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The health impact of synthetics has been a shameful open secret in the U.S. for decades. But an Op Ed by Nicholas Kristof in last Sunday’s New York Times, titled “Cancer From the Kitchen,” shows the very serious problem is finally coming to light. Kristof attended a conference held by environmental health expert Philip Landrigen of Mt. Sinai Medical Center in New York, and there he learned about disturbing increases in rates of illnesses for which the medical-industrial complex claims to have scant explanation. As I have said in my book, Power Up, environnmental toxins and lifestyle factors are clearly prime culprits in the rapid increase in many diseases in the U.S.
I agree with Kristof's assertion that mitigating environmental and lifestyle impacts should be a fundamental part of the healthcare solution. For example, mammograms (the subject of intense, passionate debate over the last month) are not the only way to prevent breast cancer, in fact, they don't prevent breast cancer, but are rather early disease detection devices. Breast cancer prevention begins with understanding lifestyle and environmental influences on tumor growth. Identifying environmental and lifestyle causes of all diseases should be a fundamental part of any new public health initiative.
So far we are falling short on figuring out the causes of cancer and many other diseases with increasing incidence, and so we are left to thrash around for ever more expensive ways to diagnose and treat them. People are at significantly greater risks of developing breast and prostate cancers, as well as ADHD, autism, obesity, asthma and diabetes than they were just thirty years ago. All of those illnesses have been found to have associations with lifestyle factors and/or environmental toxins from countless sources including food, consumer products, household items, drinking water and even the humble cash register receipt. You don't have to live next to a Superfund site to be at risk, everyone is exposed every day to really dangerous stuff.
Just take a look at one class of synthetic chemicals Kristof writes about called Endocrine Disruptors (EDCs), which even mainstream endocrinologists agree can have wide ranging effects on the body because these manmade chemicals act like estrogen in the body, which can wreak havoc on the body's hormonal and reproductive organs. (Keep in mind that the majority of all breast cancers today are estrogen receptor positive, which means those tumors are literally fertilized by estrogen or estrogen mimics like EDCs.) I wrote about the potentially harmful effects of EDCs in my book, but still people seem skeptical when I suggest lifestyle measures to reduce exposure (such as washing your hands after touching cash register receipts, perhaps the single greatest source of the EDC Bisphenol A [BPA].) Let me give you a quick rundown of how everyday casual exposure to this one manmade molecule can mess with your health.
Let's say you're on a holiday shopping spree, and in the course of the afternoon you pick up a bunch of cash register and credit card receipts, which you jam into your wallet in case you need to return something. According to the Warner Babcock Institute for Green Chemistry in Wilmington, Mass, those receipts carry 60 to 100 milligrams of BPA per receipt, well above the values measured leaching from polycarbonate plastic foodware, probably the most widely publicized source of BPA. You can easily leave behind BPA residues from the receipts on the rim of your plastic water bottle as you take off the cap and swig during your mall crawl. Then you might take a break at the cookie store where you are handed yet another receipt before gobbling your pick-me-up carb.
With a simple shopping spree you can ingest a chemical that lab research suggests can have a negative impact on your body. And that is just one source of BPA, other sources are plastic food and water containers, and even your steering wheel. All of that exposure to one harmful chemical is magnified by exposures to multiple other chemicals like pesticides in food and weed killer residue found in water, all of which are especially harmful if you have genetics or lifestyle factors that make you less able to process toxins out of your system.
Consider the most widespread and rapidly increasing type of breast cancer, Estrogen Receptor Positive cancer, which feeds off of estrogen. Here's the picture: All breast cells have estrogen receptors. These operate like switches. When estrogen comes in contact with a receptor, it is recognized through a lock and key mechanism, which then turns on a series of events inside the cell that, among other things, stimulate the cell to grow. If the cell's DNA has been transformed to an abnormal cancerous form, turning on these receptors is like adding gasoline to a fire for cancer cell growth.
BPA acts as an estrogen mimic, and one potentially disastrous result of this is that it can activate estrogen receptors just like estrogen--keeping them turned on for as long as there continues to be BPA circulating in the body, which these days is increasingly longer periods of time. This can translate to unbridled cell growth. The estrogen your body manufactures (which normally ebbs and flows through monthly cycles and developmental stages) does the same thing, so BPA is not the only catalyst egging that tumor on, it's just one more source, and it's a source we know has increased rapidly in the environment over the past couple of decades.
We can't even begin to calculate the effects of all the toxic junk in the environment: Endocrine Disruptors alone can have effects on the thyroid gland, the adrenals, the pancreas, the prostate, the testes....basically all of the regulatory glands. It's not a pretty picture.
At last count, the Centers for Disease Control determined the average American has at least 148 synthetic chemicals circulating in their bloodstream at any given moment. We are just beginning to recognize the ubiquitous nature of these potentially harmful toxic chemicals, and the need to do something about it. It is frightening to consider that these toxins are introduced into our bodies long before we are born. The latest umbilical cord study from the Environmental Working Group showed that on average (this study looked at inner city residents) the umbilicus contained 232 toxic chemicals, which means the fetus received those chemicals on a regular basis, transmitted via the mother's blood stream through the umbilical cord, and then into the placenta and incorporated into the body of the developing fetus!
Nicholas Kristof is brilliant to have turned his considerable talents to further exposing the pollution problem. Also encouraging is the Endocrine Disruption Prevention Act of 2009, introduced by Senator John Kerry along with Representative Jim Moran, and endorsed by the Endocrine Society, the largest professional organization of board certified endocrinologists. We will not be truly transforming healthcare without recognizing and acting on removing health hazards in the environment. Then we may very well get to the root cause of some of our most vexing health problems.
While we hope one day to have regulators and industry leaders that protect us from chemical toxins, you can click here to learn about my program for protecting yourself from environmental toxins today.
