Transcript of #1 Longevity Doctor: 7 Toxic Products Destroying Your Health

Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am so excited for the conversation that you and I are going to have today because we're going to get to spend time together with one of the most respected scientists in the world. Dr. Eric Topol is here. His work in genomics, longevity, cardiology, precision medicine, and AI are so important that other researchers and scientists have cited Dr. Topol's work in more than 365,000 papers. That makes him one of the top 10 most cited medical researchers alive today. I'm so honored by the fact that Dr. Topol jumped on a plane and flew here from the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego to have a conversation with you and me about his new, what is going to be mega best seller, Superagers, an evidence-based approach to longevity. Now look, I got to tell you, I devoured this book, and You are going to love it. But there was one section in particular that is jaw-dropping. It's all about the things that are in your environment that are slowly killing you and the people that you love. You're going to learn how your environment is impacting your health, your longevity, how it's making you age faster, it's putting you at risk for disease.

In fact, Dr. Eric Topol is so impassioned about this because he believes that the evidence is very clear that there is a connection between toxic chemicals, pollution, ultra-processed food, and microplastics, and the devastating health trends that he is seeing in recent years. He believes this is undeniable. You're going to hear all about the impact that microplastics and chemicals can have on your health and the connection between the rise of infertility, the alarming rate at which young people are being diagnosed with cancer, and even the impact that it has on issues like ADHD, dementia, and heart disease. And the worst part, most of us, if you're like me, you don't even realize it. It's very clear that profits are being put before people's health. So today, Dr. Eric Topol is here to connect the dots between the science and the alarming health trends, and most importantly, give you the simple changes you can make today to protect yourself, your kids, and your future. Hey, it's your friend Mel, and welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am thrilled that you're here. I'm thrilled that Dr. Topal is here. I am so excited to have the conversation that we're going to dig into today with you.

It's always an honor to spend time with you and to be together. If you're a new listener, I also want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family. If you're here because somebody shared this with you, first of all, how cool is that? How cool is it that somebody in your life cares enough about you that they wanted you to not only have this information, but they wanted you to have the opportunity to spend time together with and learn from one of the top living scientists in the world, Dr. Eric Eric Tople is here, and he is a pioneering physician scientist. He's a cardiologist who has practiced for almost four decades and one of the most renowned researchers on the planet. He is the founder and director of Scripps Research Translational Institute, where he currently serves as the executive vice president and a professor of molecular medicine. Previously, Dr. Tople was chairman of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic. He's also the author of several best-selling books, including his newest mega bestseller, Super An Evidence-Based Approach to Longevity. I have devoured this Sucker, and guess what? It has been endorsed by no less than five Nobel laureates.

So please help me welcome the extraordinary Dr. Eric Topol to the Mel Robbins podcast. Dr. Topol, welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast. I am thrilled that you're here.

Thanks. I'm so thrilled to be with you.

Well, I just want to start by congratulating you on a fantastic best-selling book, Superagers. I absolutely devoured this, and I'm thrilled that you're here because I cannot wait to get into a section of your book about how environmental factors are impacting how we age, our longevity, and health overall. And so I'm thrilled you're here. And what I would love to do is start by having you speak directly with the person who's with us right now and tell them what might change about their life if they take everything that you're about to share with us and teach us today to heart and they put it to use in their life.

Well, I think the principle things that we've been known about for years, these lifestyle factors, I call them lifestyle plus because it's much more than just diet, exercise, and sleep. We have to now add in environmental factors. We haven't paid nearly enough attention, and the compelling evidence that has come forth on air pollution, microplastics, nanoplastics, and the forever chemicals These things are having a big impact, and we're not doing anything about it.

For starters, I just want to understand him, because I had never heard the word microplastics, for example. I think intellectually or common sense-wise, you, of course, go, Oh, well, air pollution, of course, impacts your health. But some of the statistics that we're going to unpack in your book in terms of the connection between environmental factors and the diseases that people get and the health challenges that people are facing, It's really scary, Dr. Topol.

It is scary. The fact that most people are not aware of the risks and that we're not doing anything about those risks. Certain conditions are masked because like a heart attack, We can't really say, Oh, it's from this forever chemical or from the plastics or the air pollution. Can't really say because they're so common. It's the number one killer. But when you see the declines in fertility, both among men and women, and you know that these plastics and chemicals are invading the testies and the ovaries and the reproductive system, right? When you see young people, as I've seen in their 20s and 30s, developing cancer with no risk, you say, Well, wait These are special groups of people that shouldn't have these things. What is it in our environment that could account for this? Until proven otherwise, these are the things we have to consider are causal.

I agree with you. As I was reading Super Agers, Dr. Topol, and you're going through lifestyle plus factors, it stopped me in my tracks as you started to write about how pollution, how plastics, how the environment that we're living in, how there are household items that are in our homes right now that we use when we cook, that we sit next to at home, that also can impact our health and are playing a role in our longevity. How big of a factor is this.

If we just talk about the forever chemicals and plastics, they have links to all the adverse health outcomes. Now, for example, we know that more young people are developing cancer than ever before. It's not just colon cancer, breast cancer, all these types of cancers that were age-related. We're seeing people in their 20s now with colon cancer, women in their 30s, young 30s with breast cancer. The question is why they had no genetic predisposition. We have to think, well, maybe it's related to the chemical. So some people will say, well, you don't have cause and effect. Well, others will say, you know what? We got this mechanism of inducing inflammation and being mutogenic that is capable of inducing mutations in our cells, which could cause cancer. We have this new thing we haven't seen before and it just keeps getting worse. It's pretty hard not to connect the two, right?

Well, and you write about this on page 125, you literally say by 2050, If we keep going the way that we are, the number of people dying from cancer is going to double. Is that your theory that the rise in cancer in young people is due to microplastics and forever chemicals and air pollution and water contamination?

And add to that ultra-processed foods, which also are pro-inflammatory and injurious. So just starting maybe with plastics, plastic water bottles, plastic bags, plastic everywhere. It's so pervasive. And the problem is we have it in our bodies and it's in our organs. One of the most important studies come out in years about plastics was one from Italy, where they looked at people's arteries. These are the arteries in the neck, the carotid arteries, where there's atherosclerosis or cholesterol buildup. They found that more than half had plastics in their arteries, and that those are the people that had over four full risk of heart attacks and strokes.

Wait, so hold on a second. Let me just make sure that the person heard that. In a recent study, half of people have microplastic buildup in their carotid artery. Of those people that had microplastic buildup, they were four times greater risk stroke and heart attack.

That's right. It was correlated with the fact that if you look at the areas under the microscope, not only did you see the microplastics like polyvonic chloride, but you saw profound inflammation around the plastic pieces. The other one, of course, was the brain. This was in people who had died, and they looked at the brain, and they found plastics throughout the brain, the spoonful of plastics in the brain.

Spoonful of plastic in the brain. Yeah.

And wherever there was plastic, guess what? There was local marked inflammation, just like in the artery wall. So you can't say that this is innocuous, right? This is something that's very troubling, and it means it needs action.

Well, I just want to try to translate to make sure I'm tracking with you. So the reason why the inflammation is the problem is because if your arteries are inflamed, that means they're going to get blocked, which means they're not going to work.

Yeah, well, it's not just even the blockage. We're talking about even in the tissue of the brain outside of the arteries where the plastics can get in. Once they get into our tissue, they incite a lot of inflammation. This isn't good, whether it's in the wall of an artery or in the tissue like the brain. They're seen in testies. They're seen in semen. They've been associated with blood clots. They're in women's reproductive system as well. Just as they're pervasive in the air and the water, they are in our bodies, and it's a cumulative exposure.

I realize this isn't conclusive, but what do you worry about as a scientist in terms of the implications of these environmental factors?

Well, the two that are especially troubling for our reproductive system, and it's not just for women with fertility, but we're seeing progressively lower sperm counts and sperm function in men. We have a big problem with reproductive health. But both forever chemicals, which get into the reproductive organs, and also the plastics, nanoplastics, they both can do this. That's just one example. People are thinking, Oh, well, more women are trying to have children at an older age and having infertility. No, it's not just the aging, it's the hit on healthy aging. The same thing with men, the more infertile men. This reproductive health is just one dimension of the problem. This is likely having an effect on each of the major age-related diseases. The The bad part about this is the lobbying against these. We know there's a big problem, whether it's the air we breathe, the water we drink, our foods, and all the others in our personal items and cooking, as you mentioned, Mel. What are we doing about it? Essentially, nothing. It's amazing.

Can you just start by explaining what the heck is a microplastic? I don't even know what this means and where is it. Is it in the air? Is it in the water? Is it in the bottles? What What is a microplastic, Dr. Token?

Yeah, well, it's everywhere. That's the sad part. You can only see them under a microscope. Yeah, it's a plastic bag or the plastic bottle, but it's coming out of these things. And so these micro Microplastics, they are toxins. They are not biodegradable. So once they come in to us, we're stuck with them.

So for the person who's listening and me, does this mean that there's just particles in the air, in the water, and in the food, and all around us that we are absorbing through our mouth, and through our nose, and through our skin? That that's what you mean by microplastics?

Yeah. So whether we're eating or whether we're breathing, or drinking, we're constantly exposed to these. They are in microscopic, minute quantities, but it isn't like they go out. I mean, we just are accumulating these into our body.

What are forever chemicals? Yeah.

So the fancy term for that are perfluorocarbonated alkylating agents, PFAS. Pfas, there's over 10,000 of these chemicals. And the key part is they have a fluorite to carbon, F to C bond, and that makes them non-degradable. So that's why they're here forever. And so they are like plastics. And by the way, some of those chemicals are in the plastics. That's how they're made. They have the also pervasive presence. 97% of us have PFAS, Forever Chemicals, in our blood, detectable at low levels, some higher than others.

So where exactly do the Forever Chemicals come from? How are they generated in the air, in the water and in plastics.

Yeah. Well, if you really want to get the nitty-gritty on that, there's a famous New Yorker article from last year where a 3M employee, Chris Jensen, basically was the whistleblower. The company knew about the injurious effects of these chemicals, but they didn't want to do anything about it. I mean, it's pretty scary to read this article because it's from the inside. 3m, that's their thing. Everything is made with forever chemicals, whether it's Post-its or plastics, you name it. We've done nothing to rein this in. Which is extraordinary. We know they have a toxic potential. And yet, just like with the big food industry with ultra-process and like what we've seen with the plastics industry that rely on them, the Companies that rely on these forever chemicals are doing nothing to make a difference. And so we're stuck with these very serious risks with no action.

What are the top ways that you and I, in the person listening, are being exposed to microplastics and to the forever chemicals that are impacting our health?

Well, it is pervasive. Like you said, Mel, it's in our air and in our water. But there are certainly things that we could do to less the burden. I mean, so for example, wrapping things in plastic, it's not a good idea.

I have a feeling that I'm going to leave this conversation, Dr. Toboul, and throw out everything in my kitchen. Is that what's about to happen?

No, no, and hopefully not. But if you want to be conscious about the burden of plastic intake, which is an enormous amount of plastics we're taking in on a daily, yearly basis. Anything we can do to reduce dwell time in plastic, or better yet, not plastic at all, that would be an improvement. In our family, we've made some changes. We're a lot less things that are being wrapped in plastic. The things are sitting in plastic, more likely to absorb some of the plastic material. But cookie, you can reduce. Water bottles, no, not in plastic water bottles. So there's at least something you can do, but it's mainly paying attention. It's pretty obvious what the plastics are. For example, when you go to the grocery store, everything's in plastic bags. It's true. It should be cloth. So there's many ways, but it's mainly the attention to what things are being wrapped in or being cooked in or cooked with make a difference. I mean, for example, we used to have these Teflon-coated things like a spatula. Now we have wood. Unfortunately, what we can do on an individual basis is somewhat limited, right? Because very little has been done to change the environmental burden that all of us face.

I mean, we're breathing in these chemicals and nanoplastics. And so it isn't like you can change that very easily. So there's at least something you can do, but it's mainly paying attention.

Well, one of the things that I think of immediately is that when I go to the grocery store Or if I put something in one of those plastic bags in the produce section, I leave it then in my fridge for a week or two before I end up using it and cooking in it. So that's an example of the thing bathing in it. And it's true, when I go to the farmer's market, there's nothing in plastic. People are using paper bags or I throw it into my basket, and then I store it in the fridge without plastic. And so, you know what would be very interesting is, have they ever done a study where, like I think two people ago, my grandparents, if they were to draw my blood versus grandma Bippert or grandma Schneeberger's blood, I bet that the plastic content in my blood versus theirs must be night and day.

Oh, no question. Because if you think about the fact that it's in virtually everyone's blood now, and it wasn't 10 years, 20 years ago, detectable. Things have changed so much. This has become just an enormous burden to us, and we don't do anything about it. So going back to your point about going to the market in bags. Why aren't we using paper rather than plastic? Why isn't that the norm? We have become so dependent on this. It's so frustrating to watch this.

Well, I can also tell how I'm passionate you are when you start to make the case about infertility rates rising, sperm counts lowering, the spike in cancers that people are getting diagnosed with when they're young children, middle school, high school, in their that are not the rates that people were diagnosed just 10, 20 years ago. I can see why as a researcher, medical doctor, and one of the world's most respected medical researchers, literally in the world, that you're very upset and impassioned about this. This feels like a great moment to hit the pause and hear a word from our sponsors. I'd also love for you to share this episode with people that you care about. This is information that everybody deserves to have. Dr. Tobla has so much Much more to share with you, so don't go anywhere. We'll be waiting for you after a short break. Welcome back. It's your buddy Mel Robbins. Today, you and I are learning from one of the most extraordinary and respected medical researchers alive today. His name is Dr. Eric Topol. We have the honor of having him here in our Boston studios. Dr. Topol, what if we go through a couple items one by one and have you talk about how either the free chemicals in this thing or the plastic in this thing can impact your health and what changes to swap out?

Does that sound cool? Sure. All right, cool. I'm going to have our executive producer, Tracy, bring over a box of things. And you can't see this if you're listening. On YouTube, you can watch this, but I'm going to narrate this as Tracy puts a gigantic... And now I'm afraid to have this stuff near me because now I'm like, Oh, my God. Dr. Topol just said this is all very dangerous stuff. So let's just start with, I've got Tupperware. Tupperware. I've just got big. You can hear it. These are in my cabinets right now. Talk to me about Tupperware, Dr. Topol.

Tupperware parties, when you think about that, is like adding the plastic burden that we don't need at all. We should be avoiding plastic containers containers, which, of course, are everywhere. If we're going to wait another 10 years before we finally have this cause and effect, that's waiting much too long when we can do something now that's beneficial.

Dr. Topol, I microwave in plastic all the time. Is that okay?

Hopefully, that would be past tense because that is a double whammy here. You've got not only the microplastics that can get into the food from the plastic container, but now you're heating it up. So you're really promoting coating it. We know if you heat up plastic, that's the way to get more nanoplastic into whatever you're going to consume. So you don't want to be using these for microwave.

Plastic, swap out for glass. Yes. Because if your food is sitting in that, even though it's convenient, it is absorbing more plastic. So the more time something spends in it, and if you heat it up even worse- It's a double whammy. It's a double whammy because you're releasing more microplastics. All right, I've got hairspray here.

Yeah. Most of these hairsprays are chock full of forever chemicals, unfortunately. So if they supply the ingredients and you see any florinated stuff in there, florinated alcohol- Oh, my God.

It's the second thing. I can't read half this stuff, but this one has alcohol, and then it's hydrofluorocarbon 152A. There's a methacriolate, a.

Horrible.

Really?

Why is this horrible? Because you're basically spraying forever chemicals on your head. Why would you want to do that?

Okay, that's going down there. I don't want that. I have a scented candle that is so smelly that I can smell it from here. Bright blue no candle ocean mist.

Yeah, it's troubling because it could be emitting forever chemicals. Just the fact that you can smell it without it being lit and the color of it, right? As well as lack of ingredients. Does it say what's in there?

There are absolutely no ingredients on this.

This is troubling. I mean, it's possible that there's no PFAS in it, but my guess is it's got plenty of them.

How is this scented? See, I love candles. I do, too. But How is a scented candle a toxin in the environment?

Because now you're putting these right into the air you're breathing. Okay. And so you're basically inhaling these forever chemicals that you don't really want to put into your body.

Is there a slightly better candle? You see the soy-based ones? I don't have any candles that are a color.

The color might be an indicator that we're getting into artificial stuff. But the question is, why not put the ingredient It's like what you just had for the hairspray? Show us what's in it. We deserve that. If it's got a fluorocarbon in there, we know it's non-degradable and it's going to get in our body and we can't get rid of it.

All right, let's talk about deodor. Deodorant. So this is a deodorant. This one got alcohol and PPG 114, Beauty Ether, Cybo... I don't even know what the... I see Paula. Is this an indication that this is problematic?

Well, if it has a fluorocarbon, anything with fluoride and carbon in there or alkylating agents, that's when you get the forever chemical. So that chemical bond is irreversible, non-degradable, and just whether you eat something with it or breathe something with it, you're stuck with it forever.

What about perfume? I've got perfume here that hydro... I see a lot of methadabut, benzol, themenol. I can't read this stuff.

Yeah, that is incriminating. Again, at least it lists the chemicals. Some of them don't even list their ingredients, right?

I don't think mine lists my ingredient.

But if there's a forever chemical in there, which it sounds like there might, I would try to stay clear of that and stay with ones that have organic, non-chemical stuff in them, because then you know you're perfectly safe.

You know what's so interesting about this conversation is I'm so psycho about moving my body and getting sleep and eating wholefoods. I call it my grandmother's diet. I just try to eat local. I try to eat wholefoods as much as I can. I don't eat out of bags boxes whenever I can. And so I'm nutso about this stuff. And I'm just slathering chemicals all over my body and spraying it on me to make it look good and then drinking out of my plastic bottles and microwaving my wholefoods in my plastic containers It didn't even occur to me.

This was amazing. When I did the deep dive and researching all the evidence about this, it became much more alarming. I wasn't aware of this either. And there's still some holdouts. There's still some naysayers They're saying, Oh, it isn't as bad as you think. But you know what? When you put these things together, all these so-called epidemiologic studies, large cohorts, and showing the increase of exposure and how this is so much associated with bad health outcomes and acceleration of our aging process, this isn't good.

I've seen a lot written recently about also these free chemicals and plastics that are in women's products for menstruation and also baby diapers. Can you talk to me a little bit about that? Are you looking for the same thing? And say the chemical again that we're all looking for.

Well, it's any per-fluorocarbon. Unfortunately, there's been a big review of menstrual products, and many of them have significant exposure of forever chemicals. And so, again, our attention, whether it's the manufacturer or the consumer, is just not there. I mean, if manufacturers really want to be promoting health, they could use different ingredients, different components. Some of them are, evidently, but most of them aren't.

I also have this non-stick technology resistant pan here. It says that it's got titanium in it. It's coded with something. Why are non-stick, coded pans a really bad thing to cook with?

That Teflon or other plastics is getting right into the food. The The more you're using it, the more in microscopic quantities, but you're getting into your digestive tract. And yeah, it's a problem.

Well, and plus, I would imagine, Dr. Topol, that as you're cooking something in here and using a plastic cooking utensil and the heat is heating up the plastic on the pan coating and on the utensil, you're just releasing more microplastic from the utensil and the pan into the food that you're eating?

Just like the microwave of the Tupperware, same thing. Heat is just going to increase the load of the nanoplastics into your body.

I'm going to be emptying out a lot of the drawers at home. That's all I can say. What do you think about air filters in the house? I mean, should we all be having one? Is there a certain type of air filter that can help filter the air?

Well, we do have a problem with bad air, dirty air. We saw this, of course, through COVID. Had we, at our home or our workplace, had better air filtration, we could have reduced the spread of COVID. And it's the same with the respiratory viruses, but it also gets us to air pollution. Air pollution, when you get down to the 2. 5 particulate matter or the tiny amounts of air pollution, the tiniest- What do you mean by that?

What do you mean when you get down to the two? I don't know what that means.

So there's breakdowns of the pollutants in our air. The smaller you go, the more toxic. And again, just like we talked about with the microplastics and the forever chemicals, it's these small 2. 5 particulate matter. These are the ones that are throughout our body inducing inflammation. Anything we can do to have higher quality air, particularly with good filtration. There are these HEPA filters, but even just exchanging the air, a lot of people's homes. Like a fan? Yeah. Well, fans or Normally, in a workplace, now we have these so-called MRV 11, MRV 13. These are just air filtration systems that are exchanging our air on a frequent basis. The more exchanges, the more filtration, the better quality air. Last year, the CDC for the first time said, We're going to make a move towards healthy buildings, and that sounded really good. But what's actually being done? That involves much better ventilation and filtration systems, and there's a little action that's actually been taken.

The reality is, as I hear all this, it makes perfect sense. I'm not one of those people that's like, Well, there's not enough evidence. To me, if you look at the rise in cancer and the rise of infertility rates and the rise of diseases that people are being diagnosed with at ages in their teens and 20s and 30s that they weren't being diagnosed with 20, 30 years ago, it makes a lot of sense. There's no denying to me the connection of all this, but I feel like it feels out of control that, Oh, my God, there's teaspoon of plastic in my body, that it's in my arteries, that it's everywhere around me. The air that we breathe has got God knows what in it. Every product that I'm buying is not labeled, and so I don't know how to look for the free chemical. If you were to say, Dr. Topol, that there are three things that everybody can do and should do that would make the biggest impact in your environmental risks and mitigating against them, what would they be?

Well, I think, firstly, it's to acknowledge that these environmental factors are very likely inducing harm to our body. So the first thing is you got to have awareness of these big three, air pollution, the forever chemicals, and the microplastics or nanoplastics. So that's step number one. The second One is that we need to, what we can at an individual level, family level, reduce the hit. There are many practical things that we can do that we've been reviewing, and that at least is doing something active towards trying to reduce the burden. The third thing is we need to start taking on the industry with the help of a government, environmental protection that should be a strong factor in all this, that these companies that are the most active in this space that are manufacturing, knowing their products, first not disclosing it in the labels, secondly, knowing that they're chalkful, like we talked about with the problem that was unveiled with 3M, that why aren't they using other components that are not posing risk to our health? Because when you look at these factors, for example, now that we know that you can look all the layers of a person's data and say, this is no reason that person would get pancreatic cancer.

There is just no reason at all. But, oh, by the way, they happen to live in a place that got very bad air pollution, very significant exposure to these toxic chemicals, plastics, ultra-processed foods. Well, what's going on here? The point is, by diagnosis of exclusion, the fact that we can look at all these layers of data and say, this person presented in their 60s with pancreatic or ovarian cancer. There's just no reason for it, or lung adenocarcinoma in a very healthy young woman. Why? Well, all these things we're talking about here, because they induce inflammation, they induce mutations in our cells that could be carcinogenic.

That's terrifying. Yeah.

I always like to have the hardest evidence to make a conclusion. But this one here has a flashing yellow light, especially Especially in context of not doing anything about it.

Well, when you and your work have been cited in 365,000 papers, and you've got over 13,000 published papers yourself, and your alarm I'm like Defcon 10 over here thinking, get the plastic out of my house. Dr. Topol, I have so much that I want to dig into with you, but let's take a quick pause so we can give our sponsors a chance to say a few words. As you're listening to our sponsors, be generous with this. Absolutely everybody that you care about and love deserves this information, and they would love a chance to learn from the extraordinary Dr. Eric Topol. Don't go anywhere. Because we have more from his new book, Superagers, when we return. So stay with us. Well, Welcome back. It's your friend Mel Robbins. And today, you and I have the honor of getting to spend time with and learn from one of the most respected scientists in the world. His name is Dr. Eric Topol, and he is here unpacking his evidence-based approach to longevity and all of this extraordinary research in his new book, Superagers. So Dr. Topol, what would you say, Dr. Topol, though, to somebody who is listening somewhere around the world because our audience is global.

Yes. And there is a person that is listening to this who is going to feel so overwhelmed by the chemicals and pollutants that they are surrounded by because of where they live and feel like, well, there's nothing I can do. Obviously, there's always something you can do. But what is the one thing that you would want this person who's feeling like, well, I live in a polluted area and there is no regulation around where chemicals are dumped? What's one thing to really take a look at for yourself?

Well, the things that we've been discussing, I think, Mel, that at least will reduce that person's burden or their family's burden to some extent. And at least that raises awareness so that everything you're doing now is a bit different. When you go to the grocery store or the farmer's market, when you're cooking, you're much more conscious of these these potential risks. It isn't like you said, Defcon. This is not like you're going to die or you're going to wind up in the hospital. But these are these chronic, low-level burden things that they're not helping. We know that much.

Well, then you also wonder, with the rise of autoimmune disorders and the massive increase in the last 20 years, when you see the rise of infertility rates, as you've suggested, the rise in cancer diagnosis diagnosis in young people, when you see the rise of autism diagnosis, it does make you wonder, how are these environmental factors truly impacting people's genes, people's organs, the way the body metabolizes food and air, the way that the immune system works. The fact that you're alarmed is very alarming to me.

Yeah, I think the problem we have is we're in a state of complacency. We've just accepted this. We've accepted this exponential rise of environmental toxins, all of which we've been discussing induce inflammation in our body, pose a risk of every organ system, as you mentioned, including the immune system and inflammation. And we're just sitting here in some denialism as if they're innocuous, and they're not.

Hear people doing cleanses, whether it's going on like a heavy metal cleanse or doing something to reset their health. Once you have microplastics in your system, can you get them out of your body?

The problem is the plastics and the forever chemicals are not degradable. So it's a unidirectional thing. You take them in and they're in residence. They establish residence in our bodies. Who would want that? Who wants these foreign chemicals and materials in our body, especially when you see them? When you see them in an artery and then you see surrounding the plastics, is this intense inflammation of all these cells that come in that are just profound. Then you look at the arteries that don't have the plastics in them and it looks okay. You say, whoa, I don't want these in my arteries, and I don't want these in my brain because they can't be doing anything good there. So that's the problem is they get throughout our body and they are inducing local inflammation, which is unhealthy. So here, on the one hand, we have a lot of good things that we can do to promote healthy aging. But we got this problem that we're basically largely ignoring, and I hope that's going to change.

Well, one thing that I am getting out of this conversation that I think is really important, number one, is that there are simple changes that I need to make, that our family needs to make. Now that I'm aware of it in terms of how we cook, the products that are certainly in our kitchen, the way that I am heating up food, the containers I drink water in. I grew I grew up in an area where there was a lot of manufacturing, and there was not regulations related to the dumping of chemicals in lakes. There were, when I was growing up, clustering of different types of lymph genomas and cancers, which, of course, all then tracked back to the chemical dumping. We know the connection between the environment and people's health. We know, based on very bad things that have happened, how chemicals impact people's health. And so the fact, I agree with you, that we're not regulating this or protecting people from it, seems profoundly unfair and frankly, stupid.

Totally stupid.

I also think if we're already on this hockey stick upswing, what's going to happen in 20 or 30 years? What's going to happen to our kids?

Well, I really appreciate that point because the Superagers book is brimming with optimism because we're going to be able to prevent disease. We have this newfound potential to do that. We have this problem, is the overhang, which is when are we going to get serious about environmental toxins and exposures? They're there, they're increasing. It's undeniable that they're posing some hazard. In order to reap the benefits of this amazing capacity of prevention that we're going to have, we've got to pay a lot of attention to this issue.

Well, I'm glad you brought up optimism because Super Ager is your best-selling book, which is an evidence-based approach to longevity and using the science of aging to your benefit so that you age well, regardless of whether you're 20 or 30 or 30, or 40, or 50, or 60, or 70, or 80. The lifestyle changes that you talk about in the book, whether it's sleep, or exercise, or eating less processed food, or staying socially connected, are the evidence evidence-based way to improve your health outcomes. I'm happy that you also were willing to laser in on a piece of your book that was about the environmental aspect, because this is a piece that can feel very overwhelming, and a lot of us, frankly, don't know about it. I've prioritized convenience over my actual health, and I've prioritized just being laissez-faire about it because I didn't understand the deep connection and the actual scary evidence you've laid out today about how environmental factors are contributing to poor outcomes as you age, regardless of how young or old you are. I am so appreciative, Dr. Topol, that you were willing to make the case and willing to talk to us about some of the simple changes we could make and to get us really revved up about the importance of this as a species, frankly.

Particularly with children here, they're exposed to lots of plastics and these chemicals. Of course, it's the duration of exposure throughout a person's lifetime that also plays a role. I went on a field trip with my 11-year-old grandson last Friday, a marine biology field trip. During that trip, the kids all had lunches. It was really interesting that their parents, typically their mothers, of course, many of them had packed things in their lunch, no plastic at all. I said, Wow, this is really impressive. So some people are getting the memo. Some people are figuring out that there's ways to work around this plastic pervasiveness, and that's reassuring. We all can do better.

Well, you just mentioned kids, and I was just sitting here thinking that if I take all the research that you've laid out, and I think about my own life, 56 years old, and you talk about the rise of this in the last couple decades, I probably, for the first 20, 25 years of my life, was not exposed to microplastics. It's only been in the last couple of decades that I have been. But when I think about my kids who are now 26 and 24 and 20, They've been exposed to this for their entire life. We love to point the fingers at social media, which certainly has its upside and massive downsides, especially in the development of young brains. But it makes you wonder, is the rise in ADHD, especially the early diagnosis and other neurodivergent issues, also partially because of these environmental toxins? Again, don't know. But when you really look at the research and the evidence, it's hard to deny that it's got to be a contributing factor.

That's the way I see it, Mel, because there's no way these things are good for us. When you see the rising incidence of these things, there is no other explanation. It's hard point away from this as a root cause. These things can't be good for us. Let's assume that they're bad for us and do something about it.

Dr. Topo, if the person listening does just one thing when they're done listening to all this that you've shared with us today, what would the one thing be?

Well, I still want to leave a person with a very optimistic outlook. We have a capacity to prevent diseases that's more powerful than ever before in medical history. But we have to pay attention to the problem that is happening at the same time, which is steadily worsening, which is that we have these unwanted foreign toxins in our environment, in the things that are being manufactured. We're taking them in on a daily basis, and that has to get on track. We just can't keep going on and expect to reap only the benefits without the concurrent risks that exist today. I do hope that while we are in prevent mode, we pay more attention to this other issue, which is that we have a few layers of environmental exposures, each of which we can do something better with them to reduce them. But it's also going to take a collective, population-wide attention to really make a difference.

What are your parting words, Dr. Topol?

Well, I couldn't be more excited about the ability to prevent the age-related diseases, the ability for us to take a huge dent out of cancer, out of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, along with cardiovascular disease, that being the number one killer throughout the world. There's never been better prospects for that. We have many ways we're going to achieve that. But let's not forget that alongside has been a creeping up of our environmental factors that are getting in the way. So let's make sure that we pay attention to that and take it seriously from here on in.

Well, what I really appreciate about you is that underlying that message is the environmental factors aren't your fault. But now that you see them, you can do something to protect yourself against them. And now that you understand the bigger picture and how this is accelerating, you can be part of a solution that helps resolve these environmental factors for future generations. Dr. Tobel, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for writing such a remarkable book, Superagers. Thank you for hopping on a plane, and thank you for making this extremely compelling and alarming case and empowering us to make simple changes to protect ourselves.

Thank you.

And thank you. Thank you for taking the time to listen to something that could absolutely change your life. And there's no doubt in my mind Dr. Topol's research and his new book Superagers has all the information and the simple changes that you can be making in your life, in the life of the people that you care about that will add yours to your life. I really hope you take everything that you learned today to heart. And in case no one else tells you, I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you, and I believe in your ability to create a better life. Thank you for listening to something and for wanting to learn from somebody as smart and as researched and as respected as Dr. Eric Topol. Thank you for sharing this, and I'll see you in a few days. I'll be waiting to welcome you in to the very next episode, The Moment You Hip-Play. I'll see you there. Okay, you ready? Okay, great. I love that. Wow. So good. Well, thank you. See what happens. Okay. Okay, great. Okay. All right. Oh my God, that was so good.

Oh my God, get it away from me.

Well, you don't want to interrupt this coupling here.

Oh, we will. I mean, she can fly in for production. I live in Southern Vermont. Oh, yeah.

Oh, good. But what if she's on the other side of the country?

She'll fly over just like you did. She'll be here for five days, right? That's great.

I love it.

We make it work. Dr. Topol, I microwave in plastic all the time. Is that okay?

I wouldn't advise it. Hopefully, that would be past tense.

Oh, and one more thing. And no, this is not a blooper. This is the legal language. You know what the lawyers write and what I need to read to you. This podcast is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. I'm just your friend. I am not a licensed therapist, and this podcast is not intended as a substitute for the advice of a physician, professional coach, psychotherapist, or other qualified professional. Got it? Good. I'll see you in the next episode. Serious XM Podcasts.