February 2009 Archives

The US government regulates how food is labeled and what those labels mean. If a food product is labeled USDA organic, for example, it is at least 95% organic.

There are NO similar regulations for labeling health and body care products (HBC, for short). As a result, the words "natural" and "organic" can mean very, very little when they appear on a shampoo or lotion bottle.

Here are some top things to remember and look out for when you're shopping for HBC products:

1. There's no such thing as full disclosure -- HBC companies do NOT have to disclose their full ingredient list (unlike with food products) -- and many don't. So it's important to do your homework and be sure you can trust the company that produces your product. Visit the Cosmetics Database, a service of the Environmental Working Group, where you can search by product, ingredient or company and get the nitty-gritty on what's in your products.

2. Go Fragrance-free -- In many HBC ingredient lists, you'll find the word "fragrance." Most often "fragrance" denotes a mixture of synthetic chemicals combined to form that product's unique scent -- a unique scent that is considered a "trade secret." And the individual ingredients in a trade secret don't have to be disclosed. Pretty much, if the product contains safe scents, like essential oils, it will say so. If not, it will say "fragrance."

3. Lose the Lather -- When a soap, shampoo, or detergent produces a super-sudsy lather, we tend think of it as a super-duper cleaner (psychologically, we equate lather with effectiveness). The truth, however, is that a lather-laden soap gets us no cleaner than one with less suds -- and the agents used to create lather -- the most common are phosphates -- are damaging both to personal health and the environment.

 

4. Avoid these ingredients -- Certain ingredients should be avoided whenever possible. Here are some of the top bad guys:

• Parabens (butyl, methyl ethyl, and propyl) -- Parabens are a type of synthetic preservative that are known to increase the risk of cancer and which can act as endocrine disruptors.

• Propylene glycol -- A humectant widely used in cosmetics (and, scarily, antifreeze), propylene glycol has been classified as a skin irritant by the National Library of Medicine, and is believed to increase the risk of cancer and fertility problems. It is also classified as both an endocrine disruptor and a neurotoxin.

• Sodium lauryl sulfate -- Used as an emulsifier in many cosmetics, this additive is a harsh skin irritant. Research has also show that it increases risk of cancer and developmental/reproductive toxicity.

The skin is the body's biggest organ and it absorbs everything it comes in contact with. Make sure what you deliberately put on your skin isn't undermining your health!

Someone commented on my last blog post asking for research backing up the claim that whole milk is the healthiest choice. Adding the science is a great idea. (I didn't put it all in the first time because I didn't want to make the first entry too long.) Rather than explicate all the science here (which could get long and tedious), I'm going to link to relevant, well-vetted studies and resources, and you can click through to the ones that are most interesting to you.

1. For a general overview of the failure of the lipid hypothesis and science-based support for eating whole foods in their most natural state, consult the amazing (and amazingly well-written) book:

In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan (Penguin, 2008) -- Pollan tells the story of how nutritional scientists over the past four decades have sold us on the low- and no-fat diet and why following that diet has made us fat, unhealthy and miserable.

2. For a deeper and more detailed look at why its not how much we eat, but WHAT we eat that makes us fat and causes heart disease -- and for manifold scientific evidence that dietary fat isn't the villain we've been told it is (and that the true villain is refined carbohydrates like white flour and white sugar), read:

Good Calories, Bad Calories by Gary Taubes (Anchor, 2008) -- The book is well researched and geared toward overturning (through sound science) the idea that the low-fat diet prevents obesity and reduces risk of heart disease. Taubes argues that its not the quantity of what you eat, it's the quality.

Watch Taubes' hour-long lecture on the science behind his theory here.

3. Read the abstract from this study, Factors Associated with Calcium Absorption Efficiency in Pre- and Peri-Menopausal Women, from The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (August 2000).

4. The nutritionist and biochemist, Mary Enig, PhD, was an early critic of trans fats and partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. She has two books that help make sense of healthy and unhealthy fats:

Know Your Fats by Mary Enig (Bethesda, 2000) -- This book is a smart primer on dietary fat

Eat Fat, Lose Fat: The Healthy Alternative to Trans Fats by Mary Enig and Sally Fallon -- They assert that beneficial saturated fats should be more heavily incorporated into our diets. They advocate traditional, whole foods diets.

5. Find information on fat-soluble vitamins here.

6. Read this seminal article from The Journal of the American College of Nutrition, led by Harvard nutritionist Frank Hu, MD, PhD, called Types of Dietary Fat and Risk of Coronary Heart Disease: A Critical Review.

I'll post more links to more research as I come across them.