Toxins are natural hazards for our health and had it not been constant natural intoxications to our bodies, human beings would live for more than 200 years.

It’s actually toxins that make our body to grow old or get tired with age. Toxins are unavoidable and come from various substances or compounds that human beings cannot avoid. Most people are aware of the man made or artificial chemicals as toxins. Indeed, most of the man made chemicals are toxic to our lives and actually act aggressively once they get into our body system.

Natural toxins exist in two ways. There are environmental and metabolic toxins. Some of the man made chemicals are environmental toxins.

Environmental toxins include pesticides, herbicides, carbon monoxide, volatile organic compounds among many others. They involve chemicals and pollutants that human beings get exposed to through the air, water, and some food materials.

The most naturally occurring toxins are metabolic toxins found in the food materials we eat. Feeding is our daily need but some of the foods we eat contain natural toxins.

This has been made worse in the western world where agriculture is artificially manipulated with chemical substances that are absorbed directly by plants.

This partly explains high incidence or prevalence of chronic illnesses such as cancer among others in the western world than in Africa.

 Metabolic toxins are produced by each of the functional body cells as the usual or body metabolic processes occur.

Metabolic toxins can also be produced by micro-organisms that act on incompletely digested food in the digestive tract. This is where people who like roasted meat, maize among others should always pay attention.

Based on the complexity of our metabolism process, one should expect cellular toxic emissions or production on a regular basis.

Cells use nutrients from the food we eat and production of energy results into formation of waste products that turn to be toxic for the body.

Fortunately, the body is able to eliminate toxins as soon as they are formed and this enables cellular function to carry on but there are circumstances where there is delayed or decreased removal of toxins from the body. Such circumstances affect cellular function and leads to a state known as toxicosis.

Usually health challenges begin when a group of cells experience toxicosis, and this is when people begin to experience health challenges.

Some of the diseases caused by metabolic intoxications include hepatitis, thyroiditis, visual problems, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes mellitus, respiratory illness, kidney disease, liver dysfunction, autoimmune illness, hormonal imbalances, skin conditions, and most types of cancer, unexplained body weaknesses among many others.

There are various routes of toxins elimination from the body through the kidneys, liver, colon, skin, lungs, and mucus linings in your nose and ears.

It is important to understand that elimination of toxins out of your body occur through natural processes.  Every time you urinate, defecate, experience an inside-out reaction with your skin, exhale, cough, sneeze, the body eliminates toxins from the body system.

 The body is able to eliminate harmful toxins. But sometimes toxins become problematic to the health system if they accumulate beyond control to cause cellular dysfunction.

One of the internal regulatory mechanisms is that once exposure to toxins increases, the body increases its elimination output.

If this mechanism fails, the body can store toxins in fat tissues that surround our internal organs and muscle fibres.

One of the ways to help your body carry out detoxification is actually to give your body adequate emotional rest and physical exercise so as to carry out its detoxification mechanisms adequately.

Another natural way is to limit the kind of food materials taken through various feeding mechanisms. I think this is where people who organize parties or jubilations with highly flied or prepared food materials need to pay attention. 

Dr Joseph Kamugisha is a resident oncologist in Jerusalem, Israel