What is Environmental Medicine?

What is Environmental Medicine?

Environmental Medicine seeks to understand and prevent the health issues that can occur when people encounter toxicants in their environment. Toxicants abound almost everywhere, from drinking water and food to the air we breathe and our clothes. 

With many toxicants still unidentified or poorly understood, the mission of Environmental Medicine is to advance the knowledge of these environmental interactions and to protect people from harm due to environmental toxicants. 

What Does Environmental Medicine Do?

Our modern world has so many toxicants that it becomes impossible to identify them all. Many culprits go unrecognized, unregulated, and enter our environmental network. All of us carry a burden of toxicants at all times, and an Environmental Medicine physician may recommend a series of detoxification treatments as well as environmental modifications to screen out some of the most harmful ones. 

Most people have daily exposure to not just one toxicant but possibly hundreds over the course of a day. This constant load of toxic material stresses the body’s protective mechanisms, weakening the immune system and straining the organs that break down and remove these toxicants from the body. 

Environmental Medicine aims to prevent this system overload by helping the person identify and avoid as many toxicants as possible while at the same time providing immune system and whole-body support to aid the struggling body in resisting toxicants. 

What Toxicants Are in My Environment?

A few of the most well-known toxicants include heavy metals such as lead and mercury, air pollutants such as volatile organic chemicals and nitrogen oxides, indoor air pollutants such as molds or chemicals, and pesticides and other toxic substances in the water and soil. Many others remain unidentified, and Environmental Medicine seeks to identify these toxicants and their potential for harm. 

How Can Environmental Medicine Help Me?

No one is immune to toxicants. The world overwhelms your body with them every day, leaving many people with chronic illness or just not feeling as well as they should. If you have concerns about your health, schedule a visit with Dr. Cutler, a specialist in Environmental Medicine, and find out how he can help improve your health and clean up your environment.