A branch of medicine concerned with maladaptive or allergic reactions to food, air and water. Formerly known as clinical ecology. As environmental medicine expert Dr Richard Mackarness said:

As pollution of our environment grows, so more and more of us are becoming ill in mysterious ways attributable to an inability to adapt and stay healthy in our increasingly contaminated chemical environment.

(Chemical Victims, Pan Books, 1980)

Practitioners of environmental medicine use nutritional detoxification techniques to improve the individual's ability to adapt to their environment, thus resulting in relief from many chronic conditions. Conditions which may respond to these techniques include Gulf War syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome, multiple allergy syndrome, chemical sensitivity, failure of children to thrive, and fixed-name diseases such as migraine, epilepsy, rheumatoid arthritis, hypothyroidism, asthma and eczema.

Enzymes

Proteins produced by living cells which enable metabolic reactions to take place. The best known enzymes are the digestive enzymes which break down food, allowing it to be absorbed by the body. Practically every chemical reaction which takes place in the body requires an enzyme. Names of enzymes are recognizable by ending in '-ase', such as protease, lipase, sucrase, desaturase, synthetase, kinase, oxidase.

The substance which an enzyme works on is known as a substrate, and the substance produced by the action of the enzyme is known as a product. Enzymes do not themselves undergo any net chemical change during the reaction, rather they catalyse (facilitate) reactions.

EPA (see Eicosapentaenoic acid)

Epinephrine (see Catecholamines)

Epsom salts

Magnesium sulphate crystals, often sold as a laxative. The laxative effect is produced when enough crystals are dissolved in water to form a strong solution which prevents the normal absorption of water from the bowel contents into the bloodstream. The bowel is stimulated by having an increased volume of fluid, and opens within a few hours.