I just bought the NZ listener this week 1-7th September, because the headline was “Don’t touch the toxins – Alarming new evidence about the chemicals & plastics we use at home”.
I have been passionate about reducing toxic loads for many years. We all have toxic loads these days, even new born babies, because they grow in bodies that are already in an unhealthy state. Every 3 rd person faces a cancer diagnosis, even more people chronic illness. These statistics are real and we have to learn to prevent rather than treat illness, to find causes, rather than suppressing symptoms.
I do recommend to grab yourself the Listener this week. Here are just a few snippets from the article
- Humans use over 100,000 chemical elements and compounds, many of which have not been assessed for their effects on human health. (And even if they have been assessed as fairly save separately nobody has ever done long term studies on how the chemical cocktails we put in and on our bodies every day interact together…)
- Triclosan is an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent used in more than 2,000 consumer products including soaps, toothpaste, detergents, mouthwashes and toys. Scientists have called for it to be banned, as it can affect hormone function, damage the liver and kidneys and is a suspected carcinogen. It has been shown to promote growth of human breast cancer cells in lab dishes and breast cancer tumors in mice!
- There is evidence by the University of Massachusetts on adverse effects on our gut health, focusing on inflammatory bowel disease and colon cancer. Lead author Guadong Zhang found that feeding tricolosan to mice changed the composition of their gut microbiome, causing colon inflammation and accelerating the rate of colitis and the growth of tumors.
- Triclosan has been named one of the top-10 pllutants in US rivers and been detected in the urine of 75% of the people tested.
- The NZ Environmental protection authority is currently reviewing 300 chemicals of concern it would like banned or restricted (mainly herbicides and pesticides). Triclosan is not even on this list.
- Bruce Blumberg of the University of California has evidence that chemical use is also contributing to the obesity epidemic. Blumberg has recently published a book The obesogen Effect – Why we eat less and exercise more but still struggle to loose weight.
- The world health organisation has recognised that glyphosate (main ingredient of Roundup) is a possible carcinogen. There is also a possiblity that other additives in roundup may be reacting with the active ingredient, glyphosate, to accelerate carcinogenic effects. (Yet soooo many people are still spraying this all over their gardens, around their fruit trees….) Glyphosate is now even being found in breakfast cereals which are promoted to children.
- Check out Alexx Stuart Low Tox Life website. She is also on facebook and instagram.
It is obviously not possible to cut all chemicals out of our lives, as over lots of them we don’t have any control. But we can clean up our houses and our bodycare products, we can switch to organic food, we can be mindful where our clothes come from and what they are made of, we can be mindful of the paints we use in our house, the sprays and fertilisers in our gardens. There are countless, easy ways to reduce your toxic load. The main thing is to take one step at the time, change one thing at the time and inform yourself.
