The Latest Science on Microplastics — And What They’re Doing to Your Body | Dr. Shanna Swan

24:46Dr. Mark Hyman:Clearly, it's affecting fertility, sperm count, sexual function and all these other things that are quite concerning, but I kind of, before we get into the sort of what to do about it, I really want to kind of go into this world of microplastics because it's something that's currently in the zeitgeist. People are talking about it, concerned about it, want to test for it. I had my microplastic test. I don't know if it was a good lab or not, but it was like off the chart. And I'm like, God, I don't, I cook, I have only glass containers. I try not to drink out of plastic bottles. I mean, I do my best and I know what I'm, I'm kind of aware.

25:18Dr. Mark Hyman:I filter my water. I'm like, but it's, it's frightening to see what was going on in my body and, and how, and how I might be affected by this. So, and it was a sort of a seminal paper that came out in the New England Journal of Medicine, which talked about microplastics in the atheromas or the plaques and arteries and how that was linked to increased risk of cardiovascular events. And that was a pretty compelling bit of data. So can you talk about what are microplastics, nanoplastics, where are they found? What's the difference between microplastics, plastics, and plasticizers? And like, what's the science about these things in human health?

25:52First of all, when we started studying, when John Brock said to me study phthalates, he wasn't thinking about, didn't know about microplastics. That was not a thing of that. And that's a relatively new area of work. But there's a lot of overlap. And let me just say, we didn't know about microplastics, but we knew about particles harming us. And you know, as a physician, you know that we have asbestos. Asbestos were particles that went into the lungs and caused asbestosis, and they also caused chemical harm. So they're similar. And, you know, silicone also, silicosis. So it's not that the phenomena of particles carrying chemicals and themselves being harmful, we know this, but we didn't know it about endocrine-destructing chemicals until recently.

26:53So they're breakdown products of very small breakdown products of plastic, and that do harm in two ways, at least, where we may find more, but they convey, they carry the chemical, so the chemical is piggybacked on the little particle, and then they invade the cells, and that invasion, their presence in the human body, in the cell, itself causes harm that is different than the chemical harm, right? So that's, you know, microparticles 101 or something. But the other thing to know about them, I think really importantly, is that measuring them is extremely difficult and expensive. And you were able to get measured, I don't know what tissue you measured, but...

27:49Blood. Blood. Blood. Yeah, yeah. Blood test. Yeah, so people have measured them in their blood. They've been measured in placentas. They've been measured in seminal fluid. They've been measured in breast milk. There have been pretty much any fluid that's gone through the body. A body that's been contaminated by plastic will pick up these little particles. But the measurement of these will also reflect the particles in the surrounding environment in which they are measured. So if you collect them in an autopsy, you collect them in a place where, you know, in a hospital where women are giving birth, you're going to get lots and lots of microarticles from the environment.

28:33And this makes it very difficult, a challenge to measure these without contamination.

28:39Dr. Mark Hyman:Because they're in the air is what you're saying. They're in the instruments that are used to collect the sample from, you know, the whatever, the placenta. And so this is a big challenge to the field. And it also makes it very expensive. So it's very easy, I told you, for you to get your urinary metabolites of chemicals measured by sending in your urine. It is not easy to get your microplastics measured. It's a much harder process and more expensive. Where do we find these things? Where are they? Where are we getting the most exposures? That's a great question. Everybody wants, yeah, where are they coming from?

29:20And the answer is everywhere. And that's kind of scary. um we're uh but i would say you know think about how can things get in the body right you can take them in through your mouth that's ingestion so food drink very important perhaps the most important i i can't be sure and then we get them through inhalation we breathe them in so in our air and then we get them through our skin. And that's through our absorption. And there's another route which is not very common, not studied very much, which is if you enter the skin, say you get a shot or you get blood drawn, that will introduce some as well.

30:05Dr. Mark Hyman:Getting your blood drawn, just having a needle in your arm? I haven't seen a study on that, but I've seen that written up, that that is possible. Yeah, because you're breaking the barrier. All of these are breaking barriers in a way. You know, they're, yeah. So it's another, when you think about how do things get in the body, those are all that people have mentioned. Yeah. So, but the thing to remember is it's not anything you have any control over, really, because they're so prevalent in our water and in our air and in everything we eat and smell and drink. And, you know, it's very hard to think about how we could defend ourselves against them.

30:53I mean, I would suggest taking a lot of care with your water because that is a very common source of exposure. In my house, we actually distill our water, which sounds as complicated, but it's not hard and it's not expensive. It's free, actually. Once you buy the machine, make sure you buy the thing plastic-free. Okay. And then there's filtering and you have to worry about plastic and filters and changing the filters and so on. And there's reverse osmosis, RO, which is, you know, all of these things are technical. They take machines, they take, you know, effort and allow for possible additional contamination, I would say.

31:38You have to be careful of that. But water is really important and bottled water is not great. Just not great.

31:45Dr. Mark Hyman:So filtering your water or distill water if you can, right? And does reverse osmosis filter actually work for removing microplastics? Well, I can't say about microplastics. It works for keeping out exposure. Whether it keeps out all microplastics, I can't say. I don't know. Well, before we get into kind of like the ways of sort of reducing exposure, because I think there are ways, and I think it's important to think about those as best you can. I want to go back to the sort of biological impacts of these things. And what do we know now in 2026 about what these microplastics are doing to human health.

32:19But I have to say, I'm not distinguishing the harms from the plasticizers and from the microplastics. Okay. There are, there are.

32:32Dr. Mark Hyman:You see them as a continuum of harm. Not so much a continuum as inseparable in a way, because if you're going to be getting the plastic pieces in your body, you're going to have the hitchhikers there too, right? The chemicals that are riding along with them. You can't keep them out. You can't have the microplastic without the hitchhikers. And so, I mean, I've done lots of studies on phthalates, and I've been studying the phthalate urinary metabolites. But undoubtedly, all of those people that we studied also had microplastics, which we did not study. Right. So it's very hard to separate them. They're kind of a, yeah, you have to take them together.

33:24Dr. Mark Hyman:So in that whole category, what are the human harms? What are the things that people should know that they might be causing or that the data suggests that they could be causing? The outcomes or the exposure? Yeah, like what do they do? I mean, we talked about reproductive health, sperm count, fertility, changing in genitals, all kinds of weird stuff. But what else is it doing to human health? Well, first of all, I have to say I'm a reproductive epidemiologist. Where I live, if you will, is in the reproductive system. And so that's what I know best. I also read a lot. So as you do and other people do.

34:06So I'm not sure that my expertise is, I'm not the right person to talk about obesity. you should talk to the author of Obesogens. Or, you know, I haven't studied those specifically. You know, the relationship to cancer, a lot has been written on that. Parkinson's, you know, there are experts in each of these areas. And I would be reluctant. I would prefer to talk about reproduction because that's what I know. Okay, okay. But also saying that, yes, the harms are widespread and probably in every system in the body.

34:42Dr. Mark Hyman:Yeah, I agree. And I think from my perspective, looking at this more as a doctor from the high level, like looking at all the different things that it can affect, it's clear that the underlying drivers is inflammation, oxidative stress, immune dysregulation, endocrine disruption, and kind of also like this Trojan horse, as you mentioned, for all the other chemicals that come into our bodies, cardiovascular health, obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases. So we're seeing a rise of all these things. And I think it's not the only reason, but it's clearly a major reason that hasn't been looked at. And I think that from my perspective, like people are thinking, okay, well, what do I do?

35:18Dr. Mark Hyman:Like, how do I find out if I have them? How do I test for it? What can I do to protect myself? Am I just going to be at the mercy of this? And what needs to happen also on a regulatory level? So maybe you can kind of talk about what the diagnostic sort of framework is around this. Is it worth trying to find out what your levels are and then follow on a protocol and then retest? Or should we just be focusing on reducing our exposures? Help us kind of think through this because people are listening and are probably like freaking out. And I'm like, yeah, what do I do? One thing I would say is watch the plastic detox movie because there's— It's on Netflix, right?

35:59Dr. Mark Hyman:Yeah, it's on Netflix. Netflix movie now. It came out in March, and it's very widely seen and shown. That's just kind of an introduction. I think it will give people hope because what happens in—can I just say briefly what happens in the film? Yes, please. I'll just tell you what, this is when we conducted an intervention where we changed things in people's lives in order to change their health. The things we changed was exposures to these chemicals we've been talking about. And what we hoped to change in their lives was their reproductive health. So to do that, we enrolled, and this is very small, this is a very small pilot, okay?

36:51We enrolled six couples, one of whom dropped out for personal reasons, so very small. We enrolled them at the beginning of a three-month intervention, and then we got information about that. We got a lot of information. We got a semen sample using an at-home collection kit by Fellow. Meet Fellow was the company. It worked very well. We also got their urine using Millian marker. and then we asked them lots and lots of questions. And Millie and Marker has a team that's trained to ask people about their exposures and to inform them about what the risks of these exposures are. So it's an educational component too.

37:35So the educational component and the testing component. In their serum, sorry, in their urine, we got the levels of the metabolites. So we knew what their exposure was when they started and we repeated that halfway through, which was six weeks, and then we repeated it after 12 weeks, which was the end of the intervention. So here, the picture is pretty clear. You start out, you know what's in their body, you tell them how to reduce it, they try, they reduce it, and then we get their levels at the end. As far as their health goes, we get their sperm, motility, morphometry, count, concentration, all these good things at the beginning, at the middle, at the end, and then we see who gets pregnant.

38:21Now, who were these people? These were people who had been trying for more than a year to get pregnant, and they had no obvious causes of their infertility. So idiopathic infertility, and they had to be willing to do this and be willing to be filmed, which is a pretty big bar, and wanting to do this. But if you're listening, you don't need, you know, this intervention, you can do your own intervention, which is really interesting. And several people I've talked to, you know, hosts of shows and reporters are doing this now. You could do it if you want. You know, it's very easy to get a kit, send your urine in, have it tested, try to lower your exposure following the tips in the film, deplastic, unplasticyourlife.com will give you a lot of tips.

39:12I'll give you tips. And then try that for three months. And why three months? Well, it's because it takes 70 days to make a sperm. So we are approximately, you know, giving a little window there. And of course, the exposure to both the man and the woman matters. So, you know, and then you see what happens. You see, have your levels gone down? Has your sperm count gone up. And then if you add, which we hope to do, serum testing, home serum testing is more difficult than home urine testing. But we are adding that and hoping to get hormone levels as well. So that's kind of the, it's not rocket science.

39:56It's pretty simple.

39:58Dr. Mark Hyman:And what did you find? Did you see after three months of doing kind of a plastic detox that people's numbers improved? Absolutely. Absolutely. non-detect from quite high levels. And that's shown in the film. And we also published a paper containing, a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal with these data. And so their levels went down. And the main, the main, the levels went down, but were the main health impacts related to the sperm function, motility, morphology, did that change? Yes, yes. Their semen parameters changed. That's really helpful. Yes, I, yeah, I'm excited. I'm thrilled, actually, to have this, for the small sample, having this stronger result.

40:38And then we have several pregnancies as well. And three of the five.

40:46Dr. Mark Hyman:And were these in couples that were struggling to get pregnant? These were absolutely couples that had tried for more than a year, some as much as 10 years to get pregnant. And, yeah, it's quite encouraging, actually, because it was not hard. Now, this was a particularly intense intervention in the sense that they talked to Millie and Marker once a week. I went to their homes twice, even though they were spread around the whole country, because I wanted to see their homes and meet them and talk to them one-on-one. And, you know, it was so gratifying to get to know them and see them go through this journey.

41:27It was thrilling to them and for me, actually, to know that we can do this. Everybody can do this. These were not like specially chosen people. You know, they raised up their hand. They said, we'll do this. We're infertile and we'll try. And they did.

41:43Dr. Mark Hyman:That's amazing. And Million Marker is a consumer environmental exposure testing company that looks at endocrine disrupting chemicals. And it uses urine. It can take plastics and personal care products. and they're looking at things like bisphenols, like BPA, BPS, BPF. These are, you know, BPA may, you know, be reduced in certain products, but they replace it with alternatives that are just as bad or maybe worse, who knows? And it looks at phthalate, metabolites, parabens, which are a lot of skincare creams, sunblock, oxybenzone, which is actually in a lot of sunblock. So people are using all these things that think they help to help themselves, but they're actually potentially harming themselves.

42:19Dr. Mark Hyman:And so can you talk a little bit about some of these chemicals like bisphenol A, bisphenol A, BPS, BPF, and some of these compounds that are part of this whole microplastic family? Well, we've talked a little bit about phthalates. And the other sort of big elephant in the room, if you will, for me is because of my focus on reproduction, is the bisphenols. And the bisphenols, so I think of bisphenols and phthalates as kind of evil twins. Because one of them, the phthalates, makes plastic soft and flexible, and it lowers testosterone. And the other one makes plastic hard, firm, hard, and raises estrogen.

43:04So they're kind of, no. And so I talk quite a bit about the phthalates, but the bisphenols are very, very prevalent. And every time you go to the store and get a receipt, you know, would you like a receipt? I say, no thanks. And you shouldn't be touching that either. because I make a pest of myself because it's, I just say, send it electronically. Why would you test it? Because when you touch that, we've done a study which shows that you touch that, particularly if you have hand cream on, you're getting a lot of bisphenols into your body. And every cashier gets a lot.

43:45Dr. Mark Hyman:So all those credit card receipts, yeah, don't touch the receipts. The ATM receipts, the gas station receipts, right? Right. I mean, have them sent electronically. So, and then bisphenol lines a lot of things. And I think what everyone here listening would do well to pay attention to is that it lines tin cans. It lines all your tin cans, unless there's a specific effort by the company to say they are not using bisphenol in their linings. And you can look for that usually on the package. read that because it's a you know they have to make that effort and pay for that you know do this in a different way and that's you know uh something to call attention to so choose try to choose tin cans which are not lined with bisphenol of any kind a b f whatever alphabet soup you know you put in there anything that starts with bisphenol bg but but does that mean you can't Have things in cans?

44:45You can, but you need to look for companies that package their food in cans that are not lined with bisphenol. There are alternatives, but again, I don't mention brands, but you can look for that on the package. You can go to Environmental Working Group, for example, and look at how they rate these things. There are other companies like Clearia and so on that you can go to to check out. So Clearia is an app. You can use it to scan a bar, you know, on the thing you're buying, you scan that barcode and you can see what's in it. And including in the pen.

45:22Dr. Mark Hyman:And it's called Clearia? Clearia. C-L-E-A-R-Y-A. Yeah, it's an app. That's helpful. We'll put that in the show notes. I know you've heard me talk about the importance of getting enough protein to maintain muscle as we age. But sometimes, even when you eat well, meals can leave you feeling heavy, bloated, or sluggish. Now, in some cases, it's not protein. It's your digestion. And our bodies rely on enzymes to break down protein and fats and carbohydrates so we can actually use the nutrients we eat. Now, with stress, with age, or busy lifestyles, enzyme production can fall short. And that's why I recommend Masszymes from Bioptimizers.

45:58Dr. Mark Hyman:It contains 18 different digestive enzymes, including four times more protease than many other formulas to support the breakdown of protein, fat, and carbs. Supporting digestion can help turn meals into clean fuel so you feel lighter, more energized, and more comfortable after eating without changing your diet. If your goals this year include eating well and feeling better after meals, well, Masszymes is a simple way to support healthy digestion. For an exclusive offer, visit bioptimizers.com slash hymen and use the code hymen to get 15 % off. Subscribe and you'll get extra discounts, free gifts, and guaranteed monthly supply.

46:32Dr. Mark Hyman:That's B-I-O-P-T-I-M-I-Z-E-R-S dot com slash hymen and use the code hymen today. For over 50 years, we've been told to avoid full fat dairy to protect our long-term heart and metabolic health. And in a massive trend of events, the new dietary guidelines for Americans were recently released that put full fat dairy back on the top of the pyramid. While the science around full fat dairy has been mixed, there is one consistent surprising story, C15. It's a super fat in dairy. It's emerging as a foundational nutrient that we all need to age healthier. Backed by over 100 peer-reviewed studies, Fatty15 delivers pure, patented, and vegan-friendly C15 to strengthen our cells and reverse aging at the cellular level.

47:15Dr. Mark Hyman:The science and the quality behind Fatty15 is why it's been a trusted must-have in my healthy aging supplement routine for years. You can head to fatty15.com slash hyman today and use the code hyman for 15 % off your 90-day subscription starter kit. That's fatty15.com, F-A-T-T-Y-1-5.com slash Hyman today and use the code Hyman to get 15 % off. You know, there was, there was interesting, there was legislation introduced by Dan Feinstein in 2009 called the Ban Poisonous Addams Act, which meant to really limit and phase out BPA and food containers, beverage containers, can linings, and other FDA kind of regulated food contact materials, but it was defeated because of the industry's massive investment in fighting it and lobbying against it.

48:02Dr. Mark Hyman:Where are we now with legislation around this? Where are we in terms of, you know, having consumer protection against these toxic chemicals? Not very far in this country. I want to mention two things. One is we know how to regulate products because the FDA does it and they do it well. They've done it for a long time and they did it in response. I'm sure you know, but your listeners won't know, response to two very dangerous chemicals in drugs. One of them was thalidomide that caused children to be born without arms and legs. And one was DES, diethylstilvestrol, which caused cancer in the children born to women who took it during pregnancy.

48:47These are historic. They're old, but they're really impactful because they changed the process of the FDA. FDA responded immediately to the DES information and took DES off the market within six months of the publication of Herb's paper showing that causes the cancer. So that was responsive. It was quick. And they kept on. And so we know that government can respond quickly. It can regulate well. But in this case, it's not doing it largely due to the pressure of the industries that are involved. And ultimately—

49:25Dr. Mark Hyman:And it's not just one drug. It's the entire chemical industry. It's not just like one molecule that we're trying to ban. It's a whole class of things that are used in everything that we consume and use every day. It's quite huge. And I think, you know, is there kind of any kind of current legislation on the books in Congress or in state legislatures that are trying to address this? Yes. Let me just say first, I would say that the best, you know, most successful has been the EU. With REACH is a program that was put in place by the EU. The REACH legislation. Yeah, REACH legislation. and it has the really important caveat, which is if you want to bring in a new product and put it in commerce, you can't do that until it's tested for safety first.

50:18We don't have that. We don't have that. We have that for drugs, but we don't have it for other products in our daily lives. So that's really one of the major things that has to change. And there is a Tosca is under revision now, and that will, depending how that goes, that could help. But it's a very difficult uphill battle, and there are wonderful groups working on this without very much funding, of course, and, you know, fighting very big, big giants of industry. It's a very slow and difficult process.

50:58Dr. Mark Hyman:I mean, yeah, we all in America bought the line, better living through chemistry. And I remember being, you might remember this, but I was in New York City, lived in Queens in 1965 during the World's Fair. And there was such a big celebration of chemicals. DuPont had a whole little dance routine and literally song and dance about better living through chemistry. and we were all so naive at that point. And I think Rachel Carson had sort of brought up some of these issues around pesticides and herbicides. But in terms of the rest of us, it wasn't a thing. You know, it really needs to be, I think, legislation or even litigation that helps to sort of move this industry out of this.

51:38Dr. Mark Hyman:Because it's only getting worse, and I'm seeing it in my practice as a doctor, the effect of these. And I actually measure these things. I look at urine. I look at blood. I look at body burdens of toxins. Look at cell membrane levels of these things. Great. And it's quite staggering how much of a problem is when you start to look. Let's talk about, you know, the testing. Is it worth people doing the testing? Is it something they should think about doing and then reducing their exposures and then retesting? Is that a worthwhile endeavor for people who want to, like, find out where they're at? It costs money, you know, several hundred dollars.

52:10I don't remember the cost right now to do the whole program. And that's one thing I should point out, that this is a problem that affects people of lower SES more than higher SES. Because they can afford to be tested. They can afford cleaner products, which are always more expensive. They can afford to shop in organic stores. We haven't talked about pesticides, but those are also endocrine disrupting. And they can't afford the time If they have, you know, working two jobs, three kids I mean, who's going to take the time to check out the labels And, you know, worry about what they're putting on It takes time, it takes energy, it takes money So, you know, there's this This is not an equal opportunity hazard for everybody, right?

53:01But, yes, I think if you can afford it and if this will help you change your behavior if you're going to go into it and say well i just want to know but i don't want to do anything about it then don't waste your time i mean why do that if you want to learn what's in your body and then uh commit to go on and make changes in your life you can you can but you have to make the effort and you have to put in you know you have to do it and you have to want to do it. And then you can do it.

53:34Dr. Mark Hyman:So let's talk about, let's say, with or without diagnostic testing, which I think is an interesting thing, but we can all assume we're basically poisoned, so we should just reduce our exposures. You mentioned a few things, like distilling water, filtering your water. You talked about the exposures in air. You should have air filters. I have air filters in my house, in my bedroom, and in the places I spend most of my time. I try not to buy things in plastic, but it's almost impossible. you know like how do how do people go about really reducing their exposures in their home in their skincare products in the environment that they're in in their food um and how do we think about creating a systematic approach to reducing exposures because i think that's all we can really do at this point and then you know the second following the question that we can talk about in a minute is is there a way to get rid of this stuff like besides just reduce your exposure can you detoxify from it?

54:29Dr. Mark Hyman:So why don't we start out with like, how do we reduce our exposures? So I would say watch the plastic detox. You'd get a good idea. Watch the plastic detox. Okay. That's on my watch list. Okay. Make a commitment to do this. Actually what you're doing, each little thing is not going to be that important, but having a commitment to reduce your exposure in your life and in your family's life matters because it takes an effort. You're going to have to take an effort to do this, make an effort to do this. And I would say I would start with your food. I think food and drink is probably the easiest and the most important, perhaps, target.

55:08And so that starts in the store. When I was doing the movie, I went around with Cecilia, who is a 12-year-old daughter of one of the couples. And it was really fun doing this with her, pointing out where the plastic was, and then looking at how we could avoid it in the store. You know, so looking, you can, you know, get bulk instead of wrapped production of flour and spices and so on and so forth. And then even, you know, vegetables, some places have vegetables laid out, not wrapped. You can pick, like several near me, because I live in San Francisco, but you can pick out a head of lettuce and pick out whatever you're buying.

55:53And what I did with Cecilia, I said, let's see what this costs. So we looked at the cost of the unwrapped and the wrapped, and guess what? The wrapped costs more. We did it with fish. We did it with other things. So I would say right there when you're buying the product, try to buy it not wrapped in plastic. And if you're doing jars, do a glass jar rather than a plastic jar and so on and so forth. So have your eyes open in the store when you're shopping. Then when you bring it home, don't put it in plastic containers because you're just undoing that good work you just did. So put it in a glass container.

56:33You can put it in ceramic. I save all my glass jars and reuse them and you know why not and um and then um worry about it when you're cooking you know you don't we haven't talked about PFOS very much but I think everyone knows that Teflon is something to be avoided and black plastic and so on so think about what your food is touching on the way from your shopping bag to your stomach you know try to keep plastic out of the picture as much.

57:02Dr. Mark Hyman:So like cast iron, stainless steel pots. Yeah, cast iron is great. It's cheap. And it's a little heavy. That's the, I would say the drawback. But yes, we have many. Good for strength training. I use it for strength training. Double benefit, right? And let me just say here, it's kind of trite by now, but do not microwave food in plastic. Never, never, never, never. Because that's, you know, what happens is that the plasticizers, which are added to the plastic, are not tightly bound to that matrix. And so you heat it, the particles get active, they hop out of the plastic, they hop into your food, they get into your body.

57:46So don't do that. Avoid that if you can.

57:50Dr. Mark Hyman:That's a no-no. Don't microwave in plastic. Don't store your food in plastic. I mean, that's a problem with takeout and delivery, right? because it's all in plastic, really bad plastic containers. I don't know how to get at that because a lot of the restaurants that are sending stuff out can't afford high-touch containers. They're going to do what's cheap and quick, and then we get that exposure that way. And the food is put into the containers when it's warm, so it's going to absorb more of it. Yeah, so that is a problem. And taking out from restaurants is awesome. Yeah, same problem. Warm food, bad containers.

58:32Yeah, no, no.

58:35Dr. Mark Hyman:Okay, so we've got, you know, filter your water, maybe air filters in your house. When you shop, don't buy stuff broken plastic. Buy in glass if you can. Don't cook with cookware that's got coatings on it that is nonstick that could be Teflon. I don't know if all nonstick is bad. ceramic, maybe probably not bad. And that's more of nonstick. There are options, but be smart about it. Um, and don't definitely cook anything in the microwave in plastic. Uh, watch out for your skincare products, right? I think this is really important. Yeah. The environmental working group has a great website, uh, ewg.org and they have a, an app called skin deep.

59:13Dr. Mark Hyman:Uh, I'm on the board of the environmental working group and they, and they have a really good resources. You can actually see what's in it. So, you know, you might not know that oxybenzone is actually a toxic plastic that's in most sunscreens or parabens is in most skincare products. So it's, you know, unfortunately, they often are more expensive and they're more challenging to get. But I think if you're doing something every day to your body, like that's putting stuff on it, your skin, basically, what I say to people is if you wouldn't eat it, you shouldn't put it on your skin because it goes through your skin.

59:45Dr. Mark Hyman:It goes through your skin. You're absorbing it. We, we, I mean, we know in medicine, we deliver all kinds of medicines through the skin. We have estrogen patches. We have nitroglycerin cream and paste. We put on people and they come in the emergency room with a heart attack because it works so fast. It gets absorbed right in the skin. We know, we know this is possible. So I think those are, those are really important, simple things you can do. Um, and, and what, what else are you, would you say suggest that people might think about besides those things that we just talked about? Fragrance. I would ask people to think about fragrance.

1:00:16Again, in our studies, we asked women what they used. These were pregnant women that we were interviewing. We asked them what they used in the last 24 hours, and then we asked, was it fragranced? And when women reported use of fragrance products, their levels of several chemicals were higher, particularly the phthalates in their bodies. And so this is not just perfume. It's also your laundry detergent is fragranced. Candles are fragranced. You know, plugins in the wall, things you hang in your car, those little pine cones.

1:00:52Dr. Mark Hyman:Yeah, don't do that. If you can smell it, and maybe even if you like it, you like the smell of it, don't use it. And that's one of the things that was hardest for participants in the film, by the way. But there are some natural fragrances, right? There's essential oils that people use. So there are things that are okay in terms of fragrance. Yeah, beeswax is great if you like the smell of beeswax. That's a really nice smell. And there are brands that I wonder what you think of these that are like, quote, organic or more natural brands. Like, for example, laundry detergent. There's a bunch of them.

1:01:28Dr. Mark Hyman:There's Ecover. There's Seventh Generation. Are those okay if they're fragrance or are those also problematic? I don't know. I don't know specifically that. But I mean, you know what would be great? If you weren't sure, if you had the time to ask them, manufacturers, if they got a lot of questions from people saying, what is the fragrance in here and is it safe? And, you know, that kind of question would really, I think, make a difference, pile up if enough people did that. So if you don't know, I would ask. All right. Well, this has been such a fascinating conversation. I'd like to ask you a set of rapid fire questions.

1:02:06Dr. Mark Hyman:Are you up for that? Sure. Okay. This one's obvious. You're turning 90 this month. Like, what's your longevity tips? You're sharp. You're smart. You look beautiful. like i don't get it what are you doing and how do i subscribe thank you um i i would say be interested in what you do um and um exercise watch what you put in your body and have a friends friends and i have a wonderful husband i have wonderful family so that's great i'm really lucky. I don't know. And jeans. I couldn't control my jeans, but I'm sure they matter. Well, I think those are all really important, simple but obvious tips that actually make a difference.

1:02:51Dr. Mark Hyman:So it's not any secret sauce. It's just the foundations. Okay. What's the number one thing in terms of all these exposures that people can do? Like if you had to pick one thing, what would it be? Food. Food. So watch your exposures in food. Okay. And then you kind of see these cans and say, BPA-free, it gives us aura of being safe. Is it safe? Are they safe? No, not necessarily. Probably not. Probably if they took the trouble to put BPA-free on the label, they've already put in an alternative like BPF and BPS. That's the problem. It's like they add other stuff that sounds better, but it's not.

1:03:27Dr. Mark Hyman:What's the biggest myth about plastics that people believe? I think that it's recyclable. That it's recyclable. Okay, say more. Well. We all put our plastic in the recycle box. Me too. But a very small percent of it is actually recycled, and it's dumped in faraway places that we don't have to worry about and does harm there to the landscape and to the people who are going through it and handling it. Just don't assume that once you throw it away, you don't have to care about it anymore. You do have to care about it. It's not going to disappear. I think that's important. A friend of mine started a company called Hero Technologies developing mushrooms, different strains of mycelium that actually can digest and break down mushrooms in landfills.

1:04:16Dr. Mark Hyman:And they're starting with diapers, but it's kind of a cool idea. So you mentioned food, but what's one other thing in your home that people could immediately remove that would make a difference? I would say after food, it would be your water, cleaning up your water, because there's so much exposure to your water. And then third would be air, filtering your, you know, Using a HEPA filter would be good. So there are things you can do. Yeah. Water, air, food. I think those are important. What's worse? Heating in plastic or storing in plastic? Oh, heating in plastic. No question. Heating in plastic.

1:04:47Dr. Mark Hyman:That was clearly the answer. What's the biggest mistake people make in their kitchen? I think the biggest mistake is probably storing in plastic because so much is stored in plastic. It's so hard. I have plastic in my kitchen. I have true confessions. My kitchen is not plastic-free. completely. And so that's, it's just really hard and it's nonstop, you know, it's coming in when you do takeout and it's coming in when you shop and it coming, you know, so, you know, it's just a hard to think of getting ahead of it. What do most people do every day they're not aware of that increases their exposures?

1:05:24Well, we didn't mention clothing, but yeah, that's something that And we're just coming to, belatedly, I would say, awareness of the chemicals. And there are many, many plastics in fibers and dyes and in our clothing. And it's everywhere. It's on our beds. It's on our sofas. It's on our bodies. And it's particularly concerning if you use clothing that has barriers like attendance, flight attendants, firefighters, sportswear, children's school uniforms. PFAS is the class of chemical I'm talking about. That's added to all of these. And it's invisible to us.

1:06:17Dr. Mark Hyman:So stick with natural fibers. Natural fibers. Wool, cotton, silk, linen, right? Right. When you can, yes. What's worse, a plastic straw or a plastic fork?

1:06:31Oh, boy. I don't know. I think you'd probably use that plastic fork more. And I don't know how they compare in terms of exposure. I don't know more than that.

1:06:41Dr. Mark Hyman:Okay. If you were the environmental czar for America and the world, what would be the policy you would put in place to make things different? I would solve two million dollar questions, moonshot questions. One is, how do we make plastics out of safer products rather than fossil fuels? So we know that there are plastics made of plants. There's potato-based plastics. Right now, they're kind of niche items. They're expensive. But I think money should be put into that. We should then solve the problem of how to get rid of the plastics once we've made them. And on the policy front, it's actually investing in those things.

1:07:27One more, just to add to that, we need to be clear about what it means for something to be safe. because we need to say, say, for whom, at what age, for what systems, and so on. Testing for safety is very difficult because it's easy to say it should be tested for safety before it's put out there. But think of all the tests you have to do, you know? You test all these systems in the body and so on. So that's very difficult. It's all a hard problem. And by the way, it shouldn't be consumers' problems. It should be governments' problems.

1:07:57Dr. Mark Hyman:No. And manufacturers' manufacturers. I agree. And we didn't really kind of dive into this, but you kind of hinted at it. In Europe, they follow something called the precautionary principle, which is something's guilty until proven innocent. In America, it's innocent until proven guilty. So we introduce all these toxic chemicals. We don't make the manufacturers prove they're safe. We let them be in the marketplace. We let people be exposed. We let people get sick. And then maybe 10, 20, 40, 50, 100 years later, we go, oh, wait, we have a problem. and you know and i think that's not a good framework for policy it should be prove it not you're given a hall pass and like let's see what happens and i think that's that's really important the last question is what's the most surprising thing you've learned in your long and varied career wow i know that's a hard one right I would say because I am an optimist, I learned that we can make a difference by our action, that we can clean up our act, and that really people want to.

1:09:09And so I want to help make that happen. Thank you.

1:09:14Dr. Mark Hyman:That's amazing. Okay. People can find out more about you by going to your website, which is? Go to seanaswan.com. You've got unplasticyourlife.com, right? Yes, unplasticyourlife.com. That's not mine. That's the film. For additional help, I would suggest you, if you want to test your sperm, you go to Meat Fellow. If you want to test your urine, you go to Emelian Marker. And there are other companies coming out all the time. So these are not going to be the only ones. But I think the question is, do you want to know? Do you want to know what's in your body? Do you want to? Men don't ever know their sperm count by the way.

1:09:45They just don't. So if you want to know about what's going on in your body and in your home, then dive in. Don't be afraid. And yeah, do it.

1:09:54Dr. Mark Hyman:We actually did a podcast on sperm as a biomarker for health. I think that's important. People don't understand that. So this is amazing. Thank you for your work. I hope you get to go for another 90 years. And I look forward to your next chapter and what you're going to help us understand about this very frightening world, but hopefully with some optimism and how we can protect ourselves and how we can push our governments to do the right thing. So thanks so much for your work and for being such a light in this whole dark space. Thanks for having me so much. I really enjoyed talking to you and, you know, together we can make a change.

1:10:31Dr. Mark Hyman:If you love this podcast, please share it with someone else you think would also enjoy it. You can find me on all social media channels at Dr. Mark Hyman. Please reach out. I'd love to hear your comments and questions. Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to The Dr. Hyman Show wherever you get your podcasts. And don't forget to check out my YouTube channel at Dr. Mark Hyman for video versions of this podcast and more. Thank you so much again for tuning in. We'll see you next time on The Dr. Hyman Show. This podcast is separate from my clinical practice at the Ultra Wellness Center, my work at Cleveland Clinic, and Function Health, where I am Chief Medical Officer.

1:11:03Dr. Mark Hyman:This podcast represents my opinions and my guests' opinions. Neither myself nor the podcast endorses the views or statements of my guests. This podcast is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional care by a doctor or other qualified medical professional. This podcast is provided with the understanding that it does not constitute medical or other professional advice or services. If you're looking for help in your journey, please seek out a qualified medical practitioner. And if you're looking for a functional medicine practitioner, visit my clinic, the Ultra Wellness Center at ultrawellnesscenter.com and request to become a patient.

1:11:35Dr. Mark Hyman:It's important to have someone in your corner who is a trained, licensed healthcare practitioner and can help you make changes, especially when it comes to your health. This podcast is free as part of my mission to bring practical ways of improving health to the public. so I'd like to express gratitude to sponsors that made today's podcast possible. Thanks so much again for listening.