The wildfires in California have dominated the headlines lately. The devastation has been serious, but it’s easy to forget about the what this means for the health of those both caught in the fires and trying to live their lives normally in spite of the high levels of air pollution they’re currently dealing with. Those in California are being exposed to hazardous air conditions, and air pollution can cause serious health issues. Additionally, a new study from the University of Texas has found that poor air quality has reduced global life expectancy by 2 years. The severity of these wildfires is another sign of how close we are to this kind of climate event becoming our new normal, leaving us fighting environmental and medical battles on multiple fronts.

Quality of Life

Life won’t return to normal for CA residents for a while. During the peak of the smoke and air pollution from the fires, the air quality index (AQI) in areas of CA was registering as high as a 313. For some context, good quality registers from 0 to 50. Numbers are down from their peak, but parts of Northern CA are still dealing with air unhealthy for sensitive groups. Vulnerable populations include children, the elderly, those with heart or lung conditions, and pregnant women.

Air pollution can have a serious impact on health. A recent study from the University of Texas examined air pollution data from the Global Burden of Disease Study in an effort to understand the consequences of atmospheric particulates. Joshua Apte is an assistant professor in the Cockrell School’s Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering and in the Dell Medical School’s Department of Population Health.

The fact that fine particle air pollution is a major global killer is already well known…And we all care about how long we live. Here, we were able to systematically identify how air pollution also substantially shortens lives around the world. What we found is that air pollution has a very large effect on survival – on average about a year globally.”

The Great Outdoors

2018 is the most destructive wildfire season recorded in California, with over 1.6 million acres burned and 2.9 million dollars in damage costs. The previous holder of that title was 2017, and that isn’t a new trend. All of the conditions needed for an intense fire season are there: dry conditions due to little rain, the hottest summer on record, warm winds that regularly exceed 50 miles an hour, and plenty of fuel for the fire to consume. Those conditions are also creating an increasingly longer wildfire season. According to Scott McLean, deputy chief of communications for the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, that trend will likely continue.

It’s progressively been getting longer. We don’t even call it a season anymore, to be frank with you. We’re seeing wildfires every week of each year right now…We’ve basically taken the season aspect out of the equation.”

The Red Stuff

There are also environmental concerns with the way we fight forest fires, namely Phos-chek, the weapon of choice for modern firefighters. Previously owned by Monsanto (the product is now produced by Israel Chemicals Ltd.), Phos-chek is frequently seen streaming out of planes like a crimson waterfall. Although the formula is kept secret, the fire retardant is composed primarily of fertilizers like ammonium phosphate combined with clay or guar thickeners designed to keep the solution from dispersing in the air. Phos-chek use in the state of CA has multiplied rapidly over the last few years, going from 9 million gallons sprayed in 2014 to 19 million gallons used in 2016. That trend promises to continue, as more than a million gallons of the chemical were used on the Mendocino Complex fire this year.

There wasn’t a serious look at the environmental impact of Phos-chek until a Montana judge ordered a thorough examination of the product in 2014. Previous attempts by the U.S. Forest Service to determine the environmental impact of the fire retardant have proclaimed it safe, despite marine plant and animal deaths recorded after the use of the chemical. In 2002, fire retardant chemicals dropped in the Fall River in Oregon killed 22,000 fish in one day. Now, reports maintain that Phos-chek does no harm if it’s used correctly and well away from bodies of water, which are highly susceptible to phosphate pollution.

The Feedback Loop

Proponents of Phos-chek and other phosphate-based fire retardants mention that the chemicals perform a service beyond fire containment – fertilization. But how does that actually work? Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plant growth, but too much of it is detrimental to plant health. Excess phosphorus, which remains in the soil for 3 to 5 years, causes plants to develop yellowing leaves due to an inability to properly absorb nutrients like iron, manganese, and zinc. It also harms root funghi, interfering with a plant’s ability to absorb water.

Firefighting organizations are dumping 19 million pounds of this phosphate-based fertilizers a year, and that’s also harming native plants. According to Andy Stahl, executive director of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics,

Phosphate fertilizer, e.g., Phos-Chek, can have adverse effects on plants adapted to nutritionally poor soil by increasing competition from invasive species better suited to growing in the newly-fertilized soil. For this reason, the U.S. Forest Service bars aerial fire retardant from being used in critical habitat of many threatened or endangered plants.”

In many ways, we keep telling the same story. We eliminate the natural systems that keep our bodies and environment healthy. We look for the most likely cause and often accept the first plausible explanation.  It’s not that simple and the longer we think it is, the likelihood of actually addressing climate change drastically decreases.

Sources:

• The health hazards from wildfires can linger – CNN
• Air Pollution Reduces Global Life Expectancy by More Than One Year, Study Finds – UT News
• California fire season may extend into autumn, officials say – Fox News
• Fire fight: Forest Service explores chemical retardant hazards – High Country News
• Blanketing California in Fire Retardant Is Potentially Very Harmful – Earther
• Latest: The Forest Service’s use of fire retardant has doubled since 2014 – High Country News
• Phosphorus Too Much and Plants May Suffer – Texas Cooperative Extension
• Excessive Phosphorus in the Soil – Sanctuary Gardener
• Is that red fire retardant dropped from planes during wildfires safe for humans and the environment – San Gabriel Valley Tribune

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb is on the record indicating that the federal administration will likely be addressing the legalization of marijuana soon. In a television interview with CNBC’s Joe Kernen, Gottlieb said there’s…

…probably going to be a policy reckoning around this at some point in the future. Obviously, it’s happening at the state level, and I think there’s an inevitability that it’s going to happen at the federal level at some point soon…”

It’s possible that the commissioner is referring to a proposed bill that would exempt state-legal marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act. President Trump expressed approval of the bill back in June of 2018, and federal opposition to marijuana could ahve also lessened further with the departure of former Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Gottlieb was unable to provide any additional insight into federal marijuana policy, adding, “Unfortunately I don’t have anything additional to share.”

What They Have Approved

It’s useful to look at what the U.S. government has legalized. Marijuana in any of its forms is illegal. Even though cannabidiol (CBD) doesn’t contain the Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) that gets users high, it’s only legal under three circumstances – when it is extracted from the parts of the cannabis plant not considered marijuana, when it is produced for research purposes, and when it has been approved for the FDA for medical use. According to the commissioner, FDA approval of marijuana products has happened.

We have approved compounds derived from marijuana, but there is no demonstrated medical use of botanical marijuana. That’s the bottom line.”

So what does botanical mean? A botanical drug is classified as a finished product or medicine that contains plant matter. Three medications using synthetic THC have been approved, but only one drug containing natural CBD medication has been approved by the FDA, Epidiolex from GW Pharmaceuticals in the U.K.

Much has been made of the lack of scientific study and data to back medical claims regarding cannabis and CBD, in large part due to the difficulties of conducting peer-reviewed research on illegal substances. That looks to be changing though, as the World Health Organization (WHO) released a report earlier in the year declaring that naturally occurring CBD is safe and well tolerated in humans (and animals) and not associated with any negative public health effects. The report also touted the compound’s potential as a treatment for epilepsy. While this is not the only study to report positive outcomes from CBD, the WHO is a leader in scientific research and worldwide policy often takes their recommendations into account.

Recommended: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

Slow Change and Momentum

It was big news when our northern neighbors legalized marijuana in all of its forms on October 17, making Canada only the second country in the world to do so. It remains to be seen if sharing a border with a country containing legally obtainable weed will have any influence on the state of marijuana reform in the U.S. After the 2018 midterms, legalized recreational marijuana is available in 10 states and the District of Columbia.

It’s difficult to know with our current administration where federal policy will end up on the legalization spectrum. Their most vocal marijuana opponent is gone, and Trump is on the record as “probably will end up supporting that” in response to a bill favorable towards cannabis. But who knows if that means anything?

Sources:

• Federal Marijuana Action Is An ‘Inevitability,’ Trump FDA Chief Says – Marijuana Moment
• Here Are All the States That Have Legalized Weed in the U.S. – Esquire
• Uruguay was the first country to fully legalize marijuana – Vox
• Marijuana Law, Policy, and Authority – Vanderbilt University Law School
• WHO Report Finds No Public Health Risks Or Abuse Potential For CBD – Forbes

Glyphosate isn’t the only harmful herbicide in the water supply. An investigation from the Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that atrazine, a Syngenta product used on corn, sugarcane, and lawns, is in the tap water of over 30 million people in the U.S. 76 millions pounds of atrazine were sprayed in 2014, making it the second most commonly used herbicide (after glyphosate) in the United States. Several studies have identified the chemical as an endocrine disruptor, and it has also been linked to cancer and birth defects. The new EWG study is only a snapshot of how hard it is to avoid atrazine.

EWG’s Tap Water Database, which aggregates water testing data from utilities nationwide, shows that nearly 30 million Americans in 28 states have some level of atrazine in their tap water. Environmental Protection Agency data for 2017 show late-spring and early-summer spikes of atrazine in drinking water commonly are three to seven times higher than the federal legal limit, but these exceedances are not reported to people in the affected communities…”

Related: Foods Most Likely to Contain Glyphosate

Previous Litigation and Discovery

Syngenta is aware of the problems with atrazine and water contamination. In 2012, Syngenta was sued by 23 cities and towns in the Midwest. These municipalities alleged that Syngenta knew about but didn’t inform their communities about atrazine and its potential for groundwater contamination. Syngenta settled that class-action suit for 105 million dollars, enough to properly filter the atrazine from the towns water sources. The company did not admit any fault and maintains that atrazine is safe.

Related: Why Romaine Lettuce and Spinach Keep Trying To Kill Us, and What We Can Do About It

Even if that is the case, many areas where the herbicide is used (the most commonly treated crop is corn) are still drinking far more than the Environmental Protection Agency’s recommended maximum amount of 3.4 parts per billion of atrazine in surface water. Atrazine doesn’t break down readily in water. According to the chemical’s toxicological profile issued by the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry,

Atrazine tends to persist in surface and groundwater, with a moderate tendency to bind to sediments. Slow or no biodegradation occurs in surface water or groundwater environments, respectively…Depending on the availability of sunlight, oxygen, microorganisms, and plants, the half-life of atrazine in water tends to be longer than 6 months; in some cases, no degradation of atrazine has been observed in aquatic systems.”

There are some serious issues linked to atrazine and many questions surround its health and environmental implications.

Municipalities in states like Nebraska and Wisconsin shut down wells during peak atrazine season, typically in the spring. Multiple studies have linked it to disrupted growth, behavior, immune function, and gonadal development in fish and amphibians. A study from the University of Kentucky found a high likelihood of a connection between atrazine exposure and premature births. The Centers for Disease Control lists congestion of heart, lungs, and kidneys, low blood pressure, muscle spasms, weight loss, and damage to adrenal glands as potential side effects of atrazine exposure above the maximum contaminant level for short periods of time. Use of the herbicide was banned in the European Union in 2004.

Related: What’s the Best Water for Detoxifying and For Drinking?

Atrazine Needs to Be Examined

Atrazine, while effective at killing, weeds, has not been definitively proven to be safe for the environment or public health. Syngenta has thrown millions at the EPA and succeeded in having it declared otherwise. Yet the company was unable to prove the same thing to the European Union in 2004.

This news makes me sad for the farmers. To make a profit on the nutritionally-deficient crops they grow, they spray them in large quantities of harmful chemicals that then leach into their water supply. Make a living to live what kind of life?

Sources:

• A Hormone-Disrupting Weed Killer May Be In Your Tap Water. Here’s What to Do About It – Environmental Working Group
• A Valuable Reputation – The New Yorker
• Atrazine – Living History Farm
• ‘Strict’ pesticide rules fail to erase threat to Wisconsin’s drinking water – Channel 3000
• Atrazine Exposure in Public Drinking Water and Preterm Birth – NCBI
• Potential for Human Exposure – ATSDR
• Community Water – CDC.gov

It can take six months to regain a normal microbiome after using antibiotics, and chances are good that not all of the microbes present before the antibiotics were administered will return. Researchers in Copenhagen conducted a small study (12 men) that examined gut diversity after a single course of antibiotics. They used 3 drugs considered antibiotics of last resort: meropenem, gentamicin, and vancomycin. While the gut microbes of the subjects recovered, 9 common species of gut bacteria could no longer be detected in their microbiome. Oluf Pedersen is the lead scientist of the study.

In this case, it is good that we can regenerate our gut microbiota which is important for our general health…The concern, however, relates to the potentially permanent loss of beneficial bacteria after multiple exposures to antibiotics during our lifetime.”

Related: How To Heal Your Gut

Only One

This is what happens after a single course of antibiotics. What happens in the U.S., where outpatient healthcare providers prescribed more than 266 million courses of antibiotics in 2014, a third of which the CDC says are unnecessary? The same year saw an average of 835 antibiotic prescriptions for every 1,000 people. People who suffer from recurrent urinary tract infections (UTI) or chronic respiratory infections are likely given multiple courses of antibiotics in a single year. If it takes six months to mostly recover from a single course of antibiotics, those who take multiple courses are losing their chance to have a healthy, balanced microbiome.

It’s common to see articles comparing the gut bacteria of indigenous tribes with that of your average American. The indigenous microbiome is always more diverse. M. Gloria Dominguez-Bello is a microbiologist at the New York University School of Medicine and one of the authors of a study of the Yanomami tribe, first visited by the modern world in 2009. While Dominguez-Bello mentions diet, she also notes the difference in antibiotic use. The 2009 visit to the Yanomami in the Amazon is the first time the tribe was exposed to antibiotics, which can have a serious effect on gut health. Domingues-Bello says,

Antibiotics kill bacteria in the gut, and sometimes species don’t come back…This is especially true with children, whose microbiomes are in the process of getting assembled. Impacts on the microbiome at a young age can have long-lasting consequences.”

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More and Different and Better

Is it possible to replenish your gut bacteria after a course of antibiotics? The answer is both yes and no. You can bring your microbes back, but they will no longer be the same. Each time the microbiome is mowed down and resurrected, diversity and the immune system’s ability to adapt are reduced. Combine that news with the rise of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and you should want to be as far away from antibiotics as well. It pays to take a look at the other likely reason for indigenous peoples microbiome diversity: diet.

Sources:

• Gut bacteria recover from antibiotics, but they may take six months – Ars Technica
• Recovery of gut microbiota of healthy adults following antibiotic exposure – Nature Microbiology
• CDC: 1 in 3 antibiotic prescriptions unnecessary – CDC.gov
• How Modern Life Depletes Our Gut Microbes – NPR

Researchers from the University of Toronto analyzed over 12,000 men with early-stage prostate cancer and found that men who have received invasive or damaging treatments like surgery or radiation are more likely to use antidepressants. 4,952 men who had surgery, 4,994 got radiation and 2,136 men chose to wait and watch their diagnosis. When researchers contrasted each treatment method to a control group, those who were subject to radiation were 33 percent more likely to be on anti-depressants 5 years later. Those who underwent surgery were 49 percent more likely to take anti-depressants. Those who did nothing showed no significant change in anti-depressant use. Dr. Robert Nam is the senior author of the study.

Once they receive treatment for prostate cancer, whether that is surgery or radiation, they may experience treatment-related side effects, such as erectile dysfunction, incontinence, and bowel dysfunction, which can significantly worsen quality of life…”

Related: Sugar Leads to Depression – World’s First Trial Proves Gut and Brain are Linked (Protocol Included)

The System

The United States is currently engaged in a discussion of what health care should be in this country. Articles and analysis frequently mention how much the U.S. spends in relation to how poor health outcomes are in comparison to other developed nations. More Americans are waking up to the idea that more treatment is not better treatment. Intervention begets more intervention. In this study, those who followed surgery or radiation treatment recommendations were more likely to receive anti-depressant scripts.

Even worse, some of the prostate cancer cases treated with surgery or radiation didn’t need any intervention. One of the ways doctors monitor and diagnose prostate cancer is by measuring levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA). An increase in those levels in a patient with prostate cancer alerts caregivers to disease progression, but studies have found that PSA levels in healthy men aren’t a reliable indicator of prostate cancer. According to the National Cancer Institute,

Most men with an elevated PSA level turn out not to have prostate cancer; only about 25% of men who have a prostate biopsy due to an elevated PSA level actually are found to have prostate cancer when a biopsy is done.”

Prostate Cancer on the Rise

The “wait and see” method of dealing with prostate cancer is only practiced when the cancer is in its earliest stages. For those hoping to avoid radiation or surgery, that could be bad. Prostate cancer is on the rise among younger men and many cases are aggressive. Which means more intervention. How much is too much?

Sources:

• Prostate cancer surgery and radiation tied to antidepressant use – Reuters
• Variation and Trends in Antidepressant Prescribing for Men Undergoing Treatment for Nonmetastatic Prostate Cancer: A Population-based Cohort Study – European Urology
• Is Prostate Cancer on the Rise? – Men’s Journal
• Overdiagnosis: when finding cancer can do more harm than good – Cancer Research U.K.

They might have used different methodology and measurements, but two recent studies have come to the same conclusion – male fertility is on the decline. Both studies were premiered at the Scientific Congress of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) in Denver.

The first study is a collaborative effort between private fertility centers in New Jersey and Spain. This study looked at 120,000 men struggling with infertility and found that the percentage of men with a total motile sperm count (TMSC) of more than 15 million declined from 85 percent in 2002-05 to 79 percent in 2014-17. A TMSC under 15 million is considered low, and this study also found that the number of men with an extremely low TMSC (0 to 5 million) increased from 9 to more than 11.5 percent.

The second study comes from researchers at Mount Sinai’s Icahn School of Medicine in conjunction with the California Cryobank and Reproductive Medicine Associates of New York. They looked at 124,000 sperm samples from 2,600 donors between 19-38 from various locations, including Los Angeles, Palo Alto, Houston, Boston, Indianapolis, and New York City. Testing sperm count, sperm concentration, and TMSC, researchers discovered that these numbers declined in almost every location from 2007 to 2017 (New York City was an exception for all three factors, while sperm counts in Boston showed no change).

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This is not news. Scientists from Hebrew University in Jerusalem found last year that sperm counts in the west have more than halved over the last forty years. The average rate of yearly decline is 1.4 percent. At this point, the real news would be the discovery of why. Why are men in the developed world experiencing this loss of fertility? Science still don’t know.

What We Need to Know

There are some theories as to how sperm counts and male fertility are declining in the western world. Some say the lack of exercise and increasing obesity play a part in decreased sperm numbers. Others point to the standard American diet, laced with sugar, soy, and other health-disrupting substances. Chemicals found in everyday items like Bis-Phenol A (BPA) are another common reason floated for the decline of male fertility. Add in smoking, stress, and drinking, and the causes of male infertility look like the textbook definition of an unhealthy lifestyle. Scientists haven’t found the official link between infertility and this kind of lifestyle. This suggests there isn’t one cause for the decline, though.  All of these options are valid and correct. Together they form the conditions needed to effectively slow men’s fertility in its tracks.

Related: How to Detox From Plastics and Other Endocrine Disruptors

Is This A Bad Thing?

As an environmentalist, I would love this news if the decrease in fertility wasn’t caused by environmental toxicity. Fewer people means less strain on resources, and 2017 study found that potential parents lower carbon emissions equivalent to 58.6 tonnes of CO2 emissions every year by having one fewer child. But lower sperm counts and decreased male fertility negatively affect the lives of the men dealing with them. Individuals struggling with infertility are more likely to develop diabetes, substance abuse disorders, or heart conditions. In a way that strains resources as well, especially in the U.S., where health care costs are a heavy burden on the population. Maybe we should treat infertility as a lifestyle problem, rather than a medical one. Let’s see that study.

Sources:

• Sperm Counts Continue to Fall – The Atlantic
• Study Finds Declining Sperm Counts in Houston and Other Cities – Houston Public Media
• Sperm counts of Western men plummeting, analysis finds – CNN
• The infertility crisis is beyond doubt. Now scientists must find the cause – The Guardian

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has released a new study that confirms the awesome powers of a bacteria commonly found in probiotic supplements: Bacillus. Testing a variety of Bacillus microbes against Staphylococcus aureus, a common cause of antibiotic-resistant infections, scientists found that the beneficial bacteria stopped the S. aureus bacteria from colonizing the gut. Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. leads the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the NIH division responsible for the study.

Probiotics frequently are recommended as dietary supplements to improve digestive health…This is one of the first studies to describe precisely how they may work to provide health benefits. The possibility that oral Bacillus might be an effective alternative to antibiotic treatment for some conditions is scientifically intriguing and definitely worthy of further exploration.”

Related: How To Heal Your Gut

Drawing Conclusions

This study came in two parts. The first part examined the behavior of S. aureus in healthy subjects and the second used a mouse model to explain bacillus’ influence on the harmful bacteria. In both cases, researchers found that more bacillus equals less S. aureus. In the initial section of the study, scientists found 200 volunteers in rural Thailand. They first tested them for Bacillus, and then tested for S. aureus. Of the 101 subjects who tested positive for Bacillus, none of them tested positive for S. aureus.

The second portion of the experiment was a mouse study, based on the volunteer findings. The guts of the mice were deliberately colonized with S. aureus. These mice were then fed probiotics every two days, which eliminated the S. aureus colonization. Researchers identified fengycins, a lipopeptide (a molecule that’s part peptide and part lipid), as the reason S. aureus was no longer able to colonize. The lipopeptide shuts down the sensing system the potentially harmful bacteria need to proliferate.

How to Use This News

This information makes a fantastic case for probiotics and more specifically bacillus. Even potentially dangerous bacteria like Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) are susceptible to those supplements. Bacillus is a widespread bacteria, with more than 200 species found in the air and water. More than half of the rural Thai volunteers from the first portion of the study had bacillus in their guts, and the likelihood that they have an every other day probiotic regimen is very low. People can get bacillus from eating raw, vegetable foods.

Related: Holistic Guide to Healing the Endocrine System and Balancing Our Hormones

If you want a probiotic though, there are a few things to look for. First, the probiotic does you no good if it doesn’t make it past the stomach acid and bile to make it to the intestinal tract. There are a couple of ways around that. The American Nutrition Association found that Lactobacillus, Bifidobacterium, and Streptococcus are the bacteria most likely to make it past the stomach acid. Another strategy is to find a probiotic with an acid resistant-capsule. That can increase the chances the probiotic will be able to balance the gut and do some good.

Beneath the Surface

We often talk about bacteria in terms of “good” and “bad.” Bacillus, found in most probiotics, is considered a good bacteria. E. coli and S. aureus are considered bad bacteria. Yet E. coli produce vitamin K2 and is a crucial part of a healthy digestive system. Meanwhile, two strains of Bacillus (B. anthracis and B. cereus) cause anthrax and food poisoning, respectively. Scientists have barely discovered what bacteria are capable individually, much less how they work holistically. This study suggests that thinking about how our microbes work together could be a positive, necessary shift…especially with the threat antibiotic-resistant bacteria pose. Antibiotics have been easy and lucrative. But those drugs might not be viable much longer. Are probiotics the best solution?

Sources:

• NIH Study Finds Probiotic Bacillus Eliminates Staphylococcus Bacteria – National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
• Pathogen elimination by probiotic Bacillus via signalling interference – Nature.com
• Bacillus – Encyclopedia Britannica
• Probiotics, Bacteria, and Our Health – Organic Lifestyle Magazine