The Truth About BPA-Free: Microplastics, Hormone Disruptors & Baby Bottle Risks | Dr. Robin Mesnage

28:12Then you can make a new label, sell the bottles even more expensive because they are BPA-free. And is there research to show how this affects a baby's brain development or any type of development really, if they're having very high levels of this within the bottles? Yes, the bisphenols, so not just the A, but also all the collection of bisphenols, they interfere with hormones, especially estrogen hormones. And these hormones have an importance for everything in our body. It's not just fertility, it's also the brain development. And so when sensitive individuals are exposed to that, and by that I mean, for instance, pregnant women, like little, small quantities of PPA can disturb the development of the brain of a baby.

28:58And these endocrine disruptors, there's clear studies, many of them, showing that if you are exposed to this during pregnancy, you have more chance to have a baby which has cognitive deficits or lower IQ. This is clear. It sounds scary like that, like if I was talking about something like speculative, like chemtrail or really absurd concerns. But actually, this is really identified by many scientific studies that these compounds, they alter the brain development, leading to cognitive deficits. They alter reproductive development, leading to infertility. And this is really identified since decades now.

29:40This is making a very broad spectrum quite because you kind of spoke about the cognitive declines. Do you think things like autism and things like that can also be affected by these? Yes, and I would not say that it's just strictly this, but it is a contributor. There's clearly more cases of autism and every year, at least for instance in the US, they are quite precise about that. The numbers are always increasing. as before it was one in 60, now it's one out of 50 boys born to have autism. It's affecting more of the boys in this case and this is clearly due to endocrine disruptors. I've watched the science of adaptogens grow personally over the last few years and I've become more curious in their role in nervous system support, focus and resilience because adaptogens basically buffer the cortisol that gives us that stress and anxiety.

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31:04They have lots of different blends. Flow gets me into deep focus with Lion's Mane. Zen helps support my calm and steady my clarity with ashwagandha. And Mojo gives a clean lift, no crash. And Mush Love made with fantastic fungi with three hefastaterra mushrooms to elevate your day. Enjoy 20 % off and use code livewellbewell. They come in these fantastic little sachets and they're great for traveling too wow i think you mean there's so much in there because also it i think about you know babies now being born there's more awareness of neurodiversity whether there's more awareness of it and that's why we feel like there's more or whether there is just an increase in it is like also really hard to understand but also alongside that we're also seeing with fertility which you've mentioned you know especially male fertility i think for so long you know women were always not i don't say blamed because i don't think it was ever a blame but it was always more of the women that we looked at when we have fertility problems right and now we're also being way more aware that men are experiencing fertility problems and since the 1970s there's been a 50 drop in sperm counts and so i think now there's a much more conversation and i do want to do a specific fertility episode on this because I think it's such an important one for men especially but it's interesting because now I'm listening to you speak there must also be a connection as well between you know what men are ingesting and women are ingesting and affecting fertility rates.

32:30Yeah this is well known and it's clear that there is a fertility crisis in human populations and this is something which is silent because like probably you, knowing many people who have problems to have babies and they don't think necessarily about having their environment quality checked, whether they're exposed to chemicals. And this is really now identified as a big contributor. If you look first hundred years ago, it was already identified that some populations of birds are disappearing completely because they are exposed to some toxic endocrine disruptors. And there were studies already in the 1930s on that, and alligators, so many animals were identified to have fertility problems because of pollution.

33:21And it was only in the 1990s that it was really discovered that it is also the case in humans, because we have been observing, like you said, since 1970s that the sperm quality and concentration has dropped. Before, we were at around 100 million sperm by milliliter. Now we are at 50 million per milliliter. If you go below that and reach 20, 15 million per milliliter, this is when you become infertile. And so we are really not in a good trajectory. And the link to pollution was identified clearly in the 1990s, where some scientists pointed that some of these endocrine disruptors, they will alter either estrogen or testosterone hormones during development of the baby.

34:13And so the babies which are born, the development is slower. They have less testosterone. on the sperm quality is lower and in the end they become infertile as an adult. And this is now very clear. And this is the problem identified in males, but also for females this is also a problem. Nowadays we also know that these products also microplastics or bisphenols or all these endocrine disruptors, they also interfere with women's fertility and couples who are exposed to these, it's clear from epidemiological studies. You measure that in blood or urine and you see that for the people who have the highest level, they have difficulties to have kids.

34:58They have miscarriage and this is really making them infertile. I think it's such an important point because I think fertility carries a lot of shame with it. I think miscarriage, especially from when we've had conversations on this show and from friends that have suffered, carries such a heavy weight. I think men also carries a massive heavy weight of shame to think that, you know, their morphology or their sperm count is lower than it should be. And it's their fault. And then they've had to watch their partner go through IVF and they feel very guilty. And it's very hard for them to have a conversation about that because they're struggling with the shame that they're carrying.

35:34And then this is a very sweeping statement. And I'm sure there are some fertility clinics that do this, but I don't think that many fertility clinics focus on this, focus on the actual other important conversations that we should be having, such as the nutrition that we're consuming, such as the microplastics, such as the environment, such as the chemicals that we're around. If people were more aware of these other things that they could do, it's really important. And for instance, egg freezing, it's another really important thing that is increasing because women are maybe not finding the right partners, are having children later than ever before, are not sure whether they want to have children because people are working, you know, they're carrying on their careers.

36:13And I also found it really interesting that women that had higher levels of microplastics had less, fewer eggs retrieved in their egg retrieval. And there was also microplastics in the follicle fluid. And these things I don't think are spoken about. And so if you are having a lighter egg retrieval than someone else, we're not knowing if that's because of the microplastics in the blood. You know, that conversation has never been discussed. and so there's such a bigger conversation here that we could be having to support fertility for men and women so for anyone listening to this that's maybe going through an egg retrieval that's maybe going through IVF that's maybe just found out as a man they've got a lower sperm count or their morphology is not as great as they wished it was for either gender like navigating this what advice would you give them in terms of microplastics and how to try and reduce them to maybe too conceivable or have a healthier baby that won't have these problems that you've just discussed.

37:11It's clear that there is a job to be created here or better organized at least is that these couples or at least maybe even everyone who wants to have a kid to have pre-conception consultations so that couples are guided what they should do for their nutrition, what they should do for exposure to chemicals, their lifestyle in general. And this doesn't exist. And this would avoid a lot of issues in babies if we had these preconception consultations. Because we don't have that, unfortunately, we have to self-educate. We have live well, be well. We have live well, be well, Robin. And we can educate with this media.

37:54And for that, there are so many things we can do. but there's a few things which are more important is that to be careful with plastics in the kitchen, to avoid warming in plastic, to avoid using ultra-processed food, to cook by yourself with fresh ingredients, which also guarantees that it's better quality. That is one thing which is important. Ventilating the house. It's very important because you have also a lot of endocrine disruptors which are floating in the air because of the material of the couch or the paints. And if you are ventilating the house frequently, at least every day, this is something which can be helpful.

38:36Cleaning also, because they accumulate in the dust. And if you have dust everywhere and touch the dust, you will be also more exposed to that. And there are some also more specific things like not eating too much fish which is high in heavy metals like salmon, tuna, these are fish which are contaminated a lot by heavy metals and that can also influence health. Gosh, it's so hard, isn't it? Because I speak about fish so much because I am, my team will be laughing at me listening to this and watching it because I'm a mass advocate of omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, the longer chains that you can only get in fatty fish.

39:17So then we come into this conundrum of like, well, I hear people talk about the importance of fatty fish, especially in pregnancy, because that's so important for the third trimester of brain development for the child and our needs go up because it's for the mummy and the baby. And then we hear, oh, but it's also going to be an endocrine disruptor. So it's just going to have microplastics. So how does one navigate that? If you eat smaller fish, this is also better. Yes. Yes. And if you want to have your omega-3s, nowadays there are some good supplementation with algae oil, which is not high in these contaminants, which can be used.

39:52And this is much more handy than to really consume a lot of fish because it's also very difficult to reach these omega-3 levels, which are having an effect. You have to eat a lot of fish for that. And so this is one aspect for which supplementation can be important. Yeah, I will caveat that though, is that we just, we still aren't sure about the absorption of all the different supplements. It's such a hard, just such a hard one to navigate. And I put that in as a nutritionist because, you know, we can say you can supplement, but actually do we know the absorption rate? We're really not entirely sure.

40:26It depends on the manufacturer. You know, half of them only have 25 % of that tablet actually made of DHEA and the other is bulking agents. So it's such a confusing, it's such a confusing area for people. When you go into the details like that, people get scared because they feel that there's nothing they can do for their life to avoid these chemicals. And that's why I think we should really stay high level of trying to diminish exposure with simple things. not just looking at everything in the kitchen, but removing the plastics to ventilate, to have a cleaner house, and to avoid synthetic chemicals and synthetic products in clothing.

41:13Cosmetics also is something that women don't need to overuse all the time. I'm not saying that women should not use cosmetics because this is also something which makes comfortable and happy and emotional health is very important. But during pregnancy, this is really a period where you should minimize as much as possible and use the natural ones because this is full of toxic chemicals, cleaning products as well, wearing gloves. When you are cleaning, you open the windows. So these little things can make, in the end, a big impact without being completely stressed about lifestyle. Yeah, I think the thing that I realized that I actually changed all of my household products to more eco products.

41:56and a lot of these eco products you can also get on subscription base you haven't got to think about trying to go to the supermarket to get it which is great for me where I struggle to get supermarket but also I think it's it's just having the awareness and this conversation the ventilation the house I remember my mom texted me and saying I feel like I do all these things I feel very happy about my you know microplastic use and those are the things I think that it is is important but I do think that trying to give people the alternative I'm going to get back to the omega-3 because there are things you can do I was just thinking sardines on toast kippers on toast anchovies I've started putting anchovies on my omelets and stuff these are all great ways to get in the omega-3 without having to just take a supplement I was just thinking in my brain what is it that we could give people as actual advice and they are still ways you can get in fish that are the smaller fish that have less of the heavy metals than the tunas and the salmons yeah that's good advice and this is also good because it's practical then you get some ideas of recipes you can implement and that's all about creating a routine because then if you have to force yourself think about it this is something which becomes difficult but like everything about lifestyle if you want to change to work it has to work as a routine so this is really something where you do it every week you try to do it at the same time the same day and this is then step by step all these little change which seem difficult at the beginning in the end after that after some point you forget about it and just you do it automatically and one thing i wanted to ask and i heard about this coming here because i was trying to listen to lots of different information around microplastics just to kind of see where the current state of affairs are and one person was talking about saunas being a really good way to also help detox.

43:46I'm very aware of using the word detox, but to help eliminate microplastics out of our bodies via sweat. Is that scientifically proven? Like, is it good? I mean, I know there's an amazing health benefit of having saunas for cardiovascular systems, but does that translate into microplastics? Can we kind of simply sweat it out or not? Not really. There was a study showing that in sweat, you can find some plastics like phthalate and then you think that you are getting less intoxicated by that but there was just one study and this is small quantities it's not just it's not the main reason for doing some sonar.

44:27Sonar is great it's clearly having a lot of benefits but if you want to detox which is also a word that I don't like so much if you want to detox from toxic chemicals sonar is really not is the best way for that okay that's i'm really glad you said that because there's so much conversation in a world that i'm not very connected to which is the biohacking world yes there's some like truths there for sure but i think sometimes we can get too obsessed with certain things that we think have a huge outcome and actually they don't but i do love a sauna and i do have to say it has incredible benefits for other things such as like our cardiovascular system right so let's go to food my favorite um and i know that you've done a lot of work in food Now, there is a huge conversation around organic versus non-organic.

45:13You've mentioned pesticides in our five questions for the subset, the compassionate cure, that that's where your work basically started. So when we're kind of thinking about reducing our toxic load that we're ingesting, food is confusing. Organic versus non-organic, all of these things people are like, is it worth paying the extra 50 cents or 50 pounds or whatever it is, 50 pounds, gosh, sorry, 50p. If you're paying an extra 50 pounds, then that's quite expensive. But, you know, when we're really bringing it down, is it worth the extra margin to buy organic? And if it is, on what types of products and what types of food should we be really veering towards when we're looking at organic?

45:55Yeah, it's a very complex question because nowadays organic food has become a market and So it's industrialized and you find some things which are sometimes a bit contradictory with the first principles of organic food. And buying organic is sometimes useful. If you want to protect someone like a pregnant woman and be on the safe side, buying organic fruits and vegetables is a good thing. If you want to buy organic and you buy cereal bars and this type of thing, this is wasting your money in this case. Because it's ultra-processed. Yeah. There's a lot of ultra-processed food which is organic. There was a survey in a French supermarket done a couple of years ago, and 25 % of the organic food is actually ultra-processed.

46:46And it's really a big market. This is not something that was the case 20 years ago when organic food was really first becoming a bit trendy. It was on the farmer's market. You were buying your fresh fruits and vegetables. They were not wrapped in plastic. And in this case, this organic food is much healthier. It's more rich in polyphenols, more rich in vitamins, because the fruits and vegetables take their time to mature. They have less pesticides and synthetic fertilizer. So this is really much healthier. But nowadays, organic food is industrialized and you find something which are completely contradictory.

47:28You find some fruits which are organic and they have to be wrapped in plastic in supermarkets. And in this case, what is the point of buying this type of organic food? That's where it's really difficult to go into the details about one by one. but I would say that really fruits and vegetables if you want to take care of your health it's much better to buy them organic and in this case to avoid to buy them in a supermarket if you can and if you can buy it in the market if you can buy it in some other type of grocery stores where it's more naturally preserved not wrapped in plastic this is much better.

48:09And I also think there is an important conversation because I spend a lot of time in the US at the moment especially with the show and I used to live in New York for a very long time 10 years ago when the health industry was was less of a marketable industry back then than it is now I also think there's really different laws between the American and the EU and I say and now in England because sadly or the UK because we're sadly not part of the EU but again like you can I trust it a bit more here on not having organic but I always buy organic when I'm in America just because of the regulations are so different.

48:46Yeah, the regulations in the US are really helpful for the use of pesticides. There are things which are banned since a long time in the EU because we know that it's very toxic and there it is used wide scale without any precaution and so there are countries maybe that deserve to have more focus on organic foods than others, for sure. But I guess if you're going into supermarkets and you're buying an organic food wrapped in plastic, it's probably not going to be that beneficial to spend the extra money. Is that kind of the conclusion that we're coming to? But if you're buying a banana that's just on the shelf, that's organic, then that's probably worth the investment of the extra money to buy that banana.

49:28Yes, and you can go into the level of details on what to buy or not, because not every fruit and vegetables are contaminated the same by pesticides and toxics. And when you are buying strawberries, apples, like fruits which are a bit soft and can be attacked by insects in the field, these ones are sprayed more with pesticides. And that is better in this case to buy the organic versions. For leafy vegetables like spinach, lettuce, all of that stuff is also sprayed a lot because they are fragile in the field. And if you buy, for instance, a broccoli or something which is growing below the ground, generally they are on the safer side.

50:15And in this case, you can make more educated choice. And if you have a bit more money to spend for choosing organic, you can buy what has the most impact. Wow. So how bad are pesticides for us? Because I think we hear a lot about it, but I don't think we speak about it as much in terms of research. we haven't done on this show for at least a very long time. So how worried should we be about the pesticides that are sprayed all over our crops? Well, pesticides are meant to kill. They are meant to kill plants if they are herbicides. Insects are insecticides. And so manufacturers of pesticides, they try to make it as safe as possible.

50:54There is no intention of being harmful, but often this is not the case. and you discover after a few decades that these pesticides also alter endocrine signals. Many of them, they are endocrine disruptors. They will cause some cancer. They will cause some neurodegenerative disease. And often in the more sensitive individuals, like kids or elderly people, and it's much better to avoid pesticides. But in this case, I want to add that it's not just about fruits and vegetables. We are using a lot of pesticides in our homes. And we don't realize that because many people will use some insecticides to get rid of a wasp or to get rid of mosquitoes.

51:41And in this case, I see you feel concerned. Okay, so the reason why I'm going to ask this question is I put a picture on my social media a couple of weeks ago when I was on holiday in France. because I have this blood that mosquitoes love. I landed from the airport, and from the airport to where I was staying, which was an hour away in a car, I got bitten eight times. And so, you know, I was... My arm had actually inflamed so bad that I couldn't wear my watch, and it was just so itchy, and I obviously have a bit of an allergic reaction. Anyway, so I'm spraying myself constantly in mosquito spray.

52:20There are natural products which are better than others. I know, I don't think they work. The most toxic are really the ones we spray in our house. Okay, so mosquito spray is fine. Yeah. Well, fine. To be avoided if you can. And probably the most dangerous, I would say, is what we put on the skin of our dogs or cats or on the collar for lice or ticks to avoid them to be bitten. because in this case, this is really loaded with insecticides which are toxic. We often talk about insecticides which are in fields and protecting the pollinators because they are very sensitive. But in these collars, you have the doses of insecticides which can kill entire hives of bees and no one really knows about it and talks about it.

53:14And we are just like cuddling our pets. And if we are putting them these colors, we are affecting their health and our health as well. And so this is really something to be avoided if you can. Sometimes it's just so easy for people who live in a city. They don't really have to worry about some of these parasites because their dogs don't go so much outside. It's better to avoid. And I know some people, they do it automatically because their vet told them to do that, to use these colors. and they don't need to. And I told them, look, avoid that. And there's no problem. It doesn't have an impact.

53:51Wow. We don't really think about the impact that our pets have, do we? Very, yeah, I guess it's such a bigger, wider, loaded question, isn't it? So thinking about this on a whole, and I want to make sure that we kind of wrap this up in a really hopeful way with the big bow on the top, which I know is maybe not how people have felt during this. like I don't want us to turn into plastic zombies what is your kind of thoughts on the next five years of plastic usage and things that whether we can do it as a country as a policy as an individual you know why should we have a lot of hope that we're not going to turn into plastic zombies basically yeah it's true that when we have this conversation sometimes it's scary and it has a lot of message of fear but there's a lot we can do for ourselves first and also in the future, it's clear that I feel we have passed the worst period of intoxication because nowadays we see more and more green plastics which are made of plant compounds.

54:52We see more and more awareness. So we are at the beginning, but I feel that the next five, ten years will be much better and we will see a decrease in the exposure to these compounds. Amazing. So I guess for people to be like really proactive stepping forward, it's literally look into the kitchen I was just thinking there are even like plastic chopping boards or plastic knives or anything like that try and replace it with wooden and like proper stir like proper good knives that's also just important so you can cut your vegetables properly thinking about the teflon things that people cook in that obviously were great because it would well they weren't great but they would promote themselves as non-stick so really looking at saucepans, looking at baby's bottles, what you're storing your food in, how you're heating your food up, all of these like small changes, even, you know, making sure you're going to get a shopping bag to not even put your fruits and vegetables into a plastic shopping bag, trying to carry a stainless steel water bottle with you.

55:53All of these things can make massive changes. It can make a massive change. And it's also empowering when you do that for yourself, because you really get in control about your lifestyle. You change for wooden chopping board. You are also changing some other things in your kitchen. And you really take control of your lifestyle. You can raise awareness to others. And this is really empowering because then you feel that you know what you are doing. And then you can take also extra steps of cooking healthier, or making some plans for your better nutrition, physical activity, sleep, and all that other aspects of lifestyle which can be modulated.

56:39I feel that when people get some little advice that they can get into their routine, it's really empowering. And then you can really become proud of yourself. It's also a challenge to start cooking on a pan which is not made of Teflon. It's not easy, but then it's really a process and you get used to that. And this is really where it's first changing a habit, then it's built a routine, and then you change completely your lifestyle. And for the next decades, you are more likely to end up your life with being healthy and also very happy because this is also fulfilling. You. And I guess that takes us back to a really big question in the five questions, which was being more mindful and actually knowing that you can rely on yourself.

57:25And I think sometimes with this load of information that people might have just got from this episode, it's not about having to do it all in one go. I always say with trying to increase your fruit and vegetable consumption is every time you go to the shop to do a big shop, add in one or two pieces of whole foods that you've never used or never cooked with. Just do that. And by the end of the month, you've increased it by the four or eight without really putting too much stress on. And so I'd say with this, take one thing today to reduce and then write them all down and then add another one in three weeks because you've already started to become more accustomed to it rather than saying, I'm going to do these 10 things in one go.

58:02Because then for that brain, it's too much of a mental load to kind of carry. So just doing one thing at a time, similar to how I try and look at this now, how I approach tasks. If I try and do 10 at once, I'm going to fail. But if I just keep slowly ticking one off, I slowly get to the end of that list. Yeah, you can put a note on your fridge about something new to change your lifestyle in the next weeks and you do that and at some point it becomes a habit. Yeah. We should always try to accept also that sometimes it's difficult to be the best version of ourselves. We should not strive for that because we have a social life and not everything can be controlled.

58:42So we should also accept for our well-being these little imperfections, but try constantly to improve the small things which are controllable. I know my wife always tells me when I come home and she hears something I say, but we don't do that at home. We should change. But this is also part of trying to have a normal life. We have so many things in our lives which are difficult to control. sometimes healthy food or healthy lifestyle is make the top of the list, but then you will have some problems, whether it's health or personal or social and being healthy is not anymore the priority. And in this case, that's why we should really just have a thin layer of improvements which build on because you can't just always have this as a main target.

59:37We have to have this in our whole life. Beautifully said. And so that leads me to my last question, Robin, which is what does Live Well Be Well mean to you? I really like the show because it's a balance between not just health, but also other aspects of mental well-being or social aspects. I was looking at, there was one episode on loneliness, for instance. This is nice because Zen is not just about technologies, tools that you can use, but it's about the life in general, like people live it in real life, not just about artificial tools that work on 1 % of people. Thank you. Well, I love that that's what Live Well Be Well means to you.

1:00:28I think it is. It's the beauty of today's conversation, right? It's, there's the evidence and it might change, but right now this is where we lie and to become more conscious in the decisions that we can do for ourselves, that we can tweak and pull. And as you said, those pieces of the pie are going to change depending on each individual circumstance. So Robin, it's been an amazing conversation. I'm so pleased that you've come onto this show and speaking about something that is on not just trend but a concern and a fear for so many people and i hope we've managed to balance some of those concerns in today's episode and i'd love for you to come back on and do another one um because i know you also very much look at fasting as well and i'd love to kind of explore a little bit more deeper with you even whether that can balance the effects of microplastics yes so it would be a pleasure so thank you so much for coming on to live well be well

1:01:31Thank you.