An investment in knowledge always pays the best interest.
Benjamin Franklin
Toxics
Toxic Metal Syndrome
Toxic metals and how they harm our health
I've put most of my attention over the years on eliminating toxic chemicals made from petroleum from my home, but there is a whole other class of toxic substances: toxic metals. Though this book was written as a possible treatment for Alzheimer's, it contains a lot of basic information about toxic metals--our exposures to them and how they affect our health--which we all need to know. Included are aluminum, mercury, lead, cadmium, iron, and manganese.
Slow Death by Rubber Duck
Two guys experiment with toxics in their own bodies.
Two Canadian environmentalists decided to ingest "a whole bunch of suspected substances" to see what effect they had on their bodies. They chose seven common chemicals, giving themselves common exposures and monitoring their bodies with blood and urine samples. Their conclusion? Simple changes in consumer choices can detox our lives. An easy-to-read, very interesting personal account that shows the necessity of eliminating toxic chemicals from our lives if we wish to be healthy.
Our Chemical Lives and The Hijacking of Our DNA
A detailed look at how toxic chemicals affect our bodies at a cellular level.
This well-researched book presents an in-depth analysis of how chemicals enter our bodies and penetrate cellular nuclei, resulting in DNA mutations that lead to many diseases. Chapters cover toxic exposures in food, scented products, new cars, tobacco, pesticides, endocrine distruptors, products made in China, genetically-modified organisms, water, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, cosmetics, indoor air pollution, and heavy metals. If you want to know where the toxic chemicals are, this book will give you the overview. Most of the book is an alert to the dangers, and not many solutions, however, this can be forgiven as the author recommends my book Home Safe Home.
The Body Restoration Plan
Exposure to toxic chemicals can make you fat
Dr. Paula Baillie-Hamilton is a medical doctor with an academic doctorate in human metabolism from the University of Oxford. One evening she was reading the newspaper and an article on the powerful hormone-damaging actions of pesticides caught her eye. What really grabbed her attention was that the small amount of chemicals needed to wreak such havoc with our sex hormones was not too different from the small amount of toxic chemicals the average person is exposed to every day. The thought came to her that if these chemicals had the power to alter our hormones so drastically, then they must also have some sort of influence on our weight. She ran for one of her biggest medical textbooks and found what she was looking for: “Changes in sex hormones can cause weight gain.” And pesticides damage sex hormones. This book explains all about how toxic chemicals hinder your body's ability to lose weight and what to do to restore your body's natural ability to maintain normal weight.
What's Toxic, What's Not
This is a great companion book to my Home Safe Home.
Where I focus mainly on the "what's not," this book focuses mainly on the "what's toxic" and gives a lot more detailed explanation about WHY you should be using all the nontoxic and natural products I recommend. Chapters cover lead, radon, mold, asbestos, food toxics, water pollutants, consumer products, indoor and outdoor air pollutants, toxics in the workplace, toxics in schools, toxics in yard and garden, power lines and EMFs, hazardous waste sites, and more. Where I have arranged Home Safe Home by product, this book is arranged by toxic exposure, and then tells the health effects of that chemical or material, where it can be found, and some nontoxic alternatives.
Why David Hated Tuesdays
My friend Amilya Antonetti wrote this book after her son was made ill by exposure to toxic chemicals in her home.
While it, like other books--including my own--is a guide to toxic exposures in the home, Amilya brings her own perspective as a mom in the issues she has chosen to address. This is a great book to give to a friend who is a mother as an introduction to the subject of household toxics, as every parent will relate to Ameliya's compelling story.
Blue Vinyl
[DVD] A documentary of one woman's quest to find out the truth about the manufacture and health effects of polyvinyl chloride (PVC),
after her parents install vinyl siding on their home. She and her trusty cinematographer travel around the world to interview environmental investigators, laboratory scientists, attorneys, widows of factory workers killed by industrial exposure. It's a horrifying view of what goes on every day in the manufacture of toxic chemicals--from communities being exposed to toxic releases from factories to signs warning against eating tainted fish in nearby waterways and a trial in which former executives from a PVC-producing company in Venice are on trial for manslaughter. But it's also the story of a woman who refuses to accept the atrocities of plastics production and tries to find a better way. She accomplishes her goal by spread the word in a manner that is both entertaining and thought-provoking. It would be great to have films like this on every toxic chemical.
Toxics A to Z
A scientific overview of toxic chemicals.
Even though this book is written by university professors, it explains very clearly all the basics about toxic chemicals--risk, language, testing, classification, how toxics interact with the body, major sources of toxic exposure, and how toxic chemicals affect the environment. It identifies four categories of toxic chemicals--metals, petrochemicals, pesticides, and radiation, and then gives a guide to commonly-encountered toxics. The guide gives more scientific information about each chemical than tips on protection and prevention, but if you want to know more about toxic chemicals in general and details on specific chemicals, this is a great resource. I found it to be very helpful for basic understanding of toxic substances.
Our Toxic World
A comprehensive look at the toxic chemicals we are exposed to every day, through the eyes of a doctor who has been treated their effects for over two decades.
There is an enormous amount of information on toxic exposures of all kinds in this 511-page book. Dr. Rapp shows where the chemicals are in our everyday world and specifically how they harm our bodies to create multiple chemical sensitivities (MCS). Gives some information on how you can protect yourself from chemicals and how you can stop chemicals from accumulating in your body.
Our Stolen Future
A comprehensive report on the health effects of toxic chemicals, including hormone disruption, written in lay language.
Written as a fascinating scientific detective story, this book reveals the toxic chemicals that are causing birth defects, sexual abnormalities, and reproductive failures in both wildlife animals and humans. Learn how widespread these chemicals are. Another reason to live nontoxic and natural.
