Decrease Toxins in Your Home & Talk to Your Kids About It #podcast #health #doctor #harvard #mom

Toxins in our environment can cause everything from chronic inflammation to cancer to— and even diseases that scientists used to think was mostly related to genetics, like Parkinson's disease. So what can we do about it? Well, knowledge is power, and today I'm going to talk to Dr. Ailey Cohen, board-certified rheumatologist, integrative medicine specialist, and author of Detoxify: The Everyday Toxins Harming Your Immune System and How to Defend Against Them. And we are gonna break down environmental health in a way that's practical, science-based, and hopefully not too fear-driven. We're gonna cover everyday toxins that affect the brain, the immune system, and hormones. And we're gonna talk about why children are more vulnerable to environmental exposures. This episode is all about prevention, protecting our family's nervous systems with realistic changes that you can take action on today. Listen to the end because we have some age-specific tips. From grade schoolers to middle schoolers and teens. Welcome to the Mind Body Space Podcast. I'm Dr. Juna Bobby MD, your host. I'm a board-certified radiologist, lifestyle medicine specialist, and a Harvard-trained educator. And most importantly, I'm a mom passionate about prevention and boosting resilience down to the cellular level. Hi, Ailey. Thank you so much for coming back. I'm so excited to have you on today. Tell us about your brand new book and about the other books you've written.

Thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure to talk to you and to your audience. So my recent book is called Detoxify. I think you can kind of see it in the back, but I guess I love that cover. I have like 20 on my floor here, and that one was really a culmination of 3 areas of medicine, integrative medicine, rheumatology, and of course environmental health. My other 2 books, one was Nontoxic: Guide to Living Healthy in a Chemical World. And that is a great book. Very more, more intense guidebook. Yes. And this is the, the guide— this is the textbook with 26 contributing authors who are just superstars in the field of integrative environmental medicine. And that one is through the Andrew Weil Oxford University Press Academic Library. So yeah, I've had a lot of years under my belt doing this work.

So that's incredible. Yeah. How did you get started writing books? Did you pitch it to an agent?

Well, actually, I had been trained by Dr. Andrew Weil at the time that I was getting my fellowship in integrative medicine. I was already starting to get into environmental health 'cause my dog got sick. I write about that a lot and how his illness really made me open up my eyes to what he was exposed to in his life. And at the same time, they were looking for another person to write the textbook for integrative environmental medicine in his series. And so, Life just works that way. It all just kind of, you know, found me. And then from there, he had a consumer series that I wrote this book for. And then from there, I went into the consumer market to get to more people than just academics and healthcare, you know, providers.

Much needed. And I'm so excited to hear about the new things in your new book.

Yeah. So I put a lot in there. Took about 5 years to write. I was pulling in as a clinician, as an integrative rheumatologist in Princeton. I've been doing this work as a, a Western and integrative doctor for 22 years. So what I was really trying to do is figure out a way to scale what I share with patients. In other words, to really be able to give some of these pearls to people, actionable statements to help with their immune system, to help manage chronic diseases, to lower inflammation, treat their rheumatoid with less medications or no medications to help prevent disease. The goal was to give them lots of tools. I have a 21-day plan for reducing chemicals. I have a detoxify food pyramid, which is a play on even Andrew Weil's pyramid and also Dr. Mark Hyman's Pegan diet. I have the 4 A's of environmental health navigation and really how very simply we can start to think about this issue and how to reduce exposure. So lots of useful practical—

Why don't you share with us those 4 A's?

Yeah. So the 4 A's are a way that I've put together for high school students and college and even other physicians. And it's really very simple. The first A is assess. You want to assess where you're starting from in this journey. I have a 50-question assessment. It's very based on everyday life. You know, do you dry clean your clothes? Do you look up your cosmetics and personal care products? It's not to judge, it's to kind of help you get a handle as to where you're starting from. Assess is really important because then you can do the work. The second A is avoid or swap. So that gets into what are our resources for looking up, you know, cleaning products and personal care products? Where are the best resources that are vetted? Can we either reduce our exposures by changing, say, canned foods, for instance, for more fresh or frozen? Or what would we like to swap? And where are the resources to swap and get products that we like that are less toxic? The third A is add. Add is a really critical part of this conversation. You can take all the chemicals in the world away, but you have to add in certain things to the human body in order for it to work better, to detoxify, to make us healthier at the, even the cellular level. And that's which foods are really helpful for human health. Why are we missing out on so much nutrition in modern day times? And what can we do about that? Do we need supplements? If we do, how do we know they're good, bad?

Junk.

What are we paying for? How about stress management, gut health? How does the gut play into the immune system? Lots of things to add that really keep us healthy. And then the last A is allow. And allow is really what I've discovered, including my colored hair and my kids on, you know, lacrosse players that play on turf that's toxic, whatever. It's life, it's travel, it's birthday cake, it's Really understanding that it's a journey and that you don't have to go for perfection. You want to do as much as you can with the right tools and the right information.

I got the assess, then I forget the second one.

Avoid or swap.

Oh, avoid or swap. And then it's add and allow. I'm so excited to have you on today because there is so much information out there and you're a real expert and a researcher in this. So it's really nice to know where to go to get the correct information. And obviously things are changing all the time, right? Our information is changing all the time. So, so I just wanna add that Detoxify, the subtitle is Everyday Toxins Harming Your Immune System and How to Defend Against Them. So in this book you're really addressing, and, and I guess 'cause the lemon is on the COVID that might be an ad along with many Whole Foods probably.

It's a refreshing take on the topic. It's a positive swing. In fact, when I named this, I really wanted it to be a verb. I wanted to detoxify, not to be detoxification. I wanted it to be an active verb to really talk about how this is an ongoing actionable process. And it was very important for me to share that the COVID is supposed to warm you up. This is a very overwhelming conversation. It loses a lot of people from fear tactics. I don't sell products, I don't endorse brands and the work that— so that my material has integrity. And I'm in the area of education. So to me, this is my gift to really share with people that what I'm saying is not vested in what I sell you. And that—

well, thanks for doing that, Ailey. That's really incredible. I love that. So if you were— it is an overwhelming topic. So let's just go.

Yeah.

On our last episode, I had you kind of walk through the house with me. You know, we were talking about walking in through the front door and through the house, but let's just go with this book. How about you give us the top 5 things that you would look at or assess from this book? Like, I assume you've done new research now and you've found more things out. So one thing I do wanna touch upon is this increase in lung cancer that they're finding in Asian women who have never been smokers. So I have wanted to talk about that topic. Obviously there are environmental toxins that we can avoid in the home, like the fires that this summer and stuff. And then I also wanted to talk about the hormone disruptors.

Yeah. So, so to, to your point, lung health, air quality is certainly addressed. There are certainly different demographics that have different nuances in terms of their risks. We know that radon, for instance, leads to almost 250,000 deaths per year. From lung cancer and nonsmokers. And you can have radon not in the home next to you. I mean, it's literally that specific. It's generally from the ground. It can come up from your basement.

It's from rocks also, just for people who don't know. Like if your house is built on a rock, chances are you have more radon. And obviously you get home inspections. But as you know, Aili, we can just simply open the window or ventilate the home to really detoxify our homes from radon. Is there any other tip on that?

Well, you can get a radon testing kit, and when you do that, there's a whole list of things you can do. And having good ventilation applies to fires, it applies to gas-generated stoves and appliances. It, it really is more, again, a global recommendations that I give that really cover a lot of these individualized demographics where they have higher risk, certainly between radon and cosmetics and personal care products and anything else that aerates cleaning products in the home. You need better ventilation. You need, you know, an understanding that is really kind of simple. But it's not just bringing it into your home and understanding how to vet the products that we bring into our home, because that's a really good place to start. That's upstream. They buy this stuff and bring it in. It's understanding how what we do in the home, like candle burning, incense burning, air fresheners, carpet powders, Swiffers that come with their own set of chemicals designed to be paired to your, you know, the broom, the specialized Swiffer broom. So I think—

Teenage boys, they love Febreze.

Well, it covers things up, right? It's better than having a sink full of, you know, dirty dishes and spraying Febreze on the commercials. I'm fascinated by those commercials. But the idea is that, you know, when you think about what you bring in in the first place, then you think about how economically airtight our homes have become to save costs on our energy and heating bills, right?

That has been actually designed with old-fashioned insulation rather than the foam. Do you have any thoughts on that? I was pretty adamant about— I've built two houses and I went nontoxic on both of them. The foam insulation is not supposed to off-gas as much, but there's always the chance with all the heat going on nowadays. It's so hot. I can't imagine that there's no off-gassing and it has to be put in exactly a certain way or it will continue to off-gas. Is there anything you know about that?

Yeah, I mean, building materials is a whole different, different wing of what I do and I have people that help with that kind of thing. And so I'm not gonna say that I could speak speak directly to the science on that, and certainly various brands have different marketing. And yes, who knows? I mean, listen, you know, conventional insulation has issues as well. I mean, we know fiberglass, you know, there's been a lot of problems over the years. And, and, you know, there are asbestos issues that are no longer part of the allowable building processes, but there's also exceptions to that, believe it or not, in the building industry. So You know, what I say is very smart to build your home and do remediation in a very reasonable way. Just for that, for people who actually dive into that. That being said, for all of us real mere mortals that either rent or buy homes that we can't necessarily— we don't need to have those upgrades for any particular reasons. You know, it's what we control that really has such great effects. You can get plants, you can have plants added to your home. Plants are remarkable. There's some studies that I've seen in the plants. Spider, spider plant, snake. Yeah, spider plant, mother-in-law's tongue, Dracaena, big leafy plants that have big surface area for dust and particulate matter to land on that you can wipe clean. Opening windows when your outdoor air is cleaner than your indoor air. Cities, certainly pollen counts are lower in the morning, so I tend to do exercise for myself in the morning when those counts are lower. Temperatures are lower, ozone is lower.

I have this air cleaner. Do you recommend those? I got the Austin. They were the ones that were used after 9/11, Austin air cleaners. So I always hope that these things are working. I do not test my air, but I kind of use these things in my home.

I don't speak to brands, but I do have recommendations on how to understand brands in terms of air quality. So understanding the square footage of your space understanding, you know, whether or not there are digital meters to show particulate matter. You can also get a CO2 meter off of the internet, off of, you know, lots of different sources that are inexpensive. So you can measure CO2. And so there's a lot you can do in terms of air quality if you're looking to test. But what I focus more on the book is less on spending on testing and more on the doing. So I would rather people, instead of getting whole house filters for water, I say, you know, start with a reverse osmosis for your kitchen underneath the kitchen sink. If you want to put a, you know, put it in underneath with a plumber, it's much more convenient. So you don't have to keep filling it up there. $275 filters out there. The plumber's $150 for an hour, no more. And then you have this machine that works for you for the next, you know, whatever, 5 to 10 years. So the idea is, and I have a countertop one that I just gave to my son who's actually using it at college. Um, where you put water in the back, it has its RO system, and then it makes water for the front. It's so cool.

So I got the Berkeys, the gravity ones. Those are pretty good, but I still get paranoid. They're so hard to keep clean, and then I feel so guilty because sometimes I have to throw them out, and I just— I'm like, oh my gosh.

Yeah, everything can get moldy if you don't keep up with it, but these are the solutions in the risk-benefit, and that you choose. Rather my son have a rather dirty life as teens do and still have drinking water that is predominantly clean. And then when I come up for parents' weekend, I'll clean it for him. But the idea is that we all have an opportunity to do very low-cost changes that shouldn't overwhelm us, that once you, you kind of beat that topic, you move on to the next. And that's kind of how I formulate my messaging.

I love that you mentioned the gas stove because I still don't think most people understand this, that the combustion from gas stoves are one of the biggest air polluters in home. In fact, I was trying to convince one of my doctor friends, she was renovating her kitchen. I was like, you have to get an induction stove, the ones that use magnets to heat up really fast. I have one of those stovetops.

So when I'm addressing any communities, the first thing I think about is what are they using and what are they affording and what can they do? Because if you're in a home that is with you know, gas, which is the typical presentation. Most of us can't swap out and go renovate. And I'm—

well, my friend happened to be renovating.

For sure. For sure. When you have an opportunity, like, for instance, I sat on a toxic flame-retardant couch for, I think, 8 years, knowing full well that it was pretty bad stuff because it was $3,000 or something at the time to get a really good one. At that time, there was far less attention being paid to the health of your textiles and flame retardant chemicals. So that was a choice. I had no choice. We had lots of expenses. And, you know, so when I finally got rid of it, I felt very comfortable posting on it that when you're going to make these renovations and changes or you get money coming in and you feel like that's an expense you can afford, no question about it. Look, I have gas appliances and we have good ventilation. We keep the doors and windows open at appropriate times during the day. We have our washer dryers checked for, you know, buildup of dust and clogging of the exhaust piping. We've changed our washer dryer because we're gas. We're not going to be able to change over. We've changed to higher grade, less— more sustainable versions when they broke. So there's even within the nuance of, oh shoot, I've got gas, there's ways to make that livable and not freak out about it when you're renovating. No, it's always a good opportunity to upgrade when you're renovating. That is for sure a good thing.

I had gas for the longest time. I used to open the windows and have all the ventilation going and all that. So having said that, you gave that TEDx talk about how to talk to your children. I can't remember the exact title.

Yeah, how to keep your kids healthy from toxins. And the punchline is, is that we should be trying to at least give our kids an idea of how to make their environments healthy, including personal care products, which they're big fans of. I have two teenagers and I know for sure that they use a lot of different products. If you give them the tools, the vetted information, I mean, my high school students look up EWG Skin Deep database. When you give them the opportunity to control their choices, not only do they appreciate that because they're independent and they want to do their own stuff, but they're gonna be making lasting changes that affect other things later in life. Should they choose to have children? Should they be, you know, trying to reduce their risk of developing illnesses that of course are genetically tied but also environmentally tied? Mm-hmm. So you're giving them the tools to really have healthier future at the get-go once they know how and why it matters.

I'm with you. And how do you approach the sort of sensitive topic of not trying to freak them out with things like cancer, which obviously is tied to environmental factors and toxins we put in our bodies. And then that whole letting go. I know the 4 A's help with that, but what, what would you say to tell it? When would you start telling kids about it? I would say kindergarten, but what do you think?

I've been doing a lot of research on who is most receptive. I've done a couple pilot projects in Princeton High School, and my understanding is that when they hit high school, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th, when they're getting environmental sciences, they're learning about sustainability and climate, they're learning about when they're going through adolescence, they wanna be cute and smell good and look pretty and attract the other person or whatever it is. That's a really wonderful window to get in with not so much fear, but education. So for instance, you know, when I frame how to use, you know, EMF, uh, you know, cell phone technology and computers, I say, keep your computer off your lap, which I see when I go into their high schools because you're gonna lower your sperm count. That is more intriguing to them.

What about the phone in their front pocket next to their scrotum?

Correct.

Or girls putting their phones in their bras. I actually recently saw somebody with a phone in their bra and I did say something to them about the possible risk. Has the evidence changed or anything, or are there possible links to breast cancer?

Yeah, there's both benign and cancerous tumors being connected to the antenna. That is in the phone and gets the most radiation. So a phone gets— it has an antenna which you can look up on your particular phone, and that connects with the cell phone tower and pulses about 90 pulses per second. So we know that there's no case that will fix this. There's no sticker. There's nothing that can really turn that messaging off from the antenna and create a block on that radiation other than turning, you know, putting on airplane mode, which, by the way, you can still listen to your alarm through, 'cause mine is always off next to my bed.

Oh, that's good to know.

Oh, for sure. Unless, look, I, you know, had sick in-laws and we were worried that we'd get called in the middle of the night. Certainly you're not gonna get those calls if you put on airplane mode. So you have to be conscious of that. But if you're not expecting anything horrible, generally speaking, airplane mode is a good way to prevent that exposure no matter where you are.

And so listen to— for those who don't know, like you can listen to download a little material, but even when you're not actually using it, the, it's sending signal back and forth. So you are actually getting radiation. Not in airplane, right? In general, if you just have your phone, it is receiving that constantly.

For sure.

Even if you're not using it. And then what about when you're using, you know, to talk on the phone? Like I read something way back about, and I haven't read about it recently or, or researched it, so I wonder if you know about benign brain tumors, meningiomas, any, any connections with that?

Gliomas.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, the, the data is pretty strong in, in terms of glioma potential of the brain in terms of the ipsilateral side of the brain. So the head, the side you use it. Gliomas aren't necessarily cancerous, but they certainly are tumors. There's also studies showing schwannomas, which is around the, um, the chest tissue in terms of the heart. And so we know that radiation, the simple answer to all of these risks is that distance is your friend. When it comes to radiation, the further radiation sources are from your body, be it a computer, be it a cell phone, whatever that might be, any kind of Wi-Fi, I would even argue, you know, Bluetooth, I, I would, ask people to sort of rethink Bluetooth, even though my kids don't listen to me. The distance component is really important and that it's an exponential reduction in radiation. Exponential, not just doubling, but multitudes, multiple drops. Yeah, drops way down. So the idea that if you have a laptop and you can put it on a table is a huge win. If you have a cell phone and you can't necessarily put it on airplane mode, but you have no other place to put it, put it in your back pocket where your tush is because it's a little thicker for most of us. Than other places that are more sensitive, certainly not in your bra. And then when you talk about AirPods, I mean, the studies are not really as strong as they should be because the money going into it is, is far less than we would like it to be from some of the big researchers that are doing this. But the idea is that, again, AirPods are an antenna and that you're bringing that closer to your brain. And when you're young, another issue is that adults have different skull components, you know, than young people. So young people tend to have thinner skulls. There's more, you know, fat content when it comes to children. As you get older, it changes. So there's more of a, you know, the radiation can seep differently into the brain. It can get further than it can with an adult skull, which has changed in terms of its components. So the idea that children might be more vulnerable is certainly a real phenomenon. And there's very good studies showing that. But that was more with the cell phone data than it was with the, um, the iPod— the iPod. So I don't want to scare people because my kid uses it, especially when—

I mean, the AirPods.

AirPods, you know, he uses the headphones. But the idea is that I'm really pushing him to not use them because I want to pick my battles. And when you're a mother of kids, you want to just pick your battles or else they stop listening to you. And, and when they really need you, they don't want to talk to you.

So Um, well, you could also show them the papers, and it doesn't have to be you. It could be coming from someone else. But like these wired ones, even, yeah, you get radiation through these also. So the only ones I read about that you actually don't get energy, anything, are the air tubes. But they're so hard to find, and I don't even know what they sound like. I haven't tried that. But I just try to use no earphones at all if possible.

And a speaker, yeah, I can feel them heating up. Every single brand has its own risk. It has its own safety potential or not. I just tend to not use earphones myself. I use Bluetooth in the car, meaning that it's not in my ear, it's in, in the antenna of the car itself. So that to me seems very reasonable.

Okay, so one more thing about tech. What about computers? Do you still believe in the blue light blocking glasses? Because there are a lot of these studies where the light into your eyes, especially at night, can increase your risk of certain cancers like prostate, breast cancer. There has been some correlation with that.

That may be true. I'm not familiar with some studies that are using radiation through the eyes connecting to the— I mean, certainly hormones are connected to our vision system, right? In our—

I think it was more light, actually light in general getting into the eyes, especially at night. So it was disruption of circadian rhythms.

Let me just say the light has to be a certain wavelength. So there's a distribution of different wavelengths that are considered more harmful or, or harmful stimulating the system and then affecting circadian li— rhythm. So it's all tied together, just like you said. The issue that I have seen, and which intrigues me more as I'm getting older and my eyes might be failing me more, is that the question of whether rods and cones in our eyes, the anatomy of our eyes, are getting affected from the constant screen time, whether it's blue-blocked or not, whether you're managing those, you know, ranges of light versus not. To me, between all of the light exposure that is very non-anthropologic, it's not natural light. There's going probably be more evidence down the line that we might be spending too much time and maybe hurting the actual structural components of the eyes. Now, I've talked to lots of ophthalmologists and they said that the studies are in play. So we'll see what happens with some of that information. I don't know for sure, cuz we all use this technology. I mean, look at us and look at my phone ringing and all that. But I think it's just another reason for us to be conscious in modern day times that our bodies are anthropologically built and that when we make all these changes, it may not be great for us and we might wanna just pull back a little bit, you know? There's really cool settings on now modern-day iPhones and computers. So newer versions actually have built-in settings that you can do without having to buy glasses.

And you do that work so you can put it down on a sunset?

I mean, yeah, I can't tell you I've third-party checked them for validity, but I will say that if they're, if they're promoting that, if it's part of their messaging, I mean, I do have a little sensor that I could probably test. It came with my BlueBlocker glasses that actually had a little light that came with it to show you Okay. I mean, I could probably do that. They're not hard to find online, but essentially that has become enough of an issue to be a selling point for products. And I think that that's something we can certainly look into in our phones and in our computers for sure.

All right, great. And just to wrap up, could you give us a talking point for kindergarten to third graders, then middle schoolers, and then high schoolers? I know you work with high schoolers the most.

So again, appealing to young people, you have to know what they value, right? It's like really with anybody. If they value their looks, they're going to be listening to you and how you frame an issue around what matters to them. So when I talk about, you know, when I talked, I just talked to my kids' high school upper school assembly, which is really fun with my two boys actually were in the audience loathing it, but actually enjoying it, I think, underneath it all. But the idea was I didn't want to overwhelm them with canned foods or you know, Febreze as much or, you know, I wanted them to understand how cologne works because they wear cologne and they, they really like cologne and the girls and how, you know, girls want a lot of products too, just like boys. And how, guess what? If you want a manicure pedicure, why don't you consider a safer base coat? Because that's the one that touches your nails. And then maybe later on down the line, you'll work up to some kind of cleaner top, top coats. The idea is to not scare, not overwhelm, but appeal to what matters to them. Yes. Because to me, they don't have a real good idea of time. Mm-hmm. They don't believe they're invincible. So you gotta kind of appeal to their almost immediate needs and wants.

One last thing. What about for grade school students? What would you say to them if you were gonna give them 3 tips today?

Okay. 3 tips. I would say grade school, I would say look up your personal care products cuz they're starting really young. So giving them resources like environmentalworkinggroup.org/skindeep, Clearia, Euka, Think Dirty, those are all using a lot of the same chemical databases in terms of making their scaling and their grading system for products. I would say thinking about water quality, which is a good topic for adults for sure, but also having kids talk about it with their parents. They can educate their parents. In getting a very cost-effective, you know, carbon block filter. But I think even more reasonable nowadays is a reverse osmosis because it costs the same upfront than it would be from filling all the refills of, say, a Brita or some of these other pitchers.

So water—

because they're all carrying their water around. And then really when it comes to air quality, I do think about colognes, perfume, candles, A lot of these kids are— even for little kids, well, their roads tend to be something that they like to make very personalized. Thinking about that to me is really something important, um, for them.

Yeah, awesome. I love it. Thank you so much, Ailey. It was so great to have you again. Thank you so much for your time.

You are awesome, and I love that you support the work in education in this area. It is so important that physicians that are in every aspect of health, really embrace this because that's how the ripple effect happens. I appreciate your support. You've been great over the years, so thank you so much.

And congratulations on your book and all of the work you're doing. I really love it and I really appreciate you.

Likewise, back at ya.

That was Dr. Ailey Cohen. You can find out more about her and grab a copy of her new book at aileycohenmd.com. Visit mindbodyspace.com to sign up for our newsletter. And follow us on social media. On Instagram, we have a new page, Mind Body Space Podcast. And for fun and useful resilient content for kids, follow us at Brain Bun Official at Instagram. Check out our courses on mindbodyspace.com. Tune in next week for more tips on how to avoid toxins, one of the major pillars in prevention and reversal of diseases from the American College of Lifestyle Medicine. Thank you for listening. This is Dr. Juna signing off, wishing you and your family wellness.