So the only way to get toxins in your body is if you present the opportunity for it to happen. Sometimes it’s controlled behavior, and others not.
There are four ways substances can enter your body:
1) Ingestion, which basically means eating or putting something in your mouth. It doesn’t have to be swallowed for it to be considered ingested necessarily. The salivary glands produced in your mouth have enzymes that start to break down the food while it’s in your mouth. Meanwhile, signals get sent to your brain that food is coming, which tells your stomach to prepare. There are many blood vessels in the mouth, especially under the tongue that almost immediately start the absorption process, sending minerals and vitamins, and whatever else is in the food that can be easily absorbed, into the blood stream. That’s why you may have seen sublingual vitamin drops or tablets. “Sublingual” means “under the tongue.” Medicine often begins absorption before it’s even swallowed.
2) Inhalation is another way substances enter the body. Not just through the nose, but also the mouth. The tiny hairs in our noses help filter debris and foreign microorganisms from entering our body. The mouth, on other the other hand, has no filter. Often times, we can control what we put in our mouths; but what we breathe through the mouth cannot always be controlled. For example, stinky cheap perfume from your office coworker. (If you follow my articles, you should know that perfume is made of 95% petrochemicals that is toxic to our bodies even if we breathe it.) You also can’t control the people smoking outside your office building, again toxins that enter the body.
3) Injection is often overlooked as a method of getting toxins into the body. This isn’t only through needles from medicine or vitamin injections, but this is also from bites (animals, kids), cuts and scratches. For example, I love animals and often take Biscuit to the dog park. I know my dog is clean because I’m one of the good pet owners, but you don’t always know the other dogs at the park. One day I got bit by one beastly Kujo, and went and got a tetanus shot. Why is the shot necessary? Well, one, any disease that dog may have that shot will help protect me from contracting anything, but also because there are hundreds of bacterial organisms in the mouths of animals (AND PEOPLE) that are on the very tip of teeth, and a bite injects that bacteria below the skin. Injection can also come from bites from nasty kids or from insects.
4) Skin absorption is the more commonly recognized way of substances entering the body. While not all chemicals or ingredients get absorbed, many do and those that are not removed through normal digestion and elimination, can build up over time in the body causing toxic reactions to our immune, adrenal and reproductive systems.
Stay tuned for more excerpts from my presentation “READ THE LABEL: Understanding Natural and Organic Skin Care.”
Written by Dahlia Kelada, from her presentation READ THE LABEL: Understanding Natural & Organic Skin Care © 2013 All Rights Reserved