Tag Archives: sick home

How to Identify Home Products that Cause Illness and Disease

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Updated: 24 Aug 2018

I’ve known for years the chemicals in our consumer marketplace and environment has a direct correlation with disease and rising mortality rates. Through epidemiological, disease prevention and mortality rate studies and World Health Organization reports, etc., a direct connection with consumer products is found to have an effect on health and longevity. And that connection is the Westernized cultures who produce the pathological causing pollutant and chemical contaminants that attack cellular integrity by their oxidant agents.

Healthy longevity is important especially if we hope to enjoy retirement with our loved ones.
Healthy longevity is important especially if we hope to enjoy retirement with our loved ones.

Through the advancements of modern medicine a decline in mortality rates occurred – benefiting an increase in average lifespan during the early-mid-20th century. However the data today shows a reverse in trend. The marketplace in the later 20th and early 21st century changed by introducing thousands of toxic chemical contaminants into the food chain, water and air we breathe.

The global data shows a direct correlation to man’s manipulation of our food chain for sake of profit. As a result cancer is on the rise and so is every other major medical problem including diabetes, arthritis, heart, circulatory and autoimmune disease to name a few. At this rate our children and their children will live shorter lifespans than previous generations and suffer unnecessary pain and costs that need not be.

Many of the statistical bullet points below were relative in 2007 when this article was first published. And just as relative and concerning today… mortality rates and disease is not decreasing. And occurring in an advanced culture where modern medicine should be reducing these things – It’s not.

Previous and Updated Consumer Statistical Facts,

It is a fact, cancer mortality rates throughout the globe have increased over the last decade. 7.6 million People died of cancer in the world during 2007. 13% of all deaths are due to cancer (American Cancer Society).

Since then, cancer cases have risen globally. Unfortunately Cancer is among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 14 million new cases and 8.2 million cancer related deaths in 2012 [World Health Organization, 2015] and (Woodard, 2015).

From 1965 to 1982 over 4 million distinct chemical compounds were formulated by corporations. And at least 250,000 new formulations created annually since then.

Approximately 6,000 chemicals are added to our foods (Woodard 2015). And the FDA has no knowledge of 1000 of them or effect on cellular health. And fewer than half the other 4000 chemicals have not been tested by the FDA (Marler 2013).

700 chemicals have been found in drinking water.

Over 500 chemicals can be found under kitchen sinks or laundry rooms in American homes.

Over 800 neurotoxin chemical compounds are used in cosmetic-perfume industries.

How many store bought products are chemically influenced by man?
How many store bought products are chemically influenced by man?

Seventy percent of our daily calories now consist of processed foods high in trans-fat, sugar, salt, other strange chemical preservative and processing additives, etc., that lack organic nutrients.

But if we care about people dying before their lives are really over or having to endure preventable suffering, and our neighbors racking up huge medical costs that we all share, then that space on our plates for processed food shouldn’t be anywhere near 70 percent. Perhaps closer to 20 or 30 percent. It’s only then that we can call our food supply truly safe (Marler 2013).

310,000 Americans go to early graves due to processed food diets that cause heart and diabetes disease, etc., including cancer.

For example, food preservative BHA is a known carcinogen found in many processed foods we consume daily: McDonald’s sausages, an ingredient found in Gatorade, Tang, DiGiorno Pepperoni Pizza, breakfast steak, bread making, etc., (Marler 2013).

3000 annual deaths and 130,000 food borne illness are reported by hospitals.

Bottled water, how pure is it? Studies show not much better than local drinking water.

There’s a lot of man-made toxic chemicals in the air we breathe, water we drink from plastic containers and foods we eat.

Many health conscientious consumers don’t consider the cosmetic and hygiene products they use every day.

To provide awareness to common toxic home care products with known carcinogens, to identify them in your house you can perform a home toxic product identification challenge. Then you decide if you want to keep the products or replace them with an organic home cleaning, laundry and hygienic product line. When you remove known toxic chemicals from your home, less stress is put on the autoimmune system which mitigates and relieves ill-health conditions.

Look no further than your kitchen cleaning, or bathroom hygiene cabinets. Simply select a shampoo, toothpaste or common home cleaning product and look for 1 or all 3 toxic ingredients listed below. The 3 chemical and toxic ingredients I chose out of hundreds of unsafe chemicals consumers unknowingly consume daily: Propylene Glycol, SLS (sodium laurylsulfate) and DEA (Diethanolamine).

Replace toxic hygienic product with green products to reduce health risk.

Below I’ve provided a short descriptor of each disease causing chemical ingredient found within common home use consumer products. Keep in mind, I’ve only listed 3 absorbed through the skin, inhaled or ingested. And barely scratched the surface or impressed upon the fact, there’s thousands of chemicals and toxins we take in daily found in our air, water and food.

Propylene Glycol – What’s Anti-Freeze doing in our shampoos, deodorants, cosmetics, lotions, toothpastes and pet food, etc.? Yes the main ingredient is Anti-freeze, Propylene Glycol. Topical application to injured skin or intravenous administration has sometimes been associated with lactic acidosis, Comas, Seizures & Renal Failure. Linked to: Central Nervous System Effects, Metabolic Effects & Poisoning (Walker 2015).

SLS (sodium laurylsulfate) – What are concrete floor cleaner, engine degreaser and car wash detergents doing in hundreds of other personal home care and cleaning products, such as bath & body products, etc.? The main ingredient is SLS. SLS (sodium laurylsulfate) acts as a detergent. Used in the laboratory as a membrane destabilizer & solubilizer of proteins and lipids, causing potential harm to skin and eyes. Young eyes may not develop properly if exposed to SLS because proteins are denatured (Walker, 2015).

DEA (Diethanolamine) – What is a known cause, or contributor to cancer, or of being potentially dangerous or hazardous to our health doing in shampoos, conditioners, bubble baths, lotions, cosmetics, soaps, laundry and dish washing detergents?

The main ingredient within many bath and body and cosmetic products is DEA, a known cancer causing ingredient. The California Center for Environmental Health (CEH) performed independent testing of 98 personal care products and found “products testing high in DEA and Cocamide DEA used to thicken hair, was listed a known carcinogen last year. Many personal care products with DEA in them is manufactured and sold by many major retailer brands consumers know and trust. Just to name a few Colgate, Palmolive, Colomer and Paul Mitchell.

Major retailers known to sell, or have sold products with toxic chemical ingredients include: “Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Pharmaca and Kohls and a store brand children’s bubble bath from Kmart and a children’s shampoo/conditioner from Babies R Us were also found with cocamide DEA. Falsely labeled organic products from Organic by Africa’s Best also tested for high levels of the cancer-causing chemical (CEH previously won a legal settlement with this company requiring it to end its use of phony organic labels) (Center for Environmental Health 2013).

For a list of brands and retailers that sell DEA personal care products, click on CEH link below.

Still need more proof. Check the back of your household cleaning, or hygiene product bottles. Pick an ingredient name you can’t pronounce or don’t understand its meaning. Type this name into an Internet search engine. You’ll see it is a man-made chemical product and it is not organic. I’m willing to bet you have at least 1 of 3 listed chemical ingredients in one or more of your favorite personal use and home cleaning products. Most likely exposed daily to all 3 and other toxic chemicals too numerous list.

If you are using products with ingredients you can’t pronounce, or understand their origins, these almost always are man-made chemical ingredients.

Take advantage of seasonal farmers markets.

The best advice I can give you is to begin replacing all home cleaning and personal care products with clean green home and hygiene products and eat as fresh organic foods as possible. Also cut down on processed and convenience food consumption.

The chemicals we use to clean our homes and foods we consume are at war with our bodies. And I’ve not even brought up the air we breathe and water we drink. To get more insight on these consumer topics of interest please click on the following MirrorAthlete article links: How Sick Buildings Effect Lives and Is Fluoride in Our City Water Needed or Safe.

It is more important than ever to remove the toxic household products and heavily processed foods from our plates. Consume as many fresh fruits and vegetables daily as possible. As a health insurance policy add a daily multi-vitamin and mineral supplement to provide an anti-oxidant boost to immune system. This will help shield cellular health by protecting it from free radical damage caused by product and environmental oxidant damage and environmental stress taken in daily.

Without preventative health measures in our Westernized culture the aging process will advance with insidious disease and shorten lifespans.

Still need more proof, simply visit our Word Press publication site at MirrorAthlete Fitness Secrets, scroll down on our home screen page, find Topic Category and select Cancer or Product Toxins or Consumer Safety. Or type in Topic of Interest in the site articles search box next to Topic Category.

Helpful Reference Links,

Center for Environmental Health (CEH). Study Finds Cancer-Causing Chemical in Nearly 100 Shampoos and Soaps. EcoWatch. 29 August 2013. http://ecowatch.com/2013/08/29/cancer-causing-chemical-in-shampoos/

Marler, Alan. Our Unsafe Food Supply Is Killing Us. The Daily Beast. 1 March 2013. http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/01/our-unsafe-food-supply-is-killing-us.html

Walker, Dani. Toxins in Personal Care Products. Powered by WordPress. 2015. http://daniwalker.com/toxins-in-personal-care-products/

Woodard, Marc. Doomed to Get Cancer. MirrorAthlete Fitness Secrets. 22 Feb 2015. http://www.mirrorathlete.org/?p=24

Author: Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, ARNG, CPT, RET. 2015 Copyright. All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Inc., www.mirrorathlete.org, Sign up for your Free eNewsletter.

How Sick Buildings Affect Lives

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I first experienced the affects of sick building syndrome within fabric warehouse places my mother would take me as a child… But never understood the cause of those early off-gas symptomatic affects until working as a corporate building services, maintenance and project manager years later.

Sick Building Syndrome is coined by WHO (World Health Organization, 1986). Unhealthy building air environments can be caused by toxic materials-products, molds, and fungus from associated gas by-product found in many homes and workspace. Whereas the enclosed space becomes highly concentrated with toxins and bad for respiratory and body health. And/or the air intake and building exhaust air handling systems removal of hazardous gases and replenishment of fresh air underperform.

The focus here is to provide awareness to unhealthy environmental air space caused by off-gassing of new building materials, retail fabrics, cleaning agents and poor air circulation systems. However, sick building syndrome and symptomatic ill-health effects can also be caused by out-of-control molds and fungus.

Sick Building Syndrome as it relates to new material off-gasses often occurs after building construction and major renovation. And when material install, cleaning and curing compounds are applied, i.e., concrete, caulking, carpet, paint, glue, drapery, furniture; to include: building envelop replacement materials from outside walls and roofs may enter air handling systems – then contaminate the indoor air space.

Nobody accidentally consumed any of these materials, but people still got sick just from breathing the volatile organic compounds (VOC) which are now known to cause acute and chronic ill-health effects. Especially when improper ventilation of toxic air space and material cure times are out of compliance with environmental air safety standards prior to occupancy.

Popular tourist locations may present bad air environments for some.
Popular tourist locations may present bad air environments for some.

All possible side affects from inhaling off-gas materials – which include: home use cleaning products… are not fully understood by consumers. And that’s a problem with chemicals in many of our everyday home use items!  [Natural Health, May-June 1993 v23 n3 p54 (2)].

Toxic air space irritants often cause the following symptoms: irritation of eye, nose and throat. To neurotoxic effects, i.e., fatigue, irritability and headaches. And asthma like symptoms, dry skin irritation, gastrointestinal problems and more [wikipedia, 2015]. Other acute neurotoxic and symptomatic effects may disorient and cause one to lose balance as I’ve personally experienced.

If you’ve not experienced high levels of indoor air toxins simply recall that new car smell on a hot day.

Heated and enclosed air space with poor circulation has a way of squeezing chemical toxins out of any newly manufactured material. When I do drive a new car I role down the windows enough to vent it and bring in outside air. Some people love the smell of new cars and homes and are not sensitive to VOC toxins. Those sensitive to new material off-gases like prefer to buy a used car that looks new. Or purchase clean green home and personal hygiene products opposed to products with hazardous VOC fume aerosols where direct contact may be absorbed or inhaled.

As a former environmental air systems technician and later experienced building services and facilities maintenance manager, I learned there is a materials cure time prior to new building occupancy. Especially after new construction and major building renovations. Proper ventilation and recycling of fresh outdoor air allows the off-gas of materials to purge until hazardous toxins are released and dissipated to safe respiratory levels.

Fortunately today, unlike when I was growing up… To ensure buildings have safe air environments facility engineers, maintenance managers and technicians use preventative practices that sustain safe outdoor air intake and periodic HVAC functional testing as required by OSHA (Occupation Safety and Health Administration).

However, during my childhood my mother was what could only be described as a professional seamstress. She was also an excellent painter and drawer with specialized arts and crafts skill sets. She brought me to fabric and crafts warehouses where she’d spend countless hours rummaging through the numerous clothing design pattern-templates and sift through dozens of rolls of fabric, purchasing it by the yards. Including buying arts and crafts materials in bulk. Yes, these places were filled with newly manufactured materials releasing toxic off-gases in poorly vented air space.

I remember asking my mother not to take me to these places. I always felt sick after a short period of time inside. Of course, she assumed my ailment was brought about by pure boredom with no medical basis to back my complaints.

Since I was only 4 or 5 at the time, I was ignored and for lack of a better description “passed out in the children’s play pen area” due to the dizziness and feeling of a sick body. Once out of the store’s environment I immediately felt better. Since the lightheaded condition immediately cleared after leaving, there was no reason for my mother to suspect anything other than pure boredom was the result of my lethargic posture and complaints.

Yes. Lethargic and boredom posturing comes in all forms.
Yes. Lethargic and boredom posturing comes in all forms.

In the early 60’s, no one ever heard of sick building syndrome. Or even if air smelt toxic, people ignored what didn’t bother them. And for those affected were described by the unaffected as complainers, fakers, or needed mental health treatment. Or perceived as excuses to get out of work, or to leave or not participate in something.

As an adult I experienced a severe reaction to a sick building 20 years later at a newly constructed and popular sporting goods store only years after being married. This brought back the connection to my childhood in those fabric stores. I remember walking into this fantastic newly built sports center with my wife to purchase camping and hiking equipment. I was very excited to go in and gear up for our next outdoor adventure. But I only got 50 feet within the space.

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Then it happened.

The product off-gassing in this store was so strong [stronger than the fabric houses I recalled as a child], I quickly became disoriented and felt I was going to pass out and fall. I immediately grabbed onto a shelf to steady my balance and then my wife helped me walk outside where the symptoms went away in a matter of seconds. To this day I’ve never gone back inside this particular store.

Prior to this episode I’d go shopping for clothes and always feel light headed, but could tolerate the affect. My wife always assumed prior to this sports store episode I used my childhood experience as an excuse not to shop for clothes with her. In the past I had told her it was more of avoidance to not feel disoriented, sick or extremely tired. And I suspected it had to do with the chemicals emitted from heavy volumes of new apparel. She didn’t believe this to be truly factual until the watching my severe reaction in the sporting goods store.

My wife realized at this point I was not faking this sickness to get out of shopping with her. Come on, a sports store, hello… a man’s dream store to shop in. As a matter of fact she was one minute away from calling 911. I felt as if I was experiencing a drug overdose. Not that I ever had an overdose, but you get the point.

Then years after working as a HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) technician, services, maintenance and project manager everything came full circle making the connection to unhealthy air environments and symptomatic ill-health affects. 

Through understanding preventative maintenance practices on HVAC equipment and safe work space air standards, I’m able to immediately relate and sense unhealthy VOC and poor circulation environments. I simply don’t go into any space with an all too familiar chemical smell that could cause a severe respiratory and physical reaction. I do like to shop but like many others who share similar sensitivities to toxic fumes, I’m very aware when materials are still in the off-gas phase. And where bad, or poorly maintained ventilation and air systems conditions exist.

No matter the enclosed space: work, home, retail, car; any toxic air through off-gassing in poor air ventilation space may have an affect on anyone at any time. And when exposed to these toxins too long can cause medical problems and quality of life to suffer later on.

Recommendation: If you walk into a store and smell a strong chemical odor, and/or begin to feel sick, immediately leave and shop at a different place with better ventilation. Write, or email management you’ll be back after they improve their preventative maintenance practices and improve fresh air circulation systems and/or scrub ductwork, change filters and address other air systems contributing to concentrated contaminants. I will not step foot into any store, or stay long within a new home or newly constructed building that brings about an immediate feeling of sickness.

Restaurants may have poor ventilation systems
Restaurants may have poor air ventilation systems

You’ll know this feeling when sensitive to certain toxins because you may first experience respiratory or eye, nose, throat irritation followed by a feeling of light headedness.

If you’re hypersensitive like me to sick building toxic air space, you’ll immediately feel tired, or disoriented, or lose focus and/or feel off balance. And if overwhelmed by VOC may feel like you need to lay down for fear of fainting and falling. If off-gassing is causing a symptomatic ill-health affect in the home, or car increase outdoor fresh air intake, clean and/or change filters; have ventilation systems checked for equipment air quality and functionality. If you can’t address these issues due to financial limitations, open some windows part way to increase fresh indoor air quality and circulate air with fan.

If the problem occurs at work contact senior environmental safety engineers and health services to report and get the problem resolved within your work space.

In most cases, I cannot stand to be in any retail store filled with new clothes or near perfume sample stations long unless well-ventilated. Also many home cleaning products, new clothing apparel and building material products you breathe but not sensitive too are manufactured with known chemical carcinogens that also off-gas within space.

Do not take my word for it – go to any search engine on the Internet and type in sick building syndrome, off-gas, home cleaning products and carcinogen… you be the judge. For you and your children’s health and wellbeing, consider taking preventative air quality and clean green products measures to ensure your home is a healthy and a safe environment for the entire family.

Author: Marc T. Woodard, MBA, BS Exercise Science, ARNG, CPT, RET. 2015 Copyright. All rights reserved, Mirror Athlete Inc., www.mirrorathlete.org, Sign up for your Free eNewsletter.