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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> Sorry James, you will have to prove this to me..

I'm not sure it is a thing that can be proved, nor disproved, but .....


Consider a small IC engine such as a lawn mower or rototiller and you find 
that for whatever reason there is an ounce or so of water in the gas tank 
every 
time you go to use the machine.  If that water gets into the intake siphon, 
it 
can choke out the engine and/or corrode the engine parts.  To get rid of that 
periodic bit of water, you can add a few ounces of ethanol to the gas tank.  
The ethanol goes into solution with the water, transports it through the 
atomizer, and when the ethanol is burned in the cylinder, the water vapor is 
exhausted along with the water vapor which results from the combustion of the 
gasoline and ethanol.   That is, water vapor in the exhaust system is no 
problem, 
it's what happens in normal operation of the engine.

If you realized that a bit of water was going to be in the gas tank 
routinely, you could simpy add a few ounces of EverClear to the tank with 
each fill of 
gas and whether there is a little water in the gas tank makes no difference 
whatever.  A few ounces of ethanol burns goes through the fuels sytem, burns 
in 
the cylinder, and is exhausted with no problem.  If there was a little water 
there, it is eliminated by means of this "channel".  If there were none, the 
engine would operate exactly the same and little odds which.

BUT if you had more water than the amount of ethanol added to your fuel could 
bind, some of the water would be left in the tank and over time would 
accumulate.  It could corrode parts of the tank and engine and eventually 
would 
"kill" the engine since so much water would be drawn through the fuel system, 
it 
would choke off combustion.

Until you swamp out this system, the presence of a little water is pretty 
much the same as the presence of no water at all.

View this, for the sake of my argument, as a paradigm of the functioning 
human system.  

When toxins appear in the human system, there is a mechanism for transporting 
them to some site or the other, usually the liver, where they are 
enzymatically rendered to a form in which they can be eliminated.  Then they 
are 
delivered outside the body through urine, sweat, breath, etc.

There is a view that every bit of lead or arsenic (for examples) that you 
have ever ingested are retained in your body and their presence and effect 
cumulate.  The evidence is against this.  Although there is no known use for 
lead, 
arsenic is a micro nutrient.  When you have too much of it, it is delivered 
to 
the liver where it is bound in a form that can be eliminated.  Lead goes 
through a similar process, as does amost anything you ingest unless it is so 
artificially contrived that human chemistry has had no need to develop a 
chemical 
channel to deal with it.

Do you recall all those stats and stories about lead poisoning and how such a 
large percentage of the cases were from very poor households?  The obvious 
conclusion was that such children were more likely to be poorly supervised 
and 
living in old, crumbling housing where the children could snack on paint 
chips 
and such.

However other chemist view it differently.  To the human chemistry lead looks 
a lot like calcium (though why is not readily apparent to me).  The new 
thinking (and several studies and experiments points in this direction) is 
that 
lead intake is a function of calcium deficiency.  If the body has sufficient 
dietary calcium, it uses the calcium it needs and elimintes the rest.  The 
nearly 
look alike calcium (lead) is not prefered and is eliminted as well, at least 
for the most part.  But if the diet is deficient in calcium and the body has 
need for a molecule resembling it, it will accept the lead and attempt to use 
it 
like calcium with toxic results.

Likewise much of the asenic we ingest is (or ends up) in the form of 
arsenate.  To the human chemistry it looks a lot like phosphate.  Evidence 
now is that 
diets poor in phosphates (or in which phosphorus absorbtion is thwarted) is 
where we find the most acute arsenic poisoning.  Elsewise aresante is bound 
in 
the liver and elimianted through the urine.

That doesn't actually "prove" anything, of course.  But the notion that every 
bit of toxic heavy metals you have ever ingested are still there causing 
mayhem is increasingly lacking in evidence and the argument for a really good 
diet 
is emphasized all the more.   </HTML>