William J. Rea, md, facs, faaem, will be a keynote speaker at the upcoming Environmental Health Symposium to be held March 4–6, 2016, in San Diego, California. Dr Rea is a thoracic, cardiovascular, and general surgeon with an added interest in the environmental aspects of health and disease. As the founder of the Environmental Health Center–Dallas (EHC–D), he is currently director of the highly specialized Dallas-based medical facility. He was awarded the Jonathan Forman Gold Medal Award in 1987, the Herbert J. Rinkle Award in 1993, and the 1998 Service Award, all by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine; and the Distinguished Pioneers in Alternative Medicine Award by the Foundation for the Advancement of Innovative Medicine Education Fund in 1994. He has authored 7 medical textbooks, as well as coauthoring a consumer title focused on the effects of home environment on health. Dr Rea has published more than 150 research papers related to the topics of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery as well as environmental medicine.
Dr Rea currently serves on the board and is president of the American Environmental Health Foundation and previously served on the board and as president of the American Academy of Environmental Medicine. He has served on the Science Advisory Board for the US Environmental Protection Agency; on the Research Committee for the American Academy of Otolaryngic Allergy; on the Committee on Aspects of Cardiovascular, Endocrine and Autoimmune Diseases of the American College of Allergists; on the Committee on Immunotoxicology for the Office of Technology Assessment; and on the panel on Chemical Sensitivity of the National Academy of Sciences.
Dr Rea has treated more than 30 000 patients with chemical sensitivity and chronic degenerative disease. He has helped create numerous environmental units throughout the world including Mexico, Brazil, Japan, China, Australia, England, Spain, Italy, and Germany, where the principles of environmental medicine are used and taught. He has trained hundreds of physicians on the facts and principles of environmental medicine.
Integrative Medicine: A Clinician’s Journal (IMCJ): When you speak at the Environmental Health Symposium, what will your topic be?
Dr Rea: It is going to be the endocrinology of environmental aspects of health. Of course, the big ones are pesticides, solvents, natural gas, mold toxins, artificial implants, and electromagnetic fields, or EMFs. There are now 101 pesticides that have been listed as proven or possible endocrine disruptors by the Pesticide Action Network. Most of the endocrine-disrupting pesticides minimize estrogen function in that they will change the receptors and convert steroids to active estrogen or expressions of that. Some of these are organochlorine pesticides, organophosphates, carbamates, and pyrethroid pesticides.
IMCJ: You are saying that these pesticides not only compete for the same receptors, but actually have a transformative effect?
Dr Rea: Yes, that is exactly true. There are many outcomes that you did not expect from these “incidental” pesticides. We have seen over 5000 patients who are damaged by pesticide in the last 2 years and many more in the last 30 years, of course.
IMCJ: It sounds like your talk at the conference is going to be on quite a wide range of different exposures.
Dr Rea: That is correct. It is going to include the exposures I listed previously and, of course, the common herbicide exposures: glyphosate and atrazine. We are getting these in food and in water and in air, depending on what part of the country you are from.
IMCJ: How so?
Dr Rea: In the Midwest, corn, wheat, and all the grains have herbicides in them; the fruits in other parts of the country are loaded with the insecticides; and a lot of people spray pyrethroids in the house or they are used on certain foods, and so on. You’re getting a whole host of toxics in the air, food, and water.
Furthermore, many homes are heated with natural gas and there are other solvents in homes. It is also quite interesting that some of the artificial implants can cause some of these problems. Additionally, mold toxins—the mycotoxins—are loaded with endocrine disruptors.
IMCJ: What are some of the primary exposures that you find when you are talking about mycotoxins? What are the sources for those?
Dr Rea: Mycotoxins: trichothecenes, fusarium, and ochratoxin. Now they can measure gliotoxin, so those 4 are common. As you probably know, there is an epidemic of moldy houses and buildings because of water leaks. We are constantly seeing these people who have got buildings with mold toxins in them—black molds.
IMCJ: When somebody presents with a problem that you suspect to be a black mold issue, how do you identify that?
Dr Rea: There are 3 ways, actually. First, if you can see mold in a house, we culture it. A lot of times you can see where there is a leak and black mold is present. Second, you can now measure mycotoxins in the air. And third, we have provocative skin tests, which can actually reproduce the symptoms with a little, 7-by-7 wheel. It takes a lot of the questions out of diagnosis: “Do they or don’t they?” If you can reproduce their symptoms, it is a neat tool.
IMCJ: How do you address their symptoms?
Dr Rea: So, the question is: What should we do? Number 1, of course, you neutralize. The first thing is get rid of the mold patch from the house or the building they work in. A lot of times, scrubbing it, cleaning it, and treating with peroxide will help it. Sometimes you have to remove carpets or rugs, and then occasionally it pays to get a bulldozer because there is no way you can get it cleaned up, it is so toxic. Number 2 is good nutrition: Vitamin C, glutathione, multiminerals, and multivitamins. Number 3 is treat the mold sensitivity with injections and wash, wash, wash the clothes over and over and wash the areas that the molds are in. Nutrition, of course, is the big one.
IMCJ: You mentioned that glutathione is one of the important aspects nutritionally, so are mycotoxins handled through some of the same detoxification pathways that some of the persistent organic pollutants are?
Dr Rea: Some of them are handled in a similar fashion— and not just through glutathione. Vitamin C is probably the main one and then the B-complex vitamins seem to help some patients. Then there are multiminerals, things like magnesium that will often help these people.
IMCJ: When you talk about vitamin C, is this oral administration when dealing with mycotoxins or is IV administration required?
Dr Rea: Oral and IV. A lot of times, we will give them 15 to 25 grams IV. Orally, we might give them 5000 milligrams a day. Glutathione dosages are anywhere from 800 to 1200 milligrams, and then even lipoic acid will help some of these people.
IMCJ: You are having success with oral glutathione?
Dr Rea: Yes, whatever works. You can do liposomal or you can do just regular. One thing we have learned about all this is that it is individual— some people can tolerate one thing and they cannot tolerate another. Sometimes you have to hunt around until you get the right formula. We do not know any 2 people who look just alike or with physiology that is just alike. Everybody wants a formula to make it easy. It isn’t. Everything we do is individualized.
IMCJ: Once you hit the right combination, do you get results that are immediately measureable?
Dr Rea: You get a lot of rapid results once you hit the right combination. Sometimes it takes a month or two, or sometimes it will take half a year. Usually, we get them somewhat better right away. Sometimes just getting them out of the house or getting them out of their work environment will help them.
IMCJ: You also mentioned, in your original list, that EMFs have become a problem.
Dr Rea: Yes. That is becoming the explored, unexplored field. The body runs on EMF, so it is not surprising that these things that disturb EMF can cause problems. Frequencies that will help some people will not help others or will make them worse. For example, we have seen the high-power lines, aerial antennas, or smart meters cause problems.
IMCJ: What are some of the more common manifestations you are tracing back to EMF?
Dr Rea: In those people who have endocrine disruption, they manifest just like any other endocrine tumor or endocrine entity that is poured in, like steroids, or so on. Of course, there is always weakness and fatigue.
IMCJ: If a lot of these environmental issues are manifesting in similar ways, how do you sort out which is which?
Dr Rea: At our facility, we have control of the environment where it is less polluted. Then you can challenge them and find out what is causing the problem. For EMFs, you can either do it with frequency generators or you can do with intradermal neutralization for the hormones.
IMCJ: That will help you determine whether a patient’s symptoms represent an EMF problem or an organic pesticide problem or a mycotoxin exposure?
Dr Rea: That is correct—or a combination, because a lot of these are combinations.
IMCJ: Do you often observe a particular acute exposure being simply the event that put the patient’s body over the top?
Dr Rea: Yes. 80% of the people we see who have EMF have some kind of other chemical sensitivity.
IMCJ: Does having other chronic diseases tend to make people more sensitive to chemical, energetic, or biological contaminants in their vicinity?
Dr Rea: Yes, they do. Even injuries can change people’s status. We see patients with head injuries have problems.
IMCJ: Is there a different protocol you follow for a combination injury?
Dr Rea: No, they’re the same.
IMCJ: How does a chronic disease affect the treatment protocol?
Dr Rea: You have to find out, if you can, the etiology of their other disease. A lot of times it is unknown. Their practitioner just said, “Well, you’ve got lupus,” or, “You’ve got arthritis,” or, “You’ve got a heart irregularity.” What caused that and can you neutralize it or treat it?
IMCJ: Do you find that some of these exposures are actually driving the other pathologies?
Dr Rea: Many times, yes—because most of medicine does not look for a cause. If it is not caused by a bacteria or virus, it does not seem to exist.
IMCJ: So you are saying that for some of these chronic disease combinations, once the environmental toxins can be identified and desensitized in some way, then you may end up with remission?
Dr Rea: That is correct.
IMCJ: What more will you cover at your presentation?
Dr Rea: The objectives are to point out the widespread use of endocrine disruptors in society and to understand how they are acquired by humans and then find ways to negate and stop it. Then, I also have a case report on a little girl who had type 1 diabetes. We treated her with a good home environment, cleaning up the house, and good diet and immune manipulation and she lost her need for insulin. We have a lot of type 2s who have done well, but that is not quite as astounding because we know that is a little easier to treat. Then, we had a group of men, 334 of them, who were studied for infertility and were found to have pyrethroid pesticides associated with an increase in insulin or PON1 changes in the enzymes and aldehydes of organophosphate patients. There are a broad range of these androgen-endocrine-like pesticides that will cause problems.
Footnotes
Facilitated by the Environmental Health Symposium, March 4–6, 2016, in San Diego, California.