144: Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals, Part 1 with Lara Adler

Lara Adler 0:04

Flame Retardants they are very persistent in the environment. That's not true for all chemicals. Some chemicals are not persistent with flame retardants happen to be persistent

Dr. Stephanie Gray 0:17

Welcome to the Your Longevity Blueprint podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Stephanie Gray. My number one goal with this show is to help you discover your personalized plan to build your dream health and live a longer, happier, truly healthier life. You're about to hear from Laura Adler. Today we're diving into environmental chemical exposure, specifically endocrine disrupting chemicals and practical tips for reducing exposure she has beyond a wealth of knowledge on this topic so much so this has become a two part series today. First, we're gonna dive into BPA let's get started.

Welcome to another episode of The Your Longevity Blueprint Podcast. Today my guest is Lara Adler, who is an environmental toxins expert and educator and a certified holistic health coach who teaches health professionals of all types and individuals with health based businesses to better understand the role of environmental chemical exposure in causing or contributing to chronic health issues, so they can more comprehensively support the clients and patients they serve. She trains practitioners to become experts in everyday toxic exposure so they can improve client outcomes without spending hundreds hours researching on their own, and finding environmental health education and business consulting. She's helped 1000s of health professionals in over 35 countries around the world, elevate their skill set, get better results for their clients and become sought out leaders in the growing environmental health and detoxification field. I'm excited to chat with you. Welcome to the show, Laura.

Lara Adler 1:40

Thank you for having me. I'm excited to dig in.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 1:44

So tell us your story. I ask all my guests their story, right? How did you become an expert in this field? Specifically? I'm sure there's a story behind that. Yeah,

Lara Adler 1:52

you know, it's funny, because I know a lot of people that kind of roll into the practitioner or health, health, wellness space, in general, tend to get there because they have their own health challenge that they had to figure out. And then they were like, Oh, wow, you know, oh my god, I had no idea. And I'm obsessed with this topic. And like I actually did not have that story. I did not have like any toxic exposure, I just didn't have anything like that. So I don't have that like cutesy like kiss net story. I don't have quite that story. I was always interested in health and nutrition and food primarily, that was sort of my gateway into this space. Just even as a young kid, you know, even in high school, middle school, I was like vegetarian and like learning about food and how to cook. And that is the thing actually, that opened the door for me into this space. You know, I pursued a whole different focus in college. And I spent seven years in a totally different industry after college. And I really felt like I wanted to do work that contributed in a more meaningful way to the world than the corporate job that I have sitting in a cubicle in midtown Manhattan, like, wasn't it for me. And so I'd always been in a nerd in the food and wellness side. And so I said, Oh, let me let me see what's out there. I discovered health coaching and I thought, Oh, hey, this might be an opportunity to kind of do my own thing, be my own boss, and then flex my muscle around this nutrition stuff that I love. And so I did that. I went back to school, and I got a certification and started seeing clients. And really, it was through my client work that I kind of stumbled into this environmental health space Astrix small print print, there's actually more to the story is actually pretty interesting. But I stumbled into this space, because I had clients that were coming to me for weight loss. And they had done everything that I've recommended. They were like super compliant, which is not that common. It wasn't budging for them. And I was really frustrated. I was a new health coach, I was trying to, you know, really bring it for these folks. So I started digging into the literature on like resistant weight loss and looking for, you know, what's under all of these stones that maybe I haven't done covered. And that's really where I stumbled into this field of environmental health, environmental medicine. I was living in New York City at the time with the Mount Sinai children's Environmental Health Center and the New York Academy of Sciences. And so was just immersed myself in this academic world of this discussion and, and talking to epidemiologists and EPA geneticists, and just my brain was like, so lit up on this topic. And so I spent a couple of years really digging into the literature, because it was so fascinating to me. And, you know, it was really clear from this research that environmental exposures, just even through living our normal everyday lives are really meaningful in terms of their contribution to chronic health issues. And yeah, and this was 15 years ago, so like, no one was talking about this. And so I was like, well, but this feels really odd. obvious that we shouldn't be talking about it. And so in 2012, after a couple of years of really just making sure I understood what this space was all about, I started teaching and I have been doing that ever since, nonstop. So we're in year 11. Now of doing this work, it's been really rewarding. And so that abstract small print funny story that kind of came full circle for me, it was two things. One, my dad will be 86 years old this year, still working, has worked as an independent consultant for 20 odd years for pee fast manufacturers. nonstick coating manufacturers, yeah, manufacturers of nonstick coatings. And so you know, like I know a lot about the coatings because I grew up with a dad who worked from home and I was a little office secretary. And so like I learned a lot about that just sort of through osmosis. And I remember being in college, I can my sophomore year in college, reading about Teflon toxicosis, which is what happens when you use Teflon pans or nonstick pans. And you have birds in the house. And birds have incredibly sensitive respiratory systems and they would drop dead. And I remember sending these articles to my dad, this would have been in like 1997 or eight, that I was doing this and sending these articles to him. And he I didn't know what at the time he was forwarding them to the president of the company, just like FYI. And then about six years ago, I went back to Connecticut, where I grew up was in your inner when you go back to your parents old house and your old bedroom and you look at all the like stuff that you didn't deem worthy enough to take with you. When you moved on to your adult life. It still lives there. So I found a plastic box of index cards from a paper I wrote on vegetarianism in high school, because we had it was the bibliography, right like this is in the early 90s. This is how we did bibliographies them. And so I randomly pulled out an index card. And it was just a quote from some book. And it said, you know, lots of paraphrasing something about you know, people turning more towards vegetarian diets, in part because of the toxic chemicals in agriculture. And I was like, there's some part of me that has been magnetized to this topic. And I just remembered like my that blew my mind. I sat there on my little twin size bed in my bedroom looking at this index card going, tell us what's going on here. 23 years ago at the time, I was like, tell us a long time ago. So I stumbled into this on accident. But I don't know, maybe I didn't. That's the That's the story.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 7:46

And part of me wonders like as a nation, how far have we come since then? Because part of me thinks we really haven't come that far. Far and you've been educating clinicians. But yeah, I feel like we haven't come that far. So yeah, but that is super interesting story. Maybe let's just start from the beginning for listeners and kind of break down what environmental toxins are, you've

Lara Adler 8:05

mentioned one of them, right, but what are they? And how do they affect us? And then maybe we can break down specifics, but just in general, what our environment? Yeah. So I think it's helpful to kind of contextualize this conversation because you know, even you just throw out the word toxic or toxic chemicals. And people kind of get a little spooked by that sometimes. And so, you know, environmental chemicals are just chemicals in our environment. environmental toxins are chemicals that are known to be or are suspected to have some implications, negative ones typically on human health, animal health, Wildlife Health, and just the environment in general. And these are, you know, globally, there's 350,000 chemicals and chemical mixtures that are registered for use these, the vast majority of those didn't exist 100 years ago. So like the landscape of just the planet is really different. And, you know, when we're talking about toxicity, I think there's a really big misconception that when people hear toxic chemical or toxic chemical exposure, they automatically are thinking, Oh, this is something that's going to cause an acute reaction, nausea, vomiting, hair loss, skin reactions, and requires a trip to the emergency room or a phone call to poison control. And while those type of exposures certainly can happen, in our day to day lives, that's not actually what's happening. We're getting really tiny, tiny exposures to toxic chemicals every single day from dozens and dozens of places in a single day. And that over the course of our lifetime, or over the course of many years, or certainly even in really critical windows of development, say fetal development. Those little exposures can actually be really impactful and they add up. That's really what we're talking In about here, we're talking about these small exposures that if everything else is equal, and we never had another exposure, and we just have this one from this one plastic product or this one scented candle, no big deal, no big deal, right? It's the totality of what we are exposed to, that tends to overburden our system. And that compromised our health in really significant ways. That's still being figured out, right? We're still learning about so many of these chemicals. So those 350,000 chemicals I mentioned, most of those have never been adequately assessed or reviewed for safety. In fact, we don't even know, especially in combination. So like, not only do we not know much about the properties of many of these chemicals, some of them are deemed confidential, so confidential business information they're CDI claims. And so companies don't have to tell you that Red Bull its proprietary, I'll have to tell you, and our federal policies allow that. And so there's just a lot of opacity both on the we don't even know what's out there. There's opacity in terms of manufacturers not being legally required to disclose chemicals that are used in the manufacturing of their products. So that is just crazy.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 11:15

That just doesn't make sense to me, but it is what it is, I guess. Yeah.

Lara Adler 11:19

Yeah. So that's really what we're talking about. We're talking about these really small, seemingly insignificant exposures that we get from our drinking water, or our shampoo, or deodorant, or the sunscreen we put on like, there's the, you know, the plastic Starbucks to go container like, whatever all of those sort of materials that we interact with. I do think it's important to, you know, when we're talking about toxic chemicals, or chemicals in general, another sort of sort of common reaction that people have is like, oh, like, everything is a chemical, which is true, everything is a chemical. So what we're talking about in conversations like this are not all chemicals, we're just talking about ones that we do know, or strongly suggest, or suspect that are causing some health issues. And so really, that's where the microscope is focused. Certainly not all chemicals are bad, many chemicals have made our lives better, easier, longer, safer. And so we don't want to kind of tar them all with the same brush, which often happens in this conversation.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 12:22

Sure. We're talking about the accumulation of all these little little pieces of exposure. Can you in short for the audience kind of explain what that adds up to from a health standpoint?

Lara Adler 12:32

Yeah. So I mean, the answer to questions like that is almost always going to be it depends, right? There's so many ways in which there's no tissue in the body, there's no organ system in the body that's not affected by some type of toxic exposure. So every organ system, every tissue can be affected. And so the endpoints meaning the results is everything from like, you know, eczema, and you know, dermatitis, contact dermatitis or something like that to Alzheimer's, to Parkinson's, dementia to cancer and other neurodegenerative diseases and fertility, infertility, developmental disorders, like its birth defects, cancer, like the list is enormous heart disease, obesity, insulin resistance, all of it right. And so the endpoints are, the list is vast, it's kind of everything. The challenge is that we can identify in, through, for example, animal studies, hey, we're we can start looking at like mechanism of action, meaning this chemical seems to act on this pathway and an animal studies, it's showing this results. Well, we don't test chemicals on people as a general rule, there have been historical incidences of people doing that not advised. And yet, when so we have animal studies, and then we'll look at human epidemiological data and say, Hey, are we seeing the same trends that we saw in these animal studies for populations that have higher levels of these toxic chemicals? And a lot of cases? The answer is yes. And that's where that's the strength of the science that we have to navigate. People in industry, are the ones that really demand absolute proof in the harm that environmental chemicals cause or chemicals cause this glib, my glib response to that is, is absolute proofs only exist in mathematics, not in science. Right? So we don't have proofs in science, we have evidence and science. And the evidence, all resoundingly points to the fact that a lot of these environmental exposures are in fact causing or contributing in some way or associated in some way to this wave of chronic health issues that people are experiencing. And so the endpoints are everything right? The endpoints are all serious, and even non serious health issues right headaches, brain fog, So the list is long yet I figured

Dr. Stephanie Gray 15:05

one endpoint I do want to focus on, because I mentioned before we started recording is that I have a hormone clinic and we know that one endpoint is hormone disruption. So can you explain how chemicals are linked to hormonal issues aka endocrine disruption, and then maybe we'll break down some of those specific endocrine disrupting

Lara Adler 15:20

chemicals. Chemicals tend to be grouped when we're looking at health effects into a little bit of that rough category of that mechanism of action. Are they carcinogens? Are they neurotoxic? Are they reproductive toxins? Are they endocrine disruptors, meaning they can disrupt our hormonal system. The frustrating thing is that many chemicals can actually do all of those things. Right? So they can be a carcinogen because of endocrine action. They can be reproductive toxin because of endocrine action. So like there's a, I think, in Venn diagrams. And so the Venn diagrams of these categories overlapping for certain chemicals is really strong. So some chemicals might be endocrine disrupting, but so far, we don't have data suggesting that they're a carcinogen, or they might be indirectly feeding that right. And so we have these different broad categories. endocrine disruption is one, The Endocrine Society, which is the world's largest society that you know, is for all things endocrine health, they define endocrine disruption, as any exogenous chemical exogenous just means from outside chemical or mixture of chemicals that can interfere with any aspect of hormone action. So any aspect whatsoever. And so what happens is, there's lots of different ways that they can do this, right, that they can mess with our hormones. One of the ways is through what's essentially referred to as like a biomimicry, meaning you have a chemical molecule of extra dial or estrogen or whatever, right after dial is just one of the estrogens. And so our body is designed to respond already innately to these really small amounts of hormones, that course through our bloodstream, like that is what they do. And we have receptors for each hormone. So there's hormone receptors for testosterone, and there's some for estrogen and so it's like a lock and key. And the key is unique to that lock. Right? So those things fit together. The problem is when we have endocrine disrupting chemicals, these exogenous chemicals that look almost identical. From a molecular standpoint, the shape of the key is the same, it's close enough that it will still open the lock. And so so many of the chemicals that we interact with in our daily lives can be an endocrine disruptor. Through this pathway, there's other pathways. There's a lot of other ways that they can do this. But this mimicry is pretty common. So for example, BPA, BPA was actually developed in 1891. Right, it's been around for a long time. And it was actually a contender for pharmaceutical use as a synthetic estrogen. It wasn't strong enough, the chemical that beat BPA out was dimethyl, Sylvester all which if you know anything about fertility, and pregnancy, is causes birth defects, uterine and testicular in all kinds of cancers in the offspring of the women who took it during specific trimester of their pregnancy. And so we were like, Oops, that's bad. Let's take that off the market, right. So BPA was actually designed originally as a synthetic African, which wasn't quite strong enough for the things that they were trying to use it for. So it kind of fell into the shadows. And then in the early 1930s, I think 30s and 40s, and even the 50s. It found its place in plastic. So like Bakelite plastic, which was one of those first, like, wow, this is such a marvel. It's not metal. It's not a natural material. But wow, it's so durable. Bakelite plastic was made with this phenols Bisphenol A. And so there's this long history with this chemical that the molecule is so close to the extra dial molecule that our bodies can't really tell the difference. And I think where other can disruption is so concerning when it comes to the type of low level chronic exposures that we get, not just from BPA there's so there's about 1400 chemicals that had been identified as being endocrine disrupting so far, there's a lot and we might be exposed to a dozen of those easily in a single day without doing anything, you know, different from our normal everyday lives. And so the problem here is, as I said earlier, a lot of these products and the exposures that we're getting are really small, they're tiny, they're almost meaningless on their own. And so this is the argument that the chemical industry and product manufacturers To say, oh, it's only this fraction of whatever, in nanogram or whatever per, you know, per dose. Okay, great, that would be fine if this product. And this exposure was the only one that I got every day. It's not. There's multiples what we know about endocrine disrupting chemicals you mentioned earlier, like we don't know how they react, chemicals react inside our bodies together, it's really hard to study that this research that has been done on what's referred to as the cocktail effect, meaning when you're mixing endocrine disruptors, is that specifically with endocrine disruption, the effect of the exposure can be additive, meaning one plus one equals two, it also can be amplified. Right, so one plus one might equal four or five. So it's greater than the sum of its parts. And that's concerning. So the main reason why all of this is concerning is our body, our human physiology, all physiology, mammalian physiology, is designed to respond react to function, using these infinitesimally low levels of natural hormones in the bodies, we're talking parts per trillion, right fractions and fractions, just the tiniest amounts that you can measure. And we know how profound those natural fluctuating hormonal changes can be, be around a kid going through puberty, and you'll know that right be in menopause. And you'll know that right, these are profound changes, there's all these unwanted side effects and mood alterations and temperature alterations and weight alterations that happen with these teeny tiny fluctuations. And so our body's actually designed to respond to those tiny levels. And so when we get similarly tiny levels, at parts per trillion, which is what's happening through these consumer products, that is actually we are actually being exposed at the frequency that our physiology is designed to listen to, right to designed to hear. And that's where these things are so problematic. So in the field of toxicology, the famous adage is the dose makes the poison, which is like anything can be toxic, it's just the dose that makes it so right, that's a paraphrasing the Paracelsus, quote, and so yes, and right, the dose makes the poison, meaning a high exposure to something is worse than a low exposure. So like radiation, a lot of radiation, very bad. Deadly, right? A little bit of radiation, no big deal, we can handle that, right. And so the assumption in Toxicology is that nearly all all things follow that model that more is worse and less is okay. Or the least the effect is lower. And, and that there's a certain point where like, there's no effect. And so endocrine disruption is really blown apart that concept, because it's actually not true that in a lot of instances, the lower exposures going to have a more profound effect, or outcome than a high exposure. And part of that can be explained by that hormone receptor analogy. Once all those, we don't have finite hormone receptors, right. And so once all of those are filled, so to speak, like more isn't going to do more hormonal stuff. The locks are all filled with keys. And so there might be other effects. And so this is where the animal research that we have, like I said, most of these chemicals in commerce haven't been tested, the ones that have been tested, aren't being tested for chronic low dose exposures, they're being tested for these high exposures are going okay. So you have to eat, you know, 16 gallons of cereal to get enough glyphosate to cause a, quote, adverse health effect. Well, but what happens if I have a little bit of that every single day all day for the rest of my life? Or for 10 years or 20 years? Is that also being studied in toxicology? No,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 24:06

I want to as I'm just sitting here thinking I'm gonna put some chapstick on you know, this is like actually wait, I'm just thinking you have anything thinking of my accumulation of exposure? I don't drink out of plastic and I'm sure that'll be one of your tips, but I mean, I don't know sorry Burt's Bees, but you were on my desk today. I love this stuff isn't Burt's Bees lip shimmer? It's just like a tinted chapstick sort of thing. Yeah. Do you think I mean even plastic this is in plastic right that I'm putting on my lips several times a day. And is there a chance that that plastic is leaching into this lip gloss that I'm applying right is that one of my exposures which I don't even know if there's BPA in this plastic maybe there's a free who knows. I just for the audience I just I'm trying to give them an example of layer upon layer upon layer of potential exposure through just your activities of daily living that we're not thinking you know, are contributing to our toxic burden.

Lara Adler 24:55

You know, if we just get back to the lip gloss and the plastic packaging, but like Think about your daily morning routine you wake up you brush your teeth. What is in that toothpaste? Is it sodium lauryl sulfate? Is there a fluoride? Are there other antibacterial agents in there? Maybe. Okay, great. Now you go take a shower, you have shampoo that has fragrances that has preservatives that have allergenic chemicals in there. Then you have your conditioner, maybe you have facewash, then you have a body wash that you have, you know, shaving cream, when you get out it's deodorant, it's a hair product, it's all your makeup and body lotion. And that's before you've even left the bathroom, the bathroom, right? Then you go and make breakfast, you pull out your nonstick pan, you've got your, you know, kids eating off of plastic plates and cups because you don't want them to break stuff because they're toddlers, and they're going to throw it whatever, right and so you know, you sit on your couch, your cup has flame retardants, your couch has pee fast chemicals, if it's got a stain resistant treatment, like there's just we are living in this toxic soup. And we're constantly there's literally like, okay, polar bears. And then this is sort of the doom and gloom part like we'll get to the there's stuff that we can do part. Bears in the Arctic have flame retardant chemicals in their bodies. How is that even possible from the water as flame retardants, rocket jet rocket fuel or something? Well, they just they are very persistent in the environment, meaning they don't break down easily. That's not true for all chemicals. Some chemicals are not persistent. But flame retardants happen to be persistent. And then they traveled through wind currents, they traveled through ocean currents, they don't degrade. And so they stay intact. They, you know, just through ocean currents and wind currents, they travel up to the upper down to the poles. And so we have no polar bears in in the Arctic that have their body fat has high levels of these chemicals, because these a lot of these chemicals, including a lot of the persistent ones, are fat soluble. That means they accumulate and build up in our adipose tissue. And polar bears have a ton fat. Same thing with whales have toxic chemicals in their body. The higher an animal is on the food chain. I'm talking swordfish shark, these apex predator feces have a ton of contaminants in their tissues, because of careless human activity, corporate greed, name all the things right. And so that's we're now left in this time in a place in time where we are scrambling to try to clean up the messes made of past generations. And the messes that continue to be made right now. I mean, we've had oil spills and train derailments. I mean, the the I don't know if you saw this, but with the Ohio train derailment, because this soil in the train derailment area had Diox was had dioxins in them because when you burn plastics, they scooped up all that soil, put them on the back of a train to go haul it somewhere. Don't know where the train crashed, dumped all the soil. It's like we can't make this stuff up. It's just I'd say it's a comedy of errors. But this is the darkest comedy ever. Like no one is laughing mural ism, it is depressing.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 28:17

Okay, tell us about dioxins.

Lara Adler 28:18

dioxins are endocrine disruption, disrupting, they're also one of the most potent carcinogens known to man. They are not a chemical that are produced. They are a byproduct of incineration for the most part. And so that is really industrial factories and burning. Unfortunately, in the last couple of years, and particularly just recently, there have been new sort of waste, sustainable waste factories that have been approved where they are, have been given a green light under the sort of green umbrella of like, this is sustainable and good for the planet have essentially these are incineration factories. And the amount of dioxins that are going to be produced from the burning of plastics, like has environmental groups up in arms, because they're like, first of all, have you call this green? And second of all, like this is dangerous. dioxins are so persistent, and they are there's no safe level of exposure to dioxins. And like I said, they are very endocrine disrupting, and they are very carcinogenic. Because of their persistence they can be found in adipose tissue and fat products. So things like butter and cheese and milk, in particular butter and cheese because they're concentrated fat right? Sure.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 29:45

They even asked gas off like printer paper what comes out like printer paper or like even receipts, you know, for awhile, they said, Oh, don't take your receipt from your restaurant. What's

Lara Adler 29:56

thermal paper? So the receipt? Yeah, that's BPA So, if you take a regular piece of paper and thermal paper and you close your eyes and you feel them, thermal paper feels powdery feels slippery. Yeah, reason is because it literally just has a powdery coating of free this phenol chemicals. So at least in plastic containers, whether it's a lip gloss container or your food processor blender or your Starbucks to go cup, that BPA is at least somewhat bound up in the matrix of the plastic. It's not fully bound. That's why it migrates out. But with cash register receipts, it's literally just rubbing off on your fingers. And we have very, unfortunately, very good dermal absorption like we absorb a lot of things to our fingers. And so there have been studies looking at thermal absorption rates of handling cash, federal paper, including shift work for cashiers right so people who are it's not just us as we're like going grocery shopping. My bigger concern is you know, the person whose job it is to check receipts at Costco. That's all they do all day is touch receipts all day, right? But the point is, I do wear gloves, what can they do with gloves? Yes, they got the recommendation is like, you know, if that's their job, you can't not do the job that's

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:13

given gloves,

Lara Adler 31:13

please wear nitrile gloves, were something that's going to be a barrier.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 31:18

But what about you made me think about disposing plastics? Because we talked a lot about getting rid of plastic in your kitchen and switching to glass whatnot. How do you properly dispose of plastic? Do you put that Arizona

Lara Adler 31:27

dispose? I mean, look, you can try to recycle, but the recycling rate in the United States is abysmal. Some of that is intentional. Not intentionally doing a bad job but intent like industries and manufacturers intentionally either a making it hard or making it miss like the recycling process misleading. So for example, you stop somebody on the street and you turn over a plastic bottle and you say what is this symbol with these three chasing arrows and they're gonna go oh, that's gonna tell you it's recyclable. That's not what that means at all. What does it mean? It so the name of that little symbol with a number is a resin identification code. It's an Ric and so the resin identification code does not say this plastic is recyclable. It just says, Oh, this type of plastic is a polyethylene tear Valley versus a high density polyethylene versus propylene of polypropylene versus the other category. Right? So just slots plastics into general types that can help with recycling so people can go Oh, and number one plastic, Paul PE T plastic that is a plastic that you can recycle. There are no recycling facilities anywhere that can recycle number six, which is polystyrene or Styrofoam, there is no plastic recycling center that can recycle polycarbonate plastic,

Dr. Stephanie Gray 32:56

what's Tupperware because that's what most people are going to be getting rid of in their kitchen,

Lara Adler 33:00

they can be different, right? So it depends on the brand, right? Rubbermaid make some that are polycarbonate, that's other, that's the type of plastic that's more likely to have BPA. So polyethylene taraval it like you're pulling spring water bottle never had BPA. This is where I get so frustrated, because I'll see articles about BPA and then they show PE T plastic bottles as the graphic and I'm like no like that mismatch. Yeah, that's not the type of plastic that has this phenols that type of plastic has other chemicals, just not that one. Right. And so there is no such thing as a totally safe plastic, some are better than others. I kind of look at things on a spectrum of good better best, you know, in terms of minimizing the plastic use in our homes. My big priority is minimizing plastic where it comes in contact with food and water period. That's the primary objective. We're never going to be a plastic free society. I'm sitting at my desk. I'm like, Oh, this picture frame behind me has plastic instead of glass. My ring light is made of plastic. My controls for my sit stand desk are made of plastic the chair I'm sitting in his

Dr. Stephanie Gray 34:08

Basik My pen is plastic when everything around exactly and

Lara Adler 34:11

so plastic can also save lives. Right. I am not a Luddite. I am also not anti plastic. I'm just anti plastic in the way that we interact with plastic here on Earth. Right and so think about a bike helmet Great. A bike helmet or motorcycle helmet plastic. It's gonna save someone's life, Nicu babies in a plastic incubator with life saving IV bags, and and tubing made of plastic that are concerning that have chemicals in them and their life savings. So we have to have balance and perspective in this conversation. What I don't want people to feel is like oh my god, I can't even touch it because Plastic is plastic. It's toxic. Don't touch it. That's not what we're talking about. We're we still have to live on this earth. First we have to just navigate our lives I drive a car there's toxins in my car. I'm not going to like you know have a horse and buggy and move to an Amish village the Amish incidentally at least one study has found that they do actually have lower levels was very small study but they do have lower levels have one of these chemicals because they don't I believe a lot of these products they don't have no no levels. They have less more.

Dr. Stephanie Gray 35:25

Yep, yeah. Flame Retardants have been found in polar bear fat Wow, who would have thought that? This may sound depressing, but I promise in next week's episode we're gonna get to the good stuff what you can do to reduce your burden. In next week's episode, we're first gonna dive into P FOSS balades dioxins paraments, trackless and sulfates and water filtration then we'll talk about small changes you can make to improve your health see you there. Be sure to check out my book your longevity blueprint. And if you aren't much of a reader, you're in luck. You can now take my course online where I walk you through each chapter in the book. Plus for a limited time the course is 50% off, check this offer out at your longevity blueprint.com and click the Course tab. One of the biggest things you can do to support the show and help us reach more listeners is to subscribe to the show. Leave us a rating and review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. I do read all the reviews and would truly love to hear your suggestions for show topics guests and for how you're applying what you learn on the show to create your own longevity blueprint. This podcast is produced by Team podcast thank you so much for listening and remember, wellness is waiting

the information provided in this podcast is educational no information provided should be considered to be or used as a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Always consult with your personal medical authority.

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