Mankind has literally mugged Mother Nature, and pollution poses one of the greatest risks to good health. It is ironic that the key to preventing the illnesses caused by pollution should be found in the plants produced by the very earth we have abused.

We may cringe under the threat of “weapons of mass destruction”, but the chemical warfare of pollution has already been unleashed upon the world. We are its victims. In today’s environment, each of us is in far greater danger of suffering or dying from illness than from nuclear war or bio-terrorism. Everyday – in our food, water, and air – we ingest increasing quantities of toxins that we cannot avoid. We then compound the danger of these pollutants by choosing inactive lifestyles and developing suicidal eating habits. Unless we combat the effects that pollution and flawed lifestyles have upon our bodies, debility, accelerated aging, and premature death will be the inevitable outcome. However grim these facts may appear, they accurately describe our current and foreseeable circumstances.

Most of us own a car. The majority of us know how to start it and turn it off. We do a little bit about maintenance such as getting gas, checking oil, adding washer fluids. Many understand the gauges on the dashboard and what they represent. But fewer of us know how to change the oil or the radiator fluid. It is the rare individual who reads the owner’s manual and gets into a love affair with his vehicle – cleaning, polishing, embellishing and using additives: top oil (to care for the valves), injector cleaner, gasoline, and engine oil enhancers. We all know that maintenance matters but only the truly conscientious change the oil every 3000 miles and use additives because, in the worst case scenario, when major problems arise and repair costs soar, most of us simply toss the car and buy another one.

Many people treat their bodies just as they do their cars. They know how to feed themselves, and relieve themselves, and do some minor maintenance. They know how to read the signals warning of fatigue, minor illness or injury, but anything more serious, and they have to run for help.

The secret of staying healthy is the same as avoiding problems with your car: excellent maintenance! First, we need to get knowledgeable about our health and the threats to it. Then, we need to take particularly good care of ourselves, like eating wisely, exercising, and using supplements, because unlike a trashed car, we can never turn in our body for a newer sleeker model. Each of us is stuck, for better or worse, with the body we have. But, even if we’ve been neglectful, we can still do a lot to improve our health and then maintain it. There’s a well known adage in the used car business: “It’s not the mileage, it’s the maintenance.” We have excellent examples, all around us, of how well our bodies can function, even in old age. Look at Jack LaLanne. In his seventies, this fitness guru towed a boatload of boy scouts across Long Beach harbor swimming with his legs shackled. Jack is a huge believer in vitamin supplements!

Our bodies are composed of trillions of cells. This battle to maintain good health is most easily understood by viewing the conflict at the cellular level. While the death, mutation, or destruction of even millions of cells may not be noticeable to the victim in whose body it is occurring, the damage is usually cumulative. Cancer doesn’t just “suddenly appear” any more than a heart attack or stroke occurs “out of the blue”. Before such deadly events manifest themselves, years of cellular warfare have been going on within the body. The only evidence of the struggle may have been a simple lack of energy or the loss of our sense of well-being. The event that kills us may be sudden, but the process that leads up to death certainly is not.

Imagine a magnificent southern mansion with Corinthian columns rising to impressive porticos. Inside there are sweeping rosewood staircases and gleaming pine floors. Yet deep within every bit of wood, moiling away, relentless and unseen, are billions of hungry termites. Until you fall through the floor or the mansion tumbles down about your ears – everything seems fine.

‘But I don’t understand it. I just saw him last week at the golf course and he looked great!’

The human body is a magnificent organism, the complexity of which rivals the intricacy of the universe. As complex as the body is, however, it is governed by a single cardinal directive called homeostasis. Simply stated, this means that all of the body’s biological processes are directed at maintaining a stable environment inside the body where literally no change in temperature, acidity of the blood, chemical balance, etc., can occur without being immediately corrected. Only when homeostasis is maintained is life and health maximally protected. Chemical pollutants and other threats such as invading microbes attack at the cellular or sub-cellular level to disturb homeostasis, and they often do it with no external signs or symptoms. Our immune system and other bodily defenses counteract such threats, but the effects of decades of dangerous lifestyles and the constant assault of pollutants eventually overwhelm their protective capacity unless we provide additional fortification.

Unlike termite damage to wood, which is irreversible, much of cellular damage is reversible. But the course of wisdom is preventive maintenance rather than repair after the fact of damage. The question is not whether to supplement but what to supplement with. Mangosteen is a proven supplement with potent antioxidant effects and numerous other benefits.

What are you waiting for?