World Wisdom: Mothers Unite Against Attacks from the Environment!

by Douglas Mulhall

When was the last time your family doctor suggested that you check your baby food or your children or yourself for toxic metals?

The last thing a mother wants to hear is that the baby food her child is eating might trigger heart disease signs early in life. That came up when a Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy report found that many “baby foods are tainted with dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium, and mercury.”

Parents in Texas are filing claims against baby food makers for potential health impacts, and in 2021 the Baby Food Safety Act was introduced into Congress following the report, due to a lack of regulation in this area by the FDA.

Even low levels of some metals can affect heart health. Heart patients have higher levels of cadmium, lead, nickel, and zinc than healthy subjects. The smoking gun on the effects came in 2017 when blocked arteries were re-opened as doctors removed toxic metals non-surgically from patients. That’s as close as you can come to cause and effect.

It comes as a surprise to most mothers that children can have early signs of heart disease, so the time to start preventing that is right from birth.

Toxic metals are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to environmental impacts on heart health.

Infections are increasingly linked to cardiovascular disease and dementia. Chronic noise also contributes to heart disease, but when was the last time your doctor suggested checking noise levels in your home or office?

Why is the body’s response to those overlooked? Three reasons.

1. It was hard to establish a cause-and-effect until advanced diagnostics were developed.
2. Healthcare professionals usually have no training in environmental health.
3. The healthcare industry has grown up around treating symptoms, because these are the easiest things to treat.

Environmental impacts are accelerated indoors where most of us spend more than 85% of our lives. It’s known as sick building syndrome, where indoor air quality is exponentially worse than outdoors. A lot of this is caused by microparticles from pollution that gets concentrated indoors. Toxic metals often hitchhike on these particles and are ingested.

All these environmental attacks cause a similar reaction called oxidative stress where the immune system responds with inflammation to clean up damage. Over time the body starts to build hard deposits in organs and arteries to wall-off the damage. This vicious cycle triggers aging.

This is part of a microscopic process in the body. Tiny blobs known as EVs are programmed by cells to do what cells do, but at a distance. The get into places where cells can’t, including into other cells. EVs are major players on both sides of the health and sickness fence. In heart disease, they are the major players in hardening of the arteries. Because of this, researchers are deciphering their proteins to find out which ones could be targeted to stop the hardening process.

These EVs also participate in forming and degrading the elastic in your body that keeps your skin flexible and your arteries supple.

All of this occurs in the largest part of your body known as the extracellular matrix. It’s literally the space between your cells, and recently was named the 80th organ in the body.

EVs, elastic and the extracellular matrix might all seem academic, but they are among the most important determinants of our health. Researchers are learning how to use them to develop therapies that prevent and reverse the damage from chronic disease.

Meanwhile, what can mothers do to protect themselves and their children from heart risks?

For starters, check the list of baby foods in the U.S. House of Representatives report to inform yourself. For indoor air quality, make sure your home has a good filtration system to filter out microparticles and circular fresh air. The same for your drinking water. Make sure the materials in your kid’s clothes are made with certified toxin-free materials. Look into innovative nutrition routines. Protect your kids from chronic noise especially at night. Those are good starting points.

Disclaimer. This information is not medical advice. Consult a qualified physician before acting on any of the information int his story.

About the author
Douglas Mulhall’s upcoming third book, The Nature of Longevity, describes what’s being done to prevent and reverse damage triggered by the body’s response to environmental attacks. In his upcoming podcast series, he interviews the pioneers who are solving this puzzle.