Transcript
Dr. Mark Hyman (0:00)
Foreign.
Dr. Mark Hyman (0:12)
Welcome to Office Hours. This is our dedicated one on one space to go deeper, get clear, and explore what truly moves the needle for your health. I'm Dr. Mark Hyman, and each week we're going to pull back the curtain and share the insights, the research, the lessons that don't always make it into our conversations with guests. Because at the end of the day, you are the CEO of your own health, and for many of you, your family's health, too. And you might not feel it all the time, but you have far more power and agency than you realize. I'm glad you're here.
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Dr. Mark Hyman (0:42)
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Most people are exposed to hundreds of chemicals every single day. Now, chronic disease isn't just about food or your genes. It's about your total toxic load, something I never learned about in medical school, like zip, zero, nada. I mean, acute toxicity, yes, but the total toxic burden we have definitely not and certainly not how to diagnose it or treat it. And that's what we're going to talk about today. So this isn't about fear and making you scared. It's not about being perfect and getting rid of every toxin. It's about understanding what you need to do, have some clarity, what you should prioritize and what you actually can control so you don't have to be ongoingly dumping toxins in your system. You're trying to eat well. If you've been taking care of yourself, but you still don't feel great, you're not alone. We're living in an environment that our bodies were never designed for. Personally, and sadly, I'm an expert in this because I lived in China in my 30s, and in the winter, the air was so thick that on a sunny, bright day you couldn't see the building across the street. And everybody wore masks. I breathed in all this soot. It was from raw coal, which is full lead mercury. And I got mercury poisoning. So I get it every day. We're exposed to hundreds of chemicals in our food, our water and the air we breathe and the products we use in our homes on our skin. And over time, this total toxic load just adds up. It's like kind of the straw that breaks the camel's back that finally makes us sick. It affects our hormones. It Affects our weight and metabolism. It affects our brain, affects our immune system. Their immunotoxins are called autogens. They're called xenohormones or xenoestrogens. They're just bad news. But here's the good news. This episode is not about fear. It's not about perfection or living in a bubble. It's about getting clear. Your body already knows how to detoxify. You just have to help it. The problem isn't that your detox systems are broken. They just a little overwhelmed. So in today's office hours, I want to make sense of the science. I want to walk you through the most common environmental toxins we're exposed to every day and how they actually impact your body. And most importantly, the simple, realistic swaps you can make right now to lower your toxic cloak. No extreme cleanses, no expensive protocols. Just practical steps to make a real difference for you and your family. So by the end of this episode, my goal is that you feel clear, you feel empowered, you feel confident about where to start, because you don't need to do everything. You just need to focus on what matters most. You, my friend, are the CEO of your own health. And today, we're going to help you take back control. So let's get into it. Here's the first topic. How environmental toxins actually affect the body. Now, before we talk about specific chemicals or products, I want to take a step back and simplify the science. Environmental toxins affect the body in a few core ways. First, they disrupt hormones. They're hormone disruptors. I read a book that blew my mind about 30 years ago called Our Stolen Future, all about the endocrine disrupting chemicals that were ubiquitous in our environment that no one was talking about. Now, these chemicals, they're known as xenohormones or xenoestrogens or xenobiotics. Xeno means foreign. They disrupt our hormones. They're endocrine disruptors. They interfere with estrogen, testosterone, thyroid function, fertility. I mean, everything. Sperm count, sperm function, sperm motility. They just are affecting every aspect of hormone function, and they definitely affect thyroid function. They also damage our mitochondria. Now, these are the important little organelles inside our cells that turn food and oxygen into energy and do a lot of other things. We're learning they are the most important foundation of your health. And when they're damaged, there's less energy. When there's less energy, everything in your body slows down. And it's not just a slower metabolism. It affects aging itself, it affects cancer risk. It affects Alzheimer's, Parkinson's mood, autism, fertility. I mean, you name it. Your mitochondria are involved in everything. So when you're sensitive to mitochondria, and they're very sensitive, my friends don't work well because they're overloaded with toxins. You are sick. The next thing they do is they overwhelm our detoxification pathways. They're all built in. We sweat, we breathe, we poop, we pee. Our bodies has a system to detoxify. Our livers do a lot of the work. Our kidneys do a lot of the work. Our guts do a lot of the work. And we have a system of detoxification. It's one of the fundamental physiological systems of functional medicine. And it requires a whole series of things to help it work. The right nutrients, fiber, all. All sorts of things. Amino acids, it. It's basically a biochemical set of pathways that need support. And these chemicals basically clog up all those systems, and our bodies just get overwhelmed and they can't be properly detoxified. So really important to understand how to upregulate those pathways and to minimize the work they have to do by lowering your toxic load. The next thing toxins do is they drive inflammation. There's a whole book on this and a whole body of research on this that talks about how environmental toxins cause autoimmunity. They're called autogens, like antigens, like from infections, but they're autogens. They drive autoimmunity, they drive inflammation, they drive fatigue, they drive weight gain. They are called obesogens. They cause cognitive dysfunction, brain fog. I mean, I had that with mercury poisoning. And over time, you know, this just leads to chronic inflammation, fatigue, weight gain, brain fog, and this general sense, your body just isn't operating the way it was designed. So just to recap, key systems impacted here are hormones. These are endocrine disruptors, particularly estrogens, thyroid, testosterone. Brain is definitely affected. Neurotoxicity, huge factor in all sorts of neurodegenerative diseases, in mood disorders, in attention disorders, just you name it. Anything affects the brain can be affected by toxins. Gut, liver, huge, huge load on the liver for all the toxins we're exposed to. Toxins cause a leaky gut. That was for sure what happened to me when I had mercury poisoning. That makes your system even more inflamed and seditious cycle. They affect metabolism, they're huge impact on weight. We know that there's a whole class of these molecules that we now refer to as obesogens. They literally cause you to become obese independent of your diet. And they cause insulin resistance, they cause weight gain. One of the most common is bisphenol A, which is on credit card receipts, bank receipts. It is in bottles, cans, plastics. It's in everything, even the newer versions of it that are, quote, safer, same thing. They affect immune system, so they lead to autoimmunity, to allergens, to cancer, all sorts of things. So the big takeaway is here, your body's designed to detoxify, but not given the load we're all exposed to today. So once you understand how these toxins affect your body, the next question becomes much more practical. What exposures matter the most? Because not all toxins are the same. Not all exposures really deserve equal attention. So now that you understand how toxins affect your body, I want to get specific, because some everyday exposures are far more important than others. To make sure you address what are the top environmental toxins? What are the high impact toxins that we get every day? The goal here isn't to worry about everything and become neurotic. The goal is to focus on exposures that matter most and that we can do something about the ones we come into contact every single day, often without even knowing. The biggest contributors to our toxic load aren't rare exotic chemicals. They're everyday products we drink from, we store food in, we clean with, we put our. Let's start with the most common, most impactful sources of exposure. Plastics and endocrine disruptors. So plastics and endocrine disruptors are common things like bpa, phthalates. Many plastics contains chemicals like BPA and phthalates. BPA stands for bisphenol A. These mimic estrogen in the body. They also can cause insulin resistance, which are pretty bad. Increased risk of obesity. They mimic estrogen in the body, they interfere with fertility, they disrupt hormones, and over time, they increase risk of weight gain and many hormone related cancers. Now, where do you find them? Plastic water bottles, food containers, receipts, credit card receipts, bank receipts, gas station receipts, canned foods. They're lining the cans. Fragrances, which are common in a lot of skincare products. What do they do? Well, they make estrogen, they screw up fertility, they contribute to breast and prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, uterine cancer, they drive weight gain, obesity, insulin resistance, diabetes. The good news is there's some easy swaps. This is one of the easiest areas to reduce your exposure. So what do you do? Well, use glass or stainless steel bottles instead of plastic. Never, ever heat food in plastic. Never. A lot of Tupperware, that's plastic. Saran Wrap. No microwave food in plastic. Just forget about it. Choose BPA free cans or glass jars. A lot of them have other replacements, so better class then and not. And don't get the receipt or don't touch it if you can help it. That's a hard one. But do your best because those often have a lot of BPA in them. The next big category where you can do something about toxic load is personal care or household products. These are products people use every day, sometimes many times a day. They often contain hidden chemicals like parabens, phthalates, synthetic fragrances, formaldehyde releasing preservatives. And because these products are applied on your skin, they can be absorbed in the body and contribute to hormone disruption, to headaches, migraines, skin issues, immune activation, lots of things. A simple rule of thumb I like to share is if it goes in your skin, it goes in your body. I mean basically the rule is if you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your skin. In other words, coconut oil you can put on your skin because you'd eat it, but some weird chemical and some cosmetic product, you probably wouldn't. And the reason I say this is as doctors, we know this when someone comes into the emergency room and they have a heart attack, the first thing we do before we can even get an IV or anything else is we take a looks like toothpaste full of nitroglycerin. We squirted on their skin and we put a patch over it. And we know that works because it gets absorbed, right? We know about hormone patches, estrogen patches and so forth. Testosterone patches, they work. Nicotine patches, things get absorbed through your skin. So be aware what you put on your body goes in your body. So the hidden toxins are things like parabens, phthalates, fragrances, formaldehyde releasers, they all affect you in many different ways from hormone disruption to migraines to skin issues to irritating your immune system, causing immune issues. And there's easy swaps, right? Go get the fragrance free products or essential oil based products. I'm on the board of the Environmental Working Group or ewg. There's a great app called Skin Deep. You can go on the website, you can use the app and you can scan products, you can search products and you can see how do they stack up. So EWG is a great job, not just by the way for skincare, but for household cleaning products, for food, for any kind of thing you can imagine they have looked at. So and also Just use fewer products or just pick a few that are really well made, that you know are religiously made without toxins and that are good for you. I use Welina products. I'll use Tom's toothpaste. I use just products that I know are safer or better. I don't have any affiliation with them. So remember, if you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your body. Pesticides, herbicides, next big one. Again, we can't control this completely. If you travel, if you don't eat at home all the time, it's hard to control. So do your best. Pesticides and herbicides are real big deals. Especially glyphosate, which is the most common herbicide, is used on 70% of all crops. It's one of the most common ways people are exposed to environmental toxins through food. And glyphosate is used throughout commensal agriculture. It shows up in non organic produce and grains, processed foods, pretty much everything. It's also used on lawns, landscaping, which means exposure doesn't come from what you eat only, but from the environment as well. So one of the biggest concerns with glyphosate is how it affects the gut. It damages the gut microbiome, it interferes with detox enzymes, increases inflammation throughout the body, and over time it can cause digestive issues, immune problems, cancer. There's billions of dollars of lawsuits against Monsanto who make glyphosate for cancer that had been settled. I read a study recently where there were transgenerational effects, epigenetic effects. So if the grandmother mouse had glyphosate exposure, the grandbabies had all kinds of damage to fertility, to hormones, cancer risk, kidney issues. I mean, it was kind of frightening to see how they measured these effects. And so I'm highly concerned about this. It's again, on 70% of all products. It's one of the most toxic compounds out there. It should be banned. Leave it to say there's been billions of dollars of lawsuits against Monsanto that have been success because of this. All right, so where do you get exposure? Well, if you're eating produce, it's not organic. If you're eating a lot of grains, it's often sprayed on wheat at harvest to desiccate the wheat, meaning to get all the leaves off so that they can dry out and process the wheat. It's in processed food for sure. There's a box of Cheerios. It's kind of a, kind of a spoop, but it's accurate. There's more Glyphosate in terms of pure quantity in Cheerios than there is some of the vitamins and minerals that they list on the link. So that's concerning to me. It's also on lawns and agricultural places. So I, I worry about it being used widely and we call it Roundup and they, they use it everywhere. So I, I'd be very careful about any exposure to this. It damages the gut microbiome, it impairs your detoxification enzymes, it increases inflammation, increases cancer risk, has changed generational effects, epigenetic effects. I worry about all of that. What do you do about it? Well, do your best to eat organic when you can. Again, the Environmental Working Group has a great list of the Dirty Dozen and the clean 15. Here's the dirty dozen. For example, strawberries you never want to eat if they're not organic, whereas if it's a banana, it's fine. And you can kind of make a list so you don't have to buy everything organic and you can lower your costs, but you make sure you don't eat the things that are really the most exposed, like celery. I would not eat celery, but it's not organic.