Recently I interviewed Dr. Wendie Trubow, as she discussed many of the different environmental toxins that can not only affect the thyroid, but one’s overall health as well. This is one episode that everyone can benefit from listening too, regardless of whether you have Graves’ disease, Hashimoto’s, or a non-autoimmune thyroid condition. If you would prefer to listen the interview you can access it by Clicking Here [1].
Dr. Eric Osansky:
Today, I have Dr. Wendie Trubow. We will be chatting about environmental toxins. I am going to dive into Dr. Wendie’s bio here. Dr. Wendie is a functional medicine gynecologist with a thriving practice at Five Journeys. She is passionate about helping women optimize their health and lives. Through her struggles with mold and metal toxicity, Celiac, and other health issues, Dr. Trubow has developed a deep sense of compassion and expertise for what her patients are facing. She is co-author of Dirty Girl: Ditch the Toxins, Look Great, and Feel Freaking Amazing. It’s a great book with a great title. Thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Wendie Trubow:
My pleasure. Thanks, Eric. Great to be here.
Dr. Eric:
Great to have you. If you could talk about why you decided to write the book, get a little bit into your backstory.
Dr. Wendie:
When I was 48, I went off the cliff. I blamed it on perimenopause. In reality, it was because I had gotten a level of toxic exposure that I was now showing symptoms from. I had a lead exposure just before turning 48 in September. The next year, in April, I was 48, and we went to Notre Dame right after it had burned down. We slogged through the dust, came home, and I gained nine pounds, had a rash on my face, eyes, nose, under my lip. I wanted to rip off my face. My hair was falling out in droves. What was going on?
It took me a few months to figure it out. I do functional medicine. I applied all the testing to myself. My thyroid was fine, perfect, never better, amazingly because I had always been a little off. My adrenals were good. My gut looked good. My minerals/nutrients looked good. What’s going on?
Finally at the end of the summer, I heard a report on NPR that said when Notre Dame burned, 500 tons of lead were released into the air. The closer you were to Notre Dame, the more exposure you got; the farther away you were, the less exposure you got. We were legit there right after it burned. I turned to my husband and said, “Oh my god. I must have gotten lead exposure. It’s not perimenopause.” #notperimenopause. It’s lead.
I did the testing, and I was higher. I did the testing for mycotoxins, and I had four strains of mycotoxins, which are the toxins that mold puts out when it’s in your body. For a penny and a pound, I did all the testing. I tested environmental toxins, things like gasoline fumes, nail polish, makeup, plastics, flame retardants. I was positive for a bunch of those. I am such a dirty girl! We need to write that book if I have all these toxins.
Eric, I’m the poster child. I don’t eat gluten because I have Celiac. I don’t eat cow’s dairy. I don’t eat sugar or processed carbs. I don’t drink alcohol. We eat organic food. What’s there to give up? Yet I have all these toxins. If I’m doing all this work, and this is what I have, what does everyone else have? That’s why we wrote the book.
Dr. Eric:
Most people know we live in a toxic world. You are eating clean and doing other things to reduce your toxic load, yet you had a higher toxic load. It makes you wonder if someone like you is taking such good care of your body. On average, I’m sure our listeners are doing things to improve their health and eat healthily. Those people also could have higher toxic loads just like you did.
It’s great that you wrote the book. I have read the book. As I was telling Wendie before this interview, I have all my questions. I wrote notes. I do research on all my guests. Here, I wrote down notes. Part of it was selfish because I wanted to learn from reading the book. I wanted to benefit from the information.
Dr. Wendie:
I am every person. I’m not special. Every person has this. Nobody gets through the toxins testing negative. They come out and are like, “I’m so cool. I have nothing.” Nope. If you live on this earth, you’ve got these, too.
Dr. Eric:
Exactly.
Dr. Wendie:
It’s horrifying. Bad news. You need a hashtag, #badnewspodcast. It’s depressing. But it’s fixable. That’s really the take-home message. It’s fixable.
Dr. Eric:
That’s the good news. No matter what we do, we can’t completely eliminate the environmental toxins. Like you said, the good news is we can do things to minimize our exposure, reduce our toxic load. That’s what your book is about. Then you will share some of the things here that you could do as well. I’m going to dive into these questions here. There are so many different things.
Dr. Wendie:
I know.
Dr. Eric:
I don’t know where to start because I know we’re not going to get to everything. I want to make sure to get to the more important things. You could always interject. But how about xenoestrogens, the endocrine disruptors? Most of my audience have autoimmune thyroid conditions. If you could talk a little bit about those.
Dr. Wendie:
I totally can, but I think we should go up a level before we dive into that if it’s okay and talk about where do you get this stuff from? What do you need to look out for? How do you think about it? If you think about it, anything can be a toxin: too much sugar, too much alcohol, too much smoking, too much sleep, too much sex, too much stress, whatever. We’re looking at the things that we’re exposed to on a regular basis that are causing problems.
The way to think about it is what are you putting in your body directly? What are you eating, drinking? Are you using plastic water bottles? Are you drinking alcohol? Are you eating sugar? Is your food organic? Are you eating grass-fed meat or not? What’s going in there?
What’s going on there? Makeup products, shampoo, body washes, lotions, all of that on your body.
What’s around you? That’s your environment. Do you live near a highway? Do you live near a golf course or a farm where they are spraying? Do you have poor air quality, water quality? That goes back to in you. Do you pump your own gas? Do you have an electric car? There’s lots of layers here.
When you are looking at toxins, what you want to do is be systematic. I think it’s easiest to start with what are you putting in your body. That’s where the xenoestrogens often come in. Plastic water bottles are everywhere. You cannot get away from them. They are so harmful. The plastic water bottles leech these xenoestrogens into the water. Think of kombucha. Nobody ever thinks of it as a plastic bottle. That’s how it comes at Whole Foods. Plastic bottle. Or those juices that come in a plastic bottle. It’s not just water. It’s anything in plastic that you’re putting in your body.
That also includes things like if you’re storing warm food in plastic, it’s leeching into your food. They go into your body. It mimics what your body thinks of as hormones, and it confuses the body and disrupts your normal hormones and throws it off. They are called xenoestrogens.
They’re just as hard to get rid of for a lot of people as other toxins. Because they’re everywhere, they start to build up. They particularly impact the endocrine system, especially the thyroid. The poor little thyroid is like, “What are you doing to me?” It’s like waves crashing on the shore. It never ends. Xenoestrogens can be particularly harmful for the thyroid, high and low and autoimmune. It’s all three.
Dr. Eric:
A few things to point out, which I know you mention in your book. It’s not just about BPA. Some people will say, “I have a BPA-free water bottle.” There are other analogs like BPS, BPF, and more. From what the research shows, some of those are even worse, or at least just as bad as BPA.
Dr. Wendie:
Here’s the problem, Eric. We have been effective at putting out hundreds of thousands of synthetic chemicals, materials, substitutes. Only about 500 of them have been tested for whether they are harmful. The biggest issue is that often in our quest to continue iterating and make it better and make it less harmful, it’s not being tested. It can often be more harmful than the original.
How do you quantify harm? If you have cancer, it’s bad whether it’s cancer or cancer. When you say the word “cancer,” it’s still bad. I’m not necessarily looking for do you want to level up on your plastic? No. I’m not looking for going to a better plastic. I’m looking to get rid of the plastic wherever possible. Making choices that mitigate it and trying not to bring in another source as you’re mitigating. It can be hard.
Dr. Eric:
You’re right. One thing that you mentioned in your book is a study showed that we’re eating about 2,000 tiny pieces of plastic per week. It’s equivalent to eating a plastic credit card each week.
Dr. Wendie:
In a year, yeah. It’s crazy. Not a week, a year. But there is microparticles everywhere. It’s funny. I was talking to someone who is really into fish. The problem with fish is all fish are contaminated now because the microparticles wind up in the fish, and they eat it, and it doesn’t get digested and broken down. If it does, it goes into their body. We eat the fish; we eat the plastic. It’s endemic.
Dr. Eric:
Real scary. When we talk about fish, a lot of people are concerned about the heavy metals like mercury. There are many other toxins that they get exposed to. That’s a great point. That’s a good question. Everything is risk versus benefit. Where do you stand where it comes to fish, recommending wild salmon or other types of fish? Do you just tell your patients to refrain from fish?
Dr. Wendie:
Isn’t that funny? I was talking about if you are getting plastic when you are eating wild-caught fish, but fish that is farm-raised, you’re not getting the wild-caught, but you’re also not getting their freedom to run around. The diet they are fed is not as matched to what they need. There is a trade-off.
I never, ever, ever, ever eat high mercury fish. Period. It’s not negotiable. We don’t eat it. It’s so funny. Even moderate mercury fish, one of my family members made black cod. I think that’s a high mercury fish, and it was high enough that it was considered moderate. I didn’t eat it. I spent years trying to get rid of my toxins. I’m not going to retox.
I say to people: You have to live on this earth. It has to work for you. I have four kids. My mother-in-law and mom eat with us a lot. We have a live-in nanny. We often have nine people eating. We don’t live on a farm. We don’t have access to as much as people who might live in the South and have year-round growing stuff. You want to make it work for your life.
Try to pick a better choice. If you can do wild-caught, that’s great for the cold-water fish. If you can’t, don’t go too crazy over it. Just don’t eat the high mercury fish that are wild-caught because they have eaten all the fish and aggregated all the mercury in them. I would draw a line there. Then I would say sometimes depending on where you live, you might not be able to get either wild or farmed depending on what’s local and fresh. It’s a navigation process.
Dr. Eric:
Can we talk about heavy metals? Start wherever you’d like to start. Mercury, cadmium, arsenic, lead. You mentioned lead earlier of course.
Dr. Wendie:
Pick your poison. They’re really common in a lot of people. My almost 18-year-old has mercury. I’m sure it’s from me. When you separate it into the generations, if you’re 75 and older, you were exposed because it wasn’t as regulated. You were exposed to mercury, which is the fillings and fish.
You were exposed to lead from chemical processes, lead pipes. 10 million homes still have lead pipes in the United States. They create an inflammatory state, and in some people, this will manifest as high or low thyroid, autoimmune disease. The inflammation itself leads to disease. However your body goes down the path of disease, you can show up with that. The metal is the lead pipes. Anyone who lives in a home built before 1978 most likely has lead in the paint. When you hear about people talking, “I did a weekend warrior. I knocked down the wall,” I’m like, “Oh, you got exposed to lead.” Living in that house as it settles, it dusts, you breathe it, you eat it, you touch it, you absorb it. That’s the lead and mercury.
Cadmium is from oysters. West Coast oysters have high levels of cadmium. Some batteries have cadmium. You can get exposed that way.
Arsenic, everyone knows about the rice. That’s the most common way we get exposed to it.
Thallium comes from organic vegetables from California. Acute exposure can make you very sick. High exposure can make your hair fall out. Typically, people don’t aggregate it as much as lead and mercury and sometimes cadmium. I don’t see a lot of cadmium exposure. I’m on the East Coast though. We’re not eating West Coast oysters. They’re not fresh.
Dr. Eric:
You said thallium is in organic vegetables from California.
Dr. Wendie:
The soil is contaminated. It’s grown organically, which is great. The green leafy vegetables have high levels of thallium in them.
Dr. Eric:
Is there anything people can do? There are those rinses, or they can make their own. Does that help at all?
Dr. Wendie:
No. Here’s what I’ll say. Alcohol is really stressful for the liver, our bodies, the adrenals, the gut. When you drink alcohol, the body is changing its focus from normal detox to alcohol detox. If you’re looking at what are the ways to support my liver and improve my detox, the first thing I would say is don’t drink alcohol. It’s so stressful, and it distracts your liver from doing what it normally does. Then it says, “It’s a toxin. I have to detox from the toxin.” Particularly if you’re female, we’re not set up to deal with alcohol the same way men are. Even two drinks a night is way too much for a lot of women.
Dr. Eric:
Another factor is it can increase permeability of the gut. Maybe if you drink just a little bit, it might not. A lot of people tuning in have autoimmune conditions such as Hashimoto’s or Graves’. Another reason to try to avoid alcohol. I did some research for one of my past books. Even red wine, because people ask all the time about red wine, white wine, there are some studies that show that red wine even increases the permeability. Not to mention the toxins, if you are not getting an organic wine as well.
Dr. Wendie:
I would agree with that. Put yourself in two buckets. If you’re perfectly healthy, cool. You can have a couple of drinks a week. If you are struggling with any issue, particularly autoimmune, endocrine, then I would say alcohol is not your friend, and it’s setting you back. I know that’s not popular. At this point, people are like, “Okay, I’m done.” Click. It really is very harmful for the liver, the adrenals, and the gut.
Dr. Eric:
How about aluminum? How frequently do you see that in your practice?
Dr. Wendie:
Not as frequently actually. Aluminum foil, you can get it. My family thinks I’m crazy. I’m like don’t put the food right on the aluminum. Put it on the parchment paper. I’m not making my own parchment paper. I’m not making my own aluminum. I have to trust that at some level, the chain is cleaner. I don’t see any toxicity from aluminum all that often. I don’t see high levels typically. You really have to use a lot of aluminum for it to add up. It’s just not one I see that often.
Dr. Eric:
When it comes to testing, are you using provoked urinary testing?
Dr. Wendie:
Yes. We do a baseline test to make sure there is no acute exposure we’ve missed. Maybe someone did a weekend warrior project, and they got a huge exposure. That should show up on the baseline test. Then we’re looking at a provoked test.
The reason you want to provoke it is your body knows these metals are very toxic, so you are not going to have it in your bloodstream unless you can’t cope with it, unless you’ve overloaded it. You’re going to store it in your bones, organs, fat, and brain. The provoked testing pulls it out from the storage depots so that you can actually get a sense of what’s going on here. Is it worrisome? Is it not worrisome?
Dr. Eric:
For those listening who aren’t familiar with the provocation testing, there are different chelating agents. I’m guessing you use different ones like EDTA, DMPS.
Dr. Wendie:
We use DMSA in our practice. We get it from the compounding pharmacy. They make it up for us. When we do IVs, we use EDTA, DMPS. We use EDTA orally at home, too. We use everything. For provoking, we use DMSA.
Dr. Eric:
Also, I think in your book, unless I wrote it down wrong, you said one of the major sources of mercury is corn syrup. It’s not just fish and silver fillings.
Dr. Wendie:
Right. For people who eat a lot of high fructose corn syrup, the process used to make that high fructose corn syrup has mercury. It’s a contaminant. It gets into the high fructose corn syrup. By the way, high fructose corn syrup also has really high levels of glyphosate and pesticides. You’re concentrating everything in that corn into this syrup. The pesticides and the persistent organic glutens don’t get removed. The mercury is present because of the processing. It’s used as a processing aid. It’s kind of crazy that that’s being put in our food.
Dr. Eric:
That is pretty crazy. I didn’t know it had a lot of glyphosate. I know a lot of things have a lot of glyphosate. We could chat a little bit about it. What can people do about glyphosate? Is it try to eat organic and make sure you have purified water?
Dr. Wendie:
Yeah. Glyphosate is the most commonly used herbicide in the world. In 2014, in the United States, we used about 400 million pounds of glyphosate on the crops. People use it on their lawn. Their landscapers use it. It’s called Roundup in the commercial use. It’s applied to everything. It’s also applied as a desiccant. After you’ve harvested, it’s applied to the fields to dry them out faster, so they don’t get moldy, as well as the product. It’s used in a lot of different manners.
It was originally developed as an antibiotic. It has microbiome disruptive capabilities as an antibiotic. It disrupts the microbiome, and it’s classified as a probable carcinogen by the World Health Organization. In medicine, you can’t say this causes this. You’re not allowed to say this. But you can say it’s implicated in four separate cancers. It’s not in your favor.
When you’re looking at trying to get rid of it, one of the low-hanging fruits is to say I am going to eat organic because they’re not putting glyphosate on their crops. But there is contamination that happens. If you’re eating chickpeas, all the chickpeas in the United States are contaminated. You do your best. Try for the organic, but know you’re going to get some. There’s drift. Organic farm on the right, non-organic on the left. Non-organic sprays, wind blows, and it gets onto the organic crops. There is a lot of contamination that will happen that way.
If you have glyphosate, it is pretty easily removed from the body as long as you’re not taking in so much that you’ve loaded the system. It’s pretty readily water soluble. If you improve your liver function, sweat, get enough rest, and avoid filling the pump up with glyphosate, it should be pretty easy to come out.
Dr. Eric:
That’s good to know. Just try your best to minimize exposure. Do things to improve your liver health. That will help as well not only with glyphosate but of course with all other toxins.
In your background, you mentioned urinary mycotoxin testing. I wanted to ask you a quick question about coffee. I’m not a coffee drinker, but a lot of my patients are. I don’t really tackle the mycotoxin issue, the mold issue with the coffee beans. I’m bringing it up now because I want to get your opinion.
Dr. Wendie:
This is like alcohol. Taking away coffee is like taking away alcohol. We can talk about it, but people are going to be mad at you.
Dr. Eric:
If someone insists on drinking coffee, I’ll recommend drinking an organic brand. Organic doesn’t necessarily mean mold-free.
Dr. Wendie:
No. There are two brands I know of that are specifically tested for mycotoxins in the coffee. One is Bulletproof, and one is Purity. I’m sure there is more out there. I haven’t tested them. I don’t drink coffee. If you can imagine me, this is how I am, so I would not do well all hopped up on anything. I don’t drink coffee either.
But coffee is very moldy, as are grains. If you’re eating a lot of grains, those are really high in ochratoxin. You are going to want to minimize the grains and the coffee. Those are big sources for people when they are getting exposed.
Dr. Eric:
Seems like most of the time, if I do urinary mycotoxin tests, I will use Great Plains Lab. There is Real Time Labs as well. Ochratoxinis very commonly high. I think it could also come from inborne air sources, but it’s good you mention that because a very common source is food.
Dr. Wendie:
Food and water damaged buildings, those are the ways you get it.
Dr. Eric:
How about fluoride?
Dr. Wendie:
I’m not a huge fan of fluoride. I’m going to get in trouble for saying too much about fluoride, but it is a toxin. Can we move on?
Dr. Eric:
Yeah, we can move on. There are plenty of other toxins to talk about. Let me get your opinion. What are your thoughts on microwaving? Even though it’s not really directly toxin-related, it is. When you talk about radiation, EMFs.
Dr. Wendie:
It’s not well studied. My friend was giving me grief because one of the examples I give in the book is our daughter did this science experiment where she fed a plant with microwaved water cooled and Bunsen burner water cooled. The plant with the microwave water died. He was like, “That’s an n of one. You can’t quote that!” I can quote it, but it’s not well studied. It does kill the food. You’re diminishing the quality of the food by throwing it in the microwave.
The next layer is if you are using a pre-packaged food, then it’s inevitably got chemicals, pesticides, plastics. It’s stored in plastic often or in a container that has BPA or some other chemical that will leech into your food. Then you heat it in that. You are releasing even more chemicals into your food. There are a lot of layers to this.
We divorced our microwave. I remember my youngest was two. We had a microwave and an oven underneath. The oven went. I was like, “Let’s get rid of the microwave, too.” We got a double oven. On leftover night, it’s harder. It really is. We have 10 things we’re reheating. What a mess. All these pots and pans. But it is healthier for you not to use your microwave.
Dr. Eric:
If someone does have a microwave and are unwilling to get rid of it, you would recommend not standing right next to the microwave when using it.
Dr. Wendie:
Don’t keep peering in. The other thing I would say is microwaves are somewhat lower on my hit list. What I want to understand is what are you eating? How are you living? It’s not usually the first thing I’m saying, to get rid of your microwave. Once you’ve fixed your food and lifestyle, and you’ve leveled up all this stuff, then get rid of it. It’s relatively low on the list. But if you’re going to use it, no plastic in the microwave, period. It has to be ceramic.
Dr. Eric:
I agree. How about flame retardants? Can you talk about those?
Dr. Wendie:
Yes. If you’re a smoker, you need flame retardants in your bed. Think about it. Our ancestors lived in tenements, thickly settled. If one person set their bed on fire, they set the whole block on fire. It was a huge hazard many years ago. If you’re a smoker, definitely get a bed with flame retardants.
However, if you’re not a smoker, the odds of you being in your bed when you have a fire are so small as not to justify the harm that the flame retardants are doing to you. They are tremendous endocrine thyroid disruptors. If you think about it, you spend eight hours, maybe more, every day in that bed. You are pulling in those flame retardants into your body. They then disrupt the thyroid and the rest of the endocrine system, too. It’s really important if you’re getting a bed to do your best not to get flame retardants in it. That goes for furniture, too. If you’re buying a new couch, a futon, whatever furniture you’re buying, it’s important to look for if it contains a flame retardant in it.
Dr. Eric:
The bed would be a priority because hopefully you’re spending at least six, seven, eight hours at night getting sleep. If you’re spending a third of your life in the bed, you want to have a bed that is not only not flame retardant but free of other chemicals, too. I actually have an avocado mattress.
Dr. Wendie:
I have a birch.
Dr. Eric:
Cool. Since we’re talking about the bedroom, I was going to ask you about air purification systems. That leads us into what to do to reduce one’s toxic load. Before we go there, are there any other toxins, chemicals I didn’t bring up?
Dr. Wendie:
Yes.
Dr. Eric:
I know there’s a lot of them. But are there any I missed you really wanted to focus on? Or did I hit the more important ones?
Dr. Wendie:
I would say the ones I would add in are if you pump your own gas, stop. You’re being exposed to the gasoline additives. Those are extremely harmful for you.
If you are wearing makeup or using nail polish, you want to make sure your makeup is natural because phthalates are a huge source of endocrine disruption. A lot of makeup contains phthalates as do plastics. Nail polish also disrupts the system.
Water quality is really important. Some people live in areas where their water is not safe. You want to know if that’s you. Test your water. Know whether it’s reasonable for you. Filter it if it’s not. Your skin is both a detox organ and an absorption organ. If you’re applying toxins every time you get in the bath and sit in it, it’s not safe for you. Know what you’re getting exposed to.
Dr. Eric:
I’m glad you brought water up. I’ll quickly ask you your opinion. Obviously, everyone has different opinions. What do you recommend as far as water purification? At least drinking water.
Dr. Wendie:
It depends what kind of water you have. If you have municipal water, that’s different from well water. You’re going to need to tailor your reaction based on what you have. We have used municipal water. The quality is pretty good. The perchlorate was a little bit high. We wanted to make sure there was no fluoride or other things, so we have a number of levels.
We have a whole house water filter. My favorite one, because of the flexibility of it, is Aquasana. What I mean by that is if you have well water, you’re going to get the thing that irradiates it, but we don’t have well water. We don’t need to worry about bugs. They have an irradiation option. They have the filtration for various stages of what you’re dealing with. I really like that because it’s components you add on together.
If you have high levels of perchlorate, the only thing that gets rid of it is reverse osmosis. There is no whole house reverse osmosis I’ve found. You have to put it on pointed use. This is where I start to say pick your battles. We have four kids, and we have done all these DIY projects and expanded the house. We have all these bathrooms. How many filters am I going to put in my house? You can put one on everyone. What we say to the kids is, “Don’t drink from your bathroom. Drink from my bathroom. Drink from the downstairs bathroom.” We have selected filters. Pick your battles. We put the whole house filter and then the point of use. Go from there. Water quality is important.
Dr. Eric:
It definitely is, which is why I asked you. I give people my opinion every now and then, but it’s nice to get another opinion from another practitioner, especially one who wrote a book focused on toxins. Thanks for letting us know.
What are some action steps people can take to reduce one’s toxic load?
Dr. Wendie:
Sure. I always recommend starting with food. No question. You do it three times a day, maybe more. Maybe you eat five times a day. Eat amazing food. Organic and local is the ideal. I live in Massachusetts. There is no local food right now. That goes out the window. But if you can, organic, local.
Minimally processed, meaning you can identify what it is based on what it looks like. It’s not, “Hmm, mystery.” Don’t eat mystery food.
Sugar falls into that category of alcohol. Minimal sugar. Sugar is very inflammatory. Disrupts every system in the body. Try to minimize your sugar content or avoid it completely.
Don’t drink alcohol, or drink very little. Make sure your coffee is mold-free. Don’t drink from plastic bottles. Just not plastic water, but it’s plastic bottles, period. That’s the food.
Then the next really impactful thing is, especially for women because we use so many products in the course of a day, is whatever you’re running out of, there is no magical, you have to do this first. Whatever you’re running out of is the thing you should focus on because you’re about to buy it. If you are about to buy something, go to EWG.org or ThinkDirty, and look up the product you’re using. Maybe you hit the jackpot. You got it right, and it’s healthy and clean. Cool, keep going. But if it’s not highly rated, then that’s the opportunity to look for a replacement. When you’re ready to order, order that.
As you do that, in the course of a year, I can’t tell you how many things we order in the course of a year. It’s impactful if you say, “Every time I order, I’m going to level up.” You’re going to make a huge difference over the course of a year. This is not a thing you do in a week or a month. This takes- I’m three years in.
By the way, you get greenwashed. If you don’t look at what EWG or Think Dirty say—these are both apps—you can totally get snookered. I’m all excited. I find this new product. I think it looks great. I forget to check EWG because there’s a sale, and I’m running late, and I’m running around, so I buy it. I’m all psyched. A month later, I go, “Well, that was silly. I never checked that. Let’s check that.” I got greenwashed. The package is all natural, no chemicals. You know what? Not as good as they said it was. Be careful with the things that are touting how amazing they say they are. Don’t take their word for it.
Iterate. As you are getting new things, clean it up. I had a patient who had really high flame retardant in her system and thyroid disruption. I said to her, “Did you just get a new bed?” She said, “I did.” I was like, “Okay then. If you just got a new bed, get a good air purifier.” It’s a lot of money to buy a bed. But if you’re in the market for a bed, get one without flame retardants in it. Same with a couch. Make choices when you have the ability, control the narrative, and change the outcome. You don’t have to get rid of all your furniture at once though. That’s not sustainable.
Dr. Eric:
Agreed. Definitely better to get an air purifier. Next time you’re on the market for a new couch or mattress, then try to get one without flame retardants.
To summarize, start with food. You spoke about water. Cleaning products, cosmetics, furniture, if you can, but if not, when you get furniture the next time, make sure. In the meantime, if you do have a mattress, especially if it’s newer- How about if someone has a mattress that is five years old? Would you still recommend getting an air purification system?
Dr. Wendie:
Probably not. I think they’re great in general. If you have an older mattress, it’s probably done the majority of its offgassing. Although maybe not. It is designed to be the life of the mattress. I’m not sure if you’re still getting exposed to that.
I would say you’re never going to regret getting an air purifier. Ugh, my air is clean! No. You’re never going to say that. It’s one really nice way to level up. You won’t regret it. I’ll put it that way.
Dr. Eric:
We have one for the office and a few for the home. I wanted to again get your input with that. Thank you for sharing. Where can people find out more about you? Obviously, there is the book. Definitely check out Dirty Girl: Ditch the Toxins, Look Great, and Feel Freaking Amazing. I know you can get it on Amazon. Maybe on your website, too.
Dr. Wendie:
Yep, it’s cheaper for people on Amazon. Then we have a free guide that’s meant to be a companion guide to the book. Now that you’re ready to clean up your life, you might be like, “Well, what’s the best pan to use? What’s the best cleaning product to use? What’s the best mattress to use?” We put that all in a guide for people. It’s FiveJourneys.com/Promo.
On all of the social media handles, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, I’m Wendie Trubow, M.D. This was a decision I made when I was 13 to spell my name this way, and I stuck with it. My website is FiveJourneys.com. Our podcast is Five Journeys: Live Like You Matter.
Dr. Eric:
Wonderful. Thank you again for this interview. I learned a lot. I’m sure the listeners learned a lot. They’ll definitely learn a lot more in the book. There is so much more we could have covered. Just limited time here. It would have taken all day to cover everything in the book. Check out Dr. Wendie’s book. Thank you so much, Dr. Wendie. I do appreciate it.
Dr. Wendie:
My pleasure, Eric. Great to be here.