Why There Isn’t A Cure For MCS/TILT
(From The Medical Establishment)
Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) Syndrome, or as it has been relabeled “toxicant-induced loss of tolerance (TILT),” has been the topic of much debate in the medical community for decades. Even the definition of MCS is as much up for debate as are its causes.
In the introduction to their book, Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes, authors Nicholas A. Ashford and Claudia S. Miller provide five lucid reasons why conventional medicine is unable to provide a cure for those suffering MCS/TILT:
Diverse Medical Specialties: “Patients who believe they are chemically sensitive are caught up in an acrimonious cross fire among several different groups of physicians―traditional allergists; clinical ecologists [environmental physicians]; and in some cases, ear, nose and throat specialists; occupational physicians; and others.”
Diverging Definitions, Diagnosis, and Treatment: “This acrimony is fueled by different medical paradigms of the definition, diagnosis, and treatment of disease or symptoms associated with exposure to low levels of chemicals in food and water, the outdoor environment, the work environment, indoor air, and consumer products.”
Legal Controversy: “Legal conflicts further complicate the associated scientific and medical differences as attempts by ‘chemically sensitive’ persons to obtain workers’ compensation, disability payments, and damage awards from employers and from the producers and users of chemical products result in an adversary system that draws medical practitioners unwillingly into the center of the conflict.”
Cost Controls: “Further exacerbating the situation are the insurance industry and employers, who seek to reduce costs for medical care; their involvement continues the volatile history of economic tugs-of-war characteristic of health care in general.”
Unprepared Clinicians: “Chemically sensitive patients seek medical care and consideration from traditional medical practitioners, many of whom are ill-equipped or reluctant to provide the painstaking and time-consuming attention that is required for this condition.”
Glossed Over
I contend there are several disregarded factors hindering an effective therapy, including:
- overlooking the essence of the contamination: lipophilic xenobiotics (defined later),
- ignoring body burden,
- missing xenobiotic-induced mitochondrial dysfunction,
- whitewashing detoxification
The book, based on a report commissioned by the New Jersey Department of Health that won the World Health Organization’s Macedo Award, discusses how chemical exposures may cause fatigue, memory impairment, headaches, mood changes, breathing difficulties, digestive problems, and a host of chronic unexplained illnesses including chronic fatigue syndrome, Gulf War syndrome, and sick building syndrome. It further describes a process called “adaptation” as a mechanism in understanding MCS symptoms, use of environmental units to desensitize and then reintroduce “incitants” to better identify, or diagnose, MCS, and a host of features that were thought to be invaluable to health professionals.
However, the reader is left with the sad reality that the medical establishment will never come together on an understanding of MCS causation, a general diagnostic tool, or a covered therapy―much less a working definition.
But, Chemical Exposures does introduce sauna detoxification as the only therapy with promise for victims of our toxic, industrialized civilization.
Interestingly, the only reference to the role adipose (fat) tissues play in Chemical Exposures put forth by the authors is in describing the results of a sauna detox study on seven Michigan males exposed to PBB (polybrominated biphenyl) a toxic fire retardant that accidentally had been substituted for a nutritional supplement in farm animals in 1973. This excerpt sums up the extent of their discussion on the role of fat-stored toxicants, “Following the detoxification regimen, fat biopsies from these individuals showed significant reductions in 16 chemicals (averaging 21.3 percent reduction), including PBB. Four months later, after no further treatment, the same subjects nonetheless had additional decreases in chemical fat stores: the average decrease in the 16 chemicals studied was 42.4 percent. Schnare of the EPA et al. (1984) hypothesized that this continued decline might suggest recovery of the body’s own ability to eliminate toxic substances.”
The authors then go on to provide a very brief overview of the sauna detoxification regimen, and offer another case study that, on the surface, calls into question the effectiveness of this detoxification therapy.
The study in question involved 14 firemen exposed to PCBs (polychlorinated bisphenols) in a transformer room fire at the Louisiana State University Shreveport campus. Chief complaints included impaired short-term memory, interpretation of designs, spatial relationship integration, decision-making, and coordination. Following a 2- to 3-week sauna detoxification, cognitive function and memory improved significantly, but other measures did not improve.
How this study fails to represent the true effectiveness of sauna detoxification requires a bit more background into the therapy and the role of my father, Dr. David E. Root.
Backstory
Dr. Root served 20 years in the United States Air Force as a physician, research pilot, and Flight Surgeon prior to opening his Occupational Medicine practice in Sacramento. While stationed at Beale A.F.B. as the Flight Surgeon for the SR-71 squadron in the early ‘70s, he became increasingly concerned with the level of contamination from fuels, oils, and solvents encountered by the flight crews. Nothing in the medical literature provided any treatment protocols for the symptoms presented―symptoms familiar to those afflicted with MCS, such as fatigue, headache, nausea, brain fog, lack of coordination, and ataxia (clumsiness).
It wasn’t until after he retired from service in 1980 and went into private practice that my father discovered a therapy able to treat chemically exposed patients. This radical, yet holistic program had been developed for drug addiction rehabilitation; however, my father realized that it acted upon fat-stored drug residues, thereby eliminating the source of stimulation to the dopamine receptors in the brain responsible for cravings. By repurposing this sauna detoxification program for his chemically injured patients, he was able to restore their quality of life and return these workers back to full duty. In other words, patients eliminated the offending chemicals and heavy metals through their sweat, and this reduced body burden dramatically improved their symptomology.
In the late ‘80s, my father and his team were asked by the town leaders of Semič, Slovenia, to treat a group of capacitor workers who were no longer able to perform their duties. One female worker was so ill that she slept 20 hours per day, and her breasts regularly discharged 50 cc of blue/green material. This project quickly developed into a field study, and fat biopsies were taken prior to and post detoxification. The published results of this study have been cited in many other peer-reviewed papers and a medical text due to the shocking revelations it contained. It was the first study that conclusively showed that the fat tissues store chemicals at levels 200 times (or more) over the levels revealed in blood serum tests. A colleague, Dr. George Yu of the George Washington University Medical Center, furthered this research with findings of DDT metabolite fat concentrations at 1,000 times greater than found in blood serum levels.
Controversy immediately followed Dr. Root’s unorthodox treatment program when in 1986 four state physicians challenged his use of the “Hubbard Method” of detoxification for occupational injuries. While my father had pioneered a truly efficacious therapy for chemical exposure injuries, sauna detoxification was originally devised by the founder of the Church of Scientology, L. Ron Hubbard.
In a 2007 article published in the Sacramento News & Review, Dr. Root says,
“If you look my name up on the Internet, you would think I was a scientology buff. I am an elder in the Presbyterian Church. I am not a scientologist. We have never tried to proselytize for the Church of Scientology. It’s just the fact that, by gosh, Hubbard put this thing together. He deserves recognition for that. … We have no ties to the Church of Scientology.”
Responding to the California Medical Board, my father presented a 50-page research paper, including 23 pages of cited references that detailed the science behind sauna detoxification. This report satisfied the Board of Quality Assurance, and the probe concluded without any restrictions placed on my father’s continued administration of the Hubbard Protocol.
Unfortunately, the stigma of Scientology did not sit well with Shreveport’s city officials, so the program was prematurely halted before any of the contaminated firefighters could complete their 30 day treatment programs. The published case study in Chemical Exposures, therefore, cannot be fairly evaluated, and does a major disservice to those seeking relief from MCS.
In the following years, my father and his team treated thousands of patients both here and abroad, and many peer-reviewed research papers were published. A few notable cases include:
1983-1985 – Dr. Root, a Vietnam veteran himself, personally treated several Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange. Excepted from an interview with Dr. George Yu by Dr. Joseph Mercola from May, 2014, Dr. Yu states,
“...one of the things that Dr. Root had a lot of experience with was looking at Agent Orange in Vietnam War veterans. He used a system that’s not new—he used niacin as a way to mobilize fat and also to free up the toxic chemicals locked up in lipophilic tissues [including] fat in the brain. By using a graduated niacin dose, you cause a rebound lipolysis, which I suspect is why it’s so effective.”
2003-2007 – The New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Project treated over 2,200 First Responders, volunteers, and residents from Ground Zero after 9/11. This program was fully funded by donations, and services were provided at no cost to the participants. The study results influenced successive projects, and were featured in the news and on popular podcasts such as Dr. Daniel Amen’s The Brain Warrior’s Way.
2007-2010 – The Utah Meth Cops Project funded by the State of Utah under supervision of Attorney General Mark Shurtleff treated 68 police officers exposed to solvents used in the manufacture of methamphetamine during meth lab raids. The project and AG Mark Shurtleff were featured in a TV documentary, Insider Exclusive, in 2010.
2010-2015 – A Detoxification Intervention for Gulf War Illness: A Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial, funded by government grant, studied 32 veterans with Gulf War Illness. This project was awarded after several presentations to the CDC and the Presidential Special Oversight Board for Department of Defense Investigations of Gulf War Chemical and Biological Incidents by COL David E. Root, USAF (Ret.) in the late ‘90s. Study results were recently published that provide conclusive positive outcomes.
Can't See The Forest For The Trees
Researchers examine MCS case symptomology in an attempt to identify the organ(s) involved; relying on objective, reproducible testing data. Using the scientific method of controls and cohorts, they seek answers in genetic variations or cellular damage inflicted via transient contact with odoriferous chemicals believing that DNA or germ theory of infection are somehow involved.
Ironically, by the mere mention of sauna detoxification, the answer to the nature of the condition lays within the pages of their book!
Sauna detoxification reduces the body burden of bioaccumulated lipophilic xenobiotics (fat-attracted heavy metals and chemicals foreign to the body).
These xenobiotics, or toxicants, are comprised of commercial chemicals, compounds, and heavy metals that have entered the body through the air we breathe, the food and water we consume, the products we put onto or into our bodies, and even the pharmaceuticals we’re prescribed. Most, if not all, of these toxicants are unable to be sufficiently processed by the natural detoxification pathways (which have not yet adapted to these industrial-era insults), so they become sequestered in adipose tissues, bone, and even the brain.
Many of these xenobiotics have extremely long half-lives; therefore, the body burden of these bioaccumulated toxicants increases daily, causing long-lasting health consequences. When these fat-solvent heavy metals and synthetic chemicals breach fat cell membranes, they disrupt enzyme and protein activity required by cell mitochondria to produce ATP energy. The resulting mitochondrial dysfunction is linked to inflammatory, autoimmune, endocrine, and neurological disorders, as well as weight control issues and obesity.
The MCS patient is at the tipping point where the body can no longer tolerate even microscopic particles of ‘incitants’ known to trigger their symptom flare-ups.
This is the vacuum analogy where the dustbin is full and the vacuum is rendered inoperable.
Sauna detoxification essentially empties the dustbin and restores quality of life and health.
How Does The Protocol Work?
Briefly, sauna detoxification exploits a unique action called ‘rebound lipolysis’ induced by niacin (Vitamin B3) which liberates fat-stored xenobiotics. Low-impact aerobic exercise increases blood circulation to deliver these mobilized toxins to the dermis layers where heat stress from sauna excretes the toxic substances via sebaceous sweat (lipid-based sebum from the sebaceous glands).
Xenobiotics that permeate the GI tract are adsorbed by binders such as activated charcoal and micronized zeolite for elimination with the feces.
Patients are kept well hydrated and administered electrolytes, polyunsaturated oils, and replenished with nutrients in a structured manner.
Detox As A Lifestyle!
For many, one 30-day program is not sufficient to reach their desired state; therefore, detox should be viewed as a lifestyle. For example, hundreds of thousands are injected with a gadolinium-based contrast agent prior to an MRI. This highly toxic rare earth metal has been shown to retain in the body and cause life-threating conditions or, at minimum, severe bone pain. Gadolinium is so pernicious and pervasive that some have required 3-4 detox programs throughout the year in order to find relief.
Dr. Root has treated many MCS patients using the Hubbard Method, and many improvements to the Protocol have been made since he parted ways with the Scientologists in 2013. These advancements include:
- Reduced Time Commitment: The Hubbard Method required 4-5 hours per day. Now a daily session is completed in just 2 hours.
- More Efficient: We replaced inefficient dry, or traditional, saunas with far infrared technology.
- Improved Efficacy: Our Detoxination® Protocol incorporates binders, such as activated charcoal and micronized zeolite.
Sauna detoxification is the most studied and published method to reduce heavy metals and man-made chemicals from the human body. It has transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands around the world by restoring their quality of life and health.
This powerful protocol is best administered at our PureBeing Center in Sacramento, California, by our trained Detoxinicians as an out-patient treatment program. In addition to sauna detoxification, patients are evaluated for chiropractic care, laser treatments, Bemer therapy, microcurrent and massage therapy.
For the MCS patient who cannot tolerate travel, we produced training tools and sourced the best products for Self-Directed Detoxination at home. To learn more about this amazing Protocol, look through our website and join our Facebook Group.
Daniel Root is the leading expert, practitioner, and trainer of Detoxination®. He is the son of the world renowned expert in human detoxification of heavy metals, synthetic/man-made chemicals, and radiation, Dr. David E. Root.
Dan and his father authored Sauna Detoxification Using Niacin that sells thousands of copies worldwide.
He was co-host of a weekly radio program, The Get Detoxinated! Show on KSAC 105.5 FM.
Dan is the CEO of Detoxination Wellness Centers, a dba of Sabre Hawk, LLC.
He has been an entrepreneur in the Information Technology field since 1989, and is the adoptive father of 3 biological sisters.
Dan served on the Board of Sierra Adoption Services for 6 years. He lives with his wife, Suzy, and their youngest daughter in Sacramento, California.
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