The Dr. Hyman Show - Office Hours: The Truth About Environmental Toxins (And How to Protect Yourself)
Episode Date: March 2, 2026Most of us think chronic disease is just about food, genetics, or aging. But there’s another major driver most doctors never talk about: your total toxic load. Every day, we’re exposed to chemical...s in our food, water, air, and everyday products. Over time, that burden can disrupt hormones, damage mitochondria, drive inflammation, and overwhelm your body’s natural detox systems. This episode isn’t about fear—it’s about clarity. Because your body already knows how to detox. You just have to lower the load and support the system. In today’s Office Hours, I break down: • How environmental toxins disrupt hormones, metabolism, brain function, and immunity • The biggest everyday sources of exposure—and the highest-impact swaps you can make • How to support your body’s built-in detox pathways through food, fiber, hydration, and sweating • Simple, realistic steps to lower your toxic load without extreme cleanses or perfection This isn’t about living toxin-free. It’s about living toxin-smart. Visit https://www.functionhealth.com/ for 160+ lab tests at just $365 a year. Join the 10-Day Detox to Reset Your Brain and Metabolic Health https://drhyman.com/pages/10-day-detox Have a question you’d love answered on Office Hours? Submit it here 👉https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdNF2y4lFWEOMLlzVNlFDpJ4xl7oOpH9NlImMoHr5mHggL_Ww/viewform?usp=header (0:12) Introduction and Understanding Toxins (7:38) Key Environmental Toxins and Their Effects (17:25) Indoor Air Pollution and Detoxification Strategies (24:53) Practical Tips for Reducing Toxin Exposure (26:12) Community Engagement and Closing Remarks
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Welcome to office hours.
This is our dedicated one-on-one space to go deeper, get clear, and explore what truly moves the needle for your health.
I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and each week we're going to pull back the curtain and share the insights, the research, the lessons that don't always make it into our conversations with guests.
Because at the end of the day, you are the CEO of your own health.
And for many of you, your family's health too.
And you might not feel it all the time, but you have far more power in agency than you realize.
I'm glad you're here.
This episode is brought to you by Function Health, empowering you to live with.
100 healthy years with over 160 lab tests at just $365 a year.
Sign up today at functionhealth.com slash mark and use code Mark 2026 to get $50 towards your
membership.
Most people are exposed to hundreds of chemicals every single day.
Chrotic disease isn't just about food or your genes.
It's about your total toxic load.
I never learned about in medical school like zip zero, not a.
I mean acute toxicity, yes, but the total toxic burden we have definitely not.
and certainly know how to diagnose it or treat it.
And that's what we're going to talk about today.
So this isn't about fear and making you scared.
It's not about being perfect and you're going to be every toxin.
It's about understanding what you need to do,
have some clarity, what you should prioritize,
and what you actually can control so you don't have to be ongoingly dumping toxins in your system.
You're trying to eat well, if you've been taking care of yourself,
but you still don't feel great.
You're not alone.
We're living in an environment that our bodies were never designed for.
personally and sadly i'm an expert and just because i lived in china in my 30s and in the winter
the air was so thick that on a sunny bright day you couldn't see the building across the street
and everybody wore masks i breathed in all this soot it was from raw coal which was full and mercury
and i got mercury poisoning so i get it every day we're exposed to hundreds of chemicals and our food
our water, in the air we breathe, and the products we use in our homes on our skin.
And over time, this total toxic load just adds up.
It's like kind of the straw that breaks the camel's back that finally makes us sick.
It affects our hormones.
It affects our weight and metabolism.
It affects our brain.
It affects our immune system.
They're immunotoxins.
They're called xenohormones or xenoestrogens.
They're just bad news.
But here's the good news.
This episode is not about fear.
It's not about perfection or living in a bubble.
it's about getting clear.
Your body already knows how to detoxify.
You just have to help it.
The problem isn't that your detoxisms are broken.
You're just a little overwhelmed.
So in today's office hours,
I want to make sense in the science.
I want to walk you through
the most common environmental toxins
are exposed to every day
and how they actually impact your body.
And most importantly,
the simple, realistic swaps
you can make right now to lower your toxic cloak.
No extreme cleanses,
no expensive protocols,
just practical steps to make a real difference
for you and your family. So by the end of this episode, my goal is that you feel clear,
you feel empowered, you feel confident about where to start. Because you don't need to do
everything. You just need to focus on what matters most. You, my friend, are the CEO of your own health,
and today we're going to help you take back control. So let's get into it. Here's the first topic.
How environmental toxins actually affect the body. Now before we talk about specific chemicals
or products. I want to take a step back and simplify the science. Environmental toxins affect the body
in a few core ways. First, they disrupt hormones. They're hormone disruptors. I read a book that blew my
mind about 30 years ago called Our Stolen Future, all about the endocrine disrupting
chemicals that were ubiquitous in our environment that no one was talking about. Now, these chemicals,
they're known as xenohormones or xenobiotics or xenobiotics,
Zeno means foreign. They disruptor hormones. They're endocrine disruptors. They interview with estrogen,
testosterone, thyroid function, fertility. I mean, everything. Sperm count, sperm function, sperm motility.
They just are affecting every aspect of hormone function, and they definitely affect thyroid function.
They also damage our mitochondria. Now, these are the important little organelles inside their
cells that turn food, oxygen, and oxygen, and energy, and do a lot of other things we're learning.
We are the most important foundation of your health.
And when they're damaged, there's less energy.
When there's less energy, everything in your body slows down.
And it's not just as though metabolism.
It affects aging itself.
It affects cancer risk.
It affects Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, mood, autism, fertility.
I mean, you name it.
Your mitochondria are involved in everything.
So when you're sensitive to let mitochondria, and they're very sensitive, my friends,
don't work well because they're overloaded with toxins, you are sick.
The next thing they do is they overwhelm our detoxification pathways.
They're all built in.
We sweat, we breathe, we poop, we pee.
Our body has a system to detoxify.
Our livers do a lot of the work, our kidneys do a lot of the work,
our guts do a lot of the work, and we have a system of detoxification.
It's one of the fundamental physiological systems of functional medicine,
and it requires a whole series of things to help it work.
the right nutrients, fiber, all sorts of things, amino acids.
It's basically a biochemical set of pathways that need support.
And these chemicals basically clogged up all those systems.
And our bodies just get overwhelmed and they can't properly detoxify.
So really important to understand how to upregulate those pathways and to minimize
the work they have to do by lowering your toxic load.
The next thing toxins do is they drive inflammation.
There's a whole book on this and a whole body of research on this that talks about how
environmental toxins cause autoimmunity.
They're called autigens like antigens, like from infections, but they're autigens.
They drive autoimmunity.
They drive inflammation.
They drive fatigue.
They drive weight gain.
They are called obesity.
They cause cognitive dysfunction, brain fog.
I mean, I have that with mercury poisoning.
And over time, you know, this just leads to chronic inflammation, fatigue, weight gain, brain fog.
And as a general sense to your body just isn't.
operating the way it was designed.
So just to recap, key systems impacted here are hormones.
These are endicine disruptors, particularly estrogen, thyroid, testosterone.
Brain is definitely affected in neurotoxicity, huge factor in all sorts of neurodegenerative
diseases, in mood disorders, in attention disorders, just you name and anything that affects
the brain can be affected by toxins.
Gut and liver, huge, huge load on the liver for all the toxins we're exposed to.
I had toxins, cause a leaky gut.
That was for sure what happened to me when I had mercury poisoning.
That makes your system even more inflamed in some vicious cycle.
They affect metabolism.
They're a huge impact on weight.
We know that there's a whole class of these molecules that we now refer to as
Obesogens.
They literally cause you to become obese independent of your diet.
And they cause insulin resistance.
They cause weight gain.
One of the most common is bisphenol A, which is on a credit card receipts, bank receipts,
It is in bottles, cans, plastics, it's in everything.
Even the newer versions of it that are, quote, safer, same thing.
They affect immune system.
So they lead to autoimmunity, to allergens, to cancer, all sorts of things.
So the big takeaway is here.
Your body's designed to detoxify, but not given the load we're all exposed to today.
So once you understand how these toxins affect your body, the next question becomes much more practical.
What exposures matter the most?
because not all toxins are the same,
not all exposures really deserve equal attention.
So now that you understand how toxins affect your body,
I want to get specific because some everyday exposures
are far more important than others to make sure you address.
What are the top environmental toxins?
What are the high-impact toxins that we get every day?
The goal here isn't to worry about everything and become neurotic.
The goal is to focus on exposures that matter most
and that we can do something about.
The ones we come into contact every single day,
often without even knowing.
The biggest contributors to our toxic load aren't rare,
are exotic chemicals. They're everyday products we drink from. We start food and we clean with
and we put our, let's start with the most common, most impactful sources of exposure, plastics
and endicter disruptors. So plastics and enderrupts are common, things like BPA, phthalates.
Many plastics contain chemicals like BPA and phthalates, BPA stands for Biscphenol A.
These mimic estrogen in the body. They also can cause insulin resistance, which are pretty bad,
increased risk of obesity. They mimic estrogen in the body. They interfere with fertility.
They disrupt hormones, and over time, they increased risk of weight gain in many hormone-related cancers.
Now, where do you find them? Plastic water bottles, food containers, receipts, credit card receipts, bank receipts,
gas station receipts, canned foods. They're lining the cans, fragrances, which are common in a lot of
skincare products. What do they do? Well, they make estrogen, they screw up fertility. They contribute to breast and
prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer. They drive weight gain, obesity, insulin resistance,
diabetes. The good news is there's some easy swaps. This is one of the easiest areas to reduce your
exposure. So what do you do? Well, use glass or stainless steel bottles instead of plastic. Never,
ever heat food in plastic, never. I'm not a temperware that's plastic. Serran wrap, no microwave food
in plastic. Just forget about it. Choose BPA-free cancer glass jars. A lot of them have other
replacement, so better glass than not. And don't get the receipt or don't touch it if you can help
it. That's a hard one, but do your best because those often have a lot of BPA. The next big category
where you can do something about toxic load is personal care or household products. These are products
people who use every day, sometimes many times a day. They often contain hidden chemicals like
paraben, thallates, synthetic fragrances, formaldehyde releasing preservatives.
And because these products are applied on your skin,
they can be absorbing the body
and contribute to hormone disruption,
the headaches, migraine, skin issues,
immune activation, lots of things.
A simple rule of thumb I like to share is
it goes in your skin, it goes in your body.
I mean, basically the rule is if you wouldn't eat it,
don't put it on your skin.
In other words, coconut oil, you can put it on your skin
because you'd eat it.
But some weird chemical and some cosmetic product,
you probably wouldn't.
And the reason I say this is, as doctors, we know this.
And when someone comes into the emergency room and they have a heart attack, the first thing we do,
before we can even get an IV or anything else, is we take a, looks like toothpaste,
full of nitroglycerin, we squirted on their skin, and we put a patch over it.
And we know that works because it gets absorbed, right?
We know about hormone patches, estrogen patches and so forth, testosterone patches.
They work.
Nicotine patches.
Things get absorbed through your skin.
So be aware when you put on your body goes in your body.
So the hidden toxins are things like paraben, thallase, fragrances, formaldeid releases, they all
affect you in many different ways from hormone disruption to migraines to skin issues to
irritating immune system causing immune issues. And there's easy swaps, right? Go get the fragrance-free
products or essential oil-based products. I'm on the board of the nominal working group or
EWG. There's a great app called Skin Deep. You go on the website and use the app and you can scan products,
you can search products, and you can see how do they stack up. So EWG is a great job, not just, by the way,
for skincare, but for household cleaning products, for food, for any kind of thing you can imagine,
they have looked at. So, and also just use fewer products or just pick a few that are really
well made that, you know, are religiously made without toxins and that are good for you. I use
we need a product. I'll use Tom's toothpaste. I use just products that I know are safer or better.
I don't have any affiliation with them. So remember, if you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your body.
Pesticides or besides next big one, again, we can't.
control this completely. If you travel, if you don't eat at home all the time, it's hard to control.
So do your best. Pesticides and herbicides are real big deals, especially glyphosate, which is the most
common herbicide is used on 70% of all crops. It's one of the most common ways people are exposed
to environmental toxins through food. And glyphosate is used throughout conventional agriculture.
It shows up in non-organic produce and grains, processed foods. Pretty much everything. It's also used on
lawns, landscaping, which means exposure doesn't come from what you eat only, but
from the environment as well. So one of the biggest concerns with glyphosate is how it affects the gut.
It damages the gut microbiome. It interferes with detox enzymes, increases inflammation throughout the body.
And over time, it can cause digestive issues, immune problems, cancer. There's billions of dollars
of lawsuits against Monsanto who made glyphosate for cancer that have been settled.
I read a study recently where there were transgenerational effects, epigenetic effects. So if the grandmother
mouse had glyphosate exposure, the grandbabies had all kinds of,
damage to fertility, to hormones, cancer risk, kidney issues. I mean, it was kind of frightening to see
how they measure these effects. And so I'm highly concerned about this. It's, again, on 70% of all
products, it's one of the most toxic compounds out there. It should be banned. I'm leaving to say there's
billions of dollars of lawsuits against Montessanto that have been successful because of this.
All right. So where do you get exposure? Well, if you're eating produce, it's not organic. If you're eating
a lot of grains, it's often sprayed on wheat at harvest to desiccate the wheat. I mean,
to get all the leaves off so that they can dry out and process the wheat.
It's in processed food for sure.
There's a box of a churios.
It's kind of a spoof, but it's accurate.
There's more glyphosate in terms of pure quantity in churios
than there is some of the vitamins and minerals that they list on the lake.
So that's concerning to me.
It's also on lawns and agricultural places.
So I worry about it being used widely.
We call it Roundup,
and they use it everywhere.
So I'd be very careful about any exposure to this.
It damages the gut microbiome.
It impairs your detoxation enzymes.
It increases inflammation, increases cancer risk.
This change generational effects,
epigenetic effects.
I worry about all of that.
What do you do about it?
Well, do your best to eat organic when you can.
Again, the environmental working group has a great list of the dirty dozen.
And the clean 15, here's the dirty dozen.
For example, strawberries, you never want to eat if they're not organic,
whereas if it's a banana, it's fine.
And you can kind of make a list, so you don't have to buy everything organic and you can lower your costs,
but you make sure you don't eat the things that are really the most exposed, like celery.
I would not eat celery, but it's not organic.
The next time you go in for your annual physical, ask about lipoprotein L.A or L.P.L.A.
Why? Because it promotes plaque buildup in the arteries and inflammation
and can silently increase the risk of heart disease for decades and you don't know it.
And here's a surprising part.
Most people have never even heard of it.
Your doctor won't order it on a standard cholesterol panel,
and because it's inherited, you won't know your own risk unless you specifically test for it.
But this is exactly why we built functions, so you don't need to ask or get permission for what matters.
With function, you get access to over 160 lab tests, including an advanced cardiovascular panel,
plus your hormones, metabolism, nutrients, toxins, and more,
and all in one check for your entire body,
designed by the world's top doctors and trusted by hundreds of thousands of members.
For $365 a year, that's a dollar,
a day, get your data, own your health at function of health.com. Also, wash your produce thoroughly.
There's ways to do that to get rid of chemicals. And don't use long chemicals. Like, I just don't
use toxic law and chemical at home. It's just don't need to expose yourself to that. The next big
category and one unfortunately I'm an expert in is heavy metals, mercury, lead, cadmium arsenic.
And these are a big one. And often, this is not well understood. Heavy metals like mercury lead,
cadmium arsenic, these are all naturally occurring in the environment, but they're usually
buried like coal has a lot but that's buried under the ground right modern exposure levels to be harmful
because we basically dug up all this coal we've burned it in cement plants in energy coal burning plants
and it's created huge amounts of pollution in fact Seattle has really high mercury in its environment
why because it China because China uses so much coal burning goes up in the atmosphere it comes
over it's not it's not acid rain it's heavy metal rain literally a lot of people are exposed
So if you eat fish, like tuna or swordfish, or almost any fish, unless really little fish
or a certain regionally farm fish, and I like Cetopia.com. Fish doesn't any relationship with them,
but they're great. They have really great sources. There's some heavy metals are much lower
than other fish. And you have to be careful because it concentrates up the food chain.
So, you know, fish they need to other fish. They did other fish. The other fish are the ones that
are highest in Mercury shark, swordfish, tuna. If you're in a home, there's plumbing, paint,
homes built before lead regulations, I'll put issue, cigarette smoke. One of the highest
source of toxins in general, but also can have chemicals and metals to be careful. These metals
can cause havoc. I experience it personally, anxiety, mercury poisoning. They affect your nervous
system. They can cause brain fog, fatigue. I develop chronic fatigue syndrome from it,
cognitive impairment, sleep issues. I develop muscular damage, neurological damage. It was bad.
In children, it can have a huge effect because it affects developmental learning and development
of the brain. So a lot of kids have problems. One in six kids today have some neurodevelopmental
disorder. It's very concerning. And heavy metals play a role. And the next thing you want to do is
fill out of your drinking water. I have a reverse osmosis fellow at home. As long as you're taking a
multibitamin mineral or you're replacing minerals, having electrolytes, you're fine. Really important
because there's so many, not just metals, but also other pesticides and chemicals and all kinds of
things in water. I think there's 38 different chemicals on average in the average drinking water,
concerning. And if you're living in an old house, make sure you test it for lead and take care of it.
All right. The next big source of toxins, and most people don't think about this, is the air you breathe,
especially indoor air pollution, which is one of the biggest problems. So air pollution from the
outside and indoor pollution of air is also common source of toxic exposure. And many of us spend
a lot of time inside and indoor air can be more polluted than outdoor air because you get VOCs from
furniture, from building materials, from mold, cleaning sprays.
gas ovens, and poor indoor air quality can cause all sorts of stuff.
Asthma, brain fog, headaches, immune dysregulation.
I met a guy who was building the Bank of America, the new, it was a $2 billion building
in New York City, and he was an architect, patient actually, and he told me that they
invested a huge amount of money in making the indoor air quality great and doing environmental
friendly and no off-gassing.
I'm like, why do they spend all this money?
and he said because the productivity was so much higher in their employees.
When we built our Center for Functional Medicine at Cleveland Clinic,
I insisted that we hire an environmental firm
and we follow strict environmental standards for the products in there.
So we wouldn't have off-gassing formaldehyde and VOCs.
We had carpets that with all kinds of chemicals, paint with chemicals,
that we had proper air filters,
and it was the healthiest space in the entire Cleveland Clinic.
And when people went in there,
they go, God, I feel good in here.
I feel good at the end of the day.
I don't feel tired.
It's quite amazing.
So it's often overlooked.
So what's, one of the ways you might not know you're exposed?
Well, one of the things is called VOCs are volatile organic compounds.
These are come from furniture.
Blues, adhesive, finishes, ceilence, foam padding, engineered wood products.
So you want to try to use the actual material.
So if there's recently your newly manufactured furniture and synthetic materials, it can be an issue.
Mold is another big one.
Make sure you check your home for mold.
A lot of times is hidden.
people don't know if it smells musty or moldy, it for sure is.
Even if you don't smell it, it can be in air vents and air conditioning and many other places.
Cleaning products, all the household cleaning sprays, we'll talk about how to avoid those
and use safer versions. Gas stoves, they're a big deal. A friend of mine is the CEO of an appliance
company, and he told me all the research they've done on gas stoves and how potentially harmful they are.
And what can they do? They can gnaz asthma, brain fog, they can disrupt your immune system, many, many other things.
take it. So what can you do this easy? It's high impact. Keep your windows open, especially if you're
getting new furniture, but better to get furniture that's more made with natural products. For example,
I have a mattress that is great mattress. It's a latex mattress. It's made from natural materials.
It's from Ascentra. It's kind of like a temperaetic. I did have a temperatec once. And when I bought it,
I was like, oh my God, this thing just stinks. And you could smell all the afgassing of all the chemicals.
I didn't really know what I was doing at the time, but it was pretty bad. Have an air.
air purifier. I have an air filter in my
bedroom and in my bedroom I spend
the most time in the house. You want
a HEPA or ultra-Hepa air purifier
with activated carbon. And listen,
if you can get older
furniture where most of this off-gas
are entice,
if you can and afford it,
I would encourage to get
furniture and bedding and couches
and other
build public products that
are non-toxic and you can find
those. And especially if
they're in medrooms and nurseries.
Be careful.
So when you buy new furniture,
look for solid wood,
instead of particle board,
get antiques if you can.
I choose low VOC or non-VOC finishes,
like paints.
And there's certifications you can check out
like Greenguard,
sort of pure us for foam,
FSC certified wood.
There's a lot of things you can do
out there to reduce your exposures.
Next topic,
and this is one of my favorites,
is how do you support your body's own detox system?
Because none of us can reduce
our exposures completely
none of us can live in a world like we did a thousand years ago or even 200 years ago
where there were no toxins in our environment that weren't naturally occurring that were pretty
rare so how do you support your body's own detoxification system a lot of doctors go well you
know your body just does it you don't have to worry about it it's like no big deal like you can't do
anything and detoxification is as a therapy is just stupid and unscientific well that is absolutely wrong
it's extremely scientific, and if you look at the literature, you'll find it.
The problem isn't there's no evidence, the problem isn't they haven't looked at the evidence.
So, and I studied this extensively because I had to for my own health and also for my patients.
Is there a real system for doing this?
And there's a lot of ways to do it.
You have to support all those systems, I call it the triple P system, the poop P and perspire, right?
And those are really important.
But you also have to support your liver.
So one of the pathways you have to support, your liver is really important.
And there's great foods that's outbreak in your body's own detoxification pathways.
My favorite of the broccoli family, broccoli, collars, kale, cabbage, mussels, sprouts, etc.
Also, garlic and onions are great.
Certain herbs and spices are great like turmeric.
There's a whole list of supportive compounds that you can use to help detoxify yourself.
I've written a lot about this.
Protein, yes, protein is really important.
And if you look at a lot of the pathways and there's a whole series of biochemical steps
that happen in your liver when you detoxify things, it requires a lot of protein.
amino acids, especially glycine because it's part of making glutathione. Glutiflone is the body's main
detoxifying compound and comes from amino acids, you need protein. B vitamins, really important.
Methylation is a key step. B12, full A, B6, but all the B vitamins are really important. Zing,
selenium, also minerals, really important. And alcohol, alcohol is just a liver toxin.
So I would encourage you to to not drink if you can. The next is your gut. It's how once the toxins
get metabolized by the liver, they get excreted in the bile, they get dumped into your intestinal
tract, and they have to get out. Now, if you're constipated or you're sluggish, you're not having
regular bowel movements, guess what? You are going to recirculate those, and they're going to get
reabsorbed, so you don't want to do that. So fiber is really important, pooping regularly is important.
And I had a patient, I said, you have regular bowel movements. She said, yeah, I, regular bowel movements.
I said, well, how often do you go? She goes, once a week. And I'm like, what do you mean? That's not
regular. Yeah, it's regular for me. I go every week. Really, the idea is that you should probably
go at least once, if not two to three times a day. I don't know it sounds crazy, but if you look at
the studies by Birkett and others from England who studied a lot of the cancer risks, for example,
in Africa, they found that if you were a hunter-gatherer in Africa, your stool weight was about
two pounds a day. If you were an urban dweller, same ethnicity, same genetics, it was about four ounces.
we want to have a lot of poop. Just saying fiber is the way to do that and there's lots of different
kinds of fiber. Fremented foods are great. Keeping your microbiome healthy is really important.
Preventing a leaky gut really important. Hydration and that's another thing. Kidneys is really important.
Also new metabolized toxins they have to get out. So you got to make sure drinking a lot of fluids.
At least half your body weight and ounces every day. Electrolize minerals all help your kidneys work.
Sweat, perspire. That's the other one, right? Sweating. So saunas are great.
Exercise is great, making sure you're actually getting your skin to excrete toxins.
And breath also is another one because you're excreting toxins through your breath,
carbon dioxide, but also other toxins.
So really important to make sure all these systems are working.
And these are the things that you can do through both lifestyle factors and also diet and supplements.
So to sum it up, like one of the five things you can do today to really reduce your exposures.
First, don't eat your food and plastic.
to filter your drinking water.
Three, get the right skin care products
and use skin deep as a great resource.
Four, try to eat organic where it matters most.
Use the dirty dozen as a guide.
1615 from the Environmental Working Group.
Go to eWG.org.
That helps with your both personal care and your food.
And improve your indoor air quality.
Ideally, get an air filter for your house.
So you don't need everything,
but you just need to do the right things.
Now, if you have kids and a family,
there's a few more things you should know about.
kids are much more vulnerable toxins,
so make sure you worry about what you store your food in,
what you heat your food in,
the water you drink,
the worry they sleep,
and what they're eating for lunch.
Protecting your family isn't about fear,
it's just about being it for it.
Now, as we wrap up,
I want to leave you with this.
This isn't about doing everything perfectly.
It's definitely not about trying to live toxic free
because that's impossible.
It's about just be more aware.
It's about making the right priority.
It's about making a few thoughtful choices
that add up over time.
Your body already knows how to detox.
So when you reduce the load and you support the systems to do the work, healing becomes much easier.
So approach this with curiosity, not fear.
You don't need to change everything at once.
Start with one or two swaps that feel doable, and I want you to build from there.
This isn't about living toxin-free.
It's about living toxins.
And I'll love to hear from you.
What toxins or product swaps do you want help navigating next?
What feels confusing or overwhelming right now?
If you want to dive deeper into toxic and smart living and building community around your health goals,
you can join the Hyman Hive, and let's tie them together.
We're going to leave a link to join the hive in the episode's show notes, so I'll see you next time.
Thanks for joining me for office hours.
I love diving into these topics with you.
Remember, you are the CEO of your own health, and every choice you make can move you closer to healing and vitality.
I want to keep these episodes as relevant and useful as possible, so tell me, what do you want to explore next?
What questions are you wrestling with?
What breakthroughs are you chasing?
Share your ideas in the comments on social media
or through the link in the show notes.
I'm listening.
Until next time, keep taking charge,
keep asking questions, and keep showing up for your health.
Do you have a question about my favorite books, supplements, or recipes?
Then sign up for my free markspicks newsletter at Dr.heimann.com slash markspicks,
where I'll share all of this information with you and so much more.
You'll get emails from me every Friday with recommendations on things that have helped me on my health journey,
and I hope they can help you too.
Thank you so much again for tuning in.
We'll see you next week on the Dr. Heimann Show.
If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it.
You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman.
Please reach out.
I'd love to hear your comments and questions.
Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Dr. Hyman show wherever you get your podcasts.
And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more.
Thank you so much again for tuning in.
We'll see you next time on the Dr. Heimann Show.
is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic,
and Function Health, where I am chief medical officer. This podcast represents my opinions and my guest's
opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This
podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor
or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not
constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey,
please seek out a qualified medical practitioner.
And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner,
visit my clinic, the ultra-wellness center at ultra-wellnesscenter.com,
and request to become a patient.
It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed
healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes,
especially when it comes to your health.
This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health
to the public.
So I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible.
Thanks so much again for listening.
Thank you.
