Dhru Purohit Show - The Top 10 Toxins that Are Wreaking Havoc on Your Health and How to Protect You and Your Family from Hidden Toxins in the Home with Dr. Aly Cohen

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Cozy Earth, and Lumebox. Toxins hidden in everyday products can quietly increase our risk of chronic diseases, including cancer. These harmful chemicals aren’t just found in what we put on our skin—they’re also in the air we breathe and the water we drink. Understanding where these toxins hide and how they impact our health empowers us to make smarter choices, reduce our exposure, and protect both our well-being and that of our families. Today’s guest shares how simple, practical switches can help us detoxify our lives and take back control of our health. Today on The Dhru Purohit Show, Dhru sits down with Dr. Aly Cohen to unpack some of the most toxic offenders hiding in our everyday lives. Using a tier-ranking system, Dr. Cohen breaks down where everyday household items—like cookware, cleaning products, Tupperware, and candles—rank compared to other major exposures, such as poor air quality and tap water. She also shares her Four A’s Framework—a simple, practical tool to help identify toxins without feeling overwhelmed or paralyzed when making safer choices. Plus, Dr. Cohen offers actionable tips to support the body’s natural detoxification pathways through everyday lifestyle habits, nutrition, and targeted supplements. Dr. Cohen is a board-certified physician specializing in rheumatology and integrative medicine, as well as an environmental health expert based in Princeton, New Jersey. Her new book, DETOXIFY: The Everyday Toxins Harming Your Immune System and How to Defend Against Them, connects the dots between everyday chemical exposures and the rising epidemic of immune and autoimmune disorders and what we can all do about it. In this episode, Dhru and Dr. Cohen dive into: Iodine’s role in detoxifying the body (00:40) Ranking toxin exposure from non-stick cookware (4:05) The problem with tap water—and solutions for cleaner options (9:33) The cumulative impact of toxin exposure over time (19:53) How today’s toxin load compares to earlier lifestyles (20:59) Poor indoor air quality and the dangers of dust buildup (22:38) The 4 A’s Framework for reducing toxic exposure (34:37) Why standard household cleaners can be harmful (38:47) Personal care products and their link to autoimmune disorders (44:26) Safer alternatives to traditional dry cleaning (54:17) Why you should avoid microwaving food in plastic—and use glass instead (58:15) Ultra-processed foods as a constant source of toxins (1:06:35) Foods that naturally support the body’s detoxification process (1:11:01) Mercury exposure and the rising pollution in our oceans (1:13:22) Daily supplements and foods that help minimize toxic burden (1:18:05) What drives Dr. Cohen’s passion for environmental health (1:24:11) BPA levels in mothers and the correlation with autism (1:29:07) What truly matters when it comes to reducing toxic exposure (1:37:27) Also mentioned in this episode: Dr. Cohen’s book Detoxify Study on surface cracks on non-stick cookware Try This –The Invisible Threat You Need to Be Aware of Ollie Dog Food For more on Dr. Cohen, follow her on Facebook, X/Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and her Website. This episode is brought to you by Momentous, Cozy Earth, and Lumebox. Optimize your energy and mental clarity with the Momentous Three: Protein, Omega-3s, and Creatine made by and used by the best. Head to livemomentous.com and use code DHRU for 35% off your first subscription.  Right now, get 40% off sitewide at Cozy Earth.  From May 2 through May 4th, Buy One, Get One Free viscose bamboo pajamas!! Just head over to cozyearth.com/dhru and use code DHRUPBOGO. Lumebox is offering my community early access to their 50% off their portable Red Light device Birthday sale. Just go to thelumebox.com/dhru to get your device.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Ailey Cohen, welcome to the podcast. Today, you are here to talk about the important role of detoxifying our life. And you're going to help us do that by ranking the worst offenders, the top 10 worst offenders that are toxifying all of us. And more importantly, though, it's a silver lining because there's a lot of things you can do to protect yourself. You're going to rank the top 10 things that we can do to protect ourselves. So let's jump in if you're okay with that. I'm okay. Let's do it. Let's start off with some good news. And that is iodine. Why is iodine something that you're a fan of? And where would you rank it on our tiered system?

Well, iodine is a pretty important micronutrient. And I would probably rank it pretty. I would give it like a C or a B. B. Let's do B. Okay. Tell us about it. Why is it important? What does it do to the body?

and why is it so important with detoxification? Great question. So iodine is something that most people haven't really heard about. And it's a micronutrient that protects the thyroid gland. And it actually is not in a lot of the foods we eat anymore, other than say some seafood and some seaweed and maybe yogurt, real yogurt, to navy beans. But iodine is something the human body doesn't make on its own. We have to get it from food. It's critical for brain development in babies, so babies have to get it from breast milk.

But other adults and young children have to have thyroid every day because it washes out every day in order to sit in the thyroid and protect it from a lot of the chemicals that were exposed to, such as perchlorate for one. And that's in a lot of food packaging, especially processed food packaging. It's also found naturally in some foods such as farm foods. And it's also on food washes. So it's in the food system of cleaning our produce that we may or may not have control over. So because of these outside invaders that like to stick to the thyroid gland and disrupt its function, iodine protects the thyroid gland. So you don't want to take too much. You don't want to take none or too little. So there's a recommendation I have of about 150 micrograms of iodine as sodium iodide often, even in a multivitamin.

It's very protective and very helpful. For the average person, are they getting natural exposure to their diet? Or are you saying that most people actually might not be getting enough? Yeah. The studies really show there's lots of nutrients and we can go into that. But there's lots of nutrients we're not getting in modern day time that we needed as evolutionary beings for millions of years. And iodine is just one of those things that we're not getting every day. We're not getting the right amounts.

We're inconsistent. We have busy lives. You know, we don't have always the access to foods that we want. So really, it's not even in food. And actually in the 1950s, it was added to bread from as a public health service, knowing that we have such low iodine levels in our food. But no one eats bread really anymore. A lot of people don't eat bread.

I shouldn't say everyone. And it used to be in table salt. It was added to table salt, like Morton's type of, you know, table salt. Now a lot of people are having Himalayan sea salt, kosher sea salt, you know, very unprocessed sea salt processes. So, and there's, there's no iodine in those products. So we're not getting iodine, even though we think we're getting it from salt. We're not getting it from food. So it's limited.

And it's just something to think about among several others, which is why one of the solutions, besides being worried about which foods and how often is to really think about even a multivitamin that has the right amount, which is about 150 micrograms of iodine per day. That's awesome. All right. We're going to get into some of the good stuff in a minute after iodine. but we got to talk about some of the worst offenders that are out there that go back to your new book. You highlight in there detoxify the everyday toxins harming your immune system and how to defend against them.

So one of the top things that many people do not understand still to this day, I stay at Airbnb's, I stay at friends' houses, I stay at family's houses. They do not understand how toxic non-stick cookware is. So talk to us about nonstick cookware why it's so potentially bad for us and where you'd rank it on this tiered system. So I think I would probably rank it around a, you know, C. Let's put it as C because I want to save some other offenders for the top ones. But it's a bad guy. It's a bad guy. And we want to really think about where we get it, where we get exposed to it, the chemicals that are on nonstick cookware.

So as you mentioned, it's everywhere. People use a lot of these products that are coated with a super slick surface. And that slick surface, which has made it so convenient to cook, to drop our baked goods out of the pan, to cook our eggs on, so to speak. They're not, it's a group of chemicals called perfluoralkals or the Phaeufos chemicals. They are specifically designed functionally to make things slippery. They're also used for, you know, rain geese. to make things waterproof and greaseproof. So in a lot of fast food wrappers

and a lot of fast food or food packaging. And the PFOS chemicals, there's over 15,000 of them now. But we certainly know that they're in non-stick pans, non-stick cookware, non-stick, you know, utensils even. And so it's just something that we can easily swap, which is why I love some of these, you know, you're calling out great ones because these are the things that we can actually very inexpensively swap out.

P-FOS chemicals have a whole host of health effects that we want to avoid. Some of them affect the immune system for sure, which is what I talk about in the book, lowers our ability to create antibodies if we get vaccinated intentionally to create that antibody response to protect us, but also can cause inflammation. So it's the opposite. It can actually increase inflammation, also linked to a variety of cancers like kidney cancer for sure. But again, these are exposures. levels over time that we want to try to either reduce or avoid as best we can.

And so it's a process, but then I think people should be aware of what's getting into their bodies and how simple it is to swap out these things. So tell us, is this true or false? I think I came across a study saying that the worst type of nonstick cookware is the ones that have scratches on them. Yes. And an image just came to mind of a place where they made omelets at a buffet that I was at recently.

You know, they love these really quick and easy omelets where they slide right off and they're scratched up because they've been used for what a million like, you know, hotel guests. And the idea is that the scratches actually break down that coating and release more of those nonstick chemicals, the per floor alcohols, into the foods that you're cooking, into whatever you're using, even with your cookware in terms of utensils. the scratches make that matrix looser. And especially if they're, you know, fatty foods like eggs, fats tend to draw in more of those per floor alcohol chemicals. So olive oils, all the oils that we used to cook with can add, you know, kind of more problems if you're working with scratched cookware. Yeah. I even saw in that one study we'll link it to in the show notes. I don't have it here in front of me that now as the awareness is increasing about microplastics that

a single scratch in one study. This is emerging science. You know, we don't have a standardized way of looking at microplastics. There's different labs that are doing it. They all kind of do it a little bit differently. But there's a lot of cause for concern. And a single scratch released 10,000 particles of microplastics into the food and water that they were testing. That seems pretty nuts. Are you sure you want to keep it as a seed? Do you want to bump it down to maybe a D? Oh, gosh. We could, we could bump it down to a D. I mean, we're really talking. talking about, you know, the lesser of multiple evils here. And by the way, on our tier ranking system, you can have multiple Ds, multiple Fs, multiple Cs. So, you know, I'm not trying to push you.

Because we're going to have multiple solutions. Yes, because we'll have multiple solutions. That's fine with me. All right. So we're dropping it down. We'll drop it down. Okay. We're dropping it down to a D. We have the microplastic filled cookware. And again, this is not to make anybody scared, which you're so great. You're so great about talking about this subject. And we're going to get into your why and your background here in a little bit. The goal here is to have an honest conversation about how problematic certain things are, how problematic certain things aren't, and most importantly the solutions so that we don't have to spend all day thinking about this. It can be more effortless, especially if we take our time in approaching it, and we can ultimately

end up living a healthier, happier life. Do you want to add anything to that? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, listen, you have to have an ounce of the why, of what the issues are. a little bit of the, you know, the fear factor, but you don't want it enough to keep you from making changes and making really reasonable, practical, simple, smarter choices. And I think that's the beauty of how you're presenting this today is that we want to really see what the problems are so that we can go into action mode. Yeah. Amazing.

Let's talk about a few other offenders. All right. This is one of the top things you talk about inside of your book, which is fantastic, by the way. And that's the idea of tap water, right? First, talk to us about the problems with most tap water out there, why we should be concerned if we want to protect our body and if we want to protect our family and then rank it for us on the list. This episode is brought to you by Cozy Earth.

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So let's start by saying, well, where do we get our water from? Let's make this simple. We get most of our water from our tap, which would be our faucet, but that water could either come from a well, from our town or underneath our home, but most of it really comes from what are called wastewater treatment plants. And that's the places across the U.S., where there's 160,000 of them, that actually clean the water that comes into them and then sends the water right out to our homes, you know, could be down the street.

It could be 10, 30, 40 miles away. who knows. But wastewater treatment plants, the problem is that the laws surrounding those wastewater treatment plants are from 1974, the Safe Drinking Water Act. And under that legislation, only 91 chemicals are looked at in terms of their levels, their MCLs, maximum concentration level, and then remediated if they get too high in the water system. The problem is, is that 91, back from 1974, you know, is really way, way, long period of time without any changes. And we've had thousands of harmful chemicals that we now know, harmful chemicals, have been added into our environment that make their way into the water system, including what goes through those wastewater treatment plants and then right out the other

side. So the problem is that our water has gotten dirtier and we have no infrastructure that's fixed the problem. And so we're really drinking pretty dirty, dirty contaminated water. And it changes over time. It changes with, you know, weather patterns. floods, you know, anything, you know, seasonal spraying of pesticides, anything that gets into lakes and streams, aquifers under the ground, anything in the air quality, will make its way into these water systems that will eventually make it into your glass. So water is actually really my number one problematic exposure that no one really gives a lot of attention to. And there's plenty of solutions. But yes, that is my number one. So where would you rank it? Tap,

in most big cities, let's say, city like Los Angeles that just had these crazy fires. We had a massive amount of fire retardant that obviously saved a lot of structures and we're thankful for that. But all of that ended up being washed into the sewer systems. Where would you rank in the United States tap water that is in most municipalities that people are drinking? So I have to pick that as my number one, most underestimated, underrated, underrated contributor to human health issues, that would have to be F.

F, all right. It's got the lowest ranking right now out of all of them. And because it has the lowest ranking, I feel like we just got to take a pause here. And you said that there's a number of solutions that are there. Let's actually take a moment to talk about some of those solutions. What should people be doing instead of traditional tap water? So really filtering your water. And there's a variety of options for filtering your water.

And most people have either tried them, thought of them, grew up with these filtration systems, whether it's a pitcher, which is typically what's called a carbon block. It's a big block of carbon. Water runs through it pretty quickly, which is convenient, right? And then goes into the pitcher. But that only removes a very small proportion of contaminants in general. They vary in terms of manufacturing. Same with the refrigerator.

That's a refrigerator door often can have a water system and a filter, and that's a carbon block as well. But then when you move to different options, you can move all the way up to, reverse osmosis, which nowadays is very, very cost effective. I've watched the prices drop over the last 10, 15 years, and they run about $275 to buy and about $150 for a plumber to install in one hour because they're just splitting the water line. You can have it on top of your counter in your kitchen. You can have it underneath your sink, which is much easier, believe it or not, because you don't have to keep refilling it. I've tried them all out in terms of convenience.

And I will tell you reverse osmosis now that it's cost effective. I do encourage people to think about that when they're moving into apartments or homes, even if you're going to colleges, if you're going, you know, traveling and renting apartments, there's really a lot of options that you can filter your water. So any filtration is better than none for sure. But then there's a variety, and I talk about in the book, a variety of options for people to decide what's best for them. That's great. So we actually have an image here, just like a standard reverse osmospital.

If you had to rank it, right, on this column, we know you'd probably rank it high. Is it a B? Is it an A? Is it a Supreme? A reverse osmosis moving, well, in terms of its benefit. Benefit. Oh, it's going to be up to Supreme for sure. Okay, great.

So tap water is an F, but the good news is reverse osmosis, which is the top of your list. There's a lot of different ways to filter. That's an S. So that can be an easy solution to people's lives to prevent them from getting a exposed all these toxins. What are like some of the top, top toxins that we know is in our tap water that reverse osmosis can filter out? Really, anything. It's up, you know, the thousands of chemicals that vary from whatever. I mean, look, we just had a, you know, a clog in our sink and we poured Drano down, right? Anything that you put down the sink or the, or actually the toilet, sewage becomes

drinking water. So the number of things that are in our drinking water is remarkable. When it comes to the most common. Well, often you'll get things like industrial chemicals, things like heavy metals, like arsenics, sometimes lead even. For sure, you can get, you know, cadmium. There's lots of things like BPA and plasticizer chemicals. There's certainly detergents, which are intentionally added, as well as chlorine and often fluoride, that are added at these wastewater treatment plants intentionally for various reasons, right? But our job is really to think about how do you remove the chemicals, even those that are intentionally added, when they hit your home, when they hit your glass. So the point of use. And so that's really the value, no matter where your water comes from

into your home, whether it's a well, whether it's wastewater treatment plant, you have an opportunity to really clean what goes into your body. And your body is 85, 87 percent water. So if we can get that right, it's really helpful not only in terms of what we're exposed to, but how we detoxify our body from things we don't always have control over. And you're not saying that if people are drinking tap water, that they're immediately necessarily feeling sick. It's more that it's a cumulative thing that takes a toll on the body over the course of their life. They may not be able to zero in, but it's going to be making them unhealthy through this exposure. Is that accurate? For sure. So when I talk about any of these exposures,

I color my hair. I watch my kids play lacrosse on toxic turf five times, you know, five, three times a week, whatever at games. The idea is that life is such that you don't want to flip out over one or two exposures here and there or any of these kind of like, you know, what I call the allow of my four A's is life in general is fluid and we're going to be exposed to birthday cakes and travel. What you want to be thinking about is the chronic exposures that you can control because by volume that will add up over time, even if they're very, very, very small doses, very small amounts because of the way they work in the human body, even the very smallest doses can actually have some effects on our health. Some people might be listening and saying, okay, I know that you're an expert in this space.

You have the MD behind your name. You've written a book. But my parents grew up that way, or maybe I'm in my 60s, 70s. And people were really talking about these things back in the day. Is it really that much worse today that we have to really upend our life to, to, prioritize these solutions to these super toxic things that are there? What would you say to that individual? I would say we do have to worry more because in the amount of time that we've had from generation to generation, 10, 15, 40, 50 years, we had an exponential growth in the number of

chemicals that have come into the market. We're upwards of 95,000, maybe even more in terms of the chemicals that have been added. In fact, about 1,000 to 1,500 new chemicals add into the system every year, about 15 new compounds are patented every week. And most of them, if not all of them, have not been tested or been required to have testing for safety or toxicity before they go into the products that go in onto our products, into our homes and onto our bodies. So thinking about just the vast number that have increased and the fact that all of these different areas of our lives like water systems have not improved, you know,

there's lots that we are now kind of. catching up with. Humans never were exposed to this level of synthetic chemical exposure in our whole, you know, millions of years of existence until about 75 years ago. So it's a very short period of time for the human body to really adjust or adapt to these exposures. Well said. All right, I want to go to another area that's a big, big topic. And it's the idea of indoor air, poor indoor air and dust accumulation. Talk about a big picture. And then let's rank it on our tiered list. What's the problem with poor indoor air and dust build up?

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So, you know, what happens with our air is that things in the air don't just stay in the air, right? There's particles that you can't even see. They're called particulate matter. And they're so small that they're even, you know, say, 2.5 microns, which is so small. It's basically the size of maybe half of the diameter of a hair in terms of its tininess. So there's a lot of particulate matter that we are breathing in that we just can't see, right? Unlike smoke where you might actually see smoke, that's. That's enormous number of particulate matter kind of combined together.

Now, when it comes to the air, it passes, right? You know, air goes in front of us constantly, but it can be re-accumulated with a lot of chemicals when it comes to things we bring into our home, for example. When your home is really airtight as they are, you know, for economic reasons to keep our heating and air conditioning bills normal or low, and we don't open windows, then we're really keeping a lot of the chemicals that aerated into the air sealed in, which means that we're breathing in those chemicals quite readily and quite often. Dust essentially is when those particulate matter that those chemicals that are in the air and think like air freshener, candles, incense,

when those even smoking, those chemicals fall to the ground, fall onto surfaces, and that's what accumulates in dust. In fact, studies that show, you know, dust actually is, one of the most toxic components in homes because it tends to be what's gathered from all of the products, cleaning products, personal care products, industrial chemical products, even, you know, cables and things like flame retarding chemicals end up in our dust. And what's on the floor, pets, kids, hand-a-mouth behavior. So it's a great place to work in terms of solutions. You know, you can work by cleaning up dust or not bringing in a lot of these air balloons in the first place, which often we do into our own home. What's the impact of this poor indoor air on the

body, right? All the things that you're mentioning, the off-gassing, what is actually the impact on the body? What could go wrong? Well, we know that many of the contaminants in particular matter, you know, air quality issues can increase a lot of things. It's associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease. It's been associated with mental health issues such as, you know, anxiety and depression. We know there's associations. This has been well studied around the world in some of the most polluted cities in the world that conditions such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and early dementia. But we also know that it affects the immune system, which is the area I like to talk about specifically in the book. It is very inflammatory many of these chemicals that get in through breathing,

right? We're breathing them in just like oxygen, right? We can't go without oxygen. Well, what comes in with that air also is circulating throughout our body. And it can, in fact, increase the inflammatory response in the body. We have acute issues such as asthma, right? If you're an asthmatic and you breathe in some of the particulate matter often in cities, but even in other areas, you could have an acute response, which is an asthmatic reaction, a spasm of your breathing apparatus. But then there's these chronic low-level exposures, again, that you are bringing into your body.

They can be measured in blood levels and urine levels. And we also have a great opportunity to reduce those exposures as well. But health issues are real when it comes to particulate matter, and we should really pay attention. Where would you rank it? We have a little photo here of poor indoor air coming through a vent. Where would you rank it? If you put tap water as an F, poor indoor air, where is that on the list? I'm going to bump the D and I'm going to put it right underneath the water because it's such a major exposure into the human body.

So you're going to put it in D. And oh, you can just leave it with this nonstick pans, of course. Yeah, we're on the same list. Why not? Why not? That's great. You know, we are recording this in my studio in Los Angeles, this podcast, and in this studio, we've had to put a bunch of soundproofing in.

A lot of soundproofing has polyester. You look at polyester and the chemicals that make it up. It sheds. It contributes to microplastics in the air. And that exposure, you know, we sit here in this closed, insulated room. for, you know, two hours sometimes, three hours doing a podcast. It's all about health. We don't want our guests here, you know, being exposed all that.

So in my office here in the studio, I have not only an air filter, right, which if you can afford that, it's always a great recommendation. You can also open your windows if you're at home and let the air circulate. You talk about them in the book. But we also have an air monitor because this space is so important. And the air monitor, we've set it to the setting that looks at not, just toxins like VOCs in the air. It's also looking at a lot of people don't realize that if you have a lot of stale air that's not recirculated, that is recirculated, you can have increased levels

of carbon dioxide in there. You can have, you know, too high of a temperature, too high of a humidity. All those things actually make us less productive. It's harder to focus. There was actually a really great study we wrote about in our newsletter talking about how they looked at high pollution days in cities and they looked at baseball games that were taking place outdoors and on high pollution days in certain cities I forgot which ones they looked at they found that the umpires actually had a higher amount of incorrectly calling balls and strikes on those days because this suspicion was at least there was a correlation that these increased levels of pollution were actually making it harder for them to focus on those days.

I found that like super fascinating. Oh, it's fascinating. And there's other data to suggest when, you know, temperatures change, when ozone goes up in terms of its levels and there's a poor air quality, you know, rating that there's higher levels of admissions to the emergency room for psychiatric issues. There's fewer police stops. there's less inspecting of our food when it comes into the country. So when you talk about productivity, you're also talking about sort of downstream effects

that can affect all of us. But the productivity issue is a real issue when it comes to not just climate change and temperature, but also what's correlated is actually particulate matter issues. Have you seen some pretty low-cost air monitors online? It's pretty easy these days. Do you have any buying tips for people that are out there? The CO2 monitors are very inexpensive and that's easy to pick up. What I found recently when I was researching the fire information in terms of LA's exposure,

you really can think about your air filter in terms of what's called circulating air delivery rate, CADR, is what you want to start thinking about when you're looking at these. I mean, ratings are great, right? But if you want to actually look at what you're trying to accomplish, it's you want to circulate the air in such a way that it manages. is a certain space. So the active way to do that is to look for the CADR on an air filter and look for 300 for every 300 CADR for every 500 square feet.

So the idea is you want to match the filtration ability to the space that you plan on using it for. So again, 300 CADR for every 500 square feet and you would increase that for what you're using it for. The other thing you can really consider for those listening is the HVAC system in your home, right? You know, the HVAC system, heating and ventilation,

an air conditioning system, you know, if you have vents in your home, you can change out what's called the Merv rating of the filter. And the MIRV is the, I wish I knew the name of the Actrum specifically, but basically MIRV ratings are based on what you're trying to accomplish in your space.

They're usually set as a default between five and nine MIRV, but you can move up to say 13, 14, 15, even 16, especially in areas where you've been hit with fires and smoke. And so you're creating a better system by which you can catch that particular matter. And just make sure you're on top of changing them out regularly. Yeah, I think that with all filters, air filters, water filters,

these home filters for your HVAC system that have the Merv rating, I think the key really is changing them out regularly. I can't tell you how often somebody says, yeah, I have a water filter. And you're at their house. You're like, oh, amazing, that's great. you know, like, do you mind me asking? Like, when's the last time you've changed it? Especially after I taste the water.

I'm like, oh, this tastes a little weird. Not that you can always taste it. And they're like, I didn't even know you had to change it. Yeah. And not only that, so I have a system for doing that because I have a work water filter that's reverse osmosis under my kitchen sink. And I have a home one. And so essentially, I just time it to major holidays, which is kind of a bummer if I'm not

invited to something, but I'm changing my filter instead. But really, if you think about it, New Year, and Memorial Day are really two opportunities around those times that are six-month apart. And so I really actually make that a mission to keep on top of those two holidays. You can pick any holidays you want. But when you're talking about three-month changes versus six-month changes, if you tie them to things that have meaning to you, then you're more likely to stay on top of it. And I write down, you know, the date every time I do it because you want to make sure you have

that date so you can work off of that. And sometimes I forget, and I hope people who listening are not forgetting like I did. you have a framework that you talk about in the book. We're going to break that down in a second because that will help people think, help them to figure out how to think about all this and how it all works together. So we'll come right back to the tiered list, but give us that framework, the four-As. Yeah, the four-A's was something that I designed because I teach doctors.

I teach high school and college students. And after doing this a long time, you start to figure out what is the simplest way to chop up this topic into a way that people can really absorb it? So the four A is very simple. It's basically number one is assess. You have to assess the situation to really know what you're trying to fix, right? So in the book, I have a 50 question, a survey that really just ask very basic questions. You give a one or a zero answer.

You add up those numbers to kind of see where you're starting from, which is reasonable and shouldn't be overwhelming, but it's good questions that everyone can answer. So assess is looking at the problem. What's an example of a question? Yeah. So do you filter your water? Do you dry clean your clothing? Do you travel through big cities to go to work or to home?

I mean, these are all different, very reasonable questions about exposures that anyone could wrap their head around. And once you get a level, a number, you can kind of say, okay, let's see where I can go with this. Okay, great. The second A is a void, right? So we can avoid. I call it avoid and swap. But avoid is really, do we really need all of these cleaning products, a door cleaner, a window cleaner, a sink cleaner, a carpet cleaner.

You know, there's a lot we can cut back on that we've been marketed to in terms of keeping up with the Joneses in terms of cleanliness, antimicrobials, bacteria fears. We want to keep our microbiomes healthy and we don't need all of these products that we've been told we do.

So avoiding is one good way, like air fresheners and all that, but also swapping. Having the ability to swap out what we do like using to cleaner versions, making smarter choices. This is really part of this whole process, right? We want to keep some of the stuff we like. The third A is add, and this is

really kind of critical, because you can take away all the triggers, all the environmental chemicals, all the exposures that are harmful in the world. But what you also need to think about is how do you give the human body things that it needs to thrive at the cellular level, at the organ level? So, for instance, there are nutrients in food that we now know not only help us nutritionally for growth and development, but actually offset the effects from harmful chemicals on our epigenome in terms of our gene expression. So we have food that is essentially medicine to offset modern exposures that we are now seeing. But we also want to add in things that help detoxify the human body. So sweating is remarkable. It's something we've held on to for millions

of years. We want to add in great sleep. So not just quantity, which we all think about rest and feeling alert, but we also want to think about how do we get the best sleep so that we can clean out chemicals while we sleep through what's called the glymphatic system. It's the fluid around our brain and our spinal cord. And as we sleep, we're really kind of washing these out in many ways. Science is really robust on this. So adding in exercise, adding in sleep, adding in nutrition sounds very anthropologic to me, right? So that's the kind of things I want people to think about taking away the problem and adding in solutions. The last of the A's is kind of, you know, like this is life.

It's called allow. That's the third A. And the third A allows someone like myself to go get my hair colored because I actually really want to keep doing that for a while until it'll change my mind. It's traveling to other countries and not having access to certain things that I might want to have, you know, part of my life like I do at home. It's birthday cakes. It's anything that we need to really keep us motivated and know that this is not about perfection.

It's about being realistic and having this process, removing these chemicals, detoxifying in a way that is personal and is a journey for everybody. There's no regret. There's no rush. It's a process that you layer in over time. That's great. I love that breakdown. Okay. Are you up for the idea of ranking a few more things that are on this top toxins list and potentially some solutions as well, too, we'll throw them in.

You mentioned one, which is household cleaners, the same. standard ones that are out there. What is problematic about them? What ingredients are you worried about? And what is the impact of them on the body? Yeah. So, you know, we have a wild, wild west of chemicals that go into our personal care products and certainly in our cleaning products. Again, we are not required in the United States. The government does not require manufacturers to test any of the ingredients, any of the ingredients that go into these products before they go in to our our home and into our potentially into our bodies. And so the idea that anything can go into them really means that it could be thousands of chemicals and often are. So when it comes to cleaning

products, a lot of things that are added, particularly are thallates, which are fragrance and odor, because we want to clean, you know, with products that have, you know, odors like lemon that may not be real or ocean breeze or, you know, pumpkin spice when it comes to candles and cleaning products and those kind of things. So those thallates actually are proprietary. They are not required to be tested again. And they extend the scent or the fragrance to have a longer shelf life. And thalates are linked to a whole host of endocrine and immune system issues in the human body.

Like what? So we know with thallate testing and thallate studies that are quite robust that they can contribute to changes in male genitalia from a, newborn exposure or a newtro exposure perspective, they've been linked to affect hormones like insulin, which affects sugar, thyroid gland, they can affect growth in development, fertility issues, but they can also increase inflammation. Again, from an immune system perspective, someone who takes care of immune and autoimmune disease patients for 22 years, these exposures are pretty, you know, pervasive. And so we don't want phthalates in our bodies, especially during

vulnerable periods of development. So as a pregnant woman, you know, as a young child, into our teen years and even during menopause, these are vulnerable periods where hormones are really going up and down. That's when many of these endocrine or hormone disrupting chemicals and immune disrupting chemicals can have greater effect. So we want to be thinking about that. But other chemicals in cleaning products, Watts are a group of chemicals that were added, particularly after COVID, because they really went after the microbes.

We were very afraid of microbes for good reason, right? We didn't want to have a virus affect us, such as COVID. So the cleaning industry went nuts. And they started putting in so many toxic chemicals that really wipe out the microbiome of our skin and can get into our bodies and can be measured in blood and urine. So again, there was a free for all. It's a wild, wild west. Lots of chemicals we don't need. Let's go back to basics.

Let's use things that our grandparents used. White vinegar. you know, lemon juice, castile soap, sea salt for scrubbing. And I even have do-it-yourself recipes for those products in the book. Or you can use resources that are in the book as well to choose safer, lower toxicity products. So let's rank both of those. We have a green bottle here on the screen, which is representative of, you know, traditional household cleaners, a whole classification.

Let's rank that. And then we have another image that is baking soda. vinegar, all the good stuff that you just mentioned. You don't have to get all the expensive brands, although I super appreciate that there's a lot of alternatives that are out there that people can buy in the store. You can make things at home. Like you said, you have examples of that in your book. So let's rank both of them. So let's start with the traditional household cleaners. Where are we going to drop that? I would put them. They're pretty gnarly. I would put them probably around F. Okay. So you're going to drop it down there? Yeah, I think so.

Okay. Because they can be filled with all sorts of stuff. Yeah, it's proprietary fragrance, you know, antimicrobials, anti-microbials, just real things that we don't want in our system anymore. Got it. Or ever. Okay, so on the flip side, vinegar, you know, baking soda, some of the other things that you mentioned. Where are we putting that? Let's put that up at A or S. A is fine.

Yeah, it's wonderful. I mean, these are the things that are harmless to the human body, been around forever, completely accessible and completely inexpensive. So I'm a big fan. When I first met my wife before she was my wife, and I suggested, oh, let's use some vinegar to like clean. There was this initial reaction of that doesn't actually clean. And I'm sure you've heard that before.

For the people that are out there that are like, hey, this isn't a fancy thing made in a factory. Is it actually cleaning? What is your response? This response is not only cleaning. It's actually antibacterial as well and antiviral. So when we're thinking back to, you know, some of the most common exposures, the flu, So there's lots of things that can be killed off from just white vinegar, but also if you're thinking about that level of cleaning in terms of, say, COVID exposure or the flu in your household being

rampant, you can also think of isopal alcohol, which is just rubbing alcohol. So there's even stronger stuff if you need it that's really safe as well. But vinegar is really classic. It's been around forever, and it has different percentages. There's sort of 3% for cooking and 5% for cleaning that's available, even at big box stores. So if you're really going to be using it for cleaning, I would choose the higher percentage. Awesome. I love that. Okay. Let's go on to the next item that we have here. It was another thing that you just mentioned, which is personal care products. This is another whole slew of items.

Could be sunscreen. Could be body wash. Could be anything and everything that people put on their body. And one of the suspicions from people like yourself is that potentially one of the reasons that women might have higher degrees of autoimmune disease, it's multifactorial, could be this plethora of untested, unproven level of chemicals in traditional personal care products. Is that accurate? So it is complicated. And we are now finding some genetic predispositions for autoimmune disease in addition to what we call environmental hits or environmental exposures. But there's no question about it. There are many more personal care products directed, marketed to women, for sure.

And even African-American women who have a different set of products that are marketed to them as well with different ingredients. Some of them have estrogenic components that are much higher than in other products. That too has become a problem, not just even amongst earlier puberty, amongst young kids and boys are included in this, not just women, but young girls, young boys as well. But we have to be thinking if that's, if we know that the associations for shifting puberty younger over the last several hundred years is an endocrine disruption component, it's also very, very strongly connected to the idea that we can have autoimmune and immune disorders, which again, endocrine system and the immune system are much more connected than anyone really thinks

about. We think they're siloed, but really there's cross talk between these very important systems in the human body. So absolutely, there's no question that has a lot to do with maybe why we're seeing more, you know, autoimmune disease and immune disorders in women. But there's other theories involved. You know, hormones are really quite important. Estrogen androgens are key. But again, there's these genetic findings such as the exist gene, which I talk about in the book, that really is helping us to understand why it is that most autoimmune diseases affect women more than men, although there's many type 1 diabetes included, that are equally slated amongst both genders, as well as some that are more male-dominated, like ankylosing spondylitis and, yeah,

psoriotic arthritis, definitely. What are the worst offenders in this category of personal care products? Like, I don't want to put you on the spot to name brands, but what are typical things that you see out there? and you're just like, look, these things have known chemicals that are just not good for a human being. Well, most of the stuff that's marketed has fragrance. Okay, that's the selling point, right? What's the problem with fragrance?

So fragrance, again, these phallates, which is a class of chemicals, which is, you know, one of many classes of chemicals that are used in these products. But phallates are specifically designed to keep the smell and odor of a product lasting longer, whether it's laundry detergent, whether it's cleaning products, whether it's personal. care products. We also know, like, for instance, feminine care products can have chemicals that you wouldn't think of, like antimicrobials in the cotton. And if it's not cotton, they may be rayon or other types of polyester making up a tampon, for instance. There's also, you know, chlorine and cotton and some of these plasticizers. So when we think about personal care, we should also be thinking about feminine care and internal exposure as well, because women should understand how absorbative, that part of the body really is as well in terms of, you know, getting those chemicals

into the body. But, you know, when it comes to these personal care products, we have chemicals like mercury and makeup that have actually been at very low levels, not a problem in terms of regulation. There's no oversight. And it's used as an antiseptic. There are parabins. You know, there are chemicals that help skin absorb, you know, chemicals to make them smoother and softer, such as lotions. They're functional chemicals that are synthetic that are really trying to sell the product in terms of what they do. So, you know, it's one of those things where it's a mishmosh of anything best to go with the least amount of ingredients and the ones you recognize. And if you can't see those, you know, those findings on a label, certainly, you know, use groups like Environmental

Working Group, their Skin Deep Database, Clearia app, Yuka app, think dirty app. They often use a lot of the same databases, which is great. But they're all usable in their own way and really just very accessible. I do this with high school students. I toss all these products to the kids and they download the Skin Deep database. And they look at those numbers themselves, the ratings, they look at what the ingredients are, and they look at different options for themselves to choose. And I actually make my son do this in order to get any products that he wants to buy.

Yeah, if you don't have kids or you don't have friends that have kids, you may not realize that it's super in style right now for young men to be using all the skin care that's out there. And they're shopping and they're looking at stuff and they're trying to have chiseled jaws. And I think I even heard a story about you saying that your son was using some product that he got to extend his eyelashes and make him look nice. And this is like a super fit guy's guy lacrosse player. Oh, yeah.

The pros are doing this. I mean, it's really kind of insane. And listen, you know, as a. mom it's people might think that my house is like you know a prison of of only healthy products but you know in real life as with everything you have to be flexible and so when when my son one of them who he likes more cologne than the other and he walks through the kitchen to go out to school i mean it's like i can't even stand the stink in the kitchen they're petting the dog and the cat they now stink and it doesn't even wear off because again those salates are doing their job now i sat down with my son and we did like a little

sample, sampler of a really non-toxic perfume or cologne really. It's kind of like unisex you know, odors now. But this is a big thing for these kids. And sure enough, the safe products are just as if, you know, they're wonderful smelling. We picked which ones we liked and we ordered them.

But the options are out there and they're getting better and better. So, you know, I really encourage people to think about that because it's something you put on your body. It's going to last in your home. It's going to potentially end up on your, you know, surfaces and dust. So let's start by what you bring into your home as the starting point for good choices.

I've avoided so many of these things for such a long time, things like Cologne. And I'm generally in an environment where a lot of my friends, especially here in Los Angeles, are not using those things on a regular basis. And now when I come across it, it's like I have an instant headache. Yeah. Now, is that placebo? Is that something else? I don't know, but it's real.

Like, I feel like I have a headache. I'll tell you, it's real to me. I'm staying in a hotel and the place is pumped with odor. You know, it's pumped with a smell. Some of the most, you know, popular retail stores actually are spraying intentionally. It's part of the kind of Disney experience of shopping these days. So, but interestingly enough, in California, under the American Disabilities Act, they stopped putting perfume in magazines where, you know, when you used to get magazines back in the day,

they smelled 10 feet away before you even took them home or picked them up out of the mailbox. And that had a lot to do with what you ripped open and you would smell the latest scent that's being marketed. Turns out that they don't do that anymore because air quality is really a right, right? You don't want to have to be in an office and be working. Can somebody send the memo to Uber? Because I don't think anybody reads magazines anymore, right? Oh, it's insane. Uber is a big challenge.

You step into the wrong Uber. And your head is out the window like a dog. I know. It's terrible. And it's funny. I take pictures of this sometimes. And I open up the window and I can't even breathe. I don't know if they got the memo.

but maybe they're watching this podcast. So let's hope. Okay. So for Uber, for our audience, rank these personal products, which includes all sorts of things. Colognes, skin care stuff. I know it's a hodgepodge of things, but all the ones that match the description that you just shared, where would you put it on our tier rank system? You know, I would say because of the plethora of them and what we like to use,

I'm going to put it at probably D. Okay. We're going to throw it on D. Yeah. along with polluted indoor air, off gassing, and these nonstick pants. Yeah, I would say pretty toxic. And I will make one extra little tidbit of a point for the young people and anyone listening who gets manicures, pedicures, thinking about even just your base coat.

You know, I bring my base code if I'm going to get a manicure or pedicure, and that's a treat for me because I don't typically do that. But when I do choose to do that, thinking about the layer that hits your nail and your body is really an important choice and can be done quite easily when you look it up and bring your own. So, you know, these are options to not take away all the fun if that's what you choose. You just have to be smarter and kind of think about things ahead of time. You've been sprinkling in a bunch of different solutions to counteract a lot of these things that are super toxic that are ruining our lives over the long haul, right? And especially if we have vulnerable

kids around us, elderly, you talked about dry cleaning and all the data that's out there. from people like Dr. Ray Dorsey and his group about how it's a known carcinogen, a lot of the tetrachlorahydrine and other stuff in there. Plotlorythylene, tetrachlorahethylene. That can increase our risk of Parkinson's, potentially Alzheimer's disease, cancers. So, you know, there's a lot of challenges. Let's talk. Let's give people a little bit more hope, right?

You've already been sprinkling some hope. So let's talk about dry cleaning. What would you be doing? instead of traditional dry cleaning? So I think it starts at choice, you know, buying products or buying clothing that really doesn't require dry cleaning is a really good start. I mean, I've really stopped buying clothes that were super vulnerable to wrinkles if I didn't want to have those in a business space.

You know, that's one option. But I tend to actually, you can do steam cleaning, you know, and really talk to your dry cleaner because a lot of times they don't quite understand. and, you know, what it is to stay away from those chemicals. You know, there's even marketing of organic dry cleaners, which I've never seen that as any legitimate business issue. Can I ask you a question about that? Sure.

I mean, especially in a town like L.A., you see eco dry cleaning, you see, or, you know, I don't know about organic, but you definitely see eco. And they'll say things like, you know, we don't use these harsh chemical solvents. I'm kind of hearing you saying that you have. haven't really seen that backed up with anything or that there could be something there. So I'll give you an example of how this is a slippery topic because I had someone who come in to manage mold and they said, oh, these are all natural sprays. They were convinced of it. These are the people who worked for the company. And even the head, you know, of that division I spoke to.

And she's like, oh, I'll send you the MSDS, which is really the report on the chemical to tell you what it's all about. Well, it turns out that the active ingredient in this particular mold spray was 0.005% in terms of the active ingredient, which was claimed to be safe, right? However, the 99.995% was proprietary inactive on the bottom of the label. So in other words, again, it's a very slippery area to say anything is safe when most of active ingredients are a very small percentage and most of the inactive ingredients contain some of the worst offenders. So I can't speak to every business. Certainly I don't want to badmouth any company doing it well, but I think you have to do a lot of

research to see that that's happening. Did you ever find out what were they using? Oh, yeah. I was very upset about it. What was it? Off the top of my head, I remember looking it up and it did have health-related issues. The active ingredient had lower risk, but whatever was revealed in the, you know, inactive was not good. And that made up 99%. And I was even telling the people that worked

for this company who were spraying, they were flabbergasted because I wanted them to understand what chemicals they were handling, especially young people handling these without gloves. So you really want to be thinking about exposures occupationally in your home and really do your research. But steam cleaning, if you just get a steam cleaner, is very reasonable. And if you're going to wash your laundry. I mean, I tend to just, you know, have certain things that need to be wrinkled, you know, to be washed. And then I will iron them with my own steamer. It or have a steamer machine. There's a lot of better ways than dry cleaning. I think that people can get through this process. That's awesome. Okay, great. So that's an alternative on a whole list of things that you can do

instead of traditional dry cleaning. Yeah. And you can even put this away, by the way, outside your home. So say you really do need to dry clean stuff. Right? Because life is life, right? Right. Keep it outdoors. Don't let it come into your home and put it in the for-year closet, which a lot of people do. Keep it in the garage. Keep it outside your home. Let it off gas for at least a couple of days, if not more, and then bring it in. Because that way you're removing a lot of the chemicals that are called volatile organic compounds that are harmful, that play into health issues that you breathe in, that become your dust and so on and so forth. So just keep it out of your home. One of the things you talk about in the book is avoiding microwaving, especially in plastic. Yeah. Right. Do you feel like people are getting the memo about that? Like when you look around, the people that you know, what state do you live in again?

New Jersey. In New Jersey. Right. Number one super fun site in the country is our state. I think I remember like growing up because I grew up in Delaware. Yeah. I think I remember like a terrible nickname about Jersey. It was always called Dirty Jersey.

Oh, you know, well, we're the, what is it? The veggie state. We're the green state of growing. But, you know, our soil. is pretty bad, and I wouldn't be surprised about that. But, you know, there are parts of New Jersey that are extraordinarily beautiful. New Jersey is really nice. You just have to say what exit you're from.

Totally. That's right. That's right. The garden state. That's what it is. The garden state. That's what we call it. So I was going to say, are people getting the memo about not microwaving in plastic?

And then secondarily, something else you talk about, which is, you know, try to avoid when you can, not putting foods in plastic in your refrigerator, especially if it's something that you're going to be using that's heated. Talk about those two things. Yeah, well, basically, plastic is human-made chemicals put together. It was great in the 1940s when they were discovered, you know, polyethylene glycol. I mean, all these components of plastics, you know, that gave us rayon and nougahide and fermica and plexiglass. I mean, these are things we've heard of that were designed to make life convenient, right? You drop dishes. They don't break. Really great for, you know the 50s moms and so on and so forth. But in terms of the matrix of plastics in general,

plastics break down. It's not like stainless steel. It's not like glass. These are materials that are, although they're designed temporarily to do with their job is to contain things often, amongst other things, they really do break down. And you know this when you take brand new Tupperware, right? If you get plastic containers that you're going to use for storage and you put them in the dishwasher under high heat and multiple uses and scratches, they become opaque. You cannot see through them anymore. And that's owns to the fact that these materials are breaking down

and making them cloudy. And plastics also can be infused with lots of pretty bad chemicals, right? So plastics can have antimicrobials, so cutting boards. You know, thinking about microplastics is one component, but also the chemicals that are infused into plastics because they are able to absorb some of these added chemicals, right? because, again, the matrix is not very strong. So the general rule is, you know, they are convenient and unfortunately they're part of our food system,

but we can work around it, plenty of solutions in the book. But the idea is that you do not want to heat them or scratch them up because that makes them more likely, just like the, you know, the nonstick pants to get into the foods and drinks that they carry. So in our household, yeah, we have frozen foods that are in plastics when we, you know, we live like everybody else. but my kids are really good at switching their stuff into glass and stainless steel to heat up. I used to use steamer bags for years

even while I was researching chemicals because it was so convenient that it really didn't even occur to me. And it turns out that those steaming baths which really do heat up to high temperatures, they're dropping those microplastics in the condensation inside the bag into the food. So just thinking about one extra step

and having the right inexpensive cookware and storage wear, you're done. These are the swaps that make life easy and you keep moving. So where would be the top places that people would be heating? Microwave would be one. Are you worried about people regularly putting, you know, plastic Tupperware in like the dishwasher? Yeah, you know, you shouldn't need Tupperware. If you're thinking about kids, you know, we use stainless steel for when I had kids growing, you know, if they dropped a cup or a plate, you know, so be it.

It didn't crack and break. You can also use plastic lids. I mean, you know, as long as it's not touching foods, it's very convenient, especially when you're taking food to work or you have, you know, foods for kids on the go. But in general, you want to avoid plastics for storage and for cooking wherever you can, you know, avoid it. I mean, it's really hard because our food system is so filled with single-use plastics. You know, I'm here traveling and to find glass water bottles. And we can talk about that, water bottles and how to manage water and water, you know, system. But it's really impossible to find any water in glass.

And when I go out to dinner and they actually say, would you like, you know, fizzy water or still, and they come to the table with a glass bottle, I'm just like thrilled. I'm like crying and hugging the waitress. That's your version of bottle service. It's honestly, it's like, you know, oh my God, you know,

it just made my heart just, you know, fill. So, you know, the idea is that we, unless you make your own food, unless you control the food system, we are at the whim of that. We have to get savvy around it. And there's lots of things in the book that I share, and I'm sure you're aware of, that really help us to do that. So let's rank the idea of switching out plastic with glass and stainless steel, whether it's your water bottle, whether it's your food containers.

Where would you rank that on our list here? I would say, probably, you know, I would say almost like a B. I think that's okay because when I think of how easy the changeout is to the benefit, you know, the risk-benefit ratio there, it's really a good one. You know, it's very easy. That's awesome. I love that. On that note here, in the book you talk about BPA-free cans and bottles.

Now, I want to ask you, most people have heard about BPA. It's not a great thing. If we can avoid it, awesome. And I've also had a lot of people come on this podcast say that just because something's BPA-free doesn't actually mean that it's any better for you. they might have a bunch of other plastics that are there that have not been named like BPA that could still be a part of it. So is BPA free still something that we should use as a signaling idea that something is

safer for us? Yeah. Interesting. BPA is used for a lot of things. It's not even just used in canned foods as the epoxy lining, the plastic interior of all cans, even organic food cans, believe it or not. even baby food cans, right? It is part of the food packaging,

and BPA itself is part of that. When it says BPA-free, it's really, as you said, really unlikely that it is truly healthy or safer because there are so many what we call regrettable substitutions to BPA that were designed by the manufacturers of BPA to get around the problems with BPA and the reputation of BPA. BPA was actually removed from plastic baby bottle,

and plastic sports bottles in 2012, due to a lot of the work of my co-author for two previous books, who's an emeritus, you know, reproductive neurobiologist from University of Missouri. So, you know, his work along with colleagues around the world, was a heavy lift,

but they were only able to get it out of baby bottles that are plastic and sports bottles. But it's everywhere else still, unfortunately. Now Canada has actually just, put forth legislation based on his work and others to get BPA out of packaging, food packaging, because it's such a huge source into the human body. And the substitution bisphenols, BPS, BPS, BPSIP, BPPF, they are again used instead where BPA was formally used in many products.

So the long story short is, or the short story short, is stay away from plastics, don't believe BPA-free really means that much. try, you know, to use glass and stainless steel when it comes to even water bottles and carrying water. And that's a good start, really. That's great. All right, let's pivot to the topic of food. Yeah. Everybody knows that our American diet that's now being exported out to the world is ultra-processed, high calorie, and everybody knows that's not great for you.

From a toxins perspective, where do you think people, and you can answer this any way you want to, most people are they getting more toxins from their ultra-processed diet? Are they getting more toxins from, let's say, things like water and non-stick cooking? Like, where would you rank toxins as, where would you rank ultra-process foods as a constant source of toxins in somebody's life? who eats a lot of ultra-process foods. I would say it's equally weighted between the food itself, which has its, you know, upwards of we now have 12,000 food additives that are allowed under the generally recognized as safe, you know,

designation, which is a very weak, if not terribly poor regulation. That was, you know, basically a problem from 1958, you know, amended food. additives amendment basically and so essentially we have no protections the food itself can have all these ingredients that we don't want that are unhealthy for the human body and then the food packaging that is often part of processed foods is another component I think people don't often think about food packaging as kind of a you know a mechanism for getting exposed these chemicals when you go with whole foods more often than not you're getting far fewer chemicals now

Now, that being said, what I wanted to bring to the table here is that even the best diets that are green leafy vegetables and fruits and vegetables can have high loads of pesticides. And so not to make everyone upset, but to really think about not just the quality of your food, which is fruits and vegetables and thinking about sort of like a Mediterranean diet, nuts and seeds and all those good healthy things that we've been eating for millions of years up until really the last, you know, 100 years. but thinking about USDA organic as an option, it is probably the only, you know,

I say redeemable component of our food system that we have. It's because it really limits thousands of pesticides and fertilizer chemicals and really doesn't allow any genetically modified ingredients as well in the food. So we can find this now excessively at low cost at any big box store. And mind you, frozen USDA organic purpose,

which is really pervasive around the country, especially in big box stores who know how lucrative it is to make these, they have the added benefit of being nutritional and nutritionally sufficient. In fact, they are picked and flash frozen in order to keep them fresh, but also that maintains all of the nutrient value. So you get this wonderful combination of cleaner food in terms of USDA organic regulation, but then also in the nutritional value. which is that ad portion of my four A's is already packed into those frozen produce. You just want to swap them out, put them in glass and stainless steel to heat them up. But essentially, it's democratized, you know, food and, you know, healthy food in a way. Because now everyone can reach those goals of getting those in their local, you know,

big box store if they can find. And we're talking big box stores all over the country. So you're saying organic is worth it. It's not perfect. Right. But it's as close to a standard that we have that limits the worst offenders. For sure. And people say that, hey, listen, they still use pesticides with organic.

And there's different ways to kind of get around that. But again, it's a lot better than the known pesticides that are out there that are being used on conventional foods. So with all that being said, where would you rank regularly getting? and it could be frozen, which allows it to be more economical, where would you rank regularly including organic food into your diet in terms of its benefits on this list? I'm going to put it next to my water filter at S. Okay. So it's not just important. It's that important.

It's that important. And we can't live without food, and we can't live without water. So those are the two biggest inputs that I really want people to think about. And it doesn't have to be perfect. But when you're talking about stocking your home fridge, things that you can control for the most part, that's where you can start to have the most impact. Are there specific foods that are amazing at supporting the body through its natural detoxification process? For sure. Do you want to highlight a few of them? Yeah, absolutely.

And their benefits? Yeah, and listen, maybe some of the kids out there don't like their greens, but cruciferous vegetables are really super power foods, right? Because cruciferous vegetables, which include kale and broccoli, especially. I mean, sprouts. Sprouts. I mean, help me out here. There's just so many of them.

I list them all in the book. But, of course, you know, there's ones I've never even heard of. Like, Colerabi, they're ones that we don't even usually use all the time. But they are remarkable in terms of the compounds that they contain that help detoxify the body. They turn up some of the chemicals in the liver. They induce what's called stage two detoxification pathways or conjugation. They help break down these chemicals into much less toxic. components to eliminate.

So crucifers vegetables, you know, like mom says, eat your vegetables, but choose cruciferous whenever you can. There's other ones. There's the mega three fatty acids are really critical in terms of human health history. Getting that from small fish instead of large fish because large fish tend to a bio

accumulate a lot of chemicals of the food chain. So thinking sardines and salmon and herring mackerel, you know, are really wonderful. in terms of choosing those smaller fish. So omega's are really great.

You can get them from plants as well, and they convert into the more active forms. Antioxidants like quercetin, which is from apples and onions, vitamin C, these are really helpful in the body's detoxification processes. So there's lots we can do. Food is medicine,

but particularly as I call out in the book, certain foods actually offset some of the genetic or epigenetic changes that come from, exposures to chemicals that you, you know, can and can't control. So it's kind of a protection mechanism by what you eat. What are your thoughts on this? You know, people talk about, and I've seen the data about how important omega-3s are. And I've always been very proud that I'm in the upper percentile when I've got like my omega-quant test done, which measures your fatty acid breakdown,

omega-369. It also looks at trans fat, no affiliation. I just think it's a great, nice test you can do considering how impactful omega-3s are to overall health. I was eating like one to two servings of fish on a regular basis, and that's how I stayed in that sort of upper percentile, I believe I was like eight or nine on like the ranking of where it's at. And then one day I went in for my normal sort of functional medicine checkup, and the doctor that I was working with was like, hey, listen, you know, your mercury is pretty elevated here.

You're and it's, I mostly eat salmon and cod, some sardines. I'm not eating big fish like swordfish and tuna and other stuff. And my mercury, I believe it was through Quest. It was blood-based mercury. And it was, I think on the scale that was there, it was like 13, which was out of the reference range and was considered high. And I have a few different doctors that I work with. And I had another doctor that I went to and I said, is this an issue? Should I be worried about this?

Should I do something? Because originally they weren't sure like, where is this exposure coming from? Right? That's always the question. Are you being environmentally exposed? Did we build out this new studio and something is like exposing me to that? Is it something else? So he said, let's just try the obvious.

Just stop eating fish for like six weeks. You can still have fish oil because the fish oils that are out there, are largely made in a centerfuge, and they're spinning out things like mercury or other issues that are part of that, right? That's pretty standardized now. Depends on the brand. Depends on the brand,

but largely from what I've heard from Dr. Bill Harris, who's been on this podcast before, who was an industry expert, he said, this is pretty standard now unless you're getting really low-cost supplements from like China or somewhere else, right? So, again, get a good brand,

which I naturally would do, and I was having fish oil instead of having fish, and I waited six weeks, and I retested it and my mercury was zero, right? There's different theories that are out there. What do you think about that as somebody who's deep in this research in this space? So I actually really believe that as much as fish is wonderful for protein and for nutrition, it's delicious.

I love sushi, but we space it out quite infrequently so that we can manage some of those exposures. But unfortunately, I think that it. As the oceans get a little dirtier, we are going to have more problems with, you know, eating a lot of fish. And so your story doesn't surprise me, actually. But, you know, like you said, there's lots of different ways we get exposed. And so it is thoughtful to think about different places that you can be exposed to Mercury. I mean, it could be occupational. It could be.

Malam filings. Yeah, amalgams, you know, generally they don't leech. They're pretty solidly staying there in general. It's when you start to manipulate them, that can also, you know, you want to be careful about your dental care, right? Because every time you're brushing and every time you're getting any dental work, you are manipulating them. So it just depends on really what your degree of dental care is. It's not on the top of my list when I tell people what to do because it's usually quite expensive. And there's a lot of things that, as you're doing here, ranking makes a lot more sense to me for the average mere mortal, right?

but when it comes to my recommendations with fish, I really do try to limit it to two or four servings maximum per week of small fish. And that's not a lot. That's a reasonable amount. And then I do actually believe, and I talk about this in my book in terms of the four fertilizer supplements, which I believe in modern day times, thinking about anthropology and evolution,

what are the highest-dealed supplements that I believe every human should be on? from birth till death, which is very dramatic, but I really believe in this science. And one of those four fertilizer supplements, which has such high yield benefit to human body, to the brain, to sleep, to inflammation, is high quality, well vetted omega-3 fish oil. And I find that there's far fewer, you know, companies that are doing this well, the more watered down it is, which is, you know, like any good thing in life, maple syrup, honey, and everything else that's good and hard to source.

it's often watered down and that tends to be reflected in the price point. So in the book, I talk about how to find and vet out those products. But Omega's as a supplement to me tends to be at the level that we need to thrive and to be healthful tends to be a supplement-based choice in addition to fish. Yeah. I also came across an article. I'll send it to you afterwards. It could be something we discussed in the future one day.

This was from Chris Cressor. Are you familiar with him? I know the name, yeah. He's kind of, his background is in Chinese medicine, but he's really one of the top educators in the field of functional medicine. Very thoughtful, very evidence-based. And his sort of thinking was he's not as worried about the mercury that is in smaller fish, which again, I was eating primarily wild-caught salmon, not even like farm salmon. That was coming from very reputable and clean sources. he says that when you have high levels of selenium,

which would also be coming from this, that it creates a little bit of a buffer and that the mercury is more transient inside of the body. So as long as it's not a chronic thing that's there in terms of, you know, leaking from amalgam fillings or dental work, environmental things, if it's coming in the form of food, it might be elevated, but it's transient.

and that with the right other minerals, nutrients, and things like selenium, it's less likely to be something that binds inside of the body. I'd love to send it over to you to take a look. Oh, maybe we could discuss it in the future. I know this literature, actually. Is there any truth to that? I had to present some of this literature, actually. Yes, so selenium is actually remarkably protective to the human brain.

And when they've done studies of ratios in the diet of fish, specifically, where the selenium to mercury ratio was very high, it was actually shown to be protective clinically in populations that they looked at. And so there is interesting science regarding selenium being incredibly protective regarding heavy metals, particularly methylmercary,

which goes back to the fertilizer chemicals that I've said for, I mean, fertilizer supplements that I believe every human should be on, which I'll name them now because it involves selenium. Please. A multivitamin, a well-done multivitamin. We'll have selenium in it

daily. We'll have iodine in it daily will have active forms of vitamins like methyl folate instead of folic acid daily so a multivitamin that's done well is a remarkable flooring to your life in terms of just daily exposure to good healthy nutrients that we have needed for millions of years selenium is in there the second fertilizer supplement that i believe is necessary even with the best diets i mean that even with the best organic diets because our food system is so nutrient deplete. The second one is vitamin D, which a lot of people have heard of, right? It's pretty sexy to know about what your D level is.

The question is, how do you get it to a level on your blood testing that's high normal? So 60 to 90 is where I like to aim. So it's not how much you take because everyone has an individual need, absorption issues of the gut. All these things are variable. But what the goal is is to live at a level where your blood is 60 to 90 in a range that's normal of 30 to 100. So nothing excessive, but just high normal.

And that's easy and cheap and available, vitamin D3. The third is probiotic, probiotic to help the gut microbiome for all the losses that we go through in terms of stress or foods that don't agree with us or chlorinated drinking water, any of the kind of the targeted chemicals that hit our guts, you know, processed foods.

having a probiotic that's healthy, reasonable, affordable every day to me is offsetting some of the losses every day. And then the last piece was the omega-3 fat, you know, omega-3 fatty acids. If done well and a highly concentrated DHA-EPA is remarkable for so many normal physiologic processes, including improved sleep, including mental health, including inflammation that I use with my immune and autoimmune disease patients higher levels. So you have to sort of adjust what you're taking and why you're taking it. Those four things to me really do, you know, give the human body a great ability to manage most of its physiology without being excessive, but done well. And selenium will be very helpful every day if you're exposed to any number of inputs that expose you to mercury.

That's awesome. You know, one on the food list, and I thank you for breaking those supplements down. one of the food lists that you didn't touch on as much is fermented foods. What's the role of fermented foods when it comes to not only supporting our gut microbiome, but playing a role in the detoxification process. Yeah, so fermented, I mean, there's just so many foods that are good for human health. It's hard to list them all because fiber is another area that you could talk about in terms of what we're missing, what we need, and what binds chemicals. But fermented foods are really great because the composition, the acidity,

the way that they handle the gut microbiome, let's list a few, right? Things that I don't like like kimchi. You know, sourcrow is not my favorite, but it's loaded with, you know, probiotic and prebiotic components. But then, you know, there's other things like pickles and vinegar, things that people can wrap their head arounds. But fermented foods in general is what feeds the microbes in the gut microbiome. It's an ecosystem. So by eating those foods, again, food is medicine, right? When you eat those foods, you're supporting the buggers that are in your gut that are in 26 feet of bowel that line this tube that we call the gut and you're feeding the good guys and those good guys are making you know for a better

word or not poop essentially small chain fatty acids like buterate um that actually circulate through the body get to the brain are very healthful you know so they help with mental health and that gut brain connection so if you sit back and you think to yourself this is an ecosystem that i'm contributing to it's like feeding your salamander in middle school right you know you You're watching this whole process go through and then you're feeling the physiology change. Fermented foods are great. And it's been part of the human diet again for millions of years. The question is, can we get them consistently?

Can we get used to certain foods and really start craving them so that we have them in a way that really supports, you know, most of our diet when we have access to it? Talk a little bit about your why. What brought you into this line of work that you not only wrote a book about this topic, but that you spend so much of your time on literally gridula marketing and education of young people, physicians who often are the last to know about a lot of these subjects. Why do you care about this so much? Tell us about your story. So I care about it and I really wouldn't be even here talking to you about it.

If it wasn't for years ago when my golden retriever got sick, I was a young mom and I had this beautiful four and a half year old golden retriever. Traxton and he got sick and I thought, you know, he swallowed a sock or something happened where he just, you know, he'll get better tomorrow. Well, he also developed what was, you know, at that time, we found out was autoimmune hepatitis. So his immune system basically had turned against him and attacked his liver. And his liver, hepatitis liver, was the size of a golf ball by the time we got him diagnosed. And he didn't last, you know, he lived maybe six more months, very comfortably, but he lived six months. And my sadness over this.

this puppy, this, you know, first born child of mine, so to speak, was just so heartbreaking. And I started to question his exposures because I had no other way to explain a young, healthy golden retriever with such a rare diagnosis in dogs. So I looked at his water and I looked at his air quality. And we live on a farm in New Jersey. So I worried about pesticides. I worried about the red vinyl plastic toy that he was sucking on all the time. And I didn't know this at the time.

But I was really kind of performing an environmental health survey. And now we have it in the book, right? But it took 15 years to get to this point. And having layered in question after question of what's going on in human exposure from what I was learning about animal exposures, it really just took off. And it was a mission of sadness, but of also curiosity. And also being sad that I didn't learn any of this in medical school. And it's still not really being trained, you know, used in training of any health care professionals in any large way. And that's a shame because we have so many ways to get this information to people to do better in terms of their choices and their health risks.

So my journey really came from a place of sadness, but it has led to so much good in terms of what I'm able to do with curriculum and teaching. And this is actually my third book. The first two were in Oxford University Press. One was a textbook and another was another consumer guide, more of a guide book. This is the first time I'm reaching out to everyone in a way that's super easy, you know, to navigate. It's tangible. It's got a 21-day plan so people can just start right in and really make simple choices. It's got a food pyramid that starts and ends with quality and looks at food packaging and detoxification processes.

It's just a really, I think, easy way for people who have no concept of this concept to get into it and get started. Were you able to find out what were the unique combination of things or environmental factors that made your dog sick and ultimately having him pass away? Yeah, it's a great question because, you know, at the time, I didn't know anything about environmental health. Zero. And it began the journey. But, you know, at the time we were looking at his toy, his red plastic toy, very common dog toy. and it turns out that in terms of human studies, especially occupational studies of people who work with polyvinyl chloride as a chemical, which we use in everything, right? These are the plasticizer chemicals. Turns out higher rates of autoimmune hepatitis and autoimmune and hepatocelular cancer, so liver cancers, in occupational exposure.

So people who work in these factories, higher than other people who don't work in these factories. And so, you know, the studies really started to make me think that that plastic toy that he happened to be, you know, sucking on and sleeping with and it never left his mouth for four and a half years may have been one of the biggest triggers in terms of his immune system taking a turn. He may have been predisposed, right? We all have our genetic predisposition, but that might have been the trigger in terms of the load and the exposure that put him into his. condition. Wow. That's heartbreaking. I think, you know, so many families can relate. They may not have had the same exact situation, but they look at pets. Yeah. And they're like, why are these pets getting cancer? There's not like wild dogs or wolves that get cancer at those levels. Yeah. And people are scratching their head. And it's like, well, they drink the same water as us. So they

get exposed to a lot of those chemicals. They have these crazy toys. Dog food and pet food is often some of the worst processed food that's out there. In cans, like, you know, it's just convenient. Yeah. You know, it's filled with all sorts of junk. Often it will be filled with a lot of pesticides. It's like the low totem pole. It's exciting to see so many, you know, healthy pet food companies coming out and making appropriately, there's even this movement that's been there for a long time with dogs and cats called the barf diet, biologically appropriate raw food diet. So it's focusing on getting dogs and cats more to their like natural type of,

you know, diet that's there and less sort of processed, highly processed, kibble and other things like that. But a lot of people are out there and they're scratching their heads and they're looking out the world and they're like, I know everybody's telling me this is normal, but something crazy is going on. We actually linked to some emerging study and correlative study that's out there showing that mothers that at the highest levels of BPA in their bloodstream had higher incidences and likelihood of having a child on the autism spectrum. I don't know if you've seen any of this data. I've been following the autism world for a long time.

Talk to us about that. Give us a snapshot of your view on the space and how environmental factors, which can come from a whole host of different things, are or are not playing a role in this, what seems to be a massive increase in kids on the spectrum. Yeah, and I would say kids on the spectrum, and from my perspective, immune and autoimmune and cancer, we're seeing lots of younger people getting exposed to things and having diseases that they have no family history of. And then, again, to your question about in utero exposure, I want to start by saying, you know, I have such anxiety over in any way making moms, moms to be, you know, sort of, of, you know, blamed for things they may not even be aware of when I was a mom and I had two kids.

I was eating McDonald's every morning with my first kid. I mean, it probably explains a lot of his behavior, you know, being bad right now. But, you know, the idea is that like when you don't know, you don't know. I mean, I was rolling up and getting my pancakes every morning. And nobody can fall anybody for that. Exactly. And I think that that's one thing we have to, you know, sort of make sure we are clear about. There's no regrets. There's no blame. People shouldn't be blaming themselves. but there is interesting data showing that the in-utero exposure to many of these chemicals, the placenta, which we usually think is protective to a growing fetus, is actually really not that protective.

We know that when babies are born, when they cut the cord, that that cord blood, when it's sampled, has up to 200 chemicals, industrial chemicals. There was a 2005 study from Environmental Working Group that's always talked about because you don't have to recreate it. It's just, you know, we know that that's going on, and that was 2005, right? 20 years ago. And we've only had more chemicals added to our exposures, you know, to our bodies in terms of where we walk through life. But that vulnerable period where brain development is going on, where sexual dimorphism in terms of how the brain turns into male, female, how the body's organs turn into male or female parts, we know how thalates can participate in terms of changing male genitalia at birth.

in terms of how they develop. There's a lot that goes on from an in-utero perspective where that is hopefully going to be where people can aim for the cleanest environment we can get. So we do want to educate young girls and boys and people who are planning to become pregnant in terms of getting your body perhaps ready as much as you can for a growing, developing fetus.

The brain itself, somewhere around 250,000 neurons, second are created during fetal development. And so, you know, we know a lot about fetal alcohol syndrome in terms of which trimester drinking alcohol can affect the brain development. We now know a lot more also about these chemicals and exposure levels comparatively. So we want to just kind of work towards keeping that environment cleaner as best we can. To your point, in uterone, exposure with all of the chemicals that are being, you know, in around our lives and moms are, you know, unfortunately unable to control for all of them, that's an area

where we're going to really be thinking about the most in terms of taking care of our body, in terms of how many nail salon visits, how much shampoo conditioner that we, you know, we can vet out as much as we can, lotions that are geared towards new moms, you know, or even babies when they come out. You know, you want to be thinking about all of that in on and around exposures that you can control for as best you can. and also cleaning your home, what you breathe, what you sleep on, you know, what your air quality is, what your water quality is for everybody, but particularly that, you know, vulnerable population

of pregnant women. Do you think, just to go back to the question, do you think that the rise in autism is directly connected to this toxic soup that we're in? I can't say that for sure because, you know, it's complex. You know, we have genetic predisposition. we know that genetic changes take place from exposures from generation to generation independent of autism. So we have epigenetic changes from exposures. So we don't know what the setup is before, you know, pregnant women might be exposed in utero.

And we also have genetic, you know, contribution from both males and females, right? So it's not just an exposure-related issue. It's a dance between our genetics, our lifestyle, and our exposures. But do I think that it's a big problem? do I think that we're going to get more data on this for sure. And I do think the growing rates of autism are pretty remarkable. And we know that many of, say, the vaccines have removed thimerosol and have removed some of the more concerning adjuvants is what we call them. So I think we need to really be thinking about doing behavioral change, particularly in this, in this, you know, population, for sure.

You know, as we're winding down for today's interview, I wanted to give you an opportunity. Is there anything else, whether it's something super bad or something super good for us that deserves at least an honorable mention? I think we were pretty thorough. We covered a lot of items here. We ranked a lot of things on top of this list. Anything that we didn't rank on the images, we talked about as part of that. anything that you feel that deserves an honorable mention that we didn't hit? How about candles, incense, air fresheners, plug-ins?

I want to call that out because I know we think of cleaning products as really cleaning surfaces and windows and, you know, drain cleaners. But I think some of the things we take into our homes that are considered more fun, just paying attention to those exposures, I think, is something we should be. be considering and swapping out to safer versions, bees wax candles that we know the manufacturers, safer places to buy them, certain stores actually vet for these chemicals. But thinking about just what we do to keep up with the Joneses between fragrances on our body, fragrances in our home, lawn care is another one I would call out, you know, let your lawn go or at least cut it down because keeping up with the Joneses means hiring pestas. side companies where your feet track all those chemicals, your pets track all those chemicals into

your home. So, you know, kind of sitting back and observing and thinking about what you've been marketed to and keeping it more simple, I think is a really general way of looking at how we walk through modern day life with all these toxins. One thing that I get from you, and I've known you for a few years, but I think that one thing that comes across very strong, even though you are a deep expert in this space, you also don't think about these things. It's not constantly consuming your day to day. And I think part of your final message here, and I'd love you to add on it, taking it a different direction if you want to, is that if you spend a little time,

you know, get your book, check it out, comes out in May, right? That's the publication. And you can pre-order. We have a link in the show notes. Yeah. Go through a few things. Pick out maybe some of the recipes. make some swaps, do the questionnaire.

If you spend a little bit of time, you spend a little bit of time so you don't really have to think about things too much. And it can seem daunting. But if you spend a little bit of time, it's almost like it becomes automatic behavior. And there's only a few categories of things that actually truly matter. Is that? Am I getting that right? Yeah, I think you start with the high yield stuff.

You know, drinking water, your habits, you know, when you make coffee or tea in the morning, get that corrected as best you can in a way that makes you feel good because you're doing... Sure, absolutely. What's super common these days is people have their coffee maker that's automatic. Oh, yeah. And I've yet to find one that's metal. So I use an espresso machine that's all metal. It was actually a nice gift that a friend got for me.

You know, there's, what was the best way to make coffee and tea in the morning? What should be people be looking for? You know, look, I'm a tea drinker. My husband's a coffee. drinker and he uses a French press that's made of glass and metal old school stuff i mean let's think about how people made coffee before we had you know a plastic machine with with the cake cups you know um i think there's a lot of simple ways that we can make it more work for sure but you have to value that right but from a tea perspective i use loose leaf tea to cut back on microplastics um so i'm

using like sort of a you know a metal stainless steel um you know diffuser in my tea and I'm using filtered water. I'm using organic cream and sugar. If I choose to use that, I'm using a ceramic container. I carry my stainless steel, you know, water bottle with no, by the way, plastic, you know, straw, plastic cap that people drink. I think to myself, that's great that you've got the stainless steel bottle, what maybe finish off your process and have to, you know, take off the lid.

but essentially the habits that you create that you layer in cleaner changes and smarter choices, that's a great place to start because that's your largest load, right? You're getting that on a daily basis. So that's a good place to start other than worrying about, again, going out for a night out with friends. And are you going to go in the back kitchen of a restaurant that you go out to and you're going to look to see if it's canned foods? You're going to look to see if they filter their water. There's only so much you can control. So quality of life and not freaking out is a key.

key portion, you know, key point of what I do. But I like to say, keep it simple, stupid, start with, you know, high yield changes, keep your hobbies as clean as possible or work your way through it. This is a process. You know, this is a journey for everyone. It was a journey for me for 15 years. And I don't expect, and I hope it doesn't take 15 years for anyone else. hopefully with the book and anything I post on social media because you know I have a social media handle for the smart human but anything I post tends to be here's the problem here's the solution or else I don't post on it you know I want people to know there are solutions for all of this but take your time make it stick this is not a diet this is really about layering in a process

to make good choices throughout your life I love it the book is out there detoxify the everyday toxins, harming your immune system, and how to defend against them. We have the link in the show notes. You mentioned your handles online. I believe at one point in time, you also had some, you had a podcast. Yeah, I still do. You still do. My podcast actually focuses on the researchers that create, you know, the data and the research that the headlines use, right? I wanted to get to the source of great science. I had a, I'll give you an example. I had Dr. Goodson, Will Goodson. He's a breast surgeon. And he did some remarkable work where he, he did some remarkable work where he He took fine needle biopsies of volunteers, 28 women, normal healthy women, 28 volunteers.

He did fine needle biopsies voluntarily on these women. They changed out their personal care products. And about a month later, I think it was exactly 28 days later, they all showed up voluntarily to have a repeat fine needle biopsy. And he was, and this is his work, he was able to show that there was a change on the signal towards reduction of cancer risk by changing out their personal care products. over that. I saw the study. It was all over the headlines. It was remarkable. And, you know, these are the people that I like to have on my podcast, the people that I have just been watching their

research, you know, but they don't always have a voice in the media. It's not what they do. And so I have doctors on that talk about integrative medicine from a cardiology perspective, from a pediatric perspective, researchers. So the podcast is really a hobby. It's really my, you know, it's a joy for me to do. gets me a chance to get people at the table that I've always respected. And the title of the podcast? The Smart Human podcast. And same with the Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, Facebook. All of it is The Smart Human.

And Thesmarthuman.com, I actually have courses up now. So people can take small courses on pesticides, drinking water, integrative rheumatology, things about my career as an integrated rheumatologist. So I hope people will access all this information. Yeah. Well, you do a good job of presenting it. and you did that on today's podcast. You made it super simple.

We ranked a ton of stuff, a lot of things that are bad for you, but a ton of stuff that is actually good for you that you talk about in the book. Dr. Cohen, thank you for being on the podcast. And congratulations on your book. Thank you so much, Drew. I appreciate your support over the years. Thank you. Hi, everyone, Drew here.

Two quick things. Number one, thank you so much for listening to this podcast. If you haven't already, subscribe, just hit the subscribe button on your favorite podcast app. And by the way, if you love this episode, it would mean the world to me. And it's the number one thing that you can do to support this podcast is share it with a friend. Share with a friend who would benefit from listening. Number two, before I go, I just had to tell you about something that I've been working on that I'm super excited about. It's my weekly newsletter.

And it's called Try This. Every Friday, yes, every Friday, 52 weeks a year, I send out an easy to digest protocol of simple steps that you or anyone you love. can follow to optimize your own health. We cover everything from nutrition to mindset to metabolic health, sleep, community, longevity, and so much more. If you want to get on this email list, which is, by the way, free and get my weekly step-by-step protocols for whole-body health and optimization, click the link in the show notes that's called Try This or just go to Drew Perot.com.

That's D-H-R-U-P-U-H-I-T-com and click on the tab that says, try this.