G. Spence

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Light It Up!

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Eureka!

The iconic symbol representing a good idea is getting a permanent upgrade.

Thomas Edison was the first to successfully patent a functional and marketable incandescent lightbulb in the 1800s and we’ve been relying on this technology for the last 150 years. The basic principle of incandescent light is that light is produced from heat. In this case, heat is passed through a very tiny filament in the vacuum created by the bulb until that tiny filament begins to glow, producing light. This is why a light bulb is warm to the touch, even after it’s been turned off. Without the glass surrounding the bulb, the filament, often made from tungsten, would oxidize in the open air and burn right up. Additionally, 90% of the energy used to light an incandescent bulb is emitted as heat, which, unless it is being used as a candle warmer or other heat-centric device, is quite a big waste. Even so, while alternatives like the fluorescent light bulb may have taken over the commercial scene, incandescent bulbs are still the least expensive option upfront for most residential settings.

That being said, LEDs are steadily rising in popularity as more people understand the advantages of their long-term value. LED light bulbs might be a little more expensive but they outlast incandescent bulbs lasting 50,000 to 100,000 hours. For comparison, an incandescent bulb typically lasts about 1,200 hours, if that. LED bulbs are wildly more efficient at producing light from electricity, taking much less energy to produce the same amount of light. They don’t use heat to produce light which saves a ton of energy but instead use electroluminescence.

Fig. 2 - Summary of Benefits

Electroluminescence is basically the production of light by a controlled flow of electrons, in this case, through the diode. Without getting too technical, the diode is a semi-conductive material designed to facilitate the production of photons and produce light from excited, moving electrons. This whole process means that a standard LED bulb can create the same amount of light without the loss of energy through heat emission and with a much smaller level of overall energy expenditure. This is good news for the United States’ plan to decrease total carbon emissions. In fact, the Biden administration estimates that changing over to LED lights would save consumers around $3 billion dollars collectively in just one year. It then comes as no surprise that incandescent light bulbs are officially being phased out of use. In theory, this will cut our carbon emissions by 222 million metric tons over the course of the next 30 years. That’s enough energy to power 43 million homes or 90 million cars for an entire year. 

One crazy thing about this change is that we had all the necessary information to make it half a decade ago, but we abandoned the plan before it could save us millions in dollars AND harmful emissions. Isn’t it great that we are now back on track for this simple move toward energy efficiency?

Antimony: Carcinogenic Khol

Antimony, often mistaken for lead, was thought to be a common ingredient in Khol eyeliner back in the time of Egypt’s prime. It’s still used in some traditional eyeliner in the Middle East today and has even made its way into modern cosmetics as well. Antimony is a shiny, silvery element with 5 valence electrons and the ability to increase the strength of lead creating a much more durable alloy. It’s insoluble in water, stable in air and it is not ductile or malleable in its pure form. It’s alloys have a wide range of uses, however, from castings and metal bearings to plastics, textiles and even paper. 

Though useful, Antimony is also quite toxic. The most dangerous exposure is to those that work with it in the industrial field. If it’s inhaled it can cause respiratory issues like chronic bronchitis, emphysema, pleural adhesions and more. It’s also noted to increase blood pressure and cause gastrointestinal disorders. Studies suggest that it could also cause liver and kidney damage. It is additionally a known carcinogen! Though the FDA and CDC have dragged their feet on this classification for years, many states have gone ahead and listed it among their known carcinogens as we know it has a strong tie to lung cancer and other types of cancer related to the respiratory system.

A big environmental issue currently on the rise is the natural resource contamination due to the mining of antimony. The development of better methods for it’s isolation and removal are being highlighted as mining releases antimony into the soil where it eventually leaches into the groundwater. Currently, we’ve seen the impact of antimony when it’s inhaled regularly in it’s industrial use but imagine what harm it could do if consumed unknowingly by the greater population. This risk is one that researchers are currently trying to assess while developing safer ways to use this material.

As a consumer, it’s important to know if the products you are buying contain Antimony. It’s been known to show up in clothing, school supplies for kids and even baby prams. As we have learned before, toxic chemicals are often most detrimental to the very young so being away of the materials you pick up and expose you family too is more important now than ever.

Resources:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653521007219

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0045653521007219

https://www.epa.gov/sites/default/files/2016-09/documents/antimony-compounds.pdf 



Crush Your Thirst, Not Your Health

The temperature is 92 °F. You’re sitting by the pool with your feet dangling over the edge. It’s mid-summer and the scent of honeysuckles perfumes the warm air. You reach into the cooler for something to drink and haul out a glass bottle of orange, fizzy liquid. You aren’t ten anymore but you’ve never lost the love of a cold bottle of pop to cut the summertime heat. Twisting off the top, you knock back a crisp 20 ounces of citrusy fizz, straight out of your childhood. The flavor is the same, the color, too. The brominated vegetable oil (BVO) holding it all together. Wait, what? Why is BVO in your drink? Oil in soda sounds gross and unlikely but there it is on the ingredients list. What’s that about?

Turns out, BVO is in a lot of citrusy drinks and it is, in fact, what keeps them together. It’s an emulsifier and helps prevent the oils in these drinks from separating from the carbonated water. Without it, a drink like Crush would divide into its parts and make up a very different overall experience. Ok, so BVO keeps orange soda and other artificial orange drinks, like the Orange Thirst Quencher Gatorade, looking good and delivering a unified, homogenous flavor profile. What’s the big deal?

The big deal is that BVO has been linked to memory loss, skin conditions (like swelling and boils), brain development issues, hormonal dysfunction, fertility complications, thyroid impairment and, you guessed it, cancer. This makes it an obvious addition to any country’s ban list and it is banned in over 100 countries. Not to make this a trend when combined with our last article, but once again, the U.S. is sadly behind. PepsiCo has stated that it plans to remove the ingredient from its products and has removed it from Gatorade as recently as last year. They’ve declined to comment on their motivation for doing so but we can only hope that this move will encourage movement towards a BVO-free USA.

For the time being, the FDA is holding to its opinion that BVO is “generally considered safe” for human consumption. There are a number of medical professionals that are pushing for a reconsideration of BVO and the global opinion definitely seems to support this perspective. In the meantime, it’s important to know what these chemicals are and what impact they may have on one’s health. BVO seems to be pretty bad for us. Even if you don’t have a large amount of it at one time, it is now thought to linger in the body, similar to heavy metals, building up over time. The global recommendation is to eliminate it entirely from one’s diet. Until the U.S. catches up with that standard, we can do what we need to, to protect ourselves and our families.

Resources:

https://perioimplants.us/blog/bvo-soft-drinks/

https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/bvo/faq-20058236

https://abcnews.go.com/Lifestyle/Food/11-foods-banned-us/story?id=19457237



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Sitting: The Silent Killer

You may have heard the quip that sitting is the new smoking. Maybe you took this to heart but maybe you scoffed at the idea that something as innocuous as sitting down could be as detrimental to your health as breathing poison into your lungs. It might seem impossible and in truth, if you find this baffling you are in great company. Despite numerous studies over the last three decades, scientists aren’t entirely sure why sitting is so harmful but the fact remains, it is! Inactivity has been ranked among the top five contributing factors to preventable death.

Inactivity has been tied to coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, breast cancer, colon cancer, mental illness and raises the risk of obesity, deep-vein thrombosis and metabolic syndrome. It also can cause a tightening and stiffening of the largest muscles in the body which in turn makes exercise more difficult and places increased stress on the joints. 

For some, it might be very difficult to immediately incorporate an hour of exercise into their day right away but approaching one’s daily routine with a mindset towards movement can help a great deal. For example, if you have a desk job, getting in some great movement every half hour can help to break up those long periods of inactivity which are the most damaging. Stand up, stretch for a few minutes and try to get a little walking in as well. Consider a standing desk to alternate your position through the day. For some, this may even help with back and neck issues exacerbated by an overly relaxed posture maintained for hours at a time. 

It’s estimated that almost half of the American population gets little to no exercise each day. This has probably increased with the current pandemic and the reduction of team and social based physical activities. People are going dancing less and engaging in team sports with decreased regularity. What are many of them doing instead? Sitting. Sitting in front of the TV or even reading a book. These aren’t bad things and with the stress of today’s new normal they are even necessary things for some of us. However, it is more important than ever to be mindful and intentional about the amount of physical activity we do engage in. 

If you are still tempted to throw in the towel on physical activity, check out these numbers from the Heart Foundation. They found that individuals with little physical activity had a: 

  • 112% increased risk of diabetes.

  • 147% increased risk of cardiovascular events like heart attack and stroke.

  • 90% increased risk of death from cardiovascular events.

  • 49% increased risk of death from any cause.

If going for a brisk walk can cut your risk of fatal health complications such as these in half, it may be time to carve out a little time to strut your stuff. Even if you can’t make a larger lifestyle change right now, smaller changes like setting a timer and moving regularly will still help. Every move we make towards a healthier future counts!

G Spence
Sitting: The Silent Killer
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Enhanced Water or Enhanced Hype?

We’ve talked about clean water free of PFASs and heavy metals. We know that these things can build up in the body and cause a wide spectrum of health issues. However, what about water with a little…extra? Enhanced water has become so popular over the last few years. Everything from flavored water as some try to escape what they consider the height of boredom or consuming a mostly flavorless beverage several times a day, to “enhanced” water with additives such as vitamins and/or minerals sometimes added to effect the pH of the water in question. Is there any benefit to these additions? 

Well, as one might imagine, the addition of flavors isn’t particularly beneficial in and of itself. Adding sugar also undercuts the consumption of pure water to some extent. However, if it encourages one to drink a significantly higher amount of water, it most likely does not undercut the entire benefit. Just be sure that any flavor additives do not contain the chemicals and contaminants we have so far been so careful to clean and keep out of our water. Also, flavors that claim to be sugar free might do even more harm as they are often full of artificial sweeteners used to mask the lack of flavor. It might be much safer to add a few drops of lemon or lime juice to your water if you need to have some flavor. A whole fruit infusion might be a nice compromise as well!

As for vitamins and minerals, it really depends on the specific additives themselves and if they are accompanied by the same problematic ingredients as flavored water. For example, the popular brand Vitamin Water, owned by Coca Cola, contains as much sugar in some of its flavored waters as you might find in a can of cola! In some ways, this is even more problematic than coke because many people consume this product believing they are drinking something good for them. They may not control their consumption or be mindful of their intake in the same way they might with soda.

In contrast, there is some evidence that mineral water containing high amounts of calcium carbonate, magnesium sulfate, potassium and sodium sulfate has a positive impact on the heart, lowering LDL cholesterol and raising the HDL levels! It’s also been noted to lower the blood pressure and improve circulation. It is thought that Americans do not get the recommended amount of magnesium on a daily basis and mineral water can be a good source of magnesium. Additionally, if it is high in calcium, this is thought to support bone health. Overall mineral water seems to land in the positive category health-wise though some people do not enjoy the taste. 

At the end of the day, it is important to not only consume clean water, but to consistently consume water that is free from harmful or problematic additives. If your water has just as much sugar as a coke, you might be missing the mark a little bit. If you are looking for some added benefits, mineral water might be your best option! 

G Spence
Enhanced Water or Enhanced Hype?
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Sleep: The Basic Bits

Sleep is one of the single most important things our bodies need to survive. Without it, the brain starts to shut down and the ability to process information is significantly hindered. Sleep allows the body to rest and recover from the day, with the brain performing a number of vital processes only possible during sleep. 

There are 4 general stages of sleep, three non-REM stages and REM sleep. A complete cycle through all 4 stages can take over a couple of hours. The shortest stage is normally the first stage where you are falling asleep. Your body begins to relax and your brain activity slows a small amount. Stage 2 brings a more noticeable drop in brain activity, as the body begins to shift into a more passive state. The muscles relax and body temperature drops while breathing and heart rate slow. This stage starts out being about 10 to 25 minutes long but can lengthen over the course of the night. You might spend half the night in this stage of sleep altogether. Stage 3 is critical to memory and the restoration of the mind and body. In this stage, one’s breathing and heart rate drop even further with an accompanying drop in muscle tone. A lot of the body’s immune system support and damage reparations are bolstered most heavily during this stage. In contrast to Stage 2, Stage 3 gets progressively shorter as the night goes on and is initially anywhere from 20 to 40 minutes long. Then comes the type of sleep you’ve likely heard the most about, REM sleep! In this final stage of sleep, the body is completely locked down while your brain lights up as if you were still awake. It is during REM sleep that you are thought to have most of your narrative style dreams with structure and vivid realism. This stage is crucial to processing and consolidating your very real memories and is thought to be a big part of the learning and long-term memory mechanism. These four stages of sleep repeat through the night with REM sleep starting roughly 90 minutes after you fall asleep. 

The body’s sleep/wake cycle is governed in part by the circadian rhythms. We may discuss the circadian rhythms in more detail in a later article but it is enough to say that the circadian rhythms are often described as the body’s internal clock, telling us when it is time to rest and time to wake. There are numerous environmental factors that might impact the proper functioning of our rhythms, but humans seem to generally run on an innate 24-hour cycle. Interrupting this cycle with, say, shift work or redeye travel results in issues ranging from minor issues like jetlag to major problems in mental and physical functioning.  

So how much sleep does the average person actually need? Well, that depends on a combination of genetics, age and one’s overall unique biochemical makeup but, generally speaking, the needs vary most noticeably with age. Infants need the most sleep, clocking about 16 - 18 hours a day. Children follow with the youngest still needing around 10 -13 hours while under the age of 5. Older kids under the age of 12 need a little less with averages ranging from 9 - 12 hours. Teenagers take a significant cut needing 8 - 10 and once you are old enough to vote, you are thought to need a vague 7+ hours to be rested. Next time we will talk more about sleep quality but for now, here are a few articles for additional sleep themed reading. 

From the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke

Sleep Foundation - Sleep Facts

Gianna Spence
Sleep: The Basic Bits
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Honey and Crime!

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You might already know that honey carries with it a number of health benefits, from its antioxidant content to its antibacterial properties! It’s also been documented as a helpful digestive aid for gastrointestinal issues as well as being a delicious way to soothe a sore throat or a mild cough. Honey is, generally speaking, beneficial for the average person. 

What you might not know is that honey is the third most common food sold fraudulently in the global market. Honey is adulterated in a variety of different ways ranging from water and corn syrup being carefully added to dilute the real honey, to honey heated for ease of packaging and filtration being marketed as raw. Some experts have estimated that around 30% of the honey in the global market is adulterated with the percentage more than double that number in the US. 

This issue, while perhaps not immediately dangerous to the consumer’s health, does affect us all as first, we will not gain the health benefits we might be using honey for and second, it might just crash our economy. That second part might sound a bit dramatic but honey bees carry the burden of pollination for most of our agriculture crops. Our crops not only feed this country but are still the bulwark of our international trade. Together, the domestic and international agricultural market make up a significant portion of America's economy. Right now, by committing food fraud, merchants are undercutting the sales of beekeepers, who are in turn having to diversify their merchantable services to stay afloat. Add to this phenomenon the loss of many of our honeybees to mites, parasites, blight, MURDER HORNETS, and you have a true crisis on your hands. A lot of beekeepers report losing nearly half their hives in the last few years. 

As a consumer, you can help by supporting beekeepers directly and buying local! This may be one of the most important times to do so! Buy local and if you can’t buy local, buy clean! Have your favorite brand of honey tested and find a company that cares about protecting their supply chain! As you may learn if you continue on to the additional reading linked below, it isn’t enough to pay a lot for a fancy bottle of honey. Sometimes they are the very culprit you are trying to avoid!

Additional Reading Here!

Helpful Hints for Making Sure Your Honey is Real

Gianna Spence
Honey and Crime
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Fruit over Juice?

You might think that because a fruit juice is natural and “added sugar free” it contains the same nutritional value as the fruit it came from. You might also think that juicing fruit is simply a faster and more direct way to break down a fruit and get to the good stuff. You might also have been shamelessly lied to by a Welch’s commercial! Though it might seem odd at first, whole fruit is significantly more beneficial than the juices we all know and love. Even if you juice the fruit yourself and ensure no added sugars or preservatives, you still aren’t getting the same nutritional profile as chomping into that same fruit in its entirety. 

But why?! Isn’t fruit juice just the apple without the crunch, the grape without the skin or the orange without the pith?! In a way, yes, but those things aren’t just garbage to be discarded pre-consumption as you might have assumed!! They provide fiber! You might have had a friend or doctor ramble about increasing one’s dietary fiber intake and these chewable, juice containing fruit packages are simply made of it. 

Fiber works a lot like that small, bristly brush you use to clean out pipes or reusable straws. It isn’t something that the body is able to break down most of the time and it functions instead as a digestive enhancement, allowing the bowels to more easily eject refuse. Additionally, fiber slows down the rate at which sugars pass through the body, allowing them to be used as energy instead of stored as fat. Fiber is, in a sense, garbage to be discarded during consumption and digestion instead! Systematically discarded through a multitude of little systems and cycles in the body that ensure you get the most nutrients possible from your food while carefully and thoroughly cleaning the rest away!

In contrast, juice hits the digestive system and carries a much higher concentration of sugar without any fiber which drives up the release of insulin and prompts the storage of the extra sugars. This ultimately leads to a crash in blood sugar levels and initiates hunger signals as if you hadn’t consumed much at all. Ultimately, fruit juice is a bit of a trap if you are trying to regulate your caloric intake. Just go for the whole fruits instead and save your body the confusion. 

In addition, there are also a number of nutrients only found in the skin and pulp of certain fruits. Downing only the juices means missing out completely on the benefits of a much more complete food. 

Bonus round: You are ready to consume all the fruit in sight and you’ve procured quite the haul from your local grocery store. What next? Clean those apples! Unless you are able to do our very favorite thing and Buy Locally, your fruit might be covered with a layer of protective waxes and pesticides that you definitely don’t want entering your system. If wax is ruining a water only bath, add lemon juice and baking soda, or vinegar to your water and wash that wax away. Next step, enjoy!

Further Reading:

On Fiber!

On Fiber & Glucose!

Gianna Spence
Fruit over Juice?
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Mercury 102: The Basics and A Little More

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Mercury, the smallest planet, closest to the sun and also an incredibly dangerous neurotoxin you’ve likely consumed without realizing it. We’ve already talked about Lead poisoning but that isn’t the only heavy metal we should be on guard for. Mercury is dangerous in every form but most commonly we will encounter it either as methylmercury or elemental( metallic) mercury. Methylmercury is the form of mercury that you may have heard exists in certain fish and seafoods. It is terribly toxic to mammals and builds up in aquatic animals through mechanisms such as bioaccumulation and biomagnification. 

Bioaccumulation is where a chemical in the environment builds up in an organism over time usually through direct exposure or a contaminated food source. An example of this would be salmon swimming in a contaminated river or stream. The chemical contamination is slowly building up in the salmon due to the contamination of their environment. A heavy chemical like mercury is hard to expel once absorbed so even through small increments, the slow accumulation of the chemical is measurable and significant. Biomagnification conversely is when the concentration of a chemical contaminate in one organism is passed on to another organism where it builds up due to the second organism being higher in the food chain and eating a significant amount of the first organism (See Fig. 1.1). This would happen if say, a bear, were to eat the contaminated salmon from our earlier example. Similarly, humans, as an apex predator, tend to consume organisms all along this type of food chain including those at the top of their own chain, thus consuming organisms who have the highest concentration of chemical contaminants. While this consumption of mercury may not cause you to immediately show symptoms of poisoning, it will build up in the body over time and problems can develop once a certain threshold is reached. 

Fig. 1.1 National Geographic image detailing Biomagnification and Bioaccumulation

Fig. 1.1 National Geographic image detailing Biomagnification and Bioaccumulation

Metallic mercury is the other form we are commonly exposed to. This is the form that can be found in thermometers, some light bulbs and old dental fillings and enters the body as a metallic vapor as it is outgassed from the amalgams(mercury compound or mixtures) and inhaled. This metallic mercury passes easily through the blood brain barrier and into the brain. Though some of this chemical will be broken down into mercuric mercury and excreted, some will adhere to the red blood cells and build up in the brain and nervous system.

While anyone would be negatively impacted by the build up of mercury in either form, it can be incredibly detrimental for developing infants. Whether they are exposed through the mother’s exposure in utero or through the mother’s breast milk, this exposure can impact a developing child’s IQ and cause neurocognitive deficits as well as impacting motor skills and spatial awareness. This is one reason a doctor may recommend that a pregnant mother suspend the consumption of fish throughout the pregnancy and even through the breast feeding stage. Limiting the build up of mercury in a developing child is paramount when one considers the long-term effects mercury can have. 

In adults, the impact of mercury can include a wide range of symptoms. Notably immune dysfunction, reduced color vision and changes in coordination, mental concentration and short term memory have all been linked to mercury exposure. The vapor can cause pneumonitis, or a typically noninfectious form of lung inflammation, as well as more general symptoms such as fatigue, weight loss and gastrointestinal issues. A correlation between mercury exposure and heart disease, hypertension and stroke has also been noted. 

So, now that we’ve firmly established the issue with mercury exposure, what do we do when mercury is within our environment and we are likely being exposed to it in some form everyday? First, educating oneself on the correct way to dispose of household sources of mercury, such as broken light bulbs or thermometers allows one to limit acute mercury exposure for oneself and anyone else in your household. Second, limiting the use of mercury containing items in general will go a long way to preventing unnecessary exposure. Third, supporting the general adoption of mercury alternatives either on a global, national or local level will help push us collectively in a direction that will be safer for generations to come. Last, but possibly the most important step is continuing to educate yourself on the impacts of mercury and educating those around you so that others can take similar precautions and join you in monitoring this global issue. 

Sources and Further Reading: 

Gianna Spence
Mercury 102: The Basics and A Little More
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Water Quality & The Water Crisis

We’ve discussed why drinking water is so important for the body to continue functioning well, but will just any water do? You probably already know the answer to that question, particularly if you’ve ever seen gray water or a swampy pond. Similarly, you might be ok with your dog drinking water from a stream, but you might hesitate to do the same. Rightly so as water picks up bacteria and general debris from its surroundings and needs to be carefully cleaned and filtered before consumption. Otherwise, to borrow from our earlier analogy about attempting to clean a car without water, we’d be attempting to clean a car with muddy water. The same way that water would leave behind a film of new grim and gunk, improperly sourced or unfiltered water can introduce new, harmful bacteria, chemicals, parasites and other unwanted particulates into the body.

Globally, more than 13% of the population is still without safe and clean drinking water. Fully preventable diseases and exacerbated health risks are linked to this lack and each day 800 children under the age of 5 die from contaminated water and little to no water-related sanitation resources. There’s no call to action here but if you’d like to learn more about how you can help solve this global problem, I’ll be including a couple helpful links below.

Here in the U.S. we are facing a different challenge as, though sanitation accessibility and drinking water quality is higher, we still face water contamination due to industrial runoff and as a commercial manufacturing byproduct. In addition to heavy metals like lead or mercury, recent research has gone into perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances or PFASs. PFASs are not currently regulated by the federal government, yet they, like uranium, arsenic, lead and other regulated pollutants, build up in the environment and are linked to a number of health complications such as reproductive cancer, liver damage, thyroid disease, pregnancy complications and immune system dysfunction. 

So, now it would seem that we, the consumers, are caught between a rock and a hard place. We must consume water but many of us are probably consuming contaminated water, especially if we are usually drinking directly from the tap. What is the solution? The big picture is that we need to support the regulation of PFASs at a federal level and the implementation of technologies designed to remove them from our water supply. For now though, the burden still remains with the individual. Granular activated carbon filters and reverse osmosis are two options for filtering your own drinking water. The EPA also suggests nanofiltration osmosis, ion exchange resin, and powdered activated carbon for removing PFASs. Get your water tested, whether you have your own well or are using city supplied water and then find the filtration option that works the best for you! 

Below we’ve included several articles on PFASs and the Global Water Crisis. Enjoy!

Forever Chemicals article.

EPA Information on PFAS

More on the Global Water Crisis + And More + And a little more.

Gianna Spence
Blog Bite #10: Water Quality and The Water Crisis
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““Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.””
— Mahatma Gandhi