The “loading theory” of toxicity, according to its formulator, Serafina Corsello, M.D., director of the Corsello Centers for Nutritional Complementary Medicine in New York City and Huntington, New York, states that no single factor causes a disease. Rather, the cumulative load of multiple poisons creates an illness like insomnia.
This is compounded of layers of toxicity, malnutrition, and dysfunction. People don’t get a disease—they develop it, Dr. Corsello explains. Over time, multiple factors weigh down the immune system and eventually throw it out of balance. Among the typical stressors there are toxic metals (mercury leaching from fillings, aluminum), petrochemical residues (pesticides and fertilizers), chemical pollutants (in the water and air), electromagnetic pollution (power lines), undiagnosed food allergies, nutritional deficiencies, biochemical imbalances, insufficient exercise, and emotional stress (family, job, and personal).
All these factors impinge on the immune system’s natural vitality to resist the downhill slide into illness, says Dr. Corsello. “These factors interact and compound each other to break down the immune system. In fact, these stressors may be accumulating for years, over a lifetime, before they send the system into disregulation.”
Increasingly, toxicity is being identified as the predisposing factor in a long list of acute and chronic illnesses, including sleep disorders, environmental illness and chronic fatigue, degenerative diseases, and cancer. “The current level of chemicals in the food and water supply and the indoor and outdoor environment has lowered our threshold of resistance to disease and has altered our body’s metabolism, causing enzyme dysfunction, nutritional deficiencies, and hormonal imbalances,” says Marshall Mandell, M.D., a pioneer of environmental medicine based in Norwalk, Connecticut.
Detoxifying the body is another important component in promoting the health of the immune system and addressing other factors that may be contributing to your sleep disorder. As our environment and food are increasingly saturated with chemicals, the body’s mechanisms for elimination of toxins cannot keep up with the chemical deluge. The constant circulation of toxins in the body taxes the immune system, which must continually strive to destroy them. It is advisable to take measures to remove the toxins stored in the body.
