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Yes, I hate to go there. But, I can’t in good conscience keep this information to myself when I know that so many of you are unaware of this.
Get up right now and go grab your deodorant, and bring it back. Now look at the ingredients. Is any aluminum ingredient listed? If yes, throw it out. Aluminum has no place inside the human body, and is linked to Alzeimer’s and breast cancer.
Aluminum is found in virtually all Antiperspirants -but not all Deodorants
You will have no problem finding a Deodorant that is aluminum free. You will however have a problem finding an antiperspirant without aluminum, because aluminum is the magical molecule that embeds itself into your pores, corking up your sweat glands, and eventually absorbing into your blood stream. Hence the name “anti-perspirant” -it actually stops you from sweating by blocking the gland. I’ll save you a debate about the health benefits and cleansing actions of sweating, and skip right to the health consequences of putting aluminum into your blood stream: breast cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Breast Cancer
For a long time, people debated whether or not aluminum contributes to breast cancer. First, people said that it did, and it caused a big scare. Then (probably) deodorant companies sponsored some studies that showed that it didn’t and everyone’s concern was put to rest.
The facts. In 2007, British scientists officially linked aluminum in the bloodstream to breast cancer. Their tests showed that women who used antiperspirants containing aluminum had aluminum concentrations in their breast tissue, and had developed breast cancer. The highest concentrations of aluminum were found in the section of the breast adjacent to the armpit. The scientists re-iterated that aluminum is not usually found in the bloodstream, and it was quite alarming to find it in concentrations in the tissue of a breast that had developed cancer.
In addition, cancer researcher Philippa Darbre, PhD, of the University of Reading in England, says the evidence is piling up that the aluminum-based active ingredient in antiperspirants can mimic estrogen in the body. She tells us that, “Lifetime exposure to estrogen is the risk factor which is tied most strongly to breast cancer,” and that “If the aluminum salts in antiperspirants enter the body and mimic estrogen it stands to reason that constant exposure over many years may pose a risk.”
Part of the problem is that women apply anti-perspirants directly after shaving allowing easy entry into the bloodstream for the aluminum salts which typically make up 25% of the volume of antiperspirants. The other part of the problem, as I stated earlier, is that the armpit region is located so close to the breast, allowing for a build up of aluminum in the breast tissue, which may eventually trigger cancer.
Alzheimer’s
Many studies have been done that establish a link between Alzheimer’s and aluminum. That is because aluminum is a neurotoxin that causes tangles in the brain among neurons. Here is one study that showed that aluminum in the drinking water had a statistically significant effect on the development of Alzheimer’s. It’s a fact that people suffering from Alzheimer’s show higher concentrations of aluminum in the brain.
I can tell you from personal experience that Alzheimer’s is a terrible, terrible way to go. My grandmother developed Alzheimer’s before she died. And my father, her son, would have to introduce himself to his own mother whenever we visited. Needless to say, the rest of our family would also have to introduce ourselves at each visit. Imagine your entire memory getting erased in old age, when you are supposed to be enjoying the satisfaction of having a family of children and grandchildren. It’s awful and by the time you are old enough to start developing it, there is no turning back -although some promising treatments (albeit expensive) are on the horizon.
the bottom line
When you shave your armpits, and put on antiperspirant, you are basically injecting aluminum into your bloodstream. The body efficiently eliminates aluminum from the food and water that you drink, but the jury is still out on what happens when it absorbs into your skin. No, there is no conclusive evidence. But why risk it when there are plenty of aluminum-free options?
Be safe. Be smart. Live long.
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Hey there! Welcome back!
Hopefully by now you’ve all thrown out those non-stick frying pans. Good job! Today, I want to talk about something that is even more hazardous to your health, silently damaging your health and that of your family members.
Question:
What was banned in Sweden, present in the tissue of every American, present in the breast milk of every America woman, and really fucks up the brains of developing mice in laboratory studies?
Answer:
Brominated Flame Retardants
But first, a brief history of the industrial revolution
Starting in the late 18th century, huge advances were made in agriculture, machinery, steam power, and more. It was the pivotal turning point in human civilization. In the blink of an eye, our entire civilization went from weaving our own clothing and carpets, writing with feather pens and riding horses to buying heaps of throwaway crap at WalMart and driving cars.
One side effect of the industrial revolution was lawyers. In an increasingly industrial society, it was increasingly important to put laws in place, and exact large sums of money whenever those laws were broken. Another side effect of the industrial revolution was fires. All of the carpets and couches and clothing, televisions, computers and basically everything had a nasty habit of going up in flames. Well, that might not have been such a big problem if it weren’t for the lawyers who made it very costly to the manufacturer when an item of manufacture went up in flames, and burned down a house.
So the manufacturers responded by doing the only logical thing. They started covering everything they produced in a truly nasty family of chemicals, known as Brominated Flame Retardants. There are over 70 types of Brominated Flame Retardants, but the most common kind you will hear of is a family of PBDEs, including penta-BDE, octa-BDE and deca-BDE. Enough with the jargon though, let’s get down to it.
Prevalence of PBDEs in America
For some crazy reason, and maybe its just because we are the most sue-happy country on the planet, we used 34,000 metric tons of the 40,000 metric tons of this shit that was used WORLD-WIDE -and that was only in 1999. It is estimated that the U.S has used 53% of ALL brominated flame retardants in the world, and it was all injected into American homes. And that is precisely why Americans have a 10x to 20x greater concentration of PBDE in their tissue and breast milk as compared to Europeans (source: nih.gov ).
Ok, so PBDEs are in my body. Are they bad?
“toxicological testing indicates these chemicals may cause liver toxicity, thyroid toxicity, and neurodevelopmental toxicity. Environmental monitoring programs in Europe, Asia, North America, and the Arctic have found traces of several PBDEs in human breast milk, fish, aquatic birds, and elsewhere in the environment.”
The real kicker is that we went so gung-ho with PBDEs they are now found in fish, birds, wildlife, dirt, etc. etc. However the good news is that the total accumulation in animals we eat is so small,that these sources do not provide a significant risk. In other words, the food we eat that contains these chemicals does not alone account for the astronomically high amount of contamination we have in our bodies. Which leads to the following question…
How does PBDE enter my body?
The growing body of research suggests that the bulk of human contamination is occurring through dust. Dust from your carpet contains it. Dust from your couch contains it. Dust on your TV contains it. All these things are coated and cooked with PBDEs, and all the dust they generate have trace amounts.
Let’s look at the home computer. It heats up. Dust gets pushed around through its insides. It picks up lots of PBDEs, and then all the dust sits conveniently on your computer screen. Day after day you breathe it in, and your contamination level of PBDE increases. That’s the rub with PBDE, it never leaves your body. On the day you die, you will have more of it in your body than you do today. It will never leave your system. Yes, it is terrible. Those are the facts.
The Real Risk
The risk probably isn’t that it will kill you. To me, the REAL risk is that it will slowly accumulate in the bodies of the women in our country, and they will feed it via breast milk to their babies, and the babies will turn up with all the neuro-degenerative effects that the toxin had on mice. Before you tell me I’m crazy (and I’m sure plenty of you will, thats ok, I’m used to it), consider this article from the Washington Posts that releases new data, terrifying, that 1 in 150 children born in America will have Autism.
Could there potentially be a link between the fact that 1% of our population moving forward will be born with Autism and the fact that we are the highest consumers of PBDEs in the world, by a gross margin?
CleanProduction.org says it best when they state:
“The continued use of brominated flame retardants in consumer products, such as personal computers, is symptomatic of a larger problem in the United States – the lack of a sustainable chemical policy. Chemicals that persist in the environment and in our breast milk, blood, livers and thyroids should not be allowed in commerce.”
Shame on us. While we were sitting on our asses, watching TV, watching football, playing video games, we could have been lobbying the government, we could have been standing up for ourselves, against those who have no qualms against toxifying our country so that they might turn a larger profit.
A chart
This is a great report by CleanProduction.org, and I encourage you to all read it. It’s written in a language the average Joe can understand and get pissed off about. In it you will find this chart:
As you can see, from this study, Harbor Seals and Herring Gulls were the highest contaminated. Breast Milk from American women registered the highest in the world for brominated flame retardants, With Canada right behind us. Sweden, smart enough to ban it (if only temporarily), started seeing a nice decline.
…so Kick the Crap out of PBDEs
I’m assembling a small army to declare war against PBDEs. They include:
Sergeant Paper Towel
He’s made of paper and he’s pissed off. This crazy sarge was let out of prison because he was the only one who knew the ultimate weakness of PBDE… Every day, or every other day, or hell even once a week, rip one off. Moisten it with water or Windex, whichever you prefer, and do battle:
- Wipe down your computer screen
- Wipe down your television screen
- Wipe down your computer desk
These represent the largest risks, but really you should dust everything. Don’t use one of those stupid feather dusters that just shakes the dust up and puts it into the air. Use a paper towel, moistened, and then deposit it in the trash where PBDEs belong.
Colonel Air Cleaner
When it’s time to bring out the BIG GUNS, Colonel Air Cleaner is the man for the job. He should be patrolling the home of every American, but apparently $40 is too much for people to pay for his protection. Hell, the government should use our tax dollars to buy us his protection, because their idiocy caused this whole PDBE mess in the first place. The Air Clearner, he’s rough, he’s tough, and he doesn’t fuck around. He eats dust for breakfast. For lunch he’ll have pet dander and mold with a fine Cabernet. Oh and dinner, don’t even get me started on dinner. Mite feces. Volatile organic compounds. Smoke particles. It’s all nasty shit but the Colonel can’t get enough.
HEPA filters will remove 99.9% of everything .3 micrometers and larger, and are often effective right down to .01 micrometers. Once you go HEPA, you never go back.
Brigadier Vacuum
Cross Brigadier Vacuum the wrong way, and he’ll suck you up and throw you in solitary confinement, AKA the vacuum bag, for the rest of your life. He’s been in the shit, he’s got a case of PTSD that will make a psychologist cry, and now he’s gone literally insane, unable to distinguish a plastic gum wrapper on the ground from his own cord.
So bust him out and vacuum the shit out of your house. Even if it doesn’t look like your carpet is dirty, it IS dusty, and that dust contains PBDEs. By enlisting the services of Vacuum Cleaner regularly and frequently, you’re making your home safer for all.
Osama Bin Lint: The Most Evil Terrorist of All
Osama Bin Lint, fresh from the dryer, shows the highest concentration of PBDE’s out of anything and everything found around the home. Who would have thought the war on terror would hit so close to home… so close to the very machine that dries our clothes. Don’t you dare take a breath when you are removing that lint from the dryer. Don’t you dare throw it on the floor of the basement, or let it sit around the house. Change it every time and get it in the trash. You may even want to consider wearing a mask or covering your nose and mouth with something. Your dryer lint is quite literally toxic.
Be Safe. Be Smart. Live Long.
Sources:
CleanProduction.org: Brominated Flame Retardants Dust on Computers
Environmental Health Perspectives: A Novel Class of Developmental Neurotoxicants in Our Environment?
Chemical & Engineering News: Flame Retardants in Dust
Scientific report showing BFR’s reduce long-term potentiation and postsynaptic protein levels in mouse hippocampus. Translation: “these chemicals fucked up mouse brains”
This Little PBDE Went to Market: Estimating Intake from Grocery Store Foods
Washington Post: 1 in 150 US babies will be born with Autism
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To kick off the launch of this blog, I want to share a story about something that happened to me earlier this year that helped inspire the idea for this blog.
Six months ago, I moved to California from the East coast with my girlfriend to chase some opportunities out west. When we signed for the keys to our new apartment, our living space was bare and we both knew one of the first things we had to do, after unpacking, was to go to a departments store for the basic home furnishings. She had brought plates and silverware, but we needed cookware.
So we’re in the cookware aisle looking at frying pans. She goes for the cast iron frying pan, and I say something like “honey, don’t you want non-stick? Those iron frying pans are such a pain in the ass.”
“But non-stick frying pans give you cancer, honey,” she replied. At first I didn’t believe her. I had used non-stick frying pans all my life. I did however remember my mother warning me not to scrape the non-stick pan with forks or knives or anything that would scrape off the non-stick coating.
Well, as it turns out, that non-stick coating is some nasty shit that you do NOT want to put into your body. Here’s what I found out:
- Non-stick coating was developed in the 30’s by Du Pont
- It is made from a chemical called perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA
- PFOA has repeatedly shown in laboratories to cause cancer, liver damage, growth defects, immune-system damage and death to small animals.
- In 2004, Du Pont had an Erin-Brokovich type case where they were accused of poisoning the water supply with PFOAs, causing birth defects among other health hazards. DuPont paid US$300 million as an out-of-court settlement to around 50,000 residents who lived near its West Virginia plant.
- DuPont has agreed to phase-out the chemical completely by 2015, and they are classifying the chemical on par with mercury and lead, a poison that remains in your body forever.
- Trace levels of PFOAs are found in almost every American.
So what I get from this is that those bastards at DuPont made a really useful product with a really toxic chemical, tried as hard as it could to confuse and blur the studies that showed how bad it was and then signed a quiet deal to phase it out over a few decades after they had made enormous piles of cash. The Cigarette companies lied to us that cigarettes were harmful to our health, but they’re not taking cigarettes off the market like they are with non-stick.
The Equivalent of using Non-Stick frying pans…
…eating your food off a lead plate, and using mercury as dipping sauce.
The really sick thing is that if you go to a store to purchase a frying pan, there is absolutely no warning labels on the non-stick coated pans. If I had known how real the threat was with non-stick cookware, Teflon or any other name it is known by, I never would have used it. But now I have a level of PFOA in my body that is going to be there forever. I just gasp at the tragedy that people are still using non-stick cookware, who are unaware of the dangers because the whole thing has been quieted up.
So listen to me, because right now you have a responsibility. All your friends and family who probably use non-stick frying pans need to be made aware of how toxic they are to their health. Tell them to throw out all their non-stick pans and get new pans without the nonstick coating. Call them, email them, let them know that you care about them and that their health is at risk each time they continue using this toxic piece of cookware.
References:
Washington Post: Harmful Teflon Chemical to Be Eliminated by 2015
Canadian Cancer Society: Teflon and non-stick cookware and cancer risk
Environmental Working Group: Teflon and other non-stick pans kills birds
Science News: Nonstick Toxicity causes liver cancer in fish
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