Toxicity in the Name of Cleanliness

It’s a critical reason they stay with you as a practitioner:

Your patients and clients want you to present them with interesting, empowering, and surprising wellness topics.  When the flow of inspiration and Aha stalls, they often walk away.

Often, though, the best choices – and what our clients most need to learn – aren’t complicated topics but rather fundamental basics that we have simply overlooked or assumed a client already understood.  In truth, however, they often don’t know much of what you assume they do.  Including the nuances of Toxic Exposure.

Check out this quick clinical tip video on phthalates – chemicals we encounter often in our daily lives. Ones that have pervasive and varied negative effects on the body, especially in the realm of endocrine function. Phthalates are part of a group of chemicals that are often referred to as plasticizers. They are often hidden too in the category of “fragrance”, one in which industry is usually not obligated to disclose ingredients.

Here is a call to action from the Harvard School of Public Health provocatively titled Why phthalates should be restricted or banned from consumer products. It’s one I have often shared with my own clients to educate and inspire them to make uncommon product choices.

For a good summary on the mechanisms by which phthalates affect reproductive health, check out this review. It makes a compelling case that “Phthalate exposure can induce reproductive disorders… may induce alterations in puberty, the development of testicular dysgenesis syndrome, cancer and fertility disorders in both males and females.”  Phthalates are often hormone-mimicking – and affect both actual hormone levels and the function of cellular hormone receptors. It’s a compelling case that these chemicals play a role in the current epidemics of infertility, low testosterone, reduced sperm counts, early puberty, hormone-mediated cancers, highly debilitating perimenopause, and other hormonal dis-ease.

For the impact of these chemicals in our young, these 2015 papers postulate a strong association between phthalates  and an increase in blood pressure and insulin resistance in children.  And this one from 2020, on phthalates and childhood allergies and asthma.

Even a patient consuming an organic, whole-food diet can still lack knowledge as to where these can be found elsewhere in their lifestyle.  From the obvious – plastic packaging, storage and utensils – to the less-so – e.g., personal hygiene and cleaning products – the exposure is significant and growing.  

This clinical video zeroes in on just two such routes of exposure – both of which are easy to broach with your clients and can – without overwhelm – build a momentum of wins in their effort to get phthalates out of their lives.

What about getting phthalates out of the body post-exposure?  This small study compared excretion via blood, urine and sweat, and surprisingly found that sweat is perhaps the best at facilitating elimination. A great opportunity for you to encourage sweat-promoting activities such as movement and sauna.

I hope you are inspired to include the subject of phthalates as part of every clinical case in your practice. If you have any follow-up questions, please feel free to post below.