By Dr. Mercola

Food allergies are the fifth leading chronic illness in the US – and their incidence is on the rise.1 From 1997 to 2007, food allergies increased 18 percent among children under 18 years,2 and today an estimated one out of every 13 children has a food allergy.3

It’s known that food allergies tend to run in families, which suggests a genetic component. However, other theories for why food allergies are becoming commonplace point to a more complex environmental, as well as lifestyle-related, cause.

Why Are Allergies on the Rise?

One of the primary hidden contributing factors to allergies is the food you eat, and I am not talking about food allergies. If you eat poor-quality foods, especially ones that cause insulin/leptin resistance, you will increase your risk of allergies.

When you’re allergic to a substance, your immune system mistakenly believes it is dangerous and produces immunoglobulin E (IgE) antibodies in an attempt to neutralize it. Chemicals such as histamine released into your bloodstream during this process can lead to a battery of symptoms any time you eat the food (although symptoms may not appear until hours later).

What’s behind this immune system dysfunction is still being explored, although a leading theory is the hygiene hypothesis. A child raised in an environment devoid of dirt and germs, and who is given antibiotics that kill off all of the bacteria in his gut, is not able to build up natural resistance to disease, and becomes vulnerable to illnesses later in life.

This is likely one reason why many allergies and immune system diseases have doubled, tripled, or even quadrupled in the last few decades. Low levels of vitamin D have also been associated with an increased risk of food allergies,4 while some theorize that food additives, genetic modification, hormones, and herbicides added to foods may be triggering some cases.

Genetic engineering, for instance, can increase existing allergens, or produce new, unknown allergens. Both appear to have happened in genetically modified (GM) soy, which is found in the majority of processed foods. At the same time, more children are being born and raised with severely damaged gut flora, which is largely the product of poor diet and antibiotics overuse, leading to Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS), as I’ll explain shortly.

Allergies Are Everywhere and Cluster in Groups

New research has revealed that allergies are virtually everywhere in the US, with no region being allergy-free. The study of more than 8,000 people revealed that 45 percent of people aged six and over tested positive for at least one allergen, as did 36 percent of children aged one to five.5

There were some variations by region, such as in large metropolitan areas, where 50 percent of residents were sensitized to at least one allergen, compared to 40 percent in rural areas. In urban areas, outdoor allergens were more common than in rural areas, possibly because respiratory allergies are associated with air pollution.

Also noteworthy was the finding that allergies tended to cluster in groups. People with sensitivities to dust mites were more likely to be sensitive to grass and tree pollen, for instance, while those with peanut sensitivity more likely to also have plant allergies. This might imply that when it comes to allergy treatment, a more holistic approach to treatment is warranted, with the most sensible starting point your gut (where 80 percent of your immune system resides).

Modifying Your Diet May Fight Asthma

Allergies and asthma often occur together, so it’s not surprising that modifying your diet, and thereby your gut health, appears to be an effective treatment for both of these conditions. In a recent animal study, mice fed a high-fiber diet had stronger resistance against asthma-like attacks than mice fed a low-fiber or regular diet.6

In fact, when mice fed a fiber-rich diet were exposed to dust mites, they had less airway inflammation than the low-fiber mice. As reported by Scientific American:7

Seems that fiber supports gut bacteria that produce anti-inflammatory molecules called short chain fatty acids. These molecules then enter the bloodstream, where they can influence the immune system. An over-reactive immune system can play a role in allergies and asthma. But the fatty acids can calm down the immune reaction.”

Separate research also showed that school-aged children who drank raw milk were 41 percent less likely to develop asthma and about 50 percent less likely to develop hay fever than children who drank store-bought (pasteurized) milk.8

The researchers believed that the beneficial effect may have been due to non-denatured whey proteins, including bovine serum albumin (BSA) and alpha-lactalbumin, in the raw milk, which may support immune system health and healthful inflammation levels.

If You Have Allergies, Tend to Your Gut Health

Remember, the quality of and the types of food you eat are related to your allergy risk. One of the ways they mediate that is through your gut bacteria. Your gut bacteria play a crucial role in the development and operation of the mucosal immune system in your digestive tract.

They also aid in the production of antibodies to pathogens. Friendly bacteria even train your immune system to distinguish between pathogens and non-harmful antigens, and to respond appropriately. This important function prevents your immune system from overreacting to non-harmful antigens, which is the genesis of allergies.

However, as mentioned earlier, abnormalities in your immune system are a common outcome of GAPS, as when your gut flora is abnormal, your gut lining is more prone to deteriorate, since it is actively maintained by your gut flora.

Leaky gut is a condition that occurs due to the development of gaps between the cells (enterocytes) that make up the membrane lining your intestinal wall. These tiny gaps allow substances such as undigested food, bacteria, and metabolic wastes that should be confined to your digestive tract to escape into your bloodstream -- hence the term leaky gut syndrome.

Once the integrity of your intestinal lining is compromised, and there is a steady flow of toxic substances "leaking out" into your bloodstream, your body experiences significant increases in inflammation. Besides being associated with inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn's and ulcerative colitis, or celiac disease, leaky gut can also be a contributing factor to allergies. In 2010, researchers similarly concluded that eating a junk food diet increases kids’ risk of allergies:9, 10

“Pediatrician Dr. Paolo Lionetti, of Florence University, and colleagues said children in industrialized countries who eat low-fiber, high-sugar 'Western' diets may reduce microbial richness -- potentially contributing to a rise in allergic and inflammatory diseases in the last half-century.”

For some, the answer to resolving food (and other) allergies is to "heal and seal" your intestines, which the GAPS nutritional program is designed to do. If you have severe food allergies, the GAPS Introduction Diet, which uses fermented foods and other natural strategies, like probiotics, to restore balance to your gut flora, may help heal your food allergy completely.

A comprehensive allergy program needs to address optimizing your diet, intestinal health, and vitamin D levels while avoiding potential triggers. This includes a focus on fermented foods, high-fiber vegetables, and minimal processed foods and sugar. If fermented foods are not a regular part of your diet, a probiotic supplement may be beneficial.

Provocation Neutralization May Offer Permanent Allergy Relief

Remember, improving your diet according to my free Nutrition Plan is your first step for the reasons detailed above. However, even if you have a perfect diet, allergies may persist. If that is the case the best approach to date I have found is provocation neutralization (PN), which is taught by the American Academy of Environmental Medicine (AAEM). PN can be very effective for allergy relief. I was a member of the AAEM and administered this treatment in my office when I was practicing. PN offers many allergy sufferers permanent relief without adverse side effects. The success rate for this approach is about 80 to 90 percent, and you can receive the treatment at home.


If you have a positive reaction, such as fatigue, headache, or a growth in the size of the wheal, then the allergen is neutralized with diluted injections or with drops of the same allergen that go in your mouth. If you want to see some actual videos of provocation neutralization being done, see Dr. Doris Rapp's website, It is important to remember that the PN program is in addition to, not a replacement for, a comprehensive allergy recovery program, such as the GAPS “heal and seal” approach outlined here.


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By Dr. Mercola














Top 10 Failures of the American Health Care System










2. Our Chronic Disease Rates Are Extraordinarily High



3. Poor Coordination of Care


  • 7,000 people die every year from sloppy physician handwriting

4. Most Americans Do Not Have a Primary Care Provider


5. Americans Are the Most Frequent Victims of Medical Errors


6. Fewer Americans Are Receiving Health Care





8. Our Health Care Is Inconvenient


9. American Physicians Don't Listen to Their Patients


10. Most Americans Are Dissatisfied with the Current System




Affordable Health Care Act: Getting MORE of What Isn't Working



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By Dr. Mercola




Higher Blood Sugar Levels Are Bad for Your Brain







High-Carb Diet May Increase Your Dementia Risk by 89 Percent










Gluten Sensitivity May Also Harm Your Brain







Your Brain Needs Healthful Fats





Tipping the Scales Toward a Healthier Brain




  • Increase healthy fat consumption.
  • Reduce overall calorie consumption, including intermittent fasting.


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By Dr. Mercola

America is as obese as it possibly can be, yet the government and media refuse to take responsibility for this tragic problem.  Although obesity rates among American preschoolers declined by 43 percent in the past decade, teenage and adult obesity are deplorable and show no signs of improvement.1

These findings were broadcast on all of the nation's major news stations and in most major newspapers2, 3, 4 with many claiming "victory" in the fight against childhood obesity. While this all sounds like good news, I disagree with such proclamations.

The study, published in JAMA,5 found that obesity rates among two- to five-year olds dropped from 14 percent in 2003 to eight percent in 2012. The researchers suggest that decreased consumption of high-calorie drinks and higher rates of breast feeding might account for the decline.

No reduction in obesity rates was found among any other age group, however. And obesity rates for women over the age of 60 actually rose by about 21 percent. Eventually, nearly all Americans end up obese which contributes to a lifetime of chronic disease.

Americans Have Far from Conquered Obesity

One-third of American children and teens (aged two to 19), and more than two-thirds of adults are still either overweight or obese. One out of eight preschoolers is still in the obese category, along with 18 percent of kids aged six to 11—up from seven percent in 1980.6

From my perspective, we're still FAR from being in a position to jump for joy or pat ourselves on the back. The study authors themselves concluded:


While it may sound promising that overall obesity rates have "stabilized," what that REALLY means is that we have maxed out, we are as fat as we can possibly be as a nation, and show no signs of improvement.

Other statistics clearly show that Americans, including children, are sicker than ever, and it's absolutely obvious that this is a direct result of corrupted federal policies and the junk food industry marketing to kids, getting them addicted to sugar as soon as possible with famous cartoon characters and flashy images.  Don't be fooled by this latest PR stunt to make you think they're finally getting something right.

The anti-obesity campaign is NOT working. And while some reporters have stated that the drop in obesity among toddlers is due to successful physical fitness programs, such as First Lady Michelle Obama's Let's Move! Campaign (which launched in 2010), I fail to see this connection.

Improved breastfeeding rates are the most likely primary factor contributing to the decline seen in this age group (two- to five-year olds).  This is the one area I can appreciate, after decades of disastrous infant formula marketing to new moms, it appears we are finally acknowledging the critical value of breastfeeding.

According to the CDC,7 the percent of babies breastfeeding at six months increased from 35 percent in 2000 to 49 percent in 2010, and infants still breastfeeding at 12 months increased from 16 percent to 27 percent during that same time period.  While most infant formulas are about 50% carbohydrates, breast milk is naturally around 18%, which is the obvious problem that contributes to infant obesity.

Federal policies have not budged when it comes to issues that matter the most, or could have the greatest impact. Subsidizing the growing of genetically engineered (GE) corn, soy, and sugar beets continues to fuel the production of cheap, processed junk food that fatten us up and cause cascading health problems, courtesy of the insulin resistance such a diet brings.

Subsidizing the growing of GE soy and corn for hydrogenated vegetable oils is the primary source of clogged arteries leading to countless unnecessary heart attacks.

The combination of junk food manufacturers, pesticide producers' agriculture lobbying, and the willingness of our federal politicians to be lobbied because of their greed for money and power has not changed one bit in the past decade. If anything, it's only gotten more insidious.

New USDA Rule May Stop Soda and Junk Food Advertising in Schools

As a general rule, the beverage industry also still denies or strongly downplays its role in the childhood obesity epidemic, despite the fact that beverage companies spend over $1 billion annually on youth-targeted marketing—especially in school settings—and sodas have been repeatedly shown to massively promote obesity in study after study.

Hopefully, we'll soon see a reduction in junk food advertising in schools at least. First Lady Michelle Obama recently announced a new US Department of Agriculture (USDA) rule that would phase out advertising of sugary drinks and junk food on school grounds.  Historically, the junk food industry always finds a way to buy their way back into schools as a desperately needed source of revenues. As reported by NBC News:8

"US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said the new rules would eliminate marketing for products that cannot be sold in schools. 'If you can't sell it, you ought not to be able to market it,' Vilsack said. He said companies spend $149 million a year on marketing food and drinks to kids in school...

The Federal Trade Commission says the heaviest marketers are candy and snack food manufacturers, beverage companies, and fast food restaurants, which make use of posters and scoreboards. They also give students coupons, for instance offering pizza as a prize for students who read a certain number of books, and they place advertisements in school television programs and other educational materials. California banned sodas and junk food from public schools in 2005 and Connecticut did in 2006, but most states don't have policies."

True Cost Accounting—Understanding the Real Cost of Cheap Food

I was in the Philippines last month and over there fresh fruits and vegetables are inexpensive and processed junk food is costly. So there are strong economic incentives for them to eat healthy. However, the converse is present in the US. For some families, access to fruits and vegetables is very limited, forcing them to rely on the heavily subsidized processed foods at their local markets. Others realize they can get a value meal at numerous fast-food restaurants for far less money than it takes to purchase foods to cook from scratch. But all this cheap food comes with a hidden price tag.

The featured video discusses a number of principles associated with food, such as the principle of true cost accounting,9 which helps you understand the real cost of the food you buy. When you make purchasing decisions based solely on price, without asking why the food is so inexpensive, you're actually supporting a long list of social and environmental ills that, ultimately, you still end up paying for in one way or another.

While Americans pay less for their weekly grocery bill than people in most other nations, the true cost of all this cheap food is staggering. Declining health and rising health care costs are two of the most obvious considerations. Parents need to wake up and face the reality that processed foods have dramatically changed over the years. The level of processing and chemical additives has increased exponentially, and today's pre-packaged convenience foods have been processed and altered to the point of being virtually unrecognizable, nutritionally, from real food.

Processed food is typically NOT interchangeable with fresh whole food, no matter what it says on the bag. Unfortunately, many still do not know that the "natural" label is completely worthless, as foods bearing the "natural" label can still, legally, be chockfull of chemicals, additives, and genetically engineered ingredients. 

Children Are Highly Susceptible to GMO Side Effects

In the US, parents also have to contend with the fact that a vast majority of this cheap food is genetically engineered and heavily contaminated with the toxic herbicides like glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto's Roundup. Experts like Dr. Don Huber strongly believe that glyphosate is actually more toxic than DDT.

Compelling evidence now suggests that glyphosate residues, found in most commonly consumed foods in the Western diet courtesy of GE sugar, corn, soy, and wheat, enhance the damaging effects of other food-borne chemical residues and toxins in the environment to disrupt normal body functions and induce disease. Glyphosate also severely disrupts your gut flora, thereby further exacerbating metabolic havoc and poor health. Children are clearly at greatest risk here. The sooner their gut flora becomes severely compromised, the sooner their health will begin to fail. If they're fed GE foods from infancy, they may be facing serious health issues by the time they're in their teens!

This is a valid concern, as genetically modified organisms (GMOs) can even be found in infant formulas, and no one really knows what the health risks of such ingredients might be, especially long-term. It's important to remember that pound for pound, infants experience greater exposure to chemicals than adults, and have immature and porous blood-brain barriers, which allow greater chemical exposures to reach their developing brains. Hence, an all-organic diet is really crucial for infants and young children.

Breastfeeding is clearly the best option. Besides lacking the full arsenal of critical nutrients obtained from breast milk, many infant formulas also contain far too much sugar (your baby doesn't need any). But it's not just a matter of vitamins, minerals, proteins, and fats that makes breast milk far superior to formula. Breast milk also contains substances that may significantly enhance your baby's gut and support the healthy development of her entire nervous system.

Teach Your Kids the Basic Tenets of Optimal Health

Do not make the mistake of underestimating the power of your influence as a parent when it comes to laying down potentially lifelong habits. Leading by example is one of the most effective teaching tools there is. Children will simply not know which foods are healthy unless you, as a parent, teach it to them.

Remember, wholesome food is "live" and typically raw food, and the hallmark of live food is the fact that it will wilt and decompose. The fact that fast food burgers, buns, and fries show no signs of decomposing, even after a decade, is a clear indication that it's not real food and serves no beneficial purpose as part of your child's diet.

If you're unsure about how to get your family on the right track, my optimized nutrition plan offers a step-by-step guide to feeding your family right. You can find even more help in the book I wrote on the subject, called Generation XL: Raising Healthy, Intelligent Kids in a High-Tech, Junk-Food World. As a quick overview, here are some of the most important lifestyle strategies you can teach your child that will serve him or her well for the rest of their life:

  1. Proper food choices: For a comprehensive guide, see my free optimized nutrition plan. Generally speaking though, you'll want to focus your diet on whole, ideally organic, unprocessed or minimally processed foods. For the best nutrition and health benefits, you will want to eat a good portion of your food raw.
  2. Avoid processed sugar, and refined fructose in particular. All forms of sugar have toxic effects when consumed in excess, and drive multiple disease processes in your body, not the least of which is insulin resistance, a major cause of chronic disease and accelerated aging. I believe the two primary keys for successful weight management are severely restricting carbohydrates (sugars, fructose, and grains) in your diet, and increasing healthy fat consumption. This will optimize insulin and leptin levels, which is key for maintaining a healthy weight and optimal health. Sources of healthy fats include:

    Raw nuts, particularly macadamia Organic pastured egg yolks Avocados
    Grass-fed meats Palm oil Unheated organic nut oils



  5. Stress reduction: Your emotional state plays a role in nearly every physical disease -- from heart disease and depression, to arthritis and cancer. Meditation, prayer, social support, and exercise are all viable options that can help you maintain emotional and mental equilibrium. I also strongly believe in using simple tools such as the Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) to address deeper, oftentimes hidden, emotional problems.
  6. Drink plenty of clean pure water.
  8. Optimize your vitamin D levels: Research has shown that increasing your vitamin D levels can reduce your risk of death from ALL causes. Sun exposure is the best way to optimize your vitamin D levels as your body has built-in "fail-safe" mechanisms that prevent detrimental side effects from occurring. For more information on how to safely and effectively optimize your vitamin D levels, please see my previous article, "How Vitamin D Performance Testing Can Help You Optimize Your Health."
  9. If you opt for oral vitamin D supplements, make sure you use D3, not prescription D2, as the latter may do more harm than good. Also, if you take supplemental vitamin D, you're creating an increased demand for K2—not K1 that is typically in vegetables as it will not work synergize with vitamin D. Vitamin K2 deficiency is actually what produces the symptoms of vitamin D toxicity, which includes inappropriate calcification that can lead to hardening of your arteries. Together, vitamin D and K2 help strengthen your bones and improve your heart health.


More Tips for Creating a Healthy Eating Environment for Kids

Ultimately, teaching your child the importance of healthy foods and exercise is the key to maintaining health. With that in mind, here are a few more tips to foster a healthy view of food and self-esteem in your child:

  • Lead by example and seek to maintain optimal body weight for yourself and your spouse
  • Refrain from making jokes about your child's weight, even if no harm is intended
  • Explain the health risks of being overweight to your child, but avoid comparing your overweight child to other children, including thinner siblings
  • Cook healthy meals for your family, and let your child be involved in making dinner, but avoid making your child eat different food than the rest of the family
  • Encourage your child to make healthy food choices and praise them when they do instead of putting your child down about weight or eating habits
  • Instead of using food as a reward or punishment, have healthy snacks available at all times, and explain to your child the benefits they'll get from eating these fresh, whole foods; use non-food items, such as stickers or special outings/activities as rewards instead

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By Dr. Mercola

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are similar in structure to natural sex hormones such as estrogen. By mimicking natural hormones, they have a number of adverse effects on both humans and wildlife, including developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune system damage.

One of the most talked about endocrine disrupters is bisphenol-A (BPA), a pervasive chemical used in plastics and the lining of canned goods. These are thought to be the two primary routes of exposure, but research is uncovering another route that has received little attention: thermal receipt paper.

Cash-Register Receipts Are an Overlooked Source of BPA Exposure

You probably don't think twice about handling a cash-register receipt on your way out of the grocery store (or replacing that paper in the register if you work there). But you should.

Thermal paper has a coating that turns black when heat is applied (the printer in a cash register applies heat to the paper, allowing it to print numbers and letters). It also contains BPA, and research shows that handling this type of paper is enough to increase your bodily levels.

Though the amount of BPA transferred from a receipt may be small, think about how many times you handle receipts in any given week. It's these frequent, small exposures that add up over time, significantly contributing to your body's toxic load.

And for those who are most vulnerable to BPA's toxic effects – pregnant women, infants, and children – handling receipts may pose an unnecessary risk that few are aware of.

Handling Receipts Increases Your Levels of BPA

Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health recruited 24 students and staff members to take part in the study. Considering the toxic nature of BPA on development, it was required that the participants were not pregnant.

They were then asked to handle receipts for two hours with their bare hands. Before this, 20 of the 24 participants had measurable levels of BPA in their urine. Afterward, BPA was found in all of the participants' urine. The concentration of BPA in the urine samples increased as well.1

One week later, for the second part of the study, the participants handled receipts with gloves on, which led to no significant increase in BPA levels. The findings were clear enough that the researchers suggested cashiers and bank tellers may want to wear gloves if they handle receipts frequently.

This is especially important if they're pregnant or of child-bearing age (nitrile gloves were used in the study; it's not yet known if latex or other gloves will prevent BPA exposure).

BPA May Transfer to Your Skin After Holding a Receipt for Just 5 Seconds

Past research also suggests caution is warranted when handling receipts, even if you only hold them long enough to put in your wallet. A study in Analytical and Bioanalytical Chemistry found that of 13 thermal printing papers analyzed, 11 contained BPA.2

Holding the paper for just five seconds was enough to transfer BPA your person's skin, and the amount of BPA transferred increased by about 10 times if fingers were wet or greasy (such as if you've just applied lotion or eaten greasy food).


They also measured the transfer of BPA from thermal receipt paper to currency by placing the two together in a wallet for 24 hours. This dramatically increased the concentrations of BPA on the money, which again suggests that handling receipts, and potentially paper currency, may increase your BPA levels.

Eating Canned Foods Is an Even Greater BPA Threat

While handling receipts was a definite source of BPA exposure, it "only" increased levels by about one-quarter of what would be expected from eating canned soup.4 BPA is commonly thought of as a plastics chemical, but it's becoming clear that canned goods may be an even greater route of exposure than plastics.

According to one study, eating canned soup for five days increased study participants' urinary concentrations of BPA by more than 1,000% compared to eating freshly made soup.5 For this reason, avoiding canned goods as much as possible is one of my topmost recommendations for avoiding exposure to this ubiquitous chemical toxin.

This is not to downplay the importance of avoiding BPA-containing plastics, of course, but ideally you should seek to avoid as many sources of BPA (and other endocrine disrupters) as possible. In terms of BPA, this includes avoiding:

  • Canned foods and soda cans
  • All BPA-containing plastics and food packaging
  • Certain tooth sealants

'ADA' Plastics Chemical Found in Hundreds of US Foods

The reason why it's so important to minimize your exposure to even low levels of environmental chemicals is because there are so many of them out there. BPA is just one. Another is azodicarbonamide (ADA), a chemical that recently made headlines after Subway announced it would remove ADA from its bread.

Azodicarbonamide is used as a dough conditioner and flour bleaching agent in commercial baking; it's also used to improve elasticity in yoga mats, shoe rubber, and other materials, like synthetic leather. There is concern that azodicarbonamide might cause chronic diseases including cancer and, possibly, asthma and allergies, and some US consumer groups have called for it to be removed from foods.

While ADA is banned as a food additive in Australia and some European countries, a report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that it is used in close to 500 US foods, including breads, bagels, tortillas, hamburger and hot dog buns, pizza, pastries, and more made by name brands such as Pillsbury, Sara Lee, Shoprite, Safeway, Smucker's, Fleischman's, Jimmy Dean, Kroger, Little Debbie, Tyson, and Wonder.6

The World Health Organization has reported that ADA may increase the risk of respiratory problems and skin irritation in workers that handle the chemical and EWG points out that this is yet one more additive that has not been extensively tested to determine its health effects in humans. As EWG reported:7


As further reported by EWG senior scientist David Andrews, Ph.D:8"ADA is just one example of an American food supply awash in chemical additives that can be mixed into foods with little oversight or safety review… Americans have regularly eaten this chemical along with hundreds of other questionable food additives for years."

The 'Dirty Dozen' Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals

Many of you have heard of BPA, and some of you may now be familiar with ADA in bread. However, many common household goods, personal care products, and food and water are major sources of chemical exposure that can lead to an accumulation of toxicants in your body and cause hormone disruption. I certainly don't expect you to memorize them all, however being aware of the most pervasive endocrine disrupters is the first step to minimizing your exposures. The EWG's "dirty dozen" list for the 12 worst endocrine disruptors are the following.9 I've written about many of these in prior articles, so for more information about any particular one, please follow the links provided.

Bisphenol-A (BPA) Dioxin Atrazine Phthalates
Perchlorate Fire retardants Lead Mercury
Arsenic Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) Organophosphate pesticides Glycol ethers

19 Tips to Reduce Your Chemical Exposure

Implementing the following measures will help you avoid the worst endocrine-disrupting culprits as well as other chemicals from a wide variety of sources. To sum it up, try to stick with whole foods and natural products around your home. The fewer ingredients a product contains, the better, and try to make sure anything you put on or in your body – or use around your home – contains only substances you're familiar with. If you can't pronounce it, you probably don't want it anywhere near your family.

  2. Rather than eating conventional or farm-raised fish, which are often heavily contaminated with PCBs and mercury, supplement with a high-quality purified krill oil, or eat fish that is wild-caught and lab tested for purity. Wild-caught Alaskan salmon is about the only fish I eat for these reasons.
  3. Buy products that come in glass containers rather than plastic or canned, since chemicals can leach out of plastics and into the contents.
  5. Use glass baby bottles and BPA-free sippy cups for your little ones. Some manufacturers have even moved to glass, since BPA-free products may contain other toxic bisphenols.
  6. Eat mostly raw, fresh foods. Processed, prepackaged foods (of all kinds) are a common source of chemicals such as bisphenols (e.g. BPA and BPS) and phthalates.
  8. Filter your tap water—both for drinking and bathing. If you can only afford to do one, filtering your bathing water may be more important, as your skin absorbs contaminants. To remove the endocrine-disrupting herbicide Atrazine, make sure the filter is certified to remove it. According to the EWG, perchlorate can be filtered out using a reverse osmosis filter.
  13. Make sure your baby's toys are BPA-free, such as pacifiers, teething rings, and anything your child may be prone to suck on.
  15. Switch over to organic brands of toiletries such as shampoo, toothpaste, antiperspirants, and cosmetics. Remember, you can replace many different products with coconut oil and baking soda, for example. The Environmental Working Group has a great database11 to help you find personal care products that are free of phthalates and other potentially dangerous chemicals. I also offer one of the highest quality organic skin care lines, shampoo and conditioner, and body butter that are completely natural and safe.
  18. Look for products that are fragrance-free. One artificial fragrance can contain hundreds -- even thousands -- of potentially toxic chemicals.


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