David (00:00.758)
Environmental toxins are everywhere. They're in the air we breathe, they're in the water we drink, the food we eat, they're in our cleaning products, they're in our body care products, they're even in our beds and mattresses. Now these toxins contribute to our total body load and they end up compromising our systems at a cellular level. And they contribute to accelerated aging, chronic disease, and sometimes early death.
Now can't outrun the clock, time waits for no one, but I know if you're part of the natural nation you want to age gracefully. So just because toxins are everywhere doesn't mean we should just roll over and accept it. We need to be more proactive with our lifestyle habits. We should avoid toxins when we can and we should focus on our bodies detox pathways. Let's talk about it.
Welcome to the Christian Healthy Lifestyle Podcast, where I help you navigate natural health God's way, so you can stay out of the doctor's office, age gracefully, and live abundantly. I'm your host, David Sandstrom. Well, it happened again as I was putting these notes together for this topic. I thought I could cover this in one episode, but it's just not feasible, so this is going to be a two-part series. So in this episode, I'm going to mostly describe the problem. But hang in there with me. In the next episode...
I'm going to explain the solution. If someone lives to be 100 years old, is it because they just got a lucky roll of a genetic dice or did their environment play a greater role? Now genes do matter, but so does exposure to environmental toxins. Here's a study published this year, February this year in the journal Nature Medicine. This study shows that living conditions or lifestyle habits
have a greater impact on health and premature death than our genetic programming does. These researchers considered environmental factors as well as genetic profiles in the impact they had on 22 major age-related diseases and premature death. And they saw some wide variations in risk factors. Environmental factors explain 17 % of the variation in risk of death compared to less than 2 %
David (02:22.637)
explained by genetic predisposition. Now that means environmental factors or lifestyle habits played an eight times greater role than genetics did. Now here's an important takeaway from the study. These researchers identified 25 environmental factors as being responsible for the premature deaths. Now in their words, 23 out of the 25 were modifiable.
That's what I've been saying for quite some time. We can't change the genes we're born with, but we can make lifestyle modifications that have a significant impact on our health outcomes. Now you can bet many of those environmental risk factors included toxin exposure. I'll put a link in the show notes to that study if you want to read it for yourself. When we talk about exposure to environmental toxins, it can pretty easily get overwhelming. Now I'm not trying to discourage anyone.
My intention is to educate and give you some practical advice so you can fight back against these ubiquitous enemies. We can never completely avoid toxins. As long as we're living on this planet, we will be exposed. But Natural Nation, understand this. Detoxification is not a new concept. Did Adam and Eve have to detoxify? They sure did.
You see, our cells, in the process of doing what cells do, produce waste products. And those wastes have to be eliminated. So God saw to it that we have elimination channels. In other words, they needed a liver, they needed a colon, they needed kidneys, they had to sweat. detoxification is not something that's reserved for the biohacking community only. It's for all of us. But you can bet.
Living in the 21st century, we experience a level of toxic burden that most people in the course of human history never dreamed of. Now, I could just simply offer you the solutions, but I don't think that would be very effective. We need to recognize just how harmful these environmental pollutants are, and we need to know where they're coming from. Only then will we be truly prepared to do something about it.
David (04:49.42)
JFK Jr. was killed in a light airplane crash in 1999. Now I was an airline pilot for 35 years and I had JFK Jr. on a flight and I met him about a week before his accident. I was sitting in front of the passengers like we normally do and I saw him walking up the aisle and he stuck out his hand and said, hi, I'm JFK Jr. I said, yeah, I know, nice to meet you. And he said, yeah, I'm a pilot. I just got my pilot's license. Do you mind if I come up and look at the cockpit? I said, sure. So he came up.
We chatted for a little bit, he was very personable. I could see he had a real love for aviation. Well, about a week later, he loaded up his single engine airplane at night and left Massachusetts for a short flight over to Martha's Vineyard. Now being a new pilot, he was not instrument rated and he didn't realize that even though he wasn't going to fly through any clouds, when you get over the water at night,
there's no visual references. So you can't tell up from down without relying on your instruments. And he was not instrument rated. So he got out over the water. He lost the horizon line. And he ended up getting the airplane into a steep spiral that the aircraft couldn't recover from. And they crashed into the water and killed everyone on board. Now here's what a lot of people don't know. His airplane was a pretty sophisticated single engine airplane. And it had
very capable autopilot all he had to do was engage the auto flight system until he got near Martha's Vineyard and he had a horizon line again and some lights for reference on you would have been fine, but he didn't know how to use the auto flight system and He didn't know the hazards associated with flying over the water at night In other words, he didn't know how much he didn't know and it cost him dearly In the same fashion. I want to make you aware
of the hazards that these environmental toxins represent and I want to give you the information you need to defend yourself against them. One of the best ways to age gracefully is to address health at a cellular level. We live and die at the cellular level. Building health effectively is all about supporting ourselves. Remember, we don't teach ourselves how to do their jobs. Just as we say
David (07:14.056)
Animals just have instinct. Our cells instinctively know how to do their jobs. God gave our bodies a built-in intelligence and we don't have to teach ourselves how to do their jobs. They already know how to do that. Natural Nation, here's an important point. Environmental toxins interfere with our cells' ability to do their jobs well. Again, detoxification is a natural process, but our cells can get overwhelmed
And our detox channels can get backed up and clogged up like plumbing pipes can. So our defense against the onslaught is twofold. Reduce exposure and open up the detox channels. I want to spend a little time on toxins that disrupt hormone function. Now we call these toxins endocrine disrupting chemicals, or EDCs. Hormones are chemical messengers that influence virtually
every physiological process at the cellular level. Our environment contains a wide array of endocrine disrupting chemicals that interfere with the normal function of hormones and that can lead to cellular dysfunction which can lead to all kinds of deleterious health effects. Now here are some of the most common EDCs found in the environment. One of the more well known is bisphenol A or
BPA, we've all heard of that one, right? It's been in the news lately. BPA is used to make plastic, which is used to make water bottles. Now, another bisphenol called bisphenol S is used to line metal cans. They also use it to make thermal paper. So those slippery cash register receipts, they're slippery because they're coated with a chemical that's a very close cousin to BPA. It's called bisphenol.
S or BPS. Now, BPA mimics estrogen and can bind to estrogen receptors. So the marketing term widely used today is our products are quote BPA free. But what does that mean? It means they stopped using BPA in the production of those plastics and they replaced it with another chemical that's very similar and every bit as toxic as BPA.
David (09:41.704)
There's also bisphenol F, which is very commonly used to replace BPA. There's also bisphenol B, which is a polycarbonate plastic, which is typically used in water bottles. There's also bisphenol AF. That's used in high-performance plastics found in machinery, and that's been shown to be even more endocrine disrupting than BPA. There's bisphenol Z. It's used in epoxy resins.
There's bisphenol E used in adhesives and glue. The companies that use these products have created clever marketing to dispel any fears the public may have. Here's how it works. They say, OK, BPA is toxic, so we removed it. Now you've got nothing to worry about. But what they don't tell us is that they replaced BPA with another bisphenol chemical that's
probably every bit as toxic, if not worse, than BPA. And they know it'll take years to prove that the new chemicals are toxic as well. We the consumer, we have to wait for several different agencies to obtain government funding, conduct the research, provide clinical evidence of the toxicity of those chemicals. And even then, there has to be a publicity campaign to make people aware of the evidence to apply
pressure to these companies, they finally will take them off the market. These unscrupulous manufacturers know that it will take years, maybe decades, before they have to make any changes. Now want to remind everyone that you're listening to the public version of this show. If you want to listen to full length episode, that's available by subscribing to the podcast or my Christian Healthy Lifestyle community. You can learn more by going to ChristianHealthyLifestyle.com.
Now another class of chemicals are called phthalates. Phthalates are used to make plastics more flexible. Phthalates find their way into personal care products like body lotions and shampoos. They're also used in vinyl flooring. Phthalates can interfere with testosterone production and have anti-androgenic effects. There's also polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDEs.
David (12:04.969)
Now, I know that's a mouthful, but I want to mention them because they're a class of flame retardant chemicals. They spray these chemicals on furniture, like mattresses that we sleep on, and they're used in all kinds of building materials. They can interfere with thyroid hormone function, and they can impact our nervous systems as well. And here's another class of chemicals that I think is worth mentioning. Polyfluoroalkaline substances, or PFASs.
We call these forever chemicals because they have such strong chemical bonds that they don't easily break down in the environment. Scientists say that these chemicals may last for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years in the soil. That's pretty amazing. Now, PFA's are important to consider because they're used in non-stick cookware, Teflon-coated pans. They're used in rain-repellent clothing.
and stain resistant fabrics. They're also used in firefighting foams and they're highly persistent in the environment. Now PFA's affect thyroid function, immune function, and they've also been linked to cancer. For heaven's sake, don't cook with non-stick pans, especially ones that have been scratched. They're very toxic. Another class of environmental toxins I want to mention here are heavy metals like lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic.
The most toxic one of the bunch is mercury. Now mercury is found in nature, but most of the mercury we're exposed to today comes from industrial waste products. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin. The World Health Organization considers mercury one of the top 10 chemicals of major public health concern. I'll be talking about that in the next episode. Another heavy metal that's worth talking about is cadmium. Cadmium has been demonstrated in the medical literature
to accelerate aging more than any other heavy metal. Cabium is found in cigarette smoke, most of us know that. Car exhaust, it comes from coal burning power plants and phosphate based fertilizers. Now here's the problem and I hate to be the bearer of bad news but I'm going to share the truth with you all. The cacao plant seems to have an affinity for attracting cabium from the environment. So as a result,
David (14:32.497)
I think you know what I'm about to say, chocolate is a caution food. Chocolate almost always contains high levels of cadmium. Even from quality brands from Switzerland, they still find cadmium in those products. Now I know chocolate is loaded with polyphenol antioxidants, that's true, but it probably comes with a healthy dose of cadmium as well. Now I know I like chocolate too. Treat yourself now and then, but I wouldn't recommend eating it every day.
Another category of chemical toxins we're exposed to in the environment is pharmaceuticals. Drugs enter the environment through improper disposal of medications, but they also enter the environment from human and animal excretion. What people flush down the toilet contains pharmaceutical residues. There's also naturally occurring plant estrogens or phytoestrogens. They're primarily found in soy products
like soybeans and soybean oil, but some other plants as well. And while I'm thinking about it, one of the toxins in our food supply is certainly seed oils of all kinds. We've talked about this in previous episodes. That's a big problem. Now these plant phytoestrogens, they can have estrogen-like effects in the body. That's been well established that high levels of estrogen, especially later in life, has been linked to breast cancer not only in women, but in men as well. Now the last toxin I want to talk about are
electromagnetic frequencies or EMFs. EMFs are electromagnetic energy that travels through the air and into our bodies. There's of course naturally occurring energy that we get from the sun. That's not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about energy that we're exposed to from electrical devices like cell phones and Wi-Fi routers, appliances in the home, and house wiring.
Now the electromagnetic energy that comes from house wiring doesn't travel very far and therefore it's not all that harmful as long as you have some distance from the wires. But there's also RF or radio frequency radiation that travels at much greater distances. There's microwave energy that comes from microwave ovens. There's also microwave energy from cell phones and Wi-Fi. Now of the three, microwave ovens are the most harmful and most powerful.
David (16:58.537)
Now I'm old enough to remember when microwave ovens first came out. Back then they called them radar ranges because another term for microwave energy is radar energy. Now I was a pilot for 35 years, so in a jet airliner we have weather radar. Now the antenna is fixed in the nose of the radome of the airplane, the front of the airplane, and we turn that radar on, we can see weather or rain up to about 350 miles ahead of the airplane.
Now that's some powerful energy. In fact, one of the things they teach us in ground school is to make sure you never test the radar near a fuel truck because you could cause a fire or an explosion. That's some powerful energy. That's what we have going on in our microwave ovens in our homes. Now don't have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that cooking your food or warming your food in microwave oven is not a healthy practice. Today it's not just cell phones and Wi-Fi routers that pose problems. Doorbells use Wi-Fi.
Most appliances these days have Wi-Fi. They call them smart appliances. Try to find a washer and dryer these days that's not a smart washer and dryer. I had to do that not too long ago and I couldn't do it. What I ended up doing was buying the washer and dryer that I wanted and then disconnecting the Wi-Fi capability after I got home. Who needs to load clothes in the washer, put the detergent in, and then go into the next room and turn the machine on? It's kind of ridiculous, right? Who needs Wi-Fi in their washer?
but that's they put it in there because it's a selling feature. It's nothing more than a marketing tactic that tells us we need these kinds of features. We don't need them. Low dose EMS from cell phones and wifi over time can really create a burden that our bodies were never designed to carry. When our bodies subtle natural energies are bombarded with unnatural radio frequency energy 24 seven,
It dramatically increases the total body load our systems have to deal with. So remember, with the naturopathic approach to health, we don't treat disease or manage symptoms, we build health. We seek to minimize the amount of health insults our bodies have to deal with and maximize the amount of health enhancements. That's how we build health margin and that's how we stay out of the doctor's office, age gracefully and live abundantly.
David (19:24.849)
I know I've painted a pretty bleak picture here, but don't be discouraged. Hang in there with me. There's a lot we can do. I think that's a good time to wrap things up. In the next episode, I'm going to be covering some of the things we can do to fight back. We can reduce our exposure and boost our body's ability to deal with these insults effectively. You don't want to miss that episode. Now don't forget, if you want to listen to the full version of these podcast episodes, go to my website, ChristianHealthyLifestyle.com and
check out the subscription options. You can subscribe to the podcast alone, or you can jump into my ChristianEthelife.com community and get access to a whole bunch more health building tools. That's it for now. Thank you for listening. I appreciate you. Go out there and live abundantly. Be blessed.
