Reducing Chemical Exposure in Children to Support Their Health

Episode Transcript

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Hi everyone, welcome to the show, I am Dr. Nicole, and on today’s episode, we’re talking about how we can support the health of our kids in an increasingly chemical-filled world. No doubt that environmental toxins negatively impact physical and mental health for our kids and for us. There are more chemicals in and around us than ever before, but what I’ve noticed is that people seem to be somewhat unfazed by the potential problems that these toxins can cause. Many of the things that we need to focus on with our kids do take a significant amount of time, effort, and energy, but to me, reducing toxin exposure is something that really requires some simple, easy steps. And the impact of taking those simple steps can make a major positive change for our children. For their behavior, for their mood, for their learning, for their physical growth and health. So to provide us with information and strategies, we can take action on right now, today. I’ve invited Dr. Aly Cohen to the show. Let me tell you about her. 

She is a board-certified rheumatologist, integrative medicine specialist, as well as an environmental health expert in Princeton, New Jersey. She has collaborated with the Environmental Working Group, Cancer Schmancer, and other disease prevention organizations, and is co-editor of the textbook, “Integrative Environmental Medicine”, part of the Oxford University Press/Weil Integrative Medicine Library. In 2015, she created TheSmartHuman.com to share environmental health, disease prevention, and wellness information with the public. Her TEDx talk, “How to Protect Your Kids from Toxic Chemicals”, can be found on YouTube. Dr. Cohen lives on a farm in New Jersey with her husband, two sons, and lots of furry friends, and she has an amazing new book coming out right now called Nontoxic Guide To Living Healthy In A Chemical World. Dr. Aly Cohen, such a pleasure to have you on the show today. 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Well, thank you for having me. It’s a pleasure to be here. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

So this is a topic that is really important for all of us, and I think that people sort of inherently recognize, oh yeah, toxins are bad, we should be mindful of that. And yet, there are so many simple things that people can be doing and aren’t. So I want to get into all of that and give people some tools, but I’d like to back up a little bit and start with how you really got invested in and interested in focusing on this in your work. 

Dr. Aly Cohen: 

Yeah, the story is kind of — I’ve said it so many times that I wonder if it’s overloading people, but I think it’s an important story. And it’s actually the story that I talk about in my introduction with my co-author. Because I think understanding how I got here is really a metaphor for where we all are at. In fact, I didn’t know anything about chemicals. I didn’t know that any of them could harm you. I was a doctor at the time. I mean, I’ve been through every science course you can imagine to become a doctor, and yet no one had ever, in my whole career told me that any chemicals had anything to do with human health. So what happened was, the story goes: 9 years ago, my golden retriever puppy who was, I guess he was 3 and a half years old at the time, got really sick. I didn’t know why. I thought maybe he swallowed a sock or something typical of a golden retriever. So I took him to the vet, and it turns out that he had liver failure and he was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, which is an autoimmune disease that directs your body’s immune system against its own liver. So this was really not only rare for dogs, I mean it’s rare in humans, it’s rare in dogs, but it’s especially rare in golden retrievers, as we found out with our vet. 

And it was just shocking to me, because as an autoimmune disease specialist myself for humans, this was just mind-blowing and really sad irony, actually. I had two young kids at the time so I was running around like crazy. And here we took 6 months maybe until he passed away to really care for him the best way we possibly could. I probably would not be sitting here having this beautiful interview with you today, had it not been, believe it or not, for the loss of that incredible dog. So I dedicate everything I do to him because I do think that there was a reason for this whole process. But while I was sadly trying to figure out what may have gotten him sick and triggered his immune system against his own body, I was researching his drinking water, what we were feeding him for his drinking water, his food, whether it was contaminated — I really was concerned about this plastic toy that he always had in his mouth, even while he slept, even as a 10-week old onwards.

I worried about the pesticides that are sprayed in and around our backyard, because we live in New Jersey, which is the garden state, which has, god knows, the greatest number of super fun sites in the country, and it’s just — it has a lot of environmental health issues. But we live in the corner of a lot of land that gets sprayed with chemicals like glyphosate. So it really opened my eyes at the time that maybe he was exposed to something that he shouldn’t be exposed to, and what are we as humans being exposed to? Because I started to understand that there was such a lack of regulation for humans for chemicals that go into our cleaning products, that go into our personal care products, that go into fabrics, that are in our cookware, and it just started to blow my mind. So that’s the beginning of the journey and it just kind of took off from there, believe it or not.

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

I think so many of us have a personal story or something that happened in our lives that gets us going down the rabbit hole of the research and looking at that. I think there has been — or there is just this widespread assumption that if products are out there and they’re made and used that they must be safe, right? I think so many people just don’t even question it. It’s like, wow, if that’s on the shelf, somebody must have decided that’s safe. And yet, that’s not necessarily true, right?

Dr. Aly Cohen: 

That’s absolutely true. And we go through a lot of this in terms of the history and regulation or lack thereof of chemicals in the US. And my partner in this process, Dr. Frederick vom Saal, this is our second project together. The first was a textbook on this topic for Oxford University Press through the Andrew Weil series. This is our second book together. It’s interesting, Dr. Fred vom Saal is most notable — his renowned research on Bisphenol A (BPA), which many of your audience members might know, was taken out of baby bottles around 2012 because of its harmful effects on humans. On a newborn, on a fetus and developmentally. So his work was sort of, along with his colleagues, kind of essential to get this off US markets. He’s the one who really has a lot to say about the regulatory issues and he does a beautiful job laying it out in a very interesting and understandable way.

In this country, in short, the emphasis of protection is on manufacturers. IT’s not on the consumer. And we know this from just many, many decades of just lack of regulation or at least regulation that is now outdated. I mean we had regulation in 1938, we had regulation in the 1970s with the toxic substances control act, which for that time was really astounding and progressive. But now, here we are 40 years, 50 years later, and we have over 90,000 industrial chemicals. Synthetic chemicals that get into and are purposely put into products that we use every day. And yet, they’re not required to do safety testing for infants, pregnant women, those with an immune-compromised system. They’re not required to do any testing before those chemicals go into the products that go onto the shelf, of all the things we love. So, I think people just don’t know, and I didn’t know and it’s just shocking to hear it. I had to kind of look around and to go, are you serious? Are you serious? and I think when people understand what the actual regulations are or are not, they understand how it’s kind of slanted to manufacturers, proprietary combinations of chemicals like fragrances, which can have 300 or more chemicals, and yet we’re not allowed to know as consumers what those individual chemicals are. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Which really does put ownership for looking at this stuff on us as consumers, right? It’s like okay, if the government is not doing it, there are no regulatory agencies doing it, the protections are for the company and not for us as consumers, it means that we have to be educated and know how to look at this stuff in order to protect ourselves. 

Dr. Aly Cohen: 

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s exactly what you’re touching on, is I was so frustrated of hearing what has not gone on for protections, that I thought, what are we waiting for? I have sick patients, I’m an autoimmune disease doctor, but I see everything. Breast cancers, diabetes I take care of, blood pressure, thyroid conditions, even in young people, I see — and I am starting to see, or at least, I was feeling along this journey, that I’m seeing more and more people at younger ages getting sicker and sicker. Where is this coming from? I just kind of felt like it was tied together, and the research shows that it is. So obviously this is not for every chemical and for every disease. I want to be clear on that. But what we do in the book, as we try to break it down in ways that are all evidence-based — journals to support what we say, and really pool from the best materials that people buy into the real science behind this and they have all the references there to kind of double-check on this.

But yeah, it comes from a place of frustration. And so the book, it will tell the story of the problem, but it will tell the solutions. I’m all about the solutions and I think that was also missing out there. Besides environmental working groups, which is a wonderful organization — we pool a lot of materials and resources and apps and websites from them in the book, and we partner with them/ They are actually an incredible group to follow. They were the first out there, as far as I know that really were telling consumers — they are a consumer-advocacy group. They were the first to really start shouting that there is an issue here. And I think as other groups, like the American Academy of Pediatrics, The Endocrine Society, the World Health Organization, The Academy of Obstetricians/Gynecologists started jumping on board with position statements on chemicals — I didn’t make this stuff up. We start to have this really robust set of literature, medical literature that shows we really have a problem here, and let’s empower the individual to really start making those changes of themselves and for the health of their families. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Absolutely. And you just mentioned how a lot of these professional medical organizations have come up with position statements, and I know because the American Academy of Pediatrics has come out with several statements and recommendations. I don’t think often that that information gets to parents. So let’s talk about before we get into what to do about it, let’s talk specifically about why parents should really care and pay attention to this. So you talked about the illness that your pet had and how that led to this journey, you talked about taking care of autoimmune disease patients with all of these things. For parents listening, what are some of the specific, research-based concerns about our kids and physical health and development, brain health, and development. Why should people care about this?

Dr. Aly Cohen: 

So you know, I guess going upstream a bit, chemicals — and they are 90,000 more or less, right? That’s a lot of chemicals to break down in terms of what each does on this program, because we don’t know what each does, to be honest with you. We just know that the research has been most robust on heavy metals. We know a lot about lead. We know, for instance, from Flint, Michigan. Of course, that made the news, but we have lead in a lot of places across this country from old infrastructure, from a variety of contaminants, industrial waste, all that gets into our drinking water. So we have heavy metals that can cause some of their troublesome problems, of course, but we also have this class of chemicals called — and this has been discovered in the last 25 years or so, called endocrine-disrupting chemicals or EDCs. And EDCs have the unique ability to affect the endocrine system because they disrupt the hormonal system or the hormones in our bodies that are so critical and sensitive to so many activities and physiology in our body. 

So I’ll give some examples. So we have hormones that certainly affect fertility and help us get pregnant or make our breasts enlarged so we can breastfeed. We have chemicals in our body that are hormones that are — insulin is a hormone. Insulin affects sugar in terms of how to break down sugar and properly break it down so we don’t get diabetic, right? We have hormones for growth and development. Certainly estrogen and testosterone, but we have different ones that control blood pressure and metabolism, and we have hormones that are important to our thyroid. We have hormones that affect us in terms of risk for cancer, that are hormonally sensitive like breast cancer, uterine, prostrate.

So these chemicals called hormones in our body where we’ve developed for millions of years to have these very sensitive chemicals around the body to do different activities. What these endocrine disruptor chemicals can do, or EDC’s, they have the ability to mimic some of these chemicals like Estrogen, they can block androgens, which are male hormones like testosterone, they can affect thyroid gland hormones and how that signals different functions in the body, specifically metabolism — so they have this sneaky way of kind of gaming the system. The problem with that is that since these are such sensitive physiologic changes, we really have a problem. 

So what parents should kind of think about is that while you’re pregnant, before you’re pregnant, you can get a little bit cleaner, perhaps. We teach that in one whole chapter on getting pregnant or what we should know. If you’ve already gotten pregnant and you’re like, “Oh, no!” Don’t worry. Lots of great information on what to do while you’re pregnant and then, “Uh-oh” you didn’t even know this and your kid popped out six months ago and you didn’t have any guidebook, but, hey, you’ve got little kids now. Let’s give you some information on how to keep them cleaner as you move forward and they grow up and get strong and healthy. So again, it’s not here. It doesn’t exist to, in any way, make people feel bad. It’s about empowerment. It’s about doing better when you know better. And it’s not waiting for governments and agencies necessarily. Of course, we want those changes, but right now, we need to act on our own. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

And I think one of the interesting things about kids, and in some ways, this generation of children is an experiment, right? There have been a number of chemicals that have just exploded in the environment. I have young adults and teenage children, you have teen children, preteen children as well — this is the first generation of kids to be raised from before birth in utero, in this toxic stew, so there is so much we don’t know but there are some things we’re guessing at. All these hormones that you talked about, those are critically important for children before birth, after birth, during childhood and adolescence. Those hormones signal all kinds of important things within a brain and body, and we know that we’re seeing more and more kids now with early puberty kinds of issues, that has been linked to those endocrine disruptors in kids, as you mentioned heavy metal exposure with intellectual disability, autism spectrum disorders, ADHD, all of these things — and one of the big schools of thought now that’s becoming more prominent is: Are we seeing this huge increase in the number of these kinds of problems in our kids because of this toxic stew in the environment that they’re being raised in? 

Dr. Aly Cohen: 

Well, it’s unfortunate but true. There is a really strong association. And again, I don’t say causation because it’s very hard to test these chemicals specific to any one illness or behavioral change or cognitive disability. It’s very hard to do that, because we’re exposed all the time. We’re exposed to air pollution issues or even indoor air quality. Our air fresheners and carpet fresheners and all that stuff. But we’re also exposed through food, through water, stress plays a role when it comes to even the gut microbiome managing those chemicals. 

So again, there is this lifestyle component that’s really worth working on, which we do talk about a great deal in the last chapter, of how do you get these chemicals out of your body, not get them in your body, and how can you utilize your body’s own physiology to sweat chemicals out, to sleep better so our brain washes those chemicals out during quality sleep. So I think it’s really important to understand that different periods of our development from being pregnant to being a toddler, to being a teenager to going through menopause are all very hormonally-driven periods. That actually tends to be a little bit more of a vulnerability for these endocrine disruptors.

I actually teach high school. I wanted to make sure I mention that because I’m really, after having lectured to doctors for many years, with not really a great, resounding embrace for many reasons, I’m sure, but I decided to focus on teenagers. My teenage babysitter was one of the first people to say to me, “Is my shampoo hurting me?” Because she kind of knew what I was doing, and it was just like a light bulb went off. I thought to myself, this is a group of people who are tech-savvy, they know how to look things up, they’re body-conscious, they’re interested, they have years ahead of them to make good decisions, to make their lives healthier and to be healthier when they even have kids one day if they choose to. They’re going to be voting one day. So maybe they’re going to vote and purchase products along the lines of cleaner choices. So I really felt that everything about teenage living and the fact that they use the most personal care products than any other demographic, the fact that they’re hormonally-charged, all of it really made me focus on trying to get this as a national curriculum into high schools. So that’s what I’ll be doing moving forward after this book. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

And it’s so important because I think the earlier we can help people understand this, the better, right? And it’s a conversation that I have often in the clinic with kids, even elementary-aged kids can understand these things. They say, “I saw this on TV” or “I saw this online” and it opens the door to a conversation about awareness of things that are in the environment, and how we can make better choices. So I think it’s amazing what you’re doing with targeting teens. I think they are interested. I find that at least I see a lot of adolescents and young adults in my practice and they’re curious and interested. A lot of them are quite environmentally conscious and they’re worried, not only about the impact that these chemicals are having on us and our bodies, but on the climate, on the environment, on the physical environment in general. 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

And that’s actually a really important point because sustainability and greening our environment, our earth, is so critical to greening our bodies. And I’ll be partnering with someone who is the head of sustainability at a major university to try to get that tied to the physiology of human health with environmental health. And I think that storylines make people understand sort of the intricate, interweaving of both environmental outdoor water, streams, air quality, and how that affects human health, how it drains into our water systems in our waste management plants, and then it gets right into our bodies. So we have to understand the full story, I think, to really buy into making these changes — because again, what makes people change? If people knew that they’ll be zillionaires? No, it has to really hit your heart. It has to affect you or affect your children a lot of times, or you were sick, and all of a sudden you’re ready to make that move. I’m trying to get this book into the hands of people of all kinds. Healthy, sick, old, young, but young people really have an opportunity to do a lot of good with it so that they can have years ahead that are healthy. And I’m really hoping for that. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Absolutely. We covered the way, because I think that is an important part of change. We as human beings don’t make changes if we don’t understand why we need to make them. If we are really emotionally connected to the reasons. And I think that as parents, we love our children more than anything, especially if our kids are struggling in an area — that’s a motivating why. So let’s get into some specific changes that you feel are important for families to be thinking about with all of this. 

Dr. Aly Cohen: 

Great question. So the first thing I think about is, well, let’s not buy stuff and bring it into the house, if we don’t need it. Because we know that a lot of these extra chemicals are being just sold to us through marketing that we need to be cleaner, antibacterial, our lawns have to be super manicured with chemicals, we can’t do it any other way. You know, carpet powders and air fresheners and fabric softeners. There is literally a cleaning product for every square inch of your home. Doorknob cleaners and window cleaners, it’s almost absurd. So we go into a whole chapter of cleaning products, and understanding the difference between cleaning vs. disinfection, which a new article is out which I think you’re going to post on the page for this interview, because we just did a great article, my partner and I, on understanding the difference with COVID between using disinfection products and why that can be more harmful if you do it with abandon vs. just cleaning products and what the definitions are. And also, how to look up good cleaning products. So I think it’s important to understand that, but that’s a good place to start. 

Don’t buy things that you think you need, and it’s much cheaper to not have to buy them, and use things like white vinegar or essential oils that are organic, not synthetic, like lemon oil, or baking soda, which is wonderful for cleaning and getting pesticides off, even on vegetables and produce, or sea salt which is great to scrub things with, especially larger grain salt. So we give all of that, if you decide you want to go make your own or use some of these very simple cleaning ingredients, or we give you the resources to choose ones that are in big-box stores, which for me, busy, that’s what I choose. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Yeah, absolutely. I think a lot of parents are like, “Just tell me where I can get some things that are safe.” Right? And that’s important. The good thing about that is there are so many companies now, as people are becoming more aware, there are more companies and products coming out. I think we have to be careful with that, though because companies have realized the sort of terminology to use. Something can say natural on it and still not be what we would consider chemical-free or a health-supportive product. 

 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Right. So that’s greenwashing for the environment, we see that quite a bit. But we have greenwashing for our body, and people who are scaring you into buying products for detoxing and cleansing. I’m not saying that they’re all bad products, just that I have no way to vet them and I like to look at the natural physiology and anthropology of the human body. I like to say, “Listen, we’ve been evolving for 4.5 million years, and we’ve learned through that evolution that our body’s template, our genetics really respond well to clean food.” Whole foods. Nuts, berries, greens, vegetables, fish — clean fish. So there’s a variety of things we’ve evolved for millions of years to take in, as our sources of nutrients and other things. But we’ve also been sweating for millions of years. We have sweat glands that are designed to break down, our liver is designed to break down many of these chemicals and get them to our skin. 

We have all these mechanisms and it’s in the book to kind of show people that you don’t have to spend a fortune or do crazy detox things to really feel good and know that you’re wiping these chemicals out. We also put in a lot of studies that show that when you make changes with your behavior, when you choose for instance if you can buy frozen organics, which are in a lot of big-box stores around the country, and around the world, really. When you choose frozen organics, that’s just as good if not even better than fresh organic produce, because it does not travel anywhere for weeks on end and then end up in your supermarket. It was flash-frozen and then put in the freezer. So it has all those nutrients, and that’s a very inexpensive way to get really high quality, low chemical, low pesticide food, is frozen organic produce. So I’m conscious of all that so that people of any age group, any background, any scientific knowledge, any socioeconomic group can really do a lot to improve the outcomes of their kids. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

Well and I love that you’re talking about the cost-effectiveness because one of the arguments that I hear in my clinic, you hear people saying, “Oh, but it’s so expensive to get the cleaner products and the organic things”, and the reality is, and there have actually been some studies out about this now — it actually is not significantly more expensive when you know what you’re looking for, and when you know how to do that. So I love that you touched on that there are very lowered-cost things that you can use to clean your home. There are ways that you can do frozen organics, that is significant cost savings. So I think that’s important because that’s an objection that I hear quite a bit is the cost piece. 

Dr. Aly Cohen: 

Yeah, and even, like I said, the environmental working group is a really great resource and we got a hold of their 2020 Dirty Dozen Clean 15 list, which is to explain to your audience, is a list that they do every year. They come out with a list where they test produce. Not organics, this is not an organic list. This is just conventional fruits and vegetables. They test the skins or the residues on top of produce of various kinds: Spinach, berries, peaches, avocado, whatever. And they’ll test this across the country, in different parts of the country, and they’ll create a list of what they call the Dirty Dozen, which are the top dozen high-residue level produce on their skins to stay away from, versus the Clean 15, which tend to have much lower residue on top of their skins and are recommended to buy them. 

Because if you’re not going to buy organic, then these are better choices. So again, it’s not organic-based. It’s just really great information and year to year it changes up very slightly, but mostly, we’re talking for the Dirty Dozen that it’s mostly fruits and vegetables that have skins that are very thin,, like berries and peaches and apples are always one or two and the same with strawberries. The Clean 15 tends to have a lot of things with skins to them like watermelon and pineapple, kiwi, those types of things, but it also has a bunch of other things like asparagus that tends to be low in terms of residues of pesticide. So we want people to have every opportunity to really take control of making these decisions. And once you start in, it’s like a journey. but once you start in, you start to get good at it, and it becomes much easier as you move through whatever, weeks, months — I’m at 8 years now and I’m still learning. 

 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens: 

What do you recommend, speaking about the produce, people who say, “Okay, I can’t afford or don’t have access to all my produce organic.” So if they were to purchase things from the Clean 15, for example and say, “I’m going to get those non-organic to save money and because it’s something I have access to.” Because I get questions about that. There are companies now that sell these fruit and vegetable washes and things to get stuff off it. What do you recommend? Rinsing it? You mentioned baking soda a minute ago.

 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Yeah, so one of the things you can do, even with organic or conventional, whatever you decide, is really, you take one part white vinegar, which you can get at any major store. White vinegar is used to clean houses, but you can use the same percentage of white vinegar for food. It’s food grade. You just take one part, whatever part that, depending on how big the produce is that you’re going to be washing or soaking, really. And it’s 1 part white vinegar to 3 parts warm, clean water. Maybe filtered if you have a filter system, whether it’s a pitcher or your refrigerator, or it’s a reverse osmosis filter — whatever, you want to try to get as clean water as you can to soak it in. But it’s really kind of remarkable how much pesticide residue or residue from dirt, any other things that get on produce actually end up in the water after you sat it for a while, maybe 5 minutes and you’ve agitated. And you start to realize. Oh my God, that was going to go into my body and look what I just avoided. So we give recipes for that and try to get people to — you don’t need a lot of ingredients to get a little bit cleaner with the produce, no doubt. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Yeah, that’s great. How about — you had talked about, a few minutes ago, not purchasing things and bringing them into the home if you don’t really need them. I can imagine maybe the list of what some people perceive as needing to have on hand for cleaning and laundry to be different from maybe what yours and mine are. I’m curious if you can share: what are the top one or two things that many families purchase and have in their home for cleaning or laundry or whatever that are not necessary and actually maybe some of the biggest culprits in terms of bringing toxins into the home?

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Some of the superfluous or extra stuff, I think beyond just a surface cleaner. I have a surface cleaner that I vetted that seems reasonably healthy and you can buy it in a big-box store. I have a laundry detergent and I have dishwasher detergent. Beyond that I think I scrubbed my oven once or twice with sea salt, which we have, big large grain sea salt. We have baking soda, which I used as well for big stains around the burners. But we don’t really use any air fresheners. I mean we can, I guess, use essential oils if we wanted to, but I would want to make sure that there are no synthetic ingredients in those because they are not required, like food is, to hold to any major standard. Even with labelling, believe it or not. So we don’t have a lot of air fresheners. So really, you could imagine, it’s only a couple of things. And I think when you’re sold on this fear of bacteria, I mean certainly viruses like Coronavirus, like I said, there’s a difference there. But if you’re just worried about dirt and some basic cleanliness, you don’t need to pull out the uzi and go after it. You want to match what you’re doing to what you’re treating it with. That changes the whole game. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Well, I’ve seen children over the last many years who really — there are remarkable changes in their behavior, in their attention in their sleep, in their physical symptoms, when we focus just on fragrance, for example — you’re talking about air fresheners: Some families have a lot of fragrance products, right? I had a mom once who wore a lot of perfume and hairspray and her child was agitated a lot. And I said, why don’t we try just getting rid of those things? And within 24 hours, she emailed me and she was like, “It’s remarkable, the difference”. Just not having all that. But from scented candles to plug-in things, to stuff in the car. Fabric softeners — I’ve noticed over the years, I’ve become a lot more sensitive, they give me headaches much more quickly. I just had seen so many kids where those fragranced things are really a trigger. Have you seen that as well, that that fragrance is a big issue?

Dr. Aly Cohen:

I have, and there is an extreme case of that, would be multiple chemical sensitivity, which is actually a condition. MCS is actually a condition by which a lot of people, believe it or not, you may not know of them, but they can not actually function out in society, because everywhere you walk there is some type of chemical assault. You walk into a printing store — big-box printing store, and the whole air is filled with chemicals. You can feel it, the second you walk in. Chemicals aerate off of furniture that has glues and epoxy glues, they aerate out of fabrics. People have flooring that is polyvinyl chloride, vinyl flooring that actually can release VOCs or these volatile organic chemicals. So it’s not to freak people out, but again, it’s always arguing that the less is more approach is really helpful for people who may not even realize how sensitive they are until you take it away. And I think it’s definitely worth an experiment. It’s also cheaper. And they’re also — by the way, I’m wearing perfume, but I just vetted it out for a company that’s considered relatively safe, based on the toxicologists from EWG and other groups. So we go through all of that. So you can have everything you want. There are hacks for everything. There are M&Ms that are healthier because they use no colors, preservatives or chemicals, and they taste good! Trust me, I steal them all the time from my kids. So there is really kind of, nowadays, a hack for everything or most things. And you don’t end up missing these chemicals. You’d be amazed. It’s really nice and refreshing to get them out of your life. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think the point that you just made is a really important one that often, people don’t realize the negative impact that these chemicals were having until they get them out, because we’re just so used to being around them, right? It’s not until you start to remove them that you see the difference with it. And another piece of this that we could consider an environmental toxin that’s a little bit different than what we’ve been talking about is the whole issue of exposure to radiation from electronic devices, right? Those EMFs, we did an episode on that many, many months ago where people who are listening, if they want to go back and listen to that, but I think that’s a piece of what we’re talking about here too. And I think that is such an issue of where people say “Well that doesn’t impact me.” And then you challenge them to reduce their exposure to EMF for their kids and for themselves, and they go “Oh my Gosh, I can’t believe the difference.” 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Great point. In fact, it’s such an important environmental exposure, that we have a whole chapter in the book on this, and we actually titled it, “Radiations: Safer Use of Cellphones, Tech-toys and Gadgets. We didn’t put ‘Safe’ use, we put ‘Safer’ use, and that’s a really critical distinction, because you can’t 100% protect everybody with your recommendations, people can’t always do that. But what we can do is make the recommendations where the science, through the precautionary principle of, you know what? This just makes good sense. Really, is just reducing those exposures. And so to your point, radiation is silent, we don’t see it — it’s like a virus, right?

 We don’t see it. We don’t see how our phones antenna is beeping, beeping, beeping connection signals to a cell tower. But if we could see it, we would be appalled, because you would see a million lines around your home and work, seeing how all these connections are happening through this invisible radiation. And what’s been found is not just in terms of headaches and sensitivity to EMF, which we now know is actually a real thing, which you can avoid by turning on cell phone airplane mode, turning off your server at night, a variety of things. 

But we know that radiation, for instance, putting your cellphone for boys, men, kids, my kids including. They put them in their pockets, in the front near really sensitive genitalia, you’re going to potentially cause some harm there, and the studies pan out showing there is lower sperm count, but also sperm quality for people who do regularly carry their cellphones in their front pockets. We know that women who carry their cellphones in their bras, which is, believe it or not, one of my relatives was walking around with their phone in it and I was horrified! It doesn’t matter what your education level is, your background. Everyone is doing a lot of this stuff. There have been breast cancers and breast lesions, benign breast tumors that have been found under the antenna of the top of the phone a lot of people hold their phones directly against their skin in their bra. 

So what the book encourages people to do is not to say, “Okay, get rid of all your technology”, because it’s just not realistic. Especially now, with quarantine and coronavirus and all the different changes in remote learning and all of that. But what it does tell you is don’t put your cellphones in your pockets, in your bras without putting it on airplane mode. Don’t put your laptop directly on your lap. It’s poorly named. It should be on a table, at least a foot away so that that radiation that’s going through the computer doesn’t also hit your body in sensitive areas. 

And so, I think people need to know it’s not a matter of yelling at you for behaviors. It’s about, how do we just do these things a little bit more safe? And I think it’s just not yell-y or scream-y, it’s more like proactive and reasonable. My kids have to follow all of these, turning off their phone at night, when they go to bed, keeping it away from their head, which is a sensitive structure, especially in children. So they’ve gotten used to it and my one said to me that he actually feels weird if he doesn’t do it at night now. So he flipped to the point where it was a pain and annoying, and “Aw, mom!” And now, it’s like he does it when he does sleepovers, he does it on his own. So that’s the goal. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely. Same with my kids, when I started learning about this, I was like, “Oh my gosh, here’s the deal.” And in fact, it was a couple of months ago, when I was trying to get a hold of my 18 year-old, he wasn’t answering his texts, and later on, he was like, “Well, I had it in my pocket, so I had it on airplane mode.” I was like, “Oh, right. Yes. Thank you. Okay, never mind.” 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

That’s a small win, right? That’s like when my kid refused to get a Gatorade at a sports event. He just didn’t want it, and I was looking at him like what’s going on here? Here you have this opportunity away from mom. And he said he thought it was nasty-looking. So I think there are moments when I actually feel like I’m doing good and it’s especially fruitful when it’s your own family. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I think it’s especially important right now with kids at home, and a lot of them are still doing online schooling like being chained to the device or the computers all the time. To take some of these steps to detox from that, because they are getting exposure to that stuff more than ever before, right now. 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Yeah, from a social media perspective, which is another aspect of looking at exposure, it messes with kids’ heads when they’re always checking their IG accounts and Facebook, and I get it because I have the same problem. But when you are a kid and your brain is developing, I think it’s a little stressful to watch, knowing that we are adults and can take a walk and go outside, take some fresh air, put the phone down — it’s not as easy for these kids, and I think that’s just another aspect of working towards — It’s another environmental health exposure to work with. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Let’s make sure that people know where they can get the book. The book is out now, correct?

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Yes. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

So tell us about the book. What’s your favorite thing about the book? You spent a lot of time and energy with this, really wanting to make it something practical and usable? What do you think is one of the coolest things about this book?

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Well, I was really excited to fight for and argue for the title being A Guide To Living Healthy in a Chemical World. That was actually something we had pushed back on for months. And I have to tell you, I think I’m getting feedback now that people like the word ‘Guide’ because it’s much more a hand holding word than just “Hey! Living Healthy!”. I think that that was really critical and I look at that title everyday and think to myself, I’m really happy we fought for it, because it is a guide. 

We have recipes, we have lists that are really easy to go through, we have a tear-off refrigerator sheet, which I am actually very proud of because it’s kind of like a top-10, top 20 things to do, and you just tear it out. It has little lines. Actually, I don’t know if it’s perforated, but anyway, with the scissors, you can take it out and put it on your fridge and kind of work your way through, at your leisure, over time, whatever works for your family and you. So there are just components of this that 8 years of wanting something like this went into it. And recipes from a good friend and her organization that do detox recipes. My non-toxic Gatorade is my favorite, that was my design I guess. 

But there are lots of recipes for soups and foods and snacks that are designed to get the body’s own ability to break down chemicals going with cruciferous vegetables, which we have a lot of information on. So yeah. It’s a labor of love. And I worked with a wonderful partner and a clinician plus a researcher, which is pretty unique. And I think generationally, he’s a grandfather. I’m a mom. We had a lot to share on that level, but also our experiences working with regulatory bodies that he’s had to manage over the years and what he had to say about that, and then me having to deal with the medical world and what I had to say about it. We just came together in a very positive way. Not negative, positive way to empower people. So I hope people will find it interesting and share it widely with their school teachers, their principles, colleges. I want it in schools as much as I can. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Absolutely. And I think the fact that you are a mom and you are living this makes it so relevant to parents because you know what it’s like to actually do these things. It’s not just a book. It’s all the science and the technical stuff and the high-level things. It’s the science distilled to here’s what’s practical, here’s what you can do. And I think for all of our moms and dad’s listening, that’s what we need. So it’s a very, very practical guide, available where books are sold. Correct? 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Yeah. Where books are sold. I think there’s more trouble on Barnes & Noble, but they’re going to pick it up soon in a bigger way, but Amazon has it fulfilling and going nuts, and there are some independent bookstores. And the really — the best way to find it, I think, is to go to our landing page for the book, which is called thesmarthuman.com, if you just go to that, the first page that you land on is for the book and it gives you a bunch of different options to look through. So I’m really proud of that. But I also share — I’d love to be able to tell your audience, I share lots of great information that’s from the book, that’s other nutritional stuff and mental health recommendations, cool videos and stuff on my platform that’s on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, it’s called The Smart Human. So I want people to look on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and try to look for them because they’re nuggets. It’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday, just a nugget on one topic to wrap your head around with a great article if it’s attached, but what to do in bullets. I’m a bullet person. I love bulleted information. The way my brain works, we’re busy, working, we got kids whatever, taking care of parents — whatever it is, you want that information quickly and usable. So that’s what I like to say that we do on the platform and the book. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

I would agree. You and I initially met on social media because I love the things that you put out there, I really want to encourage listeners to go to those. We’ll make sure, as always, in the show notes you’ll be able to find all of those links and the social media channels and all of that. And Aly, I think you mentioned that one of the things that we’ll have a link for there is the paper that you and your partner just wrote about the difference between cleaning and disinfecting and how to approach that with COVID and all of that, a really timely thing that we’re all dealing with. So for all of you to be on the lookout for that link as well. 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Yeah, and we’re happy to do that. Took about a week to put together, but we thought — if there was ever a representative topic right now that’s so urgent, we thought that that was actually a pretty good one and hopefully, it will be shared widely because there’s some really usable information in there. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

Awesome, wonderful. Dr. Aly Cohen, thank you so much for being with us today. Really great conversation. Lots of helpful information. Thank you so much. 

Dr. Aly Cohen:

Oh it is absolutely my pleasure, thank you for giving me the platform to share and for having me on your show, it was fun. 

Dr. Nicole Beurkens:

And thanks to all of you for listening, we’ll catch you back here next time for our next episode of the Better Behavior Show.