Reverse Microplastic Toxicity NATURALLY (Heals Mitochondria, Gut, Brain) | Dr. Josh Axe

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1:33The receipts you get, that ink on there is loaded with forever chemicals and microplastics. Teflon pants. I mean, these things are leaching microplastics, major, major chemicals, forever chemicals that damage your entire body. And that's disrupting your hormones. It's increasing your cancer risk. almost every health condition you can think of.

2:06A University of Newcastle study found the average person consumes five grams of plastic every seven days, the exact weight of a credit card. And if you've watched the plastic detox on Netflix, maybe you've already seen this, but six couples were struggling with infertility. They did 90 days of removing plastics and doing a plastic detox. They repaired their bodies and the groups there got pregnant. That's not a coincidence. Here's the reality. Microplastics are destroying our bodies. And here are some other statistics that are somewhat shocking. Okay, when we go and study a human brain, all right, there is a spoon's worth, a full spoon, imagine that, worth of plastic in the brain.

2:52When they studied men, they found that every single human male had plastic actually in their testicles, every single one. And microplastics are also found in our arteries. By the way, if you have higher levels of microplastics in your arteries and bloodstream, you have a 450 % higher risk of a heart attack, a stroke, or early death. So getting microplastics out of your body and not being exposed to them is one of the key things you can do for longevity and curing any health problem. Now, they're even finding microplastics in the umbilical cords of babies, in that blood being passed from a mother to a child.

3:36So there are so many toxins that we are being exposed to, but microplastics might be the worst offender. And one area of your body that is heavily harmed by microplastics is your gut lining. Okay, microplastics essentially are punching holes through your gut lining, causing a condition called leaky gut or intestinal permeability. And a 2023 study published in Cell Reports Medicine found that nanoplastic exposure triggers leaky gut within 14 days. And that's how plastic gets from your stomach, by the way, into your bloodstream, is it actually punches a hole through your intestines, gets into your bloodstream, and then it causes inflammation throughout your entire body.

4:24Now listen to this study. Babies are born pre-polluted. 100 % of placentas tested in 2021 were contaminated with microplastics, okay? And so we see this, as I mentioned before, we see babies being exposed very early on. There are 20 times more plastic in infant feces than adults. And 39 % of breast milk samples contained microplastics. This is according to another medical study. A 2025 Baylor Medicine study found significantly higher levels of microplastics in preterm births as well. So it might be contributing to early births in children. And so this isn't just an adult and later on in life issue.

5:10A lot of us have been exposed since we were kids. I mean, I think back about all the plastic containers I've drank out of, you know, every soccer practice, you know, drinking the, first off, not even the artificial chemicals and the flavorings and the food dyes that I got in, you know, things like Gatorade. But I mean, I was drinking out of plastic bottles all day, every day, plastic spoons. I mean, constantly exposed to plastics. But most people don't realize how damaging it is to our bodies. And I want to walk you through how plastics wreck the gut, okay? One thing they do is they damage two types of species of probiotics called acromantia and lactobacillus, and they deplete them in the body.

5:51This disrupts then your tight junctions, and there's something called an LPS endotoxin spike. So then basically a lot of these plastics, it's almost like they're leaking toxins. They destroy good bacteria. They then damage the gut lining, and then they make your gut more friendly to pathogens like parasites or H. pylori or candida to live there and take the place of the good bacteria that you need to have in order to absorb nutrients and to not have food sensitivities and to overall have a strong immune system. And so number one, plastics destroy your gut health. Here's another thing they destroy.

6:29They destroy your reproductive health. In a study, Dr. Shanna Swan discovered male sperm count has dropped 50 % in the last 50 years. And in a 2024 study, microplastics were found in 100 % of human testicles tested. Okay. Men with the highest phthalate exposure had 50 % lower testosterone. They had the lowest testosterone rate. So if you are exposed to phthalates, microplastics, these chemicals, that means you will have lower testosterone. According to the study, it's causing major toxicity issues and it will then cause testosterone to plummet in men. And also it's an issue for women. And the reason why this is such a big issue for hormonal health is, is that these microplastics like DEHP and DBP and BBP, they act as xenoestrogens.

7:22Okay. They act as sort of these fake estrogens in the body. And so what this does for women is it elevates your estrogen. So estrogen goes up, progesterone actually gets pushed down even further. So now there's this big gap here. And when estrogen goes up, that then actually imbalances the conversion of T4 to T3. So it throws off your thyroid hormones, but it also throws off your, your estradiol and your progesterone, which greatly increases your risk of things like PCOS, endometriosis, fertility decline, early menopausal symptoms and early perimenopause. It makes your menopausal symptoms much worse and it actually ages your body.

8:02You get moved into aging prematurely. And some of the places these hide, of course, we've talked about the plastic containers, plastic bottles, but also the fragrances and perfumes. Vinyl flooring, plastic wrap, personal care products, microplastics are not just in what you think of as plastic containers. They are hidden all over the place. In fact, they're even found, you know the receipts you get when you check out of the grocery store, that ink there on the little sheet of paper on your receipt, that has been shown. That's a form of BPA and it's absorbed in the skin in 90 seconds. So if they ask you, do you want a receipt next time, just say pass or send me an email.

8:47That's a much better option because even that is greatly lowering testosterone in men, causing estrogen to go high in women, which is a big causative factor of estrogen-based cancers like breast cancer. Cancer, dementia, heart disease, they're coming for so many people. And it's not just because of what most people think, which is that it's bad luck or bad genetics. The truth is your daily choices are either creating health or setting the stage for disease. And your doctor is probably reading your blood work all wrong. They're missing the cellular issues behind the symptoms. I'm currently offering a simple at-home blood test that actually tests for the right things.

9:31And just as importantly, it comes with proper interpretation of the results. This new test flips the script. The future of interpreting test results is here. If you want to check it out and grab one before they're gone, just go to mybloodwork.com now. So here's the reality. Your hormone imbalances, it might not be genetic. Your tiredness might not be related to your adrenal glands or even cortisol. It might be plastic poisoning your power plant to the mitochondria in your cells. In fact, nanoplastics reduce mitochondrial membrane potential by 35%. Okay, that's where your body creates ATP and cellular energy.

10:13This is also a major causative factor for anyone with hypothyroidism, chronic fatigue syndrome, or just general fatigue. If you're saying to yourself, you know what, I'm more tired than I should be, right? And you're in the afternoon and you're tired, you wake up tired, or you're just exhausted by the end of the day, microplastics contribute, and it's causing a mitochondrial meltdown. Nanoplastics cross what we call your mitochondrial membrane, so they actually get inside not only the cell, okay, you've got a cell membrane, they actually pass into your cell membrane, then they actually pass through the mitochondrial membrane and actually inside the mitochondria, and what this does is it causes oxidative stress.

10:55Imagine you go into a machine and then it just starts wrecking and damaging things everywhere, throwing everything off. So it literally is causing your mitochondria to crumble and fall apart. And again, this is a big causative factor. I mentioned hypothyroidism and chronic fatigue and general low energy, but also this is going to contribute to brain fog, long COVID. You know, if you're exposed to long COVID, some people were exposed to COVID and they felt awful for two weeks and then they were fine and had zero symptoms whatsoever. I was one of those people. I had no symptoms after COVID, felt just fine.

11:29There are some people now, years later, that are still exhausted. And if you were already had a 35%, 50 % damage inside your mitochondria from excess plastic exposure, and then you have an issue like a virus come along, well, now your body was so, it's just easy to break down your body. It's sort of like if you're lifting weights and maybe you can handle a couple plates on each side, but then somebody puts a couple more plates on and your body just buckles and crashes. That's what's happening to your mitochondria. And this is where taking supplements like NAD +, CoQ10, PQQ, certain B vitamins, I mean, these nutrients are critically important for mitochondrial function.

12:14But if you don't go and get rid of the plastics, exposures and detox the plastics, Oftentimes, your body can never fully recover. Now, here's the most important thing of all. It's longevity, living a long, healthy life. And a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world, they did a study on arterial health and the health of the heart and bloodstream and on mortality. This study was done on 257 patients over 34 months. This is a study done in 2024. Here's what they found. So microplastic exposure, when it's the highest in people, increases your risk of dying by 450%.

12:58That's 4.5 times. It's a higher risk of a heart attack, a stroke, an early death, when they found microplastics specifically in your carotid artery plaque. So here's where it becomes really deadly. You expose yourself to microplastics. You also have inflammation in your body, like high CRP levels. It could be you have an inflammatory diet or an autoimmune disease or some sort of issue, joint pain, but there's inflammation happening. Then you have plastic exposure that gets lodged in the arterial plaque. Your chance of mortality goes up dramatically. And so we know that microplastics, they damage your gut.

13:38They damage your cells in the area of the mitochondria. They also damage your brain. Researchers analyzed 91 human brains and found microplastic concentrations averaging a plastic spoon's worth in that 91 people. Now, here's a kicker. They did this study before in 2016. Okay, they did it again in 2024. There's an eight-year difference between two studies they did on the amount of plastics found in the average person's brain. In 2024, they found 50 % more plastic on average than in 2016, just eight years earlier. Okay, 50 % more. So this means that we are exposed to way more plastic now than we even were eight years ago.

14:24And what happens is our blood-brain barrier is very similar to our gut lining. Okay, you can have a leaky gut. You can also have a leaky brain barrier. and it acts like a chain link fence, like keeping certain things out. But when you tear a hole in it, which is what happens, these microplastics, they actually go to the brain. Heavy metals do a very similar thing. Heavy metals, microplastics, certain toxins, they go and they can damage that blood brain barrier. And especially nanoplastics, some of these are so small, they're almost like bugs or a virus. They get through the blood brain barrier.

14:58They start to cause and increase your symptoms. They can increase brain fog symptoms. I also believe they can be closely connected to issues like MS and dementia and any sort of neuroinflammatory illness. Microplastics could be at the root of it. All right, so I want to walk you through the biggest microplastic offenders that are in your kitchen right now. And a lot of them are really surprising. Here's a big one, teabags. A lot of these teabags, this one here in particular, this has microplastics in it. So if you're doing a lot of these teabags, if you're buying herbal tea, and I'm talking about peppermint or chamomile or ginger or any type of tea, and it doesn't say microplastic-free, BPA-free, free of chemicals, this is leaching into your body at super high levels.

15:43So teabag's one of the worst offenders of microplastics. Now, listen, I want to encourage you, drink lots of tea. But just make sure to drink loose-leaf tea or buy tea where they don't have these plastics in the actual teabags themselves. And then another big one is water, right? We know bottled water leaches a lot of plastic chemicals into water supply. So switch to stainless steel, switch to glass. Cardboard is probably a better option as well. If you're traveling around, stay away from the plastic. And I would say also getting a water filter, right? One of the most toxic things in your home is your water that's city water.

16:20And so getting a Berkey or Aurora or a reverse osmosis filter, a great idea. But I would say the biggest offenders, water and tea are two of the biggest that you want to stay away from. Next up are plastic cutting boards. Think about every time you are cutting an onion, cutting vegetables, doing anything on here, they're leaking microplastics into your food. Much better option. One of my favorites, bamboo cutting board. It's a great option here. So bamboo cutting board, much, much better option. This is what we use in the Axe household. This is a brand I really like, Caraway, so you could try them.

16:53Good option there. And then a few others, Teflon pants. I mean, these things are leaching, microplastics, major, major chemicals, forever chemicals that damage your entire body, causing estrogen to go high, testosterone low, damaging your hormones, so staying away from these. And, of course, switching over to a couple of my favorites, stainless steel. You can also do cast iron. That's a great option. You see, we've got the cast iron here. And if you don't like kind of the heaviness of the cast iron, I love that. But if you want something a little lighter, but also really effective, you can do ceramic.

17:29This is another, this is Brand Careway again. These are great options here to use. And then I want to go, here's a big one. And by the way, I'm guilty of this. I have used a Vitamix for over 20 years now. And I've used the plastic container up until two years ago, almost two years ago, a little over a year and a half ago. I switched over to there's now a stainless steel Vitamix top that you can buy and use with your Vitamix. Or if you have a blender at home, you could buy a glass top. Or if you don't have a blender, buy one that has stainless steel or glass as the top. But think about this. A lot of people have had these plastic containers for 1, 5, 10, 20 years.

18:05I mean, I've had mine for over 10 years. My blender and these plastics is using them in the dishwashers. They blend. Think on high speed. They're leaching microplastics. And every time you're trying to make a healthy smoothie, it's leaching into your smoothie, your superfood smoothie. It's now a super microplastic smoothie. That's one of the problems. So switching out for a stainless steel option or a glass option is something you absolutely want to do. And then a few other things here. Here's some surprising ones around the house. Baby toys have a lot of microplastics in them, okay? And kids are putting in the mouth or chewing on them.

18:41And, of course, kids are eating all kinds of plastic stuff, right? Plastic baby balls. Anytime you can switch to glass or BPA-free or stainless steel, better option, and wood toys. Trying to stay away from a lot of plastics, especially when you have infants that are putting it in their mouth. Those are the most important ages. For your kids to be building with Legos, of course, those are plastic. It's not as big of a deal because they're just touching it with their hands and fingers and that's it. But putting it in their mouth, that's where it really becomes an issue. And there's a few other things I want to mention here.

19:15Of course, the containers you're using at home, right? The plastic containers. Switching over to glass. Now listen, the lid's not that important. Your food's not touching the lid. The lid can be plastic or rubber, whatever it is, but you do want this part to be glass, especially if you ever heat it up. That's where it becomes really important as well. And then a few others here, just kitchen utensils, right? All of these sort of things switch out for wood. Much better options. I showed you here, these are great options here for these containers. So this is glass here. Now it's plastic top. That's fine.

19:48Again, your food's not constantly touching that or you're not heating up the plastic top, but glass here is a great option here. So that can be a good option there. That's another great Carraway product. Again, your cups, you know, measuring cups, rather than plastic using metal there, that's good. And oh, here's a big one. Here's one of the last ones I want to show you, but I'm not even going to pick this up. It's so toxic. Okay. This is a receipt. All right. The receipts you get from the grocery store, from the convenience store, from whatever shop you're going to, department store, that ink on there is loaded with forever chemicals and microplastics, something called sphalates.

20:28This has been shown in clinical studies to greatly decrease testosterone in men, throw off the estrogen in women. It's a major hormone disruptor. This is connected to that microplastic family when we look at this phthalates. So you want to stay completely away from microplastics. This is one of the absolute worst offenders there. And by the way, one of the big things these microplastics do is they leach into your cells. They damage your mitochondria. So do everything you can to get rid of the receipts and the chemicals and the microplastics in order to heal your cells. And if you wanna learn more about how to heal your cells and detoxify your body at the cellular level, hey, I recorded an advanced webinar where I walk you through exactly how to heal your cells, heal your hormones, detoxify your whole body using foods, herbs, and lifestyle medicine.

21:17So if you wanna learn how to heal yourself in depth, don't miss this webinar training. You can click the link below to watch that advanced training on how to heal your cells, heal your hormones through the power of cellular detoxification. When it comes to your kitchen items, just make some of the simple swaps. Here's the big ones, okay? Change out your water filter. Get a good water filter. Stop drinking out of plastic water bottles. Try and switch those over to glass or stainless steel. Switch over some of your cookware. I mean, if you could just do those things alone, it's gonna make a major difference in you reducing your exposure to microplastics.

21:55Because we talked about this. the average person consumes the average of one credit card a day in microplastics. And that's disrupting your hormones. It's increasing your cancer risk, almost every health condition you can think of. And so if you can eliminate your exposure, number one, and then follow a diet to get rid of the microplastics as well, you're going to be so much healthier and happier for it. And by the way, one of the questions I always get is, Dr. Axe, hey, what are brands and products I can trust or I should buy that I can replace the plastic with. Listen, there are quite a few good brands out there, but one I personally use and really like is Caraway.

22:29I mentioned them earlier. I mean, they've got all kinds of great products. They literally have cutting boards. Those are Caraway. The utensils, the storage containers, the cutting board, all of it is Caraway. So Caraway is a great brand. They do stainless steel. They do ceramic. They do wood. They do natural, non-toxic ingredients. They specialize in organic, non-toxic products. And you can go on their website, because I've purchased from them and because I like to support them, you can go and get 10 % off. I think if you enter my full name, it's Dr. Josh Axe. If you enter that on their site, you'll get, I believe, an extra 10 % discount.

23:07And when you bundle their products together, I think it's 20 % discount. So you can get a really big discount on their products when you go to caraway.com and enter the code DrJoshAxe on checkout there for a discount there. But again, there's a lot of great brands, but this is one I personally love and recommend and use if you want to know one of the best brands here to help you go microplastic-free and toxin-free in your kitchen. Now, in addition to the kitchen, there are some really hidden sources that I think even when I heard them surprised me. Number one, I mentioned this, receipts. Number two is this, cheap HVAC filters.

23:42Think about this. The air in your home can be filled with microplastics with just regular HVAC filters. That's supposed to be cleansing your air. It can be releasing microplastics. The third one is this. Personal protective equipment. Masks like the N95s, they actually will shed microplastics early on in using them. And here's the fourth one. Synthetic clothing, especially athletic clothing. You know, those skin tight joggers that people are wearing today, those contain microplastics. So like your$128 yoga pants, they are shedding plastic into your skin every time you exercise and sweat. In fact, Dr.

24:27Shannon Swan in the plastic detox said that your skin absorbs about 60 % of what you put on. So polyester athleisure releases up to 700 ,000 microfibers per wash. So you're not just wearing plastic, you are absorbing it. And again, polyester is one of the biggest offenders. And listen to some of these brands. Lululemon is like 86 % nylon and polyester. Okay, so when you're wearing those skin-tight leggings from Lululemon, that can be leaching plastic into your body. Athleta, okay? Or Nike, their dry fit products, or underarm, or even aloe yoga, right? So here's what happens. You sweat, you have heat, and you have friction, okay?

25:16That can drive those microplastics even deeper into your body. And here's what you want to change to. Actually, this is what I'm wearing now, is I am wearing wool, okay? Every time I wear underwear, pants, socks, everything I wear for the most part is wool or organic cotton. Now listen, I think bamboo can be okay, linen. There are some other good materials, but for myself, merino wool, organic cotton are the things I personally use the most, a little bamboo here and there. But the organic cotton and wool is really what you want to look into and switch over to. Hey guys, I'm here with my good friend, Dr.

25:56Dave Jockers. In fact, we've been friends for more than 20 years. He runs the podcast, the Dr. Dave Jockers Functional Nutrition Podcast. Dr. Dave, tell us a little bit about what your podcast is about. Yeah, absolutely. We dive deep on functional nutrition, really how to personalize your nutrition plan for better energy, mental clarity, better hormone balance. And we talk a lot about cellular health, mitochondrial function, cell membrane. We do a deep dive on every major nutrition topic and natural health topic. So everything you need right there at your fingertips, Dr. Jocker's Functional Nutrition Podcast.

26:30I want to encourage you, run out and listen to the Dr. Jocker show. Again, I'm a big fan of it. I think you will be as well. Now, I know something that a lot of doctors talk about is how toxic our environment is. And obviously, I spent some time doing that, talking about microplastics. But now I want to get into the details of how do you actually detox? If you've been exposed to microplastics, if you have low testosterone, if your estrogen is too high, if you know that toxicity is part of your issue, if you have any of the symptoms we've talked about related to toxicity, what can you start to do?