What’s Up?
The price of a spotless home and a fresh face just got higher.
Health-watch heavyweights – the World Health Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme – have linked common household products and everyday plastic items to several life threatening diseases.
A Little Context…
Synthetic chemicals used in beauty products, air fresheners, cleaning products and everyday plastic items (like toys and credit cards) are messing with our endocrine system. You know, that bodily function that regulates things like metabolism, growth, development, sleep patterns and mood?
TheState of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicalsstudy shows the link between these chemicals and scary stuff like the development of breast cancer, prostate cancer, undescended testes in young boys, issues with the development of a child’s nervous system, ADD and ADHD, thyroid diseases, infertility, asthma, and birth defects.
Sound familiar? It’s not the first study to show this connection. In fact, previous research haslinked endocrine-disruptive obesogensto the obesity epidemic, tocancer, andsexual development in children.
What Now?
We could all wait for even more research and then wait on governments to impose stricter laws (or even, gasp, ban these chemicals and plastics).
But, we suspect you’re not the wait-and-see type.
So let’s get started.
1. Read those labels before you buy.Carefully.
2. Detoxify your home.Ditch chemical laced products you already have. And yes, that includes Baba’s kitschy plastic patio plates.
3. Spread the word.Talk to people you care about, especially those with (or planning to have) kids since these chemicals have the biggest impact on developing endocrine systems.
4. Take inspiration from Bonnie Penner(whosebattle against xenoestrogensand endocrine disruptors we shared with you last year on tuja wellness).
5. DIY.Skip the green surchargeby making your own beauty and cleaning products. Stay tuned to tuja wellness for more DIY projects likethis one.
You can have a clean home, a fresh faceandlimit your exposure to EDCs without becoming a Grizzly Adams style hermit – which is a good thing because, we’d miss you.
Ready to hunt down the facts? Check out Gillian Deacon’sThere’s Lead in Your Lipstick, watch CBC’sdocumentary on Obesogens, and readSlow Death by Rubber Ducky; The Secret Danger of Everyday Things.
