No.1 Toxicologist: Stop Using Scented Candles! These Products Were Making Me Infertile! Using This Product Is Harming Your Future Kids! AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett
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Episode: No.1 Toxicologist: Stop Using Scented Candles! These Products Were Making Me Infertile! Using This Product Is Harming Your Future Kids!
Author: DOAC
Duration: 02:00:23
Episode Shownotes
Is your everyday routine killing you, what are the deadly toxins that are lurking in everyday products and how are they harming your health? Dr Yvonne Burkart is a PhD Toxicologist and former Senior Toxicologist in the flavour and fragrance industry. She is also the creator of the YouTube channel,
‘Yvonne Burkart, PhD’. In this conversation, Dr Yvonne and Steven discuss topics such as, the link between everyday products and infertility and cancer, the amount of microplastics in our bodies, the hidden dangers of scented candles, and how your makeup routine pollutes your body. (00:00) Intro (02:16) Yvonne's Warning (07:59) How Being A Mom Amplified Yvonne's Mission (10:17) How The Medical System Lied To Yvonne About Her Reproductive System (12:22) How Many Day-To-Day Products Are Toxic? (14:27) Yvonne's Background (15:52) Understanding Multi-Generational Toxicity (17:06) What Are Endocrine Disruptors? (19:07) Diseases In Children Linked To Endocrine Disruptors (19:48) The Link Between Microplastics And ADHD (20:28) The Effect Of Endocrine Disruptors On Puberty (21:45) The Shift In Fertility Trends (23:01) Shouldn't The FDA Regulate These Toxins? (25:19) Is There Malicious Intent Behind The Government's Inaction? (28:59) How Yvonne Measures Her Health Improvements (31:32) The Rise Of Cancer In The Modern Age (34:51) Products To Avoid For Better Health (44:17) Why Are Fragrances In Everything? (47:31) Allergy Statistics And Trends (49:32) Rates Of Disease In Other Societies (50:55) The Rise Of PFAS Chemicals (52:20) Non-Stick Pan Dangers Explained (56:54) Safe Kitchen Utensils To Use (58:37) Are Plastic Containers Safe? (01:03:07) How Microplastics Are Destroying Our Brains (01:04:55) Is Bottled Water Bad For You? (01:08:01) The Dangers Of Takeaway Coffee Cups (01:09:54) Should You Filter Your Water? (01:12:52) Cost-Effective Health Tips Everyone Can Do (01:14:55) Antiperspirants And The Health Impact Of Aluminum (01:20:50) Thoughts On Menstrual Products (01:23:43) Are Our Clothes Toxic? (01:24:46) How Toxic Are Our Cleaning Products? (01:26:12) Why Products Targeted To Black Women Contain More Toxins (01:32:16) Are Candles Safe? (01:36:33) Is Incense Safer Than Candles? (01:38:19) Is Vaping Harmful To Health? (01:39:35) What You Need To Know About Air Quality (01:42:52) The Dangers Of Burning Wood Indoors (01:44:05) Indoor Air Pollution Statistics (01:45:07) How To Increase Your Body's Antioxidants (01:47:24) The Benefits Of Whole Foods (01:51:44) What Else Should We Talk About? (01:53:02) Are Your Pets Safe From Toxins? (01:54:52) Guest's Last Question (01:57:07) Yvonne's Advice For Parents Follow Yvonne: Instagram - https://g2ul0.app.link/ulLGFXiIxOb Twitter - https://g2ul0.app.link/D5zXHtlIxOb YouTube - https://g2ul0.app.link/gvkc2dnIxOb Watch the episodes on Youtube - https://g2ul0.app.link/DOACEpisodes Join the waitlist for The 1% Diary - https://bit.ly/1-Diary-Waitlist-Megaphone-Ad-Reads You can purchase the The Diary Of A CEO Conversation Cards: Second Edition, here: https://g2ul0.app.link/f31dsUttKKb Follow me: https://g2ul0.app.link/gnGqL4IsKKb Sponsors: Shopify - http://shopify.com/bartlett Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Summary
In this episode of 'The Diary Of A CEO,' Dr. Yvonne Burkart, a toxicologist, discusses the harmful effects of everyday toxins found in common household products, particularly focusing on issues such as infertility and cancer risks. Dr. Burkart shares her personal journey with fertility challenges linked to environmental toxins and emphasizes the need for increased consumer awareness regarding endocrine disruptors. The conversation covers various harmful chemicals, the inadequacy of current regulations, and practical steps individuals can take to reduce exposure. Ultimately, the episode calls for a reevaluation of daily product usage to protect health and future generations.
Go to PodExtra AI's episode page (No.1 Toxicologist: Stop Using Scented Candles! These Products Were Making Me Infertile! Using This Product Is Harming Your Future Kids!) to play and view complete AI-processed content: summary, mindmap, topics, takeaways, transcript, keywords and highlights.
Full Transcript
00:00:00 Speaker_02
Don't believe everything you see on a product that you buy because we're being exposed to really toxic chemicals that we know cause harm.
00:00:06 Speaker_00
Okay, so I've got everyday products that we're all using. Is this good?
00:00:09 Speaker_02
No.
00:00:10 Speaker_00
What about this?
00:00:11 Speaker_02
Absolutely not.
00:00:12 Speaker_00
Is this a good one?
00:00:12 Speaker_02
Yes.
00:00:13 Speaker_00
This?
00:00:13 Speaker_02
Throw that out.
00:00:14 Speaker_00
Good, bad?
00:00:15 Speaker_02
There are so many issues with that.
00:00:16 Speaker_00
This? Perfect. What about this?
00:00:19 Speaker_02
This is one of the worst products that you can use.
00:00:22 Speaker_00
I've been using it every day.
00:00:23 Speaker_02
Get rid of them.
00:00:25 Speaker_00
Dr. Yvonne Burkhardt is a toxicologist whose groundbreaking research has unveiled the shocking truth about the hidden risks of toxins found in everyday products and what we can do about it.
00:00:35 Speaker_02
We don't know what we're exposing ourselves to because by law in Europe and in the U.S., manufacturers do not have to disclose certain ingredients. But we finally have proof that there are links to increased rates of cancer, infertility, obesity.
00:00:47 Speaker_02
We know that a surface scratch on a non-stick piece of cookware can release 9,000 particles into your food. Those microplastics have been found in lungs, heart, brain, penis.
00:00:58 Speaker_00
There's microplastics in my penis.
00:00:59 Speaker_02
Yes. And scientists have found that eventually we will become more plastic than we are humans if we continue at this rate.
00:01:04 Speaker_00
You seem really pissed off about this.
00:01:06 Speaker_02
I'm really angry that people have to suffer. I mean, these chemicals are causing children to have cognitive delays. They start having behavioral issues. And I think it brings up a lot of emotions for me because I've been personally impacted.
00:01:17 Speaker_02
But I think of how many millions of people around the world are struggling and don't know why.
00:01:23 Speaker_00
So what are the most important things that we can do to have the biggest impact?
00:01:28 Speaker_02
Number one.
00:01:32 Speaker_00
I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels, the majority of people that watch this podcast haven't yet hit the follow button or the subscribe button wherever you're listening to this.
00:01:45 Speaker_00
I would like to make a deal with you. If you could do me a huge favour and hit that subscribe button, I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better
00:01:54 Speaker_00
I can't tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button. The show gets bigger, which means we can expand the production, bring in all the guests you want to see, and continue to do in this thing we love.
00:02:03 Speaker_00
If you could do me that small favor and hit the follow button wherever you're listening to this, that would mean the world to me. That is the only favor I will ever ask you. Thank you so much for your time. Back to this episode. Dr. Yvonne Burkhardt.
00:02:18 Speaker_00
I've consumed a lot of your content, I've seen your videos, I've read a ton of your work. Just to start, if you had to sort of encapsulate the warning that you're communicating to people into a sentence, what would that warning be?
00:02:33 Speaker_02
Don't believe everything you see on a container, a bottle, or a product that you're buying.
00:02:38 Speaker_00
Why? What's the consequence?
00:02:41 Speaker_02
Is that if you're believing in the marketing and what you see on the front of the label, instead of actually reading the ingredients, you could be exposing yourself to toxins that you probably don't want to be.
00:02:52 Speaker_00
And what mission are you on, Yvonne?
00:02:55 Speaker_02
Well, I'm on a mission to empower people to avoid environmental toxins so they can protect their families and really using science and evidence to make informed decisions that affect their health.
00:03:10 Speaker_00
And what is the macro picture here? When you think about the world we're living in and how exposed we are to toxins, do you think people are at all aware of the toxins that we're consuming every day?
00:03:21 Speaker_02
I think now people are becoming more aware, but there are new toxins that are emerging every day, and it's simply a consequence of how the system is set up.
00:03:31 Speaker_02
And it's mainly because chemicals and products are not required to be tested for safety before they're released onto the market, at least in the U.S. and many other regions of the world.
00:03:44 Speaker_02
And so what happens is people are buying these products, and we're being exposed to chemicals that we have no idea how they're actually impacting our health, if they're harmful or not.
00:03:55 Speaker_02
And we're basically guinea pigs in a massive human experiment that no one signed up for, that we didn't consent to.
00:04:01 Speaker_00
And what's the risk?
00:04:04 Speaker_02
Well, the risk is that we go about our daily lives not knowing what we're consuming or being exposed to, and then later on in life, unfortunately, fall ill. and suffer from some chronic disease.
00:04:16 Speaker_00
Are there particular illnesses that are most closely associated with toxins in our environment and toxins that we're consuming every day?
00:04:23 Speaker_02
Yes. So cancer is probably one of the most clear associations, as well as infertility. And more widely known are issues like not being able to conceive.
00:04:37 Speaker_02
having a decrease in sperm count, sperm quality, and the fact that sperm count has declined by 50% in the last 50 years is pretty alarming.
00:04:48 Speaker_00
And who are you?
00:04:50 Speaker_02
I'm a toxicologist, but I'm also a mom.
00:04:53 Speaker_00
What's a toxicologist?
00:04:54 Speaker_02
So I study the basic science of poisons. How do chemicals interact with the cells in our bodies and how do they cause harm? But not only that, how do our cells defend themselves against these toxins?
00:05:07 Speaker_00
Why did you choose to do toxicology? You know, you could have done anything with your life. You could have pursued anything.
00:05:15 Speaker_02
I found it by accident. Was it really an accident, though? I don't know. I think I was led there. I think I've always been interested. I think I was meant to share this.
00:05:29 Speaker_02
And I think it brings up a lot of emotions for me because I've been personally impacted, but I think of how many millions of people around the world are struggling and don't know why.
00:05:43 Speaker_02
And so if I can bring awareness to that, then I feel like my mission is complete. But I studied toxicology because just in my body I knew that something was amiss. We need to study this environment around us.
00:05:59 Speaker_02
We need to be more aware and more conscious of what we're doing.
00:06:03 Speaker_02
And when I was an undergrad and I discovered toxicology, I was living the absolute conventional lifestyle and sick all the time and wondering why and just thinking that it was normal and I shrugged it off and it wasn't normal and I reversed it.
00:06:19 Speaker_00
It's so personal for you, isn't it?
00:06:20 Speaker_02
It is, absolutely.
00:06:22 Speaker_00
Why?
00:06:24 Speaker_02
Not only because I've been personally impacted, but I want my children to To have the best version of me. So I can look after them. And so that I don't have to worry about them having some of the problems that I had.
00:06:46 Speaker_00
And you're scared about that?
00:06:48 Speaker_02
I'm concerned. And I take action on it every single day. I think about it all the time. But not in a scared way. Just what else can I do? What else can I research? What else can I learn? How else can I implement this?
00:07:03 Speaker_02
And how else can I share this so that other people can implement it? Because there's so much going on in the scientific community about these toxic chemicals that the general public doesn't know. And we all have a right to know.
00:07:16 Speaker_00
Have we got any tissues, Jo?
00:07:22 Speaker_02
Thank you. Didn't expect to cry.
00:07:28 Speaker_00
Yeah, I mean, I can understand, but it's illuminating because it really shows why you're doing what you're doing and how much it means to you, which I think is really important. And it makes a lot of things make sense, frankly.
00:07:40 Speaker_00
But also, I haven't had kids yet, so I don't have that lens that, I guess, comes with being a parent and that concern of, I think about myself and I'm fairly young, but I can imagine in a world where I had kids, I'd become ultra cautious and ultra thoughtful.
00:07:56 Speaker_02
Yeah, especially coming from where I came from, where I had those problems, and just to think, if I can prevent that in my children and help people prevent that in their children, then that's the best outcome for everyone. I actually
00:08:11 Speaker_02
did never pay attention to toxins before. I studied toxicology. I was in the lab. I was looking at really toxic chemicals, chemicals that we know cause harm and cause cancer.
00:08:21 Speaker_02
But as I went on with my life, I started to face more and more increasing health issues, increasing in severity until I was faced with fertility challenges. And I was unable and unwilling to accept at the time that
00:08:35 Speaker_02
IBF or in vitro fertilization would be my only option if I wanted to have a family. And I was unwilling to accept that because I said, wait a second. I know that there's an environmental component to this.
00:08:45 Speaker_02
There's chemicals in our environment that are impacting my fertility. That's what I studied in the lab. I studied fertility and cancer.
00:08:53 Speaker_02
So it was quite shocking to me that I actually started to struggle with some of these conditions, but no one could give me answers.
00:09:01 Speaker_02
And what was missing from my view at the time was these low-dose chronic exposures over a lifetime to toxins and chemicals in our products, in our homes, in our outside world that nobody really has connected to some of these disease states.
00:09:20 Speaker_02
And so it wasn't until I embarked on a journey of self-discovery and research that I started to uncover the linkages between these low-dose environmental chemicals and products that we're using all the time and how they impacted my health.
00:09:34 Speaker_02
And when I started to remove them and replace them with safer options, my health returned. My health recovered and I was actually able to conceive my own children without assistance.
00:09:45 Speaker_00
How old were you when you were first told that IVF was the only route?
00:09:49 Speaker_02
I was 32.
00:09:50 Speaker_00
Okay. And you'd had tests done and stuff and at that time to see if you were, your sort of fertility levels and things like that.
00:09:58 Speaker_02
Right. I was actually not having a cycle at that point for nine months.
00:10:02 Speaker_00
You didn't have a period at all?
00:10:03 Speaker_02
I didn't have a period. So that is quite striking because as a person in their 30s, people don't go through menopause and have, you know, a lack of a period until sometimes 50 years old. That's almost 20 years earlier than that.
00:10:18 Speaker_02
That was really shocking to me. Something was clearly wrong. My body was screaming for help and I had no other option but to take matters into my own hands.
00:10:28 Speaker_00
As a toxicologist, someone who's trained and done the research, When you were told that IVF is the only route, what did they say was the problem?
00:10:41 Speaker_00
Because if someone's telling you that IVF is the only route, presumably they're saying that you're maybe implying between the lines that you're broken in some way or that it's normal not to have a period at 32.
00:10:52 Speaker_00
What does the system tell you is the problem with you?
00:10:57 Speaker_02
That's the issue is that they didn't. They had no answers. They couldn't tell me what the issues were. They said, oh, you look normal in tests, but if you're unable to get pregnant on your own, well, the other option is IBF or adopt.
00:11:11 Speaker_00
And as a toxicologist, was there anything that you needed to relearn or re-understand based on your training that you've discovered wasn't true?
00:11:19 Speaker_02
I had to relearn almost everything. Because as a scientist, I was trained as a toxicologist, day one, to follow the path and the belief that the dose makes the poison. That the more you're exposed to a chemical, the more severe the outcome.
00:11:35 Speaker_02
And that's not always true. Because as we know now, there are chemicals in the environment known as endocrine disruptors, at very low levels, have higher activity than they do at high levels. So it's completely backwards.
00:11:49 Speaker_02
So I had to relearn everything that I had learned as a student in order to recover. And in fact, I was so resistant and so hesitant to go outside of what I knew, that actually kept me stuck for much longer than I needed to be.
00:12:06 Speaker_00
Did you say with endocrine disruptors that sometimes lower doses are worse than higher doses?
00:12:10 Speaker_02
Exactly.
00:12:10 Speaker_00
How can that be possible?
00:12:12 Speaker_02
They're called non-monotonic dose responses. That's the technical term for it.
00:12:15 Speaker_02
But it's basically because the hormones in our bodies are present and active at such extraordinarily tiny amounts that any amount of excess or chemicals coming from the environment could trigger those same pathways could be devastating on a cellular level.
00:12:33 Speaker_00
And when you think about the products that we use day-to-day, whether they're beauty products or, you know, might be a frying pan or a spatula, plastic spatula or anything, how many of these sort of day-to-day consumer products have toxic chemicals in them, or at least one toxic chemical?
00:12:49 Speaker_02
Almost everything. And it might shock you to think that is almost everything, but unfortunately it is. It's because our world now is overcome with plastics, single-use plastics, plastic containers, food containers.
00:13:06 Speaker_02
Almost everything that we know of has some plastic element to it. And that's really at the root of a lot of the problems that we have, because the chemicals that are used to create the plastics are leaching.
00:13:18 Speaker_02
The plastics themselves are breaking up, leading to microplastic and nanoplastic release that we are just being constantly bombarded with on a daily basis.
00:13:28 Speaker_00
And what about beauty products? Because I had this conversation with my partner recently. So we're in the process now, I'm 32 years old. So it's that kind of season of life where you start thinking about having a family and kids and such.
00:13:38 Speaker_00
And so we've both become pretty conscious of the products that we're applying every day from shampoos to deodorants.
00:13:46 Speaker_02
So for the most part, if you grab a product off of a store shelf, nine times out of 10, there are chemicals of concern in them. and we're talking about major retailers, big box stores.
00:13:57 Speaker_02
If you go to smaller, let's say health food stores and chains like that, then the percentage is much lower. So you have a better chance of getting a safer product at a health food store.
00:14:09 Speaker_00
Just before we get into it, can you give me an overview of your personal education and the career journey you've traveled that have resulted in the wisdom that you have now?
00:14:18 Speaker_02
Yeah, so I am a PhD toxicologist. I started studying reproductive toxicity in the laboratory as an undergrad. And we were looking at the effect of environmental chemicals that are pretty much everywhere in the environment.
00:14:32 Speaker_02
They're the products of combustion, so the combustion of gasoline in cars, in cigarettes, in cooking. So some of these chemicals, and we looked at the impact of them on the reproductive system in males and females. And what we saw was pretty striking.
00:14:47 Speaker_02
such that when the animals are challenged with these chemicals and they're pregnant, then the offspring, not only the daughters and the sons, but also the grandchildren are impacted by the grandmother being exposed.
00:15:07 Speaker_00
How does that work?
00:15:08 Speaker_02
So when a woman is pregnant with a female daughter, her developing ovaries, which will then someday contain the eggs that will then become the grandchildren, are also in the same environment as the mother.
00:15:24 Speaker_02
So what the mother is being exposed to, the baby is also being exposed to, and also her grandchildren are being exposed.
00:15:34 Speaker_00
So if a mother is exposed to toxins, her baby's babies are being exposed to those toxins.
00:15:40 Speaker_02
That's exactly right.
00:15:41 Speaker_00
So there's sort of a generational toxification of people.
00:15:47 Speaker_02
Yeah, that's called multi-generational toxicity. And it even goes a step further, transgenerational. That's when great-grandchildren can be impacted because what's happening in utero is
00:15:58 Speaker_02
epigenetic changes, so changes to our DNA that are then being passed down through our progeny.
00:16:05 Speaker_02
So great-grandchildren, even if they live a perfectly clean lifestyle and haven't been exposed to toxins, could have already been genetically predisposed to developing some of these conditions.
00:16:17 Speaker_00
Are there particular toxins that you think are especially susceptible to this sort of transgenerational passing down through mutations in our DNA?
00:16:27 Speaker_02
Yeah, it's the endocrine disruptors.
00:16:29 Speaker_02
Things like phthalates, bisphenol, PFAS chemicals, a lot of the endocrine disruptors that some people are familiar with, other people are not, but that are found in our everyday products, like nonstick cookware, the makeup and cosmetics that we're using, the plastic containers that we're buying food in.
00:16:48 Speaker_00
What is an endocrine disruptor? Explain that to me like I'm nine years old.
00:16:53 Speaker_02
OK, so in the human body, we have eight endocrine glands. So they're little centers in our bodies, and they secrete hormones. And these hormones regulate pretty much everything that you can think of.
00:17:03 Speaker_02
So from sleep, wake, digestion, to how well your brain works, cognition, to metabolism, so how quickly you can burn calories, how much fat you deposit, how much fat you can lose, and also your fertility, if you're able to have children someday.
00:17:20 Speaker_02
So endocrine disruptors are coming in, and they're basically disrupting, like, just as the name indicates. They're throwing the balance off. They're messing up with the signaling. They're causing everything to go haywire in our bodies.
00:17:33 Speaker_02
So we really need to be careful, especially for children, whose bodies are rapidly developing. And then you're throwing in these endocrine-disrupting chemicals. It's like adding gasoline to, you know, like a dumpster fire, basically.
00:17:46 Speaker_00
And as it relates to children, Are they especially susceptible to endocrine disruptors because they're in a developmental stage?
00:17:52 Speaker_02
Absolutely. So with children, it's extremely unfortunate that they are the most susceptible and most vulnerable to a lot of toxins because, like you said, they're growing. They're not able to detoxify.
00:18:06 Speaker_02
In fact, a child's detoxification capacity doesn't fully develop until the age of 10 years.
00:18:12 Speaker_00
So detoxification capacity, what's that?
00:18:15 Speaker_02
Yes, so the ability of your body to detoxify chemicals. We all have it. Everyone has it. The liver and the kidney are the detox organs, the main ones.
00:18:24 Speaker_02
But we have this capability of being able to break these chemicals down and remove them so that they don't cause harm in our bodies. But with children, that ability isn't fully developed until the age of 10 years old.
00:18:37 Speaker_02
So if you think about all these little children, they're being exposed even before they're born, after they're born, and then they can't even get rid of these chemicals from their body until they're 10 years old.
00:18:49 Speaker_00
And what are some of the illnesses or diseases that we see in children that have been heavily exposed to these endocrine disruptors in our everyday environment?
00:18:57 Speaker_02
The worst is cancer. So we see an increased risk of childhood leukemia with certain exposures. There's also neurodevelopmental delays, so cognitive deficits in children that are exposed to these chemicals. We also see increased rates of obesity.
00:19:13 Speaker_02
Obesity in children is skyrocketing now. unprecedented levels that we have not seen before. And it's likely due to these chemicals and this genetic predisposition and programming that kids are just being dealt the worst hand possible.
00:19:29 Speaker_00
What about things like neurodivergence? Is there links between things like ADHD and these endocrine disruptors? And you know, ADHD, autism, etc, etc?
00:19:40 Speaker_02
Yeah, there is a link actually. So some of these chemicals have been known to worsen these behavioral conditions, like ADHD and autism, like you mentioned.
00:19:52 Speaker_00
And have they done studies on this?
00:19:53 Speaker_02
Yes.
00:19:54 Speaker_02
So there's associations where they'll measure the amount of these chemicals in children through their urine or through their blood, and they'll confirm the severity of these conditions and be able to correlate it with the amount of the chemicals in their bodies.
00:20:08 Speaker_00
And what about the impact this has on things like puberty? Because I was reading some stats before that I think it's, is it women are having, girls are getting, going through puberty earlier and earlier, or is it later and later? I can't remember.
00:20:20 Speaker_00
It's one of the two.
00:20:21 Speaker_02
It's earlier, earlier and earlier. So children who are being exposed to these chemicals are experiencing earlier puberty, earlier breast development, earlier menstrual cycles. And what that does is actually shift the entire window.
00:20:35 Speaker_02
Because if you think about it, we're born with a set number of eggs in our ovaries. Once those eggs are gone, that's when you start having menopause. So what's happening when you start your period earlier, you actually go through menopause earlier.
00:20:48 Speaker_02
And that can come with this whole host of risk factors, bone fractures, and so on and so forth.
00:20:56 Speaker_00
And this is because of those endocrine disruptors?
00:20:58 Speaker_02
Likely, yes.
00:20:59 Speaker_00
How would they know?
00:21:02 Speaker_02
They've done studies on this as well. So you can see that they've done observational studies where they'll ask families, when did your child start using beauty and personal care products, which are loaded with these chemicals?
00:21:16 Speaker_02
The children who used more products have more phthalates, more endocrine disruptors in their blood and in their urine. And then they have earlier puberty, unfortunately.
00:21:27 Speaker_00
And as it relates to fertility generally in adults, Are you aware of the shifts we've seen in infertility? What are the numbers? How do you quantify the changes?
00:21:39 Speaker_02
Well, over the last 100 years or so, there's been a drastic decline in the number of live births. So that's one of the numbers that I have looked at recently, right? So it isn't necessarily that more people are experiencing infertility.
00:21:51 Speaker_02
It could be a measure of people are having children later. Could be. People are just having less children. But it is an overall measure of population, although. So it looks like there's just less children being born.
00:22:03 Speaker_02
And that could be for a whole number of reasons. Right? Are people not able to have kids? Are they choosing not to have kids? I would almost argue that it's the fact that people are not able to have kids.
00:22:15 Speaker_02
When you correlate that with the fact that sperm counts have declined by 50% worldwide, that is absolutely astonishing. We're not at the point yet where humans will go extinct.
00:22:28 Speaker_02
But if we continue on this path and don't make changes, which there are many ways that we can make changes, then we might be looking at population decline.
00:22:42 Speaker_00
Isn't it the job of the FDA or some kind of government body to regulate the chemicals that are in our everyday items?
00:22:52 Speaker_02
You would think, right? In Europe, the European Commission has a much better system of regulating chemicals. So they require upfront chemical testing, depending on the amount that is produced. So chemical manufacturers need to provide data.
00:23:08 Speaker_02
So they have to fund these studies, these laboratory studies. They have to fund them and provide this package of information to the European Chemicals Agency, or ECHA.
00:23:19 Speaker_02
And once they do that, then based on the amount that they're producing, you have to give more information. You have to have more testing.
00:23:25 Speaker_02
Such that if you're producing several metric tons of a chemical, you've got to do a whole bunch of studies to really prove that it is safe. Not only for people, but also animals and the environment.
00:23:38 Speaker_02
That it's not going to be something that is persistent, that builds up, that can't be broken down. that starts to accumulate because that's what we're seeing now with some of these chemicals.
00:23:47 Speaker_02
And that's really the problem, is that they don't break down, they don't go away, they don't disappear. So then what happens? It basically disrupts the entire ecosystem of the planet. And we're not disconnected from that, right?
00:23:59 Speaker_02
We're connected to the ecosystem. We rely on that. So if we're looking at it from the standpoint that testing of chemicals up front, that is absolutely something that we should be doing. But no one is really mandating that except in Europe.
00:24:14 Speaker_00
Why don't they mandate it in other parts of the world, like the United States?
00:24:18 Speaker_02
Our system wasn't set up like that over here. I think we've got a different relationship between the government and with industry.
00:24:26 Speaker_02
I think there is a lack of regulations, a lack of requirements for toxicity testing, combined with the lack of corporate responsibility.
00:24:37 Speaker_02
So a lot of these manufacturers don't want to have to foot the bill and pay millions of dollars to have testing only to show that this chemical that they are so excited and in love with can't be used because it's toxic.
00:24:49 Speaker_00
Do you think it is malicious and intentional in terms of, do you think there's a concerted effort to make sure that the government doesn't increase regulation on these industries so that they can continue to produce low cost items that have long shelf lives and are cheaper?
00:25:08 Speaker_02
I would hope not, but it's looking like that. And it's just, this whole system is not set up to protect consumers and the environment, at least in the US.
00:25:20 Speaker_00
So you don't have your periods yourself. You're told that your best option is to go do IVF. You then go on a bit of a journey yourself to unlearn lots of things you learned in toxicology training.
00:25:33 Speaker_00
What was the ending to that story in terms of what did you do then? Did you go find a different doctor? What did you change? And what is the ending of that story?
00:25:42 Speaker_02
Well, I fell down a rabbit hole of research. And I had to pick myself up and say, hey, you know what? I'm going to take matters into my own hands. I'm going outside of the route that I thought I was supposed to go down, the mainstream route.
00:25:56 Speaker_02
So I kind of went sideways a little bit. And I went with integrative and functional medicine. And so I went looking for the root cause. the root cause, which is not necessarily what I was being guided toward with the conventional route.
00:26:10 Speaker_02
So with integrative and functional medicine, there was personalized testing. And of course, this was all upfront cost for me, but this was something that was absolutely vital. So I found a way to pay for these tests.
00:26:24 Speaker_02
And they told me exactly what I'm deficient in, what I need to do, and they guided me. So I first started with removing inflammatory foods and really dialing in on my diet. And I saw relief from my symptoms within two weeks. Very rapid.
00:26:40 Speaker_02
Once I started removing these triggers that were causing digestive problems, then I started to see improvement very fast. But it was then going on six months, and I kind of felt like I hit a plateau.
00:26:52 Speaker_02
I said, there's something else that's still triggering me. There's something else that's still bothering me, and I don't feel 100%. Even though I've done all the work. I've cleaned up my diet. I cook all my meals at home.
00:27:02 Speaker_02
I have sourced the best quality meats and vegetables. I even started growing my own food. And there was still something there. Something was not right. And so then I started targeting things in my home.
00:27:14 Speaker_02
My makeup cabinet, in particular, was a huge source of trigger for me in terms of chemicals and toxicity. Once I started to clean out my makeup drawer, I really saw a shift because of what I was doing on a day-to-day basis.
00:27:29 Speaker_02
I was using several cosmetic products. I was absolutely obsessed with perfumes and fragrances. Once I removed those, one by one, slowly disentangling myself from there, just being obsessed with them, I started to see real change.
00:27:45 Speaker_02
And I noticed more energy return. I was feeling more fit. I had more mental clarity, more focus. I didn't have as many headaches and migraines anymore. And I just started to feel like a more vital person, like more vitality.
00:28:01 Speaker_00
And did your period return?
00:28:02 Speaker_02
It did. It did return. And it returned, and I was pregnant within nine months of that first, the first time when I started this whole journey. Within nine months, I was pregnant.
00:28:13 Speaker_02
I had my period back within, I'd probably say, three months, and then six months after that, once I got rid of all the beauty and personal care products, I also looked into my oral care, my oral health.
00:28:25 Speaker_02
I had mercury amalgam fillings, and mercury is extremely toxic to reproduction, but also to the brain. Once I got rid of the mercury out of my teeth, that was when things just really took a nice, a huge leap in my health journey.
00:28:41 Speaker_00
And how were you able to measure the improvements? I know you can say, you know, I felt better, but could you measure the improvements biochemically in a lab somehow?
00:28:50 Speaker_02
Yes, actually that was part of this entire journey. So there was regular routine testing going on whenever we made changes. I was working with these practitioners and I made changes and we would do tests and say, look, your numbers came back.
00:29:01 Speaker_02
It looks great. You removed the mercury amalgam fillings from your teeth. Your mercury levels have dropped.
00:29:07 Speaker_00
Really?
00:29:08 Speaker_02
Yeah, it was pretty shocking. And I felt almost instantly better when they took those out of my mouth. It was that striking of an effect.
00:29:17 Speaker_00
Knowing what you know, surely it's built up a bit of, I don't know, a bit of a, if I knew all that you knew, I think, about toxins in our environment, I would be A, a really annoying person at like every dinner party.
00:29:32 Speaker_00
and B, there'd be a certain sense of, I guess, emergency and urgency to me because I'd be looking around at all my friends and I'd be, if I understood the consequences of them drinking from that plastic container or putting that product on their face, I feel like I'd try to be shouting at the world to tell them to stop.
00:29:51 Speaker_00
Do you feel a sense of that? You directly witnessed the impact that making these changes and detoxifying your environment had on you. Do you feel a sense of like, you know,
00:30:02 Speaker_02
Absolutely. I mean, I can't even tell you how much passion it has ignited in me to be able to share this information and spread it as far and wide as possible, because it's literally affecting every single person on this planet.
00:30:15 Speaker_02
And I do find it sometimes challenging not to call someone out and say, hey, be careful with that. But you know, I think it comes from being a living example, and I've found that that is much more effective.
00:30:28 Speaker_02
at being a living example instead of telling people don't do this, don't do that. showing them what's possible. Look at what happened to me. Look at my journey. Look at the benefit that I feel.
00:30:39 Speaker_02
And then once you start removing these things and making these simple swaps, it's about simple, small, incremental shifts that anyone can do over the long term. Because it's really about, it's a marathon, not a race.
00:30:52 Speaker_02
It's not about, you've got to throw everything away and you've got to hide under a rock. Because I tried that and it didn't work. And it caused more stress. And stress is harmful.
00:31:02 Speaker_02
So being a living example, empowering people with information, educating about the problem, but coming with a solution.
00:31:12 Speaker_00
You mentioned cancer is one of the downstream consequences of living in a toxic environment. And we talked about how sperm quality has reduced over the last couple of decades.
00:31:25 Speaker_00
When we look at the stats around cancer, are there any stats in particular that you think are most clearly associated with us living in such a toxic environment?
00:31:33 Speaker_00
One of them that always brings to mind is breast cancer, because I think I read or heard that breast cancer is on the rise, or has been rising for the last couple of decades.
00:31:41 Speaker_00
And when you look at the Western world versus something like, you know, a tribe in Africa, they don't see the same levels of breast cancer.
00:31:49 Speaker_02
Yeah, that is definitely a concern because cancer historically was a disease of age, aging. It wasn't so common that you see cancer in your 30s, 40s, and even 50s. Now we're seeing a shift. The window is moving earlier and earlier. Cancer incidents
00:32:06 Speaker_02
Like you said, breast cancer incidence is definitely on the rise. I myself never knew anyone that suffered from breast cancer or survived it until I hit my 30s.
00:32:17 Speaker_02
Then I knew five people that had it, including two people that I worked with in the toxicology lab.
00:32:22 Speaker_00
And what are your suspicions about the root causes of this rising cancer?
00:32:28 Speaker_02
I definitely think there is a huge environmental component to it because a lot of what was believed decades ago was that disease and cancer incidents had to do with your genes. You were just genetically predisposed. You were unlucky.
00:32:45 Speaker_02
But in actuality, what we're seeing now is that the environment plays such a massive role in whether or not you actually have cancer.
00:32:54 Speaker_02
So just because you have the predisposition to developing breast cancer, such as the BRCA gene, doesn't mean you'll get it. It really depends on your lifestyle. and how you lived, but also how your ancestors lived, right?
00:33:08 Speaker_02
We talked about the multi-generational effect of these chemicals depending on how your ancestors lived, how your grandmother and how your mother lived could predispose you to this.
00:33:20 Speaker_00
And have there been any studies that show the impact of these sort of everyday chemicals on cancer risk?
00:33:26 Speaker_02
Yes, and that's something that is I don't want to say that it's exciting, but I'm glad that we finally have proof. I don't want to see these studies. I hate seeing this, actually.
00:33:38 Speaker_02
I'm really angry that people have to suffer with cancer because it's so preventable. There was a study recently that looked at removing certain ingredients from beauty and personal care products. So women without any history of breast cancer
00:33:55 Speaker_02
were asked to remove these ingredients from their products for 28 days. So that's very short, four weeks, right? They took cells from the breast tissue. They were all normal. They measured the amount of breast cancer gene expression.
00:34:12 Speaker_02
After 28 days, they took another sample. So after 28 days of removing these ingredients, they took another sample, and they saw that the breast cancer gene expression dropped.
00:34:24 Speaker_02
And the only thing that they were asked to change about their lifestyle was to remove these ingredients from their beauty and personal care products.
00:34:33 Speaker_00
And which products were they told to remove and what ingredients were those?
00:34:36 Speaker_02
It was skincare, deodorant, shampoo, things that most people are using. And the ingredients were phthalates, which can often be found in fragrance. So the seemingly innocuous little term on the ingredients list, fragrance or parfum,
00:34:55 Speaker_02
can contain a huge number of chemicals. It's hidden behind this umbrella term because by law in Europe and in the US, manufacturers do not have to disclose this. It is considered trade secret.
00:35:08 Speaker_02
And within that chemical mixture are known carcinogens, endocrine disruptors like phthalates, and the most potent allergens known to man.
00:35:20 Speaker_02
And with phthalates, the reason that they're in fragrances and that manufacturers love them so much is they're what are known as film formers.
00:35:28 Speaker_02
So it helps the fragrance to stick to surfaces like your skin, your clothing, and it helps to make it last longer and linger.
00:35:36 Speaker_02
So if you've ever sprayed something on yourself and are still able to smell it hours later, that's a telltale sign that you've been exposed to phthalates, that you have phthalates in that fragrance, in that product.
00:35:48 Speaker_00
And how many deodorants on the shelf have phthalates in them?
00:35:52 Speaker_02
If it's got fragrance in it, almost all of them. It's code for endocrine disrupting phthalates, essentially. You can assume that. And in fact, it's safe to assume that they contain phthalates.
00:36:04 Speaker_00
So I mean, this is one of the deodorants that I often use. It's just a, I mean, for anyone that's just listening, it's just like one of the deodorants you'd find on a shelf in any store that comes in a little, is this an aluminum can?
00:36:18 Speaker_00
Yeah, it is, an aluminum can. Does this have phthalates in it? How do I know?
00:36:22 Speaker_02
So you just turn the container around and check the ingredients list. Do you see a word fragrance slash parfum?
00:36:30 Speaker_00
Yeah, fragrance, brackets, parfum.
00:36:34 Speaker_02
That's what you're looking for.
00:36:34 Speaker_00
Okay, so I shouldn't be spraying this all over my body?
00:36:38 Speaker_02
Right.
00:36:39 Speaker_00
Okay.
00:36:39 Speaker_02
So sometimes you'll see on there, it'll say phthalate-free.
00:36:43 Speaker_00
Okay.
00:36:44 Speaker_02
Right. That's helpful. But that still doesn't take away the fact that there are known carcinogens and allergens in there.
00:36:49 Speaker_02
So if you've got any kind of respiratory problems, any kind of skin problems, and you just don't want to expose yourself to unnecessary carcinogens, then it would be beneficial to avoid fragrance.
00:37:00 Speaker_00
What about a little spray, just a psst?
00:37:04 Speaker_02
I mean, it depends. Is that really going to benefit you? Are you going to get any effect from that little thing?
00:37:09 Speaker_00
I don't want to smell. So this is why I spray this because, you know, this drop is quite tight. So if it's tight and it's hot in here, I'll end up smelling. So I just spray it and then I'm really doing it's public service for other people, really.
00:37:20 Speaker_00
I'm fine to smell myself. I can't even smell it. But it's for, you know, Jack and the team.
00:37:25 Speaker_02
Well, the question would be, can you find a safer alternative? And the answer is yes.
00:37:30 Speaker_00
How do I find a safer alternative? What am I looking for?
00:37:33 Speaker_02
So you don't want fragrances. I don't. And you definitely, yes, so avoid the word fragrance unless it says that the fragrance comes from essential oils.
00:37:40 Speaker_00
Okay, but if it comes from essential oils, will it still make me smell nice?
00:37:45 Speaker_02
Yes.
00:37:45 Speaker_00
Okay.
00:37:46 Speaker_02
Yes, because that's where aromatic compounds come from. They come from plants. But just to give you more context on this aerosol spray, this is one of the worst products that you can use.
00:37:57 Speaker_00
I've been using it every day.
00:37:59 Speaker_02
Yeah, so I'll tell you why. Aerosols use propellants. Propellants are derived from petroleum. And there was a recall on thousands of products within the last couple years that the propellants were a source of benzene contamination.
00:38:15 Speaker_02
And benzene is a known human carcinogen that you do not want to be inhaling. Because what you inhale goes to your brain. It goes quickly all over your body through the bloodstream.
00:38:25 Speaker_02
You don't want to be delivering a known human carcinogen into your bloodstream. You're just It's not helping you at all. Because benzene is known to cause leukemia in people. So it's a no-brainer, if you want to avoid that, to avoid aerosols.
00:38:44 Speaker_02
But not only that, if you think about how you're actually applying the product, you're spraying it like this, right, in a stream, and it heads toward your face. Then that's also an inhalation risk, because there's particles in there.
00:38:55 Speaker_02
There's solids in there. You don't want to be inhaling unnecessary things. So the best option for deodorant is to look for something that has essential oils and is a roll-on or a stick, solid.
00:39:07 Speaker_00
Is there anything on the label that I can trust when it comes to deodorants? Is there like a certain term that I'm looking for? You said phthalate-free. Is there anything else there?
00:39:16 Speaker_02
Yes, so phthalate-free and paraben-free are definitely helpful.
00:39:20 Speaker_00
Okay.
00:39:21 Speaker_02
because then we know at least two of the known endocrine disruptors that we have evidence on are not found in that product. But that doesn't exonerate everything else.
00:39:32 Speaker_02
We still need to be diligent about the ingredients because they are sources of contamination, of byproducts, of carcinogens, and hidden toxins, essentially.
00:39:44 Speaker_00
It is pretty crazy that I could get a lighter and go, and it would be flammable. And then I spray that on my body, like I'm lathering myself in petrol or something. It is pretty crazy.
00:39:55 Speaker_02
That's essentially what that is.
00:39:57 Speaker_00
Petrol.
00:39:57 Speaker_02
Yeah, because it's coming from petroleum, all of the propellants and some of the other base ingredients. I'm sure I haven't looked at it, but I'm almost certain because that is the source of the majority of ingredients that go into these products.
00:40:09 Speaker_00
This is my last day ever using aerosol deodorants. Let's pull up a bin. Okay. Goodbye. Okay, that's gone. Okay, is this a better alternative? What I've got here is I've got this roll-on deodorant, which I think is one of the refillable ones.
00:40:32 Speaker_00
Is this a better alternative?
00:40:34 Speaker_02
At least from this level of what I know of the fact that it's a solid, yes, but I have to see the ingredients list. We have to look at the ingredients list to really know what's actually in the deodorant.
00:40:45 Speaker_00
Okay.
00:40:46 Speaker_02
So at least from a sustainability standpoint, that's definitely great to see, that it's not in a plastic container that is refillable. but we really need to check the ingredients.
00:40:55 Speaker_00
Okay, so I've got the ingredients list here. I've just pulled it up on my iPad. It says tapioca starch, baking soda, sunflower seed wax, coca seed butter, tocophenol extate, I don't know what that is, sterile alcohol, perfume.
00:41:17 Speaker_02
So do you recognize the ingredients? Are they easily recognizable or do they sound highly synthetic, very chemical-like?
00:41:25 Speaker_00
It says parfum.
00:41:28 Speaker_02
Is there any indication on what's in the parfum?
00:41:30 Speaker_00
All our deodorants are scented with a blend of fragrances to give you the scents you love.
00:41:35 Speaker_02
Hmm. Is there any indication that it's phthalate-free and paraben-free?
00:41:43 Speaker_00
No.
00:41:44 Speaker_02
That's what should give us pause, is when we don't know what's in that fragrance term. That's really the issue.
00:41:50 Speaker_00
Okay. I mean, there's just so many bloody words. Phthalate-free deodorant.
00:42:00 Speaker_02
I've got a better way that I can help you search.
00:42:02 Speaker_00
Okay.
00:42:02 Speaker_02
If you just type in the word organic and then whatever product you're looking for. Organic deodorant. That is going to whittle down the choices significantly for you.
00:42:12 Speaker_00
And you're saying that if it's organic, that means that it won't contain the phthalates and the parabens?
00:42:17 Speaker_02
Not necessarily. This is where it gets a little bit nuanced, but at least it whittles down the results that you'll get in search.
00:42:23 Speaker_02
And then you can check the ingredients one by one and look for the one that has essential oils instead of the word fragrance. Because it's really the lack of transparency that should make us pause. We have no idea what's in there.
00:42:37 Speaker_02
We don't know what we're exposing ourselves to. And if you're someone who is, concerned about the chemicals in the products you're using, the toxins you're being exposed to.
00:42:47 Speaker_02
If you are someone who is thinking about getting pregnant, are pregnant, breastfeeding, or just health conscious, and you don't want these toxins in your products, then this is the work that needs to be done.
00:43:01 Speaker_00
Interesting. So just because it's a roll-on doesn't necessarily mean it's safe.
00:43:06 Speaker_02
Right. Like you just demonstrated. And just because it's sustainable also doesn't mean it's safe.
00:43:12 Speaker_02
So there's a lot of marketing that goes on with products and manufacturers know that consumers are becoming savvy, they're becoming aware and they're demanding safer products.
00:43:22 Speaker_02
So they will hit all of the buttons and hope that somebody isn't diligent and doesn't see through that.
00:43:28 Speaker_00
Is fragrance so important because fragrance is an indicator that it contains these phthalates and parabens? Is that why I should be thinking fragrance is one indicator for whether the cosmetic product is toxic or not?
00:43:40 Speaker_02
Yeah, definitely. That would be probably the easiest and most obvious way that you can weed products out, is just look for the word fragrance or parfum.
00:43:48 Speaker_02
And if there's no indication that it comes from plants, that it's from essential oils, then that's not something that you want to use.
00:43:57 Speaker_00
I read a stat that said 91% of antiperspirants, 95% of shaving products, 83% of moisturizers and 63% of sunscreens contain fragrance. And 96% of shampoos, 98% of conditioners, 97% of hair styling products contain fragrance as well.
00:44:15 Speaker_00
Why are they putting fragrance in everything? Would the products not sell if there weren't fragrance in there?
00:44:20 Speaker_02
Yeah, I think there's many reasons that they put fragrances in. So first of all, we are sensory beings and people respond to fragrances. Fragrances changes your mood. It uplifts your mood. It helps you feel more confident.
00:44:32 Speaker_02
Fragrances affect us on a very primal level. The earlier and earlier that you can get hooked on fragrances, the better for these manufacturers, right? So that's why they're putting fragrances in even children's products and scented everything.
00:44:45 Speaker_02
If you notice, I've got kids. We go out and we look for slime. I said, let's look for unscented slime. It's nearly impossible to find it. You'd have to make your own slime at home. So that's what we've started doing.
00:44:57 Speaker_02
And the kids love it because they get to be like little chemists or whatever. But you cannot find even, Even they have markers, pens, crayons. They've got scented stickers. I mean, scented everything. Scent is everywhere now.
00:45:12 Speaker_02
The fragrance industry has absolutely exploded. in the last 10 or 15 years. And fragrances are the most pervasive source, one of the most pervasive sources of toxins in our homes, in our daily lives. It's almost like the new secondhand smoke.
00:45:29 Speaker_02
That's how prevalent it is. Because the chemicals, once you spray them, right, the reason you smell them is because they have volatilized, means that they have become gases and they reach your nose, you smell them.
00:45:40 Speaker_02
What that also means is that they are in the air. Studies have shown that these fragrance chemicals, phthalates, carcinogens, allergens, they bind to the dust in your home.
00:45:51 Speaker_02
So it's not like I smell this fragrance, I sprayed it three hours ago, and I'm totally fine. Well, it's still in the air. It's always going to be in the air unless you physically remove the dust.
00:46:03 Speaker_02
So if you're not regularly dusting, mopping, sweeping, and vacuuming, you're becoming re-exposed. And this is absolutely the worst for a child, a baby who is crawling on the floor.
00:46:15 Speaker_02
Their faces and noses and airways are close to the ground, so they're inhaling the dust that have settled on the floor. I don't know many people that are sweeping and dusting every single day.
00:46:24 Speaker_02
But if you have a child, then I really want you to listen to this. Because the child is putting stuff in their mouth, so they're ingesting these dust particles. They're ingesting the chemicals that are attached to the dust particles.
00:46:37 Speaker_02
They're inhaling them. And they can't detox them. They can't detoxify them from their bodies. And so then what happens? They grow up. They start having allergies. They start having cognitive delays. They start having behavioral issues.
00:46:51 Speaker_02
They start storing more fat. They can't lose weight. They have low energy, depression, and a host of conditions that we think are common, but doesn't mean they're normal. And they're avoidable. That's the part that is so
00:47:08 Speaker_02
important is that these conditions are avoidable.
00:47:13 Speaker_00
I was just reading about allergies as you're speaking and I've got some stats here. Food allergies, the prevalence of food allergies in children have increased by 50% since the 1990s in the United States.
00:47:26 Speaker_00
In terms of seasonal allergies, in 2021, approximately 81 million Americans were diagnosed with allergic rhinitis, also known as hay fever, or seasonal allergies.
00:47:36 Speaker_00
By 2018, nearly 42 million Americans, or 13% of the population, had been diagnosed with asthma in their lifetime. And I mean, why is this happening?
00:47:49 Speaker_00
I mean, there's like BBC articles here that show there's been huge increases in allergic reactions as well. the EpiPen business is on the rise. Why are allergies getting worse in your opinion?
00:48:01 Speaker_02
Yeah, I think it's this pervasiveness of the overuse of fragrances, scented products, and the lack of awareness about the harm that they cause.
00:48:14 Speaker_02
There's studies showing that there are people who, as soon as you light a candle, then people start having migraines. They can't think straight anymore. They become dizzy. But not only that, like you said, increased asthma incidents.
00:48:28 Speaker_02
And once you get asthma, it doesn't go away. You have reactive airways. So then you're triggered again whenever you encounter these.
00:48:35 Speaker_00
chemicals. What about people who say the allergies have exploded over the last couple of years because we're not letting our kids consume more dirt? I hear this a lot.
00:48:46 Speaker_00
People say it's because we're becoming too sanitised and our kids need to go play in the mud.
00:48:50 Speaker_02
That could be it as well. But I would almost, I would like to see the data in the rise in fragrances and fragrance use overlaid on top of the incidence of allergies in children, and all of these health conditions. I want to see that data.
00:49:06 Speaker_02
I haven't seen it yet. And I'm hoping that somebody does these studies, because I think they would be correlated.
00:49:13 Speaker_00
Have you done any research on, you know, I always love thinking about other populations and civilizations that aren't exposed to the environmental factors we're exposed to and seeing how they're getting on in terms of their health outcomes when they're not exposed to microplastics and fragrances, you know, like some of the tribes in Africa that are still pretty close to being contaminated by human interference in the Western world.
00:49:38 Speaker_00
Have you ever looked at any of those civilizations or societies?
00:49:42 Speaker_02
Yeah, the rate and incidence of cancer is almost non-existent. At least it was almost non-existent. But now some of these chemicals have spread so far and wide. And one example being PFAS, they're known as forever chemicals because they don't degrade.
00:49:56 Speaker_02
They can travel so far, they've basically covered the globe. They are found in polar bear fat. So that just tells you how far up the food chain these chemicals have traveled because they don't break down.
00:50:06 Speaker_02
So as soon as an animal eats it, and then it gets eaten by another animal, so on and so forth, then it reaches the apex predators, right? And it's stored in their fat. And in polar bears, it's been seen that you can find some of these chemicals.
00:50:19 Speaker_02
So we know how far and wide that these chemicals have gone, that even these tribes that are in remote locations aren't necessarily exempt from being exposed. They're also getting exposed. It's just in the air, it's in the water, it's in the soil.
00:50:35 Speaker_00
And what chemicals are those, PFAS? PFAS. PFAS.
00:50:42 Speaker_02
So per and polyfluoroalkyl substances. It's a huge chemical class of about 15,000 different chemicals. And that includes things like PFOA, PFOS and PTFE, which are more commonly known as Teflon, nonstick chemicals.
00:51:00 Speaker_00
Like this nonstick pan that I have here.
00:51:03 Speaker_02
Exactly.
00:51:05 Speaker_00
So there's that PFAS.
00:51:08 Speaker_02
Yes, PTFE is the chemical name for Teflon. So Teflon is used to create the nonstick coating. And it is believed that because it is so chemically stable that it wouldn't come off the pan into your food. But that's not true.
00:51:23 Speaker_02
There's evidence showing that there is transfer from the cookware in normal cooking conditions into food. Not only that, when you heat that pan high enough, it will vaporize and get into the air.
00:51:36 Speaker_02
And if you inhale it, you run the risk of experiencing what's known as Teflon flu. And it basically has flu-like symptoms when you inhale that stuff. And so that would be considered an acute exposure, so a one-time higher dose exposure.
00:51:53 Speaker_02
But what we really need information on are the chronic low doses that we're getting just by cooking our daily eggs on there.
00:52:01 Speaker_00
Have there been any studies done on the impact of people cooking on these versus people that don't cook with these non-stick sort of Teflon pans?
00:52:10 Speaker_02
Well, I can tell you that they've measured the amount of chemicals that are coming off of the pans. And so if you've ever had a non-stick piece of cookware, it scratches very easily.
00:52:21 Speaker_02
And some of these scratches are microscopic and invisible to the naked eye. Studies have found that a surface scratch can release 9,000 particles from that nonstick coating into your food.
00:52:36 Speaker_02
And if it's a crack, that number jumps up to 2.3 billion particles that are transferred into your food.
00:52:46 Speaker_00
And what's that going to do to my health? What do these PFATs do to my health?
00:52:49 Speaker_02
Well, PFAS are linked with several types of cancers, so kidney and testicular cancer, thyroid disorders, which thyroid problems are so common these days, but they're not normal.
00:53:03 Speaker_02
Then we have increased risk of miscarriage, preterm labor, preterm birth, preeclampsia, which is high blood pressure during pregnancy that could be deadly. You also have increased obesity that's linked with PFAS chemicals.
00:53:19 Speaker_02
And PFAS also contribute to an increase in endometriosis and PCOS.
00:53:26 Speaker_00
Oh, really?
00:53:27 Speaker_02
So people who have endometriosis and PCOS, they have found to have higher levels of PFAS in their bodies. And PFAS are found in everybody. No one's exempt. Everyone has PFAS in our bodies.
00:53:40 Speaker_02
But whether or not they're able to exert toxicity depends on your inner environment, depends on how many other chemicals your body is working to fight off.
00:53:50 Speaker_00
I just pulled up some studies here.
00:53:52 Speaker_00
One of the studies from 2023, which you might be aware of, showed that higher levels of PFAS in the blood of women in Singapore were associated with a 30 to 40% lower chance of pregnancy and live birth within one year.
00:54:06 Speaker_00
Another study sampled 381 blood samples from people trying to lose weight. And no matter the diet that these participants tried, they gained weight if they had elevated PFAS exposure. What the hell?
00:54:20 Speaker_00
They gained weight even if they tried different diets.
00:54:23 Speaker_02
Yeah, so these chemicals are known, endocrine disruptors are also known as obesogens. So they're increasing the prevalence of obesity. So you store more fat and you can't lose it.
00:54:37 Speaker_00
Obesogens? I thought food was the only obesogen.
00:54:42 Speaker_02
Well, the chemicals that you're being exposed to through your cookware, through food packaging, they're also sources of these endocrine disruptors.
00:54:52 Speaker_00
And what about cancer? Is PFAS linked to cancer? Have they done any studies on that with animals?
00:54:59 Speaker_02
Yeah, in humans, it's kidney and testicular cancer.
00:55:04 Speaker_00
Okay. What about prostate? I know that's a big concern for a lot of men in particular.
00:55:08 Speaker_02
I haven't seen direct evidence on that, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was also linked because that's also a hormonal tissue.
00:55:16 Speaker_00
A study from 2021 in mice at the University of Illinois found that a high-fat diet combined with PFAS exposure could cause changes in prostate cells that promote tumour growth. Is there an alternative to PFAS?
00:55:33 Speaker_00
Is there something that I could use instead of this non-stick pan?
00:55:36 Speaker_02
Yeah, just get rid of the non-stick chemicals altogether. And that would be something as simple as cast iron, stainless steel, glass cookware, ceramic cookware.
00:55:45 Speaker_00
It's just a bit more annoying, isn't it?
00:55:47 Speaker_02
I mean, nonstick cookware is amazing. I mean, you can make food slide off, cleanup is a breeze, but at what cost? You might be saving time when you're cooking, but how much of that time is being taken off the back end of your lifespan is the question.
00:56:04 Speaker_00
So you're saying throw this away?
00:56:07 Speaker_02
I would. But see, that's the other thing is if you are then hearing this and you're like, I gotta get rid of my cookware. Well, guess what?
00:56:14 Speaker_02
You throw that out and it ends up in a landfill and the PFAS chemicals are now in the environment where they won't go away. So it really depends, right? If you are in the position to where you can get rid of it, then it might benefit you.
00:56:29 Speaker_02
But the key is to really stop buying it. But you already have it. So it's really up to you.
00:56:35 Speaker_00
In terms of cookware, that's better for me. Avoid the nonstick, go for stainless steel, cast iron. What about the utensils then? So things like, I've got a plastic spatula here in my hand. Is this good?
00:56:51 Speaker_02
No, because that's melting. It's breaking off into little tiny bits and fragments of microplastics and nanoplastics in your food.
00:57:00 Speaker_00
So bad spatula?
00:57:02 Speaker_02
Yes. The silicone, the silicone rubber, the plastic. If you just think about the fact that it's being heated up, if you've ever looked at one, the integrity, you'll see it starting to fray.
00:57:16 Speaker_02
If you see any bits coming off, you know it's definitely breaking up and getting into your food.
00:57:21 Speaker_00
Yeah, there's loads of little pieces missing from the end of the plastic. And I guess that's gone into the food, most likely. Right. Slowly dissolving over time.
00:57:29 Speaker_02
Right. Because with nonstick cookware, you can't use metal utensils, right? You'll scratch the surface. But guess what? Even with that, you can scratch the surface.
00:57:37 Speaker_00
So the wooden one here in my left hand, that's better?
00:57:41 Speaker_02
Yes. At least from a safety and microplastic and nonstick chemical perspective, yes.
00:57:49 Speaker_00
Are you concerned at all? No, not at all. Okay. So wood is fine?
00:57:52 Speaker_02
Wood is totally fine.
00:57:53 Speaker_00
Okay.
00:57:53 Speaker_02
What people normally will say is, I can't properly clean the wood. But I haven't had that issue. You just clean it with soap and water and it is fine.
00:58:02 Speaker_00
Okay. So we'll keep the wooden spatula. What else in terms of cooking products? So I've got this pan here. You're saying this is a good one? Stainless steel? Yes. Great. Keep that one. Keep that one. Okay, what about this nice plastic container?
00:58:23 Speaker_00
Super convenient, put my lunch in it, go to work, maybe pop it in the microwave, heat it up, get my takeaway in it. Plastic container, good.
00:58:32 Speaker_02
Absolutely not. Do not microwave plastic containers. Even after just a few seconds, you'll get release of billions of microplastic particles into your food. Just from a tiny square centimeter, you'll get billions of microplastic particles.
00:58:46 Speaker_02
And with microplastics, they're hard. It's a solid mass. It does not break down in the body.
00:58:53 Speaker_00
What if it says BPA free?
00:58:55 Speaker_02
That's great, but it's still plastic. It's still microplastic. It's still nanoplastic releasing. And it probably has phthalates in it, depending on the type of plastic.
00:59:05 Speaker_00
Right. OK. So you don't want to be microwaving these. And if I get microplastics into my food, what's the net impact? What's the harm of that?
00:59:14 Speaker_02
Well, microplastics don't break down. They don't go away. Again, they're accumulating in human tissues. So they've actually been found in a whole number. I'm pretty sure they're all over the body at this point.
00:59:26 Speaker_02
We just have to see the evidence to know, right? And so they're in human lungs, blood, in the gut tissue, they're in heart, they're in brain. They are in the placenta. They're also in penis.
00:59:39 Speaker_02
And they have been detected in- There's microplastics in my penis. Yes, there could be. Studies have shown that. And even in newborn babies. So when babies are born, they have their first bowel movement, which is known as meconium.
00:59:53 Speaker_02
And in the meconium, microplastics have been found. So that means babies are being exposed to microplastics in utero. They're being born with plastics in their body.
01:00:03 Speaker_00
And what's the risk of that?
01:00:05 Speaker_02
Well, the risk is that they don't go away, number one. And on a cellular level, they're causing inflammation and oxidative stress. And oxidative stress is free radical damage.
01:00:14 Speaker_02
And what that means is if you ingest these microplastic particles, which everyone is, and they're in your tissues, and your body cannot get rid of them, then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all over your body.
01:00:31 Speaker_02
And unless you have enough detox capability like antioxidants to get rid of them, they're there to stay.
01:00:39 Speaker_00
What do you mean by detox capabilities? As in my liver and my kidneys?
01:00:44 Speaker_02
Yeah, exactly. Every cell in your body has some antioxidants in it. If you didn't, you would be dead. Because in order to live on this planet and breathe oxygen, we need antioxidants.
01:00:57 Speaker_02
to neutralize the free radicals that happen through cellular respiration, right? So whenever we breathe oxygen, there are free radicals that are created. And our cells have, naturally in them, antioxidants like glutathione.
01:01:12 Speaker_02
And they help to neutralize these free radicals. But glutathione is also vital for detoxifying environmental chemicals. So if you think about it, how does the body decide what's more important?
01:01:24 Speaker_02
Do I neutralize these free radicals because I need to breathe and live? Or do I have to deal with these chemicals over here? I don't know. So you're literally being torn. Your body is torn at this point. What to deal with first?
01:01:36 Speaker_02
And usually it's the oxygen. I need to breathe, so let me neutralize the free radicals from breathing oxygen. Then I'll deal with these chemicals later if I have enough left in the tank. And most people don't.
01:01:50 Speaker_02
Modern lifestyles are resulting in depletion of glutathione. Our glutathione is being robbed by these microplastics, by these parabens, phthalates, and other chemicals that you find in consumer products.
01:02:04 Speaker_00
If you had to sum up in a sentence what microplastics are doing to us, what would that sentence be?
01:02:10 Speaker_02
Slowly killing us over time. We're becoming plastic. We're actually known as the plasticine epic. Humankind is more plastic. Eventually, we will become more plastic than we are humans if we continue at this rate.
01:02:26 Speaker_02
There have been over 300 million metric tons of plastics produced.
01:02:34 Speaker_00
I mean, that's a really big number, but I can't really wrap my head around it.
01:02:37 Speaker_02
And they don't go away. They don't go away. That's the problem. They just continually break up into smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller fragments.
01:02:48 Speaker_00
A 2024 study on microplastics in human livers, kidneys, and brains found that all of them contained microplastics, but the brain contained 10 to 20 times more than any other organ. The brains measured around 0.5% plastic by weight.
01:03:04 Speaker_00
That's a Guardian article. So does that mean 0.5% of my brain is plastic?
01:03:09 Speaker_02
Yes, and that's because plastic is fat soluble, and the brain is mostly fat.
01:03:16 Speaker_02
So microplastics travel there through the bloodstream, we inhale them, they go to the brain and they can't leave because the brain can, the brain does not have the ability to detoxify itself the way that other tissues do.
01:03:29 Speaker_00
I guess it wasn't expecting the plastic.
01:03:31 Speaker_02
Right. So it's like, who's this? I can't get rid of you, so just stay. But then what is it doing to you over time?
01:03:38 Speaker_00
What is it doing to our brains over time? I'm going to throw this away, by the way. I'm not going to microwave my food in plastic anymore. What is it doing to our brains over time, do you think? Is there any associations?
01:03:47 Speaker_02
I haven't seen any clear evidence, but my hypothesis is that it's increasing the likelihood of cognitive decline. And the brain is one of the most important, obviously the most important organs in our bodies.
01:04:00 Speaker_02
And brain problems don't usually show up until you're in your elder years. I'd be interested to know if the rate of dementia, if people are getting dementia and other brain-related disorders earlier, just like cancer.
01:04:16 Speaker_02
I would not be surprised if I saw that.
01:04:18 Speaker_00
We drink out of these stainless steel cups here on the Diary of a CEO. Are these okay to be drinking out of?
01:04:25 Speaker_02
Yes.
01:04:26 Speaker_00
Okay.
01:04:28 Speaker_02
Because they're not leaching microplastics into your drink.
01:04:32 Speaker_00
BPA-free stainless steel. Okay, they weren't expensive, that's good news. But sometimes when I go to shops and supermarkets and stuff, I grab these plastic bottles full of water. There's been a lot of conversation around plastic bottles and water.
01:04:46 Speaker_00
Are these safe to drink from, in your opinion?
01:04:49 Speaker_02
Well, if you have no other option, then that's what you've got. And so I don't want people to think, I can never drink bottled water ever again, or I'm going to die, because that's not the case. I myself traveled here.
01:05:01 Speaker_02
I had to drink from bottled water because I didn't bring enough of my own water with me. Is that something that I'm going to panic about? No, it's not. Is it something that I want to do? No, but I need water. So that's my only option.
01:05:15 Speaker_02
But if you are able to avoid that, then absolutely avoid bottled water.
01:05:20 Speaker_00
Have there been any studies done on bottled water?
01:05:22 Speaker_02
Yeah, there have been so many studies showing that bottled water is a major source of microplastics. Because if you think about it, plastic is not meant to be permanent, but it kind of is.
01:05:35 Speaker_02
But at the same time, there are certain conditions that promote leaching. And one of them is if you put that plastic water bottle in the sun, UV, causes plastic to break down. So that's releasing microplastics.
01:05:48 Speaker_02
Just squeezing it, physical force, is causing microplastic shearing and release. But not just that. Just over time, the plastic is just leaching on its own. Temperature is another factor. So if you leave that in a hot car, microplastics.
01:06:05 Speaker_02
If you've ever had a bottle of water sitting in a hot car and you drink it and it tasted like plastic, that's because it is. It's plastic. It's becoming more plastic.
01:06:14 Speaker_00
OK.
01:06:16 Speaker_02
But the microplastics are releasing endocrine disruptors, right? The same phthalates that we talked about in fragrances are also in plastic water bottles.
01:06:23 Speaker_00
What about these water bottles that a lot of people have now? They're kind of like Stanley Cup star water bottles that are made of this metal. Are these better?
01:06:32 Speaker_02
Yeah, definitely. It's the same as these stainless steel cups.
01:06:35 Speaker_00
Yeah. Okay, so everyone should have one of these for their water.
01:06:39 Speaker_02
But not only that, it's also more sustainable, right? Because plastic bottles make up the majority of plastic waste in the environment.
01:06:48 Speaker_02
And all of those are breaking up, again, into smaller and smaller microplastics and nanoplastics that are basically polluting everything now.
01:06:58 Speaker_00
Okay, so instead of that plastic container I had, this glass container for the microwave and for my food is better.
01:07:04 Speaker_02
Perfect.
01:07:04 Speaker_00
Okay, but what about the lid? The lid has got these little plastic handles on it.
01:07:07 Speaker_02
Yeah, so what I would do is take the lid off if you need to heat up your food.
01:07:11 Speaker_00
Okay.
01:07:11 Speaker_02
And what I also do is keep a space between my food and the lid, so it's not in direct contact with the plastic.
01:07:18 Speaker_00
How do you keep a space?
01:07:19 Speaker_02
Just don't fill it all the way to the brim.
01:07:21 Speaker_00
Oh, okay, just keep it... Just keep a little space. Okay, cool, so that's good.
01:07:26 Speaker_02
It's the contact with the plastic. I mean, if you need the container and you need a lid to store your food... Okay, we'll keep the lid. I mean, I have those too, so... Just the thing is just try to keep your food from touching it if you can.
01:07:39 Speaker_00
Okay. What about this coffee cup? I went to, you know, you go to a Starbucks, you go to a coffee shop, they give you these takeaway coffee cups, which are made of like this sort of papery feel. Good, bad, indifferent?
01:07:56 Speaker_02
Get rid of them. They're terrible. So they're basically lined with plastic. And studies have shown that within 15 minutes of contact with a hot liquid, you're getting 25,000 microplastic particles in that cup.
01:08:11 Speaker_02
And some people don't drink their coffee in 15 minutes. They'll let it sit longer. And so the longer it sits, the more leaching there is. And not only that, the lid is plastic.
01:08:20 Speaker_02
So as the hot liquid is passing through the lid, there could also be leaching of microplastics. That plastic lining also leaches heavy metals. There are so many issues with that cup.
01:08:33 Speaker_00
You seem really pissed off with the government.
01:08:34 Speaker_02
I'm actually really, they're so pervasive. And I remember being in Germany about 10, 15 years ago, maybe, something like that. And coffee to go was new. And at the time, I come from the US, they've been around forever. I was like, why is this new?
01:08:49 Speaker_02
I don't understand. Coffee to go, why is that a thing? And my husband said, it's because we sit down and drink our coffee out of a mug. We don't take it to go. So this is appealing to tourists.
01:09:03 Speaker_00
Well, what's wrong with coffee to go? Is it the container they give it to you?
01:09:06 Speaker_02
It's the container. So if you bring your own container, Starbucks will fill it up. If you bring your own container, some shops will fill it up for you. And they might even knock off 10 cents because you brought your own container.
01:09:17 Speaker_00
So I'd have to bring something like, I guess, like this, which is a steel... Right. With a little glass lid.
01:09:24 Speaker_02
Right.
01:09:24 Speaker_00
Okay.
01:09:27 Speaker_02
It's a plastic lid. So if you can, take the lid off to drink. But if you can't, again, Don't stress out over it.
01:09:35 Speaker_00
Okay. We've been through some of these things so far, just on the consumables. Okay, fine. Okay. So, and last question on consumption stuff is about food and water. Should I be filtering my water?
01:09:50 Speaker_02
Absolutely. Absolutely. If you live in an area where water has been fluoridated.
01:09:54 Speaker_00
How do I know?
01:09:56 Speaker_02
You've got to check the water report. Most municipalities have water reports. And if not, you can go to the EWG, the Environmental Working Group, they have a water report database that you can check.
01:10:07 Speaker_02
So just type in your zip code of where you live and it'll tell you what contaminants are found and which ones exceed safe limits. And it's very helpful to know what's in your water.
01:10:16 Speaker_00
What if I get these kind of like, you know, these little plastic water filter systems you can get where you put it in the fridge, you pour the water in, and then you put like a little filter thing in, you replace it, and then you pour it in.
01:10:28 Speaker_00
Are those good?
01:10:29 Speaker_02
It depends on what type of filter you have. Some of the more mainstream, lower cost, lower end options do not remove fluoride, number one, and they don't filter nearly enough chemicals.
01:10:41 Speaker_02
Tap water is a source of hormones, so endocrine disruptors, pesticides, heavy metals, fluoride, if it's added to the water. agricultural runoff, there's a bunch of different contaminants in tap water.
01:10:58 Speaker_02
Depending on where you live, some are worse than others. And there have even been tragic instances of high levels of lead because of the lead piping that water is transported through.
01:11:11 Speaker_02
So we've got to be careful with the water that we're using to drink and cook with.
01:11:17 Speaker_00
And so what's a sort of low-cost solution to this for people that are concerned about the water that they're consuming and their families are consuming?
01:11:25 Speaker_02
Yeah, actually, there have been studies showing that you can boil your water. So if you boil your water, that can actually remove a significant portion of the microplastic pollutions in there.
01:11:34 Speaker_02
Because of, if you've ever noticed, after you've boiled water, there's sort of a white crust at the bottom of the pot. That's actually calcium, calcification. And the microplastics get trapped in that calcified layer.
01:11:47 Speaker_02
But that still doesn't take care of all the other chemicals that are found in tap water. So the best option is to filter it. Some filters are more accessible and affordable than others.
01:11:59 Speaker_02
Reverse osmosis removes the most contaminants, but it also generates the most wastewater. So it isn't the most efficient.
01:12:07 Speaker_02
And it also can remove beneficial minerals, which you then have to add back in because it's not good to drink demineralized water over time.
01:12:15 Speaker_02
So there are different options that you can use, but the best option, you have to filter at some point, at some level, depending on where you are. So check your water and look for a filter.
01:12:25 Speaker_02
So carbon filters are effective for the most part, but you want to check to make sure that the filter can remove fluoride as well.
01:12:33 Speaker_00
Okay, well, in the show notes of today's episode, what I'll ask you to do is to just help us put together a bit of a list of things that you approve of, relating to the subjects that we've discussed today.
01:12:44 Speaker_00
Just, you know, some of the deodorant stuff that we mentioned, and also water filter systems and stuff, because I can imagine it can be quite confusing for people.
01:12:52 Speaker_00
And I imagine most people listening, they just want, they want to know what the most important simple things that they can do to have the biggest potential impact.
01:13:00 Speaker_00
And also, they're going to be quite cost conscious, as we all are, about not overspending on things, and they don't have thousands and thousands of pounds, but they want to make significant steps forward.
01:13:11 Speaker_00
I guess to that point then, if you were to say to someone, what are like the simple free things we can all do, or cheap things, cost-effective things we can do, as it relates to our cookware, things we're consuming, to make sure that we're staying as healthy as we possibly can be?
01:13:27 Speaker_02
First thing is to filter your water.
01:13:29 Speaker_00
Yeah.
01:13:29 Speaker_02
Second thing is to get rid of fragrance products. So you're actually saving money by not buying that stuff, right? So if you can remove that, then you're better off. Thirdly is to cook at home.
01:13:41 Speaker_02
Cooking at home is also significantly more cost effective than getting takeout all the time. And you're also saving on a massive amount of toxic exposure that way.
01:13:51 Speaker_00
What about the types of foods we buy? Have I got to just be buying organic food?
01:13:58 Speaker_02
If you're able to, then it's helpful.
01:14:00 Speaker_02
But if you can't, eating an unprocessed diet as much as you possibly can, whole foods, single ingredient foods, if you choose to eat meat, fruits and vegetables, things of that nature, try to get the least processed option you possibly can and cook at home.
01:14:19 Speaker_02
And if you can, cook on stainless steel or cast iron. But if nonstick is all you have, that's all you've got, right? So just do what you can with what you've got, but try to eliminate the processed food as much as you can.
01:14:32 Speaker_00
What about beauty then? So I've got some beauty products here, moisturizers, got some eyeliners. This is a roll-on deodorant, you're probably familiar with these.
01:14:40 Speaker_02
Yeah, that looks like an antiperspirant.
01:14:43 Speaker_00
An antiperspirant, oh yeah, right.
01:14:44 Speaker_02
So that's different than deodorant. So antiperspirants contain aluminum salts and those physically block sweat ducts. And so what that does over time is it prevents you from sweating, right? That's why it's antiperspirant.
01:14:54 Speaker_02
But the problem with aluminum is that there have been links to increased risk of breast cancer in young girls who use deodorant because aluminum itself also acts like an estrogen in the body.
01:15:09 Speaker_00
Oh, God, it smells strong. Wow. Okay, so these roll-on deodorants that are, for anyone that isn't watching, it's the one with the ball on it, the little ball thing that you roll under your armpit.
01:15:21 Speaker_02
The key is to avoid the antiperspirant, if you can. And I know a lot of people have, you know, self-concerned with sweating and everything like that, but some people online have done armpit detoxes.
01:15:35 Speaker_02
So, with apple cider vinegar and bentonite clay, you make a little paste out of it, smear it under your arms, and that can help to pull out some of these embedded particles in your sweat ducts.
01:15:47 Speaker_00
What is the most compelling study that you heard about as it relates to, because I am always, you know, from doing this podcast and reading about this subject matter, I am increasingly concerned about, you know, putting things under my armpit for a number of reasons.
01:15:59 Speaker_00
It's really hot under there, but then it just feels, I don't know, it does, then I read this stats around breast cancer and I thought, gosh, I'm, it's probably not a good idea to be like lathering chemicals under my armpit.
01:16:13 Speaker_00
What is the most compelling study you read on this subject that made you think twice about antiperspirants?
01:16:19 Speaker_02
Yeah, it was the increased risk of breast cancer in young girls that are using these underarm antiperspirants.
01:16:25 Speaker_00
What about these other beauty products then? Throw that one away. Everyday beauty products. I don't even know what these products are.
01:16:34 Speaker_02
That looks like a foundation makeup that you would put all over your face.
01:16:37 Speaker_00
So you'd go like this?
01:16:38 Speaker_02
Yeah.
01:16:38 Speaker_00
Okay.
01:16:39 Speaker_02
Or a concealer or something like that to help even out your skin tone, cover up spots.
01:16:44 Speaker_00
Right, good.
01:16:45 Speaker_02
So that goes all over your face, right? So products that sit on your skin, those are known as leave-on products. Those comprise a higher risk than something you would rinse off like a soap or a body wash. because it's sitting on your skin.
01:16:56 Speaker_02
So the contact time is longer. The longer something sits on your skin, the longer time it has to penetrate the skin and get absorbed into your bloodstream.
01:17:06 Speaker_02
Lipstick is also a high-risk product if you're using the wrong kind because it's going on your lips and you're having some ingestion.
01:17:15 Speaker_00
So don't use foundation?
01:17:17 Speaker_02
No, not necessarily. Find a safer foundation. So avoid the fragrance foundations.
01:17:24 Speaker_00
Smells good. This one.
01:17:26 Speaker_02
Yeah, so it's got fragrances in there, I'm sure.
01:17:28 Speaker_00
Okay.
01:17:29 Speaker_02
Because foundations are usually made of chemicals, right? Chemicals don't always smell good. So a lot of manufacturers put fragrance in there to mask the odor.
01:17:39 Speaker_00
Even like lip balm. I had this conversation with my girlfriend the other day and she was lathering on her lip balm and I was like, I don't know if that's good for you. And she was like, it just smells so good.
01:17:47 Speaker_00
And I was like, I just, I don't know, just, do you know what?
01:17:49 Speaker_00
I have this conspiracy theory about lip balm that I've never shared with anybody, which is my girlfriend applies lip balm all the time and her lips get dry often, whereas I don't apply lip balm ever. Only special occasions. No, I'm joking.
01:18:02 Speaker_00
I never apply it and my lips don't seem to get dry unless I go on a plane or something. But I just wonder sometimes if these cosmetic products are fixing a problem that they're creating.
01:18:13 Speaker_02
Yeah, I would think so, because if you never touched your face, what would your skin be like, right? Some people only use water on their face.
01:18:20 Speaker_02
And I have found personally, the more I mess with my face, the more products I use, the more I end up feeling like I need them, because my skin is reacting differently.
01:18:29 Speaker_02
So I think it's creating an issue that wasn't there, and then comes in and like, oh, this is the solution to that. It's brilliant if you think about it from a money-making perspective.
01:18:38 Speaker_00
But also, if I'm disrupting your hormones with all of these chemicals, then I'm more likely to be causing you to have skin flare-ups and skin issues, and probably even aging and wrinkles, which you're then going to need to use some of these cosmetic products to solve for.
01:18:51 Speaker_02
Right, and then they're going to try and sell you some other more invasive procedures down the line.
01:18:58 Speaker_00
I've seen some people who don't use skin products at all and have never used them because of the society they live in. And they have unbelievable, remarkable skin. And they don't have the flare-ups and all these kinds of things that we have over here.
01:19:09 Speaker_00
So it's, I've always been pretty dubious. I think I'm a bit of like an evolutionist.
01:19:14 Speaker_00
I don't know if that even is a thing, but just someone who has much more faith in my body's natural systems for dealing with things than the modern world would lead us to believe. Like I don't, I know that we live in an unnatural world, right?
01:19:27 Speaker_00
So there are some things that we need. I live in, you know, we're indoors all day. So I probably should be taking some vitamin D, for example.
01:19:34 Speaker_00
But outside of that, I just don't buy that we need all of these products like, you know, shampoos and conditioners. And what do you think of shampoos? I've got a shampoo brand here, which I just got off the shelf in the local shop. Are shampoos okay?
01:19:49 Speaker_02
Yeah, again, it depends on what the ingredients are, right? Most shampoos are heavily fragrance and heavily scented. But if you look, you'll find some that aren't.
01:19:58 Speaker_00
Smells delicious. Yeah, OK.
01:20:01 Speaker_02
And it's very highly likely that you can become addicted to lip balm and addicted to scent. I was.
01:20:08 Speaker_00
You were addicted to lip balm?
01:20:09 Speaker_02
Yeah. Like you said, the more you apply, the more you need it. And then you just keep applying it. So every 10 or 15 minutes, it felt like at some point. And I was using a very heavily scented fragrance lip balm when I was a teenager.
01:20:22 Speaker_02
It just was trendy at school. What scent do you have? What flavor do you have? And everyone was doing it, so it just became a thing.
01:20:31 Speaker_00
What about this? This is a tampon. What about tampons? I had a conversation on this podcast with a lady who had a toxic reaction to a tampon and lost both of her legs because of that.
01:20:46 Speaker_00
What's your thoughts on menstrual products, generally tampons, period pads?
01:20:53 Speaker_02
Menstrual products contain some of the worst chemicals that should never be in direct contact with your reproductive tissues, with your vaginal canal. They just should not be there. Things like benzene, there's heavy metals in tampons.
01:21:10 Speaker_02
Actually, there was a study showing that women who use tampons had higher levels of heavy metals in their body. We don't need those down there. And fragrances, again, with the phthalates, they're also found in tampons.
01:21:23 Speaker_02
A lot of menstrual products contain scent. Maybe that one doesn't, but there's a lot that do.
01:21:29 Speaker_00
What's the alternative?
01:21:30 Speaker_02
It's entirely unnecessary. The alternative would be to use, you can find organic cotton tampons. Tampons are made of cotton, right? Cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world. with glyphosate. We don't need glyphosate down there.
01:21:47 Speaker_02
The problem is that the vaginal canal is occluded, right? So it's blocked off. It's warm. It's body temperature. And there's also friction. So all of these factors increase and drive chemical absorption into the body.
01:22:02 Speaker_02
And you don't want to be delivering some of these chemicals directly to your reproductive organs.
01:22:08 Speaker_00
You think it's going to have a big impact on fertility?
01:22:11 Speaker_02
I think it could. In fact, there are a lot of anecdotal reports anyway of people saying that when they switched out their period products and went with more organic and more sustainable options, that their periods became easier.
01:22:26 Speaker_00
Some people close to me have PCOS. I've also got some friends that have endometriosis. Is there a link between phthalates and sort of, you know, menstrual products and PCOS and endometriosis in your opinion?
01:22:40 Speaker_02
Yes, there is. And there is a link with PFAS chemicals, too. So these xenoestrogens are exacerbating these conditions because if you think about it, the uterus is an endocrine-responsive tissue. It's hormonally active. It responds to estrogen.
01:22:59 Speaker_02
You're delivering, let's say, phthalates. through tampons directly down there. It's going into the circulation and it bypasses what's known as the portal circulation, phase two detoxification by the liver. So it bypasses detoxification.
01:23:14 Speaker_02
So you're basically delivering hormonally active chemicals directly where you don't want them to go. They cannot be detoxified.
01:23:24 Speaker_00
What about my clothes? You mentioned cotton a second ago and it made me think about the clothes that I'm wearing. How do I know if the clothes that I'm wearing are toxin-free? Are there certain clothes that are and aren't?
01:23:37 Speaker_02
That's a really good question. Organic cotton is one way of knowing if your clothes contain pesticides and certain chemicals that are used in the farming of cotton.
01:23:48 Speaker_02
But not only that, if your clothes are made out of synthetic fibers like polyester, nylon, and acrylic, those release microplastics. And they've also been found to contain BPA, which is an endocrine disruptor.
01:24:03 Speaker_02
Yeah, you gotta check the tag around the side sometimes.
01:24:06 Speaker_00
95% polyester.
01:24:10 Speaker_02
That's a source of microplastics. Every time you wash it, every time you move, there are microplastics breaking off.
01:24:18 Speaker_00
5% spandex.
01:24:20 Speaker_02
That's also synthetic. So you're basically wearing an entirely synthetic shirt.
01:24:27 Speaker_00
What about the chemicals that I wash it in? I've got some, this is where I expose that I've never cleaned a t-shirt properly in my life. Sugar. I've got some fabric cleaner thing here. I guess this is probably a source of toxins.
01:24:48 Speaker_00
I'm getting the hang of this now. Toxins in pretty much everything.
01:24:50 Speaker_02
Yeah, you're right. You called it out. You called it out exactly right. The fragrances.
01:24:54 Speaker_00
If I wash my clothes in this, and then I put the clothes on, I'm exposing myself to toxins. Let me see.
01:25:00 Speaker_02
Right, because it's covering your entire body, right? Wherever you have the clothing touching your skin, there's some friction, there's movement, there's body heat, there's moisture.
01:25:10 Speaker_02
That's increasing chemical penetration and absorption into your bloodstream. So the solution there is if you like scented laundry care products is, again, to use essential oils.
01:25:25 Speaker_02
So instead of the dryer sheets that you get at the store, those actually just coat your clothing with some type of oily, waxy substance. That's what makes them feel soft. They're not actually softening your clothes. They coat your clothing.
01:25:37 Speaker_02
And so all of that is touching your skin. It's rubbing. How much of that is getting absorbed, right? So if you can instead look for wool dryer balls made out of wool. People put essential oils in there and let it run through their clothing.
01:25:54 Speaker_00
I am, something quite startling that I read when I was going through all of your work is that beauty and hair products marketed to black women often contain the most toxic ingredients.
01:26:05 Speaker_02
Yes, that is known as environmental injustice. So that's one of the, I would say the most tragic
01:26:14 Speaker_02
circumstances that we're facing as a society is that the people who are exposed to the most amount of toxins are low-income people and people in ethnic groups.
01:26:29 Speaker_02
And so some of these products that are marketed specifically to black girls contain some of the worst ingredients I have ever seen, and I think it should be outlawed.
01:26:43 Speaker_02
Like you said, the fragrances, the endocrine disruptors, these harsh detergents, some formaldehyde releasers. Formaldehyde's a human carcinogen. What place does it have in a beauty and personal care product? It doesn't. It needs to be removed.
01:26:59 Speaker_02
There needs to be better regulations and better protection for vulnerable populations.
01:27:06 Speaker_00
I was doing some research and I looked at Harvard Health and it said 50% of products advertised to black women contain endocrine disruptors, which are those disruptors that are going to impact their hormones, increase their chance of things like cancer, infertility, etc, etc, compared to roughly 7% that are advertised to white women.
01:27:27 Speaker_00
And these endocrine disruptors can impact fertility and increase their chance of getting cancer. Why is that? Why is that the case?
01:27:36 Speaker_02
I think it has to do a lot with the types of products that certain demographics would gravitate towards.
01:27:44 Speaker_02
So depending on your hair type, what kind of products you might need, there really is no explanation to why these toxic chemicals are in those products in particular, in such high numbers.
01:27:58 Speaker_02
That's really the problem, is why is it more prevalent for those populations than others? And I think this is an ongoing societal issue of environmental injustice and to a certain extent, environmental racism.
01:28:20 Speaker_00
It really is, yeah, you said it's a form of racism and it's a form of sort of environmental injustice. Are people aware of this?
01:28:31 Speaker_02
I don't think so. I think the vast majority of people are entirely unaware of this, and studies show it. Because there are studies showing that the earlier you start using cosmetic products, the higher your chance of coming down with breast cancer.
01:28:48 Speaker_02
And the people who had the highest prevalence were African-American females. So I think it's a combination of the fact that there is some level of racism, environmental injustice, but also a cultural and societal preference for certain products.
01:29:10 Speaker_00
So black women are at the highest risk of getting breast cancer under the age of 40? Yes. Hmm. What can be done about that, do you think?
01:29:20 Speaker_00
Is this something that the government have to do something about, or is it both something that we have to sort of increase our own public consciousness of and make better choices? Is there an easy solution to fix this?
01:29:35 Speaker_02
I think if we wait for the government to take action, we'll be waiting for a long time. The cosmetic regulations in the United States were not updated until recently.
01:29:47 Speaker_02
And before that, the last update was when they were actually created nearly 100 years prior. 100 years had gone by. No change to the cosmetic regulations. None.
01:29:57 Speaker_02
Yet more and more products are being churned out without being tested, without knowing what the health effects are. And then later on, we see increases in all of these diseases that we've been talking about.
01:30:10 Speaker_02
So I think instead of waiting for the government my goal and my purpose and my passion is to empower people with knowledge and solutions so they can take steps to protect themselves.
01:30:22 Speaker_00
Is there a funding issue with Black-owned businesses and sort of these Black beauty products that is causal in all of this, in your opinion?
01:30:32 Speaker_02
I think it really comes down to whether or not the creators of the products are aware of these risks and whether or not they are able to formulate in such a way that they don't use these types of ingredients.
01:30:45 Speaker_02
And I think that there has been a push for clean beauty, Black-owned clean beauty. I've seen it. Could it get cleaner? Yes, I think so. So I think it's only a matter of time before somebody creates it. And so I'm looking forward to that.
01:31:03 Speaker_00
At my company, Flight Studio, which is part of my bigger company, Flight Group, we're constantly looking for ways to build deeper connections with our audiences.
01:31:10 Speaker_00
Whether that's a new show, a product, or a project, it's why I launched the Conversation Cards. I've relied on Shopify before, who's a sponsor of today's podcast, and I'll be using them again for the next big launch, which we'll hear about soon.
01:31:22 Speaker_00
And I use them because of how easy it is to set up an online store that reaches all of you, no matter where you are in the world. With Shopify, the usual pain points of launching products online disappear completely.
01:31:32 Speaker_00
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01:31:41 Speaker_00
To say thank you to all of you for listening to my show, we're giving you a trial, which is just $1 a month. You can sign up by going to shopify.com slash bartlet. That's shopify.com slash bartlet. Or find the link in the description below.
01:31:57 Speaker_00
Before we start these podcasts, what we always do is we light some candles. And this is one of the candles that we light. You mentioned, I think you mentioned candles earlier on at the start of the conversation, but what's your opinion on candles?
01:32:10 Speaker_00
Are they safe? Smells amazing.
01:32:11 Speaker_02
Depends on what type of candle you have. There's basically a safer alternative for pretty much any product that you can think of. So I'm not one that says across the board, candles are toxic. It's very specific, conventional candles.
01:32:27 Speaker_02
paraffin wax, scented candles, which is what you'll see in stores. The majority of candles out there are the ones that we shouldn't be burning. So this is a scented candle. It doesn't say what type of wax it is.
01:32:43 Speaker_02
So we can be pretty certain that this is a paraffin wax candle, at least using the precautionary principle, we should assume that something is guilty before it's proven innocent.
01:32:57 Speaker_02
So unless we know for sure that this is not a paraffin wax candle, I wouldn't light it.
01:33:05 Speaker_00
So because if I light it, then I'm pushing toxic chemicals into the air?
01:33:11 Speaker_02
Exactly. So conventional candles, there are five main reasons why I would not burn a conventional candle. Number one is that when you light those candles, they liberate carcinogens like benzene, toluene, and formaldehyde.
01:33:27 Speaker_02
But not only that, ultrafine particles. Ultrafine particles are some of the most hazardous substances that you can create in your home. So ultrafine particles are tiny particles, less than 100 microns in diameter, excuse me, less than 0.1.
01:33:45 Speaker_02
microns in diameter, 100 nanometers, invisible to the human eye. Tiny. And these particles have the ability to, as soon as you inhale them, they'll go into your brain. They have the ability to do that.
01:33:59 Speaker_02
They also have the ability to go as far down into the lung as one can go, all the way down to the alveoli. And down in those microscopic structures of the lung, that's where gas exchange happens.
01:34:12 Speaker_02
There's only one cell layer separating the outside from the inside, your bloodstream. One cell. That's pretty much nothing. That's pretty much no separation, no protection.
01:34:22 Speaker_02
So if an ultrafine particle can get that far down into your lungs, it's guaranteed into your bloodstream. It's getting all over your body. It's causing inflammation and oxidative stress, which are the basis of many chronic diseases.
01:34:36 Speaker_02
So ultrafine particles, we need to avoid them as much as possible. And so one way is to not light. a conventional candle. Number two is that they're also releasing volatile organic compounds, right, as I mentioned.
01:34:49 Speaker_02
Number three, they contain undisclosed fragrance. And within fragrance, there can be endocrine disruptors, carcinogens, and allergens. So when you light these candles, you're getting all of these toxins into your air.
01:35:03 Speaker_02
Number four, some of the dyes that are used to color candles are carcinogenic. And nobody has any idea is if you burn them, what are the health effects of burning these carcinogenic dyes?
01:35:16 Speaker_02
And number five, candles are largely unregulated, which means that if you were to look at that candle and it says soy blend, there can be paraffin wax in there, even though it says soy blend. A lot of people think, soy blend, oh, it comes from soy.
01:35:33 Speaker_02
It must be healthier for me. So they'll go for that. But if it says soy blend, one should assume that it's a majority of petroleum-derived paraffin wax with a little bit of soy wax in there.
01:35:45 Speaker_02
because the Consumer Product Safety Commission, which regulates candles, doesn't look at the ingredients in the candle.
01:35:53 Speaker_02
They're concerned with the vessel, the container of the candle, whether or not it's fireproof, and whether or not the wick contains lead. They're not looking at what's in the wax.
01:36:05 Speaker_02
But studies have shown that when you light these candles, you are liberating a significant number of hazardous chemicals.
01:36:16 Speaker_00
So we shall use incense instead.
01:36:22 Speaker_02
Incense is even worse. And I'm sorry to burst your bubble, but incense has been used for thousands of years. But incense as we know it now is not the same as incense that was used 1,000 years ago.
01:36:35 Speaker_02
They now contain, again, phthalates, the endocrine disruptors. but also the ultrafine particles, and studies have shown that incense creates more ultrafine particles in pollutants than cigarette smoke.
01:36:48 Speaker_02
There's an increased risk of cancer because these ultrafine particles are damaging DNA. Damaged DNA leads to mutations. Mutations can lead to cancer. There's an increased incidence
01:37:00 Speaker_02
of cancer in temple workers, so people who are around incense for hours upon hours at a time, there's an increased risk of cancer.
01:37:08 Speaker_02
Not only that, there's an increased risk of cancer almost threefold in children whose parents burned incense in the home.
01:37:18 Speaker_00
OK. Wow. OK, so no incense. My house is going to stink.
01:37:21 Speaker_02
Well, you can use, there's different candles that you can use. So based on my research, I looked, I was really hell bent on finding what is the type of candle that has the lowest emissions, the least emissions.
01:37:34 Speaker_02
Because let's, let's make it, I want to make it really clear. Anytime you burn something, that's not necessarily healthy. But does it mean that you can't do whatever? No.
01:37:42 Speaker_02
If you find a candle that is low emission, like beeswax, essential oils, wooden or cotton wicks, then that's a much better alternative than your conventional paraffin wax scented candle, brightly colored.
01:37:59 Speaker_00
One of the things that I guess is kind of adjacent to this, inhaling chemicals, is vaping. It's really interesting because over the last couple of years vaping has become more and more popular around the world.
01:38:10 Speaker_00
I think cigarettes have declined, especially amongst young people. More and more people in my friendship group anyway are vaping now more than ever. What are your thoughts on vaping? Is that harmful?
01:38:21 Speaker_02
Yes. Vaping Vaping fluid, liquid, is a chemical mixture that you are inhaling. And these chemicals have not been tested for inhalation safety. Namely, the flavors and the fragrances that are used.
01:38:39 Speaker_02
Specifically, the flavors have not been tested for inhalation because they're intended for oral ingestion, to be eaten. So they're not tested for inhalation safety. I used to work in a flavor and fragrance company.
01:38:52 Speaker_02
And that was one of the biggest issues was that people were putting these chemicals that were not tested into these vapes. And the health effects are unknown. But now that's been 10, 15 years, we know that vaping is not healthy.
01:39:09 Speaker_00
Shisha. You know, like a hookah. I guess you call it a hookah in America. I mean, that's even worse, isn't it?
01:39:16 Speaker_02
There is also a lot of risk associated with hookah, so hookah smoke.
01:39:20 Speaker_00
I tracked you when you did it earlier and it said it was the equivalent of 100 cigarettes having a shisha, which is annoying because from time to time when I'm in the Middle East, I'll go to one of these shisha bars, whatever, with some of my friends.
01:39:32 Speaker_00
But when I read that it's equivalent to like 100 cigarettes, I thought, I'm never doing that again. It's just really not worth it.
01:39:38 Speaker_00
And speaking of being in the Middle East and these sort of big built up cities, one of the things I've thought a lot about more recently is air quality. air quality both indoors and outdoors.
01:39:48 Speaker_00
What do I need to know about air quality indoors and outdoors?
01:39:51 Speaker_02
Air quality indoors can be up to five times worse than air quality outside, which shocks a lot of people. That stat comes from the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. The reason being is that people are not adequately ventilating their homes.
01:40:10 Speaker_02
and we're doing things like cooking. Cooking generates particulate matter too. But do we need to stop cooking? No. But we need to prioritize what's important and what's not important. Burning candles, how important is that to you?
01:40:23 Speaker_02
Make sure you're choosing a better candle. Make sure you're opening the windows. Indoor air is absolutely imperative if you want to improve your health. You have to clean up your indoor air.
01:40:35 Speaker_00
Keep my shoes at the door. I heard you say that before.
01:40:39 Speaker_02
This shocks a lot of people, but there are simple ways to improve your indoor air quality, and one of them is taking off your shoes. Not wearing your outside shoes in your home. That doesn't mean you have to go barefoot.
01:40:52 Speaker_02
You can wear slippers, you can wear other shoes that are specifically meant to stay indoors.
01:40:56 Speaker_02
And that's because shoe soles are vectors for faecal material, poop, pathogenic bacteria and viruses, heavy metals, industrial chemicals, pesticides, things that are outside should stay outside.
01:41:10 Speaker_00
But didn't we used to live outside? as a species.
01:41:13 Speaker_02
Right. But when we lived outside, there weren't all these cars and factories that were spewing all of this exhaust all over the place.
01:41:22 Speaker_00
Dust our house on a regular basis, you said as well. Hoover sweep regularly. And you said keep plants in the house.
01:41:30 Speaker_02
Plants. Yeah, indoor plants. Make sure that if you have indoor plants, they can be really beneficial for well-being. They can help to purify the air to some extent, but they can also harbor mold in the soil.
01:41:40 Speaker_02
So just make sure, check your house plants for mold.
01:41:44 Speaker_00
Does humidity of my house matter? Because a lot of people are getting these dehumidifiers in their house now.
01:41:49 Speaker_02
Yeah, humidity can increase the growth of mold and mold is extremely toxic.
01:41:55 Speaker_00
So you want low humidity.
01:41:56 Speaker_02
Yes, you want to keep your humidity in, you know, a steady range. So have one of those little humidity monitors. They're just a couple dollars. You can find them at almost any store. And try to keep your humidity, you know, on the lower end.
01:42:10 Speaker_02
We don't want it necessarily too high because then that will promote mold growth.
01:42:15 Speaker_00
So what about seasons? Are there particular seasons where our houses become more and more toxic?
01:42:21 Speaker_02
Definitely during the colder months. People don't open their windows enough. Some of us are lighting more candles. Some people like to light wood and burn wood, fireplaces and stoves. What's wrong with that?
01:42:34 Speaker_02
Those create the most ultrafine particles that you can imagine in your home. These ultrafine particles, nitrogen dioxide, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, these are all carcinogens. They are created when you burn things. And burning wood in your home
01:42:50 Speaker_02
is one of the worst things that you can do. If you can avoid it, if you don't need it to survive, consider something else.
01:42:56 Speaker_00
But I've got a chimney.
01:42:57 Speaker_02
Right. It doesn't always stay in there. It doesn't only go up. It can come out.
01:43:02 Speaker_00
So a better way to keep my home is just by doing the central heating, the hot water, central heating, underfloor heating.
01:43:10 Speaker_02
Right. But make sure you open the windows on a regular basis, too, because you want to exhaust the old, stale air, and you want to replace it with fresh air.
01:43:20 Speaker_02
So aside from people who live near a busy highway, most people should be able to open their windows, even in cold months. In Germany, there's a practice called luft, luften, where you open the windows even in the dead of winter.
01:43:38 Speaker_02
And it lets in fresh air. It refreshes the stale air. And it makes such a huge difference on our health.
01:43:45 Speaker_00
I was reading about indoor air pollution and there's some research done by the World Health Organization that says household air pollution was responsible for 3.2 million global deaths per year.
01:43:57 Speaker_00
This is because household pollution can cause deadly health problems such as pneumonia, pulmonary disease, lung cancer, strokes, and cardiovascular disease.
01:44:04 Speaker_00
The combined effects of outdoor air pollution and household air pollution are associated with 6.7 million global premature deaths annually, according to the World Health Organization.
01:44:17 Speaker_00
I mean, it's difficult, isn't it, living in cities with so much outdoor pollution as well? And there's not really a solution to that. I mean, we could go around wearing like masks or something all day, but it's just not going to be a good way to live.
01:44:29 Speaker_02
Right. I mean, if you're able to get an air purifier, that can help with your indoor environment. But the key is to remove the sources of pollution as much as you can. Just try not to create it.
01:44:42 Speaker_02
And then you don't have to spend as much time trying to clean it up.
01:44:46 Speaker_00
You mentioned earlier the body has a antioxidant called glutathione. Is it possible to increase my levels of this compound if it's good for me? Is there something I can do?
01:44:58 Speaker_02
There's so much you can do.
01:44:59 Speaker_00
Okay.
01:44:59 Speaker_02
There's so much you can do. Number one, you can exercise. Exercise increases glutathione. It's very simple. Just exercise, move your body.
01:45:07 Speaker_00
And where is glutathione produced?
01:45:09 Speaker_02
It's mainly produced in the liver and kidneys. And the third highest amount of glutathione in the body is in the testes and the ovaries. because it plays a vital role in protecting our reproductive organs from toxicity and ensuring fertility.
01:45:25 Speaker_00
It's a chemical.
01:45:26 Speaker_02
It is technically a chemical. It's made out of three amino acids, glutamate, cysteine, and glycine. And we all have it. Everyone has glutathione. Some people have more, some people have less. It really just depends on your genetics.
01:45:38 Speaker_02
Some people just genetically make more of it than others.
01:45:40 Speaker_00
And if I make more of it, then my body's going to be less toxic. Is that a simple way of thinking about it?
01:45:45 Speaker_02
Yes, very simplistically, right? But that's not counting your lifestyle.
01:45:49 Speaker_00
Okay, and what about my lifestyle could make it worse and lower? What can impact my glutathione levels? What can make it lower?
01:45:57 Speaker_02
The non-stick cookware, the heavily-fragranced products, eating ultra-processed foods, not exercising, so being stagnant, not moving enough, all of that reduces your glutathione. Not sleeping well.
01:46:10 Speaker_00
What about alcohol?
01:46:12 Speaker_02
Alcohol absolutely depletes glutathione. We know that alcohol targets the liver. Glutathione detoxifies alcohol. If you don't have enough glutathione, you can't detoxify alcohol. Alcohol can cause cancer.
01:46:24 Speaker_00
So if I'm drinking heavily, and I'm also consuming a lot of these other toxic chemicals because of just my everyday life, then my glutathione is going to be depleted because it's so focused on the alcohol, detoxifying the alcohol, that there won't be enough left to detoxify the rest of my body.
01:46:40 Speaker_00
Is that a simple way to think about it?
01:46:41 Speaker_02
Right. And all the other chemicals that you're being exposed to.
01:46:44 Speaker_00
Okay, so you want to keep your glutathione levels high.
01:46:46 Speaker_02
Right.
01:46:47 Speaker_00
I read that the healthy glutathione levels in an adult is 553. which is 19 millimoles per liter of total glutathione in their blood.
01:47:01 Speaker_00
So I wanna increase my glutathione levels to make sure that I have a better natural defense to all of these toxic chemicals in my life. I'm gonna start exercising. I'm gonna avoid ultra processed foods. I'm gonna eat whole foods.
01:47:17 Speaker_02
Yes, whole foods, but specifically sulfur rich foods because glutathione contains cysteine, which contains sulfur. And sulfur is the part of the glutathione molecule that's doing the work, that's protecting us.
01:47:30 Speaker_02
So the more sulfur you can give your body, the more building blocks it has to make glutathione. So we eat things like leafy greens, broccoli, cruciferous vegetables, meat, eggs. Dairy can also help to increase it.
01:47:47 Speaker_02
There's even some studies showing that if you consume whey protein, It can help to increase glutathione by supplying the amino acids needed to produce it. And matcha green tea is also a really good source of glutathione building blocks.
01:48:03 Speaker_02
But I think what we need to do is also remove the chemicals that are depleting our glutathione.
01:48:10 Speaker_02
And that's through choosing better products, not stressing as much, and then adding on how can we build and add more glutathione with the lifestyle changes. making sure you get adequate sleep.
01:48:22 Speaker_02
If you don't sleep well enough, that's going to impact the amount of glutathione you have as well.
01:48:26 Speaker_00
Interesting. Cigarettes?
01:48:29 Speaker_02
Cigarettes, absolutely get rid of cigarettes. Cigarettes deplete glutathione.
01:48:34 Speaker_00
You mentioned matcha there. I'm one of the owners, I'm an investor in a matcha company, a matcha green tea company. What's your opinion of, I mean, I'm exposing my bias here, obviously, but what's your opinion of matcha?
01:48:48 Speaker_02
I think matcha is amazing. If you get the right type of matcha, you want to look for organically grown matcha, look for ones that are tested for heavy metals, because heavy metals can accumulate in tea plants. That's just naturally occurring.
01:49:01 Speaker_02
So you want to look for matcha that's been tested. And because you're consuming the entire leaf, it's important to look for the cleanest matcha you can get. But there are so many benefits to matcha.
01:49:11 Speaker_02
The fact that it helps you increase glutathione is, I'm sold. I'm sold on it.
01:49:15 Speaker_00
Do you drink matcha?
01:49:15 Speaker_02
I do. But we also want to avoid not adding dairy to a matcha.
01:49:20 Speaker_02
I know that a lot of people like to drink matcha lattes, but there's actually studies showing that the casein protein can decrease the absorption of some of the beneficial compounds in matcha.
01:49:30 Speaker_02
So if you can drink it the traditional way in Japan is just water. No sugar, nothing. Just matcha and water.
01:49:37 Speaker_00
The company I'm referring to are, obviously I've got to disclose my, I've probably got to say hashtag ads, hashtag sponsored, whatever. I'm an investor in a company called Perfect Ted and it's absolutely exploded in the UK.
01:49:50 Speaker_00
I spoke to them this morning actually and they told me that their sales have increased 5x since last year because I think people are looking to shift away from some of the
01:50:01 Speaker_00
canned energy products and there's a lot of sort of energy benefits with matcha and now if you go to like a joe in the juice or any of these like blank street coffee or tesco or whatever you can find um their products in there and it seems to be like there's a bit of a revolution going on with energy and matcha which is very very exciting because i've for many years i was drinking some i don't want to name any names but i was drinking some of these energy products that you'll find and um i just felt bad and there's something about the like energy curve of matcha which i
01:50:30 Speaker_00
I think is better. I feel like I'm less susceptible to crashes with matcha. I don't know if there's any support there, but it's good to hear that it's also, it increases my glutathione levels, which will help me have less of a toxic body.
01:50:44 Speaker_02
Yes, absolutely. Because it is in and of itself a strong antioxidant with anti-cancer properties, and it can help to increase the production of energy in our cells. And so one of the things that is required to create glutathione is ATP.
01:51:01 Speaker_02
And a lot of these environmental chemicals are targeting the mitochondria, which are the powerhouses of the cell that make ATP.
01:51:07 Speaker_02
So if you're knocking down the energy center of the cell and it's not able to make ATP, you're not able to detoxify, you will feel sluggish. And over time, diminish the quality of your life.
01:51:19 Speaker_00
What is the most important thing we haven't spoke about today that you're most passionate about? Is there anything that we missed that you think is particularly important to the many people that are listening right now?
01:51:31 Speaker_02
I think the one thing that I want to emphasize more than anything is to not fear chemicals. I want there to be empowerment and not fear. Because chemicals are all around us all the time, whether or not you're aware of it.
01:51:43 Speaker_02
But not everything is going to kill us. So being in a state of confidence and knowing that, hey, I've taken some very simple steps that I know will have a big impact on my life in the long term. That's what I want everyone to walk away with.
01:52:02 Speaker_00
I'm just thinking about the simple changes that I can make immediately.
01:52:05 Speaker_00
I think the big things that I have as takeaways are get rid of the antiperspirants that I've been using, get rid of the deodorants that I've been using, transition away from the nonstick pans, stop consuming anything plastic, especially if it's been heated.
01:52:21 Speaker_00
So like plastic cups from coffee shops and plastic trays that you microwave things in. My water. You said that was really critical. Yeah. Air quality. Air quality.
01:52:33 Speaker_00
It's quite difficult to do something about air quality, but I guess the simple thing is to open the windows and doors more often, clean the house, keep the shoes at the door.
01:52:42 Speaker_02
Get rid of the scented and fragrance products, the scented plug-ins, the air fresheners.
01:52:46 Speaker_00
I was just thinking about my dog. I was like, you know, I do love my dog, but I don't want to be... What's your thoughts on pets?
01:52:54 Speaker_02
Well, pets can actually increase the amount of pollutants in your air. But again, if you're cleaning your home on a regular basis, it's not a problem. There's so many benefits to having pets.
01:53:03 Speaker_00
And cleaning the pets as well. Yeah.
01:53:04 Speaker_02
Yeah. So maybe consider wiping off their paws when they come back in from a walk.
01:53:09 Speaker_00
Is there anything else that you're working on at the moment or any research that you're particularly curious about?
01:53:14 Speaker_00
Any hypotheses you have that are bubbling away in your mind about toxins in our environment that you're yet to maybe share with the world?
01:53:26 Speaker_02
I'm waiting to find out more about microplastics and the diseases that are associated with microplastics. I think that is the next emerging toxin of the year.
01:53:37 Speaker_02
And I think more awareness needs to be brought around microplastics and just more research is urgently needed.
01:53:43 Speaker_00
I think, yeah, you make a really good point that none of us are ever going to reach perfection and that shouldn't necessarily be the goal, but a worthy goal and a goal that we can all aim for is just to be better in some way as it relates to our environment, to improve our environment in even small ways.
01:53:57 Speaker_00
And even the small improvements, as you've said, when you talked about the dose and you talked about how these things compound in our bodies over time, even small improvements made today can have big impacts over the long term.
01:54:12 Speaker_00
And so small improvements, small things that we can change and not getting bogged down because our life and our environment is so full of toxins.
01:54:19 Speaker_00
And it's always gonna be really, there's not a scenario we're gonna live in where it's not the case, but small things we can do can have big impacts.
01:54:26 Speaker_00
And as you said, you've made changes to your life and it's been the causal factor of you having a family, which is a beautiful thing.
01:54:34 Speaker_00
We have a closing tradition on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest, not knowing who they're leaving it for. And the question that's been left for you is,
01:54:42 Speaker_00
If you could solve any problem in the world, but only one problem, what would it be?
01:54:47 Speaker_02
The problem of toxins.
01:54:49 Speaker_00
That's too easy, isn't it?
01:54:50 Speaker_02
That's too easy. Of course it would be toxins, hands down.
01:54:53 Speaker_02
Immediately, if I could just remove all of these toxic chemicals from our environment and just eliminate them, not send them into outer space, but just remove them from the face of the earth and just have them cease to exist, that would be the most amazing achievement I could ever imagine.
01:55:10 Speaker_00
And what would life be like in such a world?
01:55:14 Speaker_02
I imagine it to be like a utopia. People aren't sick, people aren't ill, people are well and happy and thriving and just radiating, radiant. That's how I see it.
01:55:26 Speaker_00
Dr. Yvonne Burkhardt, where can people find you if they want to learn more about your work? What's the best place for them to go to get more information?
01:55:34 Speaker_02
I have a website, dryvonburkhart.com. I also have a newsletter that I send out called Low Talks Talks. And you can also find me on Instagram at dryvonburkhart.
01:55:45 Speaker_02
And I also have a YouTube channel where I love to do deep dives and get really, really geeky and nerd out on one topic at a time.
01:55:54 Speaker_00
Okay, I'll link all of that below so everyone can find you. Thank you so much for the work that you do. So incredibly important.
01:56:00 Speaker_00
And it's so incredibly illuminating because it's, God, it's so mad that we, that it's only recently in the last couple of years that these conversations have emerged.
01:56:09 Speaker_00
The things about microplastics and endocrine disruptors and the link this has to fertility, our health, obesity, and all of these kinds of things. It's so crazy that this conversation's only emerged in the last couple of years, because growing up,
01:56:22 Speaker_00
There was no mention of this in my household. There was absolutely no mention. And I just wonder how life could have been different for myself, but also for so many millions of people all around the world if we were aware of this information.
01:56:33 Speaker_00
It's not to say, again, that we can live perfect lives, and that's never the goal. It's never my goal. My goal is just to have more access to information so I can make small steps, and often low-cost steps, in the right direction.
01:56:44 Speaker_00
And if that increases my probability of having kids, which is the season of life that I'm in now, and increases the probability that my kids are healthy when they grow up, then that is an amazing thing. And that is the work you're doing.
01:56:55 Speaker_00
You're doing an amazing thing. So thank you so much, Dr. Yvonne Burkhart. I highly recommend everyone goes and checks out your YouTube channel.
01:57:01 Speaker_00
It will send you down a really important rabbit hole because you make really, really accessible, great videos on that channel. So thank you so much for your time today and thank you for the work that you're doing.
01:57:11 Speaker_01
Thank you.
01:57:16 Speaker_00
I'm going to let you in to a little bit of a secret. You're probably going to think me and my team are a little bit weird, but I can still remember to this day when Jemima from my team posted on Slack that she'd changed the scent in this studio.
01:57:26 Speaker_00
And right after she posted it, the entire office clapped in our Slack channel. And this might sound crazy, but at the Diary of a CEO, this is the type of 1% improvement we make on our show. And that is why the show is the way it is.
01:57:37 Speaker_00
By understanding the power of compounding 1%, you can absolutely change your outcomes in your life. It isn't about drastic transformations or quick wins. It's about the small, consistent actions that have a lasting change in your outcomes.
01:57:52 Speaker_00
So two years ago, we started the process of creating this beautiful diary. And it's truly beautiful. Inside, there's lots of pictures, lots of inspiration and motivation as well, some interactive elements.
01:58:03 Speaker_00
And the purpose of this diary is to help you identify, stay focused on, develop consistency with the 1% that will ultimately change your life.
01:58:12 Speaker_00
We have a limited number of these 1% diaries, and if you want to do this with me, then join our waiting list. I can't guarantee all of you that join the waiting list will be able to get one, but if you join now you have a higher chance.
01:58:22 Speaker_00
The waiting list can be found at thediary.com. I'll link it below, but that is thediary.com.