Cause and effect
Cause and effect is a difficult relationship to ascertain when it comes to the industrial and agricultural chemicals we are exposed to every day. First of all, the doses may be small, but can have cumulative effects in the individual organisms. Effects can be multifactorial, in other words, caused by an accumulation of carcinogenic substances in one's body and a persistent chemical assault upon the tissues, immune system, and DNA. To validate the effects of various chemical ingredients, transgenerational studies are often required, which are difficult to conduct and decipher.
In the industrial world, despite the fact that health care and research stand on guard, too many people are developing symptoms, etiology of which is unknown. We call these symptoms autoimmune reactions and disorders. Currently, medical profession is helpless in treating these disorders that result (most often) from the oversensitization of the immune system, that starts to attack our own tissues and cause persistent chronic inflammatory responses and pain. At the moment, the treatment is purely palliative and is meant to control the inflammation with steroids (immune system suppressants) and manage the symptoms. While managing the symptoms becomes a life-long ordeal, the cause of them is not eradicated, and the person becomes dependent on the anti-inflammatory medications and pain-killers.
Continuous research is being conducted world-wide on the interactions of human immune system with the environmental, agricultural, and industrial chemicals that our bodies are exposed to on a daily basis. It is hard to pin point which chemical or which combination of chemicals may be causing such an upsurge of autoimmune disorders and even cancer prevalence in our nation; however, based on the knowledge of human biochemistry and physiology, one can deduce that some of these chemicals are likely to be contributing factors to the onset of a diseased state or carcinogenesis.
The question remains: To which extent are these chemicals contributing to the development of cancer or autoimmune disorders? And if this contribution is physiologically undeniable, is it worth to be suspicious of these chemicals and try to reduce their body burden?