have you used to raise GSH?

Adult male rats exposed to crude, but not refined, salmon oil developed insulin resistance, abdominal obesity, and hepatosteatosis.

fish oil? what?

teacup wrote:

Adult male rats exposed to crude, but not refined, salmon oil developed insulin resistance, abdominal obesity, and hepatosteatosis.

fish oil? what?

POPs accumulate in the lipid fraction of fish, and fish consumption represents a source of POP exposure to humans (Dougherty et al. 2000; Hites et al. 2004; Schafer and Kegley 2002). Therefore, certain European countries have dietary recommendations to limit the consumption of fatty fish per week (Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition 2004). On the other hand, n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids present in fish oil have a wide range of beneficial effects (Jump 2002), including protection against high-fat (HF) diet–​induced insulin resistance (Storlien et al. 1987). Accordingly, we fed rats an HF diet containing either crude (HFC) or refined (HFR) fish oil obtained from farmed Atlantic salmon and investigated the metabolic impacts of POPs and their ability to interfere with n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Animals were fed a standard diet (chow; 17% fat-derived calories, 3.4 kcal/g) or an HF diet (65% fat-derived calories, 5.5 kcal/g) for 28 days (Lavigne et al. 2001). Two additional HF diets were made by substituting corn oil (20% wt/wt) with either crude or refined salmon oil. Crude salmon oil was obtained by heating the rest raw material of farmed Atlantic salmon to 92°C and separating oil from water and solid material. Refined salmon oil was obtained by bleaching, carbon filtering, and deodorizing the crude oil.

POPs are presumably degraded in the refined fish oil. It's not very clear, but I think the idea here is that the rats eating a HFC or HFR diet are getting a significant portion of their calories from fish oil. Fish oil has toxins, but in small amounts the pros probably outweigh the cons.