Before it's too late for your Child

It is a confronting truth to realise that simply by having been brought into today’s modern world, your child may be at risk of developing a neurological defect. As a result of industrialisation, numerous harmful chemicals have been leaked into our environment, posing a major threat to people’s – especially children’s – health and development. Hazardous industrial chemicals have the ability to dramatically affect children’s quality of life, giving rise to serious health conditions such as impaired learning ability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), impaired neural development and even Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. While many harmful industrial chemicals have long since been banned from further use, a considerable amount of toxins remain present in our surroundings, in the food we eat, the water we drink and even within our own bodies. Some of these chemicals take hundreds, or even thousands of years to decompose. We cannot afford to wait patiently. The time has never been more urgent than the present to become proactive in minimising this significant threat to your children’s health.

Hazardous Chemical Compounds

Dioxins and Furans
Incinerators, coal and oil power stations, chemical and metal processing factories, open burning and accidental fires are all potential sources of highly toxic chemicals called dioxins and furans. Dioxins and furans are accidentally produced when other chlorinated compounds are incompletely burned. Due to their rife production, they have entered many world’s food and water sources, as well as infiltrating animal feeds and fertiliser, meaning humans often ingest considerable amounts of dioxins as a result of their meat and vegetable intake.

Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs)
Until the 1970’s, the electricity and mining industries used large quantities of chemicals known as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The ability of PCBs to withstand incredible amounts of heat prompted their widespread use as heat transfer fluids in capacitators, transformers and electrical switching gear. They were also commonly used in everyday appliances such as refrigerators, as well as in paints and varnishes, lubricants, sealing materials, flame retardants and in strip lights and motorway lights. Although the active use of PCBs has been largely banned around the world, the presence of these chemicals in working machinery, and in our environment, is still of major concern. Indeed, high levels of PCBs have been found in Scottish salmon and fish farmed elsewhere, highlighting the importance of PCBs as a continuing contamination issue [1].

Brominated compounds
Televisions, computers, automotive machinery, furniture, videos and textiles all contain brominated flame retardant chemicals in order to prevent fires from starting or spreading rapidly. Many brominated compounds have properties similar to PCBs and dioxins, eliciting concern that these contaminants may act synergistically to mediate additive negative effects on people’s health and the environment.
 

Serious Impacts of Chemical Compounds

Currently, high levels of brominated compounds are known to exert neurotoxic effects on children in particular, significantly impeding learning behaviour and development [2, 3]. Further investigation has pointed toward negative effects on visual recognition in babies exposed to higher levels of PCBs in the womb [4], with later tests showing that at 4 years of age these children performed less well in short-term verbal memory tests predictive of learning ability [5]. Children of primary school age who have been exposed to PCBs throughout their childhood are also more prone to showing reduced cognitive development and delays in motor development [6].

Alarmingly, both PCBs and dioxins are known to have sex hormone-disrupting properties [7], which threaten to impair the ability of those exposed to PCBs in childhood to reproduce in later life. The fact that the impaired function of sex hormones caused by PCBs may cause “feminisation” among young male and female children is equally disturbing [7].

Further, studies [8] have shown a dose-dependent inverse association between PCB levels in children and the ability to prevent inappropriate behavioural responses – a common predictor for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It has also been suggested that perinatal and childhood exposure to chemicals such as PCBs, dioxins and brominated compounds may be linked to the development of the brain conditions Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome [9-11].
 

What can you do???

The presence of hazardous chemicals in our environment is not a problem easily fixed. While many contaminants that were once commonly used such as DDT are now primarily obsolete, their presence continues to affect our health as they resist decomposition and are continually recycled through our water, waste, soil and food. Taking care when choosing the foods your family eats and the water they drink is essential. But when it comes to ensuring the proper brain, neural and learning development of your children, supplementation with the right ingredients to promote healthy growth and development is a must. There is an urgency when it comes to supporting your child’s development: the nutrition we receive during childhood has a significant influence on our health and development throughout life, meaning it has to be taken seriously from the outset.