Episode 45: Dr. Aly Cohen, MD on Drinking Water: Chemicals, Toxins and Filters
Show Summary:
Have you ever asked yourself if the water you are drinking is safe? Does the water that you and your family consume contain toxins that may be contributing to health problems?
Today’s guest, Dr. Aly Cohen, is here today to talk to us about chemicals in drinking water and the critical information you need to know to keep your family safe.
Dr. Aly Cohen is a board-certified rheumatologist and integrative medicine physician, as well as an environmental health specialist. Her medical practice, located in Princeton NJ, focuses on the western medical and integrative approaches to a variety of health conditions in both adults and children, including rheumatologic disorders, arthritis, chronic pain, immune system dysfunction, environmental health and nutrition consultation.
Don’t miss this important conversation about why your drinking water may not be safe and what you can do to have water that will support your health.
Timestamps:
0:00 - Introduction
5:47 - Connection between Rheumatology and environmental toxins
11:52 - Where the US stands on water regulations
17:17 - What can we do about chemicals in water?
24:52 - How does the body eliminate toxins?
31:13 - Bottled water
40:31 - Autoimmunity and environmental chemicals
45:30 - Aly’s morning routine
48:30 - How to learn more and work with Aly
Listen to the full conversation:
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Full Episode Transcript:
SPEAKERS: Dr. Andrew Wong, Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Our water, you know, really follows in very simple terms a law from 1970 called The Safe Drinking Water Act. And under this act, we've 91 chemicals. 91 chemicals are kind of monitored at all of the 160,000 wastewater treatment plants that keep 80% of the United States drinking water from the tap. Okay, so we have all of these 160,000 or less wastewater treatment plants that have the ability to look at the levels, clean the water from soil sediment, and a bunch of other things that come into it from lakes and streams and air quality, in air, in rain and that kind of thing. And 91 chemicals are monitored for those levels of those harmful chemicals. And then they're either removed or remediated. Okay. But we have 95,000 that actually can and do get into our water. And so when you're talking about a 1974 law, and none of those chemicals that have been added since which is about 90,000-95,000 to a list of possible contaminants, the infrastructure hasn't changed. The laws have been changed in those 50 years now. So we're really talking about a big problem where the chemicals have gone crazy in terms of the legislature, you know, the ability to create them and push them into the market. And yet we're not fixing this water system that will feed right back into human health.
Dr. Andrew Wong
We talk a lot on this podcast about different aspects of health. But have you ever asked yourself if the water you are drinking is safe? Does the water that you and your loved ones consume contain toxins that may be contributing to health problems? Today's guest Dr. Aly Cohen is here today to talk to us about chemicals in drinking water and the critical information you need to know to keep your family and yourself safe. I am Dr. Andrew Wong, co-founder of Capital Integrative Health. This is a podcast dedicated to transforming the consciousness around what it means to be healthy and understanding the root causes of disease and wellness. And one of the root causes of wellness is healthy drinking water. Dr. Aly Cohen is a board certified dermatologist and integrative medicine physician as well as an environmental health specialist. Her medical practice located in Princeton, New Jersey focuses on the western medical and integrative approaches to right and health conditions and both adults and children. Including rheumatologic disorders, like arthritis and chronic pain, but also immune system dysfunction, environmental health and nutrition consultations. Don't miss this important conversation with Dr. Cohen today about why your drinking water may not be safe and what you could do to have healthier, safer drinking water that will support your optimal health.
Well, thank you Dr. Aly Cohen for coming on today. We're so honored to have you.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Great, well, thank you for having me. It's a pleasure.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Yeah, so I saw that we've had a lot of similar backgrounds. Actually, you've trained with Dr. Andrew while you're really well into the fellowship, teaching, mentoring and things it sounds like.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yeah, yeah, just being part of it was great. You know, and since that time, we've done other projects and I was just on his podcast so that was really exciting because it was both Dr. Victoria Mazes and Dr. Weil and they have just a wonderful rapport with their podcast. So yeah, it's been really fun and she's a friend and mentor. So yeah!
Dr. Andrew Wong
And then you've also done acupuncture through the helms course correct?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yes, that was a long time ago. And, you know, what I gained from that was a lot of hours for your audience. Helms is a program for physicians to learn acupuncture and do it sort of in a little bit more of a fast track because there's an assumption that you know the anatomy and physiology of course, and I what I came away having tried to, you know, do a lot of acupuncture within that time period of my life was that first of all, it's a language. Secondly, if you really good at it, third of all you have to have like sort of running rooms at the same time. And I just never thought that I was proficient enough. So I have such a strong appreciation, but I don't feel that it's something that I could continue to do within my own unit. So I have someone here who does it. That's why.
Dr. Andrew Wong
And actually, as we're taping this live you have an acupuncturist physically in the clinic now.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Physically, telling me to shut up so..
Dr. Andrew Wong
We'll be quiet and we also have amazing doctors here. I think, you know, I've also done the helms training program as well. I think just like you said that disclaimer of you know, medical acupuncture, license acupuncture is not the same definitely getting a lot more training on TCM and that theory and chi and like where things go so I definitely encourage people to you know, do acupuncture but like you I kind of don't do it as much myself now. I kind of have that same kind of conclusion. But let's talk about your background now, Aly, as an integrative rheumatologist, really groundbreaking in terms of, you know, we don't really see a lot of necessarily integrative specialists, especially in rheumatology, so I'd love to chat a bit about on that. But I think the other thing is that, you know, main topic today is really on drinking water. And you've kind of gotten into, you know, the health of the drinking water in the US and maybe other places. You know, environmental toxins, you have an amazing website, the Smart Human that that we need to talk about at the end to make sure that people get that resource, but I first want to talk real broadly about, you know, what is the connection between, say rheumatology, and integrated rheumatology and environmental toxins?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yeah, well, that's a great question. Thank you for asking it. And I think I didn't know that answer for many years, and I think where I am now has been a combination of different bodies of information and training that have some, unbelievably you know, it has come together in such a beautiful way to really give me some perspective on human health and chronic illness, particularly in rheumatology of course, which I'm board certified in. So, you know, in short, you know, we have a whole bunch of training that teaches us, you know, symptoms, diagnosis of the disease and therapy and treatment, usually pharmaceutical, and that's what we learned in medical school. And what I began to learn about 15-20 years is that environment plays a role in pet health. Because that's how I first got into this topic was through my dog getting sick from exposure and I didn't know why and then I realized humans can also get sick from exposures to a variety of chemicals and, and out, you know, synthetic substances. And I realized that that too, may have a strong impact on why we have such an enormous and growing epidemic of immune system disorders. Not just autoimmune, which is where our bodies attack itself in different organs. Such different names of these diseases like rheumatoid lupus, Crohn's, ulcerative colitis, MS. You know, psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, but that, that chemicals, synthetic chemicals, which are not regulated in the United States, I mean, this is mind blowing for a lot of people and was for me, those chemicals are not required in the United States. We have 95,000 of them, approximately industrial chemicals that are used for cosmetics and cleaning products and personal care products. They are not required by US law to be tested for safety or toxicity before they go into the products that we use every day.
Dr. Andrew Wong
That even makes sense. I mean, I don't understand how that even got.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
It’s hard to believe. I mean, when I first learned this when my dog was sick, and I was sort of stumbling across this information, I really looked around in my kitchen, I was looking at my cat and going, is this true? Like then I had to really dive into the people I trusted who were researchers, including my co author and try to really find out if this really true and as that body of information began to sort of unravel, and I really learned so much about the lack of regulation for these environmental exposures. At the same time learning this enormous increase in autoimmune disease not you know, or immune disorders, it started to really gel that there is a research level, there's a biologic cellular component to how these environmental exposures can affect the immune system, the endocrine system, and that that plays out in disease risk, and these disease development. And I think that at the integrative medicine training was just icing on the cake, of course, because that was teaching me that not only our chemicals and environmental exposure, but our lifestyle affects our disease risk. So whether we get enough sleep affects our immune system, whether we, you know, due to quality of our sleep, but also the chemical reduction that goes on around our cerebral spinal fluid in our brains at night while we sleep. You know, noise pollution, air pollution, anxiety and stress play a key role in not only development of disease as we know from Ace trial, from you know, some of our medical training and childhood trauma and how that predicts disease but also you know, currently how to manage your diseases that you have, you know, in terms of the stress level, the flares in rheumatoid or, or lupus, for example. So, you know, I think what happened was, this was just the happy mistake of many different areas of learning, and kind of an epiphany that these are all really affecting the same thing which is a holistic approach to human health.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Yes, thank you so much for the answer, Aly. And we know that you know, integrative medicine training does differ to some degree from conventional training, but like you said, it's more about you know, abandoning those symptoms, kind of suppressing those symptoms versus looking at a whole person, holistic approach connecting the dots, it sounds like because what happened was your..
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Exactly! Looking upstream, I mean, you know, the idea is that we are taught so quickly that whatever we got, was sort of, you know, that's it– it's our genes, you know? And we kind of say, “Alright, it’s our genes”. The doctor on TV looks really respectable, white coat and is telling us just to take this pill. And so you're like, “Alright, conversation done”, but what we had to yourself with your training myself is just not be satisfied. And most of us in western medicine don't even Well, I think, more and more now, we do know, but back then, at least 10-20 years ago for me, I didn't know there was a whole body of of evidence regarding nutrition, affecting health. And thinking about evolution, you know, all my anthropology training in college was enormously beneficial to my perspective, now. I pull it into everything I do every conversation with patients. We didn't just plop here with nice shoes and great cologne. We have been evolving and our bodies have required various forms of nutrition and clean water and clean air for millions of years. And now fast forward the last 100 years, we're being bombarded from chemicals from every angle skin, oral, you know, from ingestion, air quality affecting our lungs, but even feminine care products, other routes or routes into the human body. And that's really been a very recent phenomenon that we're not taking into account for its correlation with increasing chronic health, chronic and acute conditions.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Great. So let's now let's, thank you so much. So let's actually start zeroing in now on drinking water, tap water. I think there's a saying of water water everywhere but no safe water to drink or something like that. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on the status first of tap water in the US and then how does US water safety compare, say to the rest of the world regulations and things like that.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Okay, so this is a huge topic and I'm hoping not to overwhelm people, but you know, I'm just going to give very basic information a lot more information is then obviously I'm you know, my book that I just wrote called Nontoxic Guide to Living Healthy in a Chemical World with my own post its, by the way, because I'm so old, I forget all my information. You know, there's a whole chapter that really I think in a very easy way kind of lays out the problem, which is how I post on the smart human on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, is I always try to lay out the problem with an article on those posts, and then simply go into why they're a problem from a regulatory issue, why they're a problem for human health issue and where we can avoid the problem. And then where we can fix it in other areas so that I try to make it more about avoidance than buying things, you know, so that everyone can afford to keep their body clean and less toxic from harmful chemicals. So drinking water to start off in the United States, I assumed that all of our tap water was really super safe, right? And it is compared to many, many third world countries and you know, I lecture to people in South Africa they have a huge issue with, you know, rubbish and you know, waste of their, you know, trash which gets into their water systems. We have a variety of other major issues as well, but trash is not sort of highest on the list. We have a lot of other things that go along with that, but so countries around the world all have their varying issues of water issues. It's separate from access to clean water, we're talking about just why their water is not clean enough to drink or it's not safe in many ways. Our water you know really follows in very simple terms, a law from 1974 called the Safe Drinking Water Act, and under this act, we’ve 91 chemicals. 91 chemicals are kind of monitored at all of the 160,000 wastewater treatment plants that keep 80% of the United States drinking water from the tap. Okay, so we have all of these 160,000 more or less wastewater treatment plants that have the ability to look at the levels, clean the water from soil sediment, and a bunch of other things that come into it from lakes and streams and air quality, in air, in rain and that kind of thing. And 91 chemicals are monitored for those levels of those harmful chemicals, and then they're either removed or remediated. Okay, but we have 95,000 that actually can and do get into our water. And so when you're talking about a 1974 law, and none of those chemicals that have been added since which is about 90,000-95,000 to a list of possible contaminants, the infrastructure hasn't changed. The laws haven't changed in those 50 years now.
So we're really talking about a big problem where the chemicals have gone crazy in terms of the legislature, you know, the ability to create them and push them into the market. And yet we're not fixing this water system that will feed right back into human health and human, you know, risk for disease. Now, that's municipal tap water. Then there's the whole issue of well water which serves about 20%. So you know, municipal tap is 80% more or less well water is, you know, rural areas, schools depends on the population they serve. Wells can, you know, take up the rest of the slack. Wells have their own issues too. Because wells, even personal wells in your backyard, they are not held to any high standard of testing. It is literally you know, up to a homeowner to just test their water and even when they test it's a very limited number of chemicals. And soil is very absorbent so chemicals can actually travel from you know, contamination areas, Superfund sites, manufacturing run off, any type of spill or contaminant that's even 30-40-50 miles away from there. Well, we can certainly absorb some of those chemicals because soil is so absorbed and it goes into the wells. But in this country in order to understand what's in your well water, it's only required to test that water for safety of a small handful of harmful chemicals, including benzene when you sell your home. So that is the only time so people can live in their home for 20-30-40 years and never know what's in their wells. And things change over time with flooding and climate change issues as well. So, you know, we really have this issue where we think our water is clean, we think it's regulated, and yet by the time it travels even from a municipal wastewater treatment plant could be 20-30 miles as in the case with my you know, water company and I've interviewed them and taken video and looked at their whole infrastructure, which they do everything they're supposed to do very well. But they're just limited by the law of 1974 which is only looking again at 91 chemicals from an estimated 95,000.
Dr. Andrew Wong
So for missing 95,000 chemicals from you know that outdated law, what happens there next? What is the, I guess what is the, you know, what are consumer, you know, US citizens supposed to do? Or you know, what's kind of the next step there?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yeah, I mean, this was what I was sort of up in arms about. I'm thinking to myself you know, 85% of our body is made up of water. No one including myself, my whole life ever paid attention to water. We just assumed it was clean. If you go to a restaurant, they plop water on your table and you drink it. You don't know if it's toilet water, you don't know if it's well water, you don't know where it's been. So we've taken a lot of liberties. I think with our drinking water thinking since it's you know, we're not a third world country that it's got to be regulated quite well. So that became sort of the biggest beef out of all of the issues I manage and research in terms of chemical exposure. So I started to wonder what am I gonna do? What is my family gonna do? I have young kids. I've pet certainly one that was sick. And that became a real journey for me. So what I would say is that, number one, it is my strong belief that everyone now in the United States should be filtering their drinking water, how they drink, how they filter is sort of, you know, one of those things where it has to be a cost related decision. It has to be related to access to those filtration systems or, you know, pictures or you know, whether it's carbon block, which type of filtration system you know. If you're a college student, you're moving from an apartment or you're just anyone moving from home to home. You want to think about is this something you're going to put in under your sink and have a plumber put in for 150 bucks, because they only run about 300 bucks. Now some of the most aggressive forms like reverse osmosis. They used to be quite expensive. But now they're accessible to a lot of people. And so you have to decide, is this something that fits in my life for now? Or is this something I can take with me? Is this a pitcher situation or a refrigerator door carbon filter, which is much easier to change and has much faster flow of water, which also means it's going to remove less particulate matter and less contaminants. So there's all varying degrees of which filter you choose and what is going to remove. We have an issue now as many people might know from with per floor alkyl chemicals which interestingly enough, I just posted yesterday on the new bipartisan, which is a beautiful word legislation to help to lower the contaminant, upper floor level in municipal tap water nationally because it's become such a health hazard. And the allowable level at this point has been around 70 parts per trillion. There's been a huge amount of research by colleagues that I know and I'll be seeing next week for a whole week. They have been internationally looking at this problem of this whole class of chemicals that causes a whole bunch of health issues. And really their research is moving towards changing the government's view on this so that we can have lower EPA exposure guideline levels to seven parts per trillion or 11 for PFOA. So, you know, these are just in individual classes. There's hundreds, if not thousands, but at least there's some movement. It's just going to take longer than I believe we have to wait and as a rheumatologist who sees all these crazy, you know or even normal, but older type of exposure related, you know, diseases like rheumatoid or lupus, they're happening younger, you know, food allergies, everything's happening younger and a lot of these diseases are being diagnosed without any family history. Which just saying that there's an exposure related component in a big way.
Dr. Andrew Wong
The world is getting more toxic, there's more pollutants , the regulations haven't caught up yet with that, sounds like and I was going to mention that too. Thanks for bringing it up. But the PFOA is it sounds like the conclusion now based on the recent research is that the safe level is really zero. Correct?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
The safe level really is zero and a lot of it comes down to also another aspect of how faster these chemicals break down. If you have a chemical like for instance, this phenol a were some of your listeners, what might remember that BPA or Bisphenol A was a really hot topic and then in 2010-2012, when they took it out of plastic baby bottles, because of its ability to affect the endocrine system, and the worry that it would affect young babies and they're in the hormonal systems, right? It was important enough to take it out of baby bottles that are plastic, but it still remains in canned foods. It lines the bottom of all the plastic lining of all canned foods organic or non. It's on you know, receipts from any store you go to that ink is set on the paper with Bisphenol A or BPA, which absorbs to the skin not just through ingestion. So there are chemicals that you know, have been removed or have been argued to be removed because of their toxicity BPA happens to break down has a half life. So let's say it breaks down 50% in about six to eight hours in the human body more or less. And then in another 50% will be removed in its next half let you know so it's half life's or 50% in 6-8 hours and then you kind of calculate it so it takes about maybe a week for BPA exposure from a canned food or canned soup, to kind of wash out from the human body and a healthy human being. Well turns out the PFOs and PFOA so the purple radicals is a class there's 5000 of them, these compounds. They are used to decrease machinery, they're used in foams for you know fire firefighters military so they're really heavy in water and waters that the bodies of water around military bases literally across the country. And they're used personally in our you know, popcorn bags, they make things grease free, so they're in all our fast food wrappers. There's a big movement to reduce this class of chemicals from fast food wrappers. Where else are they? They're really located in so many places because they make things stain proof, grease proof, waterproof and so it's a contaminant of worldwide concern. However, they break down in hundreds of years, like decades because of a fluorine component. So if you think about the compound itself, as opposed to BPA, the fluorine which is a halogen compound on our kids, you know, elements table right you can actually see the halogens in a vertical line iodine, fluorine, bromine, fluoride, or chlorine. Fluorine has a very strong attachment to the compound plot to the you know, to the PFOS chemicals and that alone makes it almost impossible to break. So that fluorinated chemical makes these chemicals also known as forever chemicals, not break down in our environment with sun and heat, weather but also in our bodies. And so knowing that problem also raises its concern, right because you know, whatever we do to the environment will cycle back into our bodies. We are not disconnected from water, from air, all of that. So I think that you know, there's so many thousands chemicals that are on the chopping block or should be in terms of their you know, exposure guidelines from the EPA. But when you think about how they break down and how we can actually get rid of them as behavioral changes, this is not one of those that does very well with that.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Got it. In terms of the PFOS and everything, is there a way to detox or eliminate them from the body in terms of urination or sweat or does not do that?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yeah, you know, so despite the fact that the chemical itself is pretty..
Dr. Andrew Wong
Yeah. it's almost like indestructible from a lifetime perspective.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yeah it’s pretty impervious. Yeah, exactly. But it doesn't mean we can't not only avoid it getting into our bodies, which is what I talked about, you know, on my post with the book, is try to avoid even getting them into your body by avoiding nonstick pans, stain-free sprays, grease proofing, you know, fast food wrappers, you know, microwave popping bags for popcorn, you can certainly get the popcorn separate use a machine or you know, a stainless steel contraption. With the ideas all the ideas of not getting into your body makes sense for a variety of chemicals, but then also, to get them out. You have to use anthropology. We have to think back to what makes us get rid of chemicals. Sweating. clean drinking water, right? If you're going to detox you don't want to detox with dirty water like that just sort of seems like you know, hypocrisy. So, you know, we really want to think about what makes human beings protect themselves physiologically, tap into that it's, you know, exercise to sweat or sauna you know to sweat but in a safe way. It's drinking clean water to flush you know, we say this for you know, when we're sick, you know, they say chicken soup and water and flush the bug right out of you. It's the same kind of idea for chemicals. And so it's a two pronged approach. It's really don't put it in your body by being savvy about that and keeping choices, understanding brands which we teach in the book, and websites that are really evergreen to keep those products you know, fresh and manage those issues as they change their formulations. And it's also how to get it out of the body in a very reasonable way where you don't freak out.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Great, thank you so much. A we do have any specific water filter recommendations, is that something found in your book? I know you said at different price points and whether or not people are mobile or not.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yeah, there's lots of considerations and we give lots of guidelines, not guidelines, sort of guides, you know, so the book itself and the chapter is really great. I won't you know, I'll never disagree with that. But then there's also you know, Environmental Working Group, they have a guide to filter choices guide.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Oh, I don’t know that. Okay.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
That's in the book as well. And then I think the United States government has a filter guide as well. So there's lots of really reputable resources. We, as you know, a philosophy I've ever promoted products. My partner is a hardcore bench researcher. He absolutely would never do that either. But we want to make sure we get this information into schools in college programs and, you know, I teach other physicians and so I think, when your messaging is tainted by sales and promotion, I think you lose legitimacy. So that's been a real goal of mine. And so the book has no branding, but it has great websites that do that specific work of looking up couches without flame retardants. And then they're very good at that is very good, you know, nonprofit that's run by Arlene Blum at UCL, UCLA Berkeley, and she was the researcher for fire retardant back in the 70s and continues to work with PFOS, and we have EWG. So we're giving the resources that people can do that branding and look up products, but we just chose not to do that. We wanted to be the resource. The guidebook actually. That being said, in terms of the types of filtration, I'll just talk about a few.
The easiest, simplest the ones that I had for years were basically pictures that had a carbon block component where you drop it in you know Brita, ZeroWater, I'm gonna name there's so many on the market now. And you know, of course, they do a pretty decent job, but you have to know what they remove and that you can find from the manufacturer as you call them. There's various forms of Brita filters and ZeroWater and all that. So there's different, you know, levels of contamination removal, based on their own studies with in-house, right. So you have to sort of take their word for it. There's not a lot in terms. Consumer Reports does a great job of vetting these out. If you want to sign up for Consumer Reports.
That being said, you know, any filtration system that's going to move water quickly is going to remove less. Just you know, you can imagine that. So when you're talking about the extremes you're talking about the carbon blocks are easy, fast, you can remove them, they're relatively inexpensive, but not so much over time. Believe it or not, they add up those drop ins they can be quite pricey. Whereas if you go to the exact opposite extreme, the most aggressive way to clean US drinking water, any water that we have available as US citizens, not corporations, is reverse osmosis. And those are now cheap enough. I mean, minus 275. I got mine out of California. I've used them for 20 years and they used to be $1000-1200. But like everything else in life like VHS machines, and you know they started expensive and huge cell phones. And over time, they eventually get cheaper, cheaper, cheaper, smaller, smaller, smaller, and then you can't even give them away, right? Yeah, so that's where we're heading. And that's a good thing because I don't expect people to buy bottled water, which I'm sure we'll talk about. Bottled water is very expensive over time. You also drink all of the plastics that may have dissolved through heat or whatever from where they're stored into your water. So I always say it's cheaper to get even an aggressive reverse osmosis for $275-300 have a plumber put it in in one hour, because it should not be complicated. Plumbers should not tell you that it is or else you have the wrong plumber. One hour for like $150 here on the on the northeast in New Jersey. And then it comes with the filtration system all set up so you don't have to do anything for a year and then it would be 40 bucks a year to replace the cartridges. So to me the upfront costs actually are far cheaper than buying pallets of plastics contributing to plastic waste, and then also contributing to plastics in your body.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Yeah, that's a great answer. I think that you answered the question about “is bottled water better than tap water?” It sounds like it's clear that a filtration system that filters something, whether it's carbon block or row or something is going to be better than than drinking microplastics essentially, which is what's happened right.
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
Yes, essentially microplastics and also 75% of most tap water is, I mean, a bottled water is tap water. So it's really interesting when you go and you get tap bottled water, which people do when they travel. I do too. People do when they have God forbid there's an exposure to your water system. Contaminants sometimes there's a you know, bottled water issue from your Township. I do say do that as well. You know, boil your water, do whatever, that's their toilet, but if you can do 80 to 90% of your water from home where you fill up at home, the point of use, which is your sink, whether it's well or municipal tap, you're doing it under your sink and use glass and stainless steel of course to carry that new fresh clean water or cleaner water. That's a really valuable thing to do. And you've saved money. And it's not that it's not hard to create that system, but it also really reduces exposure quite a bit.
Dr. Andrew Wong
One little side question. Thank you so much. One little side question for the Brita pitchers and everything like that, since their pitchers themselves are plastic. Would that be a concern in terms of carrying that or?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
And same with reverse osmosis? There's components of a reverse osmosis machine that really, you know, seems hypocritical, right? It's plastic, but you know, we have to work with what we have available. And you know, I tell my husband if you're going to make coffees or French press, you know, try not to use one of those, you know, plastic machine things where you pop it in, and it's waste and all that business, but tap plastics are always worse. So when I think about plastics, or pictures or reverse osmosis, think about the most important thing is that that plastics are not heated. It's not stored in a hot place like bottled water often is and travels in unrefrigerated trucks. So think about that, because when plastics are heated up at the dishwasher, traveling or in warehouses, that's when most chemicals can leach from that plastic matrix. You can see that in Tupperware when you get it clear when you buy it and a couple washes later at high temperature in a dishwasher. It's opaque. So that's telling you that that matrix is not strong enough to maintain its chemical structure. So yeah, I mean, I think that bottled water is an option in some time, you know, sometimes but most of the time if you can avoid it, I think that's a much better way to go and, always look, you know, I went to a conference in Nashville, and I went got a bottle of water because of course, I couldn't take my reverse osmosis with me. And it actually said in ingredients municipal, filtered water or municipal. Yeah, municipal filtered water as if that was supposed to make me happy. I'm thinking of municipal tap water. That's exactly what it was. It was filled up and sold for $2 in the hotel, and it was basically tap water in a bottle.
Dr. Andrew Wong
So they should have said city tap water, right?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
I mean, I took pictures I think I posted so I kind of walked in my life taking pictures, sharing it with everyone because it's my perspective and kind of humorous and, but I just was sort of like, wow, I'm in the wrong business.
Dr. Andrew Wong
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. How many people do you think are just around the country just listeners? How many people are aware of all these issues with water? I feel like most people are to some degree like people have different pitchers and stuff but just the degree to which our water can be contaminated, you know, and also how it connects with human health or animals?
Dr. Aly Cohen, MD
I mean, it's quite shocking, actually. But you know, but I'm not surprised and I can't make judgment because I, for 30 years of my life, didn't even care. You know, I was drinking Diet Dr. Pepper during residency three times a day. I mean, you know, you know, life is very difficult, cost-wise now, and we've got all sorts of world issues. I mean, I would just say that water has never really been a lot of people's, you know, on their thought process. What I find most interesting is that in the health and wellness world you know, the people who actually seem to really care about fitness and, you know, powders and shakes and nutrition, no one is paying attention to this. Like, it's almost like, I kept questioning myself. Am I wrong to be upset about this, like I'm learning everything. And yet, I can't imagine that no one is upset about the gallons of water that we throw in our body, but people are complaining about how much fat or protein or which diet Whole 30 or Pegan are, yeah, it's tomorrow. To me, it's really like we're missing a huge, you know, influx of of contaminant and that it's something that really doesn't take a lot of effort or really any money to fix and be conscious of. So it's become the, I should say, has risen to the top No, pun intended, as the biggest beef I have with environmental health and environmental health, not with but in environmental health. Because of the volume, the risk to benefit ratio, you know, the volume we're exposed to, and sort of the risk to benefit ratio that has just really seemed to be on fire.
Dr. Andrew Wong
It's funny even when you go to integrative conferences or you know, health food store, you can drink these like really fancy protein powders but then if you're putting contaminated water in there, you know.