Toxic Truth - Understanding Environmental Health and MCS with Dr. John Molot

In this special episode, we’re diving deep into the connection between human health and our ecosystem, focusing on the effects of environmental toxins and their impact on the body. We’ll also be exploring Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) — a condition that’s often misunderstood but increasingly recognized as a disability, characterized by heightened sensitivity to chemicals and toxins in everyday life.

Joining us in this episode is Dr. John Molot, an expert in environmental health and a leading advocate for MCS awareness. With his extensive background in medicine and environmental research, Dr. Molot will share his insights on the development of MCS, its symptoms, challenges faced by those living with the condition, and ways to better manage and support individuals with MCS.

Transcript

welcome to Footprints and impacts the podcast where we uncover how the environment shapes our health and
0:06
well-being whether you're curious about how chemicals in your surroundings affect you or you're looking for
0:11
practical ways to live a healthier life you're in the right place brought to you by the Environmental Health Association
0:17
of Canada and the Environmental Health Association of Quebec this podcast shines a light on multiple chemical
0:24
sensitivity MCS the importance of healthy least toxic product choices and
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what what it means for those navigating this disability where over 1 million Canadians have a diagnosis of MCS we're
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here to raise awareness offer resources for accessibility prevention and build a
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healthier inclusive community let's dive in and explore how our Footprints leave
0:47
a lasting impact on our health and our
0:53
planet welcome to today's episode I'm your host Marco and in this special episode we're diving deep into the
0:59
connection between human health and our ecosystem focusing on the effects of
1:04
environmental toxins and their impact on the body we'll also be exploring multiple chemical sensitivity MCS a
1:12
condition that's often misunderstood but recognized as a disability characterized by heightened sensitivity to chemicals
1:19
and toxins in everyday life joining us today is Dr John mot an expert in
1:25
environmental health and a leading advocate for MCS awareness with his extensive background in medicine and
1:31
Environmental Research Dr mot will share his insights on the development of MCS its symptoms challenges faced by those
1:39
living with the condition and ways to better manage and support individuals with MCS let's jump into this important
1:45
conversation on environmental health and MCS welcome Dr John mot and uh thank you
1:51
for joining us on our podcast to start off the discussion I'd like to ask you
1:56
to define the term environment for us maybe briefly explain what it is and
2:02
what we mean by the term when we use it throughout this conversation generally speaking for any
2:10
living organism whether it's us or a cell the environment
2:17
involves everything surrounding us
2:22
and the impact that has on us or how we sense it so usually when people think of the
2:29
environment they think of abnormal things in there like pollution um but
2:37
anything that is foreign to a living
2:42
organism um is something that has to be sensed and and and dealt with and we as
2:48
humans um read the environment in a variety of ways one way is by um our
2:57
bodies being able to recognize pollutants things that shouldn't be in
3:02
in our environment um something that we've generated over the last couple of
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centuries as we learned how to make things and pollute the air and the water and our foods and so on with things that
3:15
we add but our our environment also includes the psychosocial environment so
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we humans have an ability to to read a room when we enter it to you know to
3:27
recognize whether somebody is our friend or is pointing a gun at us and we read the environment a variety of different
3:34
ways and it's all the different ways that we sense the environment biologically interpret what it means to
3:41
us either be biologically or psychologically or socially all of these
3:47
things are part of our environment I assume a lot of the time
3:53
when we think of the term environment we automatically think of the outdoor environment and I think it would be
3:58
valuable if you could talk a bit more about those indoor environments as well and tell us what role do both our indoor
4:06
and outdoor environments play in shaping human health
4:11
um everybody's aware of outdoor pollution in the
4:17
environment what it's done for climate change um it it's it's obvious had a
4:24
major impact on how things work on a global level oceans warming etc
4:31
etc um the World Health Organization tells us that the second most common cause of
4:39
chronic diseases cardiovasular disease neurod degenerative diseases
4:45
neurodevelopmental diseases respiratory diseases kidney diseases the most common
4:52
cause environmentally is tobacco smoke and
4:57
second is air pollution and so we have all of these studies that
5:03
are looking at Chronic exposures to outdoor air pollution and its impact on
5:09
developing chronic disease multiple studies there is no doubt that there's a
5:14
problem the caveat is that 90% of our time breathing outdoor air is while
5:21
we're indoors and so there's a an impact from the indoor
5:28
environment as well for example if you live in a really airtight house or work
5:33
in an airtight building a lot of the outdoor pollution is kind of filtered out by the building and its ventilation
5:41
system but the indoor air also has sources of pollution and the most
5:48
significant sources of pollution are chemical the chemicals in the indoor
5:53
environment where we spend a vast majority of our time and the are much higher than they are in the outdoor
6:01
environment so we are actually a little less polluted from outdoor air indoors
6:06
but we add on to that the indoor pollutants of of
6:11
chemicals thank you that's uh that's really good um I'd like you to talk a
6:17
bit more about environmental toxins and what they are maybe explain to us where
6:23
these toxins come from and how we get exposed to them whether we're in our
6:28
homes at our workplace or just spending time Outdoors our traditional understanding
6:35
of of Toxicology the study of toxins and poisons is that everything has has a
6:45
dose that can be toxic even water can be toxic if you drink 25 glasses of water
6:50
in a row you're going to end up in the Intensive car in it because you've diluted all these important things in
6:55
your body so everything can has potentially toxic so a toxin is actually
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something that is foreign to a living organism we're basically a obviously a
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complicated living organism of trillions of cells but even on a cellular level
7:16
there is a mechanism where the cell is aware of things that are foreign to it
7:24
foreign to its environment that are either touching it or actually being
7:29
absorbed inside and the cell has to deal with it and so the cell has a system in
7:35
place to break it down and throw it out or just throw it out because if it
7:41
doesn't do a good job doing that it has potential for damage because it doesn't belong there so these everything that is
7:49
foreign to a cell foreign to us that manages to touch us or get into us has
7:56
the potential to be toxic and because it has the potential because it's foreign we refer to them as toxins and we all
8:05
have in our cells more or less depending on which cell a system in place to break
8:13
things down and get rid of it and if we can get rid of at least to throw it out of cells we can send it to the kidney to
8:19
pee it out or to the liver to break it down more and detoxify it and get rid of it we all have a system in place to to
8:27
manage these exposures that are common and this system developed way before we began to pollute
8:35
the planet it's been developed for cells that learned how to survive in hostile
8:40
environments at the beginning of Life and those systems are still in place
8:45
today yeah it's just uh amazing honestly great
8:51
information so the research shows that environmental toxins lead to the development of a number of conditions
8:57
including asthma uh autoimmune disorders cancer heart
9:03
disease diabetes uh and also neurod degenerative diseases like dementia so I'm wondering
9:10
if you could provide us with a simplified explanation on how these toxins contribute to the development of
9:17
such conditions in the body when we take things into our body
9:22
or we take things get absorbed into cells they have to be broken down and gotten rid of and so that system if it's
9:33
perfect um will get rid of everything immediately without any damage and know
9:39
systems are working constantly the systems have been studied extensively just with respect to
9:46
aging obviously we age obviously we we get old we're more likely to get sick with various things some of our organs
9:53
start to work less effectively and eventually the whole system stops working and we die that's a natural
10:00
process and but as the cells are alive
10:05
they're producing all kinds of byproducts of their metabolism that they have to get rid of and send to the
10:10
kidneys to pee it out and the liver to break it down and that's how we have evolved as humans into this complex
10:17
multicellular animal um but those systems are in place and they're working
10:23
constantly and they are less than perfect so what happens is when there is
10:28
a toxic molecule as a byproduct that needs to be broken down we break it down
10:34
as fast as we can but because the system is less than perfect those molecules
10:40
have an ability to damage nature uh neighboring molecules and if there's
10:46
enough of that the cell becomes dysfunctional or even dies and it's just a process a natural process of
10:53
Life what we've done by adding in all the pollutants in our environment is put
11:00
a burden on that system we can measure those changes in the cells when they
11:07
become significant enough that we can measure it and we call those changes
11:12
oxidative stress oxidative stress is the damage it it can occur from anything
11:19
that that um impacts on the cell's
11:24
detoxification system if we ask a cell to work harder this metabolism goes up
11:29
it creates more byproducts so we can create oxidative stress with really
11:34
intensive exercise with chronic stress with exposures to allergies
11:42
allergens things that we're allergic to during allergy season if we have allergies anything that makes our body
11:48
do a little bit more can create an oxidative stress it's a fact of life it's how we we evolve and how we age now
11:56
we put this pollution into the system system a lot of pollution Relentless
12:02
pollution putting an extra burden on those systems and we see more oxidative stress we see oxidative stress
12:10
associated with the chemical exposures that we have in the indoor air especially when people start to say J
12:16
there's something over the air I don't feel well in here and the thing we call sick building syndrome some people are feel it more than others as oxidat
12:24
stress yes thank you um the next question is around the topic of the
12:30
depletion of our natural resources so how do you think
12:36
environmental degradation is going to be affecting the well-being of our
12:41
population what's what's your take you can start off with looking at
12:46
how The Summer's been here in Canada um how we managed to turn the air
12:53
yellow in New York City based on forest fires um it's not just quality of air
13:00
but some people lost their homes what kind of stress is that I can't even imagine um some people lost their lives
13:08
so that impacts on their surrounding family Etc so there's all kinds of
13:14
Psychosocial impacts air quality impacts just based on on global warming and
13:21
climate change there's the oceans are warming the oceans are also Rising
13:28
what's going to happen in a future to our grandchildren when the cities that they live in on the coast they have to
13:34
move Inland what kind of stress is that going to be what about the amount of water that's going to be available is
13:41
there going to be Wars and world wars based on the fact that one country needs
13:46
to attack another because they don't have enough water or they don't have enough food because we're
13:52
also um losing Farmland we're seeing droughts etc etc so that's the
13:59
complexity of of of the environmental impacts that we are creating um globally
14:06
um but also socially psychologically physically um let alone the personal
14:14
impact on what kind of disease are you going to get based on the environment yeah that's that's uh that's
14:22
that's very interesting so what is one environmental Factor affecting you
14:29
Health the most that we need to be aware of in our day-to-day lives like in other words if there was one practical
14:36
takeaway from this discussion what would you say that that it is and why if you
14:43
watch hockey players being interviewed about anything they will usually say I worry
14:51
only about what I can control what I do on the ice and and it's a metaphor
14:59
for the answer to this question you can you can worry about global
15:06
warming you can try and have an influence on your Member of
15:14
Parliament but the bottom line is we all need to
15:19
change and so the most important thing to worry about with the hockey player
15:26
mindset is worry about what you can control worry about your personal environment
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your personal environment is your indoor environment most of which is in your
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house and second of which is where you work that's where 90% of your time is
15:43
spent and those are where your exposures are that you can
15:49
reduce um the exposures to so it's starts with product Choice what are you
15:56
putting on your body what are you putting in your body what are you putting in the air
16:03
that you breathe those are things that you can reduce your exposure to the most having
16:11
a scent-free policy for example at work should be mandatory it should be there
16:17
to protect everybody to reduce exposures um having a good ventilation
16:24
system as well being able to take the air in your house and throw it outside and filter the air coming in but control
16:32
your personal exposures control what you put into the air by the product choices
16:37
that you make that would be a place to start worry about what you can control
16:43
we actually know by the way that there has been legislation over the
16:50
last two or three decades to try and reduce emissions from cars and so we have less smog now than
16:57
we did say 30 years ago and one of the things that we have reduced
17:02
outside is chemical pollutants so now what we see is that
17:08
the chemical pollutant levels didn't go down quite as much as we thought they would because in a in a populous
17:18
environment say Toronto which is population dense Urban
17:25
environments up to 80% of the chemicals outside contributing to outdoor air
17:31
pollution are actually coming from the indoor environment from things that we
17:37
add to the air and the building materials we are actually when we ventilate our homes and buildings
17:43
actually throw that stuff outside it doesn't disappear either it adds to the pollution of doors so if you want to do
17:51
anything to to decrease your exposures the one thing you can control is what
17:57
you're buying and using and and throwing into the air um and everybody and help
18:04
to make a little bit of a difference yeah so a lot of questions that we get
18:10
from family friends and and people that know someone that that has this
18:17
condition is you know I want to ask you Dr mot how is MCS developed and how is it
18:26
triggered if I can go back for a moment just to refresh anybody's memory we
18:31
talked about the um the impact of the environment um on living organisms um
18:40
including us and we talked about how um foreign objects foreign chemicals Etc um
18:49
foreign substances get taken into the body get taken into the cell and have to be dealt with and that um when the
18:59
system for detoxification is being overworked damage is created that maybe
19:07
can be corrected um and healed maybe not um to other molecules that can change
19:14
the function of cells and how it impacts on everybody depends on a lot of other factors like genetics and other things
19:21
that could be impacting on that system so the
19:26
cell can detect
19:32
chemicals and it does so because it
19:37
has sensors on the surface and inside that are called receptors that
19:44
actually consense chemicals they're called chemosensitive receptors um there's two in particular
19:52
belong to this this family which I'm going to call trp uh because the name itself was way too long and so there's
20:00
trp V1 and trp A1 these are two receptors that are sitting on the
20:05
surface of cells that are programmed from the last X millions of years to
20:12
detect foreign chemicals and to Signal the cell there's a chemical here and
20:19
activate the cell to do something and what happens with this
20:26
oxidative stress that changes the cells
20:32
is several things one of which is the immune system says what's going on over
20:39
here so it sends a message to the rest of the immune system something going on
20:46
over here and that messaging is called systemic inflammation there's release of chemicals go around the body telling
20:53
everybody get ready we may have to react to something here so systemic inflammation and that
21:01
oxidative stress together often work together and both of those factors have
21:06
an impact on those receptors that send chemicals and it tends to activate them
21:14
and in some people it tends to sensitize them what that means is the threshold to
21:22
initiate a response in the first place is lowered they're more sensitive than they used to be things up the cell in
21:31
response makes more of his receptors he there's something going on out here
21:36
let's send more sensors out there to look for these guys so we have more cells sorry more receptors on the cells
21:45
with a lower threshold and so the cell itself has become sensitized to respond
21:51
so what happens in MCS is that there will be a response
21:57
depending on on where those cells have become sensitized the most common place they
22:04
become sensitized is in the nervous system and so our sensory systems that
22:10
pick up chemicals and tell us something about it get turned on so people with
22:18
MCS not only do they sense chemicals at a lower level than other people they
22:26
react adversely to them on a sensory level with with pain with with changes in in
22:32
function in brain such as cognition fatigue they also sense it quite common
22:40
in the respiratory system because that's the first system that actually has
22:46
contact with these chemical pollutes and so we see respiratory complaints and
22:52
sometimes we we see people who have these chem these respiratory complaints we listen
23:00
to the chest with the status C we take an x-ray we do pulmon function test and
23:05
say everything looks normal but the people are saying but I feel shorter breath I feel chest tightness I feel
23:14
like I need to cough because the sensors that tell us
23:19
to do those things are reacting to things that they normally didn't react to and at much lower levels than
23:26
before if you could please let us how do MCS symptoms vary in different
23:32
affected individuals and which groups are most vulnerable against this
23:37
condition so pain is a variety of of ways of of um presenting itself it can
23:45
present locally you can get a headache or what kind of headache you can get it tension headache with pressure in your
23:51
head but also known to provoke migraine 60 to 70% of people have
23:58
chronic migraine frequent migraines will tell you that there are scents in the
24:03
air like perfumes etc etc which will trigger migraine um so what we're looking at
24:10
generally speaking is oh Pain's really common um fatigue is really common how
24:16
do you describe that well if it's more of a mental fatigue you kind of get foggy in the head maybe or you get
24:22
distracted and you can't work as effectively as before or could be more of a physical fatigue you just don't
24:29
feel well and you feel more sluggish so it's people's individual descriptions
24:34
will speak to the variation on how it presents but it's that pattern multiple
24:40
system especially brain and respiratory system um that we see over and over
24:45
again um so it's meeting the criteria having said
24:50
that um most chronic conditions are comorbid and what that
24:57
means is when you have a chronic condition you're more likely to have another one so or or
25:03
get another one so people start to accumulate them so you can have asthma
25:10
we can diagnose that we can do tests go oh you have asthma but the asthma could
25:16
also be triggered off by levels of chemical pollutants that were previously
25:22
tolerated so do they meet the criteria for chemical sensitivity yeah especially
25:27
if they have other other symptoms that are provoked which they usually do so it becomes complicated that chemical
25:35
sensitivity usually when you've had it for a while is not sitting there in isolation anymore so it becomes a a
25:43
clinical understanding that family docs especially have to deal with which is
25:49
which is comorbidity or multimorbidity different conditions working together to make a bigger mess
25:56
now that's a problem when you talk about or ask about which
26:02
population the most prevalent population to have
26:08
MCS is middle-aged women so well why well middle age sort of speaks to the
26:16
frequent exposures over a lifetime till eventually you start to see a breakdown um but why women say well
26:28
women obviously have more female hormones than men do hormones like estrogen have an impact on those trpv1
26:37
trpa1 receptors they sensit so once they're sensitized female hormones can
26:43
play a role in there as well secondly you know we were talking about the environment in the first
26:49
episode and we said you know the environment is also um your your personal environment of of who's in your
26:56
environment and how you behave in there what you perceive from other people and so on so it's there a social environment
27:02
women use more chemical products on their bodies
27:08
than men do so you have women have increased exposure um some of that is product
27:14
choice and the other is sort of this this social phenomenon that still exists
27:19
somewhat of unequal um distribution of responsibilities in the home women tend
27:26
to do more of the cleaning of the laundry what are they exposed to more chemical products cleaning products
27:32
laundry products fabric softeners Etc often scented as well so they women have
27:37
more exposures they have more uh of a hormonal impact on becoming
27:44
sensitized generally speaking women have a more sensitive sensory system so one of
27:52
the things that we know is that women have a lower threshold when
27:59
they start to feel pain and one of the factors that impacts pain is these trpv1
28:07
and trpa1 receptors so the threshold of those receptors just generally tends to
28:13
be lower in females versus males I don't know why so women are more impacted at
28:20
middle age than the rest of the population mhm so what types of challenges do
28:27
individuals would MCS face while navigating public or personal spaces one of my favorite words is
28:35
ubiquitous it's a really cool word ubiquitous what does it mean it means
28:41
ever present it's everywhere and chemical pollutant exposures are ever present everywhere
28:49
unless you go out far enough from an urban environment into the forest they're just there and they're most
28:56
concentrated in the endurance environment and so people with
29:02
MCS face those exposures every day so when we look at
29:08
what how do you treat MCS and we don't know how to calm those receptors down
29:14
just don't know how so the next best thing is well you're got to manage this condition and the thing that is the most
29:21
effective is have a safe home so we instruct people get rid of all chemical
29:28
pollutant exposures that you can some people can identify them easily because oh that
29:35
smells making me sick so they throw it out um others are not so easily
29:40
identified if they just aren't perceiving a reaction even though it's contributing to The Continuous
29:46
sensitization so there actually was a a study done uh recently where they
29:53
experts went into people's homes and looked around and told them where the
29:59
chemical sources were coming from that they hadn't identified themselves and
30:05
asked them to clean those things out of the environment and Then followed them and what they found was two things
30:11
number one the level of those chemicals in the air went down compared to people
30:18
who did not make those changes and number two the levels of oxidative stress that we can measure in research
30:25
Labs went down compared to those who did not make the changes so there is a a
30:31
pilot study out now clean your home but when you go out of the home now you got
30:37
a problem because like the hockey player says you don't have as much control over
30:42
it as as as you can in your own home so this is difficult to go to work some
30:50
places have sentree policies according to the Canadian Human Rights
30:56
Commission um people with MCS have the legal right to accommodation and the most recommended
31:04
accommodation is a centree policy how well that can be managed how well it's
31:10
applied and enforced varies but that's something that can be done in the
31:16
workplace maybe it's good enough maybe it's not if you're working
31:22
in a retail store it's really hard out a senty policy because people walk in and walk out all the time we don't have to
31:28
follow that policy so it's a problem for people once they go Outdoors sometimes
31:33
just going for a walk in the neighborhood when when the laundry fabric softeners are being vented by the
31:39
dryers can impact people that they can't even walk on their own neighborhood but
31:44
it causes a problem everywhere they go shopping public transportation people
31:52
wear sented products really really common and the sent industry will tell you that their their sales are going out
31:58
they're doing a a good job financially for their um uh owners and for the
32:04
people who have invested in them and so on but they are continuing to impact the
32:10
environment so people have a hard place going any place and so one of the major
32:17
barriers for people is the Health Care system because you're going into an indoor environment that uses things like
32:26
scented products especially since covid deodorizers or not deodorizers uh um you
32:31
know cleaners and detoxifiers are are everywhere for people to apply to their hands and so on many of which have an
32:37
odor um but regardless of that those environments have the use of sented
32:45
products many hospitals have voluntarily um tried to employ a Sentry
32:53
policy so I know here in Toronto where where I am uh most most of the the
32:59
hospitals in downtown Toronto have sentree policies and if you phone there just to make an appointment at some
33:05
Clinic you'll hear the recorded message please don't mer sense we have a send free policy how that's that's police is
33:12
debatable so Ontario for example has over 100 hospitals um that have sentree policies
33:21
but then there's provinces like quec where there's one emergency department in the entire province why I don't know
33:29
that's politics but they don't have it so there's a major impact on accessing
33:34
healthare for people with chemical sensitives becomes even more of a of a
33:39
problem in in going to not just hospitals but clinics do doctors clinics
33:45
do Laboratories have sentre policies no should they absolutely because they are
33:52
denying access to healthcare to a significant segment of the population
33:58
which depending on and how you you you measure it and you qualify it in surveys
34:04
but conservatively it's 3 to six% of the population has MCS you're less conservative you can go up as high as
34:10
15% but there are people who reacted these sense but there's no Sentry policy
34:16
so they can Access healthcare and then there's the social impact well I don't believe you that doesn't make any sense
34:23
I never heard of that I don't want to and people are confronted with that every day sometimes even in their own
34:29
family so people who have teenagers who are a difficult segment of the
34:35
population sometimes to have to apply rules to um they don't want to have
34:41
follow a sentree policy they don't want to tell their friends you can't come to my house because you're wearing a
34:47
scented product so they don't and it creates a a problem within family
34:52
Dynamics or going to weddings or any other kind of family celebration like Christmas
34:58
what kind of exposures you going to have if your own family doesn't support you so there's the general public there's
35:03
your personal public there's your friends many people lose have losses they they have a loss
35:09
of income if they can't work they have litigation problems that they have to try and prove to to workers compensation
35:16
or third party disability insurance companies that they deserve benefits because the consens of opinion
35:22
might be well we don't believe you why are you blaming the environment and it's a big problem
35:28
so they have loss of income they have loss of social support they have loss of the quality of life maybe they have a
35:34
loss of their own professional life there significant losses um and more
35:39
likely to get other chronic conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome like chronic pain disorders like fibromialgia
35:45
or migraine headaches Etc um so their their health is majorly impacted by this
35:51
and nobody really is very supportive of it majority of people are not supportive
35:57
in understanding of it the lives become very limited do these people suffer from loss
36:03
absolutely are they angry many of them this is not fair why do they have to
36:08
have those exposures are they anxious and nervous about who's going to be ringing their doorbell or come to their
36:14
house um they have anxiety they have depression and it's justifiable it's not
36:20
a psychiatric disorder it's justifiable it's justifiable for you to be anxious if someone's chasing you with a gun
36:26
that's not a sake you disorder yeah and what are the best ways to
36:33
manage MCS symptoms the bottom line is if there
36:38
were a lot less exposures in indoor environments people with MCS would have a better quality of life until we learn
36:46
how to turn this thing off and we haven't learned how to do that
36:51
yet so it seems to me that it would be
36:57
really great if the rest of the population was understandable and supportive and wanting to do something as well oh that's a big ask we can't
37:04
even get people to to agree whether global warming exists or not but having said that um here in Ontario the
37:12
Ministry of Health had a a task force for environmental health for three years
37:19
to make recommendations uh to the government to to try and be able to
37:25
support people with MCS and comorbid conditions like chronic fatigue syndrome
37:31
alitis fibromyalgia and one factor that was
37:39
Major was there's a lack of understanding a lack of education and
37:44
that maybe education should be promoted unfortunately
37:50
the government in place right now has failed to respond to that task force for
37:56
five years and that's just criminal but having said that there are other um places for
38:06
sources of information that people of MCS can access and download
38:13
to try and educate people around them to the reality of the condition Canadian
38:20
Human Rights Commission it says right on their their website this is a legitimate
38:26
biological condition with the right to accommodation in the workplace said that says
38:31
something um then there's groups like U the Canadian Environmental Health
38:38
Association the Environmental Health Association of Quebec which is um there before the Canadian group
38:45
was there's a tremendous amount of of information available on their website
38:51
with Resources with with places you can go to download information and provide
38:57
to the people around you your family your fellow
39:02
employees your superiors at work anybody else you want to and get the information
39:09
out there that pollution is making people sick it just happens to make you
39:15
if you have MCS sick this way and it's a legitimate condition people should be more more understanding people will help
39:23
blind people across the street they will go out of their way for people that they know disabled but when your disability
39:29
is invisible you're ignored and when you try and explain it you're disbelieved
39:35
because they can't see anything you sound like a whiner or complainer people need to be educated and so each
39:42
individual with MCS maybe can access some of this information and starts
39:47
giving it to everybody because it comes from reliable sources mhm what are the preventative measures
39:55
if any that can be taken to reduce the risk of developing chemical
40:02
sensitivity preventive measures should be um kind of generic for everybody
40:10
because we don't know who's going to get MCS just because you're not a female doesn't mean you can't get it just means
40:16
less likely right we don't know who's going to get MCS and who's going to get nothing and who's going to end up with
40:22
with a neuro degenerate disorder as they get older we don't know we can't predict it
40:28
so your lifestyle should be a healthy one to try and prevent
40:33
it so there are two things that one can do one is decrease the exposures goes
40:39
back to that question you asked a while back about what can people do in in in in general um to offset the impact of
40:47
pollutions have less exposures control what you can so that's one part of the lifestyle what kind of food do you eat
40:55
is it is it saturated with with dyes and and and chemicals for Taste um or is it
41:02
organic which is the other end of the spectrum what kind of foods do you eat it's not just what kind of FS we what's
41:08
in your diet because oxidative stress occurs when a detoxification
41:15
system is less capable of managing exposures and so what does the
41:23
detoxification system use to neutralize those exposures and manage them
41:29
antioxidants where do you get antioxidants well we make some biologically so nutritional support for
41:36
that will be important but we also get a lot of them in our diet where do we get them fruits and vegetables foods that
41:43
are colored one of the things that eat the rainbow but colored Foods vegetables
41:48
and fruit loaded with antioxidants and we should be eating more than the
41:54
Canadian food guide recommends because they do not consider chronic chemical
41:59
pollution or environmental pollution exposures we should eat if you can eat
42:06
the 10 helpings a day but eat as many as you can all the time that should be your Snack That should be your go-to your
42:12
your plate should be piled with salad rather than piled with meat and potatoes
42:18
it's nothing wrong with meat and potatoes but where' the meat come from where' the potatoes come from decrease
42:25
your exposures and really increase your the nutrient nutrients required to try
42:32
and help your detoxification systems so one of the ways the one of the
42:38
difficulties we have with detoxification is sometimes we can't break things down very well so what what does thebody do
42:43
with them can't break them down how do you get rid of them well if they're water soluble we can pee them out but if
42:50
they're not water soluable and majority aren't to begin with then we can't we
42:56
got a them somewhere we dissolve them with in fat fats and oils the more fat
43:03
you have the more chemical pollutants you're going to store in your body so
43:08
try and maintain a good weight um one way you can get rid of some of those things in there is to
43:15
sweat what's the best way to sweat aerobic exercise get out there and run
43:22
you don't have to you don't have to be a you a triple
43:27
uh triathlete to um be a a good detoxifier you just need to do some kind
43:35
of exercise which is aerobic to make you increase your circulation and sweat and
43:42
you'll get rid of things um put Less in try and get things out even a dry Sonic
43:48
can help the sweat but you need to do all of these things to support the system so having a healthy lifestyle
43:55
having a healthy diet not putting chemicals in your body from whatever source air food water um all of these
44:02
things make a difference to everybody and in particular if you're the one who's going to get MCS it helps to
44:10
prevent MCS as well thank you so the last question how can understanding and
44:16
accommodating MCS for example choosing healthier products or implementing s-free policies benefit the broader
44:25
population we tend to live in a pretty good country
44:31
um and we have rules and laws to make sure that life is better for people that
44:38
are disabled I me a great example of people in a wheelchair buildings have
44:45
ramps elevator buttons are lower and all so they can reach it doors are wide enough that the wheelchair can get in
44:53
and new rules for restaurants for example is that the washroom is on the main floor so that people don't have to
44:58
take their wheelchair downstairs because that just doesn't work so it's making life better for people with disabilities
45:06
that we understand and recognize and we as a society want to be like that we want to be fair to everybody else less
45:13
fortunate than us if Sentry
45:20
policies and a great effort to reduce chemical pollutant exposures better
45:27
Building Materials in buildings going forward so they don't contaminate less
45:32
less chemicals and Furnishings stain repellants etc etc um that are in
45:38
furniture and in our clothing and so on that are off gas and that are inside most human beings adding to the
45:45
burg if we had a general understanding starting with indoor air quality sfree
45:53
policies let's stop wearing this stuff you want to use it you you want to smoke cigarettes go ahead but you can't smoke
46:01
it within 9 ft of that doorway and you certainly can't smoke it inside or in my house you want to do it go ahead you
46:08
have that freedom you want to wear cented products go ahead but you do not have a legal right anywhere to pollute
46:15
my air or the person with chemical sensitivi air either you that's that R
46:21
does not exist and so if we all got on the
46:28
same bandwagon of we need to reduce our exposures Not only would the MCS people
46:35
have a better life but maybe so with everybody else because the impact of the
46:43
indoor air with respect to its impact on developing chronic
46:50
disease partially based on the outdoor air coming in being mixed with indoor chemicals
46:56
then everybody's going to be better off we see neurodevelopmental disorders
47:03
going up that's not genetic why is it going up if it's not genetic it's
47:10
environmental and one of the things that we have been able to see is that these
47:15
exposures pollutant exposures increase the incidence and prevalence of autistic
47:22
SC disorder as an example of ADHD is another example example why are these
47:27
things going on because babies are being born with as many chemicals in them as
47:34
their mothers with a less matur detoxification system gee why are their brains
47:41
affected so everybody the entire population future populations would be
47:47
better off if we decrease these exposures starting yesterday thanks for
47:53
tuning in to this episode of footprints and impacts if you found value in today's conversation be sure to
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subscribe leave a comment and share it with friends family and especially someone who might benefit don't forget
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positive environmental impact until next time stay curious take care of yourself
48:17
and be well this podcast is part of the
48:25
empowering community and removal of barriers project funded in part by the government of Canada's Social
48:30
Development Partnerships program disability component



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