The Dirty Truth About Environmental Toxins (And How to Protect Yourself)

Mark Hyman

Mar 17, 2025

Episode description

The pervasive presence of microplastics and environmental toxins in our daily lives poses a growing threat to human health, with impacts ranging from hormonal disruption and metabolic dysfunction to immune system compromise and chronic inflammation. These contaminants, found in food packaging, water supplies, personal care products, and even the air we breathe, accumulate in the body and contribute to the rise in chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, cancer, and autoimmune conditions. Understanding their far-reaching effects is essential, but the good news is that the body has powerful detoxification mechanisms that, when properly supported through dietary choices, lifestyle adjustments, and targeted supplementation, can help mitigate their damage.

In this episode, I discuss, along with toxin-expert Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, why we need to take action to reduce toxin exposures, reverse existing damage, and build a foundation for long-term well-being.

Dr. Joseph Pizzorno is a transformational leader in medicine. Through half a century of work, he has helped establish and advance the academic, scientific, and clinical protocols for natural, functional, integrative, and environmental medicine. As founding president of Bastyr University in 1978, he coined the term “science-based natural medicine” and led Bastyr to become the first-ever accredited institution in the field. He has set worldwide standards of practice by authoring or co-authoring six textbooks for doctors, including the Textbook of Natural Medicine (over 100,000 copies in 4 languages across 5 editions) and Clinical Environmental Medicine. He is Editor-in-Chief of PubMed-indexed IMCJ—the most widely read, peer-reviewed journal in the field (25,000 copies each issue). He is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the Institute for Functional Medicine, where he served three terms as Chair. A licensed naturopathic physician, educator, researcher, and expert spokesman, he is also the author or co-author of eight consumer books (most recent, Healthy Bones, Healthy You! with his wife Lara).

This episode is brought to you by BIOptimizers.

Head to bioptimizers.com/hyman and use code HYMAN10 to save 10%.

Full-length episodes can be found here:

Microplastics: What They Are, Why They are Dangerous, and How to Protect Yourself

Environmental Toxins: How To Eliminate the Silent Killers with Dr. Joseph Pizzorno

How To Reduce Your Environmental Toxin Exposure

Mindsip insights from this episode:

Avoid plastic tea bags to prevent microplastic contamination

A single plastic tea bag at brewing temperature can release 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into your tea.

#microplastics

#plastic

Avoid bottled water to reduce exposure to plastic fragments

A new study found that a liter of water from a plastic bottle contains an average of 240,000 detectable plastic fragments, 90% of which are nanoplastics.

#microplastics

#water

Sweat out fat-soluble toxins using saunas

BPA concentrations are higher in sweat than in urine, making induced sweating through saunas a clinically useful tool to facilitate the release of fat-soluble toxins.

#sauna

#toxin

Monitor toxin levels to reduce disease risk after age 50

The correlation between toxin levels and disease risk dramatically increases around age 50, as the body's cumulative toxic load and DNA damage overwhelm its ability to adapt.

#aging

#toxin

Monitor toxic load with GGT liver enzyme test

The GGT liver enzyme test, which is inexpensive, can be used to monitor your body's total toxic load, with a lower number indicating better detoxification.

#liver

#testing

Reduce dining out to lower exposure to forever chemicals

For every meal a person eats out instead of cooking at home, they increase their blood levels of PFAS, or 'forever chemicals', by 1%.

#nutrition

#PFAS

Reduce microplastics in arteries to lower heart attack risk

A study in the New England Journal of Medicine found that having microplastics in arterial plaque increased the risk of heart attack, stroke, or death by 453%.