Never Be Sick Again (25 page)

Next, look in your bathrooms. It's likely that enough toxic chemicals are there to make anybody sick. The toxic products include not only toilet bowl cleaners and air fresheners, but items such as toothpaste, mouthwash, hair spray, cosmetics, shampoo and soap (not to mention the toxic chlorinated water coming out of the tap). All of these products can be replaced with safer, simpler items available in health food stores; they will be equally effective without harming your health.

The laundry room is another toxic site. Detergents, bleach, spot removers and fabric softeners all contain chemicals that are toxic to you and to the environment. Manufacturers have lulled us into complacency with the term “biodegradable detergents.” This fact has little to do with the eventual health and environmental impact of these synthetic chemicals. Biodegradable means only that at some point the detergent will lose its foaming properties. Purchase unscented products. Detergents can be replaced with soap-based products, while bleach can be replaced with safer sodium percarbonate or hydrogen peroxide.

Furniture anywhere in the house, but especially in bedrooms, can present significant risks. Today, furniture often is made with toxic synthetic materials (polyester, polyurethane, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride), which off-gas toxic vapors; likewise, some types of furniture are made of particle-board (which, as already mentioned, will off-gas formaldehyde) and then covered with a wood or plastic veneer. Alarmingly, most children's furniture is made with toxic par-ticleboard! One study showed that introducing particleboard furniture into an empty house tripled the formaldehyde levels in the air. This problem can be particularly acute in mobile homes, where
everything
may be made from particleboard. Buy furniture made from natural materials, such as solid wood or metal furniture; if this option is too expensive, consider used furniture made of these materials.

Even the clothes you wear can be toxic. Have you ever gone into a clothing store and noticed the chemical-laden atmosphere? Most clothes today contain or are made of toxic synthetic fibers (such as nylon, polyester, acrylics and spandex), which will affect you adversely as you wear them and also contribute to toxic indoor air. Clothes are often treated with dyes, formaldehyde finishes (permanent press), and mothproofing pesticides. Dry cleaning clothing brings toxins into your household and close to your body; clothes that have been dry-cleaned should always be aired out before they are put into a closet or worn. Laundry detergents and fabric softeners can also be problematic; in fact, many people are quite sensitive to detergent residues. Have you ever walked down the detergent aisle at the grocery store and had your eyes, nose or throat feel irritated? Toxins in those boxes are off-gassing. When washing your clothes, use environmentally friendly and unscented laundry products available in health food stores. Do not use scented fabric softeners. These products might make your clothes smell “fresh and clean,” but that smell is toxic.
Buy clothes made of natural materials, such as wool and cotton,
and use natural cleaning products.

After you have taken steps to reduce or eliminate products that are toxic,
make sure to also
keep your home or office well ventilated. Modern homes and office buildings are built a lot “tighter” than older construction to save on energy costs. While reducing energy waste is a good thing, reducing air circulation allows pollutants to accumulate to higher concentrations. For this reason, high-quality air filters (that will filter out both particulate matter and gaseous hydrocarbons) can be helpful. Use them in rooms where you spend a great deal of time, such as your office or bedroom.

Obvious as it sounds, the most important thing you can do to keep your indoor air clean is to stop introducing pollutants in the first place. Before you purchase something new, consider if that product might contribute to your indoor pollution. As mentioned earlier, after you buy something, give it a chance to off-gas before you put it in your living environment. When I purchase a new television or computer monitor, I put it in the garage, turn it on and leave it there until I can no longer detect an odor. Hang your dry-cleaning outdoors or in a well-ventilated area until you can no longer detect an odor. Do not use products that have powerful chemical odors, such as mothballs or air fresheners. Use heat or sunshine to help expedite the off-gassing process, whenever possible.

Health and Beauty Products That Fail

Your skin provides enormous protection from microorganisms, such as germs, but skin also is designed to be permeable, allowing certain molecules in and out, which is good news when the skin allows antioxidants in to protect against the sun and allows toxins out through the sweat and oil glands. However, easy access also allows environmental toxins to penetrate.

Personal care products are the largest source of toxic absorption through the skin and mucus membranes. One study found that 13 percent of the commonly used cosmetic preservative BHT (butylated hydroxytoluene) is absorbed by your skin. Chemicals found in everyday personal products such as perfume, cologne, shaving cream, skin lotions, aftershave, toothpaste, soaps, shampoos, deodorants, nail polish, all types of household cleansers and so forth, can be absorbed quickly and produce effects that are toxic or even carcinogenic, especially when these toxic substances are combined.

When I was suffering from severe chemical sensitivities, I found, much to my surprise, that the brands of toothpaste, shampoo, deodorant and skin lotion that I was using were all quite toxic. Products such as lotions, conditioners and makeup, especially when left on the skin for long periods of time, expose you to significant amounts of toxins, which can bioaccumulate, poison your cells and cause disease. Most common products sold to preserve and protect the skin in fact actually contain chemicals capable of damaging the skin.

Virtually all commonly available cosmetic and personal care products contain ingredients (such as preservatives and colors) that are known to present problems. Many preservatives contain or release formaldehyde, a known toxin and carcinogen. Various parabens (a specific class of preservatives) have been shown to damage deep layers of the skin worse than severe sunburn, which causes the skin to age prematurely and even can cause cancer. Artificial colors have been shown to be carcinogenic, not only when ingested but also when applied to the skin. Yet people voluntarily put these personal care products on their skin daily, unaware that these products contain toxic and potentially carcinogenic ingredients.
By using
products such as sunscreen and lotion, people are putting
cancer-causing chemicals on their skin, then wondering why
they developed skin cancer or why their skin is aging so fast.

Choosing safe personal care and cosmetic products means reading labels carefully and learning about the health consequences of ingredients. Effective products are on the market that are high in quality and safety. The overwhelming majority, however, contain a variety of toxins that should be avoided. Some of the common toxins to look for and avoid include artificial fragrances, colors and flavors, formaldehyde, phenol, trichlorethylene, BHT/BHA, EDTA, cresol, detergents, glycols, parabens, sodium lauryl sulfate and nitrates/ nitrosamines.

Perfumes and other fragrances also cause problems. Traditionally, these products were made from flowers and herbs. But since World War II, most fragrances and perfumes have been made from synthetic petrochemicals, many of which are officially designated as hazardous materials. In fact, about 95 percent are synthetic, and more than 80 percent of the ingredients used in fragrances have never been tested for human safety. When they have been tested, many are found to be neuro-toxic and even carcinogenic. (Meanwhile, because of “trade secrets,” manufacturers are not required to list any of these toxic ingredients on their product labels.) Worse, these fragrances are not just in perfumes, but in everything from kitty litter to shampoos, soaps, lotions, shaving creams, household cleaners, laundry detergents and numerous other products. Fragrances now pollute our homes, schools, workplaces, stores, churches and other public places. People who regularly use synthetic perfumes are putting a heavy toxic burden on their bodies. The solution is to use essential oils made from natural ingredients such as flowers and herbs, if tolerable, and to avoid household and personal products made with synthetic fragrances.

I have spent years researching the toxic effects of chemicals used to make products that people consume on a daily basis. I discovered that regular toothpaste, for example, contains numerous toxins, such as fluoride, artificial colors, flavors, sweeteners and synthetic detergents, all of which can bioaccumulate in the body and lead to toxic overload. Toothpaste is especially important because the mucous membranes in your mouth are very permeable, so if you expose yourself to toxic toothpaste several times a day, you subject yourself to a lot of toxins. I eventually selected a toothpaste for my personal use that was both safe and effective (see appendix C), but it took eighteen months of research to find it.

Toxic chemicals, used for detergent and foam-generating properties, are present in most toothpastes, as well as in many other personal care and household products. When these toxins— sodium lauryl sulfate, sodium cetyl sulfate and sodium laureth sulfate—are placed on the surface of the body, they can cause eye irritations, skin rashes, hair loss, scalp flaking similar to dandruff and allergic reactions. These chemicals are known to be irritating to the skin and are used to irritate the skin in laboratory experiments! Think about what happens when your highly sensitive gum tissue comes into contact with a known irritant, like sodium lauryl sulfate, in your toothpaste. Could this factor be contributing to our epidemic of gum disease?

These man-made detergents pass through the skin and mucous membranes and bioaccumulate in fatty tissue—eye tissue, for example. Is there a possible connection between the sodium lauryl sulfate found in toothpaste and our epidemic of macular degeneration—a disease in which cells in the central part of the retina degenerate, and the leading cause of blindness in people over age fifty-five?

The focus of manufacturers is always on marketability, so they often try to disguise these synthetic and toxic ingredients by making them seem “natural.” Labels will often state something like, “sodium lauryl sulfate—derived from coconut.” Regardless of derivation they are toxic and can accumulate easily in your tissues to levels that cause cellular malfunction and disease.

People choose antibacterial soaps thinking they will protect them from germs, but the germicide in the soap goes right through the skin and bioaccumulates in tissue. In fact, these toxic chemicals, designed to kill cells, are now showing up in alarming amounts in human breast milk, and infants are much more susceptible to toxins. As always, the solution is to choose safe, natural products, usually available at health food and specialty stores. There are high-quality, certified organic, hair and skin care products available and I recommend you use them. (See appendix C for my personal choices.)

Toxic Cleaning Products

The home can be a toxic place already—do not make it more so with toxic cleaning products, solvents and workplace chemicals. Household cleaning products rank among the most toxic everyday substances to which people are exposed. Unfortunately, the manufacturer of household products is seldom the best source of accurate information about safety. As a practical matter, do not let any chemical come in contact with your skin unless you know it is safe. Most commercial brands are not safe, although safe household products are available at health food and specialty stores. (See appendix C for my choices.)

Some especially toxic household cleaners include ammonia, chlorine bleach, aerosol propellants, detergents, petroleum distillates and toluene. Many of these substances not only harm the skin; they also give off toxic fumes that affect the person using the product and everyone else in the household. If you cannot avoid toxic household products, at least use them sparingly and in well-ventilated areas.

Symptoms from “the flu” to headaches have been associated with products we use to clean our furniture, bathrooms and clothes, as well as air fresheners to keep our bathrooms smelling pleasant. Debra Lynn Dadd, in
Nontoxic and Natural,
wrote about a fifteen-year study of housewives in Oregon.
Women who
stayed home all day had a 54 percent higher death rate from
cancer than women who worked away from home.
The study concluded that the higher rate likely was a consequence of exposure to the chemicals in household products. Dadd's book, along with many others, contains formulas for making your own environmentally safe household products.

A Prescription for Toxic Overload

Often, toxic exposure comes from medical and dental offices, from the very professions that you expect would keep you healthy. Whether it is antibiotics in your food, the drug in your inhaler, steroids on your skin, mercury in your mouth, medicines in your stomach or fluoride in your water, the medical and dental industries are significant sources of toxins. In fact,
medical
journals acknowledge that prescription drugs are the third leading
cause of death in America (after heart disease and cancer).

As you recall, prescription and over-the-counter drugs “work” by interfering with normal chemical processes in cells. They are designed to suppress symptoms, but do not cure disease. In fact, by interfering with normal cell function, prescription drugs can cause cellular malfunction, which is the same as causing disease. Decisions about which procedures and medicines to choose should be based on knowledge of the toxicity involved. Every molecule you put into your body is going to have an effect, for better or worse. Almost always, prescription and over-the-counter drugs are for the worse.