The TDOS Syndrome® may be:
A Perfect Health Storm
Maybe you’ve seen or heard about the movie The Perfect Storm, featuring George Clooney. This film title is based on real weather terminology related to an event that occurred in 1991 along the East Coast of the United States. A ridge of high pressure extended from the Appalachian Mountains, northeastward to Greenland. This cold air and high pressure over eastern Canada blocked the warm moist air from the south. This interaction spawned an “extra-tropical low” and an associated massive ocean-centered cyclone that gathered up the warm, humid remnants of Hurricane Grace. With the cold and dry high-pressure system meeting the warm, damp, low pressure, the destructive force of the perfect storm magnified to tragic proportions. It caused death and massive damage, all without even making landfall.
Now, imagine what it might look like if four such storm centers converged at the same time. The synergy (all four interacting together) of that convergence would be devastating, to an extent unparalleled in recorded history. That type of synergy is occurring right now, in the realm of human health, with four co-factors having combined to wreak havoc on an unsuspecting public. The TDOS Syndrome is the biggest—and most under the radar—super-storm in the history of human health and wellness. And almost no one is aware of it, or doing anything about it. The rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and more are increasing exponentially due to the effects of the TDOS Syndrome. It even affects our very ability to procreate.
In this book we’ll take a careful look at each of the four co-factors—toxicity, nutritional deficiency, overweight, and stress—and explain why they are harmful both individually and collectively. We hope to empower you with the information you need to make better health choices in the future.
[a] A Dangerous Synergy
Synergy is one of the governing principles of nature. We see it or feel it at work everywhere in our lives, yet we rarely recognize the phenomenon. Think of it as two or more of anything—chemicals, ingredients, climate patterns, and so on—interacting to produce effects much more powerful than any one of them can generate on its own.
There are both positive and negative (toxic) synergies. For example, positive synergy is when the various nutrients (minerals, phytochemicals, and fiber) in an apple interact once ingested to promote a range of health benefits, such as protection from cardiovascular disease. Negative, or toxic, synergies can include various pesticides combining in the human body to kill brain cells, resulting in neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
A toxin that is present in extremely minute quantities, in the parts per billion, can be harmless on its own when a human being is exposed to it. Yet, when this toxin interacts with other seemingly harmless toxins in relatively small amounts, together they can magnify their effects and become a roaring beast of health disruption and destruction.
For our purposes in this book, synergy refers to both the interactions between the four co-factors of TDOS (Toxins, Deficiency in nutrients, Over-weight, and Stress), as well as interactions within each of the co-factors, such as the countless toxic chemical synergies that trigger health problems.
[b] Our Health Devastation by the Numbers
To begin comprehending the visible manifestations of how the TDOS Syndrome synergy is wreaking havoc, we only need to begin with some of the alarming health casualty figures:
Cancer: In 1990 one in fifteen US women was diagnosed with breast cancer. It is now one in eight. If this trend continues, the American Cancer Society estimates that one in three women will develop breast cancer in the next decade.
For all types of cancer, a man’s lifetime chance of developing an invasive cancer is one in two; for women, the lifetime chance is one in three. Over the past decade, diagnosed cases of these cancers increased substantially: kidney, liver, thyroid, esophageal, testicular, melanoma. Leukemia, brain cancer, and childhood cancers in general increased more than 20 percent since the 1970s.2
One major big reason given for the explosion in cancer cases was identified in 2010 by the President’s Cancer Panel: human absorption of chemical toxins in the environment.
Cardiovascular Disease: This is an entire category of circulatory problems, including heart attacks, strokes, and the circulatory disease itself known as cardiovascular disease. Between 1990 and 2013 global deaths due to this disease increased by 41 percent, reaching nearly 18 million people annually.
Obesity and Overweight: By comparing the body mass index of nearly 20 million adult men and women from nearly 200 countries, compiled from 1975 to 2014, British scientists determined in 2016 that obesity in men has tripled and obesity in women has more than doubled over three decades. The highest obesity rates were in the US and China.
Diabetes: Diagnosed cases of diabetes worldwide nearly quadrupled from 1980 to 2014, according to the World Health Organization, affecting more than 400 million people. That means nearly 10 percent of all adults on the planet now have this deadly killer disease of high blood sugar levels, which are primarily the type 2, rather than type 1 diabetes.
Alzheimer’s Disease: This neurological degeneration affects more than five million Americans each year. Based on current case growth, by the year 2050 the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to triple, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. During the past decade alone, deaths from this disease rose by 71 percent, which translates into more than 700,000 deaths a year.
Parkinson’s Disease: While in 2005 there were 4.1 million people with this neurological disease, by the year 2040 that number will more than double, reported the Parkinson’s Disease Foundation. It is theorized that genetic predisposition “loads the gun,” and that environmental influences “pull the trigger” to bring about the disease. Those environmental influences have been identified as including exposure to a variety of pesticides, solvents such as TCE, and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls).
Infertility and Pregnancy Difficulties: Over three decades the numbers of couples reporting infertility, or difficulty in conceiving and maintaining a pregnancy, increased dramatically. Since 1982 at least 40 percent more women have had these problems, while difficulties in younger women, ages 18 to 25, nearly doubled in the same period.
Asthma: In only fifteen years, from 1980 to 1995, diagnosed cases of asthma doubled. By 2009 an estimated one in twelve people in the US, mostly young people, had asthma and its symptoms.10
Learning and Developmental Disabilities: If we add together attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and autism, along with diagnosed learning and developmental disabilities, one in six US children are affected. Autism diagnoses alone have seen a 300 percent increase in the US since 1997.
Fatty Liver Disease: Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease affects nearly 10 percent of all children in the US, according to the American Liver Foundation. Perhaps most alarming is that a few decades ago this disease had never before been seen in children. It is caused by genetic background and environmental triggers that combine to create fat accumulation in the liver.
Stress (Chronic): Though comparative annual statistics are unavailable, the most recent surveys of US adults have found that 77 percent report “regularly experiencing physical symptoms caused by stress,” and 73 percent report “regularly experiencing psychological symptoms caused by stress.” Half of everyone surveyed also reported that their stress levels increased over the previous five years.
The good news is that there are now two peer-reviewed studies that show there is a real solution to the TDOS Syndrome’s four horsemen of the apocalypse’s impact on our health. The studies published in the Nutrition Journal and the Obesity Journal were done by Dr. Paul Arciero (regarded as one of the top nutritional researchers in the world for over 35 years) and his team. They proved that there is real hope based on their scientific finding of a revolutionary approach call the R2m protocol. They showed dramatic reductions not just in weight but in visceral fat, inflammation and metabolic factors.
