#1 Longevity Doctor: 7 Toxic Products Destroying Your Health

Dr. Eric Topol (00:03):

It's everywhere. It's so pervasive in our brain. Reproductive organs, plastic water bottles, plastic bags, plastic everywhere, you name it. And so this is a serious problem.

 

Mel Robbins (00:14):

Hey, it's Mel. Today on the Mel Robbins podcast, we have Dr. Eric Topol. He is one of the most respected scientists and medical researchers who's alive today. His work has been cited in over 360,000 times in academic journals. He's going to talk about microplastics and how there are seven toxic products that are in your home right now that are destroying your health. What are forever chemicals?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (00:35):

Yeah, so PFAS per fluoro, alkylating agents, there's over 10,000 of these chemicals, whether we're eating, breathing, or drinking. We're constantly exposed to these. They are in microscopic minute quantities, but it isn't like they go out. I mean, we just are accumulating these into our body, a spoonful of microplastics in our brain. We're seeing people in their twenties now with colon cancer, women in their thirties, young thirties with breast cancer. The question is why they had no genetic predisposition

 

Mel Robbins (01:08):

Is that your theory, that the rise in cancer in young people is due to forever chemicals and air pollution and water.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (01:16):

When you take that whole mix, they're all what you could consider as epidemics. The problem we have is we're in a state of complacency. We've just accepted this. I think it's time to hit the alarm now.

Dr. Eric Topol (01:36):

Thanks. I'm so thrilled to be with you.

 

Mel Robbins (01:38):

Well, I just want to start by congratulating you on a fantastic new bestselling book, super Ages. I absolutely devoured this, and I'm thrilled that you're here because I cannot wait to get into a section of your book about how environmental factors are impacting how we age, our longevity and our health overall. And so I'm thrilled you're here. And what I would love to do is start by having you speak directly to the person who's with us right now, and tell them what might change about their life if they take everything that you're about to share with us and teach us today to heart, and they put it to use in their life.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (02:20):

Well, I mean, I think the principle things that we've been known about for years, these lifestyle factors, I call 'em lifestyle plus because it's much more than just diet, exercise, and sleep. We have to now add in environmental factors. We haven't paid nearly enough attention and the compelling evidence that has come forth on air pollution, microplastics, nanoplastics, and the forever chemicals. These things are having a big impact, and we're not doing anything about it.

 

Mel Robbins (02:51):

For starters, I just want to understand 'em because I had never heard the word microplastics, for example. I think intellectually or common sense wise, you of course go, oh, well, air pollution of course impacts your health. But some of the statistics that we're going to unpack in your book in terms of the connection between environmental factors and the diseases that people get and the health challenges that people are facing, it's really scary Dr. Topol.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (03:19):

It is scary and the fact that most people are not aware of the risks and that we're not doing anything about those risks. Certain conditions, we are masked because like a heart attack, we can't really say, oh, it's from this forever chemical or from the plastics or the air pollution can't really say because they're so common. It's the number one killer. But when you see the declines in fertility, both among men and women, and you know that these plastics and chemicals are invading the testes and the ovaries and the reproductive system, when you see young people, as I've seen in their twenties and thirties, developing cancer with no risk, you say, well, wait a minute. These are special groups of people that shouldn't have these things. What is it in our environment that could account for this? And until proven otherwise, these are the things we have to consider are causal.

 

Mel Robbins (04:15):

I agree with you. As I was reading super ages, Dr. Topol, and you're going through lifestyle plus factors, it stopped me in my tracks as you started to write about how pollution, how plastics, how the environment that we're living in, how there are household items that are in our homes right now that we use when we cook, that we sit next to at home, that also can impact our health and are playing a role in our longevity. How big of a factor is this?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (04:48):

If we just talk about the forever chemicals and plastics, they have links to all the adverse health outcomes. Now, for example, we know that more young people are developing cancer than ever before, and it's not just colon cancer, breast cancer, all these types of cancers that were age related. We're seeing people in their twenties now with colon cancer, women in their thirties, young thirties with breast cancer. The question is why they had no genetic predisposition. We have to think, well, maybe it's related to the chemical. So some people will say, well, you don't have cause and effect. Well, others will say, you know what? We got this mechanism of inducing inflammation and being mutagenic that is capable of inducing mutations in our cells, which could cause cancer. And we have this new thing we haven't seen before, and it just keeps getting worse. It's pretty hard not to connect the two. Right.

 

Mel Robbins (05:41):

Well, and you write about this on page 1 25. You literally say by 2050, if we keep going the way that we are, the number of people dying from cancer is going to double. Is that your theory? That the rise in cancer in young people is due to microplastics and forever chemicals and air pollution and water contamination,

 

Dr. Eric Topol (06:02):

And add to that ultra processed foods, which also are pro-inflammatory and injurious. So just starting maybe with plastics, plastic water bottles, plastic bags, plastic everywhere. It's so pervasive, and the problem is we have it in our bodies and it's in our organs. One of the most important studies come out in years about plastics was one from Italy where they looked at people's arteries. These are the arteries in the neck, the carotid arteries where there's atherosclerosis or cholesterol buildup, and they found that more than half had plastics in their arteries, and that those are the people that had over fourfold risk of heart attacks and strokes.

 

Mel Robbins (06:46):

Wait, so hold on a second. Let me just make sure that the person heard that. So in a recent study, half of people have microplastic buildup in their carotid artery. And of those people that had microplastic buildup, they were four times greater risk for stroke and heart attack.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (07:03):

That's right. And it was correlated with the fact that if you look at the artery under the microscope, not only did you see the microplastics like polyvinyl chloride, but you saw profound inflammation around the plastic pieces. The other one, of course, was the brain. So this was in people who had died and they looked at the brain and they found plastics throughout the brain, the spoonful of plastics in the brain,

 

Mel Robbins (07:25):

Spoonful of plastic in the brain.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (07:27):

And wherever there was plastic, guess what? There was local marked inflammation just like in the artery wall. So you can't say that this is innocuous, right? This is something that's very troubling and it needs action.

 

Mel Robbins (07:42):

Well, I just want to try to translate to make sure I'm tracking with you. So the reason why the inflammation is the problem is because if your arteries are inflamed, that means they're going to get blocked, which means they're not going to work.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (07:51):

Yeah. Well, it's not just even the blockage we're talking about, even in the tissue of the brain, outside of the arteries where the plastics can get in. Wow, once they get into our tissue, they incite a lot of inflammation. This isn't good, whether it's in the wall of an artery or in the tissue like the brain. They're seen in testes, they're seen in a semen. They've been associated with blood clots. They're in women's reproductive system as well. I mean, just as they're pervasive in the air and the water, they are in our bodies, and it's a cumulative exposure.

 

Mel Robbins (08:27):

I realize this isn't conclusive, but what do you worry about as a scientist in terms of the implications of these environmental factors?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (08:36):

Well, the two that are especially troubling for our reproductive system, and it's not just for women with fertility, but we're seeing progressively lower sperm counts and sperm function in men. And so we have a big problem with reproductive health, but both forever, which get into the reproductive organs and also the plastics nanoplastics, they both can do this.

 

(09:03):

And so that's just one example. People are thinking, oh, well, more women are trying to have children at an older age and having infertility. No, it's not just the aging. It's the hit on healthy aging. And so the same thing with men, the more infertile men. And so this reproductive health is just one dimension of the problem. This is likely having effect on each of the major age-related diseases. And the sad part about this is the lobbying against these. So we know there's a big problem, whether it's the air we breathe, the water we drink, or our foods and all the others in our personal items and cooking, as you mentioned, Mel, what are we doing about it? Essentially, nothing. It's amazing.

 

Mel Robbins (09:52):

Can you just start by explaining what the heck is a microplastic? I don't even know what this means. And where is it? Is it in the air? Is it in the water? Is it in the bottles? What is a microplastic? Dr. Topol?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (10:04):

Yeah. Well, it's everywhere. That's the sad part. You can only see them under a microscope. So yeah, it's the plastic bag or the plastic bottle, but it's coming out of these things. And so these microplastics, they are toxins. They are not degradable biodegradable. So once they come into us, we're stuck with them.

 

Mel Robbins (10:26):

So for the person who's listening and me, does this mean that there's just particles in the air, in the water and in the food and all around us that we are absorbing through our mouth and through our nose and through our skin, that that's what you mean by microplastics?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (10:45):

Whether we're eating or whether we're breathing or drinking. We're constantly exposed to these. They are in microscopic minute quantities, but it isn't like they go out. I mean, we just are accumulating these into our body.

 

Mel Robbins (11:00):

What are forever chemicals?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (11:02):

So the fancy term for that are per fluoro, carbonated alkylating agents, P-F-A-S-P-F-A-S. There's over 10,000 of these chemicals. And the key part is they have a fluoride to carbon F to C bond, and that makes them non-degradable. So that's why they're here forever. And so they are like plastics. And by the way, some of those chemicals are in the plastics.

Mel Robbins (11:44):

So where exactly do the forever chemicals come from? How are they generated in the air and the water and in plastics?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (11:51):

Yeah. Well, if you really want to get the nitty gritty on that, there's a famous New Yorker article from last year where a 3M employee, Chris Jensen basically was the whistleblower. And the company knew about the injurious effects of these chemicals, but they didn't want to do anything about it.

 

(12:18):

And I mean, it's pretty scary to read this article because it's from the inside and 3M, that's kind of their thing. Everything is made with forever chemicals, whether it's post-its or plastics or I mean, you name it. We've done nothing to reign this in, which is extraordinary. We know they have a toxic potential, and yet just like with the big food industry, with Ultrapro and what we've seen with the plastics industry that rely on them, the companies that rely on these forever chemicals are doing nothing to make a difference. And so we're stuck with these very serious risks with no action.

 

Mel Robbins (13:02):

What are the top ways that you and I and the person listening are being exposed to microplastics and to the forever chemicals that are impacting our health?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (13:12):

Well, it is pervasive, and like you said, Mel, it's in our air and in our water. But there are certainly things that we could do to lessen the burden. I mean, so for example, wrapping things in plastic, and it's not a good idea.

 

Mel Robbins (13:26):

I have a feeling that I'm going to leave this conversation Dr. Topol and throw out everything in my kitchen. Is that what's about to happen?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (13:32):

No. No. And hopefully not. But if you want to be conscious about the burden of plastic intake, which is it's an enormous amount of plastics we're taking in on a daily, yearly basis, anything we can do to reduce dwell time in plastic or better yet not plastic at all, that would be an improvement in our family. We've made some changes. We're a lot less things that are being wrapped in plastic. The things are sitting in plastic more likely to absorb some of the plastic material. But cooking, you can reduce water bottles. No, not in plastic water bottles. So there's at least something you can do, but it's mainly paying attention. It's pretty obvious what the plastics are like for example, when you go to the grocery store, everything's in plastic bags.

 

Mel Robbins (14:21):

It's true.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (14:21):

It should be cloth. There's many ways, but it's mainly the attention to what things are being wrapped in or being cooked in or cooked with make a difference. I mean, for example, we used to have these Teflon coated things like a spatula. Now we have wood. Unfortunately, what we can do on an individual basis is somewhat limited, right? Because very little has been done to change the environmental burden that all of us face. I mean, we're breathing in these chemicals and nanoplastics, and so it isn't like you can change that very easily. So there's at least something you can do, but it's mainly paying attention.

 

Mel Robbins (15:03):

Well, one of the things that I think of immediately is that when I go to the grocery store, if I put something in one of those plastic bags in the produce section, I leave it then in my fridge for a week or two before I end up using it and cooking in it. So that's an example of the thing, bathing in it. And it's true when I go to the farmer's market, there's nothing in plastic.

Dr. Eric Topol (15:47):

Oh, no question. Because if you think about the fact that it's inversely everyone's blood now, and it wasn't 10 years, 20 years ago, detectable things have changed so much. This has become just enormous burden to us, and we don't do anything about it. So going back to your point about going to the market in bags, why aren't we using paper rather than plastic? Why isn't that the norm? I mean, we have become so dependent on this. It's so frustrating to watch this.

 

Mel Robbins (16:21):

Well, I can also tell how impassioned you are when you start to make the case about infertility rates rising sperm counts, lowering the spike in cancers that people are getting diagnosed with when they're young children, middle school, high school in their twenties, that are not the rates that people were diagnosed just 10, 20 years ago. I can see why as a researcher, medical doctor and one of the world's most respected medical researchers, literally in the world, that you're very upset and impassioned about this, what if we go through a couple items one by one and have you talk about how either the free chemicals in this thing or the plastic in this thing can impact your health and what changes to swap out? Does that sound cool?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (17:09):

Sure, sure.

 

Mel Robbins (17:10):

Alright, cool. I'm going to have our executive producer, Tracy, bring over a box of things and you can't see this. If you're listening on YouTube, you can watch this, but I'm going to narrate this as Tracy puts a gigantic and now I'm afraid to have this stuff near me because now I'm like, oh my god, doctor Topol just said this is all very dangerous stuff. So let's just start with, I've got Tupperware. Tupperware, i've just got big, you can hear it. These are in my cabinets right now. Talk to me about Tupperware.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (17:45):

Got in trouble. The Tupperware parties, and you think about that, is adding the plastic burden that we don't need at all. We should be avoiding plastic containers, which of course are everywhere. If we're going to wait another 10 years before we finally have this cause and effect, that's waiting much too long when we can do something now that's beneficial.

 

Mel Robbins (18:05):

Dr. Topol, I microwave in plastic all the time. Is that okay?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (18:10):

Hopefully that would be past tense because that is a double whammy here. You've got not only the microplastics that can get into the food from the plastic container, but now you're heating it up so you're really promoting it. We know if you heat up plastic, that's the way to get more nanoplastic into whatever you're going to consume. So you don't want to be using these for microwave.

 

Mel Robbins (18:36):

Plastic. Swap out for glass.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (18:38):

Yes.

 

Mel Robbins (18:38):

Because if your food is sitting in that, even though it's convenient, it is absorbing more plastic. So the more time something spends in it, and if you heat it up, even worse,

 

Dr. Eric Topol (18:47):

It's a double whammy, yeah.

 

Mel Robbins (18:48):

It's a double whammy because you're releasing more microplastics. Alright, I've got hairspray here.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (18:54):

Yeah, most of these hairsprays are chock full of forever chemicals, unfortunately, if they supply the ingredients and you see any fluorinated stuff in there? Fluorinated alcohol.

 

Mel Robbins (19:06):

Oh my god. It's the second thing.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (19:08):

Yeah,

 

Mel Robbins (19:08):

I can't read half this stuff, but this one has alcohol and then it's like hydrofluorocarbon 1 5 2 A. There's a metho cryolade

 

Dr. Eric Topol (19:19):

Oy vey, horrible.

 

Mel Robbins (19:22):

Really? Why is this horrible?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (19:23):

Because you're basically spraying forever chemicals on your head. Why would you want to do that?

 

Mel Robbins (19:30):

Okay, that's going down there. I don't want that. I have a scented candle that is so smelly that I can smell it from here. Bright blue candle, ocean mist.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (19:41):

Yeah, it's troubling. It could be emitting forever chemicals. Just the fact that you can smell it without it being lit and the color of it, right, as well as lack of ingredients. Does it say what's in there?

 

Mel Robbins (19:55):

There are absolutely no ingredients on this.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (19:57):

This is troubling. I mean, it's possible that there's no PFAS in it, but my guess is it's got plenty of them.

 

Mel Robbins (20:05):

How is a scented? See, I love candles.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (20:07):

I do too.

 

Mel Robbins (20:09):

But how is as scented candle a toxin in the environment?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (20:13):

Because now you're putting these right into the air, you're breathing, and so you're basically inhaling these forever chemicals, which you don't really want to put into your body.

 

Mel Robbins (20:24):

Is there a slightly better candle? Do you see the soy-based ones? I don't have any candles that are a color.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (20:32):

The color might be an indicator that we're getting into artificial stuff, but the question is why not put the ingredients like what you just had for the hairspray? Show us what's in it. We deserve that. And if it's got a fluorocarbon in there, we know and it's going to get in our body and we can't get rid of it.

 

Mel Robbins (20:53):

All right. Let's talk about deodorant. So this is a deodorant. This one, it's got alcohol and PG one 14 beauty ether, cy. I don't even know what the, I see. Paula. Is this an indication that this is problematic?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (21:09):

Well, if it has a fluorocarbon, anything with fluoride and carbon in there or alkylating agents, that's when you get the forever chemical. So that chemical bond is irreversible and just whether you eat something with it or breathe something with it, you're stuck with it forever.

 

Mel Robbins (21:31):

What about perfume? So I've got perfume here that hydro. Like hydro, okay. I see a lot of method to benzo. I can't read this stuff.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (21:44):

Yeah, that is incriminating. Again, at least it lists the chemicals. Some of them don't even list their ingredients, right?

 

Mel Robbins (21:50):

Yeah. I don't think mine lists my ingredient,

 

Dr. Eric Topol (21:52):

But if there's a forever chemical in there, which it sounds like there might, I would try to stay clear of that and stay with ones that have organic nonchemical stuff in them because then you're perfectly safe.

 

Mel Robbins (22:09):

What's so interesting about this conversation is I'm so psycho about moving my body and getting sleep and eating whole foods. I call it my grandmother's diet. I just try to eat local. I try to eat whole foods as much as I can. I don't eat out of bags and boxes whenever I can, and so I'm nuts. So about this kind of stuff, and I'm just slathering chemicals all over my body and spraying it on me to make it look good, and then drinking out of my plastic bottles and microwaving my whole foods and my plastic containers. It didn't even occur to me.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (22:42):

This was amazing. When I did the deep dive in researching all the evidence about this, it became much more alarming. I wasn't aware of this either. And there's still some holdouts. There's still some naysayers saying, oh, it isn't as bad as you think. But you know what? When you put these things together, all these so-called epidemiologic studies, large cohorts, and showing the increase of exposure and how this is so much associated with bad health outcomes and acceleration of our aging process, this isn't good.

 

Mel Robbins (23:16):

I've seen a lot written recently about also these free chemicals and plastics that are in women's products for menstruation and also baby diapers. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? What are you looking for the same thing and say the chemical again that we're all looking for?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (23:33):

Well, it's any per fluorocarbon.

Mel Robbins (24:06):

I also have this non-stick techno resistant pan here. It says that it's got titanium in it, it's coated with something. Why are non-stick coated pans a really bad thing to cook with?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (24:21):

That Teflon or other plastics is getting right into the food. The more you're using it, the more in microscopic quantities, but you're basically getting into your digestive tract and yeah, it's a problem.

 

Mel Robbins (24:34):

Well, and plus I would imagine Dr. Topol that as you're cooking something in here and using a plastic like cooking utensil and the heat is heating up the plastic on the pan coating and on the utensil, you're just releasing more microplastic from the utensil in the pan into the food that you're eating,

 

Dr. Eric Topol (24:54):

Just like the microwave of the Tupperware. Same thing. Heat is just going to increase the load of the nanoplastics into your body.

 

Mel Robbins (25:03):

I'm going to be emptying out a lot of the drawers at home. That's all I can say. What do you think about air filters in the house? I mean, should we all be having one? Is there a certain type of air filter that can help filter the air?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (25:15):

Well, we do have a problem with bad air, dirty air, and so we saw this of course through COVID, and so had we at our home or our workplace had better air filtration, we could have reduced the spread of COVID. And it's the same with the respiratory viruses, but it's also gets us to air pollution. Air pollution. When you get down to the 2.5 particulate matter, the tiny amounts of air pollution, the tiniest,

 

Mel Robbins (25:46):

That's What do you mean by that? What do you mean when you get down to the two? I don't know what that means.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (25:49):

So there's breakdowns of the pollutants in our air. The smaller you go, the more toxic, and again, just like we talked about with the microplastics and the forever chemicals, it's these small 2.5 particulate matter. These are the ones that are throughout our body inducing inflammation. And so anything we can do to have higher quality air, particularly with good filtration. So there are these HEPA filters, but even just exchanging the air. A lot of people like a fan. Yeah, well, fans or normally at a workplace. Now we have these so-called Merv 11, Merv 13. These are just air filtration systems that are exchanging our on a frequent basis. The more exchanges, the more filtration, the better quality air. Last year, the CDC for the first time said, we're going to make a move towards healthy buildings, and that sounded really good, but what's actually being done that involves much better ventilation and filtration systems, and there's little action that's actually been taken.

 

Mel Robbins (26:59):

So the reality is as I hear all this, it makes perfect sense. I'm not one of those people who's like, well, there's not enough evidence to me. If you look at the rise in cancer and the rise of infertility rates and the rise of diseases that people are being diagnosed with at ages in their teens and twenties and thirties that they weren't being diagnosed with 20, 30 years ago, it makes a lot of sense. There's no denying to me the connection of all this, but I feel like it feels out of control that, oh my God, there's teaspoons of plastic in my body that it's in my arteries, that it's everywhere around me. The air that we breathe has got God knows what in it. Every product that I'm buying is not labeled, so I don't know how to look for the free chemical. If you were to say, Dr. Topol, that there are three things that everybody can do and should do that would make the biggest impact in your environmental risks and mitigating against them, what would they be?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (28:04):

Well, I think firstly, it's to acknowledge that these environmental factors are very likely having inducing harm to our body. So the first thing is you got to have awareness of these big three air pollution, the forever chemicals and the microplastics or nanoplastics. So that's step number one. The second one is that we need to, what we can at on an individual level, family level, reduce the hit. There are many practical things that we can do that we've been reviewing, and that at least is doing something active towards trying to reduce the burden. The third thing is we need to start taking on the industry that is with the help of a government environmental protection. That should be a strong factor in all this, that these companies that are the most active in this space that are manufacturing, knowing their products first, not disclosing it in the labels.

 

(29:10):

Secondly, knowing that like we talked about with the problem that was unveiled with 3M, that why aren't they using other components that are not posing risk to our health? Because when you look at these factors, for example, now that we know that you can look at all the layers of a person's data and say,

Mel Robbins (30:21):

That's terrifying.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (30:22):

Yeah. Yeah. I always like to have the hardest evidence to make a conclusion, but this one here has a flashing yellow light, especially when in context of not doing anything about it.

 

Mel Robbins (30:34):

Well, when you and your work have been cited in 365,000 papers and you've got over 13,000 published papers yourself and you are alarmed, I'm like Defcon 10 over here thinking, get the plastic out of my house. What would you say, Dr. Topol though, to somebody who is listening somewhere around the world because our audience is global and there is a person that is listening to this who is going to feel so overwhelmed by the chemicals and pollutants that they are surrounded by because of where they live and feel like, well, there's nothing I can do. Obviously there's always something you can do, but what is the one thing that you would want this person who's feeling like, well, I live in a polluted area and there is no regulation around where chemicals are dumped. What's one thing to really take a look at for yourself?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (31:38):

Well, the things that we've been discussing, I think Mel, that at least will reduce that person's burden or their family's burden to some extent. And at least that raises awareness so that everything you're doing now is a bit different. That when you go to the grocery store or the farmer's market when you're cooking, you're much more conscious of these potential risks. It isn't like you said, DEFCON, this is not like you're going to die or you're going to wind up in the hospital. But these are this kind of chronic low level burden things that they're not helping. We know that much.

 

Mel Robbins (32:20):

It makes you also wonder, with the rise of autoimmune disorders and the massive increase in the last 20 years, when you see the rise of infertility rates, as you've suggested the rise in cancer diagnosis in young people, when you see the rise of autism diagnosis, it does make you wonder how are these environmental factors truly impacting people's genes, people's organs, the way the body metabolizes food and air, the way that the immune system works. And the fact that you're alarmed is very alarming to me.

 

Dr. Eric Topol (32:56):

Yeah, I think the problem we have is we're in a state of complacency. We've just accepted this. We've accepted this exponential rise of environmental toxins, all of which we've been discussing, induce inflammation in our body, pose a risk of every organ system, as you mentioned, including the immune system and inflammation. And we're just sitting here in some kind of denialism as if they're innocuous and they're not.

 

Mel Robbins (33:24):

I hear people doing cleanses, whether it's going on like a heavy metal cleanse or doing something to reset their health. Once you have microplastics in your system, can you get them out of your body?

 

Dr. Eric Topol (33:38):

The problem is the plastics and the forever chemicals are not degradable. So it's a unidirectional thing. You take them in and they're in residence, they establish resonance in our bodies. Who would want that? Who wants these foreign chemicals and materials in our body, especially when you see them, when you see them in an artery and then you see surrounding the plastics is this intense inflammation of all these cells that come in that are just, and then you look at the arteries that don't have the plastics in them, and it looks okay. You say, whoa, I don't want these in my arteries and I don't want these in my brain because they can't be doing anything good there. So that's the problem is they get throughout our body and they are inducing local inflammation, which is unhealthy. So here on the one hand, we have a lot of good things that we can do to promote healthy aging, but we got this problem that we're basically largely ignoring, and I hope that's going to change.

 

Mel Robbins (34:43):

Well, one thing that I am getting out of this conversation that I think is really important, number one, is that there are simple changes that I need to make, that our family needs to make now that I'm aware of it in terms of how we cook the products that are certainly in our kitchen, the way that I am heating up food, the containers I drink water in.