Live Like a Girl with Dr. Mindy Pelz - The Hormonal Consequences of Plastics – With Dr. Shanna Swan & Stacey Colino

Episode Date: June 28, 2021

// R E A D Y • S E T • R E S E T This episode is all about what toxins and plastics are doing to our hormones. Shanna H. Swan, Ph.D., is one of the world's leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists and a professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. An award-winning scientist, her work examines the impact of environmental exposures, including chemicals such as phthalates and Bisphenol A, on men's and women's reproductive health and the neurodevelopment of children. Shanna Swan is the author of Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Health, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race co-authored by Stacey Colino and published by Scribner in February 2021. Stacey Colino is an award-winning writer, specializing in science, health, and psychological issues. Her work has appeared in The Washington Post Health and Wellness sections and in dozens of national magazines, including U.S. News & World Report, Prevention, Scientific American, and Health. She is the co-author, with Shanna Swan, Ph.D., of Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race (Scribner, 2021). In this podcast, we cover: How toxins are having a dramatic effect on our reproductive health Which toxins to look out for and what we can do to clean them up About the changes you should make to decrease your toxin load Solutions to any of your hormonal problems // R E S O U R C E S  M E N T I O N E D Feel the impact of Organifi - use code PELZ for a discount on all products!  July Fat Burner Reset Book: The Countdown Book: Slow death by rubber duck Book: Our Stolen Future Book: Tox-Sick Favorite "Clean" Household Cleaning Products Favorite "Clean" Beauty Products  HEPA Filter Vaccum // M O R E  O N  D R.  S H A N N A  S W A N Twitter Instagram LinkedIn Website // M O R E  O N  S T A C E Y  C O L I N O Twitter LinkedIn // F O L L O W Instagram | @dr.mindypelz & @theresetterpodcast Facebook | /drmindypelz & /theresetterpodcast Youtube | /drmindypelz Please note the following medical disclaimer: By listening to this podcast you understand that this video is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to substitute for professional medical advice and should not be relied on as health or personal advice. Always seek the guidance of your doctor with any questions you may have regarding your health or medical condition.  

You need to open your eyes to everything you bring into your life with an eye to its risks for damaging your health. I am a woman on a mission that is dedicated to teaching you just how powerful your body was built to be. I like to do that by bringing you the latest science, the greatest thought leaders, and applicable steps that help you tap into your own internal healing power. The purpose of this podcast is to give you the best. power back and help you believe in yourself again. My name is Dr. Mindy Pels and I want to thank you for

spending part of your day with me. On this episode of The Resetter podcast, I bring you Dr. Shauna Swan and Stacey Kalino. They are the authors of a wildly popular book that came out this year called Countdown. Now, what intrigued me about this book is how people gravitated to the subject matter. The subtitle, and I'm just going to read it for you, the subtitle of their book is called How Our Modern World is Threatening Sperm Counts, Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, and imperiling the future of the human race. So if you're not familiar with what toxins are doing to our hormones, we've talked a lot on this podcast about the hormonal consequence of toxins to the metapausal woman.

But what I don't feel like is being addressed enough is infertility rates, anxiety in our children, learning disabilities, thyroid challenges, early puberty, all these hormonal challenges that were seen in the human race and the connection from that to the increase in toxins. So I so desperately wanted to have this conversation with these ladies because Dr. Swan has been researching toxicity and infertility for some time. You will hear in her remarks just how bright she is. And the evidence is very, very clear that not only are we living in the most toxic time in human history, but it is having such a dramatic effect on our reproductive health and hormonal health, that we are moving towards extinction. And in the book, what's really exciting is they talk a lot about which toxins to look out for and what we can do to start to clean it up.

And that's the conversation I wanted to have. So what you're going to hear is these two amazing humans, the mission they're on to get this message out to the world. When you first start listening to this interview, understand that it can be toxins, can be a depressing subject. They're everywhere. But what I want you to gather as you listen deeper is that as long as we wake up, as long as we're aware of the toxins and we start to make changes, we can end the damage that it's doing to human health. So in this episode, we go through which toxins are the worst.

I even had some really cool discussions with them about the half-life of toxins. And Dr. Swan has some really interesting perspectives on plastics. and fragrances and things that were exposed to every day in comparison to other toxins like forever chemicals that are, we're exposed to in our waters and our soils. So if you're trying to grasp toxicity, if you're looking for solutions to any hormonal problem, whether it's early menopause, infertility, hair loss, PCOS, this is the conversation you're going to want to hear. And I promise you that I steered the direction towards the end towards action and what we can do to start to solve this problem and get these toxins out of our body.

And this is what these two ladies presented to us. So really powerful interview. Please, if you resonate with what we talked about, share it with the world. This information has to get out. Share this episode out. They did a great job of keeping their responses very clear. and concise. And as you will see, these two women are on a mission to help us all make changes to our toxic globe. Enjoy. Did you choose now to bring this information to the world?

So the paper we published in 2017 was the trigger that got a lot of press worldwide, a lot of attention. It led to an agent contacting me, a literary agent, and asking if I was interested in writing a book about this. Okay, so tell us a little bit about that paper. What was, give us a little background on it? What was the science behind it? What did you discover? So what we discovered in the 2017 paper was that, as had been reported for a long time,

actually, since 1992, sperm counts were declining, particularly in Western countries. And what was special about this paper and why it got more attention was that it was much bigger. It was much more rigorous because the methods, which are called meta-analysis methods, were available then. They hadn't been back in 1992. And yeah, so it just showed this really dramatic decline of more than 50% in sperm counts. And it also showed that the levels at which men were in 2011, which is, by the way, 10 years ago, now we have to remember that, were already pretty dangerously low, very close to the point at which men can be called subfertile or couples, you know, can have trouble conceiving. And there's other spinoffs from that low sperm count as

well, which we can talk about. But in any case, it did garner retention, which hadn't been the case for the earlier studies. So in that paper, and I know this because I read it and I reported on it for vice. They didn't look at the causes, but they suggested possibilities. And they said that lifestyle factors could play a role, particularly the obesity epidemic that we're in, smoking, binge drinking, a whole array in that arena. And then in addition, chemical exposures, chemicals in our midst in everyday life could be affecting this. And so that became a big part in the focus for our book. Okay.

And I was pretty impressed in your book about how much information you gave about different chemicals and the effects of these chemicals. How has the book been received? I mean, obviously people like me who are dealing with really sick people that are trying to get people well, appreciate the level of science that you delivered. But has the world received this book well? Are people open to this topic? Surprisingly open.

I think the biggest surprise, I don't know if you know who Joe Rogan is. I sure do. Yeah. So that kind of said to me that people are open to this because he was open to the message. And he was like, wow, how come we don't know this? How come people haven't heard about this? And that's the reaction that we're getting over and over again. How could people not have known this?

So that was great. And we got some pushback, minor actually, I mean, compared to the incredibly positive response we've gotten worldwide. And do you feel like people are getting motivated as they're reading your book? Because toxins can be a very depressing subject. And the way that you lay it out really is clear that we are moving in a very negative direction as a human species. Do you feel like people are motivated or are they in a quandary as to what to do next? I think all of the above. I mean, I think this has gotten them concerned.

They want to know. And as we talk about in the book, you know, things they can do. And I think there are also, we end on a positive note, as you know, from the book. We do feel like there are things that people can do. And what we're hoping is that by educating ourselves and others that we can make the changes that we have to make to turn this around, you know, in terms of regulation, in terms of chemical production, in terms of personal exposures. What do you think, Stacey? Do you think people are motivated? I think they're motivated, but they're also very intimidated, and they find the prospect of changing

these exposures in particular, really daunting. And so people will say, you know, in interviews and on podcasts and so on, well, where do we start? And how much of a difference does it? it really make and they worry about that. And one of the messages that I keep saying is just start somewhere, do one thing. And everything that you do to protect yourself from these chemicals or to eliminate a particular exposure will reduce your body burden of these chemicals. And so one of the messages that I keep hammering is don't let perfect become the enemy of good. Every step you can take in the right direction is going to be helpful. Yeah, well said. Well said. What do you think think, give us sort of a category of chemicals that are causing low sperm counts. Is there a

category that we need to focus on or is it just the abundance of all chemicals in our environment? Well, the chemicals that I've studied most are the chemicals called phallet. These are so important for sperm count because they have the ability to lower the body's androgens or testosterone. And because testosterone plays a critical role in male reproductive function and female, by the way, but it plays what we've studied most is the male, then it's very important to look at chemicals that are anti-androgenic or can lower testosterone. So that's one class. And we go into great detail on how the science was laid out.

But there's also a lot of evidence that pesticides effects from cancer. out, both at the level of, you know, environmental exposure and also occupational exposure. And now there's more evidence coming out for the bisphenols and reproductive function. So I think all of the classes, bisphenols, salates, Phaas chemicals, those are those barrier chemicals, and flame retardants, as well as pesticides, are all playing a role in this problem. And do you see that people are in daily contact with these chemicals? Is it a bioaccumulation where we're just getting a barrage of them from our furniture to our clothing to our foods? And it's just the bioaccumulation that is really bringing the sperm counts down?

I wouldn't say bioaccumulation because that suggests that they stick around. And most of them don't. That's an interesting thing about these. And one of the good news parts of the story is that most of these chemicals are not, the forever chemicals. They're not the chemicals that are stored in our fat. But there is accumulation because we're exposed to so many of them simultaneously. So if the CDC took your urine today and measured it, they would measure probably a hundred chemicals. Most of the hundred they look for will be found in your body right now. And you don't know that. I don't know that. There's Stacy's body

and all of our bodies. And we don't really know what the mixture of all these chemicals are doing to us. So I wouldn't say accumulation over time. I would say maybe simultaneous exposure to a lot of them that is concerning. And I always say barrage is the right word here because it is constant. So even if these chemicals don't linger in our bodies for a really long time into the future, it's an ongoing assault day after day after day. And there's no end in sight. There's no relief in the future. insight. Because we're not, most of us are not even aware of what we're exposed to on a daily basis. Yeah. You talk a lot about how the womb used to be thought of as being a protective

place. What I'm heard in the book, that's not the way we need to look at the womb now. Not at all. You're absolutely right. Yeah, it's not. There is no separation. What goes into the mom goes into the baby as it's developing. That's crazy. And is that toxins that have, been in her prior to getting pregnant, or is that during her pregnancy that she's the most vulnerable? That's an interesting question. I don't. So the studies that look into this ask, what's in the mother right now? Because that's what we know we can get the urine, we can get the blood, and that's how we know what's in them. But what was in them five years ago, we don't know. So those past exposures may well have affected the quality of her eggs in a way that play out in this pregnancy.

But we won't be able to measure them because we don't have those old samples. So that's a really, really good question and one that I don't think we have many answers for. The other element there that plays in here is, is men essentially get a chance at a do-over every 72 days. The slate can be wiped clean if he cleans up his lifestyle habits and his chemical exposures, and he can improve the quality of his sperm. But women don't get that chance. Once the eggs are damaged or their numbers decline, that's it.

New ones are not going to come. Yeah. I just like to add one caveat, which is that if there were changes that induced when he was in utero, he can't fix those. He can only fix the damage from exposures during his recent past. If, as we showed, a phallet exposure to that male when he's in utero can alter his, for example, cause him to have a smaller penis. Let's just take that. Everybody hates that one. So, you know, suppose he has a slightly smaller penis because of those Alex, that's not going to change. There's nothing he can do about that. And no matter how much

he cleans up his act, it's not going to change. He can control the effects of his own smoking, his own eating, his own drinking, but not his prior, you know, in utero exposure. Yeah. Yeah, prior to your book coming out or about the same time, I've been following Aaron Brockovich and the work that she's been doing. And she, I've been following that for many years, but she came out with an article. I don't know if it was timed perfectly with your book. But the title was shrink low sperm count and shrinking penises is something like is what the human race is dealing with now. And what I loved about your explanation in the book, and I'd love for you to share it with my listeners, is why the penises are actually shrinking from hormonal changes from toxins, because this

is a huge, and potentially maybe why Joe Rogan invited you on to his podcast, because you went right into a pain point that a lot of people are going to have. So explain to us how the penis is shrinking from this. Yeah. So, I mean, I think saying shrinking penises is alarmist, but that's fine. I don't mind some alarmist language around all those. So we get people's attention, right? But what it is, is that when the mother is exposed to higher levels of certain phallates, then the babies, we measured their penises. Okay. We measured them. birth or the first year of life and we saw that when those levels were higher in the mother the babies had statistically significantly smaller penises that's crazy and that's likely to stay with

them their whole life so it really is in some sense shrinking penises but that's not the case as far as we know for an adult exposure right right it's for when they're in utero so Yes, it is a story. And Joe Rogan called me the, what is he called me, the Paul Revere of Tiny Penises and Paints. Because the taint, the distance from the anus to the genitals, which is a street term, taint or Gouge or Grundel's term, that also gets smaller.

And so he loved that, and that was. Well, I saw, that's funny. So I saw her article, and then I saw your guy's book, And I was like, oh my gosh, because we've been dealing with toxins in our community for a while, really trying to help people detox this stuff out. And I thought, okay, well, now we have everybody's attention because we're talking shrinking penises. So now everybody wants to listen to this scenario that's going on. But I would hope that infertility is big enough of an issue right now that it's waking people up. And you said something in the book about women who are in their 20.

have are less fertile than their grandmother was, explain that scenario because that I think is dramatic to know what's happening to our reproductive health. Well, let me just sort of set the backdrop here. People assume that a big part of this is because men and women are waiting longer to try to have babies, that age is taking a toll on reproductive function. And that may be true. But that particular statistic show what we said was that women in their 20s are less fertile than their grandmothers were in their 30s or at 35. And so that shows that it's not just age. It's what we're exposed to in the world. And grandma had a cleaner world, so, you know, fewer chemicals to be exposed to and so on. And so she was protected. The one of the interesting

things about that is that, yes, age does play a role women's eggs die off and her chances of conceiving and carrying a pregnancy to term healthfully go down as she gets older. Her risk of miscarriages goes up. But the interesting thing about the toxins and the chemical exposures is they have a bigger impact as women get older. How come? Explain that a little more. Shawna, I'll let you jump in here. Okay, so that actually is something that we're just researching now. I have to say we believe that's the case. It's not a lot of evidence for that, but there is some.

And the reason is that vulnerable populations of any kind are more affected by environmental exposures. For example, disadvantaged communities, poor communities, communities in ill health, and so on. They're affected more. and older people are affected more. And so the general principle is that sensitive people who are already at risk from other factors like maybe stress or poor diet or, you know, and aging. Aging. In this case.

But I'm just saying this is general principle that, you know, the impacts of chemicals are greater because there are people already sensitized, if you will, to, you know. There are a more risky place in the curve. Do you think the body is struggling to adapt? The longer you've been on the planet, the more chemicals you're getting in contact with, the human body is meant for self-repair, but after a while, the barrage of chemicals makes it harder and harder to adapt. I think that's right.

Yeah, I think with that. And would you say that this was the other really interesting thing that you guys so eloquent. discussed in the book, and I just really give you hats off for this, is that the generations that's growing up, you touched around the toxic piece of that. Can you talk a little bit about how these toxins, if they're affecting us in the womb, are they affecting these children when they come out of the womb? Well, for sure. So, I mean, the hormones that are not down or increased, you know, by these chemicals are going to have effects on the entire body, including the brain, including behavior, including obesity.

You know, there are things that these have been called obesity, including immune response and so on. So it's not, it's the entire body. We've seen, we deal with a lot of families where we've got women that are going into menopause at 35. We've got 13-year-olds that want to commit suicide. and when you start to see this generational imbalance of health problems that we didn't see at that age, you have to wonder if there's an environmental piece to it.

Right. Because it's too fast to be genetic. Right. Excellent. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So explain to me a little bit about what chemicals we can start to make an impact.

Like if you're listening to this, I don't want to just scare everybody. I want to make people awake. But what can we do? What chemicals do we need to look out for? And how can we move ourselves into action on this? So maybe I'll just say a little bit about where they're found and then maybe Stacey can talk about actions. Do we do that?

Okay. So they're found in our foods. And so that could be pesticides. It could be the phthalates. It could be fesel in tin cans. salates and food packaging and maybe came in the processing of the foods. And they're also in our household products. For example, I'm not sure.

Are you in New Zealand? Yes. No, I'm in California. I'm not sure why I thought you were in New Zealand. Maybe the time that we were reported. Let's pretend I'm in New Zealand. That sounds fun. Well, the reason I said New Zealand is because in the U.S., we don't.

don't use a lot of polyvinyl chloride in floor coverings and wall coverings, but in Europe, they do. And they have very high exposure to these chemicals, phallites, and particularly in their, from their living surroundings. Interesting. They're also in our furniture. They're in our, everywhere in our lives. And now, Stacey, you'll tell you about how to get rid of them. We come in contact with them, as Shauna mentioned, in our food. and our drinks, in our furniture, everything we touch, everything that we ingest, and also in

what we breathe. And the reason I mentioned TVs is, unbeknownst to us, TVs emit flame retardants, and they take up residents in our household dust. And we end up inhaling them when they're in the air and we touch them when we clean or dust, that kind of thing. So, um, if you want to take a wide approach to this, you have to address all of these factors. As I mentioned earlier, I really recommend that people start with one thing. And since food is probably the biggest source of exposure, that's an easy place to start. If you consume fewer packaged foods and ultra-processed foods and stick with foods in their more pure and original form, try to steer clear of pesticides by organic when it comes to certain fruits and vegetables.

We recommend following the environmental working groups advice on this front. That's a good start. Personally, one of the biggest things that I did after working on this book with Shawna was I assessed our house and got rid of a lot of plastic. Plastic in our kitchen. Do not use food containers that have plastic. plastic. Instead, swap glass containers or metal containers. Likewise, water bottles, ditch the plastic, go for metal. And the more you can do those things, the better. Dusting regularly is important. Looking at the labels of the products you buy, whether it's personal care products,

cosmetics, household cleaning products, and looking for the chemicals that we outline in the book. And we have a whole list of things that you should put on the do not buy list. And that'll help reduce your exposure as well. So it's kind of a multi-pronged approach. And all the steps add up. I'd like to just add fragrances. Please. Oh, we haven't talked about fragrances and fragrances.

Yeah. So anything fragranced is going to contain. Diibutal phallite, one of the mad phallites and funnels. So particularly, you know, stuff you plug into your wall, air fresheners or hang in your car, just try to avoid scented products. Because we asked women, you know, what they used in the 24 hours before they gave us their urine. They had to let, you know, checked all the boxes. And then we showed that what they were, you know, from their personal care products,

if they were fragranced, they had high levels of these exposure. So that's an easy way. And then what do you do when you get in an Uber and the Uber driver has a heavy cologne and a Christmas tree air freshener? Do you pull out a copy of your book? Open the windows. Yeah. Yeah, I actually, what I do is I open the windows too. But if they don't have that, I actually compliment them so that it like reinforced the positive behavior because I can't sit inside a car with a heavy cologne.

I feel like I could pass out. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy. Okay, let's talk a little bit. You mentioned earlier about forever chemicals. And I will tell you here locally in a really nice neighborhood about a year ago, there was a letter that went to all the residents saying that, hey, by the way, you've got forever chemicals in your water, and it's known to cause thyroid problems.

if forever chemicals don't go out of the environment forever, what do they do in our body and where are we getting these other than water? So they're the historic forever chemicals that were probably not what the letter was talking about. Those are things like DDT and PCBs and dioxins, which were the Stockholm Convention banned those, even though the U.S. didn't sign on to it. People really reduce their exposure to those things, their use of those things. But the PFS chemicals are called forever chemicals. Even though they don't have the same half-life as things like DETU and PCBs, they do stick around.

And they stick around in our fat. So chemicals will either be distributed, you know, either be water soluble or fat soluble, roughly speaking. So they'll either go into your fat or into your urine. And the forever chemicals will be going into your fat. And they will go into. to the fat of animals that some of us eat. Exactly. Exactly right.

Thank you, Jason. Wow. Wow. Yeah. And have you seen research? I've seen some studies showing that it, it, if forever chemicals affect our immune system. Yes.

Yes. What's the impact of all of these chemicals on our immune system at a time when we need our immune system to work its best? Yeah, it's a good time to ask that question, right? And there have been studies in the Faroe Islands where they looked at, some of the forever chemicals and showed that children that were more highly exposed had fewer antibodies. So I don't know that anybody's looked at that in terms in relation to COVID, but it's a really interesting question. And one that I'm sure will be researched.

You need to research that one now, Shaw. Right, right. In my spare time, right. I'm tasking you with that. Do you think that there are certain countries that have more, leniency around the chemicals that are allowed to be sprayed on foods and put into our environment than other countries? Is America one of the worst? Are other countries doing better than us? I mean, the EU does better. The EU has made, there's a chemical strategies policy now, which is really quite good. There's an older policy called REACH, which requires that a manufacturer test a product before it's put into commerce, which is, of course, the way it should be rather than having us be the guinea pigs to test the products. But I can't speak

about the whole world because those are the two areas that I know something about, the EU regulations and the U.S. regulations. And I do know that the U.S. regulations don't protect us very well. Yeah, yeah. Here's an example. Let me give you this example. 1100 chemicals banned from cosmetics in the EU. Right. 11 chemicals. 11 banned in the U.S. Yeah. Yeah. But I think, you know, I think that is what needs to change because it's not fair. If I walk into a market and I buy something, it should be vetted for my safety. Should it not? Absolutely.

You're right to be angry and I wish more people were. Yeah. People assume that it is. People trust the government and assume that they're looking out for us and that if it's available, it's safe. And what they don't realize is that chemicals in our culture are presumed to be safe until they are proven to be unsafe. And that happens after they're in widespread use. And even if that happens, at that point, it's really hard to reverse things and get those chemicals off the market. And even when you do, and even when you do, what they do is come along and put in a substitution.

substitute, which serves the same function, has a different name, but has the same harm. So BPA is substituted, take that out, put in BPF or BPS. It's really not fair to the consumer. Yeah. And do you think when we start to see things like infertility and early puberty and things like that emerging from a toxic issue, our go-to at that point is to treat it with more synthetic medications because that's what our health care system is built upon. Yeah.

So I hear you. I hear you. So it's like we're banging our heads against the wall while people are suffering. How do we, I feel like it has to start at an individual level. So help my audience understand outside of just be mindful of the food you eat and want you bring into your house. But it's a vicious cycle that feels like we're going nowhere. getting sicker, how do we undo that?

I think we have to regulate these chemicals at the scenarios to which we're exposed, which is not what's done now. So the regulatory system is really out of whack. Let's put it like that. And stepping back from that, we have to, and this is not for you and me to do, but manufacturers and chemists have to produce plastic, which are made from other products than fossil fuel, you know, byproducts, which is what they're now using.

And this is really scary right now because with good action to decrease the dependence on fossil fuels for our gasoline and heating our houses, there's all this fossil fuel and where are they going to put it? You're going to put it into plastics. And the projections for the growth in plastic is even faster as we go forward as the use of fossil fuels for heating and transportation is going down. So we're facing a really difficult time. And I think we have to make a lot of noise to.

Yes. Yes. Yes. Agreed. That's why you should have heard me when I read your book. I was screaming out loud and nobody was around except my husband. But I was like, oh, my God, they said this. Yes, this is what we've been saying.

So, Shana, you brought something about the mouse, some of the mouse studies. I just have a science question for you. Can we look at a mouse study and make the correlation in the human body? Or are we dealing with, it's just too difficult to make that direct correlation? So it is true that the models, the particular animal that they use for this outcome might be different than, you know, what you use for a different outcome. Because not every animal is a good model for human physiology in every part of the body. Right. Right. But as far as reproduction goes, rodents are very good models for some pregnancy.

They're not good for pregnancy outcomes because they have big litters, for example. So you wouldn't want to look to a rodent model to tell you about, you know, miscarriage. They don't have them, right? But you might go to a sheep. A sheep is a good model for miscarriage. So it depends what is the outcome that you're looking at, right? But they're definitely relevant. And for me, they're so important because in an animal study, you can do random assignment.

That means you can talk about causation. So when you do a human study, the people who use and don't use a certain product are going to be different in many ways besides their product use. Maybe their higher education, maybe their lower income, whatever, whatever. All these differences, they're called observational studies because we just, just have to take people as we find them. But an animal study is an experiment. And so you can assign the placebo and you can assign the treatment and you can do it at random. And all of those problems from an observational study are gone. And you can use the word causation. So for me, the ideal is you have the animal model, you have the human model. When they agree, you get the same results

like we showed for the phthalate effects on the genitals, then you can say causation in humans as well. So that's the gold standard. So it's like a multi-step process. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So if you start actually with structure of the chemical,

can it reduce testosterone? Can it increase estrogen? What is it structural? What does it look like? Does it look like another known antigen? For example, I'll give you an example. We found a couple of years ago that the common, analgesic, Tylenol shares structural function with phallates, in fact, the most anti-androgenic

phallic, very similar. And then now we're learning that it's having the same effects. But you start with the structure and then you do the animal studies and then you do the human studies and then you replicate the human studies. And when you put that all together, then you have a good picture of causation. Yeah. Yeah, it's well said. And the reason I ask it is in the fasting world. I had mentioned when we first started that a large part of my community fast together. And there's a lot of incredible research on fasting. Much of it is done on mice. And some of the criticism is, but that's not a human study. And I always say, but it gets us in the ballpark. It gives us an idea of potentially what's going on here. Is that accurate to say that?

I think it does a lot more than get us in the ballpark. I think it tells us a lot about mechanism. It tells us how this all works physiologically. Because in animals, we can do things you can't do in humans. You can actually see, measure the testosterone going down. You can actually do a lot more than you can do in humans. So you can get a mechanistic explanation. And most importantly, I think, is that you can administer the exposures at will, at the doses you want, at the timing you want, which is very important. You can control all that and then you know what matters.

So if you want to know at what point in pregnancy, does it matter if the mother is exposed to a thalli? That's a good question, right? Maybe it matters. It turns out it matters a lot in the early first trimester and hardly any in later development. In fact, in rats, it's a five-day window that it matters. So you won't know that unless you have the animal model. So they're invaluable, invaluable. Well said.

And you mentioned it in the book that we don't have a lot of studies, as many studies, women only studies, that where we're actually just looking at women separate from men. Why is that? It's hard to study women, women's physiology. Reproductive physiology is much more difficult than for men. But also, there's been a cultural bias against studying women. And it was really surprising in about five years. ago, the NIH came out and said, you must include women in your studies. You must include, imagine,

until then, you could do all your research on men only. And a great example of this is the fact that drugs are metabolized differently in men and women. So there's a famous example of Ambien, the sleep medication. Turns out that women need a much lower dose than men have the same effect. And there was a terrible, you know, example on TV where a woman had, I think, a fatal or a serious accident from having a male dose of Ambient. And they investigated and they found out that all the testing had been done on men. And nobody had looked to see what the response was in women. So then NIH said, oops, now we have to start studying these things in women. Right.

Well, again, I go back to the fasting model. there was a study that came out recently saying intermittent fasting is not a good tool for weight loss. And when I dove into the study, they had the sample size was nicely, it was a large sample size, but they had 19-year-old men and 55-year-old women all lumped into, right, into one study. And I was like, no, I poor 55-year-old woman trying to lose weight compared to a 19-year-old man. Like, we can't make that equal correlation. So, yeah, awesome. Okay, finishing up, I've got five questions, rapid fire questions for you guys that are kind of unique to your life and what you're doing.

And Stacey, why don't we start with you? Because you talked a little bit about avoiding these chemicals. Let's see you're going to go buy a piece of furniture. And you know there may be some off-gassing on it. You know that it may have some flame retardants on it. What are the best practices you use to make sure that you're not bringing in, toxic chemicals like on furniture in your house? Well, first I would find out what it has been treated with.

And I might choose a different couch, for example, if the one that I'm interested in is loaded with chemicals. With some of the off-gassing issues, one of the things you can do is if you have the physical setup is put it in a garage with the door open or put it on a deck and let it air out. You can do the same thing with your dry cleaning, for example, and let those chemicals air out so that when you bring the item back into your home, there's less release. Yeah, I do that. I put it out in my backyard. I live in California, so I just put it out in my backyard.

Shawna, what about you? Anything you would add to that? I would just say, use a hepa filter. Okay, what, Shauna, we'll go back to you. if there was one person right now on the planet that you feel like could make the biggest change in policy around chemicals that are being dumped into our environment, who would that person be? And what would you want to tell them?

That's too hard, I mean, I... We're a group of people like... I guess being an American, I would want to have a Zoom call with Joe button. Okay. And what would you tell him? What would you tell him? I would tell him that he should look into way chemicals are regulated now and listen to the scientists that are questioning these old outdated methods because they're not protecting people's health. Yeah. Well said. Stacey, any any different version of that, you would say? Well, there are some celebrities who have been very vocal about

some of these and I applaud their efforts. I would like to get more to do that. People who are in the public eye to come forward. Maybe we should enlist Oprah's help. I mean, the more people who chime in who are influencers, the better. Yeah, agreed. Agreed. And I'd add Michelle Obama because she's very, very, very good about foods and the food's given to children and the way foods are grown. And I think she'd be very receptive to the message about keeping these chemicals out of our foods. Have you sent her your book? No, I don't know how.

I should. Thank you. So speaking of books, outside of your book, if somebody's listening to this, and again, I'm just going to emphasize to our listeners, your book is on my list of top five books. Everybody should read. What other books on toxicity do you feel like people would benefit from? Well, I would go back to our still-in future. I mean, it is an older book. It's 25 years old, but it's really was groundbreaking and it still has information that is not old. And I, you know, it's a really go-to book, so I highly recommend it. Okay. Awesome. Stacey. I would add slow death by rubber duck. It really shows how quickly you can make progress and how quickly you can harm yourself potentially. Yeah, amazing. Have you read? Say that again? And it's fun to read. It's a good read.

It's a great title. It's a really good title. Suzanne Summers has a really good book that actually opened my eyes called Toxic. And it's all about how toxins, it's the correlation of how it's making us sick. And it comes from a little more cancer perspective. So, okay, last two questions. Shauna, we'll go back to you. If you were having a conversation with a young woman about to pregnant and you wanted to impart your thoughts about toxicity and how to protect her baby, what would you say to her? Read countdown because there's so many, many things that she should be aware of, and I couldn't begin to tell you them all right now, but I think she would enjoy it and

she would learn something. Yeah, agree. And would keep her baby safer. Yeah, agreed. What about you, Stacey? I would agree with that because there's so many. any chemical exposures that we have that were unaware of. True story. When I was pregnant with my second child, I read a report of one of Shauna's studies about salate exposure during

pregnancy and a short AGD. And of course, at the time, I didn't even know what an AGD was. This is antigenital distance. And then the environmental working group came out with a whole report about hazardous beauty products. And I put the two together and I looked it up and I looked up the brand of nail polish that I had put on my toes at the beach and freaked out because it was on the list. And I was four months pregnant with a boy. So the nail polish came off and I didn't put any more on the rest of my pregnancy. I haven't measured his AGD, but I think he's fine.

Don't know what you don't know. until you read this book and until you look at the science. Yes, yeah. And then did you take a toxic nail polish remover to get it off? Right, right. That's great. I love it. Okay, last thought, and you guys have been great. I really have enjoyed this. Shauna, if you had one message for the world that you could get into everybody's brain,

just implant that thought. What would it be? I think that would be that you need to open your eyes to everything you bring into your life with an eye to its risks for damaging your health. I call it toxic lens. I encourage our community just really put your toxic lens on and start to see everything you're buying, everything you're interacting. Ask yourself what the toxic piece of that might be.

That would make a huge step, don't you think? Absolutely. I like that. I like that. Stacey, what about you? If you could get one message in everybody's brain. I would go with what you're saying, what both of you are saying. I agree with it wholeheartedly.

And, you know, educate yourself. That's really the best thing you can do because this is a complicated subject. And we don't learn this in school. We don't, it's not commonsensical. We don't know these things. And so it's really about getting information into your hands and into your mind and learning. And sharing it. And sharing it.

Yes. Absolutely. Hey, resetters. I just want to start off by saying thank you so much for all your wonderful reviews. And those of you that have left me comments on iTunes, I just greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness and how much you guys are enjoying. episodes. And it seems like you're enjoying them as much as I am enjoying doing them. One of the things that I've learned in just interacting with so many people is that we've really lost the art of deep

conversations. And for me, the Resetter podcast stands for having meaningful conversations with people who are thinking about health, about life, about mindset in a way that we may not be getting on social media or in mainstream media. And so I just want to say, give you guys a shout out and just say thank you for participating in this process with me because as much as I absolutely love delivering the information to you, I love even more knowing that it's impacting your life. So please let us know if there's anything we can do to make this podcast more customized to you, to make it better.

We are now officially in season two. and we are working to bring you the best conversations that health influencers have, that mindset changers can give, and to really deliver you something that you're not able to get anywhere else. So from the bottom of my heart, as I always say my YouTube, from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply appreciative of you. I am deeply grateful to be on this journey with you, and let's get healthy together.