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Your Brain Is 0.5% Plastic (Here’s How to Flush It)

56m 9s

Your Brain Is 0.5% Plastic (Here’s How to Flush It)

This transcript from "The Human Upgrade" with Dave Asprey and guest Josephine Musco discusses the pervasive health and environmental dangers of microplastics. Key points include that a single tea bag can release billions of microplastic and nanoplastic particles into hot water, and these particles have been found in human brain tissue (making up 0.5% of brain mass), arteries, and reproductive organs. Microplastics are linked to Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, lower testosterone, infertility, and weight gain because they act as hormone disruptors and store in fat tissue. They also accumulate pesticides and other toxins. Common sources include plastic tea bags, coffee cups, cans, and bottled water. Josephine Musco's company, Olixir, offers a solution: plant-fiber tea strips that dissolve completely in water, avoiding the leaching of plastics and bleaches found in traditional tea bags. Dave Asprey emphasizes that entrepreneurs and large companies must innovate away from plastic packaging and that stronger regulations, such as taxes on plastics, are needed to address the crisis. The conversation underscores that while environmental cleanup technologies exist, they are not yet scaled, making personal and industrial action critical to reduce exposure and pollution.

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Every single time you see a T-bag, it releases up to 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics in your cup. They were even found in the brain and post-mortem brain at the tissue. They are making 0.5% of the brain tissue is made from microplastics. So half a percent of your brain could be made out of microplastics right now? It's not just you have a microplastic, you have a microplastic embedded with all sorts of pesticides and things and then just causes inflammation, right? It's causing Alzheimer's dementia, environmental cognitive decline. It's really affecting the testosterone level which, you know, as we know it affects everybody. Men, women, children, adults, young adults. Do you think microplastics make people fat? They absolutely do. That's a bit of a silly. I have shown you the least microplastics in blood by 82%. I am guessing that they will help break down the microplastics and help the body get rid of it. You may stress about it. You just want to take action to move yourself in the right direction. At the same time, become stronger, more vibrant, better at detoxing. You're listening to the human upgrade with Dave Asprey. Poor recovery speeds up aging. When you don't recover from stress properly, your cells get weaker and accumulate damage. Heart math changes that. The Interbalance Coherence Plus trains your body to recover at the source, your nervous system. The setup is pretty simple. You connect a sensor to your ear that pairs to the HeartMath app, which guides you through an HRV exercise. In five minutes a day, your body shifts out of stress mode and into coherence. The state where recovery, focus, and peak performance happen. Most devices only track recovery. HeartMath trains it. It works by targeting heart rate variability or HRV. Your body's most reliable marker of resilience. Higher HRV means faster recovery, deeper sleep, and stronger performance. Decades of science prove that heart math works. 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It sends gentle signals your body can respond to while you work, meditate, or wind down. Most wearables just track stress. The one device supports your nervous system directly, without any Bluetooth or EMFs. People who wear it report sleeping more deeply and feeling calmer, more focused, energized, and grounded. It's wearable frequency support you can use all day long. Learn more at theonedevice.com/dave. This is the first episode of the human upgrade recorded here outside the hills of Austin, Texas, where I've got a new studio under construction. You can see if you're watching behind me is, well, a big screen, but it's going to get cooler and cooler. This episode is about microplastics. Microplastics are one of the many contaminants that are affecting human biology. We've known about these for quite a while, and even going as far back as my fertility book in 2011, I'm like, "Yeah, I might want to have less plastic on you." One side of plastic is, you don't want plastic clothing because it has effects on your electrical current in the body, and it basically affects the electrical portion of your being. If I say that and it, it kind of makes you say, "What?" Well, here's the deal. You are simultaneously a chemical being, pretty clearly, and a biochemical being, which means you use enzymes to make chemistry work better, and you're simultaneously magnetic, vibrational, which includes sound, light-based, magnetic-based, electrical-based, quantum-based. All of those systems are active in your body at the same time, and so if you mess with one of them, you got a problem. But it gets much worse when you start taking this plastic and putting it inside your body. So I brought in an expert in one of the top sources of microplastics, which probably isn't what you might expect. And we're going to talk about what you can do about that, named Josephine Musco. And she's the founder of Olixir T-Strips, which is a way to solve one of the many sources of microplastics. We'll go deep on all these Josephine. Welcome to the show. Thank you so much for having me. When you look at the fact that microplastics are like in brains and organs and blood and like reproductive stuff, what do you think people still don't understand about them? People cannot see them. So microplastics and enoplastics, microplastics are from 5 mm to 1 micron, and enoplastics are below 1 micron. To put that in perspective, it's 5 mm to 1 micron is the size of a sesame seeds and down to the point where you cannot see what the naked eye. And one micron, which is nanoplastics, you cannot see them when naked eye. It really involves some advanced tools to look at it and see those particles. So that's number one. Number two, they are not really associating the health symptoms that are having with microplastics, because it's not something that they are used to. So we catch a cold, we have a cold symptoms, which they don't know that infertility, inability to lose weight on all the other things are caused by microplastics. Like for example, they just found micro-nanoplastics in the plaque of the cartoid arteries. And they found that these subjects that had the microplastics in the plaque of their cartoid arteries had 4.5 more likelihood of having a cardiac event. Wow. They were even found in the brain, in post-post-post-mortem brain at tissue. It's like half a percent of your brain could be made out of microplastics right now. And microplastics don't behave like normal fats in the brain. They don't. They're finding that in post-mortem brain tissue. Microplastics also accumulate toxins from the environment preferentially. So it's not just you have a microplastic, you have a microplastic embedded with all sorts of pesticides and things that becomes a part of the brain and then just causes inflammation right? It's causing Alzheimer's dementia or developmental cognitive decline in people. It's also, you know, as we know, it's crossing the blood frame barrier, but it also causing the blood testicle barrier and the blood follicular barrier. And it's it's really affecting the testosterone level, which, you know, as we know it affects everybody, men, women, children, adults, young adults. So we are, you know, there's a lot of health concerns that we are seeing caused by microplastic contamination that is not really brought out to the surface. Wow. So it seems like the reproductive act may just be like 3D printing at a certain point. If we keep it up with the plastics, yeah. You know, the thing is so that the bigger particles, the microplastics, the 5-millimeter ones aren't as bad, but the smaller ones, which are the nanoplastics, which are caused by heating plastic up, which is, you know, the cups, you should go cups, your tea bags, your cookware, where the plastic is really heated high and nanoplastics are getting very, very small. That's when they are being able to cross the barriers and really get into our bloodstream. The other really big one is kansu, if you heard. Oh yeah. So if they found that if people had one kansu per day over the course of five days, their ureary BPA increased by about 1%. Wow. So maybe kansu is about that? They're plastic, they're line with plastic, the kans are plastic, and then they're pasteurized or whatever. To prevent them to make them, you know, last long on the shelf. What's the difference between BPA and microplastics? Microplastics are in BPA. It's all the same. It's actually all petroleum biochemicals, like it's all petroleum, my products. They're all petroleum byproducts, but BPA is a chemical that gets impregnated into the microplastics. So they kind of ride together. You can get BPA without getting a microplastic, right? It's an endocrine disorder. Right. And there's BPA still. Yeah, BPAs and BPA free. So we found an even worse BPA to stick in there. Yeah. So be aware when you see BPA free, that doesn't mean that it doesn't have some type of hormone instructor. Yeah. It will have BPAs. One of the things that I've done for many years when I became aware of the microplastics in coffee cups. I'm kind of a coffee guy, and I brew my own coffee. I travel with danger coffee, and I bring a metal insulated container, and I'll go into one of my favorite coffee shops is our box surprisingly because they have good water filters and I don't drink the coffee because that would be gross. But what I do is I can I have some hot water and most of them will just fill my mug but thanks to COVID a few places like now we'll only give it to you in one of our nasty paper cups full of microplastics so I'm like I don't really want that. So what I do now is I travel with a little plug-in heater and I boil the water in my metal container with a little plug-in heater that I don't have to go to Starbucks. That's amazing. Yeah and then I'll brew the coffee but I used to just say well I'll have tea because I'm not drinking that you know green label coffee but the tea bags I've known for I don't know 10-15 years I think I posted about it a while ago on Instagram those little mesh bags are bad news so I would cut it open and dump the tea out but then it tees all over the place it's a little work for me mouth. Yeah so I know about the tea bags and the coffee cups but when you're traveling like there's just no way to make good tea and then you came to me and said I have a solution what did you do to solve this problem because those those tea bags are massive source. Yeah as a matter of fact every single time you steep a tea bag according to my Jill University it releases up to 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics in your cup. Plus bleach, a picillary drain, cadmium, all kind of other heavy metals so I found that out also about 10 years ago or 12 years ago and that's when I started my journey to to create the solution and so what I do is I take the tea leaves, dry them and dry them and find powder and that powder is meant to strip and you put the strip in water and dissolve completely there is nothing to put in the cup there's nothing to remove and there are no no leaching of chemicals whatsoever. It's pretty remarkable we were making a cup for my daughter and you have all kinds of different flavors including the olive leaf which has its own whole bunch of benefits. The olive leaf polyphenols have been in two of my books for longevity and cognitive function so but it's kind of neat you take this thing it's like a very thin surface drop it in because poof so you cannot just tea leaves and other herbals in there what holds it together. Plant fiber. Plant fiber okay. Plant fiber so you get a little bit of prebiotics in there and this solves the problem you can have tea when you're traveling it's more affordable than buying tea somewhere and you need hot water right. There's nothing to fuss around with you don't have a tea bag to like figure out what to do especially like for active people like hikers and whatever like where they're going to put the tea bag most of them tell me they put it in their bag in their in their pocket or something all soggy so that's another issue. They absolutely do. Okay I believe in. So microplastics are hormone disruptors they mimic estrogen and so that that's going to control the way you gain and hold on to fat and the other thing is our body is so smart so when we get the microplastics in our body what it does doesn't know what to do with it so it stores it in the fat tissue and you have this fat tissue that's made out of fat and microplastics it's like the ocean strata right now it's made out of plastic too and so when people are trying to lose weight they can't really lose the plastic it's lodged into our fat tissue. And that's I think a big problem. It's getting worse and worse and when you realize that half of seafood is full of microplastics too so time to eat less of that and then some of the sea salt is full of microplastics. Is there an environmental solution? I'm asking the zero by dynamic farmer and windmaker as well. To microplastics and the environment. Yeah what are we going to do? There are some microscopic things that have been found to digest microplastics and there are some mushrooms that have been found to digest microplastics but there's nothing that has been created at such a scale to combat the amount of microplastics and plastics in general that we have. I'll put it as humanity or the last few decades in the environment. I thought about just feeding them to like the politicians of the EPA who are approving these in the environment just so that you just take them concentrate them and just feed them to the politicians. Do you think that's a good idea? I think what we should do. I think what the politicians should do and they should be serious taxes on everything that contains plastic. People like bottled water. That's terrible. 140,000 particles of plastic per liter in water bottles. That's a crime really. Those should be taxed. Those should be taxed really heavily because those taxes should be taken to pay for the health issues that are causing and for environmental cleanup. I think high taxes on this stuff could be the answer. The other thing that's come to mind is we need innovation in packaging and even your outer packaging is fully compostable and not plastic, even it looks like plastic. Yeah, some of them. Yeah, some of them, not all of them. And as an entrepreneur, there's plastic in my bottles and I don't know what to do about that because when I make glass bottles, I saw plastic lids and the glass bottles cost about nine to ten dollars more at the shelf because of the weight and the breakage. And I don't know how to fix that, but the industry can fix it when we all do it or we all come out with better things. So I'm investigating those as well. So every entrepreneur wants to do this, but we have the structures are set up. So it's very difficult. And we know recycling is possible. But it doesn't happen very much. But like I said, you know, microplastics, as long as the plastic, as long as it's not getting heated at like the 95, 75 degrees centigrade, it's not as bad or is not reaching as much as it would do if it was, you know, in your paper cup and you see a bag and all that cooking stuff. Like having pills in a bottle, it's not going to create microplastics until the bottle ends up in the ocean. Or if it's sitting in hot trucks, example, which is not advisable for supplements, obviously. So yeah, we do temperature controlled, except on the delivery route. And even then there isn't, it's not a liquid. So it's going to work. But what I've been thinking for years is we have an easy solution to microplastics. It's called incineration. And if you have, you know, 3000 degree heat and you burn plastic in that, you get almost no environmental pollution other than ash, which you can concentrate and put in barrels and just put it next to nuclear waste. So we need to not allow plastic to leave without it being burned at high temperature with scrubbers because it's worse to have microplastic environment than to have some carbon from burning it. It's the only solution I come up with or turn it into fuel, which we can do. But right now those are early technologies and they're just no incentive to do it. So I'm hoping we really fix that. The other way is entrepreneurial, like you saying, well, let's choose one of the major sources, which is these T-bags. And then let's just come up with something that works better. So thank you for doing that. I just appreciate the levels of ethics that went into making elixir. Yeah, I mean, there are five billion T-bags consumed annually on the global level. Oh, God. So if we can make a dent in those five billion T-bags, that's going to make a huge environmental impact on. And so here's the deal. If you run a large company that makes T-bags, and I know there's a lot of big company execs and doctors and leaders who listen to the show and thank you, seriously, you're no longer allowed to use a fine plastic match, even though it looks cool. It's putting your cool triangle T-bags and all that. It's actually out of integrity for humans. And they're probably, and your insurers are listening to this too. There probably are liability concerns at the board of directors level that you want to pay attention to because microplastics will be the next as best of us. So now that we know this and the science is very clear, it's time to, in your R&D departments, say, well, what would happen if we went back to maybe paper T-bags the way we used to? Now paper T-bags are clearly better, but there's some limitations on paper T-bags. Talk about those. So paper T-bags will have a few things. So number one, I'm going to just give you a very realistic example. If you go to the printer and you get a piece of paper and you put it in your cover, first of all, you're doing that. I don't think so. I would not drink that, but the other thing is what happens to that piece of paper? It will disintegrate. So every T-bag has to have some type of treatment so it does not burst in water. So I don't really believe in clean paper T-bags. Plus, you have the ceiling, the crimp that you see around on the side of the T-bag, that's definitely cheap with plastic. Oh, they're putting-- I have not found one. They're putting plastic when they crimp them. They don't just-- That's the way to close to seal the T-bag. And that's, you know, after all the research I've done, I just think the concept of putting a foreign object that's not meant for human consumption such as paper or even fabric, like you have the Muslim T-bags that all the indie people right now are doing. And, you know, it's just the pros. And, you know, most of the time it's bleached. That's why it's bleached so that it's not going to go anywhere. You know, paper and fabric are not originally white. You know, they're tan in color. So they bleached them to make them more appealing to the consumer. And that bleach is not going anywhere. It's like the bleach that is in your clothes. Like, would you bleach your clothes because, you know, you wouldn't. I would use a long-gish bleach. Put them on your skin and then-- You can smell it. You can smell it and it's going to go on your skin because our skin is our orange organ. So I just think it's time for-- the tea back to sleep, I buy to go away and to be replaced by something more wholesome and more better for us and for the planet. I know it's not going to happen overnight, but it should be something that we just give up. It's been the status quo for a long time. It has never been questioned and I'm just shocked. I'm shocked that all of these companies are willingly poisoning billions of consumers every single day and just going to sleep happily on their. The One Device supports your nervous system directly without any Bluetooth or EMFs. Learn more at theOneDivice.com/Dave. Because you listen to the show, it's safe to assume you care about how long you're going to live, and that means one number matters more than most lab tests. It's your Omega-3 index. This number shows you how much EPA and DHA are actually in your red blood cell membranes. Large studies have tracked this for decades, and people with high omega-3 levels live about four to five years longer than people with low levels. The best source of EPA and DHA is fish oil. The problem most fish oils are rancid and could do more harm than good. That's why pure fish oil exists and why I've been taking it for a long time. It raises your Omega-3 levels the right way. 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That's pu-o-r-i.com/dave to get 32% off your first puri-fish oil order. Let me start the subscription. That's pu-o-r-i.com/dave. I do have to say though, I would rather have a silk or a muslin tea bag that's stitched than a plastic one. But I'd rather have loose leaf in a little metal ball, but that's just annoying. And no one's going to do that as a portable thing. Like I said, I have a drawer full of elixir because it doesn't do any of that stuff. But for the industry at large, who may not adopt your technology right away anyway, I would just say, so as a consumer, look for things that are at least a natural tea bag understanding there may be microplastics in the ceiling. There's just less of them. So it's about harm reduction. And elixir with the strips you have has no microplastics in it, which is the ideal that's the goal. And I want the world to move towards perfection. And we'll just define perfection is what you're doing right now, because I don't know if we'd have less than zero microplastics. Is there a way to get them out of the body? Yes. There are a lot of ways to get them out of the body. There are several foods that you can eat. So first of all, you want to up your fiber intake, your soluble fiber intake, 25-theterogram, even 50-gram. You have your inelins, you have your musulages, you have your, so you know, some infections. Okay, sugar. Okay, sugar. It's another good one. You have the lactobacillus in yogurt. And there's studies on all of it. Yes. And there's Elriteria in kimchi. Actually, lactobacillus have shown the decrease microplastics in blood by 82%. It just goes there making you have a healthier lining in your gut so they can't get in. How does that work? I think both, but also they help break it down. I'm not sure how the action mechanism, but I am guessing that they will help break down the microplastics and help the body get rid of it. Well, with the fiber, it actually attaches to the microplastics and helps it go out and you understand. Yeah, preventing absorption. Yes. And people who are longtime listeners probably remember from my longevity book, I came up with a formula that used primarily a cashe gum, which is a pre-biotic fiber. And it has very little flavor. You can put it in your coffee or your tea or your smoothie. It doesn't really matter. And I quadrupled the number of gut bacteria and the number of species of gut bacteria in three months doing that, which is correlated with longevity. And since this also protects you from microplastics, it's like an added bonus. Is that a product that's on the market? I don't buy any cashe gum. I don't make it anymore. So you can just buy a cashe gum fiber, which is a tree sap. And it's easy to do. And it doesn't cause farting like Inulin. Because yeah, if you take a lot of Inulin, man, you might feel that. You have to work your way up on it. There's also a couple of studies showing that Inulin in a meaningful number of people actually irritates the gum lining. And in others, it doesn't do that. So you got to notice when I was testing Inulin, at least for me, I found that when I added a meaningful amount via Drusum Arduchoke Extract, I put on like 20 pounds of bloating in a week. And it was like, "Oh, this is not the right one for me." And so that's like a double-edged sword. But many people tolerate it. And it can be good. But okay, so uping those things just to bind it and help the gut bacteria so they're better. There's also like keeping your gulim phatic system activated. Like we have two teas that are focused on the lymphatic system, on the gulim phatic system that have herbs that keep it activated. Rebounding in the morning, length, 10 minutes in the morning, 10 minutes in the evening. Just keeping your gulim phatic system really moving. It's great proper hydration. You can even do lymphatic massage, lymphatic drainage. You go to an upgrade labs. We use the whole body vibration, which has a similar but faster effect than rebounding. I'm going for a walk after meal would be a really good idea anyway to reduce blood glucose and to increase lymphatic circulation. Having muscles. Having muscles works. Chloralazspirulina, olive leaf. Olive leaf actually, most understated and most underutilized, nature's medicines. It's the biggest gift nature has given us. I mean, I studied, you know, I have a patent on olive leaf powder that I use at MIT's. And it's, it has 26,915 micrograms of the lymphinals per one gram of olive leaf. That's, as you know, antioxidants, polyphenols are pre-radical scavengers. So they're going to attach to anything that's not the true you're in the body and just help the body get rid of it. Both of you know, our foundational in my cognitive enhancement book, which is how to strong. And then in my longevity book, because they're fascinating. These colored plant-based compounds. Number one source is actually coffee in the US diet anyway. But colored plants have some and herbs and spices and teas have way more. So if you want super foods, you actually look at herbs, spices, teas, coffee, even chocolate as real super foods as opposed to something like kale or, you know, some kind of colored potato. Like it's just not a lot of kale. And then polyphenols are interesting because will their colored compounds and colored compounds receive light. And what we're finding is they can't even affect because of photo biology. And we're also finding that most of them work via two pathways. They work via the antioxidant direct pathway. But the other one is they get digested as prebiotics. So your gut bacteria see this olive leaf polyphenol and it changes the composition of your gut bacteria to be more beneficial. So you're getting this double benefit. And as far as I'm concerned, the more polyphenols you get from a variety of polyphenols, the better off you are. So yeah, I get my primary source probably from coffee, but I do about a tablespoon or two per day of ground up a regano rosemary, margarine and thyme, which have a lot of a lot of evidence. Probably a year old is something I keep meeting to add because it has a lot of polyphenols. And you get into olives. Now, olives themselves have some polyphenols, but not that many. And all of leaf is like the most powerful. A lot of people seem like grape seed and grape skin. In fact, I've done an episode with Vignia about those. And the sister molecule to that would be olive leaves. And olive leaves are industrial waste otherwise. So how do you turn an olive leaf into a polyphenol rich supplement that seems hard? It's actually, I developed a patented process to do that with the USDA. and Berkeley, they gave me a credit agreement. That was my first gig right out of college. - Wow. - So I take the leaves from the tree. There are specific times to have the leaves, which actually is the ideal time to have the leaves, which is pruning and harvest. That's when the highest amount of the funnels are found in the leaves. And then I run them to a very gentle and equal conscious trying process actually. And that simulates the production of antioxidants and the leaves then stabilizes. Because as we know, antioxidants are very delicate creatures. And they don't do well with like light temperature, you know, humidity. So those polyphenols are stable in the final powder after the process, the pattern process. And then I grind them into a fine powder. And there you have it, it's super potent antioxidant powder. That's, you know, it's a microbial, and that very, you know, and that viral, you know, all kinds of different, you know, you know, also that olive leaf having found to cure herpes. And I did not know about that. Yes, there's a lot of literature on that. Amazing. I kind of laugh at people who freak out about herpes, whether it's cold sorrows or the other kind of herpes. It is so eminently curable without drugs that it's just not scary anymore between what you just shared about olive leaf and something called BHT, which is actually an industrial antioxidant that you don't want to have at microdoses. But if you have a breakout, you can take about 350 milligrams of BHT and a capsule. And then magically, it doesn't matter if it's chickenpox or any of the other conditions associated with it or if it's any of the kinds of herpes. But then three days the lesions dry up and go away because it directly inhibits viral replication. So if you're listening to this and you have a cold sor, you might want to get some olive leaf containing tea and you might want to get some BHT and BHT at low levels is an endocrine disruptor. At exception high levels like half your body weight, it's associated with cancer. And at the dosing I'm talking about, it has a use for 40 years of absolutely stopping any of thepox virus families, including herpes, right in its tracks. So that's our little master class on herpes and getting good quality olive leaf. I mean, you invented the process for how to do that, which is super cool. And if I was to just go pick some olive leaves and put them in hot water, it's not the same thing or is it? - It's great. Just as long as they're fresh, I guess fresh is possible. - Would I get the same dose? - Would you get the, no, because I, the process actually creates more endocrine in the fresh leaves and then it stabilizes it. - Okay, got it. So if you were to take whatever five olive leaves and put them in a bitter tasting tea, you're gonna get some and you're gonna get what, 10 or 20 times more and then it looks like it's just a drug. - Probably. - Okay, got it. It might be hard to quantify. - Yeah. - 'Cause there's a lot of things there. - I did that path and to like over 10 years ago. So I still have all the, all the exact details, but it is a pretty surprising and considerable amount higher than fresh leaves. - Okay, cool. In your lymphatic formula, and again, lymphatics are really important for getting rid of microplastics. And we didn't mention sauna, which is a part of getting rid of microplastics. But in your formula for lymphatics, you have an interesting ingredient and Tim Ferriss has been on the show a couple of times. In fact, the first time was before he started his show, he's a friend and he mentioned that his favorite neutrophic of all time is your vomite. And you've included that for lymphatic uses. Why? - I found it to be a good herb for lymphatic, for lymphatic stimulation. - Okay, are there studies about that? - There are a lot of studies. So everything that you see, all of my teas, all of the plants, everything that I do, I do extensive amount of studies and research before I formulate them. - Okay, what did you study at Berkeley if you're doing like USD and stuff like that? - You know what, I actually have a master's in business. And then I am a scientist by trade. - Oh, no, okay. - I got into the USD lab and got trained by the top scientist in the country on how to do science. - Oh, that's so cool. So wait, are you allowed to do science without like a permission set? - Yeah, so basically I got a creative agreement, right? So I can actually work on my own project. And while you're working, so the creative agreement is the government actually finances your studies. - Wow. - And they give you the ability to work in their labs and you're working with all these scientists and you are learning from all these scientists. I mean, that lab has the top scientists in the country, Handelman. - And it's fun. I'm sort of asking Tongue and Cheek because every now and then you'll get someone who says, "You can't do science without some sort of piece of paper that's ill-defined." And like we all learn the scientific method in about sixth grade, which is you observe, you form hypothesis, you test. And so everyone who knows the process is a scientist. And some people are better at mass spectrometry or big data analysis. But you are a scientist in your own life. And if you don't believe me, like we can talk about like punching yourself in the face. You've observed that that hurts. You made a hypothesis that that hurts. You did it again, maybe accidentally. And it hurt again, you tested your hypothesis and now you're reasonably certain that it's true. There, you're a scientist. Like it's not that hard. And so anytime someone is out there saying, "I've noticed this thing and it's observable and it's testable." And you'll find like that, "I have a PhD license to insult you personally." I call this the biolane effect. Well, this is me, the personal scientist. It just means that the person who's attacking them is just child traumatized bullying kind of stuff. So, it's been often, they don't often. - It's been often, I love it. - Actually, a few years we're not gonna need doctors. We're not gonna need nurses, we're not gonna need anybody. AI is replacing a lot of that. So what it takes is your ability to, like you said, observe and learn and use your judgment. You know, the scientists that were working with me and the SA lab, one of them that's been there for like two decades actually wrote me a letter, thanking me for including him on my project and the path and including him on my path and that was his first path in his whole life as a scientist. - That's cool. - I don't, you know, and he's like, he's like quadruple scientists or something, doctorate. - You've perfected your sleep, your diet, your exercise, but your supplements might still be under-delivering and Ignaton is changing these. They're using space vacuums, cold plasma and yes, lasers to energetically enhance nutrients at the molecular level using real hard science. So when you take Ignaton supplements, you're not just getting the ingredients, you're getting a super powerful version of the ingredients that works way better in your body. Sounds a little bit like Louu, I thought the same thing, but no, it's science. This is quantum physics for supplements in a lab. Ignaton's formulas are backed by university studies in peer-reviewed journals. In just 30 days, people who took Ignaton's cognition blend had a 51% improvement in his intention. That's big. A 28% improvement in short-term memory, that's big if you can remember it. And an 83% improvement in overall cognitive performance, that's huge. Take that out of all. And the people who took the Ignaton longevity blend had a 37% decrease in IL-6 and a 28% decrease in CRP. Those are markers of inflammation that make you a-drap it. So if you care about memory, focus, stress resilience, and living a very long time, you want something that goes beyond standard supplements, something that raises consciousness itself, check out Ignaton.com and use code Dave to say 15% after order. That's ignitoin.com code Dave. It's fascinating because the vast majority of the university research I spoke with, they're so curious and they're so passionate about the thing they're studying and their frustration is that, well, no one knows about my research. Like, I wanted to get out there. I wanted to be in the world because it matters. And it really matters to them. And some of my happiest conversations have been with PhD grad students and people saying, like, the world's finally discovering this cool thing. And all the research on polyphenols came out of those kinds of laboratories. And if you go back in time, so you know, like the Greeks were eating all of leaves. And we have this history of tea and spice trading around the world. That's because polyphenol containing things like tea, coffee, mineral condensate, things like salt, and these herbs, they were the original supplements for people. Right? The original currency, too. They were used to trade. Actually, olive leaf was used in the multiplication of the pharaohs. Oh, wow. Because that means protective properties. It's so cool that we're seeing ancient knowledge, things like Yorba Mate and the other ingredients you're using that have been a part of-- Wow. Oh, yeah, Guarana. We'll talk about that, too. We're seeing these that have been known historically, whether it's from Ayurveda or it's from this ancient, herbalist practices. And then we're doing all this university research to figure out how to make them more powerful, how to make them more effective, and that they actually work in what they do at a level that we couldn't understand 1,000 years ago, because we didn't have the knowledge we do now. So I think this is kind of a golden age. And with AI on top, it's amazing. Talk to me about Guarana. This is another stimulating herb that you've got. So your lymphatic drainage is a morning formula. I'm guessing, because these are pretty similar. - Simulating things. - Yes, it is the number one herb that have been found to stimulate the lymphatic system. - No kidding. So-- - You feel it right away. - What is it? - Yeah, Krona is very potent. What is it? - It's a, it's very funny. It looks like an eye. It's like a very, it's like a fruit from the Amazonian forest. And it's super unique, you know, it's just a very, very potent and very powerful. And it's only found, I think, in the Amazon forest. As far as I understand, that's the case. And it used to be pretty common and pre-workout formulas. 'Cause it's pretty stimulating. So if you take one year lymphatic drainage things, you do that in the morning, probably with coffee. And you're like, "I have a pretty good day." - Right, it's a conquer. - Okay. - What we like to do in the morning with is drink at tongue scrape first. Because that's a, you know, we know that the mouth is the entryway to our digestive system or end-to-lymphatic system. So tongue scrape have a cup of room temperature water and then have your cup of lymphatic lens, A-M-T. And really you're ready, you know, you're after re-bounding for 10 minutes. - Okay, yeah, that's gonna be quite the morning. Can we talk a little bit about skin care? - Yeah. - I mean, obviously you're doing some good stuff for your skin. That looks great. - Thank you. - Microplastic exposure through the skin. What's the deal with that? - So our skin is our largest organ. - Yep. - The sad part is that people don't understand that. And you have people at Sephora right now. You have like 40% of shoppers are between the age of 12 and 16-year-olds. And it's sad, it's crazy. But skin care contains a lot of chemicals and it's also stored in plastic containers. And all of that is actually ending up in your skin, on the skin and in the bloodstream. And it's a major source of microplastic ingestion as well. I personally have zero skin care regimen. I wash my face with organic guest soap. Even if I'm at a hotel or whatever, I just use any soap, any shampoo that I have and I wash my face with it. What I do is I do a lot of exosomes and microneedling. - Okay. - But yeah, I stay away from all skin care like no exceptions. - Wow, that's an unusual thing. - I use some aromatic oils with actually like, I'm have a dry skin. There are in glass bottles that I know, you know, who created them. I like to buy them from actual herbalists. - Super cool. - But yes, no skin care. - It's kind of funny. Microplastics absorb best in fats. And if you have fats and water emulsified, which is what most skin care is, and they're in plastic, you are gonna get some microplastics and they can absorb through the skin. So glass pack of chain is definitely better. I use a variety of skincare products and many are in glass in some aren't. And I also think, you know, risks versus benefits. So I have a microplastic removal regimen, like sauna and things like that. - Tell us about it. I wanna hear about your microplastic regimen regimen. It's, I use the whole body vibration stuff for a lymphatic movement. And I do saunas regularly. And then I don't absorb them very much. - Can you talk about saunas? - Yeah. - There's a lot of confusion about saunas use. Temperature, how much time you wanna be in the sauna? How many days a week? So can you tell us about your regimen please? - Well, this is the cool thing. If I took you downstairs, I will after this. And I showed you my vitamin room. And he said, oh my gosh, I wanna take everything you take. I spent about three grand a month on supple. You would probably not get the good results because we're entirely different biologically. So the answer for almost every biohack out there today is it depends on you. It's like what's your goal and what's your current state and what are your capabilities? So I don't make very much glutathione. So I take more glutathione cause I know my body doesn't have the genes. Even if I do everything in my environment, if I don't have the hardware to do it, I'm just gonna be deficient. So my detox pathways don't work as well unless I handle that. So that's a big caveat to say there is no single sauna protocol that works well for everyone. And epidemiology loves to do this. Like what we looked at a million people and when they do this, there's this big nice curve. And the middle of the curve is what everyone should do. Well, that doesn't make sense because if you're someone whose biology is that either end of that curve, this will make you sick. And this is why you should not allow politicians and epidemiologists to ever make any law based on epidemiology because it removes the care-- - Eurality. - Yeah, for the people who don't have normal biology and no one listening has fully normal. You might be totally normal here and on this other variable, you're way off in this direction, in this direction. So from a sauna perspective, there's great evidence for just plain hot suns, whether it's steam or dry. And there's evidence for that because that's the technology that we had and Scandinavians have been using this in doing studies for years. So some people say it has to be 198 degrees and you have to do exactly eight minutes and then do three jumping jacks on the snow or something. Okay. Yes. - That's fun. - There's evidence for that. The problem is that men and women respond differently to stress. And if you are very toxic and you do that, you'll be disabled for the rest of the day. So what I like to do before going into the sauna is take activated charcoal or clorella. And I do that a lot of times so that when my body releases more toxins that they'll be absorbed into the gut and make sure I shower off right away afterwards. There's plenty of evidence showing that infrared suns, things like the sunlight and they've been on the show multiple times. They cause a massive increase in detoxing 'cause they're heating more inside the body. I haven't seen microplastic tests of regular sauna versus using an infrared sauna. But infrared suns are much better for heavy metals and pesticides, some like 95% more of these. So I use my sunlight in the morning. I do at least 20 minutes and usually 40 minutes. And that's for my biology, which is relatively clean. I used to be very obese. And something that no one talks about is, well, how much fat you have on your body? Because if we biopsyde your fat or say my fat when I was 300 pounds, you're gonna find that the body is storing heavy metals, mold toxins and microplastics exactly. So like, - There is, you know, I'm like, who's day, I see. - Yeah, all the bad stuff. So there's like, if you took a little tube of fat out and you looked at it, you're like, my god, this is terrible. So years ago, I published something called the Rapid Fat Loss Protocol. And I had a guy lose a pound a day for 75 days. - Wow. - On this protocol. I've had people get ready for the weddings, but there's this huge warning thing on there. It says how to lose fat faster than you're supposed to. Because you can't really do this in mother nature. And if you're dumping that much fat, all the toxins have to go through your lymphatic system, your liver, your kidneys. And if you don't handle that, go into your brain. So people get profound brain fog if they don't follow exactly the protocol, which includes activated charcoal and cluthyl every day in order to help with the excretion of these. So if you're that overweight person full of toxins, the way I was, you probably don't wanna do, 40 minute or two, 20 minute sauna sessions. And if it's a dry sauna, it'll be shorter sessions. You don't want to do that every day 'cause you don't be able to handle it. So you do it maybe every two or three days. And as you become less toxic, as you get rid of these things, it's like a gentle detoxing. Otherwise, a wave of toxins in your brain, that's bad news. And it loads the kidneys. So it's like this gentle detoxing. And with knowing what you shared about the ingredients in your lymphatic plant, it would make a lot of sense drink the elixir lymphatic and then do your sauna. - Yes. - And probably then do some rebounding or would you rebound before the sauna? - I liked your bound first thing in the morning. Like, you wake up your system with rebounding. - Got it. - You get out of, I have a rebounder, ranks my bed. - Okay. - Literally I get off the bed and I rebound. I think it's a great way to just shake things up so the body can start, the pathways can open up and start detoxifying and everything out. - There's a lot of other benefits, either a whole body vibration, like we do it up great labs, or to rebounding. They're quite similar but not identical. If you do that, in addition to the lymphatic pathways, you're also waking up the fascia and you're causing something called a shearing force, which causes your body to keep your collagen in the right, in your fascia, in the right condition. So it doesn't get remodeled and get more fibrosis. So there's a lot of evidence that says, you know, it's not that hard, you could double down, you'd have a red light therapy device I do. So I'm like, whole body vibing naked in front of my red light for just five minutes. It doesn't take very much. And then like, okay, now I'm good to go and then you could hop in the sauna. I don't always do in that order and I don't always do any of these every morning, but I do some mix of that. And number one, reduce exposure. So I don't do plastic soup and I drink very, very little plastic bottle water these days. If I met an airport on a very long flight, and I can't find glass, fine you do what you can do. - You know, I have a hack for you. - Oh, what's that? - If you take a bottle of water sealed, like Evian or a mountain valley sealed, you tell them it's water grade, is the medical grade water bottle. They will let you go through it. They just like test it and they will like, and that's what I do all the time. - So I could bring like my sand pellagreina then. - Yeah, and then you just, as long as it's sealed, And you tell them it's medical grade water. And I need it on my flight. They will, you can go through. - I've got to try that. I'll be doing like a six pack of sample. - No, just one, I don't know. (laughs) Oh, and I think one. - I don't want to be dehydrated, guys. (laughs) And there is some conversation around whether glass bottles because of the cap, have more microplastics. I am questioning those studies. Just from a surface area, it doesn't make any sense because why would we have more microplastics because the inside of the lid is actually plastic? It's not painted the way they said. - Somebody paid for that. - Yeah, that was the plastic bottle industry as far as I can tell. So glass bottles are still superior. However, if you are a manufacturer like San Pelagrino, slash Nestle, they make a lot of possible if they don't fix this, but maybe Mountain Valley would. So, yeah, in glass. So what you would do there is just look at the lining of the lid, just make one that doesn't have plastic in it or has minimal plastic and then you'll be able to have some marketing claims. So you can say you're better than the garbage plastic water that's out there. So that was a big source that I eliminated. Sometimes I'll use the water filter at the airport. Problem is they never tell you how they filter it. It's kind of trusted. Yeah. And then I don't have plastic rugs in my house. It's a huge source. So no carpet and all my rugs are wool or silk. - That's sheep. - Yeah, that's sheep. - Benshear, stuffing, the pillow, stuffing, you know, mattresses. Latex mattress, I use an essential mattress and actually designed one with a center. - An essential saw that I would throw a jealous. I was like, "Ah, lucky." (laughing) - And you just want to avoid these wherever you can. So polyester is a no. I stopped wearing my polyester thongs. Okay. But I use wool or sometimes cotton. - Okay, cotton. - For underwear is very important 'cause you have the most moisture and heat in those regions, right? - It's a very, very vulnerable area. - Yeah. And then for clothing, you throw away your fleeces. They're recycled plastic bottles. And running your dryer is a major source of microplastics, especially if you wear them. Since I don't generally wear them, I job some things like that, but not that many. And nothing with like furry stuff on it, except at Burning Man, there's an exception. If there's none in my environment, and that is the number one thing to do. - And I'm sure you don't have any non-stick cookware. Or black utensils, plastic utensils. - Yeah, people don't talk about that as much. Those cheap black plastic utensils are microplastic directly and plastic cutting boards. - Those are the worst, by the way. Those are made from recycled electronics. And you're supposed to have the most lethal type of plastic. - And heavy metals are bad. So I'm gonna be using wood whenever I can. - With the pods, the plastic pods that go into the dishwasher and machine machines. - Yeah, there's microplastics and those things that dissolve. And those chemicals do, there are healthy versions of pods available made out of some kind of fiber, but they're much, you have to buy like an eco brand for that. So here's the thing, you're not gonna escape EMS in the world. And EMS are terribly useful, because you can have a phone. You have access to all this stuff, but you don't wanna bathe in them. So turn off your Wi-Fi at night, you know, minimize things, you take your phone, put an airplane, but all these things, microplastic goes the same way. So plastic is actually kind of useful. Let's just do all kinds of stuff. So minimize the use of things that form particles of plastic. I mean, you can never have plastic in your home, and you don't need to be paranoid. So increase excretion, use the elixir, lymphatic blend, use all the stuff we just talked about, and then just take less of it in. And that's all it takes. Like you're gonna be peaceful about this, and recognize it's a problem in the world. It's a regulatory problem. It's a behavioral problem. And then to the best of your ability, buy some stuff in class or metal when you can. You know, you go into my kitchen, you're not gonna find plastic containers, you're gonna find metal and glass containers, but you know what they have? They have plastic lids, some of them. - As long as you're not putting it on, it's hot. - Exactly. You don't put on one's hot, and you don't let the food touch the lid. So, okay, I'm all right with that. - Yeah, sure, I'm sure. The other one is right now there's this like whole trend of like heated yoga and heated pilates. And people are doing these classes in polyester, very tight workout rules. Like you know, we have all of yoga, little lemon, all that stuff. And that I believe is really needs to be addressed because that I cannot imagine that monomeco plastics that's going into the bloodstream from one hour of heated. - Yeah. - You know, just like switch over it's organic. There's a lot of really good companies right now that are doing organic workout clothes. - You're totally right, because I don't really wear stuff like that. Yoga pants look pretty attractive. I'm not gonna say that those outfits aren't actually really comfortable and perform it, and they wake and all that. They're full of BPA, they're full of endocrine disruptors, and they disrupt the electricity flow over your body when you're supposed to be doing yoga for that kind of stuff. And because you combine heat and moisture, like it's like a transdermal patch for microblosses. - Oh yeah. - So, problem is, especially for women, like what do you do for a sports bra that's gonna work when you're doing yoga? - They're made of cotton, are they stretchy enough? - Yeah. - Okay, cool, I'm not an expert in that. - There are really good organic natural alternatives that are starting crucial up. - And they have enough support, 'cause no one wants to follow that in a yoga class. - Yes, yes. - Okay, cool. - Ask me. - I've been to a lot of yoga classes. - I need the most support. - Okay, got it. And you're also fashionable. It affects you have a whole passion brand. So, do you ever use plastic or synthetic fibers in your passion? - No, our fashion is actually 100% other leather or metals, precious, semi-precious metals, stones, gold, silver, copper, and a lot of stones, gemstones, semi-precious stones, pearls, and we're all truly ease. - Love it. One of the things we were gonna do, I was gonna stage a fake demonstration. You know how these animal rights activists will throw red paint on fur. - Yeah. - I was gonna have my kids come out and throw motor oil on fake fur. And be like, "How dare you, you're killing the fish "with your vegan fur, your polluting environment." And the reality is vegan clothing is usually made out of plastic. Which is worse, leather biodegrades. It lasts for a hundred years. - Also, it lasts a long time. It gets better with wear. That moisture stuff gets ruined with wear. Like it doesn't look good. It creases, it cracks, leather, you know, is amazing. It lasts forever, it gets better. And I don't think that the negative impacts from leather and fur is anywhere close to the negative impacts from the polluesture clothing that's being produced. And it's all fast fashion. By the way, when you buy a leather jacket or a fur jacket, how much you pay for it? A lot. You're gonna take care of it. You're gonna use it for a long time. You're gonna pass it on. However, when you buy the fast fashion, polluesture stuff, you pay very minimal for it. You don't care about it. Most of the time, you're gonna wear it a couple of times. You're gonna get rid of it and it's just accumulating as a bio waste. And, you know, it's all around a terrible cycle. The polluesture clothing. - You're basically gonna be eating the polluesture clothes that you wear 50 years from now. So. - Because they end up in our soil, being in our waters and our oceans. 99% of fish tested, found some type of microplastic in it. So it's all going back in our food chain. - And everything we just said, double down on that, at least three months before you're planning to get pregnant for both the father and the mother. If you're interested in fertility, 'cause this really affects the health of the next generation too. So it's a big deal. - Especially for boys, by the way. As women, we change the egg, it's continuously being renewed, but for men, it's much more critical. You know, if a mom is pregnant and she has a boy, she has to be so much more careful with her microplastic intake. And the other critical time in the boys' lifetime is during puberty. These are very important times to be aware of microplastics. - Now, this is a strange biohat, in fact, that probably only I would know because I spent five years researching it for tilde books that I could actually have children. - There's a measure, basically, the spacing between your butthole and the beginning of the reproductive tract. And when there's more microplastics, when there's more endocrine disruptors, the spacing changes. We can measure the net effect based on this. And over the last couple generations, I forget if it's getting closer or further, I think it gets closer together. - Closer. - And this is a sign that we're doing, like species-wide experiments on ourselves with microplastics. So we don't wanna do that because exposing small children to testosterone has a radical effect on them, but there's really no environmental testosterone unless the father has testosterone cream or something. So it's an issue. But when you take boys who need a right ratio of testosterone estrogen and you fill them with estrogen from microplastics and associated endocrine disruptors, it really affects their cognitive development, their emotional development, their puberty, and even their fetal development in the womb. So for moms, you gotta be really careful. You don't get extra estrogen from your environmental stuff and you keep your microplastics down. And what I think is missing from the conversation is this idea that what you do long before pregnancy or not that long, but in the least three months, before, six months, before. It doesn't just change the likelihood of getting paid. It changes how healthy the kids are. And that's why Dr. Anne Shippie was just on the show with her book, The Preconception Revolution. And she's environmental doctors, study this, incredibly deeply. And she'll say the same thing, get rid of microplastics long before and enduring. So I think the number of pregnant women who drink tea because you can't drink coffee. - To mind this. - You don't drink tea if it's made with tea bags. Like drink a lixer or get like a little ball and scoop the tea out and all that. Either one's fine, but just be extra careful. So I'll just say that. - Yeah, and you know the good thing with the pregnant, you just fried it up. So when I was pregnant with my daughter, it's when I was developing all the leaf. And I was drinking those every day and you don't get sick because it's a great, it's a great term for immune support. So drink if you're a pregnant woman and you wanna be healthy and you don't wanna get sick and you don't wanna microplastics in your placenta, it's gonna end up in your child's brain. Let's switch over to all Xeretese trips and especially the all-in-leaf-thaste ones because they are free from caffeine and they have great half benefits. - As you'd expect, if you listen to the show frequently, anytime an entrepreneur or researcher comes up who's making a product, I'm like, "Hey, people just spend an hour of their life listening to you and learning from you. You gotta get into this count." So this is what a lixer looks like and you can go to olexerolix.org.com. You just go Dave 10 and give a discount. And if you drink tea, this is a better way to do it. It's delicious and there's just nothing bad in here at all and only the good stuff, carefully researched, patent holder and someone who runs a biodynamic farm and winery and is one of us. So just being, thanks for putting your entrepreneurial efforts into solving a major source of microplastics. - Thank you so much for having me. This is a great, great honor. And I cannot be happier or more ecstatic than to have you like my product and use my product. That's like the biggest compliment and honor I can get. - Thank you. - Thank you. - If you like today's episode, you know what to do, go out there and leave a review or maybe have a cup of tea or dare I say some coffee with a friend, but just do it right. Do everything you can to minimize microplastics and not be afraid at the same time. Like we recognize as a problem. There's all kinds of problems in the world. You need to stress about it. You just want to take action to move yourself in the right direction and at the same time become stronger, more vibrant, better at detoxing. And that combination gives you the resilience that's behind the entire biohacking movement. And so take endless poison and become so strong that the poison you choose to take in 'cause it was worth it. See you next time on the Human Upgrade Podcast. The Human Upgrade, Formal Aboliproof Radio, was created and is hosted by Dave Asprey. The information contained in this podcast is provided for informational purposes only and is not intended for the purposes of diagnosing, treating, curing, or preventing any disease. Before using any products referenced on the podcast, consult with your healthcare provider, carefully read all labels and heed all directions and cautions that accompany the products. Information found or received through the podcast should not be used in place of a consultation or advice from a healthcare provider. If you suspect you have a medical problem or should you have any healthcare questions, please promptly call or see your healthcare provider. This podcast, including Dave Asprey and the producers, disclaim responsibility for any possible adverse effects from the use of information contained herein. Opinions of guests are their own and this podcast is not endorsed or accept responsibility for statements made by guests. This podcast does not make any representations or warranties about guest qualifications or credibility. This podcast may contain paid endorsements and advertisements for products or services. Individuals on this podcast may have a director indirect by natural interested products or services referred to herein. This podcast is owned by Bulletproof Media.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. A single tea bag can release up to 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into a cup of hot water.
  2. Microplastics have been found in human brain tissue, making up about 0.5% of brain mass, and are linked to Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, and lower testosterone levels.
  3. These particles act as hormone disruptors, storing in fat tissue and making weight loss difficult; they also accumulate environmental toxins like pesticides.
  4. Common sources include plastic tea bags, coffee cups, cans, and bottled water (up to 140,000 particles per liter).
  5. Solutions include using plant-fiber tea strips that dissolve completely, avoiding plastic packaging, and supporting innovation in biodegradable materials.
  6. Environmental solutions like incineration at high heat or microbial digestion are not yet scaled, and stronger regulation or taxation on plastics is advocated.

Summary:

This transcript from "The Human Upgrade" with Dave Asprey and guest Josephine Musco discusses the pervasive health and environmental dangers of microplastics. 5% of brain mass), arteries, and reproductive organs. Microplastics are linked to Alzheimer's, cognitive decline, lower testosterone, infertility, and weight gain because they act as hormone disruptors and store in fat tissue.

They also accumulate pesticides and other toxins. Common sources include plastic tea bags, coffee cups, cans, and bottled water. Josephine Musco's company, Olixir, offers a solution: plant-fiber tea strips that dissolve completely in water, avoiding the leaching of plastics and bleaches found in traditional tea bags.

Dave Asprey emphasizes that entrepreneurs and large companies must innovate away from plastic packaging and that stronger regulations, such as taxes on plastics, are needed to address the crisis. The conversation underscores that while environmental cleanup technologies exist, they are not yet scaled, making personal and industrial action critical to reduce exposure and pollution.

FAQs

A single tea bag releases up to 11.6 billion microplastics and 3.1 billion nanoplastics into your cup.

Microplastics are linked to Alzheimer's dementia, cognitive decline, reduced testosterone levels, infertility, and an increased risk of cardiac events.

Microplastics act as hormone disruptors, mimicking estrogen, and the body stores them in fat tissue, making it harder to lose weight.

Microplastics range from 5 mm to 1 micron (visible to the naked eye down to a sesame seed size), while nanoplastics are below 1 micron and invisible without advanced tools.

No, paper tea bags are often bleached and treated to prevent disintegration, and they may contain plastic in the crimp seal, so they are not necessarily safe.

She created Olixir T-Strips, which are plant-fiber strips that dissolve completely in water, releasing no microplastics or chemicals.

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