How much do you worry about routine exposure to toxins? (Cleaning products and additives linked to cancer, etc)

[Walwen]

I think everyone has a different tolerance and being a crunchy granola person doesn't inherently mean "healthier."
At my cleaning job I use a very industrial-looking all purpose disinfectant.... it's basically just hydrogen peroxide in solution. I've had several people worry that it's a very toxic cleaner, but I'm positive the Febreze they liberally spray themselves for the purpose of inhaling is more toxic.
A lot of the crunchy granola people I know SMOKE, and even if it's smoking pot, not tobacco... smoke is one of the most undoubtedly toxic substances.

Then there's heavy metals in hygiene products like antiperspirant... propylene glycol in soaps... Red 40 in foods... Aspartame and other sugar-free alternatives being linked to cancer... Something in everything being linked to cancer, really. Meat? Sugar? AND Fat? What am I supposed to eat?

Pretty much everyone I know has a few things they avoid because they think it's too toxic for them. How do you decide your risk tolerance?
Honestly for a lot of people I think they haven't REALLY thought it through, they've simply bought into some ad. The TV said buy this all-natural deodorant so they do.

Do I really need to worry about bogeyman chemicals in my soap if I don't work in the soap factory and aren't chugging the soap additives daily?
How do you determine what exposure level you are? How much Red-40 is bad for you- one red soda a month? Or only if you have it daily?

I am not really asking these questions for specific answers but to ask, what is your process for answering these things in your own life?
If someone said to you, "That Lysol spray you clean with? You shouldn't use that, it's bad for your health", how would you react?
When do you cut something out of your life because it is unhealthy- not because it's too caloric or frivolous, but because of a specific ingredient you think is harmful to health?

[AxelHeyst]

I'm with Taleb on this one and hew to the precautionary principle (pdf) as much as I can. Lack of evidence of harm is not the same thing as evidence of lack of harm. The burden of proof is on proving its safety. In absence of near-certain proof of safety, or in absence of me caring enough to read up about and find the near-certain proof that may or may not exist at the bottom of the compost pile of internet tldrhaveopinionanyway hot takes, I'll do without it.

The ERE angle on this is that most people try to solve their 'toxic chemicals' problem by buying stuff (consumer mindset), e.g. hippie deodorants, soaps, household cleaners. The post-consumer thing to do is to a) not use deodorant because that's some bourgeoise bs or b) make your own out of stuff you trust.

So to answer your question, this is my process for thinking about whether or not to use something that might be toxic:

1) Would it be easy to not use/consume/expose myself to the thing? If yes, do that, end of thought process. In this category is deodorant, tobacco, foods that have coloring in them, aspartame, crystal meth, new conventional furniture, fresh paint, the inside of cars, synthetic clothing (there are other reasons for me to not wear synthetics so I don't have to think about it) etc.

2) If it's something I don't want to cut, can I just make my own easily enough? If yes, do that, end of thought process. In this category is household cleaners, soaps (although I don't make my own yet, slacking), toothpaste, etc.

3) Anything still remaining means I have to start reading studies, bearing in mind that humans might not yet know if the thing is harmful or not. Cue Taleb. I'm looking for near certain evidence of lack of harm. Lack of evidence of harm is not good enough.

I also don't sweat really low dosage. I smoke a couple cigarettes' a year. I drink a red bull every once in a while. Sometimes I rip a board on the table saw without a dust mask.

[Scott 2]

Pretty much the same as Axel, I do without unless it's proven extremely necessary.

When the minimal option fails, I'll gradually escalate complexity, until finding something that works. Then minimize frequency.

If I can offload the toxic work, great. That's one of the things I'm happiest to pay for.

But I'm not militant about it. I've got a bottle of gross cleaner I use to get the shower floor white. I throw antiperspirant on 10-20 times a year. Sometimes integrating into society requires compromise.

Working as a cleaner, I would look into both breathing protection and gloves. The chronic exposure would make me extra cautious.

Looking at casual retirement jobs, toxic trade offs have probably been my most limiting criteria. I'm not spending all day in the sun, loud rooms, inhaling chemicals, etc. I did enough damage stuck behind a desk for twenty years.

[Sclass]

I spent most of my life around toxic industrial chemicals. My general rule is guard your mouth and nose. I like nitrile gloves, P100+organics respirators, and eye protection. Those are the path of least resistance for getting poisoned.

Second rule is don’t bring it home. I had a fellow student who got pulled off in his lab for having a high isotope count on his shoes. His chem department regularly screened their lab for spills. Turned out his girlfriend, a biologist working with dna tagging slopped isotopes home on her clothes and shoes and turned their apartment into a toxic site. The chemists were so vigilant they caught it as my pal tracked it from his home into the lab. It said a lot because the biology and chem departments were in the same corner of campus yet one EH&S team was asleep. Right, so don’t bring it home.

I guess our food is full of trash now. My friend the botanist did a study on the concentration of pesticide on produce and found the hole on the top of a cherry or peach has 100,000x the concentration of pesticide as the skin on the side. He says it collects there even when neighboring crops are sprayed. Same with the base of chard. He always discards the part where the leaves meet the stem. Apparently a high concentration of toxin accumulates there. Sad data.

A client who bought my chemical analysis tools did studies on outgassing. New car smell apparently exceeds OSHA organics vapor limits for safety. He also tested electric razors and found the concentration of organics gets very high if you hold the new razor near your nose and mouth. That telltale new item stink. Again it exceeds OSHA safety limits. He stated if either of these concentrations occur at work you’d get shut down. But we do this stuff everyday at home. Sad data.

I try to have a lot of faith in my body’s ability to clean itself out. The trick is not overwhelming it. PPE can help. Low stress helps. Not taking deep breaths when spraying household cleaners or insecticides helps. Airing out new stuff in the garage helps.

Yep. So guard the mouth and nose and keep exposures low in concentration. My feeling is it takes a lot of exposure to get tumors. Many scientific studies are attacked because lab rats are slathered with unrealistic amounts of carcinogens to get results.

[Jim]

I've also spent most of my "working life" around things that kill you right now or later on such as welding fumes, automotive chemicals, house fires, heights, working on highways etc. Here are my thoughts.

Wear PPE (including ear protection if appropriate). Make sure you're using the protective gear properly. For example, if you're going to wear a respirator of some kind, you probably need to shave in order to get a good seal, even with an N95. N95s are considerably more effective once they've developed some moisture inside from your breath, which can take about a minute.

Don't fixate on small things when big things are more threatening. Everyone has a morbidly obese coworker who waxes poetic about covid vaccines and 5g networks, while you can almost hear the lipids congealing in his sclerotic cardiac arteries. Don't be that guy. Take a broad look at your lifestyle and figure out what's actually a threat. Some of the most ignored areas are diet, sleep, lack of exercise and stress. Don't stress about your deodorant if your diet consists exclusively of fast food.

Be willing to put up with inherent risk if you feel there is value associated with an activity. Do this intentionally with with awareness., Don't be afraid to take the kayak out because you might capsize. Once you've made the decision to do something with inherent risk or exposure, educate yourself about how to do it safely, and how to mitigate the negative effects, IE wear a respirator, wear your seatbelt and life vest, eat simple food, have an escape plan.

[zbigi]

The problem I see it's not just items you consume that can be harmful. It can be literally everything - materials you touch, cleaning agents you use, pipes that bring you water, containers in which you store your food, furniture releasing chemicals etc. The untold number of new chemicals we've invented over the past 100 years are ubiquitous in stuff all around us, and we don't understand the health implications of most of them.
My personal strategy is to deal with threats that are easy enough to deal with (i.e. I've replaced all my food plastic containers with glass ones after the recent study said that heating up plastics releases dangerous microplastics). For the rest, I assume that they're doing damage to me, but that's the price of living in a civilization with breakneck technological improvement rate, and that I prefer it over the alternative (the most technically advanced countries have the highest lifespans, so in the end all this techno stuff is on average highly beneficial for us).

[jacob]

There's a tendency to think that consequences happen to someone else. They don't. I try to worry according to the baseline probabilities AND how much I can change these probabilities by personal behavior. They are given below for 2021.

Heart disease: 695,547
Cancer: 605,213
COVID-19: 416,893
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 224,935
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 162,890
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 142,342
Alzheimer’s disease: 119,399
Diabetes: 103,294
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis: 56,585
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 54,358

The relevant personal behavior is kinda obvious or even trivial for some of these, i.e. COVID, accidents, heart disease, diabetes, cirrhosis. It's somewhat unobvious for others like cancer, kidney disease(?), Alzheimer's.

In conclusion, I worry about the big ones where I can influence the outcome. Cancer is somewhat unique because it's the sum of lots of little ones (unless you smoke a lot, say). I don't worry greatly about the random exposure. For example, when I do woodworking or solder something, I don't wear a mask. (I do wear glasses for the powertools though. Go figure.) OTOH, I don't spend a lot of time in the shop. If it was my dayjob, I would.

[chenda]

There is a lot of triviality in this which misses out in the big picture. Skittles for example, have been subject to various lawsuits and controversy over trace elements they contain which some claim are harmful. My point though is why are people eating this sort of shite anyway ? The fat and sugar in skittles is bad enough regardless of anything else they might contain. Why are children been marketed addictive sweets and soft drinks which will give them diabetes in adulthood ? Shameful. When I was at school we were given a glass of coke and told to dip some old copper coins in them. They came out bright shiny and clean. 'Now just imagine what that acid does to your teeth' we were sternly told. I never drank it again.

[zbigi]

Why are children been marketed addictive sweets and soft drinks which will give them diabetes in adulthood ? Shameful. When I was at school we were given a glass of coke and told to dip some old copper coins in them. They came out bright shiny and clean. 'Now just imagine what that acid does to your teeth' we were sternly told. I never drank it again.

This old coke example is a bit of scaremongering, though. Coke cleans up old gunk because it's acidic. However, "natural" stuff like wine and orange juice, are also acidic and thus also e.g. bad for your teeth.

[chenda]

This old coke example is a bit of scaremongering, though. Coke cleans up old gunk because it's acidic. However, "natural" stuff like wine and orange juice, are also acidic and thus also e.g. bad for your teeth.

Well yes other acidic drinks can do it as well, it's the higher sugar content which is particularly harmful.

[CS]

I have chemical sensitivity, so don’t have much choice. My body lets me know pretty quickly. My dream is to build my own house, not because I want to have a luxury house, but because I could keep formaldehyde etc out. Barring that, an old house is best. Solid wood and plaster. Things already vented out. As long as there is no mold… a strike against humid locations, unfortunately the best for upper Midwest relative safety from climate change.

So I’m never there thinking it only affects other people. It affects me. Every time.

I agree about the Fabreeze. I also have to keep separate clothes for any public events because all seats are permanently ruined with people’s fabric softeners (and urine, unfortunately, depending on the age group.) Those scents are intentionally made sticky but the manufacturers. They ruin clothes. People using Tide and fabric softeners are the number one pollutants where I live. I wish I could sue for their ruining my quality of life.

A car with bad exhaust can take me down.

I can smell things most people cannot. It makes for horrible social phobia, because how to handle liking a person but knowing if I sit next to them for an hour meeting I will be laid out for two days with a throw up level migraine because of the chemicals pouring off their clothes? I’ve started being honest, but since most people cannot detect what I can, I know at least some are skeptical, if not thinking I’m outright lying. I wouldn’t let my mom sit on my furniture for years until she stopped using Tide.

ETA - electric heat versus gas heat is the difference between having major asthma or not. Gas wall heater in a small space == hospitalization asthma without drugs

[jacob]

Fun fact on cola. IIRC from a titration experiment in HS concerning the carbonic acid/phosphoric acid buffer balance, if the cola still has bubbles, the pH is around 6, whereas if it's flat, the pH drops to 2.6 or so. Insofar you're using it to clean door hinges or remove teeth, only flat cola will work.

[Henry]

I live in New Jersey. I assume my genomes are shaped liked an oil refinery by now.