Where to Find EDCs & Why Should You Avoid Them?

GUEST BLOG By Stephanie Pacheco-Nunes

Something I talk to most of my clients about is ditching the plastic. Plastic is not only detrimental to the environment, but there’s a lot of health implications as well (even more reason to make the switch).

Endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are found in plastic bottles, toys and containers, detergents, cosmetics, pesticides, and metal food cans. In this modern world we typically turn to things which are normalised as convenient, without thinking about the greater impact of this convenience.

EDCs essentially mimic naturally produced hormones in the body and interfere with that hormones try important physiological action.  They accumulate in our fat tissue as toxic products and generally take a long time to break down. If you think about how many chemicals you are inhaling and consuming which are not being properly metabolised in the body, each day adding more and more to that toxic load. The liver has to work super hard to try remove these substances from the body and it will eventually get to a point where it can no longer keep up, leading to more serious conditions.

Some conditions associated with EDCs:

• infertility

• breast, endometrial, and testicular cancer

• birth defects

• altered thyroid function

• diabetes

• obesity

• immune dysfunction

Our skin is our largest organ and the one most exposed to the environment around us, so we need to be thinking about what we are putting on our skin. When looking for skin care products (also applies to food, cleaning and home products too) we should look for minimal ingredients (the less the better), whole ingredients (avoid fragrances, derivatives, preservatives, and numbers), and ingredients we can pronounce and are familiar with.

This is just the beginning of a series where I hope to offer some guidance of how to take the steps towards lowering the toxic load in your house, but in the meantime some things I would recommend immediately getting rid of are:

• perfumes

• conventional deodorants (particularly aerosol and aluminium containing)

• water in plastic bottles

This passion I have for instigating everything I consume and put on my skin is what led me to OmMade Organic Skincare, I deeply resonated with ‘if you can’t eat it, don’t put it on your skin’. 

If you don’t start looking after your health now, you will pay for it later 🌸