Most people are aware that excessive
consumption of alcohol is very dangerous for an individual. Alcohol consumption can have a whole array
of effects on your whole body. Your
liver however, is one of the organs it affects the most negatively. Alcohol is considered a toxin to the
liver. It is important to note that
males and females break down alcohol in different ways in part. Men have a
higher concentration of dehydrogenase, an enzyme that helps o break down alcohol. So women are genetically more prone to
experiencing the harmful effects of alcohol.
Cirrhosis of the liver is the scaring of the liver tissue, and it is a
pretty easy concept to understand. When
you get a cut on your skin, your body regenerates cells and often forms some
sort of scare tissue. Your liver works
very much the same way. When cells are
damaged or die the liver attempts to regenerate them. This is what causes the scaring of the liver
also known as cirrhosis. Just like a
scare on your body, the scars to the liver may fade.
If the excessive alcohol use is relatively
short term, the liver can reverse almost all damage. However, if the damage to the liver is long
term, effects may not be reversible. It
is very important your liver is kept healthy, it is involved in almost 500
hundred functions in the body. This
includes anything from cleansing you body of toxins, to helping regulate your
immune system. Most humans can actually
live a normal healthy life with only 10 percent of there liver. However this is
dangerous in some ways because a person may not see any signs of harm until the
majority of there liver is destroyed.
With similar diseases to the liver like Fatty Liver Disease, the person
can experience an almost endless spell of related side effects.
This includes things like feeling bloated,
low energy, and even pain in your back and shoulders. Most medical experts say that moderate
alcohol consumption is perfectly fine for your liver. This is usually considered around 10-12
drinks a week, spread out through out.
Allowing your body time to process the alcohol is very important. For example, 10 drinks a week may not be
harmful, but 10 drinks within a few hours will have increasing harmful
effects. This is because your body is
not allowed sufficient time to break the chemical down. Also staying hydrated and having food in your
stomach helps with breaking down the alcohol.
Maybe not so surprisingly, up to 55% of heavy drinkers have some form of
cirrhosis of the liver. In females
specifically, it is even more than that.
This can have a compounding effect once it does develop because it makes
the liver more and more ineffective.
Meaning there is less and less amount of good tissue to try and break
down the toxins. So a person may
continue to drink the same amount of alcohol, but actually be damaging the
liver more and more severely each time.
Radon is a huge issue in
today’s modern homes. Why is it so
dangerous? Well for starters it is a
colorless and odorless gas. It is safe
to say, a large portion of home owners do not even know about radon, or its
many dangers to you and your family.
Surprising almost every home in the United States has radon in at least
some concentration. What is most surprising,
is radon is the number two leading cause of lung cancer in the United States
and Canada. It is only surpassed by
smoking. Meaning if you do not smoke,
this is your number one cause of potential lung cancer. Experts recommend to detect this gas in your
home, put a detector in for at least 90 days.
There is no way of knowing if your home contains radon without actually
testing. Your house may have a very low
radon level, while the house just next-door may have a very high level. There are however certain landscapes that
have a higher than average radon level.
Also homes with basements are more prone to increased radon levels. This is because the source of radon is the
soil/bedrock. Now how would one go about
correcting this? Well you would need to
install and exhaust fan. This will
actually pull air out from under your house or basement and exhaust it. It is a fairly easy install and almost always
remediates the problem. Radon concentrations
are usually built up under the concrete slab/foundation of a home. The point of exhaust is important because the
gas needs to be expelled at a point that will not make re-entrainment an issue. Meaning the particles find their way back
into the home somehow. It is ok to have
some radon in the atmosphere. In fact,
it is literally everywhere in the world.
The danger is centered on the fact that your house is a closed
structure. Meaning it has not way to escape. This is when you see harmful concentrations, especially
if you have a basement. Some suggest
simply opening up your windows, which seems overly simple but actually works. However
this is not as effective as a proper exhaust fast but better than nothing. Although in rather extreme ends of the
climate spectrum, both hot and cold, that is not very ideal. Properly sealing the foundation of your home
will also help prevent radon exposure.
But why is radon so dangerous anyway.
Well due to the type of radiation it is, it usually doesn’t penetrate
the body. However when your are
breathing it in it is a much different story.
Think of this as if you are ingesting it. The part of the body it comes in contact with
mainly is the lungs. Because this is a
very small particle it makes its way deep into your respiratory cavity. This is a good representation of how the
smaller the particle is, the more dangerous.
Once in the lung it comes in contact with the cells. We know that this, just like any other source
of radiation can cause cancers and abnormalities. This is a slow process due to the concentrations,
but you are in your home quiet often.
This means you are getting a steady does all the time, which is why it
is so dangerous.
Dermal absorption is one of
the main ways chemicals enter our body.
In pharmacology, we use dermal absorption as a pathway to give
medications. Dermal absorption is useful
in administering medication because doses can be received gradually. This method is nothing new, for a very long
time we have been using the skin as a portal of entry into the body. But dermal absorption can also be very
detrimental to our health. In an
occupational setting we see this as a hazard.
In any industrial process there is some form of chemicals used. These chemicals may or may not come in contact
with the skin on a regular basis.
Examples of chemicals you put on your skin on a daily basis include
things like self care products. This
means things like make-up, shampoos, conditioner, fragrances, and more. We don’t think about these chemicals moving
through our skin when we put these products on, but they do. In fact, some researchers are now linking a
spike in breast cancer to deodorants and other products. The skin is a much more passive barrier than
one may think. Chemicals like nail
polish remover (acetone) can be applied to the skin, enter the blood stream,
and are traced on the breath in literally seconds. This is an especially big concern in
industrial settings were a persons may have be using acetone for extended periods
of time. Labor-intensive processes like
cleaning parts by hand make it virtually impossible to not come in contact with
acetone. So how do chemicals enter such
a solid barrier like the skin? Well take
a closer look and it’s not as solid as you may think. Chemicals can pass in between cells and enter
the blood stream. Many factors
contribute to the wiliness of the skin to let a chemical pass. This includes temperature, level of moisture,
health and thickness of the skin, etc.
Dermal absorption is very dangerous when talking about toxins because it
is not something people tend to think about when they get something on their
skin. Once that chemical seeps through
your skin it spreads all over your body via blood stream. Certain heavy metals in liquid form can cause
neurological damage just from being dripped on the skin. This is why it is always important to
consider the type of PPE (personnel protective equipment) when you know you
will be working with a hazardous chemical.
Many chemicals require very specific PPE because they can pass through
common PPE like nitrite gloves. This is
why we have information available like SDSs.
Overall, in the occupational setting dermal absorption is often over
looked. However it is extremely
prevalent in many industries and trades.
The first step to preventing this is to see if it is possible to engineer
out the hazard. But either not be done
or it is too costly to do so in many scenarios.
At this point is when you need to consider the proper PPE. As previously stated, all this preventive
measures information should be found on the SDS for that chemical provided by
the company that manufactures it.
The word “cancer” alone can
strike fear into many people. To many of
us, we associate cancer with death and sickness. But what is cancer and how does it work? Well, a cancer cell is formed when the DNA
replication process is messed up. This
is referred to as a mutation. You may
not have cancer, but the cells in your body have probably “mutated” millions of
times without you knowing it. So why do
we not all have cancer? Well this is
because the cell has several series of fail-safes. Each cell has a sort of spell check, but for
DNA oppose to words. Your cells will
recognize a mutation in DNA and cut it out, replacing it with the correct
sequence. But even this does not work
100 percent of the time. If the cell recognizes
that the mutation cannot be fixed, it will attempt to kill itself. This is done to prevent the repeating of an
incorrect DNA sequence in future cells.
However, sometimes mutations make it past both of these fail-safes. When this happens it can result in a cancer
cell. This is bad because this incorrect
cell can reproduce. The cells can than
spread its wrong DNA to daughter cells.
These cells can also lack the ability to stop reproducing. Normal cells will pick up an external signal
to stop reproducing, or start reproducing.
Cancer cells just continually dived.
This is where your tumors would form.
And within these tumors, the cells can still mutate from each
other.
This means in one tumor there can
be numerous different types of cancer cells.
This is bad because different cells may than be immune to different
drugs used to treat them. This is one of the main challenges the medical
community faces when dealing with cancers.
So what causes this type of thing to happen? Why do we see such a rise in cancer and other
terminal illnesses recently? Well diet
is a big part of it. And so is your
environment and other ways chemicals enter your body. An example of this is smoking. Smoking cigarettes is known to lead to cancer
because the cigarette contains many carcinogens. A carcinogen is any substance capable of causing
cancer in any living tissue. Many times when
talking about carcinogens we are referring to some sort of chemical. But that is not always the case. For example, processed meat is now considered
a carcinogen. This is alarming because
many of us put that in our body every day.
Many of the pesticides on our food are considered carcinogens. Even a lot of the chemicals in our personnel
care products contain carcinogens. This
includes chemicals for fragrance in our shampoos and conditioners. Another massive source of carcinogen is
pollution. This can enter the body
through the air we breathe, water we drink, food we eat etc. Whether you like it or not, you probably come
in contact with a good amount of carcinogens a day in small doses. The FDA and other organizations are in the continuous
process of identifying as many carcinogens as they can for our safety.
