We spend 90% of our lives indoors. With the pandemic, perhaps more.
Airborne Particulates
Many of our building materials “out-gas” into the air we breathe. Incredibly small bits, that we cannot see with our eyes, can be inhaled and cross our blood-brain barrier. These are called inhalable particulate matter.
Airborne particulate matter (PM) is not a single pollutant, but rather a mixture of many chemicals.
Particles are defined by their diameter.
Those with a diameter of 10 microns or less (PM10) are inhalable into the lungs and can induce adverse health effects.
Fine particulate matter is defined as particles that are 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5). These can go from the lungs into the brain. And can destroy this precious bridge between the brain and the rest of the body (blood-brain barrier) allowing a lot more stuff to get in. That shouldn’t get in. The brain gets inflamed. You get anxious, depressed, and perhaps start to lose your mental crispness.
Within our enclosed spaces, homes, and offices, many of us, kids too, are exposed to a multitude of chemicals from various sources. These include outdoor pollutants penetrating indoors, gaseous emissions from building materials and furnishings, and products of our own activities such as cooking and cleaning.
And, get this, in addition, we humans also “out-gas”. Our own bodies emit chemicals that enter the indoor air from our breath and skin. From our choices of personal care products to our foods, meds and to our digestive gases.
What a soup.
But how do the chemicals disappear again?
Outdoors
In the “outdoors”, this happens to a certain extent naturally by itself, through sunlight and water. When it rains and through chemical oxidation. Hydroxyl (OH) radicals are largely responsible for this chemical cleaning. These very reactive molecules are called the “detergents” of the atmosphere. They are primarily formed when UV light from the sun interacts with ozone and water vapor.
Indoors
Indoors, on the other hand, the air gets less direct sunlight and hopefully no rain.
Since UV rays are largely filtered out by glass windows it has been generally assumed that the concentration of OH radicals is substantially lower indoors than outdoors. And that ozone, leaking in from outdoors, is the major oxidant of indoor airborne chemical pollutants.
However, now it’s been shown that high levels of OH radicals can be generated indoors, simply due to the presence of people and ozone. You. Me. Plus our own ozone. In your living room, bedroom, etc…
This has been shown by a team led by a group of cool folks. From the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in cooperation with researchers from the USA and Denmark.
Along with research from one of my fav places, Italy. (Please, some handsome man, whisk me away to a flat in Italy!) The Italian Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate in Bologna, Italy.
What we know from Studies
Their collaborative efforts found that our skin has oils and fats. Especially the unsaturated triterpene squalene, which constitutes about 10% of the skin lipids that protect our skin and keep it supple. These react with chemicals in the air, like ozone, to make more chemicals.
We out-gas. Merge with what else is in our air. Then we inhale all this. Like food.
Indoor air is a huge health factor. Up there with exercise!
In my breakthrough book on pollutants that can affect our hormones, Hormone Deception (McGraw-Hill 2000, Awakened Medicine Press 2016), I talked about the amazing 10-year “Team Study” run by the EPA.
They looked, overall, at a representative sample of approximately 3500 people. These participants wore chemical monitors 24/7. At home, work, inside, outside. For years.
The EPA learned there is “good” and “bad” news.
The bad news is that our homes are where most of our pollution lives.
The good news is that our homes are where most of our pollution lives.
Thus, we can choose to do something about it. We have more control over our own spaces. If we have knowledge. And also a bit of dough.
Indoor air chemistry is an “oxidation field” we create by living. Creating multitudes of chemicals. Directly into our “breathing zone”. With unknown health impacts.
Currently, the chemical emissions of many materials and furnishings are being tested in isolation before they are approved for sale.
However, it would be better to conduct tests in the presence of people and ozone.
Because what we ourselves out-gas is part of what we continue to inhale.
These oxidation processes can lead to the generation of respiratory irritants such as 4-oxopentanal (4-OPA) and other OH radical-generated oxygenated species. Also small particles in the immediate vicinity of the respiratory tract.
These can have adverse effects, especially in children. The elderly. And the infirm.
What can we do?
Have indoor air filters that are built to remove whatever gets into your air.
I use IQ air free standing. They are a bit costly but you can usually buy them on Craig’s list as folks may be moving and selling their units. You really buy the housing and can order your own new filters.
Place water filters on your shower. Shower water and its chemicals enter your air. I like Berkey.
Ideally, filter “all” your home water.
When I just had the honor and fun to hang with Dr. David Brownstein and his amazing wife, family and friends, I learned they had an RO filter on all their water. And free standing IQ air filters on each floor of their home, like I do.
Air is the New Food
Just like you try to now eat healthier, try to eat more organic and more plant food. Realize that air is the new food.
We don’t know all that is in it. But we do know that we can filter it. And that all the chemicals we consume, use, and have in our air and water, mix with our air. To form new chemicals.
The cleaner we live. The better “air-food” we continue to breathe.
Heating and AC ducts can also brew pathogens and mold. Consider UV lights placed inside the ducts to help eradicate pathogens and keep your air, and health, better.
My grandmother was from Russia. She used to say, in a rather thick and lovable Russian accent, “Cleanliness is next to Godliness".
You don’t have to stress out or become hypochondriacal. Do one baby step at a time. But realize as our planet gets dirtier, you will want to slowly think of ways to try to keep your own living space, lungs and blood-brain barriers, “cleaner”.
May the clean air force be with ya.
Dr. B.
Reference:
Hormone Deception McGraw-Hill 2000, Awakened Medicine Press 2016. Berkson DL.
The human oxidation field. Science, 2022; 377 (6610): 1071 High levels of hydroxyl radicals (OH) can be generated indoors, simply due to the presence of people and ozone.
Personal exposure to 25 volatile organic compounds. EPA's 1987 team study in Los Angeles, California. Toxicol Ind Health. 1991 Sep-Nov;7(5-6):203-8. PMID: 1780860.
The TEAM (Total Exposure Assessment Methodology) Study: personal exposures to toxic substances in air, drinking water, and breath of 400 residents of New Jersey, North Carolina, and North Dakota. Environ Res. 1987 Aug;43(2):290-307. doi: 10.1016/s0013-9351(87)80030-0. PMID: 3608934.