Phthalates are synthetic chemicals used to make plastics more flexible. But they’re found in everything… from dish soap and detergent, to lotion and deodorant, to the flooring and upholstery in your home.

Phthalates are endocrine disruptors. They interfere with the normal functions of the hormones that make our body work.

Chronic exposure to phthalates affects every organ system in the body. They are linked to obesity, asthma and breast cancer, to name a few.

And as if that weren’t enough, we now know that phthalates are doing harm in the womb, impacting a developing baby’s brain and metabolism…

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How phthalates damage fetal brains and metabolism

A study led by researchers at Emory University’s School of Public Health is the first to find evidence of just how a mother’s exposure to phthalates can damage her unborn child’s brain.

The study used the science of metabolomics, which provides a “functional readout” of a body’s health and can be used to understand how environmental factors affect bodily function.

While the process was complex, the findings couldn’t be clearer:

• Phthalate levels in a mother’s blood during pregnancy were associated with lower levels of hormones important to brain development in a newborn’s blood shortly after birth (in other words, they cause impaired brain development in a newborn).
• High phthalate levels were also linked to lower attention and arousal scores in newborns, indicating impaired brain development during the crucial first days and weeks of a newborn’s life.
• These findings suggest that a mother’s exposure to phthalates while a baby is still in utero may have lasting effects on an infant’s brain development.

Dr. Susan Hoffman, first author of the study, makes a crucial point:

“There is a common belief that the placenta protects the baby from a lot of harmful substances, but this study supports that phthalates are able to cross through the placenta and actually impact the baby’s biology before they are even born and negatively affect their development over time.”

So, it seems that mothers must start protecting their children from the dangers of this world even before they’re born. That’s no easy task, but there are a few ways to decrease exposure…

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Ways to cut down on phthalate exposure

Phthalates are known as the “everywhere chemical,” and with good reason…

Besides their use in plastic, they are used to retain the scents in fragrances and to help topical products like lotions and cosmetics stick to and penetrate the skin.

Here’s just a partial list of products that are highly likely to contain phthalates:

• Nail polish
• Shampoo
• Deodorant
• Sanitary pads
• Baby powder (yes, baby powder)
• Plastic drinking straws
• Detergents
• Air fresheners (even when labeled “all-natural” or “unscented”)
• Vinyl shower curtains, mini-blinds and flooring
• Garden hoses
• Scented candles
• Plastic bottles
• Toys, like bath toys, drinking straws, and rubber ducks

Try to avoid ultraprocessed foods, which hold a higher concentration of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, one of the most common and harmful phthalates.

Phthalates seep into these foods via equipment in processing plants, including conveyor belts, tubing, lids, adhesives and plastic wrap.

According to the Natural Resources Defense Council, a study of cheese products found high levels of phthalates in powdered cheese samples, including those in boxed mac and cheese, much higher than the concentrations found in cheese slices and natural cheeses like shredded and string cheese. (Unfortunately, all of them contained phthalates.)

That means even healthy foods processed and packaged this way harbor phthalates that seep into your food.

Be especially wary of plastic containers. And when you absolutely can’t avoid plastic packaging, take a look at the plastic number. Plastics numbered 3 and 7 are more likely to contain harmful chemicals, such as phthalates, whereas plastics 1, 2 and 5 are safer.

Try to eat more foods that come in natural wrappers, like fruits, vegetables and fresh meat.

A few more things you can do to protect yourself and your baby:

• Don’t drink bottled water. Stick to tap water and avoid possible contamination.
• Eat cleansing foods. Cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, kale, or Brussels sprouts bind to chemicals and remove them from your body in a process known as chelation.
• Be careful with takeout food. Avoid Styrofoam containers. And never reheat food in plastic containers. The heat will cause phthalates to leach into your food.

Sources:

Using everyday products during pregnancy can affect newborn’s metabolism, study finds — Science Daily

Impact of prenatal phthalate exposure on newborn metabolome and infant neurodevelopment — Nature Communications

Fighting Phthalates — Natural Resources Defense Council

How to Detoxify Plastics (Phthalates) — Functional Medicine University

The post Phthalates & placenta: The danger that breaches the womb appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Unfortunately, choosing the wrong foods comes with a laundry list of consequences, including disease-causing inflammation, heart disease and more than 30 other health conditions.

The potential consequences of eating poorly can be even more risky for certain people — especially pregnant moms and senior citizens. These two groups may seem worlds apart but they have one very important issue in common: special nutritional requirements.

Luckily, according to a recent study, published in Nutrients, there could be an easy and delicious way for these groups to transform their diets and get the nutrients needed to be their healthiest…

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Mango power for pregnancy — and beyond

According to the researchers, “Pregnant women are at risk for several health conditions, like gestational diabetes and hypertension, putting their health and the health of the unborn baby at risk.”

So they decided to determine whether eating a tropical fruit — the heavenly-tasting mango —  could make a difference.

Why the mango?

It’s a practically perfect source of nutrients associated with reducing the risk of pregnancy-related disease — like fiber, folate, magnesium, potassium and vitamin E.

To determine whether mangos could help in pregnancy, the researchers gathered information from almost 17,000 assessing their diet quality rated on the Healthy Eating Index (HEI).

They found that compared to diets without mangos, HEI scores were 16 percent higher among pregnant women who included mangos in their diet.

This improvement in diet quality was due to the fact that women who ate mangos during pregnancy got:

• 70 percent more vitamin C
• 31 percent extra fiber in their diets
• 30 percent higher vitamin E than non-mango-eaters
• 26 percent more folate, which is vital for a baby’s development
• 16 percent more magnesium
• 11 percent extra potassium

Eating mangos also helped the women eat much less of those unhealthy foods common in the SAD Diet.

They benefitted from eating:

• 17 percent less added sugars
• 11 percent less saturated fats
• 9 percent less total fats in their diets

Talk about a lot of mango power!

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Mango benefits after 60

The study also demonstrated that pregnancy wasn’t the only time eating mangos can make a big difference in the quality of your diet…

The researchers also looked at what eating mangos can do for you after 60.

They found that when adults age 60 and older simply including mango in their diets, their HEI (or diet quality) improved by 13 percent.

The dietary improvements included higher intakes of fiber (the number one anti-aging nutrient, in my book) and vitamin C, as well as lower intakes of cholesterol.

Clearly, eating mangos can be a healthy choice at every stage of life.

More mango benefits

And this isn’t the first time mangos have been in the spotlight for their health benefits.

Previous research has shown that eating mangos can help lower your blood pressure in just two hours.

So if you want to boost your diet quality, whether you’re a mom-to-be, a senior or you’re at any age and simply want to live healthier, mangoes just might be the way to go.

Sources:

Associations between mango eaters and moms-to-be: better diets and improved nutrient intakes – EurekAlert!

The post The one fruit moms-to-be and older adults need appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Once they’ve undergone processing, they bear little resemblance to their original form. Some ultra-processed foods include soft drinks, pastries, packaged meals, fast foods and snacks like chips and cookies.

These foods are unhealthy as a rule. But what really makes them dangerous are chemicals known as phthalates.

They seep into these foods from the wrapping and packaging and end up in the bloodstream where they can drive heart disease, bring on early menopause, lower thyroid  and testosterone levels and raise risk for type 2 diabetes.

But there’s one group of people for whom phthalates carry double the danger…

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Eating for two means sharing the danger

When a pregnant woman consumes foods containing phthalates, not only does the chemical end up in their bloodstream — it makes its way through the placenta and into the fetal bloodstream.

In other words, not only is mom-to-be now at risk — so is her unborn child.

Those were the findings when researchers analyzed data from the Conditions Affecting Neurocognitive Development and Learning in Early Childhood (CANDLE) research cohort, made up of 1,031 socioeconomically diverse pregnant individuals in Memphis, Tenn., enrolled between 2006 and 2011. Phthalate levels were measured in urine samples collected during the second trimester of pregnancy.

Once in the fetal bloodstream, phthalates can cause oxidative stress and an inflammatory cascade within the fetus. Previous research has indicated that phthalate exposure during pregnancy can increase the risk of low birth weight, preterm birth, asthma and disorders such as autism and ADHD. 

On average, 38.6 percent of the women’s diets were composed of ultra-processed foods. That’s more than a third. Any additional 10 percent increment was associated with a 13 percent higher concentration of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate, one of the most common and harmful phthalates.

By contrast, diets high in vegetables, fruits, yogurt, fish and nuts were linked with lower urinary concentrations of this and other phthalates.

Some women in the study may have been more vulnerable to ultra-processed foods due to financial hardships and living in “food deserts” where access to healthier, fresh foods is difficult.

According to the researchers, regulation is needed to prevent phthalate contamination in foods.

“We don’t blame the pregnant person here,” says lead author Brennan Baker, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Washington School of Medicine.  “We need to call out manufacturers and legislators to offer replacements, and ones that may not be even more harmful.”

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How to best dodge phthalates

Is there any way for pregnant women to minimize their consumption of phthalates?

According to senior author Dr. Sheela Sathyanarayana, a UW Medicine pediatrician and researcher at the Seattle Children’s Research Institute, pregnant women should try to avoid ultra-processed food as much as they can, and seek out fruits, vegetables and lean meats instead.

But be wary of the packaging even these healthy foods come in, like plastic containers.

When you absolutely can’t avoid plastic packaging, take a look at the plastic number. Plastics numbered 3 and 7 are more likely to contain harmful chemicals like phthalates, whereas plastics 1, 2 and 5 are safer.

For people who aren’t pregnant, I’d suggest detoxing or chelation to help cut down on the chemical load. But during pregnancy that may not be a good idea.

However, adding healthy foods is. It turns out that certain healthy vegetables can bind to chemicals and help remove them from the body. Such foods include broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, arugula and dark leafy greens like kale.

Sources:

Pregnant women should avoid ultra-processed, fast foods — EurekAlert!

Ultra-processed and fast food consumption, exposure to phthalates during pregnancy, and socioeconomic disparities in phthalate exposures — Environment International

Pregnancy nutrition: Foods to avoid during pregnancy — Mayo Clinic

The post The double danger moms face from ultra-processed foods appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

Pregnancy nausea occurs in about 85 percent of pregnancies and can really hurt the quality of life for an expectant mom, especially in the early months. In fact, sometimes pregnancy-related nausea and vomiting can be so severe that moms-to-be end up in the hospital.

No one knows exactly why pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea and vomiting. But researchers are working to figure out how to best relieve these unpleasant symptoms. And recently, they found a commonly used supplement may be a solution to pregnant women’s woes in this area…

Probiotics help with nausea and vomiting in pregnancy

Researchers at the UC Davis School of Medicine discovered that probiotics significantly improve the symptoms of pregnancy-related nausea, vomiting and constipation. In the process, the study also revealed hints as to why some people are more prone to these symptoms during pregnancy.

Probiotics are beneficial bacteria that help support the gut microbiome found in the gastrointestinal tract. They are found in fermented foods like yogurt, kimchi, kefir, sauerkraut and tempeh and are also available as supplements that are widely used by adults looking to keep their gut healthy.

When a woman gets pregnant, she experiences an increase in hormones like estrogen and progesterone, which causes many physical changes. These shifts can also impact the gut microbiome and could be the cause of unwanted symptoms like nausea, vomiting and constipation.

In the study, pregnant women were given a probiotic capsule twice a day for six days, then stopped for two days. The cycle was then repeated a second time. Participants consistently tracked their symptoms for those 16 days.

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The probiotics used were commercially available over the counter and mainly contained Lactobacillus, one type of friendly bacteria. Each capsule contained an estimated 10 billion live cultures at the time it was made.

Results showed taking the probiotic reduced the number of hours participants felt nauseous by 16 percent and the number of times they vomited by 33 percent. Their quality of life also got better, with participants reporting improvements in symptoms like fatigue, poor appetite and difficulty maintaining normal social activities. Taking probiotics also significantly reduced constipation.

“Over the years, I’ve observed that probiotics can reduce nausea and vomiting and ease constipation,” says Albert T. Liu, lead author for the study and a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at UC Davis. “It’s very encouraging that the study proved this to be true.”

Getting to the root cause

Researchers also studied fecal samples submitted before and during the study to determine whether biomarkers corresponded with more severe nausea. They also examined how the probiotics affected participants who had different baseline biomarkers at the start of the study.

They discovered a link between a low amount of bacteria carrying bile salt hydrolase (an enzyme that generates bile acid to absorb nutrients) and more frequent pregnancy-related vomiting. Probiotics increase the number of bacteria producing this enzyme, which could be one reason why the supplements decreased levels of nausea and vomiting.

In addition, they found those who had high levels of two gut microbes, Akkermansia and A. muciniphila, at the beginning of the study experienced more vomiting. The probiotic significantly decreased both microbes as well as vomiting, so they may be reliable biomarkers for predicting vomiting in pregnancy.

They also measured an increase in vitamin E levels after probiotic intake. Higher levels of vitamin E were connected with reduced vomiting.

The results are exciting, but researchers caution that the small sample size means further studies will be needed to confirm the findings.

When shopping for a probiotic, look for a high-quality supplement containing Lactobacillus and at least 10 billion live, active cultures. Most probiotics come in capsule form, but if you have trouble swallowing pills, there are liquid probiotics available, though they may be harder to find.

It’s always a good idea when pregnant to discuss adding any supplements to your diet with your doctor.

Sources:

Probiotics improve nausea and vomiting in pregnancy, according to new study — UC Davis Health

Probiotics Improve Gastrointestinal Function and Life Quality in Pregnancy — Nutrients

The post The supplement that could solve morning sickness appeared first on Easy Health Options®.

There is a concerted effort by the medical establishment to convince you that anything other than their side effect-ridden, chemical-laden prescriptions and often unnecessary medical procedures are dangerous. And what’s especially heinous about their latest attempts is that they are vilifying something as natural as breastfeeding to convince you of this.

In their efforts to wholly discredit anything natural or alternative, they’re desperately trying to poison your perception of the pure and simple act of a mother nourishing her own child in the way God and nature intended. If that’s not a huge warning sign pointing to the drastic measures conventional medicine will take to discredit alternative and natural health options — I don’t know what is.

Apparently a couple of doctoral researchers out of the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania felt so strongly that positive reinforcement for breastfeeding could derail parents’ good sense in making healthcare choices for their children — and likely themselves — that they issued a warning that was printed in Pediatrics…

In the April issue, Jessica Martucci, PhD, and Anne Barnhill, PhD, Medical Ethics and Health Policy researchers at Penn Medicine, warn that “[t]his messaging plays into a powerful perspective that ‘natural’ approaches to health are better.”

Implying that natural is better really has these two riled up. They are so afraid (very afraid I’d say to make such a ridiculous statement) that you may realize natural is better, that they are recommending the word “natural” not be used to promote breastfeeding — or anything else for that matter…

A natural fallacy

They especially took aim at some public health campaigns, such as the US Department of Health and Human Services’ “It’s only natural” breastfeeding promotion, the American Academy of Pediatrics labeling of breast milk as “the best and most natural food for infants,” and a New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene poster describing breastfeeding as “Mom-made” as compared with formula feeding, labeled with a red circle that reads “Factory-made.”

Both Martucci and Barnhill write that while public health authorities and medical experts widely agree that breastfeeding is beneficial for both infants and mothers, there has been little discussion about the potentially harmful consequences of promoting breastfeeding as “natural.” They both concluded that, “We should think twice before referencing the ‘natural’ in breastfeeding promotion, even if it motivates women to breastfeed.”

Talk about shameful. They’d rather moms get a watered down message about the positive effects of breastfeeding, and risk fewer children receiving the resulting lifelong, immune-boosting “natural” health benefits.

But their true underlying goal is obvious. It’s to keep you from veering from the money and disease-making machine called conventional medicine. And breastfeeding isn’t all they want to steer you away from…

The authors cite other examples of what they call the “natural is automatically better” fallacy, including the rejection of genetically modified foods, preferring organic over conventionally grown foods, as well as longstanding concerns over water fluoridation (even though Harvard acknowledges fluoride dangers).

Let me ask you… what harm will eating an organic apple do you? None. What about a pesticide-laden apple? Lots — but even if the jury is still out on just how much damage those pesticides can do you — there is still the potential for harm. And Martucci and Barnhill would have you choose the potential for harm over natural any day. Don’t be fooled by their message.

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