In the first instalment of this guest article by Ben Greenfield, we looked at ‘Different Ways to Detox’. Now let’s explore two pervasive toxins you rarely think about…
The First Toxin You Rarely Think About: EMF
Electromagnetic Fields (EMF), also known as dirty electricity or electrical pollution, can cause symptoms of illness in infants, children and adults, including:
Neurological (fatigue, stress and sleep disturbances).
Skin (facial prickling, burning sensations and rashes).
Body (infertility, pains and aches in your muscles).
Eye (burning sensations).
Brain (foggy thinking and depression).
Leukemia in children, breast cancer or other cancer clusters.
And a variety of less common symptoms, like ear, nose, and throat symptoms and digestive disorders.
What exactly are EMF’s?
Electromagnetic fields are areas of energy that surround electronic devices. The World Health Organization (WHO) explains that the electric fields are created by differences in voltage and magnetic fields that are created when the electric current flows. According to WHO, electromagnetic fields affect us so drastically because our human bodies have their own built-in electric and biochemical responses (e.g., nervous system, digestion, brain function, heart function) and exposure to EMFs can interact with your own built-in “electronics” in a variety of ways.
These EMFs come from electricity…
In your home: DECT cordless phones, hairdryers, vacuums, refrigerators, microwave ovens, irons, televisions, lighting circuits, dimmer switches, electric blankets, electric razors, electric toothbrushes, WiFi, etc.
In your office: computers, fluorescent or halogen lighting, fax machines, photocopiers, scanners, cell phones and WiFi.
Outside: power lines, transformers, electrical substations, cell phone towers, cities that provide citywide wireless Internet (WiFi) and electromagnetic radiation from near neighbors’ electronic equipment.
Airports/Airplanes: communication antennas, electronic equipment, radar, wifi, wireless devices, jet engines.
You can learn more at The Environmental Health Trust website and the website Bioinitiative.org but as you can see, most of our modern-day conveniences emit EMFs, some stronger than others. So does this mean you have to go off the grid to “detox” from electrical pollution? Not necessary. For example, I personally use everything you’re going to read about, and I’ve chosen the items below because they’re either inexpensive, easy-to-implement, or both.
1. Electrical Outlet Timer
Here’s why I like this option: an electrical outlet timer allows you to set a specific time for something you have plugged into an outlet to turn on or off. So let’s say, for example, that you’ve committed to turning your WiFi router (one of the most concentrated sources of EMF in your home or office) off at night, but you keep forgetting to do it. You simply plug an electrical outlet timer into the wall, you set it to go off at 10pm then back on at 6am, and you’ve suddenly automated the entire process. Total investment: $10-20.
2. Shielded Ethernet Cables
An Ethernet cable is the cable that links your modem/router to your computer and provides you with a hardwired internet connection. In my home, I’ve actually run metal shielded Cat 6 Ethernet cables throughout the wall construction of every room. This means there is zero need for any wireless signals sent out by a WiFi router, since I just plug my laptop or computer into the wall outlet when I need to connect to the internet. Slightly inconvenient? Yes. A huge reduction in signals bouncing around my home? Also, yes. Even if you can’t rip open the walls of your house and install cables, you can at least purchase shielded Ethernet cables (up to 50 ft long) that you can run from your WiFi router to your computer, then turn the radio signal on your WiFi router off (typically done by logging into your WiFi router admin panel, a process for which instructions are often written on the back of your router). Even an Ethernet cable can be a source of electrical radiation, I recommend buying at least Cat 6a SSTP (screened shielded twisted pair) Ethernet cable. Total investment: $15-30.
3. Negative Ion Generator
Before you learn about why you’d want to use something like a negative ion generator, it’s important to understand what an ion is. Ions are atoms or molecules in which the number of electrons is different than the number of protons. In other words, an ion can be negatively (more electrons than protons) or positively (more protons than electrons) charged. Negative ions appear in natural settings in greater numbers than positive ions. For example, negative ions are generated by moving water such as rivers, waterfalls, crashing waves, and even showers and fountains. Plants also produce negative ions, especially when exposed to intense light during photosynthesis. But for ultimate convenience in your home or office, I highly recommend a negative ion generator. Simply plug it into the wall and it will enrich with negative ions your stale office or home that is most likely supercharged with positive ions from computers, WiFi signals, cell phone signals, etc. Especially if you’re stuck inside all day, a negative ion generator is worthy of serious consideration. Total investment: $20-30 (unless you decide to invest in the ultimate home or office purification unit—a HEPA air filter with a built-in negative ion generator, which is closer to $150-300).
Editor’s Note: If you are a frequent flyer we suggest the AirTamer A310 by Headwaters Inc. This portable air purifier is perfect for confined cabins on long flights, and is a convenient option for small offices or city-central hotel rooms and other environments subject to poor air quality. The rechargeable device is light and compact (smaller than most MP3 players), and can be worn comfortably around your neck (the conductive adjustable lanyard dramatically improves performance and increases run time) or positioned nearby to create a 3 foot sphere of cleaner healthier air. AirTamer’s Advanced Ionic Technology emits a constant stream of healthy negative ions that force airborne pollutants away from your personal space. Using electrostatic purification to repel atomic sized pollutants (e.g. viruses, pollen, smoke, molds and dust mites) that traditional air purifiers (e.g. HEPA) leave behind (providing 9 times more cleaning power than the competition). It is silent in operation and it’s extremely energy efficient technology provides 150+ hours of run time on one charge. Easily charged by included USB cable. Total Investment: $150
4. Anti-Radiation Laptop Pad
If there’s one thing that makes me cringe, it’s seeing a man or woman sitting with a laptop on their crotch, literally heating and radiating what are in my opinion relatively important organs. This can be easily remedied with some type of laptop pad that blocks radiation and heat. Simply place one of these under your laptop to shield your skin and organs. Total investment: $40-100.
5. Dirty Electricity Filters
Each room of my house is equipped with a Greenwave dirty electricity filter, and here’s why: any two houses in the same neighborhood can have the same 110-230 volts running through their internal wiring system, but the quality of electricity can vary by multiples of 10 or even 100, and these variations exist because of brief irregular changes in the voltage, which are known as transients. Transients can be caused by external sources such as cellphone towers, or by internal sources, such as your own household appliances. An electrical filtering system is a means of transforming dirty electricity back into power by filtering out electromagnetic pollution in your power supply that is in the range of 4 to 150 Khz (these are some of the more dangerous ranges) If you live in an urban area, you have a lots of electrical appliances in your home (refrigerators, washer, dryer, oven, etc.) or you live in proximity to a cell phone tower, a pack of dirty electricity filters are a good idea, and they simply plug into each outlet in your home. Total investment: $50-150.
6. Laptop Grounding Cable
If your laptop only has two pins on the charging cable it is not grounded when you are using it, and this means that when it is plugged in, it can increase your body voltage when you are touching any part of the compute (body voltage is voltage measured between your body and the ground. Some laptops, such as MacBooks, do use 3-pin plugs, but not all. If you have a laptop with a 2-pin electrical plug, then you can use a grounding cable. This plugs into the USB port of your computer and then, via a 3-pin connection, the electrical outlet. Total investment: $8-20.
7. Earthing Footwear
After I’ve been sitting on an airplane all day traveling, or if I’m headed out for a trail run and I want to experience a surge of negative ions, or if I’m going somewhere where being barefoot could be considered gross or unfashionable, I use Earthing footwear. These are special sandals or shoes that are built with copper inserts and conductive laces which ground you electrically by allowing electron transfer from the planet Earth directly to your body, allowing you to combat the effects of positive ion exposure, radiation, and electrical pollution. I personally use a brand called Earth Runners for Tarahumara style minimalist running sandals, and another good company for Earthing footwear, including shoes, is “Pluggz”.
8. Cellphone Shield
It’s very difficult to block EMF from your cellphone, because for your cellpone to work, it must radiate, and the microwave radiation emitted by the phone must reach a cell tower, while the emissions from the cell tower must reach the phone. So when it comes to shielding your cellphone, the trick is to allow this communication to take place, but to minimize the amount of radiation that is “wasted” by being absorbed by the your body. One way to accomplish this is via the use of an airtube headset, which allows sound to travel in hollow tubes and allows you to keep the cell phone away from your head. But another method is to place a shield between the phone and your body. There are several styles of cellphone shields which block the emitted radiation on one side of the phone, and you should have that shield on the side of the phone between the phone and your body when using the phone or when the phone is in your pocket or purse. The shield should be at least as big as the phone, since the entire phone radiates, and not just the antenna. Brands will vary based on the model and size of your phone. Total investment: $20-50.
9. An EMF Meter
If you’re going through all this trouble, it makes sense to actually measure the effectiveness of your EMF blocking efforts. I have a podcast called ‘How To Hunt Down And Destroy Hidden Health Hazards In Your Environment’, and it’s an interview with the creator of the MyLapka, a small device that can measure nitrates in food, microwave radiation and electrical signals in a room, nuclear radiation, humidity, temperature, etc. While the MyLapka is a handy piece of technology to play with, you can also go for the gold standard in accuracy and get a Tri-Field EMF Meter or Guass Meter that allows you to measure the amount of electrical pollution in any room or near any outlet, and that can also be modified to measure your body voltage when you’re standing on or near electrical appliances, or you’re measuring whether something is actually affecting your body’s electrical rhythms.
10. EMF Blocking Underwear
The fact is, most of the electrical pollution shielding aprons, pants, shirts, etc. out there are unfashionable and downright ugly. And while the boxers and briefs that are lined with radiation shielding fabrics are also nothing to brag about in the fashion department, they are at least mostly hidden, most of the time. So when your cell phone is in your pocket or your laptop is in your lap, you’re at least getting a little bit of extra protection. Brands and styles vary, but especially for you guys out there, this may be about the most you ever spend on a pair of boxers. Total investment: $50-100.
Although you may get funny looks from your friends who visit you and see a giant Ethernet cable coming out of your router, you can at least rest confidently that you’re not constantly swimming in electrical pollution, and you can be completely comfortable with using yourself as an N=1 to see how much these hacks affect the way you feel, the way you think and the way you sleep.
The Second Toxin You Rarely Think About: Air Pollution
And then there’s air pollution. Last year, The American Lung Association reported the results of their measurement of levels of ozone and soot particles in the air in almost 1,000 U.S. cities and counties.
No surprises here, but Los Angeles is near the top of the most-polluted list, and not too far behind are the cities of Houston, Dallas, Oklahoma City, Cincinnati, New York, Washington, Philadelphia, and St. Louis.
The cleanest cities (which actually did not have a single day of unhealthy levels of ozone or particle pollution) were Bismarck, North Dakota; Rapid City, South Dakota; and the Fort Myers and Palm Beach areas of Florida.
Whether your city is clean or dirty, you’ve no doubt at some point in your life been walked or run by the side of the road and experienced an intoxicating inhale of truck or car exhaust. And if you’re a recreational runner, cyclist, walker, or do any other mode of exercise in a polluted area or near a busy road, you should know whether that polluted air may be causing some damage to your body.
What happens to your body when you exercise in a polluted environment.
A 2004 review of pollution studies worldwide conducted in Australia found that during exercise, even low concentrations of airborne pollutants caused lung damage similar to the damage caused by high concentrations of airborne pollutants in people not working out. The researchers concluded that people who exercise outdoors, especially in polluted areas, should probably be more worried than they actually are.
How does this happen?
The polluted particles in the air can sail past your nasal hairs (the body’s first line of defense) and settle deep in your lungs. Some particles remain there, causing irritation and inflammation, and others migrate into your bloodstream, which can increase your risk of a heart attack and stroke. Because exercise means deeper breathing, more of these particles bypass your nasal filtering.
Another study that appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine found that women who lived in communities with relatively high levels of air pollution (in the form of tiny particles known as soot) were more likely to die from heart attacks compared to women who lived in cleaner air. Researchers concluded that fine soot particulates are definitely something to worry about, especially for athletes, who can take in elevated doses during exercise.
In addition, a 2005 study at the University of Edinburgh had healthy volunteers ride exercise bikes inside a laboratory for 30 minutes, while at the same time breathing piped-in diesel exhaust fumes at levels approximately similar to those you’d find beside a city highway at rush hour. Afterward, the researchers found that the blood vessels of the subjects were abnormally affected, specifically in a way that didn’t allow blood and oxygen to flow easily to the muscles. At the same time, levels of something called “tissue plasminogen activator,” a naturally-occurring protein that dissolves blood clots, significantly fell. Researchers concluded that exercising by a polluted road created ideal conditions for a heart attack, which can start when arteries constrict and a clot forms. Without sufficient levels of that tissue activator, the clot is not dissolved, the artery is blocked and the heart is damaged.
But it’s not all bad news.
In a recent study published in the Medicine and Science in Sports and Exercise, entitled ‘Anti-inflammatory effects of aerobic exercise in mice exposed to air pollution,’ a longer timeline was used to study exercise in polluted environments. In previous studies, effects of polluted air were studied immediately after exercise, but not for an extended period of time. But in this study, a 5-week timeline was used. It turns out that mice exposed to diesel exhaust fumes (those poor mice!), in the absence of an exercise program, saw a dramatic spike in lung inflammation and free radical damage to their cells. But a group of mice that exercised while being exposed to the same level of pollution seemed to undergo changes over the 5 weeks that almost completely protected them from the pollution! Researchers concluded that long-term aerobic exercise presents protective effects, possibly by the body creating natural antioxidants that fight against the damage caused by pollution.
What about the effects of exercise and pollution in humans, and not in mice?
In humans, studies have found that daily hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular problems correlate with air-quality readings, as you might expect. But upon closer inspection, the health benefits of exercise seem to outweigh the risk of pollution. For example, in 2010, researchers in the Netherlands used epidemiological data to estimate that the effects of switching from a car to a bike for short daily trips in polluted cities would subtract between 0.8 and 40 days from the average life span – but the additional exercise would extend average life span by 3 to 14 months. So ultimately it turns out that when presented with the decision to exercise or not exercise in a polluted environment, it’s better for your overall lifespan to exercise!
Another study at the University of British Columbia’s Environmental Physiology Lab investigated subjects for 7 weeks. While cycling at a variety of intensities, one group was exposed to air with exhaust from a diesel engine, while another group breathed clean, filtered air. Researchers found that exercise could literally overpower the effect of the pollution in a similar manner that was noted previously in the mice!
Ultimately, the more research that is done on exercise and pollution, the more it’s appearing that the potent anti-inflammatory effects of exercise can counteract the damage from air pollution—and if you have to make a choice between not exercising or exercising in polluted air, it’s actually better to go out and exercise.
How can you minimise the damage from air pollution?
Even if you are going to make the decision to trust your body’s built-in protective abilities and exercise in polluted air, you should still take steps to minimize the damage.
My top five tips to keep you even safer from pollution while exercising…
Tip #1: Time Your Workouts And Time Outdoors
Due to heat from the sun and ozone-affecting pollution, air quality is lowest when the temperature is highest, so plan your outdoor exercise in the morning or evening times.
Tip #2: Steer Clear of Roads
Avoid walking or biking along busy streets, where levels of pollutants tend to be significantly higher. By moving just a few feet away from the road, or preferably avoiding busy roads altogether, you can significantly lower airborne particle inhalation.
Tip #3: Do Your Research
At airnow.gov, you can check the EPA’s daily air quality forecast for most major cities, and then you can decide which day might be best for your outdoor run or bike ride.
Tip #4: Wear A Mask
I’ve personally resorted to wearing a filtration mask when I’m exercising in busy, polluted cities such as Bangkok and Hong Kong. Although I don’t get any fashion points, I have found that my “pollution nausea” tends to be significantly lower after a run in which I’ve worn a filtration mask.
Tip #5: Use Antioxidants
Sure, your body produces it’s own antioxidants, but it’s smart to give your body some help with food or supplements too. Look for foods high in antioxidants, such as pomegranates, blueberries, cherries, kale, and tomatoes (smoothies are a great way to get these in)– all of which can help you fight those free radicals even better!
That’s it! From food toxins, to biological toxins, to air pollution to EMF and beyond, you’re now equipped with everything you need to know to help make your body and help make this world a less polluted place. Thanks for reading, and feel free to visit my website BenGreenfieldFitness.com for even more information, along with free podcasts and articles, on how you can do the most to detox yourself and your environment.
