The Toxic Seven Part 4: Is Your Favorite Perfume Damaging Your Cardiovascular System?

Introduction to Lesson Four 0:00

Hey, everyone. Doctor Eric Slansky here. And welcome to lesson four of our seven part series. Heart Attack and stroke prevention starts here. We're going to learn how to save time, how to save money, and how to save your heart by avoiding the seven most dangerous chemicals in everyday body care and cleaning products that are damaging your cardiovascular system. Now, phthalates are often called the everywhere chemical because they're virtually everywhere. They're found in countless products, from plastics to fragrances.

In your personal care items. While they're widely used to make products more, quote unquote, enjoyable, more fragrant, more flexible, long lasting. The health risks they pose are very alarming. And a study published in the journal Heart and Circulatory Physiology, for example, discovered that phthalates interfere with heart rate variability leading to irregular heart rhythms. In additional research, has linked phthalate exposure to hypertension and an increased risk of heart disease. In this lesson, we're going to dive into the science a bit more.

Phthalates and Heart Health Risks 1:12

Uncover how these chemicals impact your heart health. And we're going to provide some action steps and some DIY solutions that you can minimize your exposure. Starting today. And as always, this presentation is for informational purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for medical advice. However, please just know this from the bottom of my heart. You know, when you switch to this natural lifestyle that we call it, this essential oil lifestyle, by using toxin free alternatives and you become more aware of what you're putting on your body and what you're inhaling all day long, you will significantly reduce your exposure to harmful chemicals.

And that right? That in there can help protect your health, especially your heart. Small, intentional changes will lead to a healthier, longer, more abundant life. And it's never, ever, ever too late to start. And that's exactly what you're going to do in this seven lesson series. I'm so glad that you join me. And if you haven't, be sure that you join my next live class. Go to doctor Z class.com. We're going to dive deeper into this topic, and we're going to uncover and unpack aromatherapy. And I'm going to give you the best of the best of the ten years of my research and three of my bestselling books and all of the research studies that I've gone through to give you what you need to learn how to use essential oils safely, effectively for your entire family to hopefully help you reach your health goals.

But at the very least, learn how to minimize toxins in your life and switch it around with some wonderful, wonderful DIY preparations conjured up by my lovely wife, mom, Izzy. And today we're going to tackle phthalates. Phthalates are commonly used as plasticizers and fragrance stabilizers and preservatives in body care products and cleaning products. They're known as endocrine disruptors. Prolonged exposure can have significant impacts on heart health and increase stroke through a variety of mechanisms.

And it's really important. Just take a quick note and have a public service announcement on fragrances. And we mentioned this in a prior lesson. And it's worth noting again briefly here that anything that you smell in your cleaning products or in your body care products are either based off of true, unadulterated essential oils, or they are made from petroleum based chemical fragrances that are a hodgepodge of a number that no one knows depends on the manufacturer up to 3500 different chemicals.

And that's the problem is manufacturers don't have to list what's in the fragrances. All they do is put the word fragrance, and in that can have 3000 4000 different chemicals in it. God only knows what's in it. And that's the problem. That's the issue. And unfortunately that's why we need to avoid anything and everything that has fragrance, perfume, perfume, aroma or whatever, because the research has shown is clear. In addition to heart attack and stroke, that we're going to learn. Just a minute.

Alzheimer's, dementia, cancer, obesity, autoimmunity, diabetes and the list goes on and on. Virtually every chronic disease is linked to these harmful fragrances. So anything that you smell, if it's not a real essential oil, it's bad. Stay away from it, throw it away and avoid at all cost. So here are some products containing phthalates that you need to be aware of. Of course, obviously your fragrances, your colognes, your your perfumes and anything that has a smell to it. But not just that, but other chemicals or other, are there uses other chemicals for preservative bases, deodorants, lotions, moisturizers, body washes, your shampoos, conditioners, nail polishes and makeup sunscreens?

Baby products like it's it's it's shocking. Like it's everywhere. That's why they're called these forever or these everywhere products. Cleaners, all purpose cleaners, bathroom cleaners, glass and window cleaners, air fresheners, dishwashing liquids, laundry

Where Phthalates Are Found 5:15

detergents, fabric softeners, floor cleaners, polishes and specialty cleaners. And marketers have taken note of people being very aware of this. So they'll put phthalate free, which is something that I would say be a good label reader. Not just fragrance free, right, but phthalate free. And that's really important because you don't want to have a product that openly advertises phthalates, in addition to the hidden sources that are oftentimes in the fragrances and other things, too. So those are those are good buzzwords to keep an eye out when you're at your natural health store or shopping on Amazon or something.

The heart risks are pretty profound. We'll go through these relatively quickly, but just soberly. I mean, everything from endocrine disruption, to blood pressure issues to heart function, weakening heart function, a heart rhythm abnormalities. These phthalates mimic hormones like estrogen, leading the hormone imbalances that affect cardiovascular function. And this disrupts can cause elevated blood pressure and increase your risk of heart disease. And phthalate exposure is associated with higher systolic and diastolic, blood pressure.

Hypertension is a key risk factor, as you know, for heart attacks and other cardiovascular risk. And just being exposed to these chemicals just just affects that in a negative way. And it's something that's very simple, very simple, and can be very effective in minimizing your risk is just by avoiding them as well a weakening heart function. It's kind of scary. I mean, they impair mitochondrial mitochondrial function in heart cells, reducing a heart's ability to pump, pump blood effectively over time.

And heart rhythm abnormalities. Research suggests that phthalates interfere with normal heart electrical activity, potentially leading to arrhythmias and increased strain on the heart and stroke. Hypertension, obviously a main contributing risk factor, phthalate induced high blood pressure, directly contributes to both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes. Vascular dysfunction. They disrupt endothelial function, weakening blood vessels and reducing their ability to adapt to changes in blood flow, making them more prone to rupture.

Blockage, phthalates, increase or can, over time, increase risk of blood clots, chronic exposure. And that's the key. And I'm really glad. I'm really glad I wrote that. Just as a reminder. Chronic. It's just not one time. If you're exposed, one time if you go to a hotel, and if you forget to bring your homemade body wash or store bought shampoo, and you use the junk that's in the shower that has phthalates in it, it's not going to cause it immediately. Just you're not going to get a blood clot. But this this concept of chronic disease leads to chronic illnesses led by and contributed from chronic exposure to risk factors that spurred.

How Phthalates Affect the Cardiovascular System 8:12

This is a key component. So chronic exposure to phthalates can increase blood viscosity and platelet aggregation, heightening to the risk of clot formation and schema stroke. We're talking decades. And that's the problem is people are exposed to these chemicals for decades. And the youth my age and younger, my children, unless their parents are actively like us, trying to have their kids avoid being avoid these chemicals and make their own from birth, they're being exposed. And so no wonder, no wonder we're not seeing a decrease in heart attack and stroke and other chronic conditions as people age, because they've only have had an entire lifetime exposed to these products.

Neurovascular impacts. They've been linked to disrupted blood brain barrier integrity, making the brain more vulnerable to vascular injuries and strokes. Which is one of the reasons why two their main contributors to Alzheimer's and dementia, atherosclerosis and stroke, phthalates can promote plaque buildup in arteries, narrowing the blood vessels, increasing the likelihood of stroke. And and it's something that is very concerning. Yet good news we could do things about it. And out of all the topics that we're covering in this seven part series, I want to hit home the dangers and the ubiquity of artificial fragrances right here and give you just hopefully a cornucopia of ideas on how you could use essential oils in your life to replace the fragrances.

So I would say one by one by one, you could go through that list of body care and cleaning products and start to buy phthalate free and make your own phthalate free versions. But when it comes to the fragrances your pu pu sprays or your plug ins, your aerosols, all that stuff, the easiest solution, the best solution, and the healthiest option that will put you into your into a driver's seat of your own emotional and mental and spiritual well-being, is to use essential oils on a regular basis. So this is my hard pitch.

This is my hard sales pitch to to learn how to use essential oils. And I want to give you two recipes right here that we use on a regular basis. And it's so simple. You can go on Amazon or your local health food store, you can get a water diffuser that just, you know, 150ml or whatever, a little water tank, you fill it up with water, you put 3 to 5, six drops of essential oil. You press the on button, you let that thing run. And what it does, that's that's traditional aromatherapy. You're inhaling those essential oils.

A what that does is gives you the ability where you can completely kick out those other artificial fragrances without missing anything. Because my wife has come up with an unbelievable array of blends, like your Christmas cookie blend and your wonderful fall blend. This immune boosting blend right here has been shown

Essential Oils and Fragrance Alternatives 11:24

literally shown in vitro to kill the flu virus. Like these essential oils are anti-microbial, antiviral, antifungal and when they contract and interact with viruses and bacteria and fungi, they kill it. It's God's natural medicine. It's what protects plants from damage and infection. And we're just extracting it. And so your favorite immune boosting blend that you might get from your distributor, whatever company you buy oils from, or I'm interested from, like they all have a version of this blend.

It's like pumpkin pie spice. It smells just like fall. It's awesome. And you could add this same blend in your hand sanitizer in your soap and your lotion or whatever it might be, in proper dilutions and proper ratios. And that's why I teach my classes to teach people how to use this stuff. But what if you want to, get a different kind of mood? What if you're not worried about flu, Covid or, you know, immune health? Like, what if it's not fall or winter and you're like, hey, it's summertime. I don't want like that fresh, downy, summery blend of junk that's going to be in my laundry.

I want to have something else. I want to have a nice fragrant smell like this joyful blend is wonderful. Just a good, nice collection of citrus essential oils with vanilla. And here's one research study that blew my mind when I wrote my last book of the Healing Power of Essential Oils was our first book. And, what I realized was we discovered the surface and people were asking, what do I do specifically about diseases? And we covered in my last book, The Essential Oil Apothecary. My wife and I covered the top 25 chronic issues that are plaguing people.

We started, you know, heart attack, stroke, cancer, Alzheimer's and everything in the middle. And one thing that I stumbled upon was this research study about orange and vanilla. And long story short, because it's a pretty cool study, what they evaluated, but they put people into a hopeless, helpless situation where they assign them a task that they couldn't solve. Interestingly enough, they signed two groups of people at the same task. It was to solve racial discrimination in a group of 1520 people, and all they had was a piece of paper and a pencil and like, okay, you 15 people, you don't know each other, solve racism.

You 15 people, you don't know each other, solve racism. They stuck them into a room for an hour and a half, two hours. And they're like, figure it out. Well, you can't do that. The solution is hopelessness, helplessness. And people, like, walked away like that was, you know, what a waste of my time, right? That was the purpose of the study. The purpose of the study was to elicit that response, that hopeless, helpless, like, what's the point of doing this? It's not going to work. But one group, they had a the therapy.

The other group, they had nothing, just a stale old classroom environment with a piece of paper and a pencil in the other room, stale classroom environment, piece of paper and pencil. But they had aroma therapy of orange, of vanilla. And what the researchers found was a huge difference in mood, elevation, stress reduction, anxiety, benefits of those people enjoying the aroma therapy. And they weren't as hopeless. They weren't as helpless. They weren't overwhelmed. They were like, okay, this kind of sucks.

This isn't fun, but it's no big deal. The other people were like, get me out of here. It's not worth the $50, you know, gift card that I did to sign up for this event. Right. So God bless you. By the way, if you've ever been part of a research study, but wow, just by having aromatherapy in the room, they were able to change their physiology and deal with the overwhelming situation much better. And I thought, man, what if everyone had orange a vanilla, diffusing when Covid hit? What if everyone had orange and the vanilla diffusing when they found out that they lost their job, or their grandma died, or they're getting served divorce papers right?

Life happens. Yet imagine changing the environment. And that's how powerful this is. So the sky's the limit on what you could do. And there's a variety of different blends you could check out Natural Living Family A.com type up diffuser blend again, Natural Living family.com, type up diffuser blend and just check out the blends that we have on our website just to get ideas.

Closing and Next Lesson Preview 15:30

And you can check out my upcoming class, doctor Z class.com and I'll share that with just a second. But that's phthalates heavy emphasis on on fragrances because they're the hidden ingredient fragrance we all need to be careful of. And that was number four. That was number four in our lesson of seven. Is that great? Next lesson is formaldehyde. Yes. Formaldehyde is still and stuff all over the place. And we got to avoid it. Don't forget, join my class, go to Doc Tuesday class.com. My next live class.

We're going to dive deep into more studies like I just shared about orange and vanilla. We're going to uncover how to use essential oils the right way. And I'm going to present you what I call the essential oil lifestyle, which incorporates aromatherapy and virtually everything that we do. And you're going to want to be part of it. If you've enjoyed this series, you're going to love that. All right, as always, is Doctor Eric Zelinsky. My hope and prayers that you and your family truly experience the abundant life.

God bless. We'll talk soon.