Enzymes vs. chemicals

What is an enzyme?
The decay of wood and leaves within a forest is caused by the production of enzymes from bacteria. Alcohol fermentation is probably the oldest known enzyme reaction. Common day industrial uses of enzymes cover a variety of applications from clarifying apple juice and aiding in digestion to improving the quality of baked goods and improving overall health.

Without enzymes, no biological activity would occur. Enzymes are too small to be seen, even through powerful microscopes. They move your muscles, stimulate your nerves, make your heart beat, keep you breathing and allow you to think and respond. Our bodies cannot exist without enzymes.

What is Chlorine?
Residing at number 17 on the Periodic Table of the Elements, chlorine is a toxic, yellow-green gas that's one of today's most heavily used chemical agents.

As consumers, we're most familiar with chlorine's role as a bleaching agent for paper and as an ingredient in household cleaners.

Chlorine is so common that it is sold in nearly every supermarket in this country. However, the evidence scientists have gathered seems to tell us that it shouldn't be. Far from being America's household helper and industry's best chemical friend, chlorine is something we really should stop using.

The widespread use of chlorine is causing far-flung and extremely serious risks to our health and the health of the environment.

Dioxin: Excerpt from Chlorine: The Everywhere Element
After one of the most extensive studies ever conducted, the EPA issued a 9 volume report in September of 1994 which established dioxin as more toxic than previously supposed. Over 100 scientists contributed to the findings which caused many to see dioxin as an “environmental hormone” which disrupts natural bodily functions in birds, fish, and mammals. New evidence continues to reveal the increasing role that dioxin plays in our society-wide epidemic of cancer, endometriosis, impaired child development and a variety of male reproductive problems, including falling sperm counts, rising rates of testicular and prostate cancer and deformed genitalia in the offspring of exposed adults.

Excerpts from “The Negative Health Effects of Chlorine” by Joseph G. Hattersley, published in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, 2000; 15; 89-95; Abrahm Hoffer, MD, Ph.D., Editor.
Highly reactive chlorine is one of the industrial waste products profitably disposed of using people as garbage cans. To function, we require free radicals and oxysterols. The immune system employs free radicals to kill cells that its white blood cells can't handle, and to initiate cell suicides known as apoptosis. Moderate quantities of oxysterols, such as cholesterol, are also necessary for protecting our health. However, too many free radicals and oxysterols can damage arteries and initiate cancer, along with other negative health effects.

Chlorine destroys protective acidophilus in water, which nourishes and cooperates with a number of immunity strengthening “friendly” organisms lining the colon, where about 60%v of our immune cells operate. Chlorine also combines with organic impurities in water to create trihalomethanes (THMs), or chloramines such as carcinogenic chloroform and carbon tetrachloride.

Chlorinated water alters and destroys unsaturated essential fatty acids (EFAs) , which build our brains and central nervous systems. Hypochlorite is another compound created when Chlorine mixes with water- it oxidizes EFAs and turns them rancid.

Chlorine reacts in swimming pools with organic matter such as skin cells, mucus, sweat, blood, feces and urine to form chloramines. After an hour of swimming in a chlorinated pool, chloroform concentrations in the swimmer's blood ranged from 100 to 1093 ppb. The risk to chloroform may be between 70 and 240 times greater for indoor pools than outdoor pools, but one inhales chloroform even in a warm shower or lounging in a bath. Warm water causes the skin to be more absorptive, so you will inhale more chlorine in a 10 minute shower (average of 2.7 ppb) than drinking 10 glasses of the same water.

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