Come explore eco green and healthy building tips galore at the West Coast Green conference coming up September 25 - 27, 2008 in San Jose, California.

The conference is open to the public, with homeowners day on the 27th.  The conference features the latest and greatest in sustainable, green and healthy building.  It will cover everything from clean tech, global warming, solar, wind and waste reduction to healthy building products.  And, lots of educational presentations and networking opportunities.

There will even be a showcase house right in the middle of the San Jose Convention Center.  It’s made out of shipping containers and it is dubbed the “Harbinger House”.  Gregory Schaefer, the chef on Planet Green’s Daily news show, “The G Word”, came up with the name and it was voted in as the favorite.

How about that!  A building conference where you can actually learn how to make your home castle - or work castle - efficient and healthy.  That’s a surefire breath of relief for those of us with chemical sensitivity, chronic fatigue syndrome, fibromyalgia or mold sensitivity.  Asthmatics too, and…well, you get the picture.

This year Al Gore is the Saturday plenary speaker. There will be 400 exhibitors, 200 presenters and 14,000 attendees.  And, even if you can’t make it, the presentations will be videotaped and available online.

Yep…West Coast Green has got you covered.

So, come check it out…you’ll get lots of cool, eco-healthy building and home ideas.

Sustainable, Guilt Free and healthy…

The latest Apple Nano is here and it is the coolest of lean green fun machines.

According to Steve Jobs, they are the “cleanest” most “toxic free” iPods yet.  Greenpeace  thinks “Less toxic iPods rock”.  And Treehugger and their readers bring up some good points.

Here’s the bottom line:

No Arsenic glass.
No Mercury.
No Brominated flame retardants.
No PVC.
Very recyclable.

Yes, it would be nice if all of Apple’s products were as green.  And it would be nice if things lasted forever and wouldn’t need recycling.  But we like what we see.

Especially, considering the problems that toxins can cause during production, during use and after products are discarded.  And, not just environmental problems, but people problems.

Arsenic has just been linked to diabetes.  Mercury is a neuro toxin that winds into the environment and then into the food chain, leaving us trying to figure out which fish we can eat. PVC emits deadly dioxins in production as well as after it’s discarded and it’s incredibly difficult to recycle.  And, brominated flame retardants are endocrine disturbers and they also end up in breast milk.  Not good for sexual development or for the thyroid!

Since body burden studies show almost every last one of us have these nasties hiding out in our bodies, every little bit we can do to get them out of our environment is helpful.

So, thank you Apple.  Keep at it. You make it easier to stay eco-healthy and have fun at the same time.

We’ll take our Nano in Green, please.

Will the environmental, pollution and green building advances spurred on by the Beijing Olympics have a lasting effect in China?

To be sure, there were many issues around the politics, internet and media prohibitions and human rights aspects of the Beijing games,  That’s an issue unto itself.

But, we also saw a race towards greener buildings that use resources wisely and more cleanly.  There was a shift from coal use to electricity.

We saw an effort to reduce smog and pollution in the air, however late the effort came.  We saw that air pollution can’t be solved in just a week or a month.  We saw the health concerns brought forward vividly by athletes who refused to come and athletes who came with breathing masks.

We saw the introduction of organic produce and what was said to be hormone and antibiotic free organic meats, even if it came after countries wanted to bring their own food to avoid toxins and positive banned hormone tests.  And even if it came from a select number of purveyors, seemingly organized just for the Olympics.

We saw a spotlight on the health effects of pollution on the Chinese people.  Just as we saw a glimpse of Chinese graciousness…despite how choreographed it might have been.

Have things really changed, or was it all a show?

Change…

That slow, lumbering, reluctant beast.

That can sometimes morph into an excited adolescent, eager to take on the world…

What do you think?

Has China really begun the journey towards being a greener, less polluted, healthier place?  Or not?

Will the changes spurred on by the Olympics become a long lasting legacy for China and the world?  Or not?

Arsenic!  Yet another thing to be linked to type 2 diabetes…

We’ve known for a long time about the presence of arsenic in the environment.  But a new study has found that even small amounts of arsenic have a link with diabetes.

That’s right.  Small amounts.

Researchers looked at how much arsenic was in the urine of the folks in the study.  Those with arsenic had a 24% increased risk of having diabetes than those that had no arsenic.  We already know that arsenic exposure can lead to cancer and other health problems, but the diabetes link is a new one.

But where is the arsenic coming from, you may ask?  Good question.

The assumption is that arsenic is coming from the water supply, as the researches discounted the non-toxic natural arsenic in food and fish sources.

Arsenic can find it’s way into the environment and water supply from coal burning and copper smelting.  It’s found in the pressure treated wood used to make decks.  It’s also found in some insecticides and fungicides, though that is banned in many countries. Arsenic gas is even used in microchip production.

It can also be found naturally in rock and soils.  That’s been a problem with well water and chronic arsenic illness in rural China and places such as Vietnam and Bangladesh.

But another source of arsenic is nutritional supplements.  Sea algae and kelps can contain a lot of arsenic too.

Arsenic binds and disrupts the sulfur containing metabolic enzymes that help us produce energy.   Previous studies  have found that pancreas cells, where insulin is produced, produce less insulin when treated with arsenic.  Less insulin leads to diabetes.

It’s actually unclear in this study if the arsenic contributes to diabetes, or if something about diabetes causes the arsenic to clear from the body differently.

Urine can be tested for arsenic, as they did in this study.  You can also check hair and even nails, but those may not be reliable because of external contamination.

Luckily, filtering the water is something we can all do.  On the public level, cities can beef up testing and filtering for arsenic.  And at home, this study provides just one more incentive for filtering of tap water.

You can also use treated wood to build decks that has not been treated with arsenic.  And you can make sure to use integrative pest management techniques to avoid harmful insecticides and fungicides.

Arsenic and diabetes.  Who knew?

Dara Torres pulls it off.  An Olympic swimming silver at age 41 amidst rumors of faked asthma and doping…

We’re not going to comment on doping because who’s to say.  We would like to think everything is on the clean.

So we though we would weigh in how Dara might be doing it on her own, from the organic, eco, healthy point of view.

It’s no secret that a lot of swimmers develop asthma over time.  And there is a growing body of study evidence pointing to chlorinated water exposure as contributing to that trend.  So, we don’t think it’s surprising, giving the amount of time the average top level swimmers spend in the water that Dara might have developed asthma over time.  She’s got a lot of company.

It’s one of the reasons we are keen on pools that don’t use chlorine.  It doesn’t seem fair to blame swimmers for asthma that they could very well have gotten from simply practicing their sport for hours on end, year after year.

There has been a lot of emphasis on the inhalers and medications that swimmers with asthma use, but in fact, if you don’t have asthma, those medicines don’t help you swim faster.  And if you do have asthma, at best, they just bring your lung function up to the same as competitors that don’t have asthma.

On a different note, it’s no secret that nutrition is different than it used to be.  We have a much better understanding of how the biochemistry of energy production and muscle strength in the body works.  How individuals are slightly different, with slightly different nutritional needs.  And there are all sorts of nutritional supplements to optimize performance.

And then there is good old food.  There is the idea of nutritional value of food and how the right food can maximize the health and performance of anyone, including athletes.  The concept of “food as medicine” exemplifies this perfectly.

Then there is the idea that organic food grown in nutrient rich soil and without toxins, antibiotics and hormones is different and worth it.  It is so worth it that the US is said to be importing some of it’s food for the athletes.  And China has made extra efforts to produce organic foods and institute strict monitoring of produce and meats.  In great part, due to pollution and hormone contamination concerns.

We don’t think Dara’s been eating mostly McDonald’s like Ryan Lochte.  And we don’t think, if Lochte decided to compete at age 41 he’d be eating McDonald’s then either.  But anyone that can pull off a world record backstroke IM double header, more power to him.

So if Dara’s doing it on her own, which we hope she is, we hope she’s doing everything green, eco and healthy that she can to do it.

The Olympic Water Cube is a green, energy saving, engineering marvel.  Yes, yes, that’s nice, but did you know - it uses Ozone and UV sanitation instead of chlorine to keep its water clean?

It is estimated that up to 20% of swimmers have asthma.  So a pool that cuts out the chlorine to reduce asthmatic effects can only help athletic performance.  And if it helps reduce the chances of children developing asthma from swimming over the years, so much the better.  So from a health point of view, the Beijing Olympic pool is anti-asthmatic.

For sanitation, the pool will rely on a combination of sanitization and filtration types: ozone, zeolite, coarse sand, aeration, high capacity UV disinfection and only a very small amount of chlorine for residual.  This should also do a good job of removing environmental toxins such as silver, mercury, cobalt and arsenic. A good idea given environmental toxicity concerns.

That may not seem like such a big deal, but having asthma affects performance and general well being.  For these Olympics, Peter Vanderkaay, Dara Torres and Jessica Schipper and Park Tae-Hwan are just some of the swimmers with asthma.  And in 1972, the US swimmer Rick DeMont had his gold medal in the 400 meter freestyle taken away because of testing positive for a banned asthma medication and was disqualified from another event.

Ironically, some youngsters take up swimming to help with asthma and others develop asthma over the years.  Either way, it only makes sense to use a method of water sanitization that does away with the asthma inducing effects of chlorine, and that is exactly what the Water Cube pool does.

Competitive swimmers spend a huge amount of time in pools.  Which means, they have a huge potential exposure to the effects of chlorinated water.  The problem is that chlorine reacts with body debris like sweat, skin flakes and ammonia causing the chlorine to turn into trihalomethanes and other respiratory irritants that sit above the water where they are breathed in.  In closed natatoriums, that problem tends to be even worse than in outdoor pools.  Adding to the complexity is the increasing evidence that different people are able to detoxify chemicals in their systems more (or less) efficiently than others.

Studies have found higher rates of asthma in swimmers who train regularly and in people who work as lifeguards or around chlorinated pools.  Research has shown that breathing these chemical can contribute to the development of asthma.  This is particularly the case in indoor pools.

Chlorine exposure during childhood happens at a time that is particularly important for development of the lung.  And most swimmers start early and swim for many years.  In fact, researchers have found that exposure to chlorinated water before the age of 6 corresponded with higher rates of asthma at age 11 whether or not there were symptoms in the meantime.

So even though some folks question the high rate of asthma in swimmers and wonder about athletes just using asthma medications to get a performance edge, there really are scientific reasons that point to chlorine exposure and airway reactivity as being a real problem.  If you are competing against the likes of Michael Phelps, you need normal lung functioning, and the best asthma medications in the world might just bring you up to even if you have asthma.

Luckily, there are some methods that drastically reduce the need for chlorine in pools.  The two main alternative methods are ozone and UV sanitation.  Europe has been using ozone filtration since the 1950’s.  In the US, we are just catching up.

We think it would be great, actually, if all pools were chlorine free.

Rain to the rescue!  The Beijing olympics air pollution levels are down…

As of today’s air pollution index, the level is down to 38.  It had been hoovering up around 80 to 100.

According to forecasters, the cooler, wet weather will continue.  Whew…what a breathing relief.

Here’s the question.  Has the sky gotten a little technological help to produce this rain?

When the olympics were slated to open in August, there was concern that there could be rain on the opening ceremonies parade.  No problem.  Just move the rain for those days to a different time and place.

It’s called cloud seeding, and apparently, it’s done fairly commonly in China to create rain.  Silver iodide shells, or dry ice, are shot into clouds.  That causes water to rapidly condense and produce rain.  You can try to avoid rain this way by simply trying to force rain from clouds before they get to the destination you are trying to keep dry.

So, the question is…did China successfully manipulate the weather to produce a dry opening ceremony but then end up with more smog?  Then, did they decide to produce some rain after the games were underway in order to cool things down and clear the air?   I mean, after all, the Olympic torch is called the “Cloud of Promise”.  Hmmm.

In any case, the air quality is better and we think that the athletes (and everyone else in Beijing right now) are happy to be breathing easier so they can do their best, all of the politics and other issues aside.

Air pollution is a big question hanging in the Beijing air.

Is it so polluted it will be harmful to the athletes or worsen their performance?

There are many reason for athletes to be concerned about pollution exposure.  We think they are wise to limit their total exposure. According to recent reports and measurements, the pollution levels are somewhat improved as long as the weather cooperates. But it’s been hot and hazy, which worsens smog levels.  All in all, the levels are clearly toxic. The athletes, especially those will asthma and allergies, are concerned.

But why is it such a concern?

Well, here it is.  It’s a little technical and a little long-winded, but we though you might be curious anyway…

Even though there has been a major effort to reduce pollution, athletes will still be exposed to what is called PM 10 particulate pollution.  These tiny particles are known to have cardio pulmonary effects.  Exposure is linked to asthma and lung disease, heart disease, and even stroke and blood clotting problems.

Studies have shown that these particles can reach the deeper lung areas.  The smaller the particle, the deeper, and also the most oxidative damage.  But pollution exposure also sets off a complicated cascade of inflammation and regulatory factors.  Various cytokines and interlukins and kinases can become involved in addition to detoxification systems.

The lungs are, obviously, a major interactor with the environment.  And they have built in detoxification mechanisms to deal with that.  One of the things that they have are special cells called Clara cells that are rich in detoxification enzymes like Glutathione-S-transferase and Cytochrome P450 and the major antioxidant, glutathione.

Even though we are designed to cope with toxins, this system we have can become overloaded.  And that is the concern with pollution.  The bottom line is that it can all add up to oxidative stress and inflammation out of control.  Shortness of breath.  Asthma.  Air hunger.  Chest tightness.

Most of these athletes are young, and they are all in excellent physical condition.  At the top of their form.  So, their coping mechanisms are likely maximized.  But we also know that some of these systems vary from person to person genetically, so that some athletes may be more at risk than others.

For instance, various Glutathione-S-transferase enzymes can vary or even be absent in different people.  And there are other important detoxification enzymes that can vary as well, such as Super Oxide Dismutase, N-acetyl Transferase and different types of Cytochrome P450 enzymes.

Top athletes have superb ability to take in oxygen and use it in the mitochondria, the little power generators of our cells, to convert food to energy in the form of ATP.  And, of course althletes have a well developed cardiovascular system to deliver that oxygen to the mitochondria in various muscles.  All of the intricacies of how toxins and regulators and enzyme systems contribute to mitochondrial efficiency are still being worked out.

So, needless to say, if you are trying to coax your body into a world record performance, the last thing it needs to be dealing with are all of these nasty effects of pollution!

Luckily, there are some things the athletes can be doing to help out their detoxification systems.  Besides trying to avoid the pollution as much as possible, they can eat plenty of colorful fruits and vegetables and foods like the brassica vegetables (broccoli, kale, cabbages).  They might even consider supplementing with glutathione precursors like N-Acetyl Cysteine  or undenatured whey.  Hopefully they will get plenty of sleep, drink filtered water and avoid foods with other potential toxins such as heavy metals like cadmium, mercury, arsenic and cobalt.

The air quality is a little better in Beijing than it was before the Olympics, but only when the weather cooperates, and it’s got a long ways to go.  That speaks to what can happen when we put our minds to clearing the air.  We hope that the Chinese will figure out a way to keep clearing the air long after the Olympics are over.

And, we wish all of the athletes good luck!

And it’s making us sick…

Last week we wrote about non-toxic sunscreens.  But what we didn’t talk about was how a little bit of sun exposure is actually necessary to make vitamin D in the skin.  So even though it’s really important to use that sunscreen, it’s also important to get your vitamin D.

Just 10 minutes a day of sun exposure, on average, will do it.  Not out in the sun baking.  Just 10 minutes of being outside.  So shut off the computer and get outside for a bit.  But, if you’ve had skin cancer, check with your doctor.  And use your sunscreen after you’ve have your fill of unprotected sun.

Actually, vitamin D isn’t a vitamin, but really a hormone.  It’s active in all sorts of body systems.  It helps bones stay strong and seems to have something to do with multiple sclerosis and chronic fatigue and even depression.

It is even turning out to be important in breast cancer.  Studies have been showing that women with low vitamin D levels have higher incidence of breast cancer and poorer overall prognosis.  It may even be important to boost vitamin D levels in the case of prostate, lung, colon and even skin cancer such as melanoma.

The good news is that between a little dab of sun and vitamin D supplementation, you can correct that vitamin D level.  It’s only found in foods like oily fish (Salmon - but watch for pollutants - and the much maligned but magnificent, and generally low toxin, sardine) and even eggs, but you can take some vitamin D3 supplements as well.  The official recommended dose is only 400 IU, but newer science is recommending 800 to 1000 IU or sometimes, even more.  We think it’s best to find a doctor who will work with you on this.  Because you deserve it.

Ask you doctor to check your vitamin D level.  The test is called 25-OH vitamin D.  You can download some study resources and take them to your doctor if they have any questions.

Last but not least, we promised a video.  Ahhh…sunscreen (non-toxic, of course) and the meaning of life, ala Baz Luhrmann’s “Everyone’s Free to Wear Sunscreen”. Because we don’t think life should suffer while we’re doing the right thing.

Enjoy!  And pass it on!