Why should I care if my personal care products have fragrance?
The ingredients in your personal care products matter because if you think of your body like a trash can - throughout your lifetime you encounter toxins from the air that you breathe, in the water you drink, toxins on and in the food you consume but also on the personal care products that you put on our skin, on your nails, and in your hair.
A healthy body can handle a certain amount of toxins and so that's why I use the trashcan analogy, because over your life you're just accumulating these toxins in your body and your liver, kidneys, bowels - all your organs are working their little tails off to detoxify all of these toxins and chemicals from your body.
Now in a perfect scenario – your detoxification organs and pathways would work perfectly, and you can handle a certain amount of toxins. But we are all being exposed to levels that are much higher than our detox systems were designed to handle!
The main focus of your immune system is actually detoxification. So, if we think about this recent pandemic and if your body is already overburdened with toxicity, then your immune system is taxed trying to handle all of that garbage and is not able to actually mount up an immune reaction then fight off infection. Regardless of if the infection is a viral infection, the flu, gut infections, or a simple cold; your bodies resources are tied up trying to detox and unable to protect and defend you to its optimal ability.
Now in my personal life, I've been personally affected by autoimmunity and infertility, and I have some loved ones that have been deeply affected by cancer and so this is very personal for me. As a doctor, a lot of my patients suffer from autoimmunity, infertility, and many other chronic diseases that stem from dysfunction and imbalances within the body. Many of which can be correlated back to toxicity levels and toxic overburdens on your body. So, taking the time to look at the products that you're using every single day and making cleaner decisions is a huge, huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to your health.
FIRST STEP:
The EWG is the Environmental Working Group and they are a nonprofit company. You may have heard of them from their work with the Clean 15 and The Dirty Dozen which evaluates pesticide residue on produce. EWG also has a database of personal care products and rates them based on their ingredients and the effects on our health, called skin deep. Please use their website: https://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ or search your app store for the EWG Skin Deep app.
SECOND STEP:
Opt for cleaner alternatives. The best way to begin to reduce your toxic burden is to use cleaner products daily.
Start with the products that you:
1. Use daily that are ranked high on EWG (I personally aim to replace anything above a 3). The products that you use the most often and are not green (#1 or #2) or EWG verified and replace anything ranking above #3 first. I'd start with the highest number or those affecting an organ or organ system that may already be operating less than optimally for you. For example, if you are suffering from infertility, I'd recommend starting by replacing and products that are endocrine disruptors, hormone disruptors and have reproductive organ toxicity.
2. Products you're going to be run out of soon, go ahead and purchase cleaner alternatives to those products.
ACTION TASK:
So go ahead and select a few personal care products that you use on a daily basis, enter them into the website or scan them in the app to see how they rank. Review the additional details provided to see what they are affecting your health.
When deciding on cleaner alternatives, I searched for products that #1 worked amazingly well and #2 a company that had great return policy in the event the product did not work out well for me. The company I use and trust is Beautycounter.
Use this link to select clean replacements: https://www.beautycounter.com/anyaszigeti?goto=/
For the month of April 2022 use code CLEANBEAUTY30 for 30% off your first order, some restrictions apply.
Please feel free to email me dranyaszigeti@gmail.com if you would like some assistance or recommendations, I’d be happy to assist you!
Yours in health,
Dr. Anya
#backtohealthfunctionalmedicine