Environmental Medicine

We are all affected by our environment and sometimes we are not aware of how it is affecting us. Our environment includes indoor and outdoor air quality, water sources, food sources, pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and fungi like mold, radiation, chemicals, and heavy metals just to name a few.

Environmental medicine can be explained as the interactions between risk factors in the environment and human health. Environmental medicine focuses on the causes of disease through an environmental standpoint . The environment creates exposures to many different physical, biological, and chemical agents. Environmental exposures may be general such as to UV-radiation from the sun or specific such as to toxic mushrooms and dioxin. 

Current concerns in environmental medicine include, but are by no means limited to, the environmental contributions to cancer, ozone depletion and its effects on health, air pollution, airborne allergens, water pollution, contaminated sites, nuclear accidents, radon, mercury and cadmium toxicity to the kidney, and food poisoning.

According to recent estimates about 5 to 10% of disease adjusted life years (DALY) lost are due to environmental causes. By far the most important factor is fine particulate matter pollution in urban air. Environmental physicians focus on recognizing, treating and preventing illnesses caused by exposure to biological and chemical triggers in air, food and water.

All information presented is for your educational purposes only. This is by no means given as medical advice. It is important to seek advice from your physician or other qualified health practitioner regarding any medical concerns you may have, prior to the implementation and use of diet, lifestyle change, supplements, or any other health related protocols.