These Toxins Are Silently Ruining Your Health

When we can identify things in our life that are causing us harm, it's prudent to identify those things. And then if we can make the cultural changes. The problem is those arguments lead people to this conciliatory mark where they conclude, well, I guess we continue on. And there's very few voices saying this is a bad idea. So if I can populate the airwaves and be that voice in society, I think I would play that role. And. And I know that I'm Buzzkill Brian in this vector, and I fully own it. And I'm sorry, but it's true. And so it just really is this thing that we've done where we've associated a celebration and life with death practices.

We're not trying to scare people. I mean, like, maybe a little.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the Brian Johnson Podcast. Today I have with me my co founder, Kate Tolo, and my doctor, Dr. Mike Mallon. And today we are talking about toxins. It can be a scary topic, but we're going to approach it toxin by toxin and talk about where they're coming from, what effects they have in the body, and then also what you can do to prevent exposure and minimize the things that are already in your body. Let's go.

Brian, you're wearing AirPods today.

I tried to remove them. I didn't want to wear a wired set, and then the producer said I needed some kind of feedback, so I'm asking for an earphone. But I know that every time I wear AirPods, people are gonna be like, bro, you're gonna blow your brain up with emf. So maybe we should do a deep dive on this and assess.

I think it's a hot topic. I think people wanna know. So let's look into the science. It might not have enough robust evidence out there to support it. Either way, do it or not do it. But at least we can. We can share that. So hopefully your brain's okay today, and.

Then if there's damage, that there's some way out of it.

Okay, let's get into this topic. This topic came about because we had Fourth of July. Brian and I actually spent the next day together on Saturday, and we were trapped inside all day, and it sucked because the air quality was atrocious, like, not worth exposing yourself to it. So what do you think of that? We got a lot of pushback from it on Twitter because people like, let us have one day, Brian, where you're not chastising us. Like, can we just celebrate?

Yeah. People were really upset with me because I Posted online that the fireworks were going to basically bathe the entire LA area with toxins and not just heavy metals, but a whole bunch of other toxins that we've imported from China and we're now going to explode them in the air. Is going to bathe all of our family and friends and loved ones with these toxins during the fireworks show. And then for 24 hours afterwards, it's going to settle into our soil and water. I was calling attention to the fact that this is kind of a weird tradition that we celebrate life by bathing ourselves in death. And people got really upset with me.

Yeah. Even when I was talking to a friend the next day and I was talking about the situation, he was like, Kate, like, no, you can't take this away from us. Like, we need to celebrate, we need our fireworks. And I feel like when I think about that, I think people are just totally miseducated on the severity of the situation. There's always going to be a degree of things we're willing to do for our health and things we're like, okay, we'll spend a couple of points here. Fireworks really damaged the air quality for an entire 24 hour period. It was something like what was a cigarette equivalent, smoking 20 cigarettes the next day?

That's right. During the fireworks show, it was equivalent to smoking one cigarette because you're basically getting at 160pm 2.5 and then 12 hours after we'll throw the map up here on screen. But in the purple areas it was equivalent to smoking 20 cigarettes.

Yeah. Which is wild. So today we're gonna talk about what effect that has on the body and then we're gonna talk about other types of toxins in the body. We had some feedback in the comment section that folks wanted a much more structured podcast. And so to tee this up, we're gonna talk about why fireworks are bad, why you should be with us, and saying, let's make other traditions for fourth of what other toxins exist in your environment that you might not be aware of. And then how Brian has limited his exposure and also reversed some of the exposure that he has been exposed to. And so this includes things like Pfaffs, different toxins from your blood and then obviously like your environment, air quality, that kind of thing.

The thing is that we're trying to call out is it's not that the, the July 4th spike in toxins are going to kill you, it's that we routinely do things in life that kill us and those things we have tried to color as living life or the purpose of life or happiness. And I want to call to the attention that that may not be true. And so there's, there's definitely not a rule of the universe that one needs to kill oneself in order to feel happy or satisfied or content. And so if you're exposed to PM2.5 on an annual basis, so let's say that you have an extra 15 points on the PM2.5 scale for 20 hours, 24 hours a day, at 365 days a year, you're getting exposure of 131,000 per year versus on a July 4th spike. It's about less than 1% of that. It's not hugely consequential, but it's really just the point of when we can identify things in our life that are causing us harm, it's prudent to identify those things. And then if we can make the cultural changes. So I hear you, you know, big exploding things in the sky. It is exciting. They're loud and you feel the vibrations and that's cool. Kind of talks to our primitive brain, like, you know. But also when we're taking children to a fireworks show and you're bathing the children's. And toxins, I'm not sure about that. I don't know if that's living life. I'm not sure if I'm a baby, if I want to be bathed in toxins. And then again we get dosed again when they enter into our water and our food supply. So, Mike, what's your take on this?

I guess I want to take like a slightly contrarian viewpoint to you, just in the sense that like, I think if I were to choose interventions to improve air quality, the first thing I would do would not be to like take away fireworks. And I don't think that's what you're suggesting necessarily. I think you're trying to point out that like, hey, we, we choose to do things that are inherently bad for us on a regular basis as a way of celebrating life, which is just sort of ridiculous, which I don't disagree with you with. I think that makes a lot of sense. But when it comes to like, what's going to have the greatest impact on your overall health? I think that there's, there's a multitude of things that are higher on the list for me than fireworks. So like these one off situations, like, just like you were talking about in that, in that math that you, that you shared, these one off situations have a very small total impact. When you compare it to like living in LA 365 days a year. Like, there's a huge impact from a moderate increase in PM2.5 as opposed to a relatively small impact from a large short duration increase of PM2.5. So I don't know. I just tend to look at it from more of like a practical view of like, where do I want to. Where do I want to put my effort in terms of improving human health as opposed to. You're thinking about it a little bit more, I guess, idealistically, in the sense that you're thinking about, like, why are we choosing things that are inherently bad for us? Which I don't disagree with.

Yeah. And I'm saying if you remove the storytelling and the cultural significance, if you're an outside observer, if you're an alien and you can't see the language of our society and the storytelling apparatus and you just see us as biochemical beings and you say, what are those creatures doing bathing themselves in chemicals? Like, what sort of ritual is that that makes any kind of sense?

Sure.

Like.

Like we want to celebrate someone's birthday, so we go out and have a couple of alcoholic drinks and pizza and birthday cake. We're just like ingesting all of these things that kill us as a celebration of life. Like, I don't know, it doesn't seem right.

That's exactly right. And so it's the same parallel. And I know that I'm. I'm Buzzkill Brian in this vector and I. I fully own it. And I'm sorry, but it's true. Like you. If a birthday celebration comes, you basically stack up metabolic disaster. Right. So it's alcohol and then it's sugar and then it's late nights. And so it just really is this thing that we've done where we've associated a celebration and life with death practices. And it will be viewed in the future. This will be viewed as insane. Like, there will be no way around it. Like, there's just. It's weird that we do it. You're not just paying the price at the end of your life, you're paying price in decreased cognitive performance. It. It deteriorates your health in all capacities. So it really is detrimental. And I think that for me, I agree that Mike, if you were to take a more practical approach and be like, well, let's be reasonable. I guess, like, I want to create this contrast of clarity. It's not a good thing to bathe yourself in chemicals no matter what. Like, I don't care what the. What the reason is. It's just not that you definitely can celebrate life. You can do good things and feel good about various events, but you just don't need to do it with death.

If I could put words in your mouth too. It's like people are choosing to do this as opposed to situations where we don't have a choice. Like the majority of toxins in our life are not things that we choose. Right. They're the LA fires, They're chemicals that are in the water supply. They're all of these things that you really can't practically make a choice about. So at least make good choices when you're giving the opportunity to choose healthy or unhealthy traditions.

Yeah. And I, I feel like I would want to give people the benefit of the doubt. I don't think they realize what they're choosing at all when they go about doing this. So let me read off a couple of things. It increases inflammation and lungs causing asthma and lung cancer. This is obviously chronic exposure crosses into the blood where it causes again increased inflammation, oxidative stress in the heart and blood vessels, leading to cardiovascular disease. It crosses the blood brain barrier causing neuroinflammation. So that can lead to neurogenerative diseases. I know that. I think when we went to India it was something like their lifespan was significantly impacted by poor air quality every day. So I'd say that. And the other point about this is that this is a non consensual pollution of our shared resource of air. And so I think that's also a thing that upsets me is like the kids that get exposed to this, if you go out and have a couple alcoholic drinks with your friends, that's your choice. But the general pollution of our shared environment, and I think that comes from misunderstanding and not being educated on the topic. So I do think it's the kind of thing like, just like with alcohol where we can push the narrative forward. Like let's have drone shows, not fireworks. Like very simple, easy to swap it out. We'll all enjoy it. We can put some speakers up and make some loud sounds at the same time.

Yeah. The shared resource thing is true. Like when, as you mentioned when you and I were basically we were trying to find an outdoor adventure on Saturday and we're like, oh man, like the day. Like there was this cloud of smoke. It was, it. It looked like there was fog in la. It was so densely populated with smoke from the fireworks. Yeah. The stat that Kate mentioned was that India would do more to improve the health of their citizens by addressing air quality than by curing. Cancer. So in that sense, air quality is a higher yield endeavor than solving all of cancer. It is this invisible force. And we saw this firsthand when we were in India and then when we saw this in the LA fires. So I guess toxins really have been top of mind. So even though when the 4th of July happens and it's this acute exposure for 24 hours, I guess I'm now particularly attuned to two toxins because we've been working on measuring them and removing them. And so to see all these urban areas across the United States just get bathed in toxins, it just like hurts my soul.

That's about like a symbolic thing. Okay? Fireworks, like, it's probably not gonna kill us in the long term having one day in the year. But also it's a choice, it's a societal choice. And maybe we don't have education on it. The thing that Mike was saying was like, the LA wildfires were really scary for everyone because it was something where it was imposed on us by the environment and, and we really were all exposed to some pretty intense toxic chemicals. Mike, what's your take on what Brian was exposed to?

We knew it would be bad. Wildfire exposure is bad in general. And there was a lot of homes obviously tragically burnt during the LA wildfires, which expose us to other chemicals than you traditionally get from just a tree, you know, organic matter type of wildfire. So we expected it to be bad. I don't think we expected it to be quite as bad as it turned out based on Brian's results. Brian, Ryan, why don't you share your, your results with us? What, what did you, what did you see on that test that you had performed after the LA wildfire?

All right, if you look at this data, you just see red, like down the line. And let's walk through a few of these chemicals.

So you got a baseline and then you got. This is after. Is that right? Just to clarify.

Yeah, that's right. When the LA fires happened, I had measured a baseline toxin level before for a different therapy. So I was potentially one of the only people in Los Angeles who was being measured for toxins. And I got a before and after shot. So I did the baseline, I forget a month or two before. And then I did this follow up, I think on like day five or six post when there, when it was still ashing and it lists out like Mike was saying, the various toxins, like the industrial grade toxins, all the stuff you, you would see in burning homes and burning cars, and it just Basically loaded up my body with every single toxin. They measured to the between the 75th and 95th percentile for intensity.

And what was really interesting is that the toxins that we saw elevated make perfect sense when we think about what was happening. Right. So homes were burning. So you were being exposed to things like phthalates, which are plasticizers, which basically just means they're chemicals added to plastics to make them soft and more flexible. And these are things like me, hp, mbp, all things that we would see from burning homes when, when homes burn, tons of plastics are burning. We were seeing a lot of increase in VOCs, again from other burning organic materials. And these are things that we would also see from like burning solvents from household products like cleaners, foams and sprays. And both of these, the plasticizers as well as the VOCs have lots of terrible effects on the body. So things like reproductive developmental issues, increased risk of developing asthma and allergies, carcinogenic, um, basically everything you can think of regarding inflammation, affecting DNA, oxidative stress, these chemicals are gonna do. And these went from, as you were mentioning, Brian, from like zero in your normal life to 95th percentile. Meaning like we compare you to the rest of the population of, you know, out of a hundred people, you have higher levels than 95 of them, which is pretty, pretty impressive.

This of course is not meant to, to scare anybody. It is to say that there are various sources of toxins. And when that does happen, I guess we want to identify what toxins are entering the body. So I guess like two layers. One is if we can just baseline, it's not a good idea to generate toxins in society that bathe all of us in toxins. And then the second thing is when we do have events like fires which are out of our control, then that's a second vector that gets to us as well. And so maybe we can bridge to what things we're doing once we're exposed to these toxins. But keep in mind that when I had this exposure, I stayed inside for the majority of that time. And I had multiple air filters and a MERV 13 air filter on my H Vac system. So I was pretty decently prepared to cycle through toxins. But it, you know, it seems like it made a minimal difference. Now if someone else was in the same environment and when and was outside and had no air filtration systems in their home, in their home, then it could have been worse.

You said something there. I just wanna, I wanna comment on real quick. We're not trying to scare people, eh? I mean like I maybe a little because maybe it's not we're trying to scare people, but getting scared is the side effect of knowledge in this situation. Cuz I think so. So many people don't understand about air pollution in general or even its effect. Like where I live I have friends that still sleep with their windows open when there's a wildfire nearby because they don't want to run their AC and they want it to cool off their house at night. And I'm like what are you doing? You know, like knowledgeable, educated people are, are not aware of the effect that air quality often has on their health. And that's a problem we need to fix. And so to some, like if some people get scared, like I don't know, like not that big of a deal to me in terms of like educating people and helping them understand like how to take better care of themselves.

Yeah. And what we're trying to do in society is say one, there are things that are within your control, our control collectively, like fireworks. There are things that are outside of our control. Don't be scared of those things happening because throughout history this has happened time and time again. The only difference here is that we know and we're going to learn from it. And three, using that information we can try and test protocols for how we can go about preventing this. Because preventing the wildfire, not using these materials in construction, it's probably going to be very difficult. But what we can learn from this is like if you are exposed to toxins, which is going to be inevitable going through life currently in society, here's how maybe we can start to scientifically attack like is it possible to remove these toxins from your body and how quickly and know how difficult it's going to be, how accessible is it going to be? We're trying to give a path for like let's actually like tackle these big problems.

For those of you interested in the gory details, let me just read you a few descriptors of.

You look happy.

I mean some people are going to want to hear this. One of the toxins that showed up in my body is called H. And so my levels went from undetectable to a fake 5 fold increase, 95th percentile, 23 micrograms per gram. And so Hema is a derivative of vinyl chloride coming mostly from the fumes of burning synthetic floors, pipes and wirings. Pvc. Both vinyl chloride and ethanol oxide are known as carcinogens as well as long term neurotoxins. With acute effects including headache and dizziness. So I mean, you can basically go chemical by chemical and say, what's in a home? You've got pipes, you've got, you know, plastic materials. And we just down the line, Mike started going through these. Every kind of material that is used to build a home, you can now see in my body when I did this test.

Wow.

So again, from undetectable to 95th percentile. So pretty amazing to get this data in real time. You know, dpp, this is likely coming from the release of furniture and electronics. It's a byproduct of a fire retardant tpp.

What was it like receiving the results? I mean, you worked so hard on your body and keeping everything perfect. So what was that like?

It was a pretty terrifying time. The fires were raging in Los Angeles. I did not know if the house would burn down. And I also had my son with me. We, we talked about leaving town. We wondered if we'd be okay. We wondered if the fires could be contained. We, we were not quite sure what to do. In retrospect, I think the correct decision would have been to leave town for the toxins. But in that moment I was really thinking more like, are we going to lose the home and everything we've ever, everything we have in those situations? You're not thinking of all those things. But when I got the results, I mean, after things calmed down, the fires were out. Yeah. Seeing the toxins, it was obviously devastating because we are so meticulous with my health. Like every single calorie that goes into my body, we've looked at scientific evidence and then just to bathe myself with with chemicals. That's the, the sad part. But there is a, a now a, a next chapter that is actually positive that we can get into because once I got bathed in toxins, we said as a team, what can we do about the situation?

Yeah, make, make the most of it.

Yeah. The first part of the podcast, you guys, we're going to go down the various categories of toxins. So we talked about VOCs, phthalates, industrial solvents, like all the stuff that happened as a, I mean in the wildfires, but that we see in our environment also in fireworks. Another toxin that we recently tested is pfas. These are the forever chemicals. And so these are the ones that you accumulate primarily in water, nonstick pans, fast food wrappers. They accumulate in the body, cannot eliminate them. They're a class of 12,000 plus man made chemicals used to make things again like in water, stain resistant Heat resistant kinds of things.

So Mike, what, what are PFAs?

PFAs are. Well, they're called forever chemicals cuz they're really hard to excrete. And the reason for that honestly is just because our bodies didn't evolve, live with them, right? These are things that we created after our, our system evolved to where it currently is. So our system's not prepared to manage them. Our kidneys reabsorb them as as opposed to pee them out. Our liver doesn't know how to handle them or break them down. The bonds in these chemicals are some of the strongest in nature. And because of that we don't have a metabolic pathway to break those bonds to clear out those chemicals. So it turns out that the only way we can get rid of them is through like non urinary excretion pathways. So things like sweating, breast milk, menstruation, childbirth, the gut. You can also actually like excrete these through stool to some extent. So the only real pathways we know about that get rid of these chemicals are those that I mentioned with a few interesting opportunities around sweating. So sauna, which we'll talk about, as well as stool with these fiber compounds that can help sort of bind these chemicals and help you help your body excrete them through stool. But because they're so hard to get rid of, the half life of these things is like on the order of years. So when you ingest that chemical, you're looking at like two, four, six, eight years before you're actually gonna get rid of the majority of that chemical. And the challenge that we have now in this world is that they are in every water supply.

Like that's not an overstatement at the.

Very depths of the ocean, like literally everywhere. So the challenge becomes how do we prevent exposure? Exposure and maximize the opportunity for clearance, which is, which is not an easy one.

It's worth noting that PFAS contamination. Mike, you were mentioning the oceans. So PFOs has a 41 year half life in the ocean and PFOA has a 92 year half life.

Gosh, that's wild. So it's like, all right guys, like strap in, get comfortable. Like we're gonna be hanging out for a while. Like our kids are gonna be hanging out with these chemicals. They're better at longevity than Brian.

And those chemicals themselves disrupt the algae that manages carbon dioxide in the ocean. So it's actually like, oh gosh, I didn't know if I wanted to actually say that part or not. And I'm worried about scaring Kate, more.

In the clinical studies, the half lives within humans looks like PFOS is 3.4 to 5.7 years, PFOA 1.5 to 5 years, and PF HXS is 2.5 to 8.5. So, Mike, just what you said, it's multiple years for a half life. And because they're so disruptive, and a teeny tiny amount is so disruptive, you want to be extra careful with pfas.

And I think, if I'm not mistaken, that there was a study that showed that. Don't quote me on this, but from. Okay, maybe I shouldn't say this because I actually.

Somebody's going to quote you.

Okay. I. I literally have my fingers on the keyboard ready to quote you.

It's gonna get tweeted immediately.

I was going to say that I don't think there's been blood samples that haven't had PFAS found in them like that. It's. It's in all of our bodies. Like there is no one who can escape award.

Right? Inescapable.

Yeah, exactly. Given that, and Brian, you've been meticulous, as we know, about everything that you put in your body. I was really curious to see what your results came back as. Like, would this be another wildfire situation where you were like all of us and were exposed to it, or do you have low levels?

Yeah, I had the same questions because the effects are pretty bad. Lowers sperm count, disrupts thyroid hormones, suppresses the immune system, elevates cholesterol, creates liver damage, increases cancer risk, causes neurodevelopmental issues, lower fertility in women. So it really does wreak havoc on the body, on all systems. And these are all things, of course, we measure on a routine basis. So I was really in a heightened state of awareness of what these results would come back. And Kate ordered the test before me, then they sold out. And then Kate gave me her test in an act of generosity.

For science.

For science. You've since taken your test, right?

I haven't got my results back.

But you took it.

I haven't. It's actually sitting right here.

You have taken it.

I have a stack of fingerprick test that I need to do, but yeah, I've got it right here. I know. Okay. I'm not. Not everyone is like you, Brian, that.

Can do this is catastrophic. Can we talk about the psychological factors that contribute to the test sitting on your desk?

I need therapy on this.

Enter the health shaming.

Kate, what's going on?

I need help.

Do I. Do I need to be your testing verification partner.

Support, support buddy.

Okay, you know what? We're getting together for a few events today, right? Bring your test and we're going to do it together.

Okay, Sold. You know what, Brian? I've been waiting for this moment because the other thing that I haven't done is my latest pace of aging test. Yeah, I've got a few that I need to get.

Bring them on over. We will have a blood party.

Also, on the law of fertility stuff, something that stuck with me was that higher levels of PFAS are linked to a 40% lower chance of getting pregnant as a woman. So I know fertility is a really hot topic for people. People are having children later. And so that's a very scary and real statistic around why you don't want to get exposed to these chemicals.

Yeah. These chemicals directly reduce steroid hormone production as well as thyroid hormone production. So they get stuck in our body, enter every cell, and not only are they causing some of the things that Brian mentioned, like oxidative stress, increasing cholesterol by mimicking other fatty acids, but they're actually the way our DNA is expressed at the very, like, basic level of human health. Again, not trying to scare, just educate.

Wait, can you try again? For someone like myself who has no. Like, what is steroid production? I've never even heard of that before.

Yeah, so like testosterone, estrogen, I see any of the sex hormones, it's going to reduce the production and the adequacy of the way the system operates. So not just like reducing production, but how it responds to a situation where your hormone should be higher or lower, which is obviously very important for women who are going through these cyclic changes throughout their month that gets altered when you have higher levels of pfas.

Wild. Okay, so, Brian, drumroll. What were your results?

Yeah, so I was. I'm just asking an AI tool if there's PFAS in fireworks.

We're really on a vengeance against fireworks. I also just like sidebar. I don't understand fireworks. I don't get it. I don't get the appeal. Do you guys feel something when you watch fireworks?

I think so. There. So you see these huge explosions in the sky that are. That are beautiful. You feel them, you hear them later than you see them. Like, it's like physics happening before your eyes. Admission. I took my kids to the fireworks show on July 4th.

This is fast.

I stayed up late because it's not till 10 o', clock, which is way past my bedtime. But I was feeling guilty as a Like, I'm a bad father. I'm not taking my kids to the fireworks show. We were initially like, nah, we're not staying up late. Our. Our family doesn't stay up late. We're going to bed. And then I felt guilty, so I took them, and we were like, you know, a mile and a half from the fireworks themselves. So I, I, I'm not confident. I never smelled anything. I'm not confident they had any exposure whatsoever. But they were stoked. They got to watch these, like, beautiful, like, you know, thing in the sky, and it was amazing, and the wind was blowing, and I don't know, Mike.

You'Re, you're safe here.

I feel where people are coming from, where it's like, we can. You can villainize. You literally can find a paper to villainize anything. Right. Like, if you look at science from that perspective. So, like, at some point, we have to make decisions around what's important for social interaction and connection and awe and wonder and what is reasonable to extract from that equation to improve our health. And I think that equation is different for everybody, and I think that's okay. I don't think it has to be perfect, but I do like what you guys are doing while you're educating. Like, you know, hey, if you're going to make this conscious decision to expose yourself to fireworks, smoke, at least know that it's bad for you. Right. Like, at least make a conscious decision as opposed to the decision most people are making currently, which is uninformed.

Yeah. And ultimately, what we're saying is that fireworks, we're not quite sure where it hits on the threshold and whether we're willing to make that or not willing to make it. And the point of the conversation is to have the conversation. We might collectively be like, you know what? Totally worth it. Love the feeling of the seeing the fireworks. Like, absolutely worth it.

You guys populated the airwaves with certain ways, certain mental models. I'm going to populate the airwaves and say, don't. Don't bathe yourself in chemicals on purpose and call it fun. Because there's so many voices that say, oh, in moderation. Oh, have a little bit. Or, like, we want purpose and connection. It's all storytelling. We, you as a human, you can definitely thrive and be happy and feel connected and have fun and be a great family. Mike is not shaming you without, without lathering each other up with chemicals. And I feel like the, the dominant voices in society want to pat this thing down because it is, it's a collective Assessment of is kind of like, you can't change society on a dime. We do want to be socially inclusive. You want to be involved. Like, I totally understand all those arguments that the problem is those arguments lead people to this conciliatory mark where they conclude, well, I guess we continue on. And there's very few voices saying this is a bad idea, like just full stop. So if I can populate the airwaves and be that voice in society, I think I would play that role.

I think it's a worthwhile contribution.

Okay, my results. So I got a total PF, O, A pfos, P, F, H, X, S. I got a full panel of PFAs and.

A lot of acronyms starting with.

P. That's the, and the summary is my PFOA levels are in the lowest 25% for US men aged 20 to 49. They use that because it accumulates over time. And my PFOS and my PFX XS are in the lowest 25% compared to boys aged 12 to 19. And so relatively speaking, my levels are low. This is kind of surprising to me because I just started Blueprint five years ago. Before that, I did not know that. I mean, I guess I was peripherally aware that nonstick pans were bad because of various reasons. But otherwise I have not had great water filtration systems. I've not been aware of these things throughout my life. So I'm really surprised these results did, did not come back higher because my life has been a typical American lifestyle with all the toxins in our food supply and everything else, all the materials we have. So very surprised. And I wonder actually if what we've been doing with Blueprint over the past five years effectively lowered my levels in ways which we don't yet know. But I'm, I'm really surprised. I should be a. I should be on par with everybody else at this point because I, I don't think I've lived that differently from most. If anything, I think many of my habits before I started Blueprint were worse, much worse than the average person.

Well, there's probably multiple things that you've been doing recently, at least, that have improved these, right? Like how long have you had your water filtration system? It's years, right?

Five, Five years now.

Five years of water filtration. So you effectively have, and that's probably the largest source of PFAS for the majority of humans on Earth is water. So exclusively drinking, or almost exclusively drinking from an adequate reverse osmosis, this system, you're likely significantly reducing your exposure. And then you're also doing lots of things to increase excretion you like Blueprint gives you lots of antioxidants. So you are going to be doing a better job of clearing toxins. High fiber diet, you're likely clearing more toxins through your stool because of that. So you don't eat meat, which is another big source of PFAs. So there are things that I think have probably got you in this lower 25 percentile for sure.

Also I'd like to do one other fact check to make sure that from my understanding it's not nonstick pans that are the problem, it's the construction of nonstick pans. So it's not like you don't want to use nonstick pans in the home because there's microplastic in there. It's that the manufacturing of those products.

Both are true, I think. So manufacturing products is the primary source of the, the PFAs that PFOA, which is the really bad one that everybody tries to avoid, that was used to make Teflon pans for a long time. But also Teflon pans and nonstick pans, when they get to a certain temperature, they do start to release volatile compounds. While they're not as bad as the PFOA that was made to make the pan, they're still not necessarily good. So the Teflon itself is relatively inert until you heat it to high levels or when you scratch it, things like that. So in general they're not as bad, I think as most people think that they are. It's actually the process of making them that creates the majority of the compounds that are bad for you.

Cool. So still don't get them. Don't feed the economy and avoid having to expose yourself to them later on when they degrade.

So you can actually look this up online. You can look up the PFAS levels of every. Not every, almost every tested water, municipal water system. And it's actually a pretty cool calculator where you can put in how long you've lived in that place, your age, I think. And then the, the water, municipal water supply you're using and it'll estimate your, your serum PFOS levels. And for me it was like almost perfect.

I would like to indicate that I'm getting stressed by this conversation and I suspect that I'm. No, no, I suspect I'm not alone in this. If people. So if you're listening, bear with us. I am with you. It is stressful. Can we talk about how to reduce toxins.

Yeah. Kate just messaged me privately about the situation.

I messaged Ryan. I was like, I don't have a water filtration.

I responded, easy to solve, Kate, I've got you. We'll get two tests done today. We'll get a water filtration system. We can get the same one I have at the house. It will be an easy fix. Yeah, you're good. Mike has one already.

You got the full setup, Mike?

Yeah, I got one off Amazon for like, 300 bucks. It wasn't. Wasn't too bad.

All right, let's get to the good stuff, please. Can we soothe our souls?

Can we just start with, like, the good news? The good news is that, like, I think Brian is an example of the opportunity to reduce toxin exposure. So Brian's done a good job of implementing tools in his life to reduce exposure and also to help clear the toxins in the first place. So there is, like, light at the end of the tunnel of this chronic exposure of toxins that we're all dealing with in the world.

Yeah. So the. To pile on what Mike said this, it should give you hope that on several fronts. So we mentioned this. My most recent microplastics test, I had one microplastic particle in the sample I provided, and that was in the lowest 1% of the 4,000 samples we've collected. So a 93% reduction from my previous levels of microplastics. So that was a big one. And then two is, we did the same toxin test that we did post the LA fires, and after 20 or so sauna sessions, it annihilated those toxins. So there was also probably some natural tapering off of those toxins because they do cycle through the body, but also just a dramatic reduction in toxins in the body. So two really strong results. And then the PFAS results, I think, were also very positive. The sauna is not going to remove PFAs. But also, like Mike was saying, the diet, I maintain, is a very pro toxin removal diet. So these things do have compounded effects. And this is what we talk about. You guys, you can piece this together. We've tried to be the most thoughtful group in the entire world on how you see systematically address longevity. And so everything we do, from like the. What you put into your mouth to the exercise protocols to sleep, all of it has this holistic effect. So hopefully you feel encouraged that you hear the. The conversation today is specifically about toxins, but more broadly, we're trying to say that the protocol we've built is I think best in world for approaching health overall. So a few things on the specifics. I have a, a that reverse osmosis water system in my house. I paid thirteen hundred dollars for it. It sits beneath the sink. Mike has one that's a few hundred dollars. They're competitive in price. Kate, you will get yours too. It's reverse osmosis and then there's a re mineralization that happens. So that's a good way to eliminate a lot of toxins from water. I also have an air filtration system. So I bought a, a commercial grade system. I bought the IQAir Health Pro Plus XE. It's a bit expensive. It's about $1,000 per filter. And I bought several of these to be throughout the house because we're trying to maintain perfect air quality in the house at all times. There's many other air filtration systems that are competitive with so you do not need to spend that kind of money. But having a high quality air filter in your house is good. Even more powerful is having a high MERV filter in your H Vac system. So if you can have a MERV 13, that's ideal. But you need to make sure that your system is rated for whatever number you're going to have. Some systems can only take like a MERV8 or MERV9. The higher the number, the better the filtration system.

Can I just tell you guys a story about air filters?

Yes.

I live in Oregon, in central Oregon. We get lots of fires near us that often blow over us. So we get smoke plumes during COVID was one of the first worst fires that we, that we experienced. And the air quality outside for 3ish months or so was between like 200 and 300pm 2.5, which is, you know, an average of at least like 2x LA, maybe like 3xLA 5x 5x. Sorry, it was, it was really bad actually.

5 to 10. That's, that's incredibly high.

Really high.

Yeah. So you know, like there's the Purple air app that allows you to like check the air quality. We actually had purple air.

Yeah.

So, but it's Covid and there are no air filtration systems available in stores or online. Like Amazon sold out. Home Depot sold out. So I finally found some box fans. I borrowed box fans from friends and bought these H Vac filters and literally duct taped the tape them to the back of the H Vac the, the box fans and made two of them, kept them in my house because my H vac, even though I had a MERV 13 like Brian's talking about, which is an ideal level for, for air quality, it wasn't enough because the air was just so bad outside. I mean like, I had to like, I literally taped the doors like Saran Wrap over the ventilation fans in the bathrooms because the smoke was like drifting down from the ventilation fans. So I built these, I built these tools. Funny thing, now you can actually buy these pre made. So like on Amazon for like 70 bucks you can buy a, a box fan that literally just has like a little attachment for it that you put an H vac filter on the back of. So it's just sort of funny that like I like rigged this thing that then, you know, five years later people are like, oh, this, this works, we should just sell these.

That's a very clever idea.

There's lots of tools out there where you can get filtration for, you know, affordable in affordable ways. But the, the point that you made about the H Vac, Brian, is important. That's the best tool you can use to improve your indoor air quality is just making sure you have an adequate filter on your H vac.

Mike, did you guys experience any kind of medium or long term negative health effects from this?

I'm sure a hundred percent, yeah. I mean there's, there, there's, there's no way, I mean nothing that I measured, I didn't measure at the time. But had I had done one of the tests like you did, I'm sure myself, everyone in my family, everyone in the area would have had similar exposures to similar types of chemicals. Now it was predominantly wood burning, not in homes, um, so different sorts of exposures. But wood, wood burning still has PM2.5. That's important and, and bad for health outcomes. So I'm sure everyone had, had bad and still does have bad effects from, from this exposure. So that's why it's important to at least mitigate your risk while you're inside.

Your home and also like your anecdotal experience. There's like two things there. One is you can get these free apps so at least you can make appropriate decisions day to day on how much exposure you're getting to. Like for us, with the wild, with the fireworks, it was like, okay, today is a 150pm 2.5 day, so we're not going to go outside, we're not going to exercise outside. That's free. Free apps and then filters are quite expensive. These are alternative things you can do as well. And the other Thing is you can get these internal monitors so you can have a monitor in your home so you can actually track are the interventions that I'm doing in my home space actually working compared to outside air.

It's worthwhile noting too that the, the standards that the government, the EPA sets for air quality are, they're a touch different than what the research suggests. So the research would suggest that basically once you get above 50, there start to be health effects. There's many places like for example my hometown where kids sports still happen up to 200 just because the EPA hasn't directly come out and said that they need to not. So things are, things are not necessarily to your benefit.

That is not a good situation.

Right now we're at 35. So to give an idea of how easy and quick it is to get this kind of data at your fingertips.

So our next thing you can do. So we talked about a H vac filter, we talked about an air filter inside the home. Also other things for example like wrappers for fast food. So there was a study done that showed over half tested from major chains had it. So this is the grease resistant paper, that's molded fiber and this was, is being pushed out in California. But still the you don't want to mess with these. They are potential contaminants of pfas. So that's a good excuse to not eat fast food.

I think we already had good excuses. I'll take that one too. Yeah.

Just in case you were still considering it. So we've talked about reducing exposure. Now let's cover how we can get rid of it and then also your results. Brian, after having tested again, it's worth.

Mentioning on our podcast on microplastics, we went over the steps of how you can minimize your exposure to two microplastics on a daily basis. You're now toxin aware which is very positive. And now you can make choices on the few things you can do. You don't need to be overboard but just these big ones, you know, water, air, avoiding things like non stick plant pans. Donate fast, you know, fast food wrappers, some of the bigger ones. And you can make some big gains in reducing the overall exposure.

So Brian, we noticed a significant change with sauna. Do you want to tell us a little bit about what happened when you tested your tested your toxins after your sauna?

We recently started this protocol. It's 200 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 minutes. That's 93 degrees Celsius and it's a dry sauna. We chose that because it has more compelling evidence. And we were shocked at the efficacy of toxin removal. Mike, I think you mentioned you hadn't ever seen such a dramatic reduction of any kind of toxin removal therapy.

No, I had not. I mean, I had also never had anyone who, like, religiously does exactly what I tell them to do. So it might be just that you're. You're actually doing the sauna 20 minutes, seven days a week, 200 degrees. But it was, I mean, we, you basically went those results 95th percentile on what, seven or eight markers to like virtually zero.

Zero. Exactly.

In the time span. Was it three weeks?

Yep, 23 sessions. So we'll throw up the results on.

Screen, which is crazy.

Yeah. And. And I guess it could also be the case that the sauna was coupled up with the Blueprint diet. So we're, we're high in, in the fiber, the antioxidants, and a lot of the nutrition. So I wonder if it's a combination of diet, exercise, sleep, sauna, like the combinatorial effects of a body running. Well, but it was, it was a stunning decrease.

We'll put this up on screen, but just to like rattle off somewhere. And we had 100 drop in MEP, 15 drop in MP, BP, 100 drop in ME HP, which meant it was undetectable. Post sauna, we had 56 drop in NAPR and HEMA and 100 drop in PER correlate across the board. A mixture of somewhere probably between, I would say at least 50% across most markers. So wild change. And these are all of those compounds that were increased specifically from the LA fires and burning of materials that are inorganic.

There's other things that you were doing as well too, and worth mentioning these, Brian. Like, for example, on the Blueprint diet, you're naturally getting high levels of antioxidants like vitamin C in acetylcysteine, lots of cruciferous vegetables, like lots of sulfur containing compounds like garlic. So high levels of these antioxidants are going to help your body's natural defenses against toxins. So the body naturally manages toxins with the exception of the forever chemicals, the pfas. And the way to help the body do that is a diet that's high in antioxidants. So by getting these high levels of antioxidants, you're gonna do a much better job of clearing quickly. So that's also helping the sauna. So it's not just sauna by itself. And then you were still doing some HBOT, right?

Yes.

Yeah. HBOT's likely going to have a similar effect. So anti inflammatory antioxidant effects that are going to basically support those systems, the anti inflammatory antioxidant systems, that's going to allow your body to manage clearance of toxins a lot easier.

Okay, so we can sauna, we can boost antioxidants through diet and supplementation, we can boost antioxidant anti inflammatory defenses through hbot. What else can people do?

Yeah, and by the way, we should throw up on screen the Don't Die food guide. So eat foods from this menu. And then the blueprint stack has many of these things that we're talking about. So if you want to do that, great. If you want to go out and buy your own, go do it. We're trying to make this easy for you guys on how you can do this, you know, in some kind of low cost, time manageable way.

And then the last thing that we didn't mention was increasing your fiber intake in general to also be able to excrete it through stool.

Yeah. And that's most significant for the, for the PFAS chemicals as well. So helping your body or helping your stool grab onto those PFOS chemicals and excrete them because otherwise they get reabsorbed by the gut.

All right, you guys, there you have it. Am I more emotionally soothed? I think so. It's definitely a scary topic. It makes me sad that we don't have better infrastructure to know what's affecting our bodies. But also I'm very happy that we're being fairly diligent, even if it is an n of 1, that we get to have these novel insights to help others. What do you guys think?

I take Brian as an example that there is easy opportunity here for, for most people that is even relatively affordable in the sense of water filtration as an easy tool to reduce exposure, as well as just replacing your H Vac filter with one that's slightly stronger. MERV 13. Like even if you did just those two things, you're having a really significant impact on your overall health and your overall toxin exposure. And that's relatively approachable for most people, which is great. And I think hopefully we can help educate people that these are things that they can do to take better care of themselves and, and their loved ones.

Yeah, and actually again, like we always come back to the same thing, which is like the basics of health end up covering off a lot of the majority of benefits that you would get from this anyway. So, you know, exercising, excreting through, through sweat, having a Fibrous diet. If you want to simplify your health routine and not get stressed out for this kind of stuff, just cover the basics and you're off to a much better start than majority of population, especially here in America.

Yeah, I also want to punch in and offer some words of comfort because I know this is very distressing. I mean, for example, I know we mentioned this on our podcast on microplastics. Glass bottles have 5-50x the microplastics as plastic bottles and that can lead to a feeling of despair that no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, it's just unavoidable. So therefore, YOLO and just want to give you some encouragement that it really is about the journey. It's science is going to change. We're going to be surprised here and there. I mean, I discovered this week that in doing the sauna I was accidentally using a towel that was 15% polyester. So I was accidentally, I was accidentally wiping my body with toxins when I was in the sauna to try to remove toxins. Good bit of humorous irony for you there. But it's going to happen and it's fine. So try to get the big ones in your life. Like we discussed, clean water, clean air, just try to avoid spikes of toxins where you have control, for example, fireworks. But it's really, you know, there's a, there's a limited return on this of going too far. Just try to get the big ones right. And we discussed like fast food is a vector for these kinds of things. So a few good decisions that I would say that there's two different versions of you. There's a version of you that is sober minded and wants to be your best self, that hears these things and says, I'm on board. And there's a version of you which is in the moment. It's like, I'm just gonna eat the, the fast food meal because of it's Saturday and I deserve a break. And you know, whatever your rationale is, try to channel your best self and your best moments and then make life choices. So this is what I did when I fired Evening Brian. Evening Brian's the kind of guy who's gonna be like, honestly, PFAS is not that bad. Like, whatever, it's everywhere. You can't avoid it, so you might as well. And I just said, evening Brian. You can't have decision making power anymore. So this is very much like a psychological thing. It's very practical. So I understand the complexity of this. So I hope you don't feel overwhelmed. I hope you see this as, like, a nice, positive step. We're doing this together. Like, collectively, we're becoming much more aware of toxins, and we will change culture as we make these changes together. So have hope. We're gonna be okay. We're gonna figure this out.

Perfect ending.

That was awesome.

This is the Brian Johnson Podcast. Special thanks to my co hosts Kate Tolo and Dr. Mike Mallon. For more science breakdowns and protocols, subscribe to my YouTube channel, follow the podcast on your favorite platform or follow me on Instagram or X at Brian Johnson.