Made with ❤ with Elementor
Copyright 2018 Naturopathic Wellness
Saul Marcus, ND New York City Naturopathic Doctor
Menu
Homotoxicology & Holistic Health
What is Homotoxicology
Homotoxicology is a model of how the body responds to toxicity. Within this model symptoms of disease are understood as the the body’s attempt to heal itself from toxicity.
For example, imagine someone starts smoking. Their body responds by producing a cough.
Does this mean they suddenly have a coughing disease?
Imagine treating the patient with cough suppressing drugs. The drugs work and the patient stops coughing? Is the patient cured of the illness?
Obviously not. Suppressing the cough with drugs makes the patient feel better, it in reality it just traps more toxins insider his/her body. We can say the drugs suppressed detoxification and moved the disease deeper into the body.
The chart below shows the progression of increasingly worse or “deeper” diseases that are cause by smoking. We can see that supposedly different “diseases” represents a different strategy the body uses to deal with toxic assault.
Excretion Phase
Cough
Inflammation Phase
BronchitisDeposition Phase
“Smokers Lung”
Impregnation Phase
Chronic BronchitisDegeneration Phase
EmphysemaDedifferentiation Phase
Lung Cancer
The phases of Homotoxicolgy
Excretion
Symptoms are the body’s attempt to excrete toxins. Examples are sweating, production of mucous, increased urination, vomiting and diarrhea.
Inflammation
The body produces inflammation in order to more aggressively excrete toxins. Examples are dermatitis, impetigo, bronchitis, tonsillitis, nephritis, some forms of arthritis, and more.
Deposition
At this point, the body can not sufficiently mobilize toxins out of the body. It therefore deposits toxins in in the intracellular space between cells. Examples are be gallstones, swollen lymph nodes, eczema and nasal polyps. Think of diseases of cysts of polyps.Impregnation
Toxins are now being deposited inside of cells, disrupting cellular function. Disease which are examples of Impregnation include: rheumatoid arthritis, chronic bronchitis, coronary heart disease, and chronic infections.
Degeneration
This phase is characterized by destruction of the cell due to toxins. Examples are Alzheimer’s disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure.
Dedifferentiation
Neoplastic changes in the cells. Examples are cancers and tumors.
Homotoxicology In Practice
Homotoxicology shows how the different “diseases” a patient experiences over their life are related.
Imagine a child who gets frequent ear infections. Eventually he grows out of it. Later on as a teenager he gets digestive symptoms and diagnosed with irritable bowel syndrome. Finally, as a young adult he develops asthma.
In conventional medicine these three diseases each have nothing to do with each other. They require different specialists and medications. No one asks why he has them. It’s all blamed on genetics or bad luck.
Using homotoxicology we can see these different disease are in fact totally related.
Childhood ear infections are a common sign of food allergies . As we grow, the anatomy of the ear canal changes so ear infections are much less likely to happen. But, the immune system challenges that also contributed to them did not go away. They just stopped appearing as ear infections.
Dairy is one the largest triggers of ear infections in children. No one ever told our patient of his allergy. He grew up drinking milk and took antibiotics for all the infection. With each round of antibiotics more of his health gut flora was killed off.
No one was worried about this because the antibiotics made him feel better. However, it eventually caught up with him in the form of IBS.
Since he never changed his diet, the inflammation in his gut that is associated with IBS continued. It made him prone to developing more food allergies. So he to wheat and eggs. Eventually this caused even more inflammation and led to asthma.
Asthma is of course treated with steroids. The steroid work well to help him feel better. In the long term they suppress the immune system.
In this example we can see how suppressing symptoms with drugs just causes even worse symptoms in the long run. In holistic health we don’t fight symptoms. We understand they are the body’s way of telling us what is wrong. Give the body what it needs to be well and symptoms go away.