Chemicals, fragrances, and your health

[ChienShiungW]

Do you ever buy products listing chemicals or fragrances? Those are affecting your health. Every time you are exposed to smog, car exhaust, fragranced products, etc., those chemicals create stress in your body which is forced to respond to it. For a while, your body may be able to respond simply with “adaptation.” The effects of stressors, including chemicals can build up to such a level over time that your body cannot adapt to it and your body will react. If a significant source or the stress that your body is adapting to is from a chemical or chemicals, your body will react to that chemical or those chemicals. The point where your body has been exposed enough to react is known as “total load.” The reaction doesn’t have to be a big dramatic reaction to be a chemical reaction like this. It could be a simple stuffy nose, difficulty concentrating, anxiety, head aches, peculiar body sensations, depression, dyscalculia, impaired abstract reasoning, difficulty breathing, etc. Reactions may have different symptoms with different people or with different chemicals.

 

Once your body has reacted to a chemical, you are sensitized to that chemical. This means that you are chemically intolerant to the chemical to which you reacted. This is not an allergy because there is no histamine involved in the reaction. In fact, allergists have along with others spent years baffled by how this reaction occurs. It is not simply a psychological matter because we are biochemical beings affected by the chemicals around us. Repeated exposure will result in greater sensitivity to the chemical. The degree of reaction may grow and the amount of exposure over a period of time needed to cause a reaction may cause a reaction may decrease. Certain chemicals are sensitizers, meaning they break down barriers to being sensitive to other chemicals.

 

A study be USC comparing two groups of people, one that knew they were chemically sensitive and one that didn’t think they were chemically sensitive, found that a surprising amount of those who did not think they were sensitive actually were sensitive.

 

Multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS) is a recognized toxic injury that even inhibits some from working. There are places and instances where parts of the government have acknowledged it, but it has been a hard fight for people with MCS because of the complexity of their illness. There are people taking at least 5 prescription medicines several times a day and pray that their insurance covers their medicine when their doctors change the medicines that they are taking.

 

Chemical injury like this does not come only from acute exposure but also from low level long term exposure. This is part of why there are over 17 million asthmatics in this country. I have had asthma ever since I was young, we had no air-conditioning, and the smog was three times what it is now where we live.

 

Names to look up for more information:

 

National Library of Medicine (pubmed), doctor’s use this as a resource

 

Sheila Bastien-PhD neuro psychologist, psychological and physical aspects of MCS

 

Rae-clinical ecologist, more studies,puzzling cases than any other at least as of a couple of years ago

 

Rowe

 

(Fragranced products information network) Fpinva

 

Chemical Exposures: Low Levels and High Stakes By Nicholas Ashford & Claudia Miller

[ecoli]

We should know to trust God to provide for our needs and not be foolish with the resources He has given us.

 

 

Please keep God out of the science forums, there's sperate section for that. Why was it necessary to say that? What is the point of the post?

[ChienShiungW]

I'm sorry. I had written this for somewhere else too and accidentally left that in there. Please forgive my oversite. I didn't see a welcome thread forum like I am used to (I just found the thread) and I rather wanted to post something. I will be more careful in the future.

 

In the same way that fragrances can harm health, smog harms us. Now most people who have lived around smog are probably familiar with the fact that it’s not healthy, but there are ways to get around some of the health impacts of it. First, out door activity should be done more in the morning than in the mid to late afternoon. Also, if you get migraines, you might notice more of them with highway driving because of the increases smog from the cars. Hepafilters can be your friend because the suck out a lot of the small particulate smog. These are good to know, but there is more than that.

 

Know your smog. Three common smog types are PM10, nitrogen dioxide, and ozone.

 

PM10 is the small particulate smog and is usually gray. Now, for a lot of this I’m not sure what you can do unless it’s a yellow gray. A more yellow gray smog will likely have more sulfur content. Vitamin B12 helps with the body’s reaction to this.

 

NO2 or nitrogen dioxide is the more brown smog. It causes inflammation and has an immediate reaction and a delayed reaction twenty-four to forty-eight hours later. Vitamin B6 acts has an anti-inflamitory effect, as does Aleve but it wouldn’t be good to take painkillers all summer unless you really hurt. Nitrogen dioxide will react and leave more ozone in its place after a hot day.

 

Ozone is the one that antioxidants are good for. With ozone, you end up with stray oxygen atoms moving around and causing damage inside you. Antioxidents include various fruits and stuff, and vitamins I believe. Grape seed extract, available in concentrated pill form or grapes also serves as an antioxidant.

[Guest tekdata]

Let's not forget, last I checked, NO2 is also a greenhouse gas. So smog is everybody's problem, not just the chemically sensitive.

[ecoli]

Acid fog is a problem bigger then acid rain, because fog has a greater surface area.

[Caustic]

my chem teacher used to work at a shampoo company and she said that they put horrible chemicals in the shampoo to create the fragrances

[ecoli]

Depends what company. Plenty of shampoo company are using natural/organic scents and fragrences now.

[Guest alias420]

do you know any of the brands that are offering natural fragrances?

 

 

Canadian drugs

[Coral Rhedd]

Depends what company. Plenty of shampoo company are using natural/organic scents and fragrences now.

 

Read the labels. What they advertise and what is actually in the products can be quite different.

 

I've searched for over five years and I've yet to find a shampoo that doesn't irritate my scalp.

 

However I can wear perfume and have no problem with it -- except for one that makes me quite ill.

 

I know there are folks who would like to have a fragrance free world. In fact, I work with a woman who has sensitivities/environmental illness. When I know I am seeing her that day, I am as fragrance free as I can make myself while she reeks of aromatic oils that she applies to "rebalance." Frankly, I am confused. If fragrance is bad for her, why is she wearing it?

[coquina]

It used to be that when you went in a department store in the mall cosmetic reps would spray you with their perfume when you walked in the door. I was extremely allergic to some of those smells. My nose would run and I couldn't stop sneezing. Fortunately, they have stopped it, but the store still sends their bill in perfumed envelopes.

[Lance]

Ozone is the one that antioxidants are good for. With ozone, you end up with stray oxygen atoms moving around and causing damage inside you. Antioxidents include various fruits and stuff, and vitamins I believe. Grape seed extract, available in concentrated pill form or grapes also serves as an antioxidant.

 

Im sorry, but ozone is NOT bad. Ozone can actually minimize other "smogs". It may cause minor irritation to the lungs in huge quantities but thats nothing to be worried about. It will also clean the air of harmful bacteria and mold.

 

And I fail to see how antioxidents help?

[jdurg]

Uh-Oh. I better not go outside anymore without a full SCBA suit on and naturally obtained oxygen! There is also no difference between natural and synthetic fragrances. In fact, the whole natural/synthetic designation is a horrible thing. Which would you rather be killed by, natural cyanide or synthetic cyanide? Guess what, they'll both kill you. At least with a "man-made" compound you know exactly what it is. With a lot of the things you get from "natural" sources you don't know what else might be in there. I think that's a heck of a lot more dangerous. Personally, I feel that this whole natural vs. synthetic argument is all about money and personal feelings. Those who say that homeopathic and 'natural' things are better than man-made products just want to make money off of the ignorant, or don't want to admit that something which didn't grow out of the ground is just as good or even better. Those who say that "natural" stuff is stupid and pointless don't want to lose money off the stuff they are invested in, or they don't want to admit that they are using the wrong product.

 

Personally, I don't care where it came from or how it was made. If it is effective and low-cost, I'll take it. If you were to give me a choice between two identical products, one of which is "natural" and the other the "synthetic" form, I would take the cheaper one. It's as simple as that.

[Mokele]

Acid fog is a problem bigger then acid rain, because fog has a greater surface area.

 

I disagree; surface area only matters for *some* problems, like erosion of outdoor statues and such and how likely we are to inhale it. However, that rain tends to accumulate in ponds and streams (while fog may just settle to the ground and evaporate) makes it *more* problematic from the perspective of the massive extinctions and depopulations going on in the world's amphibian population.

 

Mokele