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don't believe everything you see on a product that you're buying because we're being exposed to really toxic chemicals that we know cause harm okay so I've got
00:00:07
everyday products that we're all using is this good no what about this absolutely not is this a good one yes
00:00:13
this throw that out good bad there are so many issues with that this perfect what about this this is one of the worst
00:00:20
products that you can use I've been using it every day get rid of them goodbye Dr Ivon burkart is a
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toxicologist whose groundbreaking research has unveiled the shock truth about the hidden risks of toxins found
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in everyday products and what we can do about it we don't know what we're exposing ourselves to because by law in
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Europe and in the US manufacturers do not have to disclose certain ingredients but we finally have proof that there are
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links to increased rates of cancer infertility obesity we know that a surface scratch on a non-stick piece of
00:00:49
cookware can release 9,000 particles into your food and those microplastics have been found in lungs heart brain
00:00:56
penis there's microplastics in my penis yes and scientists have found that eventually we will become more plastic
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than we are humans if we continue at this rate you seem really pissed off about this I'm really angry that people
00:01:07
have to suffer I mean these chemicals are causing children they have cognitive delays they start having behavioral issues and I think it brings up a lot of
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emotions for me because I've been personally impacted but I think of how many millions of people
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around the world are struggling and don't know why so what are the most important things that we can do to have
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the biggest impact number one
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this has always blown my mind a little bit 53% of you that listen to the show regularly haven't yet subscribed to the
00:01:38
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make sure that this show is better for you every single week we'll listen to your feedback we'll find the guests that
00:01:57
you want me to speak to and we'll continue to do what we do thank you so
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much Dr yon burkart I've consumed a lot of your content I've seen your videos I've read
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a ton of your work just to start if you had to sort of encapsulate the warning
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that you're communicating to people into a sentence what would that warning be don't believe everything you see on a
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container a bottle or a product that you're buying why what's the consequence
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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
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yourself to toxins that you probably don't want to be and what's what mission
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are you on yon well I'm on a mission to empower people
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to avoid environmental toxins so they can protect their families and really
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using science and evidence to make informed decisions that affect their health and what is the the macro picture
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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
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aware of the toxins that we're consuming every day I think now people are becoming more aware but there are new
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toxins that are emerging every day and it's simply a consequence of how the
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system is set up and it's mainly because chemicals and products are not required
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to be tested for safety before they're released onto the market at least in the US and many other regions of the
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world and so what happens is people are buying these products and we're being
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exposed to chemicals that we have no idea how they are actually impacting our health if they're harmful or not and
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we're basically guinea pigs in a massive human experiment that no one signed up for that we didn't consent to and what's
00:03:51
the risk well the risk is that we go about our daily lives not knowing what we're consuming or being exposed to and
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then later on in life unfortunately fall ill and suffer from some chronic
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disease are there particular illnesses that are most closely associated with
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toxins in our environment and toxins that we're consuming every day yes so cancer is probably one of the most clear
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associations as well as infertility and more widely known are
00:04:22
issues like not being able to conceive having a decrease in sperm count sperm
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quality and the fact that sperm count has declined by 50% in the last 50 years
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is pretty alarming and who are you I'm a toxicologist but I'm also a
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mom what's a toxicologist so I study the basic science of poisons how do
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chemicals interact with the cells in our bodies and how do they cause harm but not only that how do our cells defend
00:04:53
themselves against these toxins why did you choose to do toxicology you know you could have done
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anything with your life you could have pursued anything I found it by accident was it really an accident
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though I don't know I think I was led there I think I've always been interested I think I think I was
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meant to share this and I think it brings up
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um a lot of emotions for me because I've been personally impacted but I
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think of how many millions of people around the world are are struggling and don't know why and so if I can bring
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awareness to that then I feel like my mission is complete but I studied toxicology
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because just in my body I knew that something was a Miss we need to study
00:05:46
this environment around us we need to be more aware and more conscious of what we're doing and when I was in undergrad
00:05:53
and I discovered toxicology I was living the absolute conventional lifestyle and
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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
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I reversed it it's so personal for you isn't it it is
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absolutely why not only because I've been personally impacted
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but I want my children to to have the best version of
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me so I can look after them and so that I don't have to worry about them having
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some of the problem that I
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had and you scared about that I'm concerned and I take action on it every
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single day I think about it all the time but not in not in a a scared way just
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what else can I do what else can I research what else can I learn how else can I implement
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this and how else can I share this so that other people can implement it because there's so much going on in the
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scientific Community about these talks chemicals that the general public doesn't
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know and we all have a right to know we got any tissues
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Joe thank you didn't expect to
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cry yeah I mean I mean I can understand but it's it's Illuminating because it really shows why you're doing what
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you're doing and how much it means to you which I think is really important um
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and it makes it makes a lot lot of things make sense frankly but also you know I haven't had kids yet so I don't have that lens that I guess comes with
00:07:34
being a parent and that concern of I think about myself and I'm fairly young so but but I can imagine in a world
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where I had kids I'd become Ultra cautious and ultra um thoughtful yeah
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especially coming from where I came from where I had those problems and just to think if I can prevent that in my
00:07:52
children and and help people prevent that in their children then that's the best outcome for
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everyone I actually did never pay attention to toxins before I studied
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toxicology I was in the lab I was looking at really toxic chemicals chemicals that we know cause harm and
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cause cancer but as I went on with my life I started to face more and more
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increasing health issues increasing in severity until I was faced with fertility challenges and I was unable
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and unwilling to accept at the time that IVF or inital fertilization would
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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
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that there's an environmental component to this there's chemicals in our environment that are impacting my fertility that's what I studied in the
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lab I studied fertility and can cancer so it was quite shocking to me that I
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actually started to struggle with some of these conditions but no one could give me answers and what was missing
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from my view at the time was these lowd dose chronic exposures over a lifetime
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to toxins and chemicals in our products in our homes in our
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outside world that nobody really has connected to some of these disease
00:09:08
States and so it wasn't until I embarked on a journey of self-discovery and
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research that I started to uncover the linkages between these lowdose environmental chemicals and products
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that we're using all the time and how they impacted my health and when I started to remove them and replace them
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with safer options my health returned my health recovered and I was actually able to conceive my own children without
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assistance how old were you when you were first told that IVF was the only route I was 32 okay and you'd had tests
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done and stuff and at that time to see if you were your foot sort of fertility levels and things like that right I was
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actually not having a cycle at that point for nine months you didn't have a period at all I didn't have a period so
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that is quite striking because as a person in their 30s people don't go through menopause and have you know a
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lack of a period until sometimes 50 years old that's almost 20 years earlier
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than that that was really shocking to me something was clearly wrong my body was screaming for help and I had no other
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option but to take matters into my own hands as a toxicologist someone who's
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trained and done the research when you were told that you
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know IVF is the only route what did they say was the the problem
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because if someone's telling you that IVF is only rot presumably they're saying that you're maybe implying between the lines that you're broken in
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some way or that it's normal not to have a period at 32 like what were they what
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was the what does the system tell you is the problem with you that's the issue is that they didn't
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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
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unable to get pregnant on your own well the other option is ibf or adopt
00:11:00
and as a toxicologist was there anything that you needed to relearn or reand based on your training that you've
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discovered wasn't true I had to relearn almost everything because as a scientist
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I was trained as a toxicologist day one to follow the path that and the belief
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that the dose makes a poison that the more you're exposed to a chemical the more severe the outcome and that's not
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always true because as we know now there are chemicals in the environment known as endocrine disruptors at very
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low levels have higher activity than they do at hide levels so it's completely backwards so I had to relearn
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everything that I had learned as a student in order to recover and in fact I was so resistant and so hesitant to go
00:11:47
outside of what I knew that actually helped uh kept me
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stuck for much longer than I needed to be did you say with endocrine disruptors that sometimes lower doses are worse
00:11:58
than high doses exactly how can that be possible they're called non-monotonic dose responses that's a technical term
00:12:03
for it but it's basically because the hormones in our bodies are present and active at such extraordinarily tiny
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amounts that any amount of excess or chemicals coming from the environment
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could trigger those same Pathways could be devastating on a cellular
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level and when you think about the products that we use daytoday whether they're beauty products or you know
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might be a frying pan or a SP plastic spatula or anything how many of these sort of day-to-day consumer products
00:12:33
have toxic chemicals in them or at least one toxic chemical almost
00:12:40
everything and it might shock you to think that is almost everything but unfortunately it is it's because our
00:12:46
world now is overcome with plastics single-use Plastics plastic containers
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food containers almost everything that we know of has some plastic element to it
00:12:59
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
00:13:05
Plastics are leeching the Plastics themselves are breaking up leading to microplastic and nanoplastic release
00:13:12
that we are just being constantly bombarded with on a daily basis and what about beauty products because I had this
00:13:19
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
00:13:24
where you start thinking about having a family and kids and such and so we've both become become pretty conscious of
00:13:32
the products that we're applying every day from shampoos to deodrant for the most part if you grab a product off of a
00:13:37
store shelf nine times out of 10 there are chemicals of concern in them and we're talking about major retailers big
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box stores if you go to smaller let's say health food stores and chains like that then the percentage is much lower
00:13:52
so the you have a better chance of getting a safer product at a health food store and just to before we get into it
00:13:58
can you give me an overview of your personal education and the career Journey you've traveled that have
00:14:04
resulted in the wisdom that you have now yes so I am a PhD toxicologist I started
00:14:10
studying reproductive toxicity in the laboratory as an undergrad and we were looking at the effect of environmental
00:14:16
chemicals that are pretty much everywhere in the environment they're the products of combustion so the
00:14:22
combustion of gasoline in cars um in cigarettes in cooking so some of these
00:14:28
chemicals we looked at the impact on of them on the reproductive system in males and females and what we saw was pretty
00:14:35
striking such that when the animals are challenged with these chemicals and
00:14:41
they're pregnant then The Offspring not only the daughters and the
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sons but also the grandchildren are impacted by the grandmother being
00:14:54
exposed how does that work so when a woman is pregnant with a female daughter
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her developing ovaries which will then someday become contain the eggs that will then become the grandchildren are
00:15:08
also in the same environment as the mother so what the what the mother is
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being exposed to the baby is also being exposed to and also her grandchildren
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are being exposed so if a mother is exposed to toxins her baby's babies are
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being exposed to those toxins that's exactly right so there's sort of a generational toxification
00:15:34
of people yeah that's called multi-generational toxicity and it even goes a step further transgenerational
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that's when great grandchildren can be impacted because what's happening in utero is epigenetic changes so changes
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to our DNA that are then being passed down through our progyny so great
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grandchildren even if they live a perfectly clean lifestyle and haven't been osed to toxins could have already
00:16:01
been genetically predisposed to developing some of these conditions are there particular toxins that you think
00:16:07
are especially susceptible to this sort of transgenerational passing down through
00:16:14
mutations in our DNA yeah it's the endocrine disruptors things like phalates bisphenol past chemicals a lot
00:16:21
of the endocrine disruptors that some people are familiar with other people
00:16:26
are not but that are found in our everyday products like non-stick cookware the makeup and cosmetics that we're using the plastic containers that
00:16:33
we're buying food in what is an endocrine disruptor explain that to me like I'm N9 years old
00:16:41
okay so in the human body we have eight endocrine glands so they're little centers in our bodies and they secrete
00:16:47
hormones and these hormones regulate pretty much everything that you can think of so from sleep wake digestion to
00:16:55
how well your brain works cognition to metabolism so how quickly you can burn
00:17:00
calories uh how much fat you deposit how much fat you can lose and also your
00:17:06
fertility if you're able to have children someday so endocrine disruptors are coming in and they're basically
00:17:12
disrupting like just as the name indicates they're throwing the balance off they're messing up with the
00:17:18
signaling they're causing everything to go Haywire in our bodies so we really need to be careful especially for
00:17:23
children whose bodies are rapidly developing and then you're throwing in these endocrine disrup chemicals it's
00:17:30
like adding gasoline to you know like a dumpster fire basically and as it relates to children are they especially
00:17:37
susceptible to endocrine disruptors because they're in a developmental stage absolutely so with children it's
00:17:43
extremely unfortunate that they are the most susceptible and most vulnerable to
00:17:49
a lot of toxins because like you said they're growing they're not able to detoxify in fact a child's
00:17:56
detoxification capacity doesn't ful F develop until the age of 10 years so
00:18:01
detoxification capacity what's that yes so the ability of your body to detoxify chemicals we all have it everyone has it
00:18:09
the liver and the kidney are the detox organs the main ones but we have this capability of being able to break these
00:18:16
chemicals down and remove them so that they don't cause harm in our bodies but with children that ability isn't fully
00:18:23
developed until the age of 10 years old so if you think about all these little children they're being exposed even
00:18:30
before they're born after they're born and then they can't even get rid of these chemicals from their body until
00:18:35
they're 10 years old and what are some of the illnesses or diseases that we see in children that
00:18:41
are have been heavily exposed to these endocrine disruptors in our everyday environment the worst is cancer so we
00:18:47
see an increased risk of childhood leukemia with certain exposures there's also neurodevelopmental delays so
00:18:54
cognitive deficits in children that are exposed to these chemicals we also see increased rates of
00:19:00
obesity obesity in children is skyrocketing now unprecedented levels
00:19:06
that we have not seen before and it's likely due to these chemicals and this genetic predisposition and programming
00:19:13
that kids are just being dealt the worst hand possible what about things like
00:19:19
neurod Divergence is there links between things like ADHD and these endocrine disruptors and you know ADHD autism etc
00:19:27
etc yeah there is a link actually so some of these chemicals have been known
00:19:32
to worsen these behavioral conditions like ADHD and
00:19:38
autism like you mentioned and have they have they done studies on this yes so there's associations where they'll measure the
00:19:45
amount of these chemicals in children through their urine or through their blood and they'll confirm the severity
00:19:50
of these conditions and be able to correlate it with the amount of the chemicals in their bodies and what about um the impact this
00:19:58
has on things like puberty because I was reading some stats before that I think it's is it women are having girls are
00:20:05
getting going through puberty earlier and earlier or is it later and later I can't remember it's one of the two it's earlier earlier and earlier so children
00:20:11
who are being exposed to these chemicals are experiencing earlier puberty earlier
00:20:17
breast development earlier um menstrual cycles and what that does is actually
00:20:22
shift the entire window because if you think about it we're born with a c a set number of eggs in our ovaries once those
00:20:29
eggs are gone that's when you start having menopause so what's happening when you start your period earlier you
00:20:35
actually go through menopause earlier and that can come with this whole host of risk factors bone fractures and so on
00:20:42
and so forth and this is because of those endocrine disruptors likely yes how how would they
00:20:49
know they've done studies on this as well so you can see that they've done um observational studies where they'll ask
00:20:56
uh families uh when did your child start using Beauty and personal care products which are loaded with these
00:21:03
chemicals the children who used more products have more phades more endocrine
00:21:09
disruptors in their blood and in their urine and then they have earlier puberty unfortunately and as it relates to
00:21:16
fertility generally in adults are you aware of the shifts we've
00:21:22
seen in infertility like what are the numbers how do you quantify the changes well over the last 100 years or
00:21:28
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
00:21:34
recently right so it isn't necessarily that more people um are experiencing infertility it could be a measure of
00:21:41
people are having children later could be um people are just having less children but it is an overall measure of
00:21:48
uh population level so it looks like there's just less children being born and that could be for a whole number of
00:21:53
reasons right are people not able to have kids are they choosing not to have
00:21:58
kids I would almost argue that it's the fact that people are not able to have kids when you correlate that with the
00:22:05
fact that sperm counts have declined by 50% worldwide that is absolutely
00:22:10
astonishing we're not at the point yet where humans will go extinct but if we continue on this path
00:22:18
and don't make changes which there are many ways that we can make changes then we might be looking
00:22:26
at population decline isn't it the job of the FDA or some kind
00:22:33
of government body to regulate the chemicals that are in our everyday items
00:22:40
you would think right in Europe the European commission has a much better
00:22:45
system of regulating chemicals so they require upfront Chemical Testing
00:22:50
depending on the amount that is produced so chemical manufacturers need to provide data so they have to fund these
00:22:58
studies these laboratory studies they have to fund them and provide this package of
00:23:03
information to the European chemicals agency or eeka and once they do that
00:23:08
then based on the amount that they're producing you have to give more information you have to have more testing such that if you're producing
00:23:16
several metric tons of a chemical you've got to do a whole bunch of studies to
00:23:21
really prove that it is safe not only for people but also animals and the environment that it's not going to be
00:23:28
something that is persistent that builds up that can't be broken down that starts to accumulate because that's what we're
00:23:34
seeing now with some of these chemicals 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
00:23:40
happens it basically disrupts the entire ecosystem of the planet and we're we're
00:23:46
not disconnected from that right we're connected to the ecosystem we rely on that so if if we're looking at it from
00:23:52
the standpoint that testing of chemicals upfront that is absolutely something
00:23:57
that we should should be doing but no one is really mandating that except in Europe why don't they mandate it in
00:24:03
other parts of the world like the United States our system wasn't set up like that over here I think we've got a
00:24:10
different relationship um with between the government and with industry I think
00:24:15
there is a lack of regulations a lack of requirements for toxicity testing
00:24:22
combined with the lack of corporate responsibility so a lot of these manufacturers don't want to have to foot
00:24:28
the bill and pay millions of dollars to have testing only to show that this chemical that they are so excited in
00:24:34
love with can't be used because it's toxic do you think it is malicious and
00:24:40
intentional in terms of do you think there's a concerted effort to make sure that the government doesn't increase
00:24:45
regulation on these industries so that they can continue to produce lowcost items that
00:24:51
are have long shelf lives and um are cheaper I would hope not but it's
00:24:58
looking like that and it's just this whole system is not set up to protect
00:25:05
consumers and then the environment at least in the US so you you don't have your period yourself you're told that
00:25:12
you your best option is to go do IVF you then go on a bit of a journey yourself to unlearn lots of things you
00:25:18
learn in toxicology training what was the ending to that story in terms of what did you do then
00:25:24
did you go find a different doctor did what did you change and what is the ending of that story well I fell down a
00:25:31
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
00:25:37
hands I'm going outside of the route that I thought I was supposed to go down
00:25:43
the mainstream route so I kind of went I went sideways a little bit and I went with integrative and functional medicine
00:25:50
and so I went looking for the root cause the root cause which is not necessarily what I was being guided toward with the
00:25:57
conventional route so with integrative and functional medicine there was personalized testing and of course this
00:26:03
was all upfront cost for me but this was something that was absolutely vital so I
00:26:09
found a way to pay for these tests and they told me exactly what I'm deficient
00:26:14
in what I need to do and they guided me so I first started with removing
00:26:20
inflammatory foods and really dialing in on my diet and I saw relief from my
00:26:25
symptoms in within two weeks very rapid once I started removing these triggers that were causing digestive problems
00:26:32
then I started to see Improvement very fast but it was then going on six months
00:26:38
and I kind of felt like I hit a plateau said there's something else that's still triggering me there's something else that's still bothering me and I don't
00:26:45
feel 100% even though I've done all the work I've cleaned up my diet I cook all my meals at home I have sourced the best
00:26:51
Quality Meats and vegetables I even started growing my own food and there was still something there something was
00:26:58
not not right and so then I started targeting things in my home my makeup
00:27:03
cabinet in particular was a huge source of trigger for me in terms of chemicals
00:27:10
and toxicity once I started to clean out my makeup drawer I really saw a shift
00:27:15
because of what I was doing on a day-to-day basis I was using several cosmetic products I was absolutely
00:27:21
obsessed with perfumes and fragrances once I removed those one by one slowly
00:27:27
disentangling myself from their just being obsessed with them I started to see real change and I noticed more
00:27:35
energy return I was feeling more fit I had more mental Clarity more Focus I
00:27:41
didn't have as many headaches and migraines anymore and I just started to feel like a more vital person like more
00:27:48
vitality and did your period return it did it did return and it returned and I was pregnant within nine months of that
00:27:56
first the first time when I started this whole journey within nine months I was pregnant I had my period back within I'd
00:28:04
probably say three months and then six months after that once I got rid of all the beauty and personal care products I
00:28:10
also looked into my Oral Care my oral health I had Mercury amalgam feelings and Mercury is extremely toxic to
00:28:17
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
00:28:25
nice a huge leap in my in my health jour journey and how were you able to measure
00:28:31
the improvements I know you can say you know I felt better but could you measure the improvements biochemically in a lab
00:28:37
somehow Yes actually that was part of this entire Journey so there was regular routine testing going on whenever we
00:28:43
made changes I was working with these practitioners and I made changes and we would do tests and say look your numbers
00:28:49
came back it looks great you removed the Mercury amalgam fillings from your teeth your mercury levels have dropped really
00:28:56
yeah it was pretty shocking and I felt almost instantly better when they took those out of my mouth it was that
00:29:03
striking of an effect knowing what you know surely it's built up a bit of um I
00:29:10
don't know a bit of a if I knew all that you knew I think about toxins in our
00:29:16
environment I would be a a really annoying person at like every dinner party and B there'd be a certain sense
00:29:23
of I guess emergency and urgency to me because I'd be looking around all my friends and I'd be if I understood the
00:29:30
consequences of them drinking from that plastic container or putting that product on their face I feel like I'd
00:29:36
trying to be Shout Shout at the world to tell them to stop do you do you feel a sense of that you you directly witnessed
00:29:42
the impact that making these changes and detoxifying your environment had on you do you feel a sense of like you
00:29:49
know absolutely I mean I can't even tell you how much passion it has ignited in
00:29:55
me to be able to share this information and spread it as far and wide as possible because it's literally
00:30:01
affecting every single person on this planet and I do find it sometimes challenging not to call someone out and
00:30:08
say hey be careful with that but you know I think it comes from being a living example and I found that that is
00:30:15
much more effective at being a living example instead of telling people don't do this don't do that showing them
00:30:22
what's possible look at what happened to me look at my journey look at the benefit that I feel and then once to
00:30:28
start removing these things and making these simple swaps it's about simple small incremental shifts that anyone can
00:30:35
do over the long term because it's really about uh it's a marathon not a race it's not about you've got to throw
00:30:42
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
00:30:48
and stress is harmful MH so being a living example empowering people with
00:30:55
information educating about the problem but coming with the solution you mentioned cancer is one of
00:31:03
the downstream consequences of living in a toxic environment and we talked about how
00:31:09
sperm quality has reduced over the last couple of decades when we look at the stats around cancer are there any stats
00:31:15
in particular that you think are most clearly associated with us living in such such a to toxic environment one of
00:31:21
them that always brings to mind is breast cancer because I I think I read or heard that breast cancer is on the
00:31:26
rise or has been rising for the last couple of decades and when you look at the Western World versus something like
00:31:32
you know a tribe in in Africa they don't see the same levels of breast cancer
00:31:37
yeah that is definitely a concern because cancer historically was a disease of age aging it wasn't so common
00:31:44
that you see cancer in your 30s 40s and even 50s now we're seeing a shift the
00:31:50
window is moving earlier and earlier cancer incidence like you said breast cancer incidence is definitely on the r
00:31:58
I myself never knew anyone that suffered from breast cancer or survived it until
00:32:04
I hit my 30s then I knew five people that had it including two people that I worked with in the toxicology lab and
00:32:12
what are your suspicions about the root causes of this Rising cancer I definitely think there is an
00:32:18
huge environmental component to it because a lot of what was believed decades ago was that disease and cancer
00:32:25
incidents had to do with your genes you were just genetically predisposed you were unlucky but in
00:32:34
actuality what we're seeing now is that the environment plays such a massive
00:32:39
role in whether or not you actually have cancer so just because you have the pre
00:32:44
disposition to developing breast cancer such as the braco gene doesn't mean you'll get it it really depends on your
00:32:51
lifestyle and how you lived but also how your ancestors lived right we talked
00:32:57
about about the multigenerational effect of these chemicals depending on how your ancestors lived how your grandmother and
00:33:04
how your mother lived could predispose you to this and have there been any studies that show the impact of these
00:33:11
sort of everyday chemicals on cancer risk yes and that's something that is I
00:33:18
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 I hate
00:33:25
seeing this actually I'm really angry that people have to suffer with cancer
00:33:30
because it's so preventable there was a study recently
00:33:35
that looked at removing certain ingredients from Beauty and personal care products so women without any
00:33:41
history of breast cancer were asked to remove these ingredients from their products for 28
00:33:47
days so that's very short four weeks right they took cells from the breast
00:33:55
tissue they were all normal they measured the amount of breast cancer gene expression after 28 days they took
00:34:02
another sample so after 28 days of removing these ingredients they took another sample and they saw that the
00:34:08
breast cancer gene expression dropped and the only thing that they
00:34:15
were asked to change about their lifestyle was to remove these ingredients from their beauty and personal care products and which
00:34:21
products were they told to remove and what ingredients were those it was skin care deodorant shampoo things that most
00:34:28
people are using and the ingredients were phades which can often be found in
00:34:34
fragrance so the seemingly innocuous little term on the ingredients list
00:34:40
fragrance or parfume can contain a huge number of
00:34:45
chemicals it's hidden behind this umbrella term because by law in Europe
00:34:51
and in the US manufacturers do not have to disclose this it is considered trade secret and within that chemical mixture
00:34:58
are known carcinogens endocrine disruptors like
00:35:04
phalates and the most potent allergens known to man and with phalates the reason that
00:35:10
they're in fragrances and that manufacturers love them so much is there what are known as film formers so it
00:35:17
helps the fragrance to stick to surfaces like your skin your clothing and it helps to make it last longer and linger
00:35:24
so if you've ever sprayed something on yourself and are still able to smell it hours later that's a Telltale sign that
00:35:32
you've been exposed to thetes that you have thetes in that fragrance in that product and how many deant on the Shelf
00:35:39
have phalates in them if it's got a fragrance in it almost all of them okay it's code
00:35:45
it's code for endocrine disrupting valades essentially you can assume that and in fact it's safe to assume that
00:35:51
they contain allads so I mean this is one of the deodrants that I often use um
00:35:57
it's just a I mean for anyone that's just listening it's just like one of the doents You' find on a shelf in any store
00:36:03
that comes in a little is this an aluminium can yeah it is an aluminium can does this have thetes in it how do I
00:36:11
know so you turn turn The Container around and check the ingredients list do you see a word fragrance or SL parfume
00:36:19
yeah fragrance brackets parfume that's what you're looking for
00:36:24
okay so I shouldn't be spraying this all over my body right okay so sometimes you'll see on there it'll say th free
00:36:32
okay right that's helpful but that still doesn't take away the fact that there are known carcinogens and allergens in
00:36:37
there so if you've got any kind of respiratory problems any kind of skin problems and you just don't want to
00:36:43
expose yourself to unnecessary carcinogens then it would be beneficial to avoid fragrance what about a little
00:36:49
spray just a I mean it depends is that really going
00:36:54
to benefit you is are you going to get any effect from that little spr want to smell so this is why I spray this
00:37:00
because you know this top is quite tight so if if it's tight and it's hot in here I'll end up smelling so I just spray it
00:37:05
and then I'm really do it's public service for other people really I'm fine to smell myself I can't even smell it but it's for you know Jack and the team
00:37:13
well the question would be can you find a safer alternative and the answer is yes how do I find a safer alternative
00:37:20
what am I looking for so you don't want fragrances and you definitely yes so avoid the word fragrance unless it says
00:37:26
that the fragrance comes from essential oils okay but but if it comes from essential oils will it still make me
00:37:32
smell nice yes okay yes because that's where aromatic compounds come from they
00:37:39
come from plants but just to give you more context on this aerosol spray this is one of the worst products that you
00:37:45
can use I've been using it every day yeah so I'll tell you why aerosols use
00:37:51
propellants propellants are derived from petroleum and there was a recall on thousands of products within the last
00:37:58
couple years that the propellants were a source of benzene contamination and
00:38:03
Benzene is a known human carcinogen that you do not want to be inhaling because
00:38:09
what you inhale goes to your brain it goes quickly all over your body through the bloodstream you don't want to be
00:38:14
delivering a known human carcinogen into your bloodstream you're just it's not
00:38:20
helping you at all because Benzene is known to cause leukemia in
00:38:26
people so it's a no-brainer if you want to avoid that to avoid aerosols but not
00:38:33
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
00:38:40
that's also an inhalation risk because there's particles in there there's solids in there you don't want to be
00:38:46
inhaling unnecessary things so the best option for deodorant is to look for something that has essential oils and is
00:38:52
a roll on or a stick solid is there anything on the label that I can trust
00:38:58
when it comes to doents is is there like a certain term that I'm looking for you said phate 3 phate 3 is there anything
00:39:04
else that yes so dalite free and paraben free are definitely helpful okay because
00:39:10
then we know at least two of the known endocrine disruptors that we have evidence on are not found in that
00:39:17
product but that doesn't exonerate everything else we still need to be diligent about the ingredients because
00:39:24
they are sources of contamination of byproducts of carcinogens and hidden
00:39:30
toxins essentially it is pretty crazy that I could get a lighter and go and it
00:39:36
would be flammable and then I spray that on my body like like it's like I'm lathering myself in petrol or something
00:39:42
it is pretty crazy that's essentially what that is petrol yeah because it's coming from petroleum all the
00:39:49
propellants and some of the other base ingredients I'm sure I haven't looked at it but I'm almost certain because that
00:39:55
is the source of the majority of ingredients go into these products this is my last day ever using aerosol
00:40:02
deodrant let's pull up a bin
00:40:08
okay goodbye okay that's gone okay is this a better alternative what I've got here is
00:40:15
I've got this roll on deodrant which I think is one of the refillable ones um
00:40:20
is this a better alternative at least from this level of what I know of the fact that it's a
00:40:26
solid yes but I have to see the ingredients list we have to look at the ingredients list to really know what's
00:40:31
actually in the deodorant okay so at least from a sustainability standpoint
00:40:36
that's definitely great to see that it's not in a plastic container that is refillable but we really need to check
00:40:42
the ingredients okay so I've got the ingredients list here I've just pulled it up on my iPad it says tapioca
00:40:49
starch baking soda sunflower seed wax Coco seed butter
00:40:59
Toral exate no idea what that is sterile alcohol perfume so do you recognize the
00:41:07
ingredients are they easily recognizable or do they sound highly synthetic very
00:41:12
chemical like it says par perfume is there any indication on
00:41:17
what's in the perfume all antiag are scented with a blend of fragrances to give you the scense you love hm is there
00:41:25
any indication that it's salad free and parin
00:41:30
free no that's what should give us pause is when we don't know what's in that
00:41:36
fragrance term that's really the issue okay I mean there's just so many
00:41:42
bloody words phate free deodorant I've got a better way that I
00:41:49
can help you search okay if you just type in the word organic and then whatever product you're looking for organic deodorant that is going to
00:41:56
whittle down the choices significantly for you well and you're saying that if it's organic it that means that it won't
00:42:03
contain the phalates and the parabens not necessarily this is where it gets a little bit nuanced but at least it
00:42:09
whittel down the results that you'll get in sege and then you can check the ingredients one by one and look for the
00:42:15
one that has essential oils instead of the word fragrance because it's really the lack of transparency that should
00:42:22
make us pause we have no idea what's in there we don't know what we're exposing ourselves too and if you're someone who
00:42:29
is concerned about the chemicals in the products you're using the toxins you're
00:42:34
being exposed to if you are someone who is thinking about getting pregnant are pregnant
00:42:41
breastfeeding or just health conscious and you don't want these toxins in your products then this is the work that
00:42:48
needs to be done interesting so just because it's a roll on doesn't necessarily mean it's safe right okay
00:42:56
like you just demonstr and just because it's sustainable also doesn't mean it's safe so there's a
00:43:01
there's a lot of marketing that goes on with products and and manufacturers know that consumers are becoming Savvy
00:43:07
they're becoming aware and they're demanding safer products so they will hit all of the buttons and hope that
00:43:13
somebody isn't diligent and doesn't see through that is fragrance so important because fragrance is an indicator that
00:43:19
it contains these Fates and parabens is that why I should be thinking fragrance is one indicator for whether the
00:43:27
cosmetic product is toxic or not yeah definitely that would be probably the easiest and most obvious way that you
00:43:33
can weed products out is just look for the word fragrance or parfum and if there's no indication that it comes from
00:43:39
plants that it's from essential oils then that's not something that you want
00:43:44
to use I read a stat that said 91% of antier Sprints 95% of shaving products
00:43:50
83% of moisturizers and 63% of sunscreens contain fragrance and 96% of
00:43:57
shampoos 98% of conditioners 97% of hair styling products um contain fragrance as
00:44:03
well why are they putting fragrance and everything would would the products not sell if there weren't fragrance in there
00:44:09
yeah I think it's there's many reasons that they put fragrances in so first of all we are sensory beings and people
00:44:15
respond to fragrances fragrances changes your mood it uplifts your mood it helps you feel more confident fragrances
00:44:21
affect us on a very Primal level and the earlier and earlier that you can get hooked on frag es the better for these
00:44:28
manufacturers right so that's why they're putting fragrances in even children's products and scented
00:44:33
everything if you notice I've got kids we go out and look for slime I said let's look for unscented slime it's
00:44:40
nearly impossible to find it you'd have to make your own slime at home so that's what we've started doing and the kids
00:44:45
love it because they get to you know be like little chemists or whatever but you cannot find
00:44:52
even even they have markers pens crayons they've got sent ented stickers I mean
00:44:58
scented everything scent is everywhere now the fragrance industry has absolutely
00:45:04
exploded in the last 10 or 15 years and fragrances are the most pervasive Source
00:45:11
One of the most pervasive sources of toxins in our homes in our daily lives it's almost like the new secondhand
00:45:17
smoke that's how prevalent it is because the chemicals once you spray them right
00:45:22
the reason you smell them is because they have volatilized means that they have become gases and they reach your nose you smell them what that also means
00:45:30
is that they are in the air Studies have shown that these fragrance chemicals phalates carcinogens allergens they bind
00:45:37
to the dust in your home so it's not like I smell this fragrance I sprayed it
00:45:42
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
00:45:48
physically remove the dust so if you're not regularly dusting
00:45:54
mopping sweeping and vacuuming you're becoming re exposed and this is absolutely the worst for a child a baby
00:46:02
who is crawling on the floor their faces and noses and Airways are close to the ground so they're inhaling the dust that
00:46:07
have settled on the floor I don't know many people that are sweeping and dusting every single day but if you if
00:46:14
you have a child then really I really want you to listen to this because the child is putting stuff in their mouth so
00:46:20
they're ingesting these dust particles they're ingesting the chemicals that are attached to the dust particles they're
00:46:26
inhaling them and they can't detox them they can't detoxify them from their bodies and so then what happens they
00:46:32
grow up they start having allergies they start having cognitive delays they start
00:46:37
having behavioral issues they start storing more fat they can't lose weight they have low energy depression and a
00:46:45
host of conditions that we think are are common but doesn't mean they're normal
00:46:52
and they're avoidable that's that's the part that is so
00:46:57
important is that these conditions are avoidable I was just reading about
00:47:02
allergies as you speaking and it's I've got some stats here food allergies um the prevalence of food allergies in
00:47:08
children have increased by 50% since the 1990s in the United
00:47:13
States in terms of seasonal allergies in 2021 approximately 81 million Americans
00:47:18
were diagnosed with allergic ritis also known as hay fever or seasonal allergies
00:47:24
by 2018 nearly 42 million Americans or 133% of the
00:47:31
population had been diagnosed with asthma in their lifetime and I mean why is this
00:47:37
happening I mean there's like BBC articles here that show there's been huge increases in allergic reactions as
00:47:43
well um the EpiPen businesses on the rise why are allergies getting worse in
00:47:48
your opinion yeah I think it's this pervasiveness of the overuse of
00:47:55
fragrances scented products products and the lack of awareness about the harm
00:48:01
that they cause there's there's studies showing that there people who as soon as you light a candle then people start
00:48:08
having migraines they can't think straight anymore they become dizzy but not only that like you said increased
00:48:15
asthma incidents once you get asthma it doesn't go away you have reactive Airways so then you're triggered again
00:48:21
whenever you encounter these chemicals what about people who say the Oles have
00:48:27
exploded over the last couple of years because we're not letting our kids consume more dirt I hear this a lot
00:48:34
people say it's because we're becoming too sanitized and our kids need to go play in the mud that could be it as well
00:48:40
but I would almost I would like to see the data in the rise in fragrances and
00:48:46
fragrance use overlaid on top of the incidents of allergies in children and
00:48:52
all of these health conditions I want to see that data I haven't seen it yet and I'm hoping that somebody does these
00:48:57
these studies because I think they would be correlated have you done any research
00:49:03
on you know I always I love thinking about other populations and civilizations and that aren't exposed to
00:49:08
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
00:49:16
fragrances you know like some of the tribes in Africa that are still pretty close to being um un contaminate like
00:49:24
contaminated by human interference in the western world have you ever looked at any of those civilizations or
00:49:30
societies yeah the rate and incidence of cancer is almost non-existent at least it was almost non-existent but now some
00:49:36
of these chemicals have spread so far and wide and one example being past
00:49:42
they're known as forever chemicals because they don't degrade they can travel so far they basically covered the globe they are found in polar bear fat
00:49:49
so that just tells you how far up the food chain these chemicals have traveled because they don't break down so as soon
00:49:55
as an animal eats it and then gets eaten by another animal so on and so forth then it reaches the apex predators right
00:50:01
and it's in stored in their fat and in polar bears it's been seen that you can
00:50:06
find some of these chemicals so we know how far and wide that these chemicals have gone that even these tribes that
00:50:13
are in remote locations aren't necessarily exempt from being exposed
00:50:20
they're also getting exposed it's just in the air it's in the water it's in the soil and what chemicals are this PE fat
00:50:27
pasas P what what does that pfas so per and polyfloral alkalol substances it's a
00:50:35
huge chemical class of about 15,000 different chemicals and that includes
00:50:40
things like PFA pfos and PTFE which are more commonly known as Teflon non-stick
00:50:47
chemicals like this non-stick pan that I have here exactly so there that P is p P
00:50:57
yes PTFE is the chemical name for teflon so Teflon is used to create the
00:51:03
non-stick coating and it is believed that because it is so chemically stable
00:51:08
that it wouldn't come off the pan into your food but that's not true there's evidence showing that there is transfer
00:51:15
from the cookware in normal cooking conditions into food not only that when
00:51:21
you heat that pan high enough it will vaporize and get into the air and if you inhale it you run the risk of
00:51:28
experiencing what's known as Teflon flu and it basically has flu like symptoms when you inhale that stuff and
00:51:34
so that would be considered an acute exposure so a onetime higher dose
00:51:40
exposure but what we really need information on are the chronic low doses
00:51:45
that we're getting just by cooking our daily eggs on there have that been any studies done on
00:51:51
the the impact of people cooking on these versus people that don't cook with these nonstick with the Teflon pans well
00:51:59
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
00:52:05
non-stick piece of cookware it scratches very easily yeah and some of these scratches are
00:52:11
microscopic and invisible to the to the naked eye Studies have found that a
00:52:16
surface scratch can release 9,000 particles from that nonstick
00:52:22
coating into your food and if it's a crack it that number jumps up to
00:52:28
2.3 billion particles that are transferred into your food and what's that going to
00:52:34
do to my health what are these P fats doing to my health well P fats are linked with several types of cancers so
00:52:42
kidney and testicular cancer thyroid disorders which thyroid problems are so
00:52:49
common these days but they're not normal then we have increased risk of
00:52:54
miscarriage pre-term labor pre-term birth preeclampsia which is high blood
00:52:59
pressure during pregnancy that's could be deadly you also have increased
00:53:05
obesity that's linked with past chemicals and past also contribute to an increase in
00:53:11
endometriosis and PCOS oh really so PE people who have
00:53:17
endometriosis and PCOS they have found to have higher levels of pasas in their bodies and pasas are found in everybody
00:53:25
no one's exempt everyone has pasas in our bodies but whether or not they're able to exert toxicity depends on your
00:53:33
inner environment depends on how many other chemicals your body is working to fight off I just pulled up some studies
00:53:40
here one of the studies from 2023 which you might be aware of showed that higher levels of pasas in the blood of women in
00:53:46
Singapore were associated with a 30 to 40% lower chance of pregnancy and life birth within one
00:53:53
year um and another study sampled 3 81 blood samples from people trying to lose
00:53:58
weight and no matter the diet that these participants tried they gained weight if they had elevated past exposure what the
00:54:07
hell they gained weight even if they tried different diets yeah so these
00:54:12
chemicals are known endocrine disruptors are also known as obesogens so they're
00:54:17
increasing the prevalence of obesity so you store more fat and you can't lose
00:54:25
it obesogens I thought food was the only obesogen well the chemicals that you're
00:54:32
being exposed to through your cookwar through food packaging they're also sources of these
00:54:39
endocrine disruptors and what about um cancer is pasas linked to cancer have
00:54:44
they done any studies on that with with animals or yeah in humans it's kidney and testicular
00:54:51
cancer okay what about prostate I know that's a big concern for a lot of men and particular I haven't seen direct
00:54:58
evidence on that but I wouldn't be surprised if that was also linked because that's also a hormonal
00:55:03
tissue a study from 2021 in mice at the University of
00:55:08
Illinois found that a high fat diet combined with pasas exposure could cause
00:55:14
changes in prostate cells that promote tumor growth is there is there an alternative
00:55:20
to P is there something that I could use instead of this nonstick pan yeah just get rid of the nonstick chemicals all
00:55:26
together and that would be something as simple as cast iron stainless steel glass cookware ceramic cookware just a
00:55:34
bit more annoying isn't it yeah I mean non-stick cookware is amazing I mean you
00:55:40
you can make food slide off clean up is a breeze but at what cost you're you might be saving time when you're cooking
00:55:47
but how much of that time is being taken off the back end of your lifespan is the question Susan throw this away I would
00:55:56
but see that's the other thing is if you are then hearing this and you're like I got to get rid of my cookware well guess
00:56:02
what you throw that out and it ends up in a landfill and the P fast chemicals are now in the environment where they
00:56:08
won't go away so I'm throwing so it really depends right if you are in the
00:56:14
position to where you can get rid of it then it might benefit you but the key is to really stop buying it but you already
00:56:22
have it so it's really up to you in terms of cookwar that's that's better for me avoid the non-stick go for
00:56:29
stainless steel cast iron what about the utensils then so things like I've got a
00:56:35
plastic spatula here in my hand is this good no because that's melting it's
00:56:41
breaking off into little tiny bits and fragments of microplastics and nanoplastics in your food so bad spatula
00:56:51
yes okay the the silicone the silicone rubber the plastic if you just think
00:56:58
about the fact that it's being heated up if you've ever looked at one the Integrity you'll see it's starting to
00:57:04
fray if you see any bits coming off then you know it's definitely breaking up and getting into your food yeah there's
00:57:10
loads of little pieces missing from the end of the plastic and I guess they that's gone into the food most likely
00:57:16
right slowly dissolving over time right because with nonstick cookware you can't use metal utensils right you'll scratch
00:57:22
the surface but guess what even with that you can scratch the surface so the wooden one here in my left hand that's
00:57:29
better yes at least from a safety and microplastic and nonstick chemical
00:57:34
perspective yes are you concerned at all no not at all okay so wood is fine wood is totally
00:57:41
fine okay what people normally will say is I can't properly clean the wood but I haven't had that issue you just clean it
00:57:47
with soap and water and it is fine okay so we'll keep the wooden
00:57:54
spatula um um what else in terms of cooking products so I've got this pan here you're saying this is a good one
00:58:00
stainless steel yes great keep that one keep that one um okay what
00:58:08
about what about this nice plastic container super convenient put my lunch in it go to work maybe pop it in the
00:58:15
microwave heat it up get my takeaway in it plastic container good absolutely not
00:58:21
do not microwave plastic containers even after just a few seconds you'll get release of billions of microplastic
00:58:27
particles into your food just from a tiny Square centimeter you'll get billions of microplastic particles and
00:58:34
with microplastics they're hard it's a solid Mass it does not break down in the
00:58:40
body what if it says BPA free that's great but it's still plastic it's still
00:58:46
microplastic it's still nanoplastic releasing and it probably has salades in it depending on the type of
00:58:52
plastic right okay so you don't want to be microwaving these and and if I get
00:58:58
microplastics um into my food what's the what's the net impact what's the harm of that well microplastics don't break down
00:59:05
they don't go away again they're accumulating in human tissues so they've actually been found in a whole number
00:59:11
I'm pretty sure they're all over the body at this point we just have to see the the evidence to know right and so
00:59:16
they're in human L um lungs blood in the gut tissue they're in heart they're in
00:59:22
brain they are in the placenta they're also in penis and they have been
00:59:28
detected in there's microplastics in my penis yes there could be Studies have
00:59:33
shown that and even in newborn babies so when babies are born they have their
00:59:38
first bowel movement which is known as meconium and in the moonium microplastics have been found so that
00:59:45
means babies are being exposed to microplastics In Utero they're being born with Plastics in their body and
00:59:52
what's the risk of that well the risk is that they don't go away number one and on a cellular level they're causing
00:59:58
inflammation and oxidative stress and oxidative stress is free radical damage and what that means is if you ingest
01:00:05
these microplastic particles which everyone is and they're in your tissues
01:00:11
and your body cannot get rid of them then they're basically like the equivalent of a million little fires all
01:00:18
over your body and unless you have enough detox capability like
01:00:24
antioxidants to get rid of them they're there to stay what do you mean by detox
01:00:30
capabilities as in my my liver and yeah exactly every cell in your body has some
01:00:36
antioxidants in it if you if they if you didn't you would be dead because in order to live on this planet and breathe
01:00:43
oxygen we need antioxidants to neutralize the free radicals that happen through cellular
01:00:50
respiration right so whenever we breathe oxygen there are free radicals that are created and our cells have naturally in
01:00:57
them antioxidants like glutathione and they help to neutralize these free radicals but glutathion is also vital
01:01:05
for detoxifying environmental chemicals so if you think about it how does the body decide what's more important do I
01:01:12
neutralize these free radicals because I need to breathe and live or do I have to deal with these chemicals over here I
01:01:18
don't know so you're literally being torn your body is torn at this point
01:01:23
what to deal with first and usually it's the oxygen I need to breathe so let me
01:01:28
neutralize the free radicals from breathing oxygen then I'll deal with these chemicals later if I have enough
01:01:35
left in the tank and most people don't modern lifestyles are resulting in
01:01:41
depletion of glutathione our glutathione is being robbed by these microplastics
01:01:47
by these parabens phalates and other chemicals that you find in consumer
01:01:52
products you have to sum up in a sentence what microplastic are doing to us what would that sentence be slowly
01:01:58
killing us over time we're becoming plastic we're actually known as the plasticine
01:02:06
Epic humankind is more plastic eventually we will become more plastic
01:02:11
than we are humans if we cons continue at this rate there have been over 300 million metric tons of
01:02:20
plastics produced I mean that's a really big number but I can't really W my head
01:02:25
around it and they don't go away they don't go away that's the problem they just continually break up into smaller
01:02:32
and smaller and smaller and smaller fragments a 2024 study on microplastics
01:02:38
in human livers kidneys and brains found that all of them contained microplastics but the brain contained 10 to 20 times
01:02:44
more than any other organ the brains measured around 0.5%
01:02:51
plastic by weight that's a guardian article so does that mean 0.5 5% of my brain is plastic yes and that's because
01:02:59
plastic is fat soluble and the brain is mostly fat so microplastics travel there
01:03:06
through the bloodstream we inhale them they go to the brain and they can't leave because the brain can the brain
01:03:11
doesn't not have the ability to detoxify itself the way that other tissues
01:03:16
do I guess it wasn't expecting the plastic right so it's like who's this I
01:03:21
can't get rid of you so just stay but then what is it doing to you over time time what is it doing to our brains over
01:03:27
time I'm going to throw this away by the way I'm not going to micro my food in plastic anymore um what is it doing to our brains over time do you think is
01:03:33
there any associations I haven't seen any clear evidence but my hypothesis is that it's
01:03:41
increasing the likelihood of cognitive decline and the brain is one of the most important obviously the most important
01:03:47
organs in our bodies and brain problems don't usually show up until you're in your Elder years but i' would be
01:03:56
interested to know if the rate of dementia if people are getting dementia and other brain Related Disorders
01:04:02
earlier just like cancer I would not be surprised if I saw that we drink out of
01:04:07
these um stainless steel cups here on the dire of a CO are these okay to be drinking out of yes okay does it say
01:04:17
because they're not they're not leeching microplastics into your drink BPA free stainless steel okay they weren't
01:04:23
expensive that's good news but um some times when I go to shops and you know supermarkets and stuff I grab these
01:04:29
plastic bottles full of water there's been a lot of conversation around plastic bottles and water um are these
01:04:35
safe to drink from in your opinion well if you have no other option then that's
01:04:41
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
01:04:46
die because that's not the case I myself traveled here I had to drink from bottled water because I didn't bring
01:04:52
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
01:05:00
to do no but I need water so that's my only option but if you are able to avoid
01:05:06
that then absolutely avoid bottle water have there been any studies done on bottle water yeah there have been so
01:05:12
many studies showing that bottled water is a major source of microplastics Because if you think about it plastic
01:05:19
is not meant to be permanent but it kind of is but at the same time there are
01:05:25
certain conditions that promote leeching and one of them is if you put that plastic water bottle in the sun
01:05:32
UV causes plastic to break down so that's releasing microplastics just
01:05:37
squeezing it physical force is causing microplastic sharing and
01:05:43
release but not just that just over time the plastic is just leeching on its own
01:05:48
temperature is another Factor so if you leave that in a hot car microplastics if you've ever had a
01:05:55
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
01:06:01
becoming more plastic okay but the microplastics are releasing
01:06:06
endocrine disruptors right the same phades that we talked about in fragrances are also in plastic water
01:06:11
bottles what about these water bottles that a lot of people have now they're kind of like Stanley cut star water
01:06:17
bottles that are made of this this metal are these better yeah definit it's the same as these stainless steel cups yeah
01:06:24
okay so everyone should have one of these for their water but not only that it's also more sustainable right because
01:06:30
plastic bottles make up the majority of plastic waste in the environment and all
01:06:37
of those are breaking up again into smaller and smaller microplastics and nanoplastics that are basically
01:06:44
polluting everything now okay so instead of that plastic container I had this glass container for
01:06:50
the microwave and for my food is better perfect okay but what about the lid the lid has got these little plastic handles on it
01:06:56
yeah so what I would do is take the lid off if you need to heat up your food okay and what I also do is keep a space
01:07:02
between my food and the lid so it's not in direct contact with the plastic how'd you keep it space like just don't fill
01:07:09
it all the way to the brim oh okay just keep it just keep a little space Okay cool so that's that's good it's it's the
01:07:15
contact with the plastic I mean if you need the container and you need a lid to store your
01:07:20
food okay this I mean I have those too so we'll keep the lid just a thing is just try to keep your food from touching
01:07:26
it if you can okay um what about this coffee coffee cup I went to
01:07:33
you know you go to a Starbucks I'm shouldn't say you go to a coffee shop they give you these takeaway coffee cups
01:07:38
which are made of like this sort of papery feel good bad indifferent get rid of them they're
01:07:45
terrible so they're basically lined with plastic and Studies have shown that
01:07:51
within 15 minutes of contact with the hot liquid you're getting 25 5,000 microplastic particles in that cup and
01:07:59
most people some people don't drink their coffee in 15 minutes they'll let it sit longer and so the longer it sits
01:08:05
the more leeching there is and not only that the lid is plastic so as the hot liquid is passing through the lid there
01:08:11
could also be leeching of microplastics that plastic lining also leeches heavy metals so it's there are
01:08:19
so many issues with that cup you seem really pissed off with the cup I'm actually really they're so pervasive and
01:08:26
I remember being in Germany about 10 15 years ago maybe something like that and
01:08:31
coffee to go was new and at the time I come from the US they have been around forever I was like why is this new I
01:08:38
don't understand coffee to go why is that a thing and my husband said it's
01:08:43
because we sit down and drink our coffee out of a mug we don't take it to go so
01:08:48
this is like appealing to tourists but what's wrong with coffee to go is it the container they it's the container so if
01:08:55
you bring your own container Starbucks will fill it up or if you bring your own container some shops will fill it up for
01:09:01
you and they you they might even knock off 10 cents because you brought your own container so I'd have to bring
01:09:06
something like I guess like this which is a steel right with a little glass lid
01:09:13
right okay so okay and it's a plastic lid so if you can take the lid off to
01:09:19
drink but if you can't again don't stress out over it okay You'
01:09:25
been through some of these things so far just on the consumables okay fine okay
01:09:30
so um and last question on consumption stuff is about food and water should I
01:09:36
be filtering my water absolutely absolutely if you live in an area where water has been floridated how do I know
01:09:44
you've got to check the water report most municipalities have water reports and if not you can go to the ewg the
01:09:51
environmental working group they have a water report database that you can check so just type in your ZIP code of where
01:09:58
you live and it'll tell you what contaminants are found and which ones exceed safe limits and it's very helpful
01:10:04
to know what if I get these kind of like you know these little plastic um water
01:10:09
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
01:10:16
pour it in are those good it depends on what type of filter you have okay some of the more mainstream lower cost lower
01:10:23
end options do not remove floor chlide number one and they don't filter nearly enough
01:10:28
chemicals tap water is a source of hormones so endocrine disruptors pesticides heavy
01:10:37
metals flu fluoride if it's added to the water uh agricultural runoff there's a
01:10:44
bunch of different contaminants in tap water depending on where you live some are worse than others and there have
01:10:50
even been tragic instances of lead high levels of lead because of the lead
01:10:57
piping that water is transported through so we've got to be careful with the water that we're using to drink and cook
01:11:04
with and so what what's a a sort of lowcost solution to this for people that are concerned about the water that
01:11:11
they're consuming and their families are consuming yeah actually there have been studies showing that you can boil your
01:11:17
water so if you boil your water that can actually remove a significant portion of the microplastic pollutions in there
01:11:23
because of if you've ever noticed at after you've boiled water there's sort of a white crust at the bottom of the
01:11:28
pot that's actually calcium calcification and the microplastics get trapped in that calcified layer but that
01:11:35
still doesn't take care of all the other chemicals that are found in tap water so the best option is to filter
01:11:42
it some filters are more accessible and affordable than others reverse osmosis
01:11:48
removes the most contaminants but it also requires the most it generates the most waste water so it isn't the most
01:11:54
effici efficient and it also can remove beneficial minerals which you then have to add back in because it's not good to
01:12:00
drink demineralized water over time so there are different options that you can
01:12:05
you can use but the best option you have to filter it at some point at some level depending on where you are so check your
01:12:12
water and look for a filter so carbon filters are effective for the most part
01:12:17
but you want to check to make sure that the filter can remove fluoride as well okay well in the um show notes of
01:12:23
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 um
01:12:31
relating to the subjects that we've discussed today just you know some of the deant stuff that we mentioned um and
01:12:36
also water filter systems and stuff because I can imagine it can be quite confusing for people I I imagine most
01:12:41
people listening they just want they want to know what the most important simple things that they can can do to
01:12:47
have the biggest potential impact and also they're going to be quite costc conscious as we all are about not
01:12:53
overspending on things and they don't have thousands thousands of pounds but they want to make significant steps forward um I guess to that point then if
01:13:01
you were to say to someone what are like the simple free things we can all do or cheap things cost effective things we
01:13:08
can do as it relates to the our cookware things we're consuming um to make sure that we're
01:13:13
staying as healthy as we possibly can be first thing is to filter your water yeah second thing is to get rid of fragrance
01:13:21
products so you're actually saving money by not buying that stuff right so if you can remove that then you're better off
01:13:28
thirdly is to cook at home cooking at home is also significantly more cost effective than getting takeout all the
01:13:34
time and you're also saving on a massive amount of toxic exposure that way what about um the types of foods we
01:13:42
buy have I got to just be buying organic food if you're able to then it's helpful
01:13:49
but if you can't eating an unprocessed diet as much as you possibly can hold
01:13:55
Foods single ingredient Foods if you choose to eat meat fruits and vegetables
01:14:01
things of that nature try to get the least processed option you possibly can and cook at home and if you can cook on
01:14:08
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
01:14:15
with what you've got but try to eliminate the processed food as much as you can what about beauty then so I've
01:14:21
got some beauty products here moisturizers got some eyelin is um this is a roll on deant you're probably
01:14:27
familiar with these yeah that looks like an anti-perspirant oh an antiperspirant oh yeah yeah you're right so that's
01:14:33
different than deodorant so antiperspirants contain aluminum salts and those physically block sweat ducts
01:14:38
and so what that does over time is it prevents you from sweating right that's why it's anti-perspirant but the problem with aluminum is that there have been
01:14:46
links to increased risk of breast cancer in young girls who use deodorant because aluminum itself also
01:14:55
acts like an estrogen in the body oh God it smells strong wow okay so these roll
01:15:00
on Deens that are for anyone that doesn't isn't watching it's the one with the ball on it the little ball thing
01:15:08
that you roll under your armpit the key is to avoid the anti- pur Sprint if you can and I know a lot of people have you
01:15:15
know self conern concerned with with sweating and everything like that but uh some people online have done armpit
01:15:23
detoxes so with Apple vinegar and bentonite clay you make a little paste out of it smear it under your arms and
01:15:29
that can help to pull out some of these embedded particles in your sweat Ducks
01:15:35
what is the most compelling study that you heard about as it relates to because I am always I'm doing this podcast and
01:15:41
reading about this subject matter I am increasingly concerned about you know putting things under my armpit for a
01:15:47
number of reasons it's really hot under there but then it just feels I don't know it does then I read this stats
01:15:53
around breast cancer and I thought gosh I'm it's probably not a good idea to be like lathering chemicals under my under
01:15:59
my armpit um what is the most compelling stud you read on this subject that made you think twice about antiperspirants
01:16:07
yeah it was the increased risk of breast cancer in young girls that are using these underarm antiperspirants what
01:16:13
about these other beauty products then throw that one away um everyday be
01:16:19
beauty products I think I don't even know what these products are I mean that looks like a foundation makeup that you would put all over your face so you go
01:16:26
like this yeah okay or a concealer or something like that to help even out your skin tone cover up spots right good
01:16:33
so that goes all over your face right so products that sit on your skin those are known as leave on products those
01:16:39
comprise a higher risk than something you would rinse off like a soap or a body wash because it's sitting on your
01:16:44
skin so the contact time is longer the longer something sits on your skin the longer time it has to penetrate the skin
01:16:52
and get absorbed into your bloodstream lipstick is also a high-risk product if
01:16:57
you're using the wrong kind because it's going on your lips and you're having some ingestion so don't use Foundation no not
01:17:06
necessarily find a safer foundation so avoid avoid the fragrance
01:17:12
foundations smells good this one yeah so it's got fragrances in there I'm sure
01:17:17
okay because foundations are usually made of chemicals right chemicals don't
01:17:23
always smell good so a lot of manufacturers put fragrance in there to maskk the odor even like lip balm I had
01:17:28
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 I was like I just I
01:17:36
don't know just do you know I have this conspiracy theory about lip balm that I've never shared with anybody which is my girlfriend applies lip balm all the
01:17:42
time and her lips get dry often whereas I don't apply lip balm ever any special
01:17:49
occasions no I'm joking I never apply it and my lips don't seem to get dry unless I go on a plane or something but I just
01:17:54
wonder sometimes if these cosmetic products are fixing a problem that they're
01:18:00
creating yeah I would think so because if you never touched your face what would your skin be like right some
01:18:07
people only use water on their face and I have found personally the more I mess with my face the more products I use the
01:18:13
more I end up feeling like I need them because my skin is reacting differently so it's I think it's creating an issue
01:18:20
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
01:18:25
from a money-making perspective but also if I'm disrupting your hormones with all of these chemicals then I'm more likely
01:18:30
to be causing you to have skin flare ups and skin issues and and probably even aging and wrinkles which you're then
01:18:36
going to need to use some of these cosmetic products to s for right and then they're going to try and sell you some other more invasive procedures down
01:18:45
the line I've seen some people who don't use skin products at all and have never used them because of the society they
01:18:51
live in and they have unbelievable remarkable skin um and they don't have the flareups and all these kinds of
01:18:57
things that we have over here so it's I've always been pretty dubious I think I'm a bit of like an evolutionist I
01:19:02
don't know if that even is a thing but just someone who has much more faith in my my body's natural systems for dealing
01:19:09
with things than the modern world would lead us to believe like I don't I know
01:19:14
that we live in an unnatural world right so there are some things that we need I live in you know we're indoors all day
01:19:19
so I probably should be taking some vitamin D for example but outside of that I just don't buy that we need all
01:19:25
of these products like you know shampoos and conditioners and what do you think of shampoos I've got shampoo brand here
01:19:32
um which I just got off the shelf in the local shop a shampoo's okay yeah again
01:19:37
it's it depends on what the ingredients are right most shampoos are heavily fragran and heavily scented but if you look you'll find some
01:19:45
that aren't smells delicious yeah okay and it's very highly
01:19:51
likely that you can become addicted to lip balm and addicted to scent I was
01:19:57
you're addicted to lip balm yeah like you said The more you apply the more you need it and then you just keep applying
01:20:02
it so it's every 10 or 15 minutes it felt like at some point and I was using a very heavily scented fragrance lip
01:20:08
balm when I was a teenager it just was trendy at school what scent do you have
01:20:13
what flavor do you have and everyone was doing it so it just became a thing what
01:20:19
about this this is a um this is a tampon what about tampons I had a conversation
01:20:25
on this podcast with a a lady who had a toxic reaction to a tampon and lost both
01:20:31
of her legs um because of that what's your thoughts on menstrual products generally
01:20:38
tampons period pads menstrual products contain some of
01:20:43
the worst chemicals that should never be in direct contact with your reproductive
01:20:49
tissues with your vaginal Canal they should just should not be there things like
01:20:55
Benzene there's heavy metals in tampons actually there was a study showing that women who use tampons had higher levels
01:21:01
of heavy metals in their body we don't need those down there and fragrances
01:21:07
again with the phades they're also found in tampons a lot of menstrual products
01:21:14
contain scent maybe that one doesn't but there's a lot that do what's the alternative it's entirely
01:21:20
unnecessary the alternative would be to use you can you can find organic cotton tampons tampons are made of cotton right
01:21:27
cotton is one of the most heavily sprayed crops in the world with glyphosate we don't need glyphosate down
01:21:34
there the problem is that the vaginal Canal is uded right so it's it's blocked
01:21:40
off it's warm its body temperature and there's also friction so all of these
01:21:46
factors increase and drive chemical absorption into the body and you don't want to be delivering some of these
01:21:52
chemicals directly to your reproductive organs you think it's going to have a big impact on
01:21:58
fertility I think it could in fact there are a lot of anecdotal reports anyway of
01:22:04
people saying that when they switched out their period products and went with more organic and more sustainable
01:22:10
options that their periods became easier some people close to me have PCOS
01:22:16
I've also got some friends that have endometriosis is there a link between Fates and sort of you know menstrual
01:22:24
products and PCOS and endometriosis in your opinion yes there is and there is a link
01:22:30
with past chemicals too so these xenoestrogens are exacerbating these
01:22:37
conditions because if you think about it the uterus is an endocrine it's an endocrine responsive tissue it's an
01:22:44
hormonally active it responds to estrogen you're delivering let's say phalates through tampons directly down
01:22:52
there it's going into the circulation and it bypasses what's known as the portal circulation Phase 2
01:22:58
detoxification by the liver so it bypasses detoxification so you're basically delivering hormonally active
01:23:06
chemicals directly where you don't want them to go they cannot be
01:23:12
detoxified what about my clothes you mentioned cotton a second ago it made me think about the clothes
01:23:17
that I'm wearing um how do I know if the clothes that I'm wearing are toxin free
01:23:23
are there certain clothes that are an aunt that's a really good question organic cotton is one way of knowing if
01:23:30
your clothes contain pesticides and certain chemicals that are used in the
01:23:35
farming of cotton but not only that if your clothes are made out of synthetic Fiers like polyester nylon and acrylic
01:23:43
those release microplastics and they've also been found to contain BPA which is
01:23:48
an endocrine disruptor yeah you got you got to check the tag around the side some sometimes
01:23:55
95% polyester that's a source of microplastics every time you wash it
01:24:02
every time you move there are microplastics breaking off 5%
01:24:07
spandex that's also synthetic so you're basically wearing an
01:24:13
entirely synthetic shirt what about the chemicals that I wash it in I've got some um this is
01:24:19
where I expose that I've never cleaned a t-shirt properly in my life sugar
01:24:24
I've got some fabric
01:24:30
cleaner thing here I guess this is probably a source
01:24:35
of toxins I'm getting the hang of this now toxins in pretty much right you you've called it out you called it out exactly right so if I fragrances if I
01:24:42
wash my clothes in this and then I put the clothes on I'm exposing myself to
01:24:47
toxins let me see right because it's it's covering your entire body right wherever you have the clothing touching
01:24:53
your skin there's some friction there's movement there's body heat there's moisture that's increasing chemical
01:25:00
penetration and absorption into your bloodstream so the solution there is if
01:25:07
you like scented laundry care products is again to use essential
01:25:13
oils so instead of the drier sheets that you get at the store those actually just coat your clothing with some type of
01:25:19
oily waxy substance that's what makes them feel soft they're not actually softening your clothes they coat your
01:25:24
clothing and so all of that is touching your skin it's rubbing how much of that is getting absorbed right so if you can
01:25:32
instead look for wool dryer balls made out of wool uh people put essential oils
01:25:39
in there and let it run through their clothing I am something quite startling
01:25:44
that I read when I was going through all of your work is that beauty and hair products marketed to black women often
01:25:49
contain the most toxic ingredients yes that is known as environmental
01:25:56
Injustice so that's one of the I would say the most
01:26:02
tragic circumstances that we're facing as a society is that the people who are exposed to the
01:26:10
most amount of toxins are lowincome people and people
01:26:15
in ethnic groups and so some of these products that are marketed specifically to black
01:26:22
girls contain some of the worst ingredients I have ever seen and I think
01:26:28
it should be outlawed like you said the fragrances
01:26:33
the endocrine disruptors these harsh detergents some for Malahide releasers
01:26:38
for Malahide is a human carcinogen what place does it have in a beauty and personal care
01:26:44
product it doesn't it needs to be removed there needs to be better regulations and better protection for
01:26:52
vulnerable populations I was um doing some research and I looked at Harvard health and it said 50%
01:26:58
of products advertised to black women contain endocrine disruptors which are those disruptors that are going to
01:27:04
impact their hormones increase their chance of things like cancer infertility
01:27:09
etc etc compared to roughly 7% that are advertised to white women and these
01:27:16
endocrine disruptors can impact fertility and increase their chance of getting cancer why why is that why is
01:27:21
that the case I think it has to do a lot with the
01:27:27
types of products that certain demographics would gravitate towards so
01:27:33
depending on your hair type what kind of products you might need there really is no explanation to
01:27:40
why these toxic chemicals are in in those products in particular in such
01:27:45
high numbers that's really the problem is why is it more prevalent for those
01:27:51
populations than others and I think this is an
01:27:56
ongoing societal issue of environmental Injustice and to a certain extent
01:28:03
environmental racism it really is um it really is yeah
01:28:10
you said you said it's a form of racism and it's a form of sort of environmental
01:28:16
Injustice do people are people aware of this I don't think so I think the vast majority of people are entirely unaware
01:28:24
of this and studies show it because there are studies showing that the earlier you start using cosmetic
01:28:31
products the higher your chance of coming down with breast cancer and the
01:28:37
people who had the highest prevalence were africanamerican
01:28:44
females so it I think it's a combination of the fact that there is some level of
01:28:50
racism environmental Injustice but also a cultural and
01:28:56
societal preference for certain products so black women are at the highest risk of getting breast cancer under the age
01:29:02
of 40 yes what can be done about that do you
01:29:08
think is is this uh something that the government have to do something about or is that is it both something that we
01:29:14
have to sort of increase our own public consciousness of and make better choices
01:29:19
um is there an easy solution to fix this I I think if we wait for the government
01:29:25
to take action we'll be waiting for a long time the Cosmetic regulations in
01:29:30
the United States were not updated until recently
01:29:36
and before that the last update was when they were actually created nearly a hundred years prior a hundred years had
01:29:42
gone by no change to the Cosmetic regulations none yet more and more
01:29:47
products are being churned out without being tested without knowing what the health effects are and then later on we
01:29:54
see increases in all of these diseases that we've been talking about so I think
01:30:00
instead of waiting for the government my goal and my purpose and my passion is to empower people with
01:30:06
knowledge and solutions so they can take steps to protect themselves is there a
01:30:11
funding issue with blackowned businesses and sort of these black um beauty
01:30:17
products that is causal in all of this in your opinion I think it really comes down to whether or not the creators of
01:30:23
the product s are aware of these risks and whether or not they are able to
01:30:29
formulate in such a way that they don't use these types of ingredients and I think that there has been a push for
01:30:36
clean Beauty blackowned clean Beauty I've seen
01:30:41
it could it get cleaner yes I think so so I think it's only a matter of time
01:30:47
before somebody creates it and so I'm looking forward to that at my company
01:30:52
flight Studio which is part of my bigger company flight group we're constantly looking for ways to build deeper connections with our audiences whether
01:30:59
that's a new show a product or a project it's why I launched the conversation cards I've relied on Shopify before
01:31:05
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
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the world with Shopify the usual pain points of launching products online Disappear Completely no matter the size
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01:31:39
Bartlet that's shopify.com Bartlet or find the link in the description
01:31:45
below every single time you eat you have an opportunity to improve your health that's why I love Zoe because it helps
01:31:51
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use the code stepen 10 at checkout so many of you have asked me for a bloody code for Zoe and here is your
01:32:40
opportunity steveen tet checkout there may not be another one before we start these podcasts what we always do is we
01:32:47
light some candles and this is one of the candles that we light um what's you mentioned I think
01:32:53
you mentioned candles earlier on at the start of the conversation but what's your opinion on candles are they safe smells depend on what type of candle you
01:33:00
have there's basically a safer alternative for pretty much any product that you can think of so I'm not one
01:33:07
that says across the board candles are toxic it's very specific conventional
01:33:13
candles paraffin wax scented candles which is what you'll see in stores the
01:33:19
majority of candles out there are the ones that we shouldn't be burning so this is a scented
01:33:25
candle it doesn't say what type of wax it is so we can be pretty certain that this
01:33:33
is a paraffin wax candle at least using the
01:33:39
precautionary principle we should assume that something is guilty before it's proven innocent so unless we know for
01:33:46
sure that this is not a paraffin wax candle I wouldn't light
01:33:51
it so because if I light it then I'm pushing toxic chemicals into the air
01:33:58
exactly so conventional Candles there are five main reasons why
01:34:03
I would not burn a conventional candle number one is that when you light those candles they liberate carcinogens like
01:34:11
Benzene toine and formaldahyde but not only that ultrafine particles ultrafine
01:34:18
particles are some of the most hazardous substances that you can create in your
01:34:23
home so ultra fine particles are tiny particles less than 100 microns in
01:34:29
diameter excuse me less than 0.1 microns in diameter 100 nanometers invisible to
01:34:36
the human eye tiny and these particles have the ability to as soon as you inhale them
01:34:43
they'll go into your brain they have the ability to do that they also have the ability to go as far down into the lung
01:34:50
as one can go all the way down to the Alvi and down in those microscopic
01:34:56
structures of the lung that's where gas exchange happens there's only one cell layer separating the outside from the
01:35:02
inside your bloodstream one cell that's not pretty much nothing that's pretty much no separation no protection so if
01:35:09
AN ultrafine particle can get that down far down into your lungs it's guaranteed into your bloodstream it's getting all
01:35:15
over your body it's causing inflammation and oxidative stress which are the basis
01:35:21
of many chronic diseases so ultra fine particles we need to avoid them as much
01:35:26
as possible and so one way is to not light a conventional candle number two
01:35:32
is that they're also releasing volatile organic compounds right as I mentioned number
01:35:37
three they contain undisclosed fragrance and within fragrance there can
01:35:44
be endocrine disruptors carcinogens and allergens so when you like these candles you're getting all of these toxins into
01:35:50
your Air number four some of the dyes that are used used to color candles are
01:35:55
carcinogenic and nobody has any idea is if you burn them what are the health effects of burning these carcinogenic
01:36:02
dieses and number five candles are largely unregulated which means that if
01:36:07
you were to look at that candle and it says soy blend there can be
01:36:14
paraffin wax in there even though it says soy blend a lot of people think soy
01:36:19
blend oh it comes from soy it must be healthier for me so they'll go for that but if it says soy blend one should
01:36:25
assume that it's a majority of petroleum derived paraffin wax with a little bit of soy wax in
01:36:31
there because the consumer product safety commission which regulates
01:36:37
candles doesn't look at the ingredients in the candle they're concerned with the vessel the container of the candle
01:36:43
whether or not it's fireproof and whether or not the lead contains Wick or the wick contains
01:36:49
lead they're not looking at what's in the wax but Studies have shown that when
01:36:54
you light these candles you are liberating a significant number of
01:37:00
hazardous chemicals so uh we shall use incense instead incense
01:37:09
is even worse and I'm sorry to burst your bubble but incense is used by has been used for
01:37:16
thousands of years but incense as we know it now is not the same as incense that was used a thousand years ago they
01:37:23
now contain conin again phades the endocrine disruptors but also the ultra fine particles and Studies have shown
01:37:29
that incense creates more ultrafine particles in pollutants than cigarette smoke there's an increased risk of
01:37:36
cancer because these ultrafine particles are damaging DNA damaged DNA leads to
01:37:42
mutations mutations can lead to cancer there's an increased incidence of cancer
01:37:48
in Temple workers so people who are around incense for hours upon hours at a
01:37:53
time there's an increased risk of cancer not only that there's an increased risk of cancer almost
01:37:59
threefold in children whose parents burned incense in the home okay W okay so no incense my house
01:38:07
is going to stink well you can use there's different candles that you can use so based on my research I looked I
01:38:14
was really hellbent on finding what is the type of candle that has the lowest
01:38:19
emissions the least emissions because let's let's make it I want to make it really clear anytime you burn something
01:38:25
that's not necessarily healthy but does it mean that you can't do whatever no if you find a candle that
01:38:31
is low emission like beeswax essential oils wooden or cotton wicks then that's
01:38:39
a much better alternative than your conventional paraffin wax scented candle
01:38:44
brightly colored one of the things that I guess is kind of adjacent to this inhaling
01:38:50
chemicals is vaping it's really interesting cuz over the last couple of years um vaping has become more and more
01:38:56
popular around the world I think cigarettes have declined and especially amongst young people more and more people in my friendship group anyway are
01:39:02
vaping now more than ever what are your thoughts on vaping is that is that harmful
01:39:08
yes vaping vaping fluid liquid is a chemical
01:39:14
mixture that you are inhaling and these chemicals have not been tested for inhalation
01:39:20
safety namely the flavors and the fragrances that are used
01:39:26
specifically the flavors have not been tested for inhalation because they're intended for oral ingestion to be eaten
01:39:33
so they're not tested for inhalation safety I used to work in a flavor and fragrance company and that was one of
01:39:40
the biggest issues was that people were putting these chemicals that were not
01:39:45
tested into these Vapes and the health effects are unknown but now that's been
01:39:50
10 15 years we know that vaping is not
01:39:55
healthy shisha you like a hookah I guess you call it a hookah in America I mean
01:40:01
that's even worse isn't it there is also a lot of risk associated with with hook
01:40:07
I did it earlier and it was like it said it was the equivalent of 100 cigarettes having a shisha which is um annoying
01:40:14
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 but when I read that it's
01:40:20
equivalent to like 100 cigarettes I thought I'm never doing that again it's just really not worth it um and speaking
01:40:26
of being in the Middle East and these sort of big builtup cities one of the things I've thought a lot about more recently is air quality air quality both
01:40:34
indoors and Outdoors what do I need to know about air quality indoors and Outdoors air quality indoors can be up
01:40:41
to five times worse than air quality outside which shocks a lot of people that stat comes from the Environmental
01:40:48
Protection Agency the EPA the reason being is that people people are not
01:40:54
adequately ventilating their homes and we're doing things like cooking cooking generates particulate matter too but do
01:41:01
we need to stop cooking no but we need to prioritize what's important and what's not important burning candles how
01:41:08
important is that to you make sure you're choosing a better candle make sure you're opening the windows indoor
01:41:15
air is absolutely imperative if you want to improve your health you have to clean
01:41:20
up your indoor air keep my shoes at the door I heard you say that before this shocks a lot of people but
01:41:27
there are simple ways to improve your indoor air quality and one of them is
01:41:33
taking off your shoes not wearing your outside shoes in your home that doesn't mean you have to go barefoot you can
01:41:39
wear slippers you can wear other shoes that are specifically meant to stay indoors and that's because shoe souls
01:41:45
are vectors for feal material poop pathogenic bacteria and viruses heavy
01:41:51
metals industrial chemicals pesticides things that are outside
01:41:56
should stay outside but didn't we used to live outside as a species right but when we lived outside there weren't all
01:42:02
these cars and factories that were spewing all of this exhaust all over the
01:42:08
place dust our house on a regular basis you said as well Hoover sweep more regularly and you said keep plants in
01:42:15
the house plants yeah yeah indoor plants make sure that if you have indoor plants
01:42:20
they can be really beneficial for well-being they can help to purify the air to some extent but they can also
01:42:26
Harbor mold in the soil so just make sure check your house plants for mold what do does humidity of my house matter
01:42:33
because a lot of people are getting these dehumidifiers in their house now yeah humidity can increase the growth of
01:42:39
mold and mold is extremely toxic so you want low humidity yes you want to keep
01:42:44
your humidity in you know a steady range so have one of those little humidity monitors they're just a couple dollars
01:42:51
you can find them at almost any store and try to keep your humidity um you know on the lower end we don't want it
01:42:58
necessarily too high because then that will promote mold growth so what about seasons is are there particular seasons
01:43:05
where our houses become more and more toxic definitely during the colder months people don't open their Windows
01:43:11
enough some of us are lighting more candles some people like to light wood
01:43:17
and burn wood fireplaces and stoves what's wrong with that those create the
01:43:22
most ultrafine particles that you can imagine in your home these uh ultrafine particles nitrogen dioxide polycylic
01:43:29
aromatic hydrocarbons these are all carcinogens they are created when you burn things and burning wood in your
01:43:36
home 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
01:43:42
else but I've got a chimney right it doesn't always stay in there it doesn't only go up it can come
01:43:48
out so how do I so a better way to keep my home is just by doing like the you know the central heating the hot water
01:43:55
central heating yeah underfloor heating right but make sure you open the windows on a regular basis too because you want
01:44:02
to exhaust the old stale air and you want to replace it with fresh air so
01:44:07
aside from people who live near a busy highway most people should be able to
01:44:14
open their Windows even in cold months in Germany there's a a practice called
01:44:20
Luft lufton where you open the windows even in the dead of winter and it lets
01:44:26
in fresh air it refreshes the stale air and it makes such a huge difference on our health I was reading about indoor
01:44:33
air pollution and there's some some research done by the World Health Organization that says household air
01:44:38
pollution was responsible for 3.2 million Global deaths per year this is
01:44:44
because household pollution can cause deadly health problems such as pneumonia pulmonary disease lung cancer strokes
01:44:49
and cardiovascular disease the combined effects of outdoor air pollution and household air pollution are associated
01:44:56
with 6.7 million Global premature deaths annually according to the World Health
01:45:02
Organization I mean it's difficult isn't it living in cities with so much um outdoor pollution as well and there's
01:45:09
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 it's not going to be a good way
01:45:15
to live right I mean if you're able to get an air purifier that can help with
01:45:20
your indoor environment but the key is to remove the sources of pollution as
01:45:25
much as you can just try not to create it and then you don't have to spend as much time trying to clean it up you
01:45:33
mentioned earlier the body has a antioxidant called glutathione is it possible to increase
01:45:40
my levels of this compound if it's good for me is there something I can do
01:45:45
there's so much you can do okay there's so much you can do number one you can exercise exercise increases glutathione
01:45:52
it's very simple just exercise move your body and where is glutathione produced it's mainly produced in the liver and
01:45:57
kidneys and the third highest amount of glutathione in the body is in the testes and the ovaries because it plays a vital
01:46:05
role in protecting our reproductive organs from toxicity and ensuring
01:46:11
fertility it's a chemical it is technically a chemical it's made out of three amino acids glutamate cysteine and
01:46:17
Glycine and we all have it everyone has glutathione some people have more some people have less it really just depends
01:46:23
on your genetics some people just genetically make more of it than others and if I make more of it then my body's
01:46:29
going to be less toxic is that a simple way of thinking about it yes very simplistically right but that that's not
01:46:35
counting your lifestyle okay and what about my lifestyle could make it worse and lower what can what can impact my
01:46:42
gluton levels What can make it low the nonstick cookware the heavily fragranced products eating ultr processed foods not
01:46:49
exercising so being stagnant not moving enough that all of that reduces your
01:46:55
glutathione not sleeping well what about alcohol alcohol absolutely depletes
01:47:00
glutathione we know that alcohol targets the liver glutathione detoxifies alcohol
01:47:06
if you don't have enough glutathione you can't detoxify alcohol alcohol can cause cancer so if I'm drinking heavily and
01:47:14
I'm also consuming a lot of these other toxic chemicals because of just my everyday life then my glutathion is
01:47:20
going to be depleted because it's so focused on that alcohol detoxifying the alcohol that it won't there won't be
01:47:25
enough left to detoxify the rest of my body is that a simple way to think about it right and all the other chemicals that you're being expose you okay so you
01:47:32
want to keep your gluton levels high right I read that the healthy gluton levels in an adult is
01:47:39
553 which is 90 milles per liter of total GL glutathion in their blood
01:47:47
um so I want to I want to increase my glutathion levels to make sure that I have a better natural defense to all of
01:47:53
these toxic chemicals in my life I'm going to start exercising I'm going to avoid un ultr processed foods I'm going
01:48:00
to eat Whole Foods yes Whole Foods but specifically sulfur rich foods because
01:48:07
glutathione contains cysteine which contains sulfur and sulfur is the part
01:48:13
of the glutathion molecule that's doing the work that's protecting us so the more sulfur you can give your body the
01:48:20
more building blocks it has to make GL thione so we we eat things like leafy
01:48:27
greens broccoli cruciferous vegetables meat eggs dairy can also help
01:48:34
to increase it there's even some studies showing that if you consume wheight protein it can help to increase
01:48:39
glutathione by supplying the amino acids needed to to produce it and matcha green
01:48:45
tea is also a really good source of glutathione building blocks but I think
01:48:51
what we need to do is also remove the chemicals that are depleting our
01:48:56
glutathione and that's through choosing better products not stressing as much
01:49:02
and then adding on how can we build and add more glutathione with the lifestyle changes making sure you get adequate
01:49:08
sleep if you don't sleep well enough that's going to impact the amount of glutathion you have as well
01:49:14
interesting cigarettes cigarettes absolutely get rid of cigarettes cigarettes deplete glutathion you
01:49:21
mentioned matcha there I am I'm one of the um owners I'm an investor in a a
01:49:26
matcha company a matcha green tea company what's your opinion of I mean I'm exposing my bias here obviously but
01:49:33
what's your opinion of matcha I think Ma matcha is amazing if you get the right type of matcha you want to look for
01:49:39
organically grown matcha look for ones that are tested for heavy metals because heavy metals can accumulate in tea
01:49:45
plants that's just naturally occurring so you want to look for matcha that's been tested and because you're consuming
01:49:52
the entire Leaf it's important to look for the cleanest matcha you can get but there are so many benefits to matcha
01:49:58
like the fact that it helps you increase glutathione is I'm sold I'm sold on it do you drink matcha I do but we also
01:50:04
want to avoid not adding Dairy to a matcha I know that a lot of people like to drink matcha lattes but there's
01:50:10
actually studies showing that the casine protein can decrease the absorption of some of the beneficial compounds in
01:50:16
matcha so if you can drink it the traditional way in Japan is just water no sugar nothing just Macha and water
01:50:24
the company I'm referring to are um obviously I've got to disclose my there's probably probably got to say
01:50:30
hashtag ad hashtag sponsored whatever um I'm an investor in a company it's called perfect Ted and it's absolutely exploded
01:50:36
in the UK I spoke to them this morning actually and they told me that their sales have increased 5x since last year
01:50:44
because I think people are looking to shift away from some of the canned Energy Products and there's a lot of
01:50:50
sort of energy benefits with mat and now if you go to like a Joe in the juice or any of these like blank Street
01:50:56
coffee or or Tesco or whatever you can find um their products in there and it seems to be like there's a bit of a
01:51:01
revolution going on with energy and matcha which is very very exciting because I've for many years I was
01:51:06
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
01:51:13
it I just felt bad and there's something about the like energy curve of matcha which I I think is better I I feel like
01:51:18
I'm less susceptible to crashes with matcha I don't know if there support that but it's good to hear that it's
01:51:23
also um it increases my glutathione levels which will help me have less of a
01:51:30
toxic body yes absolutely because it is in and of itself a strong antioxidant
01:51:35
with anti-cancer properties and it can help to increase the production of
01:51:41
energy in ourselves and so one of the things that is required to create glutathione is ATP and a lot of these
01:51:48
environmental chemicals are targeting the mitochondria which are the powerhouses of the cell that make ATP so
01:51:54
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
01:52:01
you will feel sluggish and over time diminish the quality of your life what is the most important thing we we
01:52:07
haven't spoke about today that you're most passionate about is there anything that we missed that you think is particularly important
01:52:14
to the many people that are listening right now I think the one thing that I want to emphasize more than anything is
01:52:21
to not feel fear chemicals I want there to be empowerment and not fear because
01:52:27
chemicals are all around us all the time whether or not you're aware of it but not everything is going to kill us so
01:52:33
being in a state of confidence and knowing that hey I've done taken some
01:52:40
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
01:52:48
with I'm just thinking about the simple changes that I can make immediately I think the the big things that I have as
01:52:54
takeaways are get rid of the antiperspirants that I've been using get rid of the doents that I've been using
01:52:59
transition away from the non-stick pans stop consuming anything
01:53:06
plastic if it's especially if it's been heated so like plastic cups from coffee shops and plastic trays that you
01:53:12
microwave things in um my water you said that was really critical yeah um air
01:53:19
quality air quality 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
01:53:26
house keep the shoes at the door get rid of the scented and fragrance products the scented plugins
01:53:32
the air fresheners I just thinking about my dog I was like you know I do love my dog but I don't want to be to what what
01:53:39
what's your thoughts on pets well pets can actually increase the amount of pollutants in your air but again if
01:53:45
you're cleaning your home on a regular basis it's not a problem there's so many benefits to having pets and cleaning the
01:53:50
pets as well yeah yeah so maybe consider wiping off their paws when they come back in from a walk is there anything
01:53:57
else that you're you're working on at the moment or any research that you're particularly curious about any hypotheses you have that are bubbling
01:54:04
away in your mind about toxins in our environment that you're yet to maybe share with the
01:54:12
world I'm waiting to find out more about microplastics and the diseases that are
01:54:18
associated with microplastics I think that is the next emerging toxin of the year and I think
01:54:25
more awareness needs to be brought around microplastics and just more research is urgently needed it's I think
01:54:31
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 the a worthy
01:54:36
goal and a goal that we can all aim for is just to be better in some way as it relates to um our environment to improve
01:54:42
our environment in even small ways and even the small improvements as you've said when you talked about the dose um
01:54:50
and you talked about uh how these things compound in our bodies over time even small improvements made today can have
01:54:57
big impacts over the long term and so small improvements small things that we can change and not getting bogged down
01:55:03
because our life and our environment is so full of toxins and it's always going to be really there's not a scenario
01:55:08
we're going to live in where it's not the case but small things we can do can have big imp impacts and as you said you
01:55:14
youve made changes to your life and it it's been the cause or fact of you having a family which is which is which
01:55:19
is a beautiful thing um we have a closing traditional on this podcast where the last guest leaves a question for the next guest not knowing who
01:55:25
they're leaving it for the question that's been left for you is if you could solve any problem in the world but only
01:55:31
one problem what would it be the problem of toxins that's too easy isn't it
01:55:37
predictable that's too easy of course it would be toxins hands down immediately if I could just remove all of these
01:55:44
toxic chemicals from our environment and just eliminate them not send them into outer space but just remove them from
01:55:50
the face of the Earth and just have them cease to exist that would be the most amazing achievement I could ever imagine
01:55:57
and What would life be like in such a world I imagine it to be like a Utopia
01:56:03
people aren't sick people aren't ill people are well and happy and thriving
01:56:09
and just radiating radiant that's how I see it Dr yon burkart where can people
01:56:14
find you if they want to learn more about your work what's the best place for them to to go to get um yeah more
01:56:20
information I have a website Dr bart.com I also have a newsletter that I send out
01:56:27
called Low talkx talks and you can also find me on Instagram at Dr Ivon burkart and I also have a YouTube channel where
01:56:34
I love to do deep Dives and get really really geeky and nerd out on one Topic
01:56:40
at a time okay I'll link all of that below so everyone can find you um thank you so much for the work that you do so
01:56:46
incredibly important and it's so incredibly Illuminating because it's God it's so mad that we um that it's only
01:56:53
recently in the last couple of years that these conversations have emerged the things about microplastics and um
01:56:58
endocrine disruptors and the link this has to fertility our health obesogen all
01:57:04
of these kinds of things it's so crazy that this conversation's only emerged in the last couple of years because growing up there was no mention of this in my
01:57:10
household there was absolutely no mention and I just wonder how life could have been different for myself but also
01:57:15
for so many millions of people all around the world if we were aware of this information it's not to say again that we can we can live perect lives and
01:57:22
that's never the goal it's never my goal my goal is just to have more access to information so I can um make small steps
01:57:29
and often low cost steps in the right direction and if that increases my probability of having kids which is the season of life that I'm in now and it
01:57:35
increases the probability that my kids are healthy um when they grow up then that is an amazing thing and that is the
01:57:42
work you're doing you're doing an amazing thing so thank you so much Dr ion Bart um I highly recommend everyone goes and checks out your YouTube channel
01:57:48
it will send you down a really important Rabbit Hole um because you make really really accessible great videos on that
01:57:54
channel um so thank you so much for your time today and thank you for the work that you're doing thank
01:58:02
you I'm going to let you into 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
01:58:08
day when jamaa from my team posted on slack that she changed the scent in this studio and right after she posted it the
01:58:15
entire office clapped in our slack Channel and this might sound crazy but at the Diary of a SEO this is the type
01:58:20
of 1% Improvement we make on our show and that is why the show is the Way It Is by understanding the power of
01:58:26
compounding 1% you can absolutely change your outcomes in your life it isn't about drastic Transformations or quick
01:58:33
wins it's about the small consistent actions that have a lasting change in
01:58:39
your outcomes so two years ago we started the process of creating this beautiful diary and it's truly beautiful
01:58:44
inside there's lots of pictures lots of inspiration and motivation as well some Interac Dev elements and the purpose of
01:58:51
this diary is to help identify stay focused on develop consistency with the 1% that will
01:58:57
ultimately change your life 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
01:59:04
of you that join the waiting list will be able to get one but if you join now you have a higher chance the waiting list can be found atth diary.com I'll
01:59:12
link it below but that isthe diary.com
01:59:17
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