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- [00:00]
A
Hi, I'm Katie Duke and I've been a nurse for over 20 years. Listen, I used to think that I was my most stylish in my 20s, but honestly, style and confidence only get better with age. And that is why I love figs. These scrubs are beautiful, comfortable, and they are built to last. They're not those boxy, scratchy uniforms that we all started out in. No, no, no. These fit perfectly, they feel amazing and the quality is just wow. My favorite color, burgundy. It's chic, it's timeless, and it's even the same color as my apartment because I'm kind of obsessed with it. And I love adding custom embroidery to make my scrubs as personal as my style. And since I work in telehealth, my embroidered figs even double as my ID badge. It's never too late to reinvent yourself or your scrubs. Get 15% off your first order at wearfigs.com with the code FIGSRX. That's wherefigs.com, code FIGSRX for 15% off your first order. Ever notice how ads always pop up at the worst moments when the killer's identity is about to be revealed during that perfect meditation flow on Amazon Music, we believe in keeping you in the moment. That's why we've got millions of ad free podcast episodes so you can stay completely immersed in every story, every reveal, every breath. Download the Amazon Music app and start listening to your favorite podcasts. Ad free included with Prime.
- [01:39]
B
Welcome to Hacking youg adhd. I'm your host, William Herb, and I have adhd. On this podcast, I dig into the tools, tactics and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain. Today I'm joined by Sky Waterson for our Research Recap series. In this series, we take a look at a single research paper and dive into what the paper says, how it was conducted, and try and find any practical takeaways. In this episode, we're going to be discussing a paper called Use of Cosmetics in Pregnancy and Neurotoxicity. Can it increase the risks of congenital enteric neuropathies? So what? In this, the authors explore the hypothesis of neurotoxins such as microplastics, parabens, benzophenones, phthalates, phthalates and metals that can cross the placental barrier and disrupt the the development of fetal nervous system. So yeah, and this may not seem very ADHD centric when you like hear that. We're like, we're talking about a lot of things here, but there's Some really interesting things we can glean here and there's definitely some connections. Let's get into it, of course, with the little bit of a disclaimer, of course, that we're not doctors and that we are not complete experts in this field, so we'll be trying to do our best.
- [02:46]
C
No, no, we're definitely not complete experts, but I will say I am a woman with ADHD who recently had a baby and used cosmetics. So I feel like in this way it at least was very interesting to read. So this conversation is about the idea and this is a review, this is not an academic sort of experimental article, but it's a review of research around the idea that taking, you know, having some kind of cosmetics, so makeup, fragrances, et cetera, is associated with certain endocrine disruptors and other things that can, you know, be negative to, to your baby. So it's crossing the blood brain, the, it's crossing the barrier, the placental barrier, basically. And so what that means, you know, is that, yeah, neurotoxicity can damage the blood brain barrier, affecting the barrier structure or disrupting its regulatory functions. And this is a concern, and this is a concern that, you know, they were, they've mentioned that it's not necessarily seen or known to be a concern all the time by people. And I will say I haven't, I have heard of it in general, but I haven't heard of it specifically related to pregnancy. So it was really interesting. You know, they, they said that it, you know, it's not limited to pregnancy, but it's just a, a particular time that's really important, both during pregnancy but also during any breastfeeding as well. So take us through Will. Why are we talking about this in terms of adhd?
- [04:30]
B
Well, in terms of adhd, really, the paper gave the phthalates as the primary culprit that we see ADHD symptoms arising from things. From their review, they found that there is definitely a link between phthalates and ADHD with higher concentrations of what I have it in my notes as dbp, but that is dibutyl phallase and that's, they find that in school age children and it's, you know, correlated with this increased attention and impulsivity. So we are seeing these, the higher levels of these chemicals in kids that are displaying ADHD symptoms. So that's kind of what we are, why this paper was relevant here for us.
- [05:24]
C
Yeah, 100%. And you know, again, it's just important to note they are saying ADHD behavioral profile, not ADHD diagnosis. And I feel like I keep having to point that out, because when you're not in an academic setting, the focus is always on the ADHD official diagnosis. But it feels like, especially in the last couple of years, that has been far less of a part of the conversation. When you're not talking about medication, people are starting to talk about subclinical ADHD and ADHD symptoms far more in research. Have you felt the same way? Will you.
- [06:04]
B
Yeah, I mean, there's definitely. I've seen a lot more talk about just the, like. Yeah. That end piece of what are. What symptoms are we seeing? And sometimes that is a valid thing that we're looking at that. And sometimes it is something that we really want to be cognizant of. That a symptom is, on its own, is not indicative of adhd, because that can be, especially in, like, the school setting. We don't. One of the important criteria for a diagnosis is that we're seeing this at both home and at school. And if we're looking at just a pure school setting, we don't. We're not getting a full picture.
- [06:45]
C
Yeah, yeah. So we're talking symptoms and we're talking association. Again, this is very. This is very initial research of a thing that we could research. But it's still important to bring to your attention, because for a lot of people, this is something, at least for me, that's the first time that we're hearing about it. So if we go into. Okay, what are phthalates?
- [07:08]
B
Yeah, so it's like they're parts of, like. Let's see, we have them listed as. They're found in eyeshadows, fragrances, nail polishes, moisturizers, hair products, but also in, like, a lot of plastic products to make them softer and stuff.
- [07:21]
C
Yeah, exactly. It's not. It's a family of chemicals used to soften plastic. So it lives around that zone of plastic. And, you know, if you are somebody who is, you know, taking in cosmetics in different ways, it can. Yeah, it can affect thyroid hormone regulation, it can affect thyroid receptors, hormone disruption. So a lot of different things that it can affect in general. Um, and I think this is where it becomes an interesting conversation, because one of the things that I saw. I was talking about this in different contexts, and one of the things that I saw written down, which I thought was hilarious, was they were like, well, you should probably avoid phthalates, because, you know, it's pretty easy. You know, it's a pretty easy thing to just not do it. And. And it's Got a big outcome. So the feeling is like, okay, we'll just be safe and just don't do it. I will say for, for just for reference, I am pretty crunchy. So I, if you don't, if you know, you know. And so I actually do. But that was a really, really complicated, expensive process that involved a lot of research and a lot of time. So when somebody says oh just avoid phthalates or other things because of this association, that is very difficult. That is not the easiest thing to do.
- [08:55]
B
Yeah. The cutting out stuff that is just everywhere in the world is hard. Yeah. Because even, and even if you don't directly get a lot of this stuff, you'll still get some aspects of it in, you know, water supply. Just, you know, it's not.
- [09:13]
C
Or dusty.
- [09:15]
B
Yeah. And this isn't to say that harm reduction isn't a great first straight where like hey, I'm going to try and reduce this but the goal shouldn't be to go to zero because that's not realistic.
- [09:26]
C
Yeah. And, and that's, that's where the whole thing becomes very complicated. I will just say because we are talking about cosmetics to save anybody time. If you are somebody who wants to reduce your phthalates and other things using cosmetics, I highly recommend Anika, not sponsored. But that was what I found after years of research is Anika has really good makeup products that don't have any of this stuff.
- [09:51]
B
Yeah. And so an interesting thing too also in this paper is they also talked quite a bit about microplastics but not directly in regards to ADHD as well. Now microplastics are something that I'm sure everyone that's listening, I've heard about all these microplastics in our life because they again are everywhere. And it was interesting that they didn't mention them in regards to ADHD because it is the, you know, microplastics were mentioned as an endocrine disruptor and endocrine disruption was also mentioned as something that was linked with ADHD symptoms. So I was like that's interesting that you didn't make this connection there. But it's probably just because it wasn't the focus of the paper.
- [10:31]
C
Yeah, yeah. The paper's focus was on looking at all of the different things that could be associated. So ADHD wasn't the only one. There was also weight, being overweight, there was autism, ASD as well as neurocognitive development struggles, Parkinson like diseases, motor skills, Alzheimer's. There was a lot of things that were associated with metals and microplastics and parabens and phthalates. In this conversation, ADHD is just the one that we're focusing on. So it is. It is a very interesting paper. And in terms of the outcome, you know, similar to another paper that we talked about recently, it's really about bringing awareness to the fact that this is something that should be paid attention to because of the concept that at the moment that is not necessarily something that people know or if they know, they might not know why, or particularly that this is most important during pregnancy.
- [11:42]
B
Yeah. And I think this is also something that is. While there is definitely individual responsibility at this point, it's also something we want to look into industry regulations in the future level. Like, be like, hey, yeah, these chemicals and plastics and all this stuff. We need to find ways to not have that everywhere.
- [11:59]
C
Yeah, 100%. And this was something else that they mentioned was some of these things are banned in certain places, but not banned in other places. And you know, being, you know, removing neurotoxic compounds from, you know, formulations, particularly of cosmetics, given that cosmetics are sort of taken in by women a lot. And it is something that, you know, women are the ones who are getting pregnant and are, you know, having to deal with these situations as well. So that when you line up all the associations, because they are all associations, you're looking at something that that sort of says, hey, we should probably not be putting this situation on women. And again, and I will say this for the last paper, the answer is not to add one more thing to the plate of somebody who is having a baby and taking care of other people. As someone who recently did that, that would be very unhelpful.
- [13:00]
B
Absolutely. Yeah. It's. This is something where it's. We want to make their. Everyone's life easier here and we want to have, you know, children that. Because, again, we are seeing ADHD symptoms here. There are a lot of other things going on with endocrine destruction as we. You're alluding to with this paper. Like, there is a lot that. That you can see. And we as a society need to be making changes. This is not simply mom needs to be better.
- [13:32]
C
Yeah, yeah, Mom's doing. Mom's doing her best.
- [13:35]
B
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, with that said, like, yeah, there are things that you can do to help on an individual level to do these things. This paper was specifically looking at, you know, the maternal side of things. But, you know, there's probably, you know, enough evidence to say that, like, even if you're not pregnant, that reducing these chemicals in your life would probably be good, too.
- [14:02]
C
Yeah, yeah, 100%. And they did mention that around things like sunscreen, for example, and other things and, you know, things that have metals in them. It's just that one of the things that we saw when looking at this research was people are particularly interested in measuring this in women because it's the. It's who are pregnant is because it's the. It's the time when these things can be the best they can. They have the biggest effect. So it's easier to study them, basically.
- [14:35]
B
Yeah. Well. And especially when we're looking at the phthalates and its effect on neurodevelopment. Absolutely. When you're having the most brain development is when you want to have the least of these.
- [14:50]
C
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So interesting connection into this idea that maybe there is more to ADHD symptoms than just genetics. And. Yeah, I'm not. I'm curious to keep delving into this because, like I said on a different episode, it's not something that I have personally done a lot of diving into because I think I've been a bit resistant to the idea that this is more than just genetics. But like you said, it could also be about those epigenetic switches.
- [15:28]
B
Yeah. And just seeing magnitude of effect because, say you have, you know, you're diagnosed with adhd, but you're also exposed to chemicals that give you more ADHD symptoms. You're going to have more adhd.
- [15:45]
C
Yeah. And this is why I love doing these research recaps, because, you know, last time I was on a podcast and they asked me what could be there was a reason for adhd. I was like, oh, you know, who knows? Genetics, probably. And now, and this paper came out pretty recently, we have a little bit more of an understanding, potentially of the beginning of an association, at least. Hello. So you were just listening to a research recap. I'm Skye Waterson of Unconventional Organization. If you like that, there's lots more information about ADHD and support for. For you@unconventional organization.com. you can go ahead and check that out. Lots of free resources, lots of strategies, and if you want to join our programs, you can do that as well. And we'll see you there. Unconventional Organization.
- [16:43]
A
Hi, I'm Katie Duke, and I've been a nurse for over 20 years. Listen, I used to think that I was my most stylish in my 20s, but honestly, style and confidence only get better with age. And that is why I love figs. These scrubs are beautiful, comfortable, and they are built to last. They're not those boxy, scratchy uniforms that we all started out in. No, no, no. These fit perfectly. They feel amazing and the quality is just wow. My favorite color? Burgundy. It's chic, it's timeless, and it's even the same color as my apartment because I'm kind of obsessed with it. And I love adding custom embroidery to make my scrubs as personal as my style. And since I work in telehealth, my embroidered figs even double as my ID badge. It's never too late to reinvent yourself or your scrubs. Get 15% off your first order at wearfigs.com with the code FIGSRX. That's wherefigs.com code FIGSRX for 15% off
- [17:43]
B
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