Sorry if I’m sounding like a broken record on this issue of toxins in our environment, but here’s a great article on the subject that appeared in today’s newspaper. I wrote an article two years ago for the paper on the same subject. Researching it was truly an eye-opener. I found there is very little regulation of the chemicals that go into personal care products. You can’t assume that just because it’s on the shelves or marketed as natural or formulated for babies that it’s safe. Lotions were the most consternating to me. Almost all of them have chemicals. But a blurb I read from a Spanish fashion model in a magazine gave me the perfect solution: olive oil. Now it’s my moisturizer of choice for myself and my children. It absorbs quite quickly, is inexpensive and is so pure you can eat it!

The cost of beauty: Most personal-care products are toxic

by Nancy Utter

Is beauty only skin deep? Maybe, but the creams, lotions and shampoos we put on our skin daily go deeper than the skin and into our bloodstream and organs.

The toxicity of body-care products is an important health issue. There is a cumulative, toxic effect from products most of us use every day.

The toxicity of body-care products is an important health issue. There is a cumulative, toxic effect from products most of us use every day.

Your skin is like a sponge and will absorb what you put on it. Substances absorbed from the skin go into the bloodstream, which carries them throughout the body. Most toothpaste, skin lotions, sunscreens, shampoos, conditioners, soaps and cosmetics contain toxic substances you do not want in your body. All of these products also end up in our waterways to affect us a second time when we use the water. Any plants or animals that come into contact with the water also are affected.

The following three chemicals are so common in body-care products that you will have to work hard to find products without them. This list is a small sample, and there are many more. Resources that can help you find safe personal-care products are listed at the end of this column.

Oxbenzone – This chemical is found in sunscreens, lip balms, lipstick, facial moisturizers, conditioners, anti-aging creams and fragrances. It is called a “penetration enhancer” because it helps other chemicals enter into the skin. It has been linked to allergies, hormone disruption, cell damage and low birth weights in babies exposed in utero.

Parabens – They’re found in shampoo, moisturizers, shaving gels, toothpaste, personal lubricants, topical pharmaceuticals and tanning sprays. Parabens are preservatives that have anti-bacterial and anti-fungal properties. Parabens have been classified by the Environmental Protection Agency as having estrogenic activity in the human body. They belong to a dangerous class of chemicals called endocrine disruptors. Parabens have hormone-like effects in body tissues.

Most of the products that contain parabens end up going down the drain and into our rivers and oceans where they affect the reproductive systems of every being they come into contact with. The EPA has stated that “continual introduction of parabens into sewage-treatment systems and directly into recreational waters from the skin is a serious risk to aquatic organisms.”

Sodium lauryl sulfate (SLS) – This detergent is found in almost all beauty-care products, including shampoo, soap, toothpaste, hair coloring, tooth-whitening products, foundation, body washes and most cleansers. SLS has been proven to cause canker sores and dry mouth. It is an irritant and drying agent that builds up in heart, liver, lung and brain tissue from skin exposure.

There are some great resources you can use to assess the toxicity of products you are using and to find products that are safe. The Environmental Working Group (www.ewg.org) has a site called Skin Deep (www.cosmetics database.com) that rates many body-care products according to their toxicity levels. It is information you can use to choose safe body-care products. Using safe products will protect your health and nourish your body and the environment.

drnancy@durangonaturalmedicine.comNancy Utter is a naturopathic doctor who completed a five-year training program at Bastyr University in Seattle. She works in Durango with people of all ages and varying illnesses. Green Medicine appears the second Monday of each month.

I mentioned I’ve been thinking about addiction lately and here are some further ruminations. Recently on The New York Times’ Motherlode blog there was a post about colleges calling underage students’ parents when they’ve been caught drinking. It made me think about another article I recently read in the New Yorker about anthropologists’ take on drinking.

That article, “Drinking Games” by Malcolm Gladwell, explored the differences among cultures in how people drink and even how they act when under the influence. The interesting and unexpected conclusion is that there is a great deal of variation among cultures in this regard. This seems counterintuitive because we’ve been taught to think of alcohol as a drug with predictable effects that correlate to the quantity consumed. But what if the way we drink and how we act is just as much a product of socialization and acculturation? What impact does that have for social policy? For parents wishing to teach their children responsible drinking habits?

It seems to me there is something problematic in the approach of expecting youth not to drink until full adulthood. Under this scheme — presuming everyone actually adhered to it — parents would essentially have nothing to do with educating their offspring about alcohol because their kids would already be on their own when the behavior begins. We all know that this is not how it occurs in reality. Instead kids drink on the sly, amid their peers in a milieu that emphasizes inebriation.

Still, I am not sure what a better alternative approach is and am conflicted on how I will handle it when my children reach that age. But I think the “no alcohol until 21″ approach is ineffective and counterproductive. I’ll come right out and say that I think the drinking age should be lower and the driving age should be higher. In the end, we accept that it is our responsibility as parents to teach our children how to lead a healthy lifestyle and if we omit to teach them about responsible drinking then essentially we’re leaving the job up to somebody else. I think colleges are right to call students’ parents over alcohol violations but the intent should be education and not punishment.

If you’re needing a good laugh, these are priceless. I was laughing out loud.

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/19/parents-say-the-darndest-things/

I’ve been thinking about addiction lately. A relative of mine is struggling mightily with this problem, prompting a great deal of concern among those of us who love him.

I’ve probably known more than an average number of addicts. My first job out of college was at a pysch hospital and various people I worked with were in recovery. I always seemed to get along well with them. Most of us go around trying to put on a good face for people, but recovering addicts tell it like it is. Honesty is what keeps them sober. And they always had interesting stories to tell.

I’m sure it was experiences past and present that drew me to David Sheff’s Beautiful Boy. It’s a father’s account of his promising young son’s descent into meth addition (I got it at the library in the “playaway” audio version, which is book and mini player in one and is the latest reason why I think we have the coolest library ever). The tale is heart-wrenching as Sheff watches his “beautiful boy” become a stranger.

“Yet he is a stranger whose every part I know intimately. I recall his soft eyes when they were elated and when they were disappointed, his face when he was pallid from illness and when he was burned red by the sun, his mouth and even each tooth from visits to dentists and the orthodontist, his knees from when he skinned them and I put on Band-Aids, his shoulders from putting on sun block, he feet from taking out splinters — every part of him.”

This passage gave voice to a nagging disquietude I’ve had about parenthood. There’s this being that you love more than anything in this world and know like the back of your hand but yet is completely separate from you. It’s like having an organ outside your body, exposed. When they’re young, like mine are, it’s easy to feel protecting them is within your power. But as they grow older, and more independent, we have to watch as they make their way in the world. Inevitably, some will wander into the insidious snare of addiction.

The hopeful message in Sheff’s account is that love can be the thread that draws addicts back from the brink (Nic Sheff wrote his own account of the experience in a book called Tweak. See them talking about their companion memoirs in this You Tube clip). The way back is fraught with uncertainty, and Sheff offers no simple solutions. The cure for addiction is as amorphous as the disease. But from what I have seen and read, it’s clear that for addicts — and troubled youth of all stripes – as long as they are alive, there is hope.

I am so thrilled that Nicholas Kristof is using his bully pulpit at The New York Times to sound the alarm on toxins in our environment. Everyday the evidence mounts that many common household products contain toxins that could be damaging to our children’s development. Kristof’s column today discusses evidence of a possible link between toxins and autism, the rising prevalence of which has alarmed and vexed researchers. Kristof notes that Sen. Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey is leading an effort to draft legislation that would strengthen the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Senator Lautenberg says that under existing law, of 80,000 chemicals registered in the U.S., the Environmental Protection Agency has required safety testing of only 200. “Our children have become test subjects,” he noted.

While the legislation would definitely be a step in the right direction, parents should take steps now to try and reduce their children’s exposure to harmful chemicals. This includes not microwaving food in plastic containers, using personal care products that are phthalate-free and avoiding most plastics marked at the bottom as 3, 6 and 7. Non-stick pans, especially at high temperatures, also have been found to release toxins.

A great source for more information on this subject is the Environmental Working Group.