Nontoxic Guide to Healthy Living with Dr. Aly Cohen (290)

I did all sorts of things because I didn't understand how to approach it. Now I have a better idea as a mom, as a doctor, as someone who really hangs out with a lot of smart researchers, but is trying to just interpret this information in a way that's actually usable for the average mere mortal. That, to me, has been my life's joy. And if I can make a difference into someone's life that feels better for them because they're now getting it and owning it and makes that change, they might do another change and then another. So it's about kind of this 80-20 approach, I think, where you take it seriously, but you don't take it so seriously that you're adding the stress that you're trying to remove in the first place. That's not good. Like I said, I tried to create a way that was almost gamifying. It's a 21-day plan if you want it. But if you want to dig in the slower, that's good too. It's just a matter of who you are and what you're ready to do. Welcome to Therapist Uncensored. Building on decades of professional experience, this podcast tackles neurobiology, modern attachment, and more in an honest way that's helpful in healing humans. Your session begins now with Dr. Ann Kelly and Sue Marriott. Hey, you guys. While we know relationships are wonderful, they are also really hard. Many of us believe that they shouldn't be, that if we have good connection and good communication, things will just go smoothly. But it's really that belief that can make us feel stubborn and even more hopeless. So relationships take work. It does for Sue and I. We can make it look easy. It's not. And one of the ways is because many of us, we differ. We differ in what activates us, what makes us feel threat, the expectation. And it's these differences that are held in our body, not our thoughts. And they influence how we talk, how we love, how we fight. 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Rather than changing one another, y'all can shift together in very important ways. It's very powerful. We're getting great reviews. Check it out. It's at therapistuncensored.com slash BAS. Therapistuncensored.com slash BAS. The BAS stands for Beyond Attachment Styles, the Science of Growing Secure Adult Relationships. And by the way, the cost of the course is about the amount of one individual therapy session. And yet you get hours and hours and hours of what we think is extremely valuable information. So check it out. Hey, everyone. This is Anne. So glad to be here with you on Therapist Uncensored. Our guest today, I reached out to her because she's really impacted my life and I think she will yours as well. Our guest is Dr. Ailey Cohen. Dr. Cohen is a triple board certified physician in rheumatology, internal medicine, and integrative medicine. So, wow. What I reached out to her for is that she is one of the country's leading environmental health experts. She's co-authored textbooks and as well a guide about non-toxic living. How I was introduced to her is through her recent book, Detoxify, the Everyday Toxins Harming Your Immune System and How to Defend against them. In it, she highlights the link between everyday chemicals and the epidemic rise in immune disorders and autoimmune diseases. And we know these toxins are impacting our health in so many ways, even beyond that, as well as in our environment. But here's the key. I mean, we all know toxins bad. She's not just making the point. We dive into this conversation into very doable, actionable steps that can make an immediate difference, as well as some of the findings she's found that may really, really surprise you. Anyway, I loved our conversation. I think you will too. So let's jump in. I'm so excited to have you on the show. So Therapist Uncensored, we focus a lot about attachment and neurobiology and keeping our mind, our body and our spirit, what affects us. And so much is psychology focused so long on what happened between parent and child. And we are very systemic focused. How does the environment impact our mind and our health? And what I love about your work is you have a missing piece that we have not really taken a deep dive into. And how does the environment itself impact us? And so when you reached out to us and I got a chance to check out all your materials, like, oh, my God, this is a huge missing piece that we haven't addressed. So I was so glad that you agreed to come on. Yeah, the mind body connection is huge. And what affects the mind body? Well, the gut is one of them. And, you know, how these chemicals work through different processes can result in a lot of brain health related material. So I just want people to be aware of this piece. It's not the only piece, you know, but it is a big piece that I think people need to consider. Well, and as I've kind of taken a deeper dive, it may be a much bigger piece than I've ever considered. I was thinking about the, with interviewing you today, I would actually counted how many products I put on my body before I jumped on camera today. And I think I counted like nine without even thinking about it from makeup to washing her hair. And I had never even actually stopped to take a counting of it. And it was really striking me, like, how much are these chemicals actually having an impact on how I function in my everyday world, etc.? And so I'm excited to dive into this with you. Well, I'm happy to share. And I hopefully will do this in a way that doesn't freak people out. I color my hair. You know, my kids play lacrosse on toxic turf, and I did even a podcast on that with researchers. So it's about how do we live healthier in a world we've created? Right. Let's not create more fear. And that's your approach. Your approach is empowerment, not fear-based. Absolutely. And humor and doing this with levity because you can't get through this stuff without some levity. I know. I loved it when you said I still color my hair because that's going to probably something that I stick with. Oh, my I did a TED talk that, you know, this is like, I don't know, eight or nine years ago. And I was really just starting to get into this visibly with media and stuff. And I thought, you know what, I better be honest and put myself out there. So I had in my TED talk of me with foils. That's not something I'm willing to change, but maybe I will change my water or maybe I will look into my food quality. But it's a journey. Well, tell the audience a bit about yourself and how you started diving in so deeply into the concept of environmental toxins. Yeah, I didn't ask for it. I can start by saying that this was not a field or an area that I ever thought I would be involved in, didn't even know it existed. I want to say 16 years ago, I'm going by my kids. My oldest son is 18 now. So he was two and my other child was like six months. And then I had a four and a half year old golden retriever at the time. He was our firstborn. probably most well-behaved. And he was, we were planning, you know, we just moved to the suburbs from New York City and we lived on a farm, lots of farms around us, lots of everything. And we had this gold retriever that became really sick at four and a half years of age. So not only is this particular illness, which he was diagnosed with called autoimmune hepatitis, where his immune system, auto meaning self was self-directed to attack his liver. Not only is that an unusual condition for a dog, but it's an unusual condition for golden retrievers in particular. And, you know, having just completed my fellowship in immunology and rheumatology at Montefiore and in the Bronx and having all this training and I'm in the suburbs ready to get going, my love of my life there was getting sick. So long story short, not only at a young age and with an odd diagnosis and with me as his mother, I started to kind of dive in, well, what could possibly have triggered his immune system essentially towards himself. Was it his drinking water quality? Was it this food? Was it contaminated? God forbid it was like, you know, where we live. I mean, here I have two young kids. So I really was doing sort of this deep dive into his life, his exposures and his short life, actually. And the more I was looking into his exposures, the more I was like, you're kidding me. There's no regulations on human cosmetics and personal care products and any of those ingredients. Like you're kidding. Our water system only follows the Safe Drinking Water Act from 1974. And yet we've had literally hundreds of thousands of chemicals added since that law was put into effect that only manages 91 chemicals nationally. So everything I was discovering was like a shock because here I was a practicing physician. I'd never heard any of this in all of my years of training, pre-med, college, or anything. And it took a while for me to figure out whether this was real. So about a 10-year journey, no joke. You know, I reached out to all the people who had written papers at that point, including Dr. Fred Vomsal, who was writing about bisphenol A and BPA, which I had seen a little bit on the news in 2012 because it was taken out of plastic baby bottles because of his work and his international colleagues. And so I started to reach out to Environmental Working Group just to explore because I was starting to put together a local program on it just to you know share with my community and long story short I got pulled into this world in a way that I'd never expected and now here I am doing and teaching about environmental exposure surveys like I did with my dog here I am 18 years later having it in a book talking to patients really teaching high school students about what they too should be thinking about and why it matters. Well, and it's so sad about your dog. I've had a golden retriever. It just, it breaks my heart and the irony of it being an autoimmune disorder. Like how rare is that in an animal and that an expert in the area that that would happen. And yet you took it to such a deep level. I mean, when you were talking about the plastic toys that he plays with all from that level and then paralleling it to the materials that we come into, that just is that you took the time to see the insights in that and the parallels. Yeah, it took a lot of years. What I'm trying to do is make sure that people don't have to wait years to figure it out for themselves. You know, we're on this continuum of life. And as an autoimmune disease doctor, an immune disease, I should say not just autoimmune, you know, we really in the course of anthropology and evolution, We are here for a very short period of time. These chemicals, and we're now estimated between 100 and 300,000 of them that are unregulated, that go into our products that we love and use and put on our bodies and our kids and everything. They have only been introduced into the human experience for 100 years. And the fact that we're not paying attention to the beauty of the immune system, which, by the way, regulates hormones and regulates cancer management and regulates, you know, a whole bunch of different systems. The fact that we're not paying attention to what we now absolutely know about these chemicals from research institutions, not manufacturers, but third party people who do not have a secondary gain from revealing this information. They're doing it because they're academic and they're really exploring it. But we know that they're connected. And the human lifespan is just short enough to not wait for regulation to take hold in the U.S. because it's not going to happen fast enough no matter who's in charge. It just won't happen fast enough for what I'm now seeing as a physician with the rates of these diseases going up. And so really my motivation was how do I take what I've learned and build it into a framework that is scalable so that anybody could pick up a book or pick up this information or follow on the smart human is my my social media, Instagram, TikTok and Twitter and podcast. But I wanted people to be able to get this information without having to dive in or have a science background. And that's why I also don't sell products or, you know, endorse brands, because I really want this material out there. And the only way to do that, I believe, in a legitimate way is to not tie it to some kind of commercial product other than my book, which, you know, God forbid it actually turns any profit. As we know, in the literary world, it's more about just getting it out there. yeah it's your commitment and your passion to making a difference you can really feel that in all the material that i've seen when you talk about the increase could you start there i mean 100 years that we've had these chemicals and we do i would say for myself i have this like false sense of oh government if it's out there it's been regulated it's been looked at it's been researched and then i just finished traveling with my daughter in eastern europe and there are many products we have here that are legal there because of some of the findings in terms of the orange dyes. And so it's really kind of a, almost a scary process. How do you get the right information? But before we dive into that, like, what is the increase that you're noticing as an immune specialist? What are the increases in specific kind of disorders that you've noticed in your own practice or research has found? So I myself have seen this over 22 years. I practice in Princeton, New Jersey. I'm still practicing. I love it. I myself have seen not only this kind of overwhelming load of patients that are getting sicker with immune disorders at younger ages than really what anyone would anticipate in terms of just the demographics, but also in people who have no family history, which really weighs in and leans into this environmental exposure component Now it certainly genes set up the system by which someone predisposed to develop any condition whether it good or bad right But the idea that we are you know unable to specifically know our whole genetic template and control it, plus we get half from our mother and half from our father. And so there's, you know, this real desire to control our destiny. But really what we can only control is what comes into our bodies, what we eat, what we drink, what we put onto our skin, and hopefully that is how we can reduce the development or the expression. This is exposomics, the expression of those conditions, right? Keep them quiet by lifestyle and better choices. What we've seen internationally, though, is a huge increase in overall number of autoimmune diseases. So we have, in terms of incidence, I should say not the number of them. So there's about 80 textbook described autoimmune diseases. This is not immune, like food allergies is a whole nother level and, you know, eczema, a bunch of other things that are not necessarily autoimmune. But around the world, this has been exponential. In fact, rheumatoid arthritis is an example, which is probably the most commonly referred to autoimmune disease of the joints and inflammatory joint condition and also other components has been estimated to go from, it used to be 0.5% of the world's population. Now we're at 1%. In the U.S., it's estimated between 7 and 14% of the U.S. population has at least one autoimmune disease. And that actually comes out to out of 330 million Americans, it's about 30 million Americans. So, you know, we're talking about a big number here. In fact, this morning, I just posted to my Instagram feed, the headline from the Washington Post talking about how autoimmune diseases has a very steep increase after age 50. I said, well, that's great. But we also have a rise amongst many other demographics and maybe the steepest amongst the 50 and older. But certainly we know that every demographic is having some increase, some more than others. Certainly females, you know, certainly reproductive age, and that has a lot to do with how estrogen works. And, And, you know, men get autoimmune diseases too, but it certainly is weighted to most of those autoimmune disease, not all towards women. But why is that? Why is it so disproportionately in women? So I talk about it in my book a little bit because the science is coming out kind of fast and furious. But what we do know and has always been sort of understood is that estrogen happens to be, you know, one of the driving forces. And so when these chemicals are mimicking estrogen, which is, again, how one of the mechanisms, there's many mechanisms for different chemical groups. But what we now know is that many of these what we call hormone or endocrine disrupting chemicals, I renamed them to immune disrupting chemicals to reframe the conversation. But it's basically about manipulating hormones because these chemicals can actually not only look like them, but trigger immune responses towards similar proteins. in the human body. So in other words, there's a lookalike effect where these chemicals might look like the tissue in your own body and the body is directing not only its venom towards the invader, but also to tissue that looks similar. That's one mechanism. There's also in terms of certain autoimmune diseases, particularly like lupus, there's been some studies regarding about a genetic component that predisposes women to lupus because they have this sort of imbalanced problem with turning off genes and gene expression, something called the exist gene. So all of that is coming out more and more, but there's other mechanisms by which chemicals affect us. One is by directly affecting the gut microbiome, which is this very thin layer of microbes, microbes that have been with us millions of years, bacteria, mold, yeast, viruses, they're sort of inside this inner layer of the tube of our gut. So from mouth to butt, to be crass, there's the inside of that tube, the gastrointestinal tract or tube that is so thin, it's the width of half of a diameter of a human hair. That's how tiny. And it has the surface area of a football field. And that interior line is very like almost like if you put, you know, butter on bread, it's tiny thin layer that coats the interior of this tube. And that microbiome is so vulnerable to environmental chemicals to stress, to, you know, acid reflux, you know, to medications, chlorinated drinking water, pesticides on food, as I mentioned. So there's a lot that we kind of hit our vulnerable gut microbiome kind of on a routine basis, but that's really our immune system at work. Our immune system is kind of supported by these healthy microbes, the healthier version of these microbes. And so what I talk about also is not just removing perfumes and conditioners and cleaning products and changing to one, you know, that are, you know, safer and healthier, so to speak. But I also talk about how do we make our bodies healthier? How do we improve the gut microbiome? If it's such an important component of our immune system and human health, how do we make that better? Not just take stuff away. How do we make the human body stronger immunologically? And I talk about nutrition and certain foods like fiber and cruciferous vegetables and sweating to get rid of these chemicals. So anyway, I can go on and on and on, but I'll let you direct the next question. Well, I mean, you were speaking about the toxins and how it creates a response to fight the toxins, which actually can create inflammation. you mentioned estrogen and I wondered if you relate some of the early prepubescent like the early onset of puberty do you consider there a relationship at all yeah great question and you know to that same point also one one piece is that every immune cell which there are thousands of immune cells in the human body that are beautifully designed and work in in concert they all have estrogen receptors. So when you have these chemicals that can mimic estrogen and other hormones, you can see how this can affect the immune system directly on another level, right? So one of the reasons among many, but one of the most predominant theories for why we are seeing young people, not just girls, but boys experiencing puberty at earlier ages. I mean, back 200 years ago, you know, girls wouldn't have their first period or menarche until about age 16. We're now at some populations, seven, eight, nine years of age, certainly African-American populations of young girls, because the products that have some of these estrogen mimickers are in African-American products, particularly hair products. And so when we're talking about not only young girls getting exposed to chemicals that mimic estrogen and kind of, you know, create an earlier onset of puberty. We're also talking about a subset that maybe hit even harder because of their products. And boys too are seeing earlier puberty. So there's, you know, a lot of factors, you know, it's not just cosmetics and personal care, it's our processed foods, you know, affecting not just the quality of our food, the lack of nutrition is a very key point and why I talk about that in the book. And it's, you know, we can't just have, you know, take away chemicals and food and water and not think about what nutrition we're actually missing with our busy modern day lives. And those things are protective to the human body. So you have all these factors that play a role. I try to hit them in a very reasonable way. There's a 21 day plan for people who don't want to think too much, but just want to get started. I get that. But there's lots of resources and information for people who want to dig deeper on each of these topics or any of these topics. And I think that's the beauty of knowledge is that you can dip your toe in and you can do whatever you want, as long as it's real and it's science and it's evidence-based. To me, that is really the most important thing. Well, and you're bringing it down to the individual to say, we can't wait for the industry itself to start regulating itself for us to feel comfortable and the awareness of the direct impact. I mean, we've been speaking about immune disorders, but I mean, the significant, I can't stop to think about the increase in anxiety and depression and emotional regulation difficulties. And it's so easy to point to environmental stressors, right? The climate stress, political chaos, but to stop and think about the significant amount of chemicals that are surrounding us every day and to not pay attention to that particular thing that we can have a direct impact on, really missing something. Like we talk about immune disorders, but what other ways do you feel these kinds of toxic chemical environment that we live in or seeped in might be affecting us in terms of our mood, in terms of our inflammation in our body? Are there other ways for us to be thinking about it? Yeah, I'm glad you asked this because when I see patients, for instance, who have had concussions, who have anxiety and depression, who have, you know, insomnia or sleep disorders, anything, you know, you might consider brain centric. Where do I go? I go with helping them fix their gut because the gut brain connection is remarkable. And the science is just coming out left and right about how much this gut, this microbiome relates to the brain. So let me give you some mechanisms of how that works. So we have not just the direct effects on the thin, vulnerable microbes of the gut microbiome, which kind of makes them leaky when you knock off the good guys, you're starting letting junk over that tube and into the bloodstream. So there's your immunologic response as well. But interestingly enough, the healthy microbes that we can maintain and keep a balance of in the gut. Now, this is going to sound crazy to some people, but what happens is when those microbes are thriving, they create a substance. I mean, you want to call it poop. I don't know what you want to call it, but it's actually easier to think of when you think of an ecosystem in the gut. when those microbes are thriving and doing well and they're the healthy ones right the ones that are non-pathologic so to speak not salmonella but like really good healthy ones like lactobacillus and bifidobacterium and when they're doing well they create a substance called butyrate and small chain fatty acids small chain fatty acids come from these healthy microbes and they circulate they not only cross the gut microbiome tube the gastrointestinal tube into the bloodstream which takes them to the brain, but they can also travel via the vagal nerve to the brain, which is the largest nerve that innervates the gut. So you have these multiple mechanisms by which the good products from these microbes travel and can cross the blood-brain barrier into the brain. And it is very much not only theorized, but been tested to show that these small chain fatty acids, butyrate is one of them, can contribute to better health of the brain, whether it's concussions, whether it's schizophrenia and psychotic disorders, whether it's just anxiety mood. It's a remarkable phenomenon. And so the more we understand how the body works, it kind of all comes back to not all, but a lot to where the gut is, whether stress is managing the gut, you know, you know how we all get ulcers if we have so much stress. That's something we have to work on to create a better environment. Whether we're exercising, which actually improves gut microbiome flora and the variety of non-pathologic bacteria, you can actually change which bugs are in your gut simply by even incorporating exercise. By drinking clean filtered water, you can avoid things like chlorine that can have direct effects on those microbiome microbes that are trying to thrive and live. So there's all these little nuances of how to make your ecosystem work. I think of it as sort of like middle school salamander that you're feeding. You're feeding your little salamander because the more you help your gut, the more the gut actually ends up helping you on a variety of ways that are beyond just cancer prevention and balance, hormone management and menopause. There's studies on this, on bone health as a rheumatologist, but brain health. And I think that's something we can utilize even as you know people who handle the brain therapists and social workers and neurologists we should be thinking about how do we support the brain nutritionally how do we detox the body from stuff we don't always know we're exposed to in a reasonable way and how do we make the gut healthier overall in a process that's reasonable not 100 but 80 20 type of perspective well as many therapists listening out there we think about all the ways to try to help our clients and form more security inside and in their relationships and a better mental health overall. And it would never cross my mind to ask somebody to look at the toxins in their environment or that. I mean, exercise, yes, we have the direct relationship. Are you exercising, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But when you're bringing in what kind of toxins are you taking in and doing it in a way that could have a very deep impact, that's something when you feel like you're out of control of everything else, that's something we actually can look at and we can have some agency about. A hundred percent. The world where we're given diagnosis, in my world, it's lupus and rheumatoid and all these conditions that we're like, how did we get this? And I don't have a family member with this. And where did this come from? This is the deduction we can start doing. I have a 50 question survey in this book. It's not to judge. It's really to say, okay, where do we begin? You know, assess is my first A of the four A's of environmental health navigation. So where do we begin? Where are we getting exposures? Put a one or zero, add it up. That's where we're beginning. The second A is avoid or swap. You know, do we really need 100 different surface cleaners, carpet cleaners, sink cleaners, oven cleaners? That's marketing. That's that's us, you know, keeping up with the Joneses. So we can either reduce those numbers in total to what, you know, a surface cleaner. I even have do it yourself recipes for white vinegar and lemon juice and or you could swap to products that are already being made that are doing it better and cleaner. You don't have to make anything. The third A of the four A's of environmental health navigation is add. What do we add into the human body and the human existence to make it healthier, to make it offset some of the environmental exposure problems that come from our exposures from a, you know, epigenetic component? So nutrition matters. What matters in nutrition? How do you choose supplements is in the book. Try to figure out in this billion dollar industry, what is junk and what is good and what is high yield? Not a bunch of stuff, but small number of great stuff. and what is the food we can eat food is medicine what is the quality of our drinking water when our body is 85 percent water why don we think about that ever i mean we have a billion dollar industry on diets but no one talks about water And we drink that even more than eating food So when you start to kind of have this perspective without going bonkers, and you have empowerment, like you're talking about, you also have control over not just what you eat, what you do, but also the destiny of your health, whether you do express genes that are, you know, leading towards a disease such as cancer, breast cancer or autoimmune disease, or whether you're going to keep them quiet and keep those proteins nicely sitting on top of the genes that express those diseases and maintain that. So that is a lot of what we have the power to do that most people don't think we do. We do. Well, and you have some, I'm trying to remember the gentleman's name, but you referred to some actual research out there with just toxins being taken out of somebody's system. Goodson, Dr. William Goodson. So Fred Ritvon, Saul, and I wrote two books, two textbooks for Oxford, and that he's an emeritus chemical researcher. He's incredible. And I partnered up with him because I was really managing the clinical portion of what I see and do. And, you know, very fun experience, but he's brilliant, right? So he got BPA out of baby bottles with all of his colleagues. And it was only one of like five or seven chemicals that have, by the way, ever been removed from any of our products in the US. I think we should mention that. And if BPA, bisphenol A, which was taken out of baby bottles because they're plastic endocrine disruptors and not taken out of canned foods, which it lines the interior of every canned food, organic or not in the US, because it's a food packaging argument, not a food content. so to be honest you know we've gotten a little further but we're not nearly as far as we should but I think you're mentioning Dr. William Goodson who I interviewed for my podcast I also interviewed Fred in case anyone wants to see those interviews they're remarkable but William Goodson is a breast surgeon and he did some of the most incredible studies before he's retired now he does some consulting but he basically had 28 women take you know women who did not have breast cancer themselves who had family members. So they felt very strongly about participating in this study, which is not fun. Technically, these 28 women had fine needle breast biopsies, which for some people who've experienced that is not fun, but it's a piece of your breast tissue and analyzed for a variety of cancer signals or breast cancer itself. These, I think it was 28 women over 30 days gave up or swapped out their personal care products to safer versions using apps that I talk about in the book, like Healthy Living and Clearya and ewg.org slash skin deep and a bunch of different easy stuff to look up. For 30 days, they changed out their products to safer products with far safer ingredients. And then they were re-biopsied and all 28 women actually showed up for the biopsy for the second time. And turns out that when they studied just this change for 30 days, they could see a change in the signal for breast cancer development. And it got some attention, but it didn't get enough attention because, in my opinion, because he represents this movement where when you're being sponsored by Procter & Gamble or sponsored by J&J or sponsored by big corporations, you're not going to have the media savvy to put this man on TV and talk about this study. So you have to dig it up in the research. So, you know, I just think that there's a reason why we're not hearing as much as we should for a variety of reasons, not always clandestine. Yeah. Variety of reasons, including commercialism, right? Like what's, what products are you going to, are going to be supporting the programs that we're watching that would give us access to this kind of research? Yeah. I have a colleague who wrote a book on environmental chemicals and he did one stint, I think on either the Today Show or Good Morning America, I think for like 20 seconds stint and all of his other stints to promote the book were canceled the rest of the day by, by the time that was aired. so we know that this is a battle if it wasn't a battle i wouldn't be getting you know comments on my book you know a few here and there um on amazon which clearly come from the chemical industry folks so it's a battle and i think if and by the way anyone can put a five star and i'd be really appreciated because it's a battle of how do we get out there more show that this is a problem and give people resources. I'm not here to promote products. I'm here to give people the fishing rod so that they can fish, not give them the fish. Yeah, you're talking about person. Again, we come back to the personal empowerment of what things do we have that we can have access to. And then we have a lot of empowerment because where we put our dollars really, really matters and really shapes where we're coming from. And so having this kind of information that would turn us away from even our need in the future from pharmaceuticals, right? Like if we're having gut issues and gut issues, we're purchasing things, right? But if we're really thinking about our gut biome and we're really taking care of it, it could make this, you know, this effect that happens all the way down the line. And so it's really, that's why I was so excited about you coming on the show because it's an element that I think of in my personal life, right? But it's something that I hadn't thought about how to integrate it in a show that focuses mostly on mental health and wellness and yet it's just like how could I not have somebody on that's talking about the kind of environmental things that can have the very direct impact on how our stress level happens the inflammation in our body that creates all sorts of havoc in our gut that it makes a complete difference in our relationships in our everyday how we relate to one another how we regulate our emotions. So anyway, it's very exciting. Even I was sitting here when you're talking and saying exactly, by the way, I can't thank you enough for having me on because you're absolutely right. Like if we could just get this into other, you know, arenas where the framing makes sense, you know, still comes back to some of the same tenets, but even like sleep, for instance, we know that during sleep, there's great science to show that we're washing out some of these exposures to chemicals from air, from water, you know, things you can't control always, you know, you're driving into the city, you got a meeting, whatever. But when you're sleeping at night, we have actual known mechanisms through what's called the glymphatic system, which is this watery system around the brain and spinal fluid that actually washes chemicals and breaks them down while we sleep. So one of the things to think about is not to take an Ambien or to take a sleep pill, if you don't have to, right? I'm not here to be your doctor, but to sort of guide, but to really work on sleep as a mechanism of overall health that includes, you know, how we get rid of chemicals, because quality and quantity of sleep not only makes you feel refreshed, ready for your day, cognition improves, memory improves, but here you have this added value of removing a lot of the exposures that you had no control over. And so again, it's not about taking the medicines to knock you out, It's really about how do you improve your sleep from a holistic perspective if you can do it. And there's things like nutrients, like magnesium, certain types that, you know, some make you go to the bathroom. You don't want to take those too much. But the idea is that magnesium is very helpful to the brain and been well studied. It's something that we're deficient in as human beings. Now, you wouldn't take magnesium too much if you had kidney failure or chronic kidney issues. So that's where an integrative doctor or someone who has more of a medical perspective might be helpful. and not taking supplements willy nilly. I try to guide people as to what to think about what's safe and what to, you know, who shouldn't be taking certain things and how to find quality stuff. So you don't waste your money. Those are things that I think are really helpful for the brain and for mental health to consider. So yeah, it's hard to find that, you know, the, the separate the quality, really well-researched products from that as sort of the commercial marketed, oh, this is a great idea, so buy this product, buy this supplement. So I'm glad you mentioned that. As therapists, Sue and I both know the powerful impact of therapy. Well, we all do, or you wouldn't be a listener of Therapists Uncensored. But sometimes we need more, and finding a psychiatrist, especially one that's well-qualified and has availability, can be so hard. You know, it's common to be on a waiting list for months. And with so much going on in the world, Sue and I, I'm so glad we've discovered talkiatry. Talkiatry is 100% online psychiatry. You see a medical provider who does comprehensive evaluations, diagnosis, and ongoing medication management for conditions like ADHD, anxiety, OCD, and more. So what I love is that all of their clinicians while they're well-trained and are in network with major insurers. So you can use your existing insurance instead of paying either monthly prescriptions or the high out-of-network fees. So you have access to experienced licensed psychiatrists. They're going to take the time to do a personalized treatment plan and if right prescribe medications that's right for you. Good news is getting started only takes moments. You complete a short online assessment and it It helps you get matched with, again, the clinician that meets your needs, schedule, and insurance. And guess what? You can be seen in days, not months. So to get started, head to talkiatry.com slash tu. Complete the short assessment to get matched with an in-network psychiatrist in just a few minutes. So that's talkiatry, T-A-L-K-I-A-T-R-Y dot com slash tu to get matched in minutes. Okay, let's jump back in. let's get to some of the how-tos because i'm very motivated to clean up the system and to help people like in our environment besides i love that people will find a connection to your podcast as well as connections to your book etc in our show notes so we'll reference that at the very end But what are some short like, OK, these are some must do's, right? Like is organic matter? Does it really, really matter to buy organic? And if we can't afford to buy organic, what's our options? So what are the maybe 10 things I could do tomorrow that would be really accessible that could possibly make a big difference in my life? Great question. So, yeah, I keep it simple. Stupid is the way I live my life. I have two teenage boys, so I have to keep it very simple. So, you know, when I think about the big problem, number one is not buy a lot of stuff you don't need in the first place. If you don't bring products that you're not even sure of the ingredients, lots of cleaning products, particularly air fresheners, plug-ins, candles, things with phthalates that are, you know, basically fragrance chemicals that keep that scent lasting longer. They're the most, you know, I would say at this point, most well-tested of many groups of chemicals, but also shown to have hormone and immune disrupting capability. I'm sorry to interrupt. Anything that has fragrance in it, you're saying like candles, air fresheners, things like that, that we're basically spraying something in the air that's going to likely have an immediate impact on our system. Yeah, or land on the products that are, I mean, couches and tables and land on dust and, you know, babies, hand to mouth, pets, you know, all that. So the idea is when you stop the flow into your home or into your workspace, I'm at work and I manage all the cleaning products. You know, I buy them for my office cleaning system. So, you know, maybe it's a little more of an investment, but it's not expensive because you know exactly what to get. But needless to say, if you cut off the flow into your home by just reducing overall numbers, you're going to get somewhere better. And then when you are bringing in those products, choose ones that actually you just look for two seconds on these apps that are free to see what they're rated. And you can choose just a different product. I mean, my kids, you know, when they went to summer camp a few years back, they all wanted, you know, they wanted really lots of product. These kids, right? They want shampoos and conditioners and this whole landscape. I said, listen, if you don't find something that, you know, you can only get stuff that's a two or a one on EWG Skin Deep database. Sure enough, in two seconds, they gave me 10 products they wanted each that were rated one or two. So anyone can do this. It's just taking the time to do it. Could you reference those two apps? What apps are you speaking of? Yeah. So it's a website is one of them, which is Environmental Working Group, the environment. But the website is actually ewg.org. And then if you want to get directly to their product, look up. It's slash skin deep, one word. And I do this with high school students. I'll have them download this website or this app. Their app is called Healthy Living, which you can take on the go when you're in the stores. You can use barcodes from the store. You can actually just type it in. A lot of times the product's in there, not always, but there's certainly enough in there. like 90,000 products in the app and in the website. So there's also Clearia, Yuka, Think Dirty. They access some of the same databases for chemical exposures and toxicity. So, you know, they're really just reframed how they're set up. So you can just walk in a store. And I know my daughter does this sometimes. So you walk in a store and actually immediately right then. So then it comes up and, you know, I could put like, for instance, Revlon, which I wouldn't say off the top of my head is so safe but look at that they have a bunch of ones that they have in terms of their products and then you get twos and then it goes into like threes and fours so you can start to see that even under the heading of Revlon which is the broader search now you got the threes and it goes up to fives and sixes so they're taking these products and they're giving them a label and I say nothing less or above two makes sense in the markets that are filled with cleaner products and the more we do that of course then the more these this is this is the way that we're going to have agency and empowerment because the more we actually take the time to look at what we're ingesting and what our children are ingesting or purchasing or putting around us, that's going to have the impact of, oh, we need to produce more products like this. Oh yeah. You're moving them with your dollars. And so you're having all these ripple effects. You're not only also an example to your family. I mean, my kids don't listen to me for a lot, you know, they're still drinking like Gatorade and all this stuff, but I see them making choices and I would rather them do this, you know, in a way that sticks like everyone else. It's always better when it comes to you naturally. It's never good means force because, you know, kids react, I react. No one's to be told what to do. But when it's given to you as say, here's what you need to know if you want to dive in and do it at your own pace. And these are healthy, you know, resources. It's amazing what I'm observing and how they handle their health. And you have ripple effects is women even, we're the ones who buy products for the home. We're the ones who really create this environment. And so we have so much positive stuff that we can create, even if someone's not paying attention right But we can work by example you know we can live by example I think with a lot of this so it easy if you do that so number one you take away things you don need and then what you want to add you add in a very reasonable way when you're ready to dive in and choose better products and by the way it makes life a lot easier to shop because once you have your favorite stuff that's vetted it takes two seconds to buy this stuff there's not a lot of time in the store that I find, even with food that I've chosen now that are, you know, I choose USDA organic products because the number of chemicals and pesticides in food is enormous. And many of those chemicals have endocrine and immune disrupting effects, including glyphosate, including processed chemicals, synthetic chemicals, like for colors, preservatives, additives, genetically modified ingredients, those things are not allowed in USDA organic certified products with the label. And I talk about in the book what to look for because it took 10 years to create this certification system and 10 years to implement in the early 90s. And it is the only regulation within our entire system besides, say, the FDA for medications that the U.S. has. That is mind blowing. So when I tell people to do this, I understand people are like, oh, it's so expensive or I can't have access to it. Well, guess what? Here's what changes all of that. Frozen USDA organic produce, veggies and fruits that are packaged and frozen immediately have all of the nutritional value, if not more than food that travels across the U.S. or across the country or to other countries into our fresh supermarket. Wow, really? So you would say, but then I'm thinking about this frozen food. Isn't it typically in a plastic package? It all is, whether it's fresh or it's frozen. So here's the trick. Net-net, you want the nutrition component plus the removal of toxic chemicals. from farming. And the only way to really do that is frozen. Now, if you had a farmer's market like we have here in Princeton on weekends, they have organics farmers. They also have farmers that really aren't organic because it's a lift, but they have really modest or no pesticide use. And you can talk to your farmers. You can talk to folks that are doing it really well, even if they're not organic. Those would be ideal. Like that would be at the top of the list because you're getting it fresh picked that morning. So the nutritional value is high. If they're organic, you know, they have very little to no chemicals. It's not perfect, but it's a good system. And so that's ideal. Second on that list would be frozen organics because technically speaking, you want the USDA component, but if you have no nutrition in your food, you've sort of defeated the purpose. You know, you got the fiber, but you're going to lose antioxidants like vitamin C and vitamin A, because those actually go quickly. That just blows my mind. I had not, I love this. So if I'm trying to choose between, if I can't have access to organic and so many stores do not have the boxes that people need to shop in for access, we can't drive to local whole food markets. We need to go to our regular stores, they don't have organic. And so it feels like an access issue, right? Frozen vegetables. Wow. Frozen vegetables and fruit because ShopRite, and I don't care, I'm not promoting, I don't work for any of these companies. ShopRite is all over the country. Target's all over the country. Stop and shop. We have Wegmans all over the East Coast. Every one of these big box stores has their own line of organic produce. And we can trust that it's organic because it has the U.S. Once that seal is on, it has to be held to that standard. I mean, it's the best we have. If there's people who make, you know, obviously there's problems in the system, in every system, but it's the only thing we have that democratizes the health of our food system. It's the only thing. So when you go frozen or you go in season, you can always, you know, blueberry season that's organic is much cheaper than not organic. I just had blueberries from Peru, right? In my little plastic to go, you know, to container. It's not that I'll say no to fresh supermarket organic produce. It's just that I, you know, I'm on the go. So maybe I don't want the frozens because then I have to defrost it, but I mix it up and there's value to all of it in terms of fiber, in terms of things that don't break down as quickly, right? But I will say that my blueberries from Peru were not packed that morning. So I know that it probably took a couple good weeks at low temperature refrigeration to get to my store that became my breakfast, you know, or lunch or snack. So the idea is you're just making these choices with your eyes wide open. That's it. And knowing that these things are excellent to take that fruit and vegetables from the plastic. You don't want to ever steam bags, right? You want to avoid plastic Tupperware. This is probably number two, three on my list, right? Get rid of Tupperware and plastics because we don't want those plastics in our food and in our drinks. We want to carry around glass, stainless steel, very easy swap. But a really important swap, isn't it? Is there a relationship if you found, and I know we're going to have to wrap, I have a thousand more questions, but has there been research oriented relationship now between plastic containers and the increased diagnosis of autism? I know that there's been a big argument about that. It's a great question, but it's a little bit more complex than that because plastics in and of themselves have two problems. A, they're mechanically problematic because they get stuck in our body. Like we can actually measure them. I talk about microplastics getting stuck in blood vessels. We found them in placenta. We found them in blood. We found them in breast milk. We found them in all sorts of the brain has microplastics getting caught physically, right? We think of a credit card size plastics that we consume every week. So we have that science that needs to be continued. But then we also have what makes up these plastics. The plastics themselves are made up of chemicals that break down. They're also intentionally infused with chemicals like flame retardants, like heat resistant chemicals, you know, antimicrobials on chopping boards, you know, there's lots of things that plastics can be mixed with in the mixer. So it's a complex. So when we talk about autism, which is such a complex conversation, it also depends where we're exposed, when we're exposed, for how long we're exposed, to what we're exposed and why is it, you know, we might have a half-life that's shorter than others. You know, in utero exposure is a very big conversation versus even childhood exposure. These are vulnerable periods of development. So, you know, it's a very sensitive topic because no one wants to be blamed for their choices. I I actually talk about how when I was nine months pregnant and probably most of my pregnancy, I would roll up to McDonald's and get the hot deluxe breakfast every morning in hot black plastic and enjoyed every minute of it. Right. Gain 30 pounds. Boy, I had a good time. But that was before I understood what I could be contributing to. I have regret, but I'm not to the point where I feel like I'm a bad mother. Right. Because I didn't know. And I don't want anyone to feel that way because we're all in this together. together and we should never be judged for activities that we didn't know better and maybe could even do better, you know. So I think it's just really important conversation, whether it's breast cancer or autism or any, I mean, we're having cancers by young people all over the news. I mean, if you think about it, it's one piece of the subject of how do we live longer and healthier? and really this is a piece of it that is empowering and doable. If it wasn't doable, I wouldn't post on it on the smart human. I wouldn't write about it and I wouldn't lecture about it. I love where you went with that because it's so easy to be talking about these kind of impacts and then somehow it'd be extrapolated that if I have breast cancer or myself or a child has neurodivergence as if there's something that's happened that's wrong and that has been cause that you could have stopped it. And you're really adding to the complexity. What we're trying to do is just live longer, live healthier, and really look at the things that we know could impact the way that our body functions. And, you know, plastics for sure, plastics for sure are not good for any of us. And I think about you were talking about water earlier, and I think about our compulsive need to have water bottles, but that means we're all walking around with water in plastic containers that have been in hot sun. And I'm just like, now I can't even see that, you know, because just of our awareness of how the plastic seep into the water we're drinking. But you're saying making active choices and we're not, none of us are going to live perfectly. We're still going to stop by the fast food for our children at times when we're in a hurry and we're not trying to create guilt or obsessiveness, but just make it a more doable decision making every day. If we improve our environment by a certain percentage every day, that's just better. Absolutely. We're going to travel. We're not going to have access to everything we have at home. We're going to go to birthday parties and eat purple ice cream because it's our birthday. We're going to have kids who refuse our healthy stuff so they can have stuff that makes them look cool at a birthday party. It's going to happen. The question is, how do we just slowly create an environment and a culture around thinking about these ideas and then slowly implementing them at the right time and place. And what I kind of like to do is make humorous. How do we go about doing this? What were the things that I mean, I cracked an egg in my kettle thinking it was nonstick and then I couldn't get the egg out. I mean, I did all sorts of things because I didn't understand how to approach it. Now I have a better idea as a mom, as a doctor, as someone who really hangs out with a lot of smart researchers, but is trying to just interpret this information in a way that's actually usable for the average mere mortal. That to me has been my life's joy. And if I can make a difference into someone's life that feels better for them because they're now getting it and owning it and makes that change, they might do another change and then another. So it's about kind of this 80-20 approach, I think, where you take it seriously, but you don't take it so seriously that you're adding the stress that you're trying to remove in the first place. That's not good. Like I said, I tried to create a way that was almost gamifying. It's a 21-day plan if you want it, but if you want to dig in the slower, that's good too. It's just a matter of who you are and what you're ready to do. Our home is someplace that we can really take more control over because that's our lives, right? Sometimes our work we can control too. But once we step outside our homes, we're sort of at the whim of many systems that we can't always control. So I say, you know what, start with your home, start where it feels good and get good at some of those things. And then you can kind of extrapolate to better ideas outside your four walls. Well, I feel very inspired and very grateful that you would come and talk to me and talk to our listeners about this and that you're out there trying to have such a big impact in the way that people will listen and i know you you also talk a lot about we didn't get a chance to talk about that but how important it is to teach kids this we've mentioned it we've referenced it but how vulnerable we talked about women but kids and their hormonal development and growth it's a really is a period of education for multiple times not just to develop multiple reasons not just to develop good habits, but their bodies are really at a more vulnerable place. So you can have long-term impact for your children as well by just thinking about it in this protective way. Yeah. And I mean, the next generation, I have, like I said, two kids and, you know, I want them to have healthy lives. I want them to, you know, have healthy children, you know, and I want them to thrive. So, you know, the idea is really, you're laying the groundwork for not just your own generation of doing better, but maybe even successive generations. You know, I'm starting to see their choices and what they're thinking about and what they're hearing from their friends. And then their friends are following me on the smart human and my kids aren't. And, you know, then I understand. Very funny. You know, I actually did their high school assembly before my oldest graduated. I had really said I need to do this before they leave because it matters to me. and the amount of support from their friends. Because I think when it's not your own mother talking, you listen better. And I just think maybe give people a book and say, share it amongst your friends or watch the Smart Human Podcast. Give it away if it's not your thing. It might actually resonate better, especially with your own kids. Yeah, my kids' friends will talk about an episode they've listened to. And there's not one, you know, light going on with my own kids going, oh, yeah, I listen to that, too. They're like, you listen. Why would you do that? So I really resonate with that. So how can if they want to do the 21 day plan, how could they best find that? Tell us about your book. I know that we've mentioned it before, but go ahead. How can they find the book and how can they find your podcast? And we will have this in the show notes. so the book is available on amazon and barnes and noble and everywhere you buy your books but anyway it's detoxify the everyday toxins harm in your immune system and how to defend against them and the 21 day plan is very simple and has recipes in the book for food that are detoxifying it has symptom surveys for people who have actual symptoms and want to go through this 21 days And following me is The Smart Human. On Instagram, it's at The Smart Human. Take it out on Twitter, The Smart Human Podcast on iTunes and other places to get your podcasts. And the smarthuman.com has resources from The Smart Human Academy. Well, thank you so much for coming on. I really enjoyed the conversation. I feel like I learned a great deal. I know our listeners did, too. So I really appreciate you. Thank you, Anne. Thanks for having me and for sharing this information with your community. I appreciate it. All right. Thanks so much for joining us, you all. If this information seemed helpful, do you pass it on? Let's spread the word, all right? That is a way that we're going to take care of one another in this modern world. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll see you around the bin. Therapist Uncensored is Ann Kelly and Sue Marriott. This podcast is edited by Jack Anderson. Thank you.