Your Skin Is Absorbing More Than You Think

Hi, I'm Dr. Scott Stoll and welcome to a regenerative life podcast where science becomes hope, food becomes a catalyst for healing and every conversation explores the profound connections between personal health, human flourishing and the earth and future that we will share together.

But more importantly, we'll explore one of the most important questions of our time. What happens when we actually begin living in alignment with the way we were designed?

Well, good afternoon. Good evening. good morning, wherever you are in the world. Dr. Scott Stoller, Regenerative Life, and I am so delighted that you decided to join us.

Today, I have a really exciting guest, Dr Brian Vasley, talking about a topic that is interesting to all of us, you know, we live in extraordinary tension today.

Modern chemistry has given us life-saving medicine, safer buildings, abundant food and products that make daily life easier. Yet it also surrounds us with a bevy of synthetic compounds.

Men are entering the commerce before long-term effects, exposures, or the impacts on human health can be determined. And when we look around, we are surrounded by tens of thousands of these environmental toxins in our air, water, food, soil, cookware, packaging, even our clothing.

Biomonitoring confirms the widespread exposure to substances, including PFAS, phallates, BPAs, pesticides, flame retardants, everywhere, and including our tissue.

We have sometimes more than 600 different chemicals in human fat. But just because we're exposed doesn't mean they cause disease. This is the scientific challenge and it's our responsibility to distinguish presence from risk, association from contribution, contribution from causation.

Today's guest, Dr. Brian Vasily, is a veteran researcher, author, speaker and natural health advocate who has spent more than 25 years exploring healthy aging, longevity, and the practical changes that we all can do to live longer and to thrive.

He is the founder of the Art of Anti-Aging, a community dedicated to translating emerging research into accessible strategies for healthier living. And today, Brian and I are going to jump into the deep end on what the evidence tells us about environmental exposures, what's actually present in our bodies, how it disrupts our physiology, contributes to disruption at the mitochondrial level, the immune regulation, metabolism, cell repair, and how these things may actually contribute to chronic inflammation and accelerated aging.

And so today I really do want to move beyond just fear and sensationalized claims that we may see on social media because there are lots of them. And Dr.

Vasily is a researcher and an expert who can help us understand evidenced informed action and how to take those actions in our lives to prevent exposures and even detox.

So Brian, thanks for being here today. I am really excited about our conversation. It's an important topic and I know that you can bring some clarity for all of us.

Welcome, Brian. Thank you. Hey, Scott. I am excited to be here. Thank you for having me. Looking forward to this discussion. Yeah, and I know you're an expert on this, but before we jump in, I'd like to ask my guests, you know, that I titled my program, Regenerative Life, And I love to understand how you see regeneration.

We talk a lot about degeneration and disease. That is medicine. But how do you say the term regeneration? What does that mean to you? Well, the first thing that comes to my mind is the good news that more than ever we realize that no matter our age, no manner our current circumstances, we have a massive amount of control over our health destiny, our life really.

And any change that's positive that you start making today can regenerate your health, sometimes in smallest of ways, some steps actually quite significantly.

I talk a lot about skin and skin is one very receptive organ to positive change. When people talk about the appearance of their skin, and many, many people are rightfully concerned about that.

I don't like the direction where there's guilt being laid on folks for caring about how they look in the mirror because the skin is, in a way, a billboard.

It's the external organ that's showing you the shape of what's going on inside the body, the other organs as well. And so, it's a fast regenerative organ when you take some healthy steps, for example.

And so that's what I think about it. It's the good news that we can do a lot, which is why folks listen to exceptional podcasts like this one to improve their health, to regenerate themselves.

Again, no matter your age or circumstances. Yeah, that's a really hopeful message. And that something that we didn't learn in medical school and that is not out there is the body has repair mechanisms, including in the skin.

You can begin turning back the clock on some of the damage that has led to that injury to the tissue. Take me back for a minute. I don't know this part of your history, and I always like to ask the question about, you know, what were you like when you were a kid?

Because you obviously have a curious mind, You studied, you know, he loved to dive deep into things. So what was Brian Vasley like as a 10, 12 year old, out exploring things, taking adventures, dissecting.

It's a great question. There's also, I have to tell you, your walking into a loaded question because. Well, I had a rough first half of life, and I do share this story with a lot of folks.

So I'm going to get a little serious on you. And up to around the age of when I was nine, my father was a good man. Then he did not deal with lot a very harsh things that he experienced in his own life.

He was in World War II, he was an intelligence, like a spy for the U. S. he witnessed things overseas that was never able to talk about. to be a Russian spy and then one day they were going to get married and she was disappeared and never saw her again.

Later in his life he lost a son from his previous marriage, got hit and killed by a car and he didn't deal with all these things effectively. So long story short, he took it out on the bottle and took out it on us.

I kind of had a rough upbringing. Plus I was a city boy, like inner city, we were poor. And so I'm lucky I am sitting here today talking to you, whereas little friends that I had growing up some didn't even, you know, make it out of there, a lot of them gained some stuff.

So I did have a kind of a rough upbringing there. Now I do credit, particularly, I must say, powerful women. You know they saved my life, frankly. Changed my lives, saved me life.

Really pulled me through, and I was part of the inspiration for founding the art of anti-aging, which is not opposed, of course, to aging. It's opposed to all the myths that are associated with aging that equate it with being over the hill and doomed when in fact, like our 20s, good years, 30s are good, but really the best years of life on all respects kick in around 40, 50, 60, 70. This is how it ought to be, certainly on a spiritual, if you will, front, mental health front but also even on the physical front.

So tracing back while You know, my father turned into not so good of a human being to us. I knew the real man beneath that because I saw it in a younger year before he hit the bottle too hard and then, you know turned kind of nasty on us and one thing he did for me when I was younger, which I still respect and appreciate, he would send me, when i was seven years old, eight years, old you, know to the library He spoke 14 languages, so he was also brilliant.

In those days, you know, one beautiful thing people might forget today is that we have access to mental health care and it's normal to do so compared to then where it was considered you have to be absolutely crazy.

Deal with your crap on your own is how it taught. And so, he didn't deal with any of that. That's why you know, so thank goodness for all the work that folks do out there regarding trauma and everything like that.

You know so much attention being placed on that as well. But one thing I can say he did do for he would send me to the library because he was well read and he'd say I want you to pick 10 books for me and you just things you think I would be interested in reading.

Growing up books as a seven year old, an eight year-old and it gave me a love of knowledge because I really put, you my dad telling me to do this and I thought so hard about that.

I was researching, I could barely read some of these words, but, you know, so it opened those doors to me. Yeah, went through my little punk period where I'm a little brat, to some extent, who wasn't.

But I did always have a deep fascination with knowledge and learning from books, from just exploring the world. Yeah, digging and diving. Now, I must say this, too.

I'm going to try to wrap this in a pretty bow for you to make it short. But, you know, he did kick the bottle, but then he spent the last 10 years of his life dying, basically, Scott.

And he was in and out of hospitals. My mom, who is an angel, is one of the reasons I am sitting here alive today. Most of us, you know, appreciate our moms, but I certainly do for all she did.

But she was right there with him in and out of hospitals. He spent like the last six months of his life straight in hospitals before he died. he had different complications from excessive smoking and drinking and all sorts of things going on inside of him.

I witnessed a pretty harsh medical system, who was basically experimenting on him and you there were some good people in there. Don't get me wrong. The system as a whole, I saw it as an older teen and then a young man before did pass away.

And so I had early exposure to how, well, I have to use the word inept the system could be and how cruel in some ways the systems could. And that launched a strong interest in me in health and wellness.

I almost had no choice. You know, and then I could give you all kinds of details, but flash forward a bit. So I myself am a young man now, a child at too young of an age.

My first wife, good woman, we finally, you know eventually got divorced, got married too, young. But you're struggling to make it. And my first real job to support myself was inside of the pharma industry.

I won't name names, but I saw it from the inside and I was trained in communications extensively, and so I working very closely. Now, you keep calling me doctor, I'm not an M. D., I just want to point this out to everybody, But I had this extensive experience in health and wellness, again, from a research side, as you've noted.

And way back when, now we're talking 30, plus years ago I think, you know, that we're talking. But yeah, I saw a lot there early on from the inside and I worked with the executives at high up levels in pharma companies and also strangely they were in partnerships with large food corporations.

processed food corporations. I could tell you stories all day. But again, we don't need to go there. A lot of the suspicions that people have about the pharma companies are unfortunately very true and then some.

You know, a lot the reservations that they have. Again, there's good people inside, but the system as a whole is really screwed up. So, I saw a a there and I found my way finally when I was able to out of that into the more integrative you know, a natural health oriented world still working closely with a lot of doctors and researchers.

So always had a deep interest and have been a geek when it comes to the research on this now going on over 30 years. Thank you for sharing that history.

I love to know what shapes people and why we do what we and I really can understand and appreciate your passion for elevating powerful women as they have transformed your life.

And then when you can see a system that is failing people you care about, and you see system, that it is not working in the best way possible, it really does inspire you to do something different.

Thank you for sharing that. I didn't know that part of your history. But I hear it's so much important context to what you do and your And I think it helps us to understand what you're going to be sharing, why you've dug deep into this topic of toxins, because it is important, right?

And, you know, I know you spent, now you said 30 years diving into these topics, studying healthy aging, lifestyle, longevity. What was the kind of awakening around environmental toxins for you.

It's something that we see often today. Gosh, you go on social media and you can't help but run into this idea of toxins and a lot of snake oil, right, to get detox, but it's a very real problem.

And it hasn't been, you know, in my experience, I've been in this a long time too, we haven't really talked about toxins that much, as much as we should, but maybe take us back a little bit in the history of where all these toxins came from and when they started appearing in our environment.

And then I think just for context, where are we today with toxic exposures, and then we'll kind of dive in from there. Yeah. Well, you know, the short answer on that is the Industrial Revolution brought about.

Yeah, back in the late 1800s. Better living through chemistry. And, we as biological beings are eons old, thousands and thousands, hundreds of thousands of years, and it's really only in these last hundred years that we have been taxed with exposure to the sheer volume of chemicals that exposed to on a daily basis.

And it is such a convoluted area as you keep pointing out, rightfully so, because, you know, a lot of folks out there, especially on social media, do take advantage of that.

They do steer the conversation in directions that are questionable when in fact it makes it more difficult to put the facts out there and the real truth about we're not all going to die tomorrow from this.

And here's what I always like to preface, Scott, the conversation with this is like, if you find yourself worried about this excessively or anything really, That worry is more toxic than the toxins, okay?

Please don't allow that to happen to yourself. About anything we talk about when we're talking about prevention, anything. If you find yourself fretting and worrying too much, that's more than anything that we are discussing here.

So let me start there. Yeah, I keep pointing that out. That's important. Right. That said, there are some sources of these toxins that are worse than other.

I mean, it really comes down to, you know, frequency of exposure. And, if you're breathing air inside your home, which you are, constantly, You do want to pay close attention to the air Inside your Home.

We have gotten remarkably good in the… I'm not in construction industry, but the construction Industry has gotten Remarkably good at sealing off our homes.

you know, for weather purposes, basically, to save money on your heating and cooling bills, et cetera. But what that does is it creates this even more contained environment where there's a lot of chemicals inside your home.

So the science on that is very real. And we could talk a bit about the air inside homes. We drink water. It's vital. This is a very well established, I believe it's 91 chemicals at the EPA.

tests for only in a maximum circumstance in different municipalities dating back to basically the 70s and yet now there could be hundreds or thousands of chemicals in the water supply that they don't even test for.

So you want to be really conscious of those things that are on or in your body most routinely. I would say air is important, water is products that we put on our bodies because a lot of those are designed to penetrate into your body or otherwise they wouldn't have the effect that they do.

So those three areas of concern. We've also talked about food and the food we've put in our mouths. That's gotten more attention, I believe, than the others.

It still deserves it because we're still eating ultra-processed foods at a ridiculous rate and we are eating meat at an not we again but you know the collective we had a crazy rate and it processed meats even worse I mean so on and so forth so any any of these areas where you're putting from a health perspective if you are putting it on or in your body it deserves your attention and your awareness.

And then it becomes a step-by-step process, minus that worry, because any step you take on these fronts to reduce is a really powerful step. So, regarding the skincare and a little bit of the history there.

I dwell in this land of cosmetics and personal care products more than others. It is one of worst sources, I would say, of toxins today. Part of because people are so unaware of it and that there just needs to be more awareness of the cosmetics and personal care.

Now here's a statistic that women on average use 12 personal-care products a day of which contain approximately 168 different chemicals. They're not all bad chemicals but often considering the products being used many of them are questionable or yes bad.

phthalates, you brought up earlier, sodium lauryl sulfates. Sodium laureth sulfate. Parabens, methyl parabens et cetera. Yes indeed, there's PFAs to consider and of course microplastics is a growing, rightfully so, concern.

And I can go on and on. There's formaldehyde in these products as well, which is serious. Now that's classified as a carcinogen and something that you want to question.

Again, I can geek out on this. I won't go too deep here. Pause in a moment. But I'll give you a touch of the history specifically because you asked with personal care products.

So in 1938, the FDA basically mandated, hey, self-regulate to the industry, to those cosmetics and personal care industry. You're on your own. We trust you to self regulate.

To be honest, it really hasn't changed much since. There's been efforts by certain politicians, but it's really haven't change much. Since then it truly is a wild west.

create whatever you want, put it in a bottle, call it what you, want you could go sell it online or you know if you find your way onto a shelf and say it does whatever, you wanted to do there's no oversight whatsoever now of course these companies are not intentionally putting things in there that are going to hurt you on the spot but they are putting, things and therefore their benefit and not yours these chemicals that you you do want to be wary of so that's the the short history of it Yeah, thank you for the history.

I'm just curious, too, why are they using these chemicals? Is it just because of the efficiency, ease, and cost of creating a product? In most cases, yeah.

There are different classes of chemicals used. Some are preservatives. One of them, the nastiest, is called a penetrator. What those penetrators do, a lot of which are artificial or synthetic, they pull the others down quicker into your skin.

And so if they're accompanying some of these questionable to downright, you know, truly toxic ingredients, that's kind of disgusting because it's pulling it deeper.

You know? It's fast food, okay? Fast food. Skin eats. Everybody needs, if you don't remember that, your, skin consumes. If the molecules are small enough, and in many cases, I read this is rough, but I've read something like two thirds of all the chemicals that are in most of these products, so it's approximately two-thirds can penetrate because the molecule is small.

And if they're small, they go into your skin at the different levels of the dermis and then down deeper sometimes. finding their way into your bloodstream, shooting around your, blood getting stored in your fat and your organs.

So these different chemicals have a fact and I call them fast food because they do, for example, let's use a typical anti-aging cream that you might find on a shelf, right?

Some of these ingredients a day, two, three days later, you're going to say, wow, I do have You know, my skin does look smoother. They do have this effect, but it's a short term.

Hooray for a mid to long term, I shouldn't have done that, you know just like fast food, right? Fast food can feel good in the moment and you, know it is designed very carefully to feel in a moment.

There are scientists who make sure it feels good with the salt and the sugar balance and umami, the feeling in your mouth. Same thing with these products, but yes, it's largely for their profit, not yours, because I am testament to the fact that you can do it, you could put great ingredients from nature into a product, preserve it and have powerful effect on your skin and still do without putting toxic or synthetic chemicals in it.

How do I know that? Because I founded PurityWiz, as you know, and those are all truly natural ingredients. That's not greenwashing, that's truly naturally ingredients, it's independently from anything I say and do certified organic.

So it can be done, but it is somewhat more costly. It's much cheaper for them to do that by adding a lot of these synthetics. I like that association between fast food and fast cosmetics.

That's a really good way, I think, to contextualize this conversation. And just like the idea of fast-food, it may have proteins, fat, carbohydrate, macronutrients, that at some level meet some basic body needs, but it comes at a cost.

And I'd like to just kind of maybe extrapolate a little bit on that idea. Like when we put these things on our skin, these like cheap, industry-led anti-aging creams, it's just kinda hydrating the skin.

Is that right? Where it makes you look better? But at the- Briefly. Yeah, But it is destabilizing and creating injury to the core level of the and some of the collagen matrix, right?

So maybe go into that for us and help us understand a little bit deeper what's happening. Sure, down to a cellular level. So let's pick on, you know, one of favorite ingredients in skincare today is retinol.

A lot of people don't know that retinal is synthetic. It's a synthetic form of A, vitamin A. And it is designed to do exactly what you just said. At the cellular levels, it weakens the cell structure.

It does make your skin look younger for a bit, okay? So yes, it does that, but it also is renowned for causing redness and irritation with people. And there's a reason it's doing that.

It's breaking down the constitution of your face. I mean, this is verified. of your skin after using retinol to too much sun, it's higher risk. Now you're in a higher-risk category basically for sun.

The ill effects of too-much sun of UV rays basically. And so, you know, that's just one example of many. I mean, there are synthetic ingredients. About one-third of these ingredients, they come from petroleum.

Okay? And nowhere in any health and wellness trusted source have I ever seen the petroleum that belongs inside of the human body, right? What these things do is just have a cheap short-term effect, not good at the cellular level inside your body.

Yeah, I mean, it's kind of like common sense almost on this front, Scott, but I choose retinol to discuss because there are natural alternatives to it that have shown to have a much healthier effect without breaking down and causing harm at cellular level basically like that.

And I do want to be careful because I'm not completely saying to folks that these things don't work and run the other way. They can have some positive effects.

Again, that's the best example I've got. Fast food can also have nutrition value, but it's minor. The damage it does is really not worth that short-term pleasure.

It's same situation here as well. Yeah, there's a long-term consequence that we often forget about. And I think, you know, what I'd like to just dive into a little bit is this idea that, a lot of studies associate these chemicals now, PFAS, phthalates, BPAs, pesticides, pollutants, all these things we're talking about with a variety of conditions, from infertility to metabolic disease, cardiovascular disease neurodevelopmental disorders.

There's lot a things that are now associated with this. How can we begin distinguishing the statistical association from biologically plausible contributions to disease?

And maybe just walk us all through some of the research, the human data, dose response patterns, to exposure to these chemicals. I think that'll help everybody understand you know, that this is like a long-term exposure challenge for people.

This is, like you're saying, you can put them on, they may look better tomorrow morning, but five years from now, this comes at a cost. It's disrupting cell signaling, it's creating inflammatory pathways, its contributing to the breakdown of connective tissue fibroblasts.

So, maybe just take a couple of minutes and help kind of bring some infrastructure scaffolding to that kind of conversation for people. Sure. You hit a couple keys when you talk about inflammation, cell signaling.

The tricky part of this is that there are approximately, just when we're talking chemicals used in skincare products, there about 10,000 that are allowed and used the United States.

And out of those, you know, I think it's about 10% that are used a lot, we'll say. And now let's jump over to the European Union real quick and elsewhere in the world where about 1600 or more now have been banned or severely restricted for use.

in products. Here in the United States, only 11 have been banned. So when I say it gets tricky, because then, you know, in a lot of these conversations, I often, okay, what should I look for?

What should avoid? And which are the ones that are proven to be bad and which ones are not proven So, we're talking thousands of chemicals, okay? And when you turn any one of these commercial products around and look at the label, and again, were only talking, you know, skincare cosmetics here.

I'm not even talking about, other forms of, like I said, pollutants that we are putting in our bodies from other means. Let's stick right now to that.

When you're turning these around, see these long, can't even read half these things. And then it's the combination. We have to go back to chemistry class as well.

And it is the combinations of some of these ingredients together, for example, create, by the way, formaldehyde and other chemicals, and then they don't even know, none of us know Scott, because imagine just one product where there's five, six, seven chemicals.

Right? There's no cause, nobody driving the need to determine what happens when you mix these chemicals, much less 12 products a day that contain 168 different chemicals day after day, year after year.

We just don't know. That's how complicated this is. It's very hard to say. So there are some, I mean, it's relatively well established that phthalates, P-H-T-A-L-E-S.

can be quite harmful and they are heavily allowed and heavily used. I believe their plasticizers is one of their effects in a product why they're included.

They make things creamier or you know, but sodium lauryl and laureth sulfate I mentioned earlier, those are used to for one reason create lather. People associate these things with effectiveness, but these products do indeed, they contribute to irritation.

What is irritation? It's a form of inflammation. You know, your body is signaling to you in many cases, please don't, you know. I mean, and so, when we get into Oh, which one should I avoid and not?

This is the issue. This the problem. There's no oversight. That's why I brought up the FDA earlier. And so when you're asking me questions like this, it's like, when your study PFAS, you know, specifically, Pair and Polyfluoroalkyl, boy, that's a long word.

What it stands for, PFAs is, the research is now paying attention and going deeper into that one seriously nasty class. They're called forever chemicals.

The have a half life of like forever. It takes a long, long time for them to go away inside your body, inside the environment. Microplastics I brought up, but we can go on and on talking about different chemicals.

The problem again is there's so many. social media or the media puts the spotlight on a few they they pop up good at least it's getting some spotlight but it is ignoring the many other treacle sand here's one for you 2016 they banned the use of treacles sand but only in soap hand soap because there was an issue.

There was a big battle. It's still allowed in face creams, even though they acknowledge this is so you're getting into a political issue in this country because it's a mighty powerful lobby.

So I'm sorry that I veered away, but we'll take it back. Some of the The outcomes of this can be sinus problems. It could be skin of obviously issues.

There's so many different symptoms associated with this as well to watch for. We're only tip of the iceberg on this right now on what these chemicals can do.

But do you understand the magnitude that I'm trying to get to here? So there are blanket approaches that to me are the only logical choice to make here if you want to take steps to keep yourself safe, because you're not going to specifically look and try to avoid this chemical, this, chemical this.

But not this one, when we're talking 1816, 1800 banned elsewhere. and only 11 band here. Here in the United States, especially, you're just going to want to take certain steps if this is of concern to you to reduce your consumption.

Because the point I'm making to bottom line this, is some of these chemicals are probably not all that bad, but there are some nasty ones mixed in there.

It's mighty hard. And this why I offer a certified organic skincare products through Purity Woods, why other more and more companies are doing that. I'd love to talk about that later, but you don't have to patronize our company.

But I would say give your dollars to the good guys out there who are trying to eliminate or reduce these dramatically so you can reduce them on a blanket level.

So yeah, Scott, I'll pause there and you tell me if I took it in the direction you didn't want to go. I'm just frustrated, you know, because, we have this, it's not you're not asking me to please, But we, have kind of this top 10 approach, like what are the top ten worst things?

And I get it. That's how we think. But there are thousands that you want to, you know, would want avoid. I don't even know them all been geeking out on this for decades.

You know? Yeah, there were tens of thousands. There was a 2024 analysis looking at just food. 3600 known toxic exposures chemicals across the food spectrum.

you know, looking at metabolite exposures and metabolomes. And that's just the chemicals we're studying. In PFAS, there's what, 11,000 or more PFOS chemicals?

I mean, 10,00 plus. We're not even talking about what we get exposed to in our pillows, blankets, couches. I'm mean we are a wash and a sea and as you're pointing out, we don't know how that affects us.

But we do know that they are disruptive to human physiology. They contribute a load of toxins that disrupt endocrine systems, create inflammation, and your body has to do something with them.

And they often get stored in fat because that's where we store those chemicals. It's a huge problem. I think it's important for people to understand that, as you're pointing out, We just don't know.

I mean, there are so many exposures we don t know and so like maybe to try and bring this back positively because it can be intimidating for people to hear like there's thousands of chemicals, we've got them stored in our fat, it's in air, in water, blankets, skin care products.

But the good news is there things that we can do. to help our bodies both on the prevention side and the detox side. So let's talk about the Prevention side first.

You know, how can we begin cleaning up our environment? We'll start with personal care products and then kind of move into things you may recommend for air, water, and food.

Now we get back to the good news, you know. Because you're right, Scott. I really can feel like bad news overwhelming. It's almost like, then what do I do?

I give up. No, the solutions and we live in a time where it's actually a good time because now there's all of a sudden a lot of attention being paid to this.

And there are a lots of folks and there is a a of businesses putting a strong effort to doing legitimate steps that you can take. So, when it comes to cosmetics and personal care products, again, I And it sounds self-serving so this is why I'm like then, you know, I promise you'll love Purity Woods products but if you don't or you're not interested, that's okay.

It's all certified organic meaning independently and it's a very strict process. We have to prove to governing bodies that this all, everything used is raised organically, grown organics, no pesticides, And we're using remarkably great ingredients there that are also like red maple leaf extract.

You know, a 2018 study out of University of Rhode Island showed that these have unique compounds that block elastase. Elastases is what causes the breakdown of elastyne in your skin.

And that's one of the key causes of wrinkles and fine lines and things like that. If you think that I'm being self-serving when I say this, I am not. One of the blanket approaches that i take, let's put it this way, is okay, instead of like, oh my god, i'm trying to hunt for the worst ingredients on this label.

Do I use it? Do i not? I do try to give my business to those that are certified organic products. And here's an interesting, here is something our government seems to have done right in my opinion by the way.

And they do some stuff, right? And this is one of them. The Oling products up to a point for a while that got USDA certified organic designation or not were actual foods you're putting in your mouth.

They extended this to cosmetics and personal care products. Why? You know, they didn't extend it to bedding. food that you put in your mouth and these products because they're acknowledging it is really a form of food.

That's what cosmetics are. When people push that grocery cart down the cosmetic aisle, I wish they would remember that because again, you can put that on your body, some of it's going in, period.

So I'm like, oh, okay, good for the government for getting that piece right. I try to find USDA certified organic when I can on different products. Our period only offers, you know, healthy aging oriented products, and there's plenty of other cosmetics and personal care products out there.

So I'm like, all right, at least I know that I am eliminating a whole swath of potential issues, it's not perfect, nothing is, but this is a cheat. This is great cheat to get there, there are other certifications as well.

If you live elsewhere in the world, I hope you, know your own like in European Union, Echo Cert, Different states have some pretty strict ones as well that you can look for.

So I look these independent certifications, somebody who cares doing the work. Now, there's a lot of bogus ones out there too, to be honest. That's also a tricky thing.

You know, so I'm like, all right, I know certified USD is certified organic and echo cert or something. I looked for these blankets like that. Other solutions, I do turn a product around.

There are a couple of ingredients. If there is a level before that, Scott, one thing I do look forward is fragrance. Now, if I see fragrance on a project, i put it back.

and sometimes it's fancy in French, they call it parfum, sometimes its generic and they called it scent, They all mean the same thing. And when it has that, that doesn't automatically mean it is terrible, but it means it probably is.

It probably has things in there. Because once they put that on a label, That is basically the combination of chemicals that create the fake pretty scent.

Another thing that a lot of us have been lack of a better word, brainwashed to associate a smell with effectiveness. And so it's like, oh, somehow fake musk scent must mean it is good or something.

You know, it isn't true. But they use a variety of chemicals supposedly to get to that smell. They don't have to disclose those chemicals. because it's a trade secret, you know, that's their trade secrets.

And they have found that a lot of companies will put plenty of ingredients in their hide ingredients basically. So I'm like, all right, the fact is that likely has some nasty ingredients anyway to create that fake smell and then they might be hiding even more in there.

I just put it back. That's another cheat that I have for people. And then, not so much a cheat, but a step that I highly recommend everyone take today is air purifiers.

We briefly talked about that. And another one is a reverse osmosis system if you are able or some type of filtration. Reverse osmosis is arguably the best, at least it's the the I know of for the water in your home.

There are other great ones or good ones out there as well. So these are just some steps. My point is there are blanket solutions. They're not perfect, But they take that concern way down.

And yeah, I hope I pinpointed some of those for people and I probably have others if you want to prod me. And I think a good way to approach this, as you kind of highlighted, is the things that we're most exposed to on a regular basis.

We can clean up our air, we can cleanup our water, cleanup what we put on our skin, and we clean-up our food. Right. 2,000 pounds of food every year. And just real quick on the food piece too, I'd love to have your comment on this.

It's not just the foods that eliminates the exposure, but the fruits that eat can actually help detoxify us, right? So, let's talk just a little bit about how we can detoxify our bodies through food and through some other interventions that may actually help us eliminate some of the toxins we've been exposed to over the last, you know, gosh, 58 now, all these years that I've living in this world.

Yeah, here I'm talking to probably a guru who knows this even more than I do you. But there are, first of all, you said it at the very start, and I would definitely caution people, please don't fall for all the detox fads and nonsense.

And there's so many spinning around out there. I mean, food and water are going to be your most powerful allies, Actually, everything that you always hear to do in your life and to take steps toward, meaning exercise, sleep, food, clean water are your largest allies.

Sleep is immense. You know, your body's getting rid. of forms of toxins basically inside your brain at night. So that's just one small step with that.

All the stuff you hear, it's all highly effective for detox as well as the point I'm making. Exercise is immense for de-toxification. Not putting things up, parts of your body that you shouldn't be sticking things out.

I don't advocate, maybe you believe in that, but I know I'm talking to the man here about food. And so food, herbs, spices, immense for this. So add a lot of those, I do believe variety, and I think people get that message enough when it comes.

Even healthy eaters get caught, Scott, in ruts where they're eating the same seven foods, eight foods. That's my number, sort of close to that instead of eating 25 to 30 different foods on a routine basis, healthy foods, green foods.

Plant foods in other words, that include these herbs and spices, which are just fabulous to add to dishes or drink in the form of tea, etc. And they're great for helping to detoxify your body.

Cilantro, you know, is fantastic for helping to detoxify. Again, I think I'm talking to the man here who could probably lend even more on this than I could on that side of the equation.

But yeah, that's my take on it. Yeah, think that is really good advice for people that doesn't feel overwhelming. You know, I can buy organic food and as you're pointing out, which is really important for the microbiome in the body, you know 30, 40 different types, fruits, vegetables, nuts, beans, seeds, lentils, spices every week helps, ramp up the immune system and actually helps detoxify the.

Good clean water, good clean air, a good night's sleep. That foundation is essential. And not chasing all of the social media hype about detoxification and many things that we've not studied and we just don't know.

Maybe they help, maybe they don' but the big ones are the ones that can control. And what we choose to put in our hair, our skin, deodorant, all of those things really matter because, again, those are daily exposures.

So I'm just thinking, kind of as we wrap this up, I'd like people to really understand skin as a living organism. You know, you talked about it earlier that we feed our when we put these things on.

And our skin is a remarkable organ that is absorbing, that it's creating vitamin D. It's our outward shell, it reflects the inward environment. So maybe just give people a little bit of awe and wonder about the skin, you know, to help us walk away with just an appreciation for what our skincare is, how it works.

Then we'll just finish by talking about how those products support the physiology of the skincare in regenerating itself. Sure. So, yeah, it's a key component of the skin is of our immune system.

It's the frontline defense, in fact, of your immune systems. I think that not many at least lay people know yet about skin, is it has got its own microbiome.

And, you know, we didn't even touch on that, but, that means that there are a I think the latest I heard was over a thousand different potential species of bacteria and other organisms that are on your skin right now working or trying to work in your favor.

And they're a key part of that immune protection. Indeed, just like the microbiome inside your gut, they communicate with the rest of your body, basically.

And it's even more new and emerging science on that than microbiome inside us. There's several microbiomes on our body, not just inside of our gut, and that's one of them.

And again, when you put these chemicals on, they can also have a negative effect, by the way, on these good bacteria and other organisms that are trying to work in your favor.

It's a full part gut. Yeah, exactly. and it's a two-way communication. So, you know, it can have a negative effect in many ways. It's not just compromising, the barrier into your body when we're a beautiful, complicated being, right?

And so these bacteria and other organisms, fungi, on your skin communicate with other components throughout your whole body, really, just like the microbiome in the gut.

You reduce the chemicals, You start feeding the healthier Again, plants. Plants are a miracle. I mean, you start feeding plants, putting that on your skin, just like the same story when you're putting it inside of your mouth.

You can have positive effects on you skin as well. But yeah, it's the front line. It's your largest organ. We unfortunately have been Trained I guess we'll say we this collective we against again that I'm using have been trained not to think of it as an organ almost we kind of think Of it does a piece of clothing when you you know in a way and we experiment on it and We put all kinds of stuff on and when I've been thinking twice about it because we've pushed in that direction and you Know it's a little extreme but I still like to challenge people like if you had access to your brain or your heart or Your lungs Would you just be putting some kind of chemical combination on that just because somebody told you?

You know, it's always, you know some commercial said it is good for you. Of course, most people would say no, I would never do that. Yet we're doing that on our skin.

Just, give your skin the respect it deserves as an organ of your body. It's already working hard on your behalf. Yeah. I want to, I'm going to champion the skins perspective on this and say, man, i'm trying to protect you.

Stop giving me, you know, stuff that makes it harder to keep the organisms that were on my original job out, they're there defending against pathogens, on surfaces and in the air.

Don't make it hard. And is there any science to show that when we put these, you know, more plant-derived products on our skin that it actually turns on some of the regenerative pathways that help to rebuild and support the skin?

Sure. Yeah, now I'm going to tell you, yes, for specific ingredients, again, I mentioned maple leaf extracts. There's been studies showing it helps. They're 17 unique compounds I believe that they haven't seen elsewhere in nature, and it blocks Elastase, which is otherwise it contributes to the breakdown of elastin in your skin.

That's just one great and very interesting ingredient from nature. Astaxanthin comes from red algae, the same red allergy that makes salmon pink and flamingos pink.

And I have to be careful here because I don't want to get into the land of claims, but it has positive effect on cells to protect from and potentially even help reverse UV damage.

That's what these red algae that creates this compound called astaxanthin do. And if it's in a skincare product, this is what I'm allowed to say, and so I'll say it this way.

It helps to reverse the appearance of sun-damaged skin. And so I can go on and on. Again, these are plants and they have compounds inside of them that the same way they work in your body, they can work on your.

Now I do have, and yes, there's science, where I wander off a bit. And if I had like a massive study that I could fund, Scott, I would somehow try to…but we've been wandering for most of our existence out in nature.

We're supposed to, from a biological perspective, spend most our time outdoors. we do the reverse today, we should spend our most time outdoor. And as a species, when we have spent so much time out doors, We interacted, including our skin, directly with plants all day, every day.

Right? And so there's all types of positive and negative effects from plants, from a historical or, you know, perspective on our skin. And, so I'm like, ah, I wish I could, if I had two of me, the science side of myself would start going down that path and researching that and going backwards in time.

There's even probably a word for that, and if there is not, maybe a new branch of science. Yeah, when you think about common sense, we have interacted with plants for most of our existence on a very intimate basis and what is interacting our skin, right?

So some is going, you know, poison ivy is gonna have a negative effect, but others are feeding our skins positive things as we're brushing against them out there.

It's just another form of nutrition. How many ways are there into the body when we think of it, Scott? What is it? Three, I think? I mean, probably you can think more, obviously your mouse skin and then eyes, I can't think of, you know, physically into the body.

Those are three ways in. And so there's nutrition that comes in through all those ways, vitamin D through the eyes for example. So there are nutrients nature provides.

Yeah, that's fascinating. I would love to go down that road too of study. Just thinking about the soil biome and how it would interact. We know it interacts with our microbiome, but with the skin biomes as well.

Well, it's got to get in, right? It's connecting with your skin. So it would be a fascinating area of research. This has been a great conversation. Thank you, Brian.

And so for people that are watching, we've talked about Purity Woods. Where can they find more information about the art of anti-aging, about you and your products?

So the Art of Anti-Aging, that is the information site. We've got a strong blog over there, very evidence-based. I insist on it, goes deep into the research, but then tries to make it very easy to understand concepts.

So go check out, for example, the blog that's at The Art of antiaging.com. And then Purity Woods, I do know that there's a good special that my team put together for anybody who's interested listening to this right now because you're awesome.

So it's puritywoods. com and then forward drscott. You'll see a great opportunity there. So the signature product over at Purity Woods is the Age Defying Dream Cream.

That was the one from the start. A lot of effort poured into making that incredible. And I think we sold like 200, 250,000 units of those. People love that product.

It does have the astaxanthin I mentioned. it's got the red maple leaf extract and some other incredible ingredients straight from nature. If you're interested, check that out.

Again, everything is certified organic. But again, I will say this. I do hope you'll Consider it, but if not, please do give your dollars to other businesses who are trying to fight the good fight like that out there, whether it's skin care, more and more different forms of cosmetics are going down the honest path now.

But also one more public service announcement. Please be cautious of greenwashing. This is the last thing, at least unless you ask me something else that I'm going to say.

Let's finish with that. That's important. Greenwashing basically means they're screaming, be careful, look for those independent certifications. Again, my company is held to standards that have nothing to do with me.

I have to prove to independent bodies that certified organic, that it really is grown organically and does not contain the synthetics. Look for those certifications because otherwise what many companies are doing is just making claims, basically trying to pull one over on you.

Hey, it's paraben free. Okay, its parabin free, but then you turn it around and look at the label and it has got 50 other ingredients you don't want. It's got phthalates and other ingredient you do not want, Or it just says organic.

What does that really mean? It doesn't say certified organic, it's not this USDA certified. You turn it around and you might see a single or two organic ingredients amongst 20 that are not at all.

Just be careful because there's a lot of pulling the wool over the eyes with things out there because they know that people are becoming more and more intelligent on this.

And instead of, you know, doing it the right way, which is not the easiest way I can tell you that, but it's the way. They're just trying to cut corners and fool you into thinking that the product's clean.

So please be careful with that. Yeah, fantastic. Well, thank you, Brian, for this wonderful discussion. I really appreciate it. Love to have you back again, dive deeper on a couple of these other topics that I made mental note of as we were talking.

So I thank and thank for your commitment to do what's right. And I'd like to elevate that because it takes effort, time, and money, often going against the flow with a lot of resistance to doing what is right, So thank you for that commitment to do what's right.

That is really meaningful. And thank to all of you, for joining us today. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please share it with your friends, your family.

We're just looking for ways to live more regeneratively in our own lives, the world around us. And to take an eye toward the world with the value of stewardship, which is that we are here to make the word better and to leave it better.

And Brian, your company is doing that, and so I want to recognize that because that's a deep core value in mind. That we're stewarding the words, the people that are in it, people we come in contact with, you know, the art of anti-aging, purity woods, regenerative life.

You know we're all trying to help leave the world a little bit better. So thanks to all of you for joining us today. Please share this with your friends.

Have a great day. Thank you. Thanks for listening to a regenerate life podcast. If this conversation inspired you, follow the podcast, share it with someone you care about and join us changing the word one bite, one conversation, One connection and one life at a time.

Please visit PlantritionProject.org or Dr. Scott Stoll for more information.