Common Everyday Exposures That Can Impact Fertility and Pregnancy

What products that we use and foods that we eat might be harming our fertility or might impact a pregnancy. What should women who are trying to get pregnant or who are pregnant avoid and what should they do? We interview Dr. Tracey Woodruff, a Professor in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at the University of California San Francisco and the Director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment.

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Speaker 2 0:07

I am pumped about today's show. This is a topic I think about a lot personally and our guest is kind of a rock star in this field. We're going to be talking today about everyday exposures in our environment. We may not even know when we're being exposed, but they can impact our fertility and chances of a successful pregnancy. We'll be talking with doctor Tracey Woodruff . She is a professor in the Department of Obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco, and she is the director of the program on reproductive health and the environment. She is truly one of the top experts in the world in this topic and like I said, I am very excited to be talking with her. Well, thank you so much Dr Woodruff for being here today to talk with us. This is a topic. It's so important, so thank you.

Speaker 3 0:55

Yeah. I'm happy to be here to talk with your audience.

Speaker 2 0:58

I'll tell you a, not to give you, as my mother would say, not to give you the big head, but we were , uh , interviewing a experts on talking about medications and things like that. And uh, beforehand we were , uh, I was telling him what we were going to be covering in a couple of things that I had , uh, included in , uh , for us to cover were, were chemical exposures. And he goes, no, I tell you what, he goes, you really don't want to talk to me. You want to talk to Dr Tracy Woodriff about this . And this guy is known . He was no slacker in the field. And I laughed and I said, Oh, well, it just so happens that she's been on the show. Oh, she is. We have interviewed her before and we will , uh, so, so anyway. Yeah. So you have a reputation. Okay. That's good to hear that it's a good reputation. Yeah, exactly. It's always nice to know. Yeah . Alright . So I want to talk today about the impact on fertility and [inaudible] both male and female. Not necessarily know that we're a female and male fertility as well as on pregnancy. So I thought what the way we would organize this interview would be to talk about , um, and kind of in groups of things that we are exposed to in and out of everyday lives and, and what is it in that group that the research shows might impact our fertility. Uh, so that's Kinda the basic format. So let's start with , uh, with foods as someone who attempts to eat somewhat organically, but gets frustrated at it quite frankly. Um, so what are the , um , what do we know about the foods we eat that can impact? Let's start with let's say fertility and then let's move in and talked about what it might do with our pregnancies.

Speaker 3 2:45

Sure. So I think that , um, well let's talk about food in general. So there's the food you eat, right? The actual food that you put into your mouth, but there's also all the containers. The food comes in and both of them are important factors to think about when you're looking at your potential exposure to environmental or industrial pollutants. That can be in your food. It's just a back up a little bit from this, the food topic and just talk about chemicals in general. There are many chemicals that are used in a variety of different processes that are part of our everyday lives. So we're talking about food. That's a good example is in terms of just in the production of food, there is pesticides used in, in and around. Food. Food is also goes , uh , packaged food goes through a process where they, it's processed in a certain particular way. Think of milk, right? Those do plastic and a tubing, et Cetera , to get processed milk cartons. Um, think about , uh , uh , canning and what's going on with that or storing , uh , food and , and different types of plastic or other types of containers. And so the, the , uh , trip from the field or the animal to your mouth can come along with many different opportunities for exposures, different chemicals. So just to give some perspective, I chemicals themselves. We know , uh, right now in the United States, there's thousands of chemicals that are registered for use in the United States and thousands of pesticides that are registered for use in the United States. It's about 40,000 chemicals and several thousand pesticides. And we know that people are exposed to these chemicals , uh, multiple chemicals and uh , many of them can come from foods . So an example, I'm going to give our thalates that lights are chemical that are a class of chemicals that are plasticizers. So , um, that's one of the uses, which means that they can make hard plastic soft. They also have been used, which we'll talk about. And I think the other part of the interview, which is , um, in various types of consumer products, cause they can be used to convey sense. But let's talk about that lights and why they're important and how you can be exposed to them in food. So ballets are a part of a group of chemicals called endocrine disrupting chemicals or hormone disrupting chemicals. And what that means is that these chemicals can interfere with the hormone levels in your body. So, for example, Thali meets certain members of the Thali family have been shown to interfere with testosterone levels in the body, particularly when those exposures occur during developmental periods, like during pregnancy and in the fetus. And what that means is that valets can interfere with the production of testosterone. So if you get exposed to Thal AIDS , the testosterone levels can go down. And since we're talking about infertility, obviously testosterone is both key in terms of male development so that you're have a fully functioning male reproductive system and it could interfere with the functioning of that system as an adult. So

Speaker 2 6:07

let me make sure I'm understanding. All right, so what you're saying is, is I think we'll be talking a lot about different types of induction, endocrine disrupting chemicals and fat lakes being one of them. But if a woman is carrying a male fetus or a male, a baby in her, in her uterus during pregnancy and she is exposed beyond a certain amount or whatever, I guess we'll talk about that. But the tolerance level would be, or the exposure level and then it could impact the, the testosterone in her body, which does impacts her male fetus. Yeah . Because obviously the child, if the fetus will not be producing sperm for many years, but it could impact his ability in, in the future , uh, to, to have a healthy reproductive system.

Speaker 3 6:54

Right? So during pregnancy there's a surge of testosterone that happens, which is the prelude to basically the formation of the male reproductive system. So all the different parts start to drop down. And if you interfere with that, you can get high levels of valleys , which we've seen in animals studies can lead to , um, obvious birth defects. So cryptorchidism or Hypo Spadea. So undescended testicles are incomplete formation of the penis, which we do see sometimes in males at birth, but even lower levels of valet , it's can lead to more subtle feminization of the , um, of the male fetus and that we may not see tall, they are older. Those effects on their ability to produce high quality or volume sperm . So

Speaker 2 7:46

are we staying and how are we seeing an increase in these type of, of uh , I don't know if we call them disorders? Are we seeing an increase ? Because we know that our exposure, I don't know if it's continuing to increase, but it one would guess that if in fact it's having these, these impacts, we would see babies being born with more , uh , feminize features are , uh, undescended testicles are whatever , uh , malformations of the reproductive track . Right ,

Speaker 3 8:13

right. Well, I think one of the reasons people have became very interested in valley just because one thing that we are seeing is a decrease in sperm quality that , um, is being observed globally. And some of these studies that were very done very early, like in the 1990s, we saw there were studies showing that in different countries there was a decrease over time and sperm quality. So certain viabilities from volume. And um , I've a very important study that was published maybe about a year and a half ago. They looked at all the studies that have been done worldwide to look at trends in sperm quality. And what they found is that over the past 20 or 30 years, there's been a 50% reduction in overall sperm quality globally. So that is because that has occurred in a relatively short timeframe that can't really be because of genetic changes. There has to be something going on in the environment that's influencing that. And one of the things that people have been concerned about is the role of industrial chemicals. And this particular one [inaudible] is of high importance because of its ability to disrupt the endocrine system because it can influence testosterone levels and there and because we've seen an increase in the production of industrial chemicals both in United States and worldwide, it really leads that leads to being concerned about this chemical animal studies have shown that some of these satellites can disrupt testosterone synthesis, meaning making of the testosterone. And some of them have are , a few of them have been banned both in states like California, but also nationally. Um, but you know, they could still be used globally and they're often replaced with other validates . And the challenge that we have just in the way we address this on a by the government or in public policy is that we don't necessarily have, we don't have in the United States complete testing on all these chemicals cause it's not required by law. So then you could be replacing it with a chemical that is like its cousin. So because it has the same features that you have in the chemical, but it could also have the same health effects. So that's what we're concerned about. And I think the thing that's super interesting, I know we talked a while ago about that lights that um, when you were asking about food, because I'm , I'll talk about pesticide in a minute. But the thing that's interesting about valley , this is what we've seen from studies that we've participated in with other collaborators at other universities is that you can have higher exposure to Thali by eating more food that's basically prepared outside the home. So fast food, processed food that can contribute to increase exposures to thalates and it's not completely clear all the various pathways that may be that may be happening. Um, the reason I mentioned the milk production is because someone had done a study and finding some higher levels of validates in milk and they basically went back to try and figure out what's going on. And they determined that it was possibly from the tubing, like when they're milking the cow and then they have a goto tubing into the milk that even that , uh , amount of contact could increase the level of the lights in that product. So I think , yeah, so I think the bottom line on this is that eating processed food also has other adverse health consequences, right, of I that's one of the links to the obesity epidemic and diabetes. So the , the mess bottom line messages, eating more fresh food, eating more food prepared inside the home, fresh fruits and vegetables lower on the food chain can help reduce your exposure to something like valley . And there has been some studies to indicate that. Um, so that's uh, just on the, and there are probably other industrial chemicals in food that we haven't even really begun to grapple with one on . The other ones that we've seen some emerging research on is these perfluorinated chemicals. Uh , there are links to fertility are not quite as clear, but they're a chemical that we know can influence other types of adverse health outcomes, like has been linked to cancer, affects on thyroid hormones. And again, these are often in food packaging. So trying to minimize the amount of food that you get with that comes in packaged food is a good way to try and reduce your exposures to some of these chemicals that are being used in food packaging. So that's ,

Speaker 2 12:54

wait a minute before we, before we move on, I want to find out a little more about perfluorinated chemicals, but before we move off of foul lights, let me ask where people, you mentioned that they were used, they're a plasticizer. They're used in the creation of plastics and they're used to make plastics harder generally speaking. And so

Speaker 3 13:17

I'm sorry, that classics about hard and then you need to make it flexible so they add the valet , it's to make it flexible.

Speaker 2 13:26

Alright . So , uh , and they're not band and they're not included in the, and so you wouldn't know. There's no way to know is there a way if you're using plastics, is there a way to tell whether they would be by the, by the feel or by the look , uh, to know whether they would have higher rates of foul lights in them?

Speaker 3 13:44

Yeah, it's not clear that they're in the plastics that are, so let me just say , one of the things that's kind of, that's very challenging and also frustrating to deal with these chemicals in these types in whatever the materials are that could, that can contribute to our exposures are our personal exposures is that there's, again, this gets back to how the laws are set up. At least in the United States, there's not a requirement to disclose where all these different chemicals are being used in all these different ways. So a lot of, so what ends up happening is scientists and sometimes the government and public health groups end up being kind of like mini detectives trying to trace all this stuff down. So my understanding is they're not valleys are not highly used in plastics. Does people think that maybe the exposures are coming somewhere along the food preparation chain? It is true that uh, the primary source to some of these salads is from food, but I think we still have a lot to learn about exactly where it's happening. Um, I will say that the other thing I wanted to just point out is, you're right , validates are not banned universally. They're banned in children's toys products, but we've seen a decrease in the use in certain types of ballets just because of public attention and government scrutiny on their use in certain types of products.

Speaker 2 15:09

So there's not something that we can recommend for patients for infertility patients.

Speaker 3 15:17

I would, I think in general, avoiding fast food, processed food, take out food, fresh fruits and vegetables, and this is a win-win anyway, right ? Your patients, because you want in general, you want to have a healthy diet is important for your health. So eating lower on the food chain, eating fresh fruits and vegetables, food prepared in the home, that is likely to reduce your exposure to these various industrial chemicals. And also, you know, improve your resiliency to other types of health outcomes.

Speaker 2 15:55

Perfect. Now let's talk a little bit about perfluorinated . Uh, the , the , the chemicals. And where do you find those? And let me say that's per flora donated , uh , for people who are , uh, how I'm , uh , I'm seeing it too quickly. And I guess it sometimes goes by the acronym PFCs, but anyway,

Speaker 3 16:13

sees pfas per floor alcohol substances.

Speaker 2 16:16

Where do we find those things? What , um , first of all, may just in our everyday world, most of us have not heard about them. So they're an industrial chemical. I would, I would assume so. Where do we, where would we, how would we know about them?

Speaker 3 16:30

Yeah. So people may find them. Yeah. So some people may know about them by their more popular name, which is a Teflon. So these are the Teflon , this is in the Teflon family of chemicals. So these are , uh , chemicals that were originally developed to be part of your nonstick stain. Resistant chemicals are the more popular ones are [inaudible] or p fos , but there's a whole family of these perfluorinated chemicals. Um, they're found in many different types of applications. So as I've mentioned there , your nonstick or your state chemicals that are used for stain resistance. So they're used in fabrics at the Euston , um, Teflon pans . So all the nonstick they haven't used in nonstick cookware. Um, they've been used in fabric, stain resistant fabrics, nonstick fabrics , um, they have been used in a lot of other applications that we might not have thought of. So for example, I've seen one study where they talked about how it was used in a certain type of dental floss so you can be exposed to these. So again, the laws in the United States, you could use these chemicals wherever you want without EPA really addressing them. I mean, they have a new process, but it doesn't require that all these industries say, where are we using it? And we've tested it completely for safety before we use it in these things that people buy , for example, put in that route . So I think this is an area where we want patients to be as knowledgeable and as active as I can about making sure they make the, you know, they can, they have the power to make the best choices for their health. But there is also a part of this sets, you can't, you can't and you shouldn't be expected to do all that yourself. You really need to have the government step up and do its job to make sure that these industries are not using chemicals that could harm you or your ability to get pregnant

Speaker 2 18:36

on these. And these chemicals , uh, the, the, the PFCs and, and , uh , Flon and others , do they affect , uh, females and males , uh, with, or are they the same kind of an endocrine disrupting chemical? So they affect both men and women?

Speaker 3 18:53

Um, so they have been linked to changes in thyroid hormone levels and , um, so thyroid hormones, I guess thyroid hormones are part of the endocrine system. Thyroid hormones are important for normal homeostasis. A lot of science has been focused on thyroid hormones as important for brain development during the fetal period, but it could influence a woman's ability to get pregnant as well. I think there's not quite as much research in the air in the fertility area around perfluorinated chemicals. There's been a lot of work around if you're exposed to these chemicals and will that affect the health of your, the future babies . So there's been work around that. It's chemical. The other thing that's it . So two of the chemicals have been phased out of use in the United States, PFO of [inaudible] , but there are other chemicals that have replaced them. But the challenge with this chemical, which is true for other chemicals that are like this, is that people refer to this as the forever chemical because once it , it has this chemical property that once it gets out, it doesn't break down and it persists and it tends to , people can tend to be exposed to it continuously and once they're exposed, it doesn't go away from their body. It takes a long time to be released from their body. So I think that it's great that p PFOA and p Phos have been , uh, have been phased out of use in the United States. But the problem is now is that because it hangs around for a very long time, there's still more opportunities for exposure. So it's been a lot of interest recently because are these perfluorinated chemicals are showing up and drinking water supplies in many areas of the United States and at levels that are of potential health concerns. So this is why people are concerned about this particular group of chemicals. And also there are other perfluorinated chemicals that are still on the market and it's unclear what their potential for health effects are. But we, some of them look very similar to Pico on p Fos . So it's likely that they will be, have some type of health concerns. But you know, this is an area where there's a lot of active science going on.

Speaker 2 21:17

Well that's good to know actually. All right, so, but , but we can be exposed through our food . And another thing, another thing that we can obviously be exposed to in our foods are pesticides. Yes. Um , so let's talk about , uh , some of the pesticides and in your body . I'll also want to talk, we can talk about for here in the u s but I also think it's important to talk about pesticides used in other countries because quite frankly, I mean, if you go to the store and you're looking at the fresh fruits and vegetables, you have to look. But the vast majority of when , when you see asparagus in the summer, it is not being grown. You know , where the temperatures are, 80 degrees, you're getting it somewhere else. And the same with, you know, blueberries in the winter or, you know, whatever your , you know, we're , we're getting produce from all over the world. So let's talk about the pesticides we're exposed to here in the u s when we do have regulations, but what do we need to look for and, and food we're buying from other countries.

Speaker 3 22:17

Yes. So, so pesticides, as you know, pesticides include things that are designed to kill pes , things that are designed to and include like rodenticides, rodents, rats, mice , um, things that are designed to kill weeds, herbicides, and they're all designed to be active on those, on those , uh, organisms, right pass wheat road . And so there of course already have inherently some type of health concern because of the way that they're designed. Um, so you can be exposed to pesticides, through your, the food in your diet as you have mentioned. Um, and that they could be because it's used here in the United States or can be, can come in from other international places and have , um, pesticides in it. So , uh, I , I wanted to say also that sometimes works. We can be exposed to , uh , chemicals in the food from pesticides that have been used a long time ago. So for example, the United States, our cynical pesticides have been , uh , widely used , uh, widely used in certain fields like cotton. And then those crops were faced in some places where phased out and replaced with something like rice. And so you can be exposed to arsenic in rice. Um, even though they may not have sprayed arsenic on the rise, but because the arsenic is already in the ground, otherwise it's very efficient at absorbing arsenic though it's some if becomes a historical problem that can come to come back and revisit us. So I just want say something about that is really interesting or great about the science that on pesticides is that there's been actually a lot of studies showing that if you eat an organic diet you can reduce your exposure to certain types of pesticides. For example, organophosphate pesticides. And there actually was also a systematic review, meaning they did a , a a a evaluation of the literature in a systematic way and to uh , understand what the breadth of the literature said and they concluded that if you eat an organic diet you can reduce your exposure to some pesticides. So there is eating an organic diet does reduce your exposure to certain types of pesticides. I mean your question about food coming in from other countries. I think that's a good question. I think it's a little more tricky because I mean I think there's, I'm not that familiar with how the law works in terms of food coming from Internet from other countries. I assume that there is probably some kind of regulation around that, but some of it depends on enforcement and you know the federal agency that enforces that has to do some type of monitoring on that food and um, you know, it's fine if you catch it but that , you know, the monitoring us not probably up to scale of the amount of food that's coming in. So it's ,

Speaker 2 25:17

here's the $64 million question that everyone who is trying to eat organic wonder or even not just organic does washing your fruits and vegetables really help.

Speaker 3 25:28

Oh my God, you don't , that is so interesting in your attic . I mean in general I've seen studies that say yes, that's a good idea but I've also just seen some recent stuff saying it probably doesn't help. I will tell you something that is helpful is that environmental working group does a very nice guy cause some people don't want to buy everything organic, which is fair. Um , and they recommend the top 12 things to buy organic and the top 12 things that don't really matter if you buy organic. And in general, the way it parses is because , um , actually I can talk about this, but the generally the way a parts is, is that things that you can feel like a banana or avocado generally that you can, you probably won't get too much pesticide exposure. Uh, uh , if you buy that and that things that are more systemic like strawberries, peaches, those types of things better to buy organic. I will say though, when I raised this issue about arsenic and rice and it is true, you can get , um, exposures to , um , arsenic from rice can be relatively high. You can actually reduce the arsenic exposures by washing the rice very thoroughly until the water's clear. And that will reduce your exposures by, I've seen anywhere from 30 to 60%, something like that. So , um, I wash my rice outside.

Speaker 2 26:46

Well you know, and actually in Asian cooking they always tell you to wash your rice. Anyway, I have read that and I am wondering if you have seen this as well. Um, that uh , actually the arsenic levels tend to be higher and brown rice, which took me completely by surprise. I don't know why. I guess because I always uh , I had shifted to brown rice cause I thought we were getting more, you know, more fiber. But uh , have you read any studies on that?

Speaker 3 27:08

Yes, I have seen studies on that. I know it's, it's is one of the challenges. It's like, oh I can use a, yes. Well it turns out that the whole surrounds the white part is extremely efficient and picking up arsenic, I think not as much as other ones, but apparently arsenic loves the haul of the rice and that's where it goes right into that hole . So when you eat brown rice, you are basically eating the whole, when you take the hall off, it reduces the amount of, of arsenic in the rice. Now, I mean, it is true also that the levels of arsenic in the rice vary depending on where it comes from. So , uh , places that have naturally occurring are stuck in their water where they grow rice, that's an issue. And then places like the south and it actually in a few places in California where they used our cynical pesticides on like cotton crops and then they've converted it to rice. You can also get , um , high levels of arsenic. So I think it's , um, yet that is a dilemma. You , I mean, in this case though, of course, if you're eating and don't eat mono foods, right? Eat a variety of foods. And I mean, rise probably it's , you know, there are cultures who that is an important part of their diet and it's important to eat that along with other fruits and vegetables that are also important.

Speaker 2 28:31

All right , so any other before we move off of foods, any other , um, let's talk about the containers. Is that truly an the containers that we , we store our food in?

Speaker 3 28:43

Right, right.

Speaker 2 28:45

But I mean, how big of a deal is that? I mean there's such a movement now for everybody's shifting to and has been for awhile . Everybody is shifting to glass and assuming we all know or hopefully everybody knows that you should not heat plastic containers . Huh. Um, so assuming that you're not heating your food and in a microwave or stove or whatever, and on a , with a plastic container, does it really matter if your food is just sitting in a plastic container or a , should we all be switching to our , um, very , um , you know, Brooklyn [inaudible] , uh, the , uh, glass containers.

Speaker 3 29:21

Yeah. So I guess I look at this as a matter of degrees. So like you said, not microwaving in plastic, good practice. I think that, why is that? And let's say, you know, we aren't necessarily sure what's in the plastic studies are, you know, may not be a lot of that, but it's just a precautionary approach because things basically heating up plastic things start to migrate and they can migrate into your food. So from that kind of stand point , trying to keep hot food at a plastics is probably good practice. Um, the other thing that , uh, that chemicals love to stick to our fats fatty food. Actually I saw a really fascinating study once where people were looking at an oil in the kitchen. Like you know, you , if your stove is kind of dirty with oil and they were comparing that to a spot that didn't have any oil and they were looking at valets and the valleys just loved being in those oil spots. It's like,

Speaker 4 30:24

Oh man, they're going to go crazy on my stove . Oils . Okay. Safe Bet I won't be eating off the oil smarts. Okay.

Speaker 3 30:37

So interesting. Cause I mean you don't think of like what the , what we call in science as a sake, meaning that they like absorb these chemicals. But it is true, there is a lot of chemicals that love that. So if you think that there's chemicals in your plastic, which we know that chemicals are uh , plastic containers are made with plasticizers and you put fatty food into them, they could migrate into that. Dude , how much is it? I don't, you know, this is like, I'm not saying this is been settled or anything like that, but I just, I'm, I guess what I'm saying is, you know, it's good practice to be [inaudible] as you can given all the constraints that you have and if you want to move to glass, great. But I, I myself have plastic containers cause you know, it's what you often get in the store and I use them for certain types of things and over time I tend to replace them when I can, but I'm not um, you know, going out and throwing everything away. I think what this does speak to though, just on the plastic, I mean we were talking about the issues about plastics and health. I mean, but there is a whole tie in with plastics and ecological health in terms of the growth of single use plastics and essentially petroleum related products. And it is good just when you're trying to be aware of the amount of plastics in your life, trying to think about reducing it because single use plastics do end up somewhere. They don't really go away and that, and they're not really, really recycled completely or not yet . Some of them are not recycled at all. So it's in general just good practice anyway for the environment to try and move away from them where you can. Um, I wanted to say something else about the plastics. Uh, you were saying, oh, the other thing is, you know, the uh , one of the other chemicals which we haven't talked about too much but also is , uh , actually has gotten a lot of attention because of exposure to it through food is BPA . VPA is a, is a chemical that is used to make heart , uh , has been used to make polycarbonate plastics . So it's in a lot of hard plastics. We've seen a lot of phase out of this over time because of the attention about its , its potential , its health effects, but it's also been used in the lining of canned foods. So, yeah, you know, this another thing that we recommend, and again, it's , it's really hard to go to the grocery store and you're trying to buy whatever, 30 things and you have to like think about every single thing. So just a general rule of thumb, we recommend, you know, you buy your fresh fruits and vegetables or buy them frozen. It's probably an easier way to address this and trying to sort out cancel. There are a lot of canned goods now that are BPA free. So I have to say, I'm not completely sure what's in their lining, but anyway,

Speaker 2 33:27

it's hard to fry it. It truly is because , um, uh, it's truly hard to, and it's hard to know when you're buying them. Um, the, and , and the w the one product that's hard to buy frozen are , uh , well fresh, but even in the winter they taste lousy. And that's tomatoes. So , you know , and they'll , if you're cooking and you want to, you know, use in the winter using and tomatoes and it's really , uh, and it's, it's hard to find them that are , don't have linings in the cans.

Speaker 3 33:57

Yeah, that is true. That is true. So I mean, and I like a lot of these types of um, you know, again trying to make holistically or whole choices that reduce your exposures and increase your resiliency. So if you're eating fresh fruits and vegetables, that's going to put you on a healthier track and then you can help mitigate some of the effects of some of these exposures. I mean we know that is true for some types, like a lead exposure. Some of the effects can be mitigated by having a higher quality diet, more iron content. So it's , it's just you want to be, I think this is why we come back to, it puts a lot of burden on us and the consumer to try and figure this all out. So wouldn't it be a lot better and actually seems appropriate that the people who are putting the burden on us should maybe should have to figure out about not whether these chemicals are toxic before they go into products. And then eliminating those that are so that, that's why we keep coming back to, you know, making sure that the government is doing its job to ensure that the, that we don't have to be exposed to things that aren't going to , that are going to harm our health.

Speaker 2 35:17

And let me say, for those people who are listening, we are very aware that this can feel overwhelming. It can also make you paranoid that you know, just existing you are exposed to. It feels like you're exposed to things that can impact your fertility and when you're pregnant, everything it feels like isn't a potential on your, your baby. However, at the end we're going to try to summarize and give you a few, few things to take away, a few tips to take away that will hopefully simplify this. But we want to keep going , uh , into detail now. Um , and then we will, we will try to bring it around and simplify things. All right, so we've talked about , uh, food and food containers and, and chemicals , uh, that , uh, can come in through the growing of the food as well as pesticides, herbicides, rodenticides and things such as that.

Speaker 5 36:13

Let me pause for a moment to say, this show is underwritten by our corporate sponsor fairing pharmaceutical for women who had been undergoing fertility treatment and are still struggling to conceive. Ferring wants you to know about the fertile calm app is designed specifically to help women address the mini challenging emotional life situations that arise just naturally coming up when you're struggling to conceive a , you could get more information@fertittacalmapp.com . Now let's talk about our beauty products.

Speaker 2 36:47

It at least arguably, we have , uh , more control over that. Uh , perhaps not, but , uh, let's talk about , um, the, what are some rules of, well, first of all, what are the chemicals of greatest concern and how do we , uh, how do we avoid them?

Speaker 3 37:04

Yeah. So , uh, it's interesting, some of the chemicals that we are concerned about in food are also some of the chemicals we're concerned about in beauty products, which validates though some of them have been taken out of the product chain more efficiently than others. But validates are a group of chemicals they're used in the scent that you often smell with beauty products. Um, there can be chemicals that are things that are known carcinogens, like , uh , formaldehyde that had been founded, some beauty products. Um, you can have other types of um , volatile organic compounds, basically compounds that are , um, can have a variety of different types of health effects. I think it's , uh , there's a lot of at , there's parabens which are used in a lot of beauty products and there's come concern for those chemicals because they appear to influence the hormone system. So it's, and you can, the thing that's interesting or great about beauty products is you can actually look on the back of your, anything that you buy, they have to list all the ingredients that are using in those products so you can actually see everything they're using. I admit even, I mean I look at them and many of them , um , I scratch my head. So that's kind of one of the challenges is that a lot of these things that we use are like, oh , what is this? And as it really been tested, maybe not. So I think some rules with that thing it's you were said about beauty products is that um , we can, you know, decrease the number or decides you use different ones. So there is some control over that. Uh, there is a lot of activity going on to try and make again or through the policy process to have those that are toxic chemicals in them eliminated. So some things that are important is to try and choose the products that are fragrance free. I think that one of the , um , one of the things that is , uh , a challenge is that you can get a lot of different types of [inaudible] . So the thing is a lot of products come with the same size, whatever, solicit perfume , fragrance, whatever. But the way the law works in the United States is everything that's put under that category is co is a quote trade secret. And so we don't actually know what chemicals are used in there. So there can be many, many different types of chemicals that are using . Their valets is one of the ones that we know is used as in that category and some of those chemicals could be toxic. So choosing things that are fragrance for me is pretty easy. And then you can also reduce your exposure to whatever they're putting in there. Um, there's a great guy that's put together by um , the safe cosmetics group, which basically ranks products in terms of what we know about the top toxicity of the different chemicals that are in there and also gives you some information about if there's chemicals used in that product that um, we don't have a lot of data on to understand its health effects. So that's another way to also kind of make more smart consumer choices. It's, I will say, having gone through this process myself, it's overwhelming at first to try and sort through everything. But I think with a little bit of investment you can kind of figure out the products that work for you and then just continue to kind of focus on uh , remaining in that product category. Take showers. I guess.

Speaker 4 40:48

I don't know why my husband would she have

Speaker 3 40:52

free and it worked for him. So I dunno , you know, different people have different things they're doing, but I in general try and choose, I think less is more in this situation. Right? So try to choose products that have less ingredients, less fragrance , you know, have been vetted by uh , these, these public health groups that are working to try and figure out what's in them I think will help. You can also start to minimize some of your exposures in that area.

Speaker 4 41:22

Have you heard of the app? Think dirty? No, I'm going to look it up right now. It is, it's a, it's a great app. I think I had my , I am not an expert it at all, but ,

Speaker 2 41:34

and I believe it's three . And you, you use the app to read the Barcode.

Speaker 3 41:39

Oh , oh yeah . Yeah.

Speaker 2 41:42

And it pops up and it will tell you I was looking, I had downloaded it and I was getting ready to buy some lipstick and I'm , I checked it out with the Barcode and I went, oh my , and I , this was a, this was like a two , a two or three months ago. And I think it gave me a writing, which told me that I should not be buying it. They had a lot of fragrance. I had a lot of stuff. Uh, so that's, I mean, just, I throw that out there as a, yeah,

Speaker 3 42:07

that's great. The other one I know of is skin deep. That's the other one. Um, that also does the same thing cause skin deep, which is done by the state for cosmetics. Uh, uh, a group, oh, this is interesting. I didn't know about this. This is great.

Speaker 2 42:22

And , and I think there , there's an app called the Good God , uh , that also may , uh, that also talks about the giving you good information about the, the chemicals in a product. I've never used that one. So I, I don't speak and I've, and honestly I've not used think dirty very often either. Well , um ,

Speaker 3 42:40

oh, they're partnering with Breast Cancer Fund in the campaign for safe cosmetics. So that's good. I mean I think those groups are all kind of collaborating together to try and create a options for you to look at it. I mean, the other thing that's been amazing just even over the last 10 to 15 years is there's more companies who are selling personal care products that are, that don't have the chemicals that have been identified as toxic. And there is lines that are in , um , some of them are in these more kind of holistic pharmacies or you know , that whole foods. But you do see that it just a little bit of searching on the Internet. You can find , um, beauty Caroline's that are selling tox well as much as we know, but Thomson free products. So,

Speaker 2 43:27

yeah. And honestly, you can do it on a, if you're buying from Amazon, you can just type in paraben-free , um , less toxic , uh , unscented and then read reviews. Uh , I don't know how, how good that is as far as, I mean, how accurate the reviews are. Um, but I have done that as well. Um, yeah, so another, another things that, those are things that we can do and that can at least give us ideas on how to get , uh , fewer chemicals. All right . And what about, I'll say

Speaker 3 43:59

one more thing about this. Sure. Uh , I just, I , I cause I actually that the way that language is used for labeling is very important because some things are regulated and some languages not. So for example, organic is you have to meet a certain type of definition that's put out by USDA in order to be an organic product, but you don't to be a natural product. Um, so in terms of these personal care products, which will also come up with this , the cleaning products and I'll s uh , is this term fragrance free versus unscented? And I actually, I, yeah, I know.

Speaker 2 44:33

What is the difference? I didn't know. I thought they were ,

Speaker 3 44:35

I know, right. So up fragrance free means that the product does not contain fragrance chemicals. So , um, but unscented means that they can put other chemicals in it to hide a sense . So that actually is a very interesting difference. So I , um, so I had no sending means. There was no odor, but that could be because other chemicals are put in to mask the whatever scent it hat. So I guess the bottom line for me is I'm going to be choosing fragrance free.

Speaker 2 45:15

Uh , you know, the, I think when I have a thinking particularly of shampoos, I probably have been using unscented, not knowing the distinction. But next time I buy I will look for fragrance for, yeah,

Speaker 3 45:29

I know . See we learned something every day in this job.

Speaker 2 45:36

Yes, we do sometimes more than that . So now moving on to cleaning products , um , you know, they seem harsh and so it does seem, I mean, many of them do. Um , but it does seem like the ones that have more stuff in 'em clean better. So, so let's talk about what chemicals that we know of that can impact fertility or can impact pregnancy in our cleaning products. And let's say both household as well as Cla , you know, clothes washing , if , if the, if there's a distinction.

Speaker 3 46:08

Right. So , um, okay, so in terms of cleaning products, so right there is what you wash your clothes in, but also the cleaning products that you use in your home. So the, again that the issue with , uh , chemicals being put into either create a scent or a mask, a set , so those in itself, so the smell can be , uh, potentially contained , uh , toxic chemicals. And then , um, there are other types of things that are used in cleaning products that may be toxic. And , um, and I think it's a , uh, so I think there's, I think since I kinda the same, the similar things that we're concerned about in our food and other types of areas also can be a problem. So I think one of the things that we've been kind of interested in is , um, that we are seeing some of these chemicals, which actually we don't really know a lot about but are highly used. There's a , like a group of chemicals called walks Q, a cs , which are quite normally and a means, which I actually even still have a hard time pronouncing, but they've been shown in some animal studies to actually be reproductive toxicants. Um, and they're used in some cleaning products but really don't have a good understanding about the potential for exposures and , um , fully their health effects I would say. Um, also things that happened in oxide, like those types of things can also be toxic. I think that , um , one of the things,

Speaker 2 47:55

what are they, what about the oxide? A chemical, what are they in?

Speaker 3 47:59

Well, yeah, so here I'm like, this is going to be a little bit out of my total issue area, but , um, I think it , that varies on a different type of cleaning products. I guess what we have just do in general is that we say is you can use cleaning products that are nontoxic and don't cost any money. So , um, things like vinegar and baking soda are fine products to use for cleaning.

Speaker 2 48:28

Okay. So, and they had actually, and it's so baking soda and vinegar actually are effective at cleaning , um , doing the cleaning that we need.

Speaker 3 48:36

Yeah. And sorry, go ahead.

Speaker 2 48:40

I was going to say in a lot of the antibacterial , uh , fetish that we seem to be in as a nation has been really shown not to be , uh , not to be good for our health, for one and in general. Um , but , uh , not necessary.

Speaker 3 48:53

Right. And I will say, right, so there has been a lot of, right, so there's like those hand sanitizers that have triclosan in them. I mean that actually the FDA is looking at that because trickle sand doesn't seem to be effective in terms of , of course, triple sand is one of those chemicals that used in many different things. But , um, Triclosan is a also, it's not if both is an antibacterial, so it kills a lot of the bacteria, which is a challenge because you want to actually don't want to kill all the bacteria because that released and up bacterial resistance. But also it's a been found to disrupt the thyroid hormones. So , um, that is one that's in , can be found. I think it's been, I have to say though, that FDA is, I think put it, either evaluating it or put it said that they're recommending it not be used in hand sanitizers and soaps because it's also not been found to be effective.

Speaker 2 49:56

Well, in general, if you can avoid buying any cleaning products that have antibacterial properties, but it's sometimes hard , um , because that's, it's a selling, it's a marketing tool, so, right. Yeah. It's , it's not always easy , uh , because I make a real point of it and it's sometimes hard. Right ? Right.

Speaker 3 50:15

But I think again, things like that lights are also found in some of these scented cleaning products. So that's a problem. Um, sometimes you see , uh , things, I think some cleaning products may be very specific, like spot or carpet and carpet upholstery. So that could have things like perchloroethylene in it, which is used sometimes in dry cleaning. But then quaternary ammonium compounds, which I mentioned, which are quads which are , uh, can be found in, like I said, cleaning products can be labeled as antibacterial, actually can be found in fabric softeners. I'm concerned about them because I've seen some studies suggesting they could be important for reproductive health risks. And then there are some things that, you know, for example, ammonia and chlorine, you really don't want to be exposed to a lot of that because it will, it can be a respiratory irritate . I don't know. I'm not sure what the studies are about infertility, but they can lead to other types of , um, health effects.

Speaker 2 51:17

You mentioned dry cleaning and I wanted to bring that up. Um , should we avoid dry cleaning , uh, from a , uh, well, let's talk about it from a fertility standpoint , a pregnancy standpoint, and then a general health because when you pick up up , uh , something from the dry cleaners, there is definitely, the smell is still there.

Speaker 3 51:36

So perchloroethylene has been one of the solvents that's been using dry cleaning. It's a, a possible carcinogen. It's a neurotoxic meaning it can affect brain. It's probably developmental neurotoxin. If something affects the brain and probably affects developing nervous system, but generally a chemical that has those types of health effects probably has some influence on reproductive health. We'll have to say I'm not as familiar with this . Reproductive health affects and perchloroethylene now has been phased, been phased out or looking at to phase out in some states to think California has been looking at that. Um, I do think that in general there are other methods to dry clean your clothes that I have seen articles on that are don't involve solvents. So I think that's a good option. I personally choose to try and clean as many of my clothes on the gentle cycle in the wash or handwash without trying to go to the dry cleaners. I know it's tricky because some close as dry clean only, but I do think reducing your reducing that helps. There were definitely studies back, you know, from maybe the eighties and nineties showing that you could, when you picked up your clothes from the dry cleaners, there could be significant offgassing to some of these chemicals from the dry cleaners and a lot of dry cleaners have been switching out some of it for air pollution reasons. So I think you have to check locally about what's going on and you can choose. Now Green cleaners though it's important to make sure they're not using other types of chemicals but are actually using , um , processes that are, you know, basically chemical free

Speaker 2 53:25

[inaudible] and you'll find

Speaker 5 53:26

that , um, ISU , uh, have have found that very often I can wash things on the gentle cycle. Um, so far I haven't ruined anything, but your mileage may vary, let's be honest. Yeah, that is true. This show and everything up and a lot of , of the other resources that we do here at creating a family could not and would not happen without the generous support of our partners. And these are clinics that believe in our mission of providing unbiased , uh , medically accurate information to the patient community. One such partner is Fairfax cryobank. They are a u s based leading source for sperm and one of the largest selections of sperm and donor sperm products and storage solutions. They have six sites across the u s and they provide a large and diverse selection of donors , um, and you can get more information about [inaudible]

Speaker 2 54:28

them at their website. All right . So we've talked about , um, the , uh , cleaning products. We've talked about general household products. Um, is there anything else that we've left out that, that you think of that we need to be aware of before we try to , uh, summarize and bring things down to a , uh, a doable level? So, so we've, we have up to this point, overwhelmed everyone. So what we would like to do at the end is kind of, if , if possible, simplify. So what, what are some of the top tips that you tell people who are either trying to conceive or know that in the future they will want to conceive or they're pregnant? Uh , what are some things that they can do that they can actually implement , um, and not go around being afraid of, of Vacherie just living in this world?

Speaker 3 55:19

Right. So some of the things I tell people, mostly what I focus on are the things that I also try to do that are simple and cheap and um, and also available. So one of them is eat fresh fruits and vegetables, lower on the food chain up and to eat a diet that is , uh, essentially more from food that I prepare in my home home that I buy at the store and I prepare my own health . That's um , and there's a lot of resources available about ways to make cooking a more simple process. The other thing I also recommend is where you can to buy organic again because it's available in many, much more available than it used to be. And it's accessible at the store and there are resources that you can use like the environmental working group, top 12 things to buy organics . So you can pretty much figure that out. Don't spray or has sites in the home or even outside the home. Uh , again, there's , uh , uh , that there's resources that show you ways to , to mitigate the pass coming into your home or less toxic alternatives. Another one I want to say is also eat pretty easy to implement and can help is to take your shoes off and the wash your hands before meals. So , um, that's because a lot of chemicals are in dust, so they may be originally in your products, but they migrate out and then they get in the dust and then you're exposed to that. So taking your shoes off outside the home, washing your hands before you eat and using a wet mop are always to reduce and to have been shown in some cases to be effective, to reduce your exposures. And then where when you're buying things, choose things that are fragrance-free. Don't buy things with cents in them because that tends to those wall , um, have chemicals and , um, try and reduce your use of plastics where you can. So on our website, which I think we might have , uh , sent to you, which is , uh, or if you just put it in your search engine , uh , program and reproductive health, the environment you CSF, toxic matters. We have a series of brochures that people can download and it links to other information about easy tips that you can use to reduce your exposure to toxic chemicals or other types of industrial chemicals that we may not yet know that are toxic in your everyday life.

Speaker 2 57:56

Thank you so much Dr Tracey Woodruff . This has been fascinating and I, it's also really important because when you're trying to conceive and especially if it's not happening as soon as you want it to, we want to take control. We want to be able to do something. And this is something that people can actually do.

Speaker 3 58:15

Yes. And the other thing I really want to say to people is to not blame themselves for this because I know it feels like we should have control over this, but some of this we don't have control and we should. The government that we do control is supposed to be doing this job of making sure that anything that's sold on the marketplace comes to the marketplace with chemicals that have been tested and are not so that we know that they're safe for the use at our exposures. So I encourage people to be engaged personally on this issue, but also actively letting the government now and everyone should vote. So that's my other recommendation.

Speaker 5 58:59

Okay, thank you. The views expressed in this show are those of the guests and do not necessarily reflect the positions of creating a family, our partners or our underwriters. Keep in mind that the information given in this interview is general advice to understand how it applies to your specific situation.

Speaker 2 59:17

You need to work with your infertility professional. Thank you so much and we will see you next week.