By Maureen Lafrenière
In their best-selling book, Slow Death by Rubber Duck: How the Toxic Chemistry of Everyday Life Affects Our Health, authors Bruce Lourie and Rick Smith used self-experimentation to demonstrate how easily our bodies take in synthetic chemicals— including suspected or known carcinogens—by eating and breathing, and through skin contact with everyday products.
After readers asked how do we get this stuff out of our systems, the authors set out to better understand how the body sheds some of these chemicals. Based on similar self-experimentation as well as on published scientific research,Toxin Toxout: Getting Harmful Chemicals Out of Our Bodies and Our World offers simple and practical advice to help us reduce our exposures to synthetic chemicals and to use the body’s natural defense systems to rid ourselves of them. But the authors also point to political and economic tools we can use to reduce these threats in the environment.
Following are a few of their recommendations.
Read the label; choose natural products
Urine tests from two volunteers showed a sharp rise in mono-ethyl phthalate (MEP) and methyl-paraben within hours of a single application of conventional deodorants and body sprays (a 24 hour “washout” period with no product use preceded and followed the test). Similar tests following the use of natural or organic products showed little-to-no presence of the chemicals.
Parabens are associated with allergies, endocrine disruption, immune system disorders, reproductive and metabolic disorders, and may be implicated in breast cancer. Phthalates are associated with asthma, reproductive and developmental disorders, and endocrine disruption.
Eat more vegetables and fruit; when possible, choose organic
Nine children (aged 2 to 12), who ate conventional diets, were fed organic food for five days. Urine samples collected daily over a 12-day period (3 days conventional diet, 5 days organic, 4 days conventional) that were tested for dimethyl dialkylphosphate (a metabolite of the organophosphate pesticide DAP) showed a significant drop during the organic phase and a corresponding rise in the latter four days of the 12-day period.
Exposure to synthetic pesticides is implicated in endocrine disruption, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, developmental problems in children, low birth weight, reproductive problems, asthma, and increased risk for obesity and diabetes. A number of studies suggest that our main exposure to pesticides comes from fresh fruits and vegetables.
Drink water, exercise, and sweat!
Drinking lots of water—preferably tap water—appears to help flush toxins out of the body. One of the authors did an experiment that simultaneously measured BPA and two phthalate metabolites in his sweat and urine; his results suggested that various toxins are eliminated differently from the body. In this case, higher levels of phthalate metabolites were found in urine compared to sweat, whereas BPA levels in sweat were several times higher than in urine. Exercise will help get rid of toxins that tend to be stored in body fat, and combining your workout with a sauna will provide an additional benefit.
BPA exposure is linked to increased risk of heart disease and breast cancer, infertility and endocrine disruption.
Play outside
Given the proportion of time we spend indoors, paying attention to indoor air quality is essential. To improve indoor air quality, choose natural-fibre fabrics (free of flame retardants) as well as paints and other products labeled low-VOC (volatile organic compound), and use a vacuum with a HEPA filter. In a simple experiment, one of the authors and a colleague each provided urine samples before and after an eight-hour session that involved sitting inside a new car with the windows up and breathing in vapours from the car’s plastics, adhesives and sealants. Urine levels of the four VOCs measured (2, 5-heptanedione, 2, 5-hexanedione, methylbenzyl mercapturic acid and benzyl mercapturic acid) increased between 1.5 and 5 times during the experiment period.
Some VOCs are known carcinogens and a number of health effects are associated with this group of chemicals.
The book includes “Toxin Toxout Top 10,” a tear-out page for the fridge featuring a summary of the authors’ recommendations as well as a reading list and extensive references to other studies, and possibly the most important to do list of your life.
For an interesting perspective on Toxin Toxout, read the transcript of an interview with Bruce Lourie on Australian radio.
