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Speaker 1: Is the top of the New Year, twenty twenty six.

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Speaker 1: New Year, Same me, same Shenanigans, same me, Same Dope Labs,

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Speaker 1: same Zekiah, same Tt. Because hey, hey, we're doing all

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Speaker 1: we can. We don't need to change change the environment,

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Speaker 1: don't change me. Right, it's winter time, it's cold, people

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Speaker 1: are traveling.

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Speaker 2: Did you travel over the holidays?

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Speaker 1: No, I'll travel right before the holidays. And I said,

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Speaker 1: it's looking wild out here. Yes, I was traveling during

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Speaker 1: the holidays and it was very wild. People were coffin, sneezing.

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Speaker 1: It's a lot of shared air in these airports and cars,

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Speaker 1: houses and houses. Everybody's gathering clothes.

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Speaker 2: Hey house, no more h words.

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Speaker 1: I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah And this is Dope Labs.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes our

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Speaker 1: core science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship.

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Speaker 2: Well, I'll speak for myself.

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Speaker 1: When I'm thinking about the air and travel and being

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Speaker 1: in close proximity with people, I'm always just thinking about viruses.

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Speaker 1: But the air has other things in it too, And

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Speaker 1: people in Georgia right now are struggling with the flu.

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Speaker 1: I'm like, hey, put those masks in here, Okay, it's

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Speaker 1: taking a lot of people out for real. And just

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Speaker 1: like with viruses, all the other things in the air,

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Speaker 1: like pollution, smoke, everything from cars, factories, wildfires, all of

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Speaker 1: that stuff is also coming into our bodies with the

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Speaker 1: viruses and also have an impact.

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Speaker 2: We're taking all of that in. That's what this episode

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Speaker 2: is about.

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Speaker 1: We want to talk to somebody who studies this full

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Speaker 1: time because I feel like when wildfires ramp up, I

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Speaker 1: remember what's in the air. Then when flu season is

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Speaker 1: at its peak, I remember that. But how do we

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Speaker 1: take all of these things in? So we're talking to

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Speaker 1: somebody who looks at how the environment, specifically the air

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Speaker 1: and air pollution gets into our bodies, shapes our health

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Speaker 1: and how it affects us in ways that we don't

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Speaker 1: even think about. I think we should start with what

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Speaker 1: we know, which is what you've already said. TT winner

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Speaker 1: means more sickness. We know people reading to heat, ventilation

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Speaker 1: is worse, and we know mass work, but we're usually

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Speaker 1: thinking about well, for me, I'm thinking about the biological

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Speaker 1: threats and what masks protect us from. And we know

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Speaker 1: that those air quality alerts pop up on our phones

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Speaker 1: from time to time, talking about the ozone talking about wildfire,

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Speaker 1: smoke and smog, and some days the air outside is

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Speaker 1: just literally not safe to breathe. And so as someone

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Speaker 1: with asthma and allergies, I think about that, and I

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Speaker 1: also think about the folks who have that and also

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Speaker 1: heart issues and compromised immune systems, Like how are they

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Speaker 1: moving through life with all of these other particles floating

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Speaker 1: through the air.

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Speaker 2: Is this just confined to the lung?

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Speaker 1: Is what I think about, right, And so I think

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Speaker 1: we have a lot of questions to uncover. Yes, I

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Speaker 1: have a ton like can you have a bad air day?

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Speaker 2: And can you quickly recover? Are you down right?

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Speaker 1: Because yes, when I have a bad hair day, I'm

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Speaker 1: not going anywhere. No, it's inside, It's inside.

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Speaker 2: Okay, let's jump into the dissection.

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Speaker 1: He's a good friend of ours. We have been friends

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Speaker 1: since grad school. We are very happy to have him here.

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Speaker 1: Introduce yourself.

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Speaker 3: Finance Cavin Ward cavinists. I'm currently the director of Environmental

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Speaker 3: Science for the Price Slab at the Buck Institute for

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Speaker 3: Research on Aging. I'm also an adjunct faculty member for

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Speaker 3: Duke University and the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill,

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Speaker 3: Go Blue devils don't test my allegiance.

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Speaker 4: Formerly, I was.

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Speaker 3: A senior computational biologist for the US Environmental Protection Agency.

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Speaker 3: Across all these roles, my passion is really trying to

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Speaker 3: utilize modern data resources, modern data tools, techniques to improve

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Speaker 3: personalized environmental health and reduce health disparities for all communities.

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Speaker 1: The only pollution I know is the air quality index

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Speaker 1: that the weather app tells me from Apple. But I

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Speaker 1: know there's so much more because you've told it to

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Speaker 1: us over the years. How should we even be thinking

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Speaker 1: about air pollution?

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Speaker 3: Well, I say the first thing to do is just

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Speaker 3: to start thinking about it. You know, I think one

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Speaker 3: of the benefits we have here in the US is

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Speaker 3: that we have generally pretty good air quality. Well, we

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Speaker 3: don't think about the fact that, like, yeah, just because

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Speaker 3: the skies are clear doesn't necessarily mean that, you know,

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Speaker 3: those daily variations in air quality aren't impacting health for individuals.

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Speaker 3: And then you have the days where the air isn't clear,

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Speaker 3: you know, you have the smoke events that come down.

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Speaker 3: You know, we have the big Canadian wildfires where the

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Speaker 3: skies of New York or Orange for days, and that's

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Speaker 3: when people get reminded of it when your eyes are burning,

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Speaker 3: you're coughing, and people are like, man, like, what's going on.

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Speaker 3: And it's important that people think about their personal activities

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Speaker 3: and their personal health. But what people don't think about

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Speaker 3: it is like, hey, I'm in the winter, you know,

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Speaker 3: let me start up that fireplace. You know, all of

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Speaker 3: a sudden the house gets a little smoky. Maybe I

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Speaker 3: didn't clean that chimney. Those sorts of things, and so

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Speaker 3: those types of things also contribute to what you breathe

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Speaker 3: in and how what you breathe in impacts your health.

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Speaker 3: So when you want to light that fireplace, or cooking

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Speaker 3: being one of the big contributors to indoor air pollution,

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Speaker 3: you know, frying foods.

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Speaker 4: Those oils we.

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Speaker 3: Think about, you know, particulates as like these little hard

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Speaker 3: particles like sand, but it's really a lot more complex

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Speaker 3: to that. A lot of them were composed of organics

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Speaker 3: set of solidified in the atmosphere, and so the actual

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Speaker 3: organics are a part of will be considered be particulate

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Speaker 3: air pollution. And unfortunately, you know, the lungs were not

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Speaker 3: designed to be able to handle all of that. They

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Speaker 3: were not designed to breathe in you know, oils aerosols,

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Speaker 3: organic carbons, but things like that, and so the body reacts,

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Speaker 3: the lungs reacts, inflammation goes up, and you start to

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Speaker 3: get a whole host of you know, potential health issues.

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Speaker 3: But the first step is just the awareness that it's

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Speaker 3: always there, even when the skies are clear.

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Speaker 1: You said words like airsols and particulates. Can we talk

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Speaker 1: about scale. I'm a material scientist and I specialize in nanomterials,

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Speaker 1: so I can understand, I appreciate how small these things are,

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Speaker 1: but I don't know if people really understand how small

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Speaker 1: some of these particulates can get and when it becomes

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Speaker 1: like something that interferes with your respiratory system.

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Speaker 3: So we cost like particulates by size typically, so we

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Speaker 3: talk about PM ten that's particular matter of the sets

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Speaker 3: and ten micrometers in diameter. And to give you a

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Speaker 3: sense of what that scale is, a human hair is

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Speaker 3: about forty micrometers in diameter cross there, so you can

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Speaker 3: get about four PM ten particles across withid of a

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Speaker 3: human hair. So you're already talking pretty smart for it

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Speaker 3: tiny particles, but thanks to evolution, your body's evolved a

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Speaker 3: lot of defenses. So PM ten particles actually a lot

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Speaker 3: of those are captured by your upper airway defenses. And

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Speaker 3: so we go down to the finer particles, the things

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Speaker 3: that are we call, you know, the PM two point

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Speaker 3: five the fine particular matter. And now you're getting into

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Speaker 3: the particular matter that can actually penetrate down to there.

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Speaker 3: And so two point five micrometers and diameter. Okay, well,

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Speaker 3: now you're talking about four of those fitting across every

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Speaker 3: PM ten particle as out there. And so now you're

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Speaker 3: talking about, you know, particles that are much much smaller

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Speaker 3: than the width of a human hair. And then you

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Speaker 3: go down a step further and you get to the

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Speaker 3: ultra fine particulates PM point one PM one.

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Speaker 4: We talk about one micrometer, one tenth of a.

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Speaker 3: Micrometer and diameter, and those are the particles that are

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Speaker 3: small enough not only to get into your lungs, but

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Speaker 3: actually to diffuse out of your lungs to become part

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Speaker 3: of what's circulating through your body.

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Speaker 1: And so what falls into that category, yeah, you want

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Speaker 1: to know.

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Speaker 3: So those are we called, you know, the ultra fine particulates.

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Speaker 3: Those are the smallest of the small particles, or you

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Speaker 3: know a lot of them are barely held together enough

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Speaker 3: to be solid, but they are you know, together enough

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Speaker 3: to be able to diffuse out of the lungs and

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Speaker 3: get into the bloodstream. And you know, there are studies

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Speaker 3: whether generate gold particles of these. So they're inert, but

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Speaker 3: they're easily tracked and they're easily to be collected afterwards.

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Speaker 3: And you can have you know, animal models breathe us

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Speaker 3: in and you'll find them in the lungs, you'll find

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Speaker 3: them in the kidneys, you'll find them in the.

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Speaker 4: Tails, you know of these animals.

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Speaker 3: And so it really shows how what you breathe in

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Speaker 3: becomes part of what's circulating all the way throughout you.

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Speaker 3: And it's all these factors together the you know, what

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Speaker 3: it does to your lungs, the way your lungs react,

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Speaker 3: how it diffuses out of your lungs, and then the

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Speaker 3: way it impacts other organ systems. That contributes to all

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Speaker 3: the health effects that we can associate with particular matter.

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Speaker 3: And then you have the non particle part of it,

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Speaker 3: the gases, you know, things like your ozone, your nitrogen dioxides,

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Speaker 3: which you're really heavy around car traffic, and a lot

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Speaker 3: of those never leave the lungs. You know, ozone reacts

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Speaker 3: very well never leave, as in, they'll reach the cell

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Speaker 3: lining and they'll react so quickly that they'll essentially split

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Speaker 3: apart some lipid membranes, and the gas itself will be gone,

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Speaker 3: but the effects of it linger far, far longer than that.

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Speaker 2: So hold your breath in traffic.

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Speaker 4: Hold your I want to say, hold your breath in traffic.

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Speaker 4: You know, breathe, breathe in traffic.

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Speaker 3: But it does become you know thought, if you're ever

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Speaker 3: you know, next to a busy road, you hear a

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Speaker 3: big truck pass by, you know, people cough and all that,

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Speaker 3: that reaction is immediate to that air pollution that you're

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Speaker 3: breathing in. And even when the big truck's not passing by,

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Speaker 3: every time a car passes by, there's gonna be an

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Speaker 3: uptick in gaseous and exhaust and all that. And so

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Speaker 3: think about that in the concept of your daily life.

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Speaker 3: Do you run along next to roads? You know, how

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Speaker 3: do you feel when you run next to roads versus running.

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Speaker 4: In a park?

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Speaker 3: Do you want to think about how air pollution impacts

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Speaker 3: daily behaviors. That's when you start to think about when

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Speaker 3: you think about the fact that, like I said, just

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Speaker 3: because the air is clear doesn't mean, it's not there.

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Speaker 1: My brain is all over the place right now because

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Speaker 1: there's just so many things that I just are now

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Speaker 1: being brought to my awareness because you said you got

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Speaker 1: to think about it, and now I'm like, okay, Now

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Speaker 1: I'm hyper aware. And I don't think about inside of

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Speaker 1: my house having anything in the air. I run an

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Speaker 1: air purifier now, but I don't. I don't think about

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Speaker 1: how the things that I'm doing, like day to day,

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Speaker 1: how that contributes.

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Speaker 2: And one thing that.

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Speaker 1: Zakia had brought up is like hair spray, our setting

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Speaker 1: spray for makeup, the makeup itself like that because it's

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Speaker 1: settling into the finest pores and that's what I want,

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Speaker 1: that's what you want to do. But it's also settling.

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Speaker 1: There is a makeup the setting spray tete, I know,

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Speaker 1: you know it. It's pink. I have to hold my

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Speaker 1: breath when I use that. It takes the air out

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Speaker 1: of the room. You have to hold your breath for time.

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Speaker 1: But it works so well. But I know this can't.

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Speaker 2: It has particles.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: Is that aerosol tip you know that's what it is

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Speaker 3: doing and is aerosolizing whatever is in the can so

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Speaker 3: it comes out of this fine spray of drops, which,

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Speaker 3: as you said, is great for a nice even distribution,

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Speaker 3: but your body's letting you know. They're like, hey, I

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Speaker 3: breathe this in and it's causing a reaction, so I

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Speaker 3: don't want to breathe it in.

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Speaker 1: Well, I have a heat protected and this smells so good,

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Speaker 1: and I'd be like, and then I love the smell,

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Speaker 1: and then coffee. So you're telling me damage not good?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, not good.

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Speaker 3: And sometimes it's you know, just sensitization. You know, it

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Speaker 3: doesn't always have to lead to long term damage, but

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Speaker 3: it is something that you know, people should think about

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Speaker 3: and be aware of how your body responds to it,

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Speaker 3: because people are going to respond slightly differently, and you know, unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: there's not a lot of tests we have right now

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Speaker 3: to be able to say, Okay, you're going to respond

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Speaker 3: really strongly to this type of pollutant, and you're going

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Speaker 3: to strong really respond to that type of pollutant, you

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Speaker 3: should stay away from this setting spray. And that's part

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Speaker 3: of the research work that's going on, part of what's

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Speaker 3: being called personalized environmental health. We're moving away from just

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Speaker 3: general population and we'll risk where we say okay, the

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Speaker 3: risk is this much for the entire US population and

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Speaker 3: really drilling down to okay, well, what are your personalized

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Speaker 3: risk what based on your life history, based on your genome,

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Speaker 3: based on the other exposures that you've received, are you

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Speaker 3: likely to respond to? How are you likely to respond?

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Speaker 3: And hopefully once we get that information, what can you

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Speaker 3: do about it? And that's really the next step in

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Speaker 3: environmental health is an increased personalization that allows the individual

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Speaker 3: to respond to the risks that they're experiencing.

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Speaker 1: I like that something you said is like looking back

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Speaker 1: at what have you been exposed to? And I think

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Speaker 1: to understand why what you have been exposed to previously matters,

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Speaker 1: I think you have to understand what long term exposure means.

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Speaker 1: Can you explain some of those correlations and why they

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Speaker 1: exist and what we see as long term effects?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely so.

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Speaker 3: Really you can think about as the accumulation of as

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Speaker 3: you said before, damage that happens so a lot of

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Speaker 3: what we think about in the air polluting context. You know,

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Speaker 3: it's linked to inflammation and sort of systemic damage to

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Speaker 3: basic cellular prophecies. How your body functions on a cellular

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Speaker 3: level gets disrupted by long term exposure.

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Speaker 4: Almost any injury for it.

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Speaker 3: And so when you get one day of say heavy

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Speaker 3: air pollution for it, you might get, you know, some

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Speaker 3: watery eyes, you might have a cough, a headache. But

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Speaker 3: if that goes away after a couple of days, your

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Speaker 3: body can recover from that. But what we know, and

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Speaker 3: we know this, you know for a lot of different conditions,

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Speaker 3: when you get that chronic systemic inflammation, when your body

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Speaker 3: is just always responding, that becomes an issue that starts

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Speaker 3: to break down how your body is going to react

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Speaker 3: to the next stimulus that you receive. It's almost like

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Speaker 3: your body can't quite respond the way that they did

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Speaker 3: before if it's received the same insult for day after

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Speaker 3: day after day. When death by a thousand paper cuts,

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Speaker 3: and when it comes to air pollution, those paper cuts

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Speaker 3: can be very small, so small you don't even feel

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Speaker 3: them then, So that long term chronic exposure can lead

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Speaker 3: to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, increase risk of renal disease,

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Speaker 3: increase risk of lung disease, renal de.

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Speaker 4: Renal disease, your kidneys.

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Speaker 3: I told you, these particles go everywhere, and so that

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Speaker 3: contributes to this increased risk of these chronic diseases that

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Speaker 3: just continual increased inflammation that your body's receiving from these

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Speaker 3: long term exposures. But then there's also the aging aspect

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Speaker 3: to it, and this has really come about in the

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Speaker 3: last few years where we've been able to track aging

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Speaker 3: using these molecular biomarkers known as aging clocks. And what

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Speaker 3: these clocks allow us to do is to take DNA methylation,

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Speaker 3: the way that certain changes are applied to your DNA

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Speaker 3: so that different cells can respond in different ways, and

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Speaker 3: actually use those as a way to measure how you

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Speaker 3: age at a cellular level, how you age at an

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Speaker 3: organ system level, and how you age as an overall person.

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Speaker 3: And what's been clearly shown is that people who are

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Speaker 3: exposed to high levels of poor air quality, or people

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Speaker 3: who are exposed to moderate air quality but for a

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Speaker 3: long period of time, have accelerated aging, so they might

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Speaker 3: be three, four or five years older than what they

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Speaker 3: should be. What we've also seen is that people who

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Speaker 3: have accelerated aging are more likely to respond to future exposures,

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Speaker 3: which helps explain why the elderly and other individuals are

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Speaker 3: more sensitive to environmental exposures. So there's really this feedback

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Speaker 3: loop that happens over time, where you get chronically exposed

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Speaker 3: and weakens your biological system's ability to respond to the

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Speaker 3: next exposure. You respond ford to the next exposure, you

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Speaker 3: get chronically exposed, so on and so forward.

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Speaker 4: And so that's why it's important to be able to.

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Speaker 3: Interrupt these cycles, both at policy levels where weset national standards,

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Speaker 3: but also at individual levels, where individuals we're able to

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Speaker 3: understand what am I being exposed to and how do

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Speaker 3: I prevent future adverse exposures to be able to really

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Speaker 3: start to improve environmental health.

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Speaker 2: Now I got a question. Okay, mm hm oh, what

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Speaker 2: got too many?

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Speaker 1: Because I do want to talk about DNA methilation and

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Speaker 1: those signatures, but I also want to know, because methilation

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Speaker 1: is not always permanent to track aging, is there a

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Speaker 1: case where you can reverse that? Like if I have

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Speaker 1: five days in the city in two days outside the city,

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Speaker 1: am I able to reverse my sensitivity to future insult

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Speaker 1: in any way?

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Speaker 2: Like?

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Speaker 1: Is there any evidence of that? Because I wonder about

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Speaker 1: people who live in cities like TT and I visited

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Speaker 1: Brussels and we barely made it and everybody else was

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Speaker 1: walking around fine. Now, why is that.

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Speaker 3: As good as you mentioned Brussels, because there is this

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Speaker 3: idea people grow up in certain contexts and so they

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Speaker 3: bodies are adjusted to different levels of all types of

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Speaker 3: environmental exposures, air pollution included. Now, that doesn't mean that

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Speaker 3: it isn't impacting them health wise.

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Speaker 4: It doesn't mean that it's you know, good.

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Speaker 3: For them or it's neutral for them, just because they

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Speaker 3: were walking around the city fine and you and TT

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Speaker 3: were not. But it does mean that they're more used

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Speaker 3: to the levels that are there and they're not going

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Speaker 3: to have some of those immediate responses that you had.

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Speaker 4: But is it reversible?

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Speaker 3: That's really one of these sort of wholly grail questions

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Speaker 3: of environmental health is at what point does environmental damage

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Speaker 3: become irreversible? At what point is it still in a

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Speaker 3: reversible phase? And how do we reverse those? So, you know,

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Speaker 3: you talked about how DNA methylation is reversible. There's an

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Speaker 3: interesting study down on smoking years ago where they looked

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Speaker 3: at people who were smokers and then quit smoking, people

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Speaker 3: who were never smokers, and people who were smokers and

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Speaker 3: then continued smoking throughout the entire study period. And what

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Speaker 3: they found is that compared to never smokers, people who

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Speaker 3: are smokers and then quit smoking.

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Speaker 4: Some of their DNA methylation.

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Speaker 3: Sites would sort of go up with the current smokers

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Speaker 3: and then level off. You could sort of almost see

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Speaker 3: the point at which you know they're smoking sort of

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Speaker 3: plateaued for it. Other DNA methilation sites continued on as

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Speaker 3: if they had never stopped smoking. So clearly something had

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Speaker 3: been reprogrammed within the cellar machinery to where it was like,

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Speaker 3: I'm on a different path now, even if you stop smoking,

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Speaker 3: I'm not necessarily going to return to that path now.

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Speaker 3: We believe that most of the is reversible most of

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Speaker 3: the time, when you remove the environmental insult over time,

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Speaker 3: the body has an incredible ability to heal itself. Unfortunately,

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Speaker 3: there are a few sort of threshold points oftentimes when

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Speaker 3: you develop things like cardiovascular disease or kidney disease or COPD,

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Speaker 3: where we know that those conditions are not necessarily reversible,

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Speaker 3: and so a lot of personalized health, a lot of

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Speaker 3: preventative health, is about understanding what the person's exposed to

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Speaker 3: before you get to any of these irreversible steps and

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Speaker 3: giving them the options to reverse them. Number one by

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Speaker 3: removing the exposure or reducing the exposure, and number two

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Speaker 3: by taking interventions that might be able to act against that.

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Speaker 3: And we're still working on the interventions phrase of it.

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Speaker 3: But what we hope is that when we get to

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Speaker 3: a more personalized state of environmental health, will really be

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Speaker 3: able to say, Okay, here's what you were exposed to,

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Speaker 3: here's where you are. We think this is still reversible,

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Speaker 3: here's what you should do. Come back in and we'll

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Speaker 3: see if it's working.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: One part of what you said that stuck out to

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Speaker 1: me was the policy and the regulations of it all.

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Speaker 2: In a formal life, I was a FED.

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Speaker 1: I worked for the National Institute of Standards Technology, which

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Speaker 1: I have I was not allowed to say on this show,

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Speaker 1: but now I can because I don't work there anymore.

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Speaker 1: So I know that standards and policy can be a

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Speaker 1: really tricky place, you know, and creating national standards, creating

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Speaker 1: national policy, it's a long road, and it takes a

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Speaker 1: lot of really smart people like Ukavin to really push

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Speaker 1: for these changes and explain to our representatives in government

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Speaker 1: why this is so important, and leaning on places like

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Speaker 1: the EPA and things like that to put these documents

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Speaker 1: together and to stress the importance of this. So if

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Speaker 1: there's limit it to a certain point. How much are

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Speaker 1: we talking about here and are they reducing the damage

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Speaker 1: actually or should we keep pushing our policymakers to do

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Speaker 1: more in that area.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's great as you break up that point.

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Speaker 3: I'm also a former FED you know, which I could

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Speaker 3: say because I can say former in front of it,

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Speaker 3: former EPA employee. And you're right, you know, the policy

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Speaker 3: making process is slow. It is complex. It's not even

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Speaker 3: multi year. It can be thought of as multi decade,

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Speaker 3: you know, in some contexts. And you know, there's a

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Speaker 3: lot of good reasons for that. The policies that we

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Speaker 3: set are based on the best science that's available. Currently,

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Speaker 3: the National Ambient Air Quality Standard, the sort of policy

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Speaker 3: that says ambient air standards for PM two point five,

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Speaker 3: those fine particulates that can really get deep down into

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Speaker 3: the lungs, is nine microgrounds for cubic meter and that

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Speaker 3: was recently moved down from twelve microgrounds for comubic meter.

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Speaker 3: And I know a lot of people that would argue

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Speaker 3: it should go even lower than that, and there's good

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Speaker 3: science I think to support that as well.

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Speaker 4: But because policy is so.

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Speaker 3: Slow, it's designed to be slow so that everybody has

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Speaker 3: a chance to weigh in on it so that you

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Speaker 3: get it right and you're not revising it the next

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Speaker 3: year or the next month, hopefully, although we see policy

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Speaker 3: revisions happening quite quickly. Now, there have to be other

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Speaker 3: tools besides just national policy that can help people protect that.

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Speaker 3: And you know, there's state policies, there's local policies, but

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Speaker 3: there also have to be better tools for individuals to

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Speaker 3: start be able to protect their health as well, and

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Speaker 3: those work in conjunction with those policies. You know, you

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Speaker 3: can't put the onus all on the individual, but you

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Speaker 3: can't only expect once in a decade, once in a

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Speaker 3: multi decade setting of national policy to be the only

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Speaker 3: thing that's going to pray able to protect us.

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Speaker 1: And especially to respond to changing landscapes. I don't see

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Speaker 1: the set in the eighties. Doesn't see a data center coming.

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Speaker 4: On your block right right, It certainly doesn't, Mater.

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Speaker 1: So I'm thinking about this, and I like your answer

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Speaker 1: about the owners not being in any one place. So

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Speaker 1: let's move from government side to individual Because recently, because

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Speaker 1: I'm pretty much off x in on threads now, I

438
00:21:40,359 --> 00:21:43,840
Speaker 1: saw somebody talking about an indoor air quality monitor, and

439
00:21:44,040 --> 00:21:46,439
Speaker 1: I think they were based in Europe, but he was saying, like,

440
00:21:46,840 --> 00:21:50,000
Speaker 1: right now, if you've been heating stuff like older homes

441
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:53,880
Speaker 1: to have like stoves and stuff inside to warm them furnaces.

442
00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:57,240
Speaker 1: I remember I remember a kerosene heater as a kid

443
00:21:57,280 --> 00:21:59,600
Speaker 1: and being like, this smell is strange. We shouldn't be

444
00:21:59,720 --> 00:22:05,320
Speaker 1: using this inside good good instincts there things like closed windows,

445
00:22:05,359 --> 00:22:08,679
Speaker 1: like are there health risks that people are taking to

446
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,040
Speaker 1: stay warm that they're not aware of? And what kind

447
00:22:11,080 --> 00:22:13,280
Speaker 1: of tools should you be using? I just am curious,

448
00:22:13,280 --> 00:22:14,960
Speaker 1: And then that's just a little bit of a question,

449
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:17,920
Speaker 1: and the bigger question, this is my problem. The long

450
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:20,879
Speaker 1: question is thinking about what you said about those checkpoints

451
00:22:20,880 --> 00:22:24,920
Speaker 1: that are irreversible, and thinking about accumulation of methylation that

452
00:22:25,320 --> 00:22:29,560
Speaker 1: leads to worse outcomes and aging. We already are living

453
00:22:29,680 --> 00:22:32,880
Speaker 1: longer lives than before, So what does it mean as

454
00:22:32,880 --> 00:22:35,439
Speaker 1: you get older? What's the plan are you saving us?

455
00:22:35,520 --> 00:22:35,800
Speaker 2: Kevin?

456
00:22:36,040 --> 00:22:38,520
Speaker 4: I'm working on it, working on it daily.

457
00:22:38,680 --> 00:22:41,480
Speaker 3: Those are all really good questions, and I think part

458
00:22:41,480 --> 00:22:44,840
Speaker 3: of what we have to balance is this idea of

459
00:22:45,600 --> 00:22:49,679
Speaker 3: health risks versus living our lives to a certain degree.

460
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,800
Speaker 3: I personally I love burning my fireplace. It just brings

461
00:22:53,800 --> 00:22:56,359
Speaker 3: me joy to sit inside with a nice roaring fire,

462
00:22:56,640 --> 00:22:58,840
Speaker 3: glass of wine, relaxing.

463
00:22:59,200 --> 00:23:00,919
Speaker 4: You know, that makes me happy.

464
00:23:01,440 --> 00:23:04,720
Speaker 3: But I know that every year I get my chimney checked,

465
00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:06,360
Speaker 3: make sure there's good ventilation.

466
00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:08,639
Speaker 2: Through there, all right, let me write that down.

467
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:14,119
Speaker 3: If you can, you know, have good cross ventilation throughout

468
00:23:14,160 --> 00:23:16,720
Speaker 3: your space to try and limit any particles.

469
00:23:16,240 --> 00:23:17,160
Speaker 4: You know, to come in there.

470
00:23:17,359 --> 00:23:19,200
Speaker 3: Part of that sort of defeats the purpose of getting

471
00:23:19,200 --> 00:23:21,640
Speaker 3: that nice warmth off the fire. But the nice warmth

472
00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:23,880
Speaker 3: is coming with a few additional things in the air

473
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:24,360
Speaker 3: for you.

474
00:23:25,200 --> 00:23:25,880
Speaker 4: And then if you.

475
00:23:25,880 --> 00:23:28,960
Speaker 3: Can get a good air quality monitor, you know, for

476
00:23:29,040 --> 00:23:31,600
Speaker 3: inside and use it sort of see how is your

477
00:23:31,640 --> 00:23:34,400
Speaker 3: home performing? What is the air quality inside of your home?

478
00:23:34,560 --> 00:23:36,560
Speaker 3: Like I imagine a lot of people will be surprised. They'll

479
00:23:36,600 --> 00:23:39,600
Speaker 3: be surprised at not just you know, whether it's higher

480
00:23:39,680 --> 00:23:41,959
Speaker 3: or lower, but what are the activities that contribute to

481
00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:42,879
Speaker 3: it going up.

482
00:23:42,920 --> 00:23:44,760
Speaker 4: When I'm installed one, I was really surprised.

483
00:23:44,800 --> 00:23:47,639
Speaker 3: I could see every time I was cooking something on

484
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:49,560
Speaker 3: the stove, especially if I was cooking in some oil,

485
00:23:49,920 --> 00:23:52,760
Speaker 3: those air quality particulates tick up quite a bit higher.

486
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:54,719
Speaker 3: You can even see it with something as small as

487
00:23:54,720 --> 00:23:57,840
Speaker 3: burning candles, especially if it's near your monitor. Those flames

488
00:23:57,840 --> 00:23:59,359
Speaker 3: that are coming off there at the tip of that

489
00:23:59,400 --> 00:24:03,320
Speaker 3: candles a lot of ultrafying particulates. It's not enough, necessarily,

490
00:24:03,400 --> 00:24:05,920
Speaker 3: like I said, to harm you, unless it were a constant,

491
00:24:06,000 --> 00:24:09,880
Speaker 3: chronic exposure. Most people aren't burning wood in an unventilated

492
00:24:09,880 --> 00:24:13,359
Speaker 3: home all day, but if you think back twenty thirty

493
00:24:13,400 --> 00:24:15,800
Speaker 3: forty years ago, that was much more common.

494
00:24:16,080 --> 00:24:17,000
Speaker 4: And if you think.

495
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:20,680
Speaker 3: About places that don't have common indoor heating, biomass heating

496
00:24:20,760 --> 00:24:23,879
Speaker 3: inside the home with poor ventilation is really common. So

497
00:24:23,920 --> 00:24:26,760
Speaker 3: you talk about, you know, we're living longer. A lot

498
00:24:26,800 --> 00:24:30,879
Speaker 3: of that living longer is due to understanding and reducing

499
00:24:30,920 --> 00:24:33,600
Speaker 3: our environmental risks. And that comes along just as we

500
00:24:33,680 --> 00:24:37,080
Speaker 3: sort of understood that hand washing was important and with

501
00:24:37,119 --> 00:24:40,320
Speaker 3: that sort of greatly improved hospital related outcomes, and then

502
00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:43,679
Speaker 3: we start to understand, okay, infectious disease is important. You know,

503
00:24:43,720 --> 00:24:46,760
Speaker 3: I would say the last fifty years has really been

504
00:24:46,800 --> 00:24:51,600
Speaker 3: a substantial improvement in reducing environmental solution, especially within developed

505
00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:53,639
Speaker 3: nations in the United States, and you know, one of

506
00:24:53,680 --> 00:24:56,600
Speaker 3: the biggest improvements is our improvement in air quality. But

507
00:24:56,720 --> 00:25:00,960
Speaker 3: now it's about preserving those games. Now was about we've

508
00:25:00,960 --> 00:25:03,600
Speaker 3: gotten here, how do we get more out of it?

509
00:25:03,640 --> 00:25:06,720
Speaker 3: How do we preserve what we got through fifty years

510
00:25:06,720 --> 00:25:10,200
Speaker 3: of environmental regulation and fifty years of improvement and infectious

511
00:25:10,240 --> 00:25:14,600
Speaker 3: disease responses. And that means costly evolving, costly pushing the

512
00:25:14,600 --> 00:25:16,800
Speaker 3: signs on the low forward, and costly going to people

513
00:25:16,920 --> 00:25:19,560
Speaker 3: new tools that can directly improve their health.

514
00:25:33,680 --> 00:25:36,280
Speaker 1: One of the things that I remember from back when

515
00:25:36,280 --> 00:25:37,919
Speaker 1: we were in grad school and the research that you

516
00:25:37,960 --> 00:25:41,719
Speaker 1: were doing that has always stuck with me is like,

517
00:25:42,160 --> 00:25:45,840
Speaker 1: how depending on what your zip code is, that dictates

518
00:25:45,880 --> 00:25:48,760
Speaker 1: your exposure. We talked to somebody on the show who

519
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,399
Speaker 1: talked about like the highways and byways and how a

520
00:25:51,440 --> 00:25:54,840
Speaker 1: lot of black communities were put that, Like those highways

521
00:25:54,840 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 1: were built around black communities, through the neighborhood, through the neighborhoods,

522
00:25:59,080 --> 00:26:06,479
Speaker 1: through the middle and there are just specific groups of

523
00:26:06,560 --> 00:26:09,600
Speaker 1: people who are more impacted than others.

524
00:26:09,640 --> 00:26:11,080
Speaker 2: Can you talk about that a little bit?

525
00:26:11,480 --> 00:26:13,560
Speaker 4: Yeah? Absolutely. You talked about the zip codes.

526
00:26:13,760 --> 00:26:15,280
Speaker 3: You know, I say tell me your zip code, and

527
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:16,880
Speaker 3: I can tell you how long you're likely to live.

528
00:26:17,680 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 3: It's really it can be that powerful of a predictor.

529
00:26:22,640 --> 00:26:26,880
Speaker 3: So your zip code really is a very strong predictor

530
00:26:27,119 --> 00:26:30,240
Speaker 3: of lifespan, how long you're going to live, and health span,

531
00:26:30,320 --> 00:26:32,280
Speaker 3: how many healthy years are you going to get, what

532
00:26:32,440 --> 00:26:34,919
Speaker 3: chronic diseases are you most at risk from? And this

533
00:26:34,960 --> 00:26:37,800
Speaker 3: is for a number of reasons, primarily the socio economic

534
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:42,399
Speaker 3: factors of it, understanding what your access to resources, what's

535
00:26:42,560 --> 00:26:45,440
Speaker 3: likely your income, and then also what are you likely

536
00:26:45,480 --> 00:26:46,359
Speaker 3: being exposed to.

537
00:26:47,000 --> 00:26:48,920
Speaker 4: We understand there's a huge.

538
00:26:48,600 --> 00:26:52,560
Speaker 3: Body of research showing that lower socio economics as communities

539
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,040
Speaker 3: have been impacted more by environmental exposures.

540
00:26:56,040 --> 00:26:57,440
Speaker 4: And that's not an accidental thing.

541
00:26:57,920 --> 00:27:01,159
Speaker 3: That is because you know, that's where the industry is put,

542
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:06,440
Speaker 3: that's where landfills are put, that's where highways cross. Oftentimes

543
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:09,439
Speaker 3: because those communities don't have the political power to protect themselves.

544
00:27:09,840 --> 00:27:11,920
Speaker 3: And so I think that's part of where you set

545
00:27:11,920 --> 00:27:14,639
Speaker 3: a beginning that awareness becomes such a big part of

546
00:27:14,800 --> 00:27:17,240
Speaker 3: a tool that you can use to protect your environmental health.

547
00:27:17,400 --> 00:27:19,320
Speaker 4: The more of these communities are aware.

548
00:27:19,040 --> 00:27:20,600
Speaker 3: Of the factors that are going on in there, and

549
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:23,720
Speaker 3: a lot of them are very aware and gaining the

550
00:27:23,760 --> 00:27:26,040
Speaker 3: political power to push back. They're able to push back,

551
00:27:26,040 --> 00:27:28,920
Speaker 3: and you're able to see industry close or move out

552
00:27:29,000 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 3: of some of these areas, you're able to see highways

553
00:27:31,440 --> 00:27:35,120
Speaker 3: not being built through the middle of minority communities, especially

554
00:27:35,119 --> 00:27:38,119
Speaker 3: black communities here within the United States, And then what

555
00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:40,720
Speaker 3: we're able to do then it starts to understand, Okay, well,

556
00:27:40,720 --> 00:27:43,480
Speaker 3: how do we tackle the existing social economic disparities and

557
00:27:43,560 --> 00:27:46,240
Speaker 3: how they contribute to health. And what we've seen time

558
00:27:46,280 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 3: and time again is that those who are the most

559
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:52,280
Speaker 3: sois economically disadvantaged, who have the least access to resources,

560
00:27:52,359 --> 00:27:56,600
Speaker 3: including medical resources, but also community resources. People who don't

561
00:27:56,600 --> 00:27:59,840
Speaker 3: have access to healthy foods, who live in these food deserts, they.

562
00:27:59,800 --> 00:28:02,320
Speaker 4: Are more responsive to air pollution.

563
00:28:02,800 --> 00:28:05,480
Speaker 3: Just going back to the ways that your body becomes

564
00:28:05,520 --> 00:28:08,560
Speaker 3: sort of broken down over time by all the things

565
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,680
Speaker 3: that happen to it, those things influence what your next

566
00:28:11,720 --> 00:28:14,000
Speaker 3: response is going to be. And so if you're a

567
00:28:14,000 --> 00:28:17,000
Speaker 3: person who's not been able to go to the doctor

568
00:28:17,359 --> 00:28:20,240
Speaker 3: and get regular preventative health checks, and you're not somebody

569
00:28:20,240 --> 00:28:23,000
Speaker 3: who's been able to eat healthy because you simply don't

570
00:28:23,000 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 3: have access to those foods and you know you're working

571
00:28:26,760 --> 00:28:29,440
Speaker 3: two jobs to make enough income, you know, to live,

572
00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:34,800
Speaker 3: that stress contributes to say, a wildfire happening in your

573
00:28:34,840 --> 00:28:39,240
Speaker 3: area and now as compared to somebody who's social economically advantage,

574
00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:42,400
Speaker 3: they might be having very similar profiles in a lot

575
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:45,320
Speaker 3: of ways, but those social economic differences added up over

576
00:28:45,440 --> 00:28:48,360
Speaker 3: time mean that they might have a much better response

577
00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,240
Speaker 3: or a much lower response to a wildfire episode or

578
00:28:52,280 --> 00:28:55,479
Speaker 3: something like that than a more social economically disadvantaged person.

579
00:28:55,520 --> 00:29:01,080
Speaker 3: And so there's no extracting environmental health from social economic

580
00:29:01,120 --> 00:29:03,720
Speaker 3: health disparities. Been there, and so I feel those things

581
00:29:03,760 --> 00:29:06,360
Speaker 3: really as intricately linked. And I talked about part of

582
00:29:06,400 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 3: my mission is to reduce health disparities, because I believe

583
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 3: that if we can improve environmental health, you're going to

584
00:29:11,440 --> 00:29:14,600
Speaker 3: directly improve health disparities because the people that are being

585
00:29:14,680 --> 00:29:17,400
Speaker 3: most impacted by the environment are the people who have

586
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 3: the least access to political resources, economic resources, and social resources.

587
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:27,400
Speaker 2: This is making me. I'm just tying it together, especially

588
00:29:27,440 --> 00:29:30,680
Speaker 2: with that example you just gave Cavian about you know,

589
00:29:30,920 --> 00:29:35,479
Speaker 2: historically where you come from. These things accumulate and I'm like, oh,

590
00:29:35,920 --> 00:29:38,719
Speaker 2: the first question was like, oh, this is it epigenetic,

591
00:29:38,760 --> 00:29:42,120
Speaker 2: And I'm like, yes, girls, methylation. And then I'm like, well,

592
00:29:42,280 --> 00:29:45,360
Speaker 2: is it inherited across generations? The same way that we

593
00:29:45,400 --> 00:29:47,920
Speaker 2: think about like, what was this the Swedish potato? Was

594
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 2: it Swedish or Irish?

595
00:29:49,200 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 1: Wait a minute before you get any deeper, please educate

596
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:59,040
Speaker 1: the sorry me epigenetic I need a refresher. So there

597
00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: are genetic changes, and so we think about mutations. We

598
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:06,320
Speaker 1: think about DNA having four nucleotized ATC and G and

599
00:30:06,360 --> 00:30:08,560
Speaker 1: if they are changed, like we think about that's a

600
00:30:08,640 --> 00:30:11,959
Speaker 1: genetic change, right, a mutation changing. Think of it as

601
00:30:12,040 --> 00:30:13,240
Speaker 1: changing the letters in a book.

602
00:30:13,360 --> 00:30:13,800
Speaker 2: Okay.

603
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,960
Speaker 1: We can think about epigenetic changes as changes that don't

604
00:30:18,000 --> 00:30:22,280
Speaker 1: change materially what you read, but change access to different genes.

605
00:30:22,480 --> 00:30:24,080
Speaker 1: And so you may think of it as like a

606
00:30:24,120 --> 00:30:25,800
Speaker 1: lock on a book, or you put a sticker over

607
00:30:25,840 --> 00:30:28,400
Speaker 1: a page and I can't read what it says right there, right,

608
00:30:28,480 --> 00:30:32,080
Speaker 1: So if that's an epigenetic change, and that's on your DNA,

609
00:30:32,720 --> 00:30:36,960
Speaker 1: I'm asking if your mom grew up in a place,

610
00:30:37,040 --> 00:30:40,800
Speaker 1: if she had low socioeconomic status and she was exposed

611
00:30:40,840 --> 00:30:42,240
Speaker 1: to a lot of Pollutionis she grew up in a

612
00:30:42,240 --> 00:30:44,200
Speaker 1: place where she didn't have central heat and so they

613
00:30:44,360 --> 00:30:48,200
Speaker 1: ran kerosene heaters or they had fireplaces burning biomass like

614
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 1: Caven said, and she had early exposure if she's accumulating

615
00:30:51,280 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: stickers and locks on that book, do you inherit those

616
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:59,880
Speaker 1: stickers in locks? Okay, so that's what I'm asking Cavino.

617
00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:00,640
Speaker 2: Air pollution.

618
00:31:00,720 --> 00:31:03,440
Speaker 1: Now, we know some of these things conditionally around other

619
00:31:03,640 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: types of exposure. We know some of this stuff maybe

620
00:31:06,360 --> 00:31:10,320
Speaker 1: even with like chemical exposure, but I guess air pollution

621
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: is in some ways chemical exposure. Everything's chemicals.

622
00:31:13,720 --> 00:31:16,040
Speaker 4: Air pollution is absolutely a chemical exposure.

623
00:31:16,160 --> 00:31:18,960
Speaker 2: So is it clear that it is inherited?

624
00:31:19,720 --> 00:31:20,440
Speaker 4: I think there is.

625
00:31:21,040 --> 00:31:25,560
Speaker 3: Absolutely there is generational inheritance of DNA methylation patterns of there.

626
00:31:26,120 --> 00:31:30,880
Speaker 3: Now the mechanisms by which that happens are still unknown,

627
00:31:31,040 --> 00:31:34,920
Speaker 3: but absolutely we have seen in the literature that the

628
00:31:34,960 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 3: methylation of the parent impacts the potential health and methylation

629
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 3: status of the child. There's a famous sort of a

630
00:31:44,400 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 3: Goody mouse model that's sort of shown that where you

631
00:31:46,840 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 3: can have different foods that are rich in methylation, and

632
00:31:50,360 --> 00:31:52,320
Speaker 3: so if you eat these, you'll have just higher levels

633
00:31:52,320 --> 00:31:53,280
Speaker 3: of DNA methylations.

634
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:56,120
Speaker 4: There's more methylation in your body.

635
00:31:55,880 --> 00:31:58,320
Speaker 3: For you to have access to, and based on the

636
00:31:58,360 --> 00:32:02,240
Speaker 3: foods that the mother eat, the children turn out completely

637
00:32:02,280 --> 00:32:07,160
Speaker 3: differently genetically identical mice, but completely driven by their Methalaysia

638
00:32:07,200 --> 00:32:10,680
Speaker 3: status within there and so as a referred to the

639
00:32:10,800 --> 00:32:14,640
Speaker 3: Dutch famine studyes, which you studied die in the nineteen

640
00:32:14,720 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 3: forty nineteen forty five sort of, or that's when the

641
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,520
Speaker 3: people that were part of the study were alive just

642
00:32:21,560 --> 00:32:23,920
Speaker 3: of the World War two, and you have the severe

643
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:27,000
Speaker 3: famine that happens, and they're what's interesting is that you

644
00:32:27,000 --> 00:32:29,760
Speaker 3: you have the severe famine, you have the offspring of there,

645
00:32:29,840 --> 00:32:33,520
Speaker 3: and then you have their grandchildren, and their grandchildren tended

646
00:32:33,560 --> 00:32:36,640
Speaker 3: to have very different health effects as compared to the parents,

647
00:32:36,840 --> 00:32:38,720
Speaker 3: and it was thought to be this type of epigenetic

648
00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:44,400
Speaker 3: inheritance that the grandparents epigenomes were impacted by this famine

649
00:32:44,440 --> 00:32:46,760
Speaker 3: in such a way that you saw increased risks of

650
00:32:46,800 --> 00:32:49,760
Speaker 3: chronic diseases in the next generation and then especially in

651
00:32:50,160 --> 00:32:54,400
Speaker 3: the grandchildren that were born too. Yeah, so the grandchildren, actually,

652
00:32:54,800 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 3: you know, some later studies had even stronger effects than

653
00:32:58,040 --> 00:33:01,880
Speaker 3: you know, the parents had in some cases. So you know,

654
00:33:01,920 --> 00:33:04,320
Speaker 3: it's one of those things where we're still trying to

655
00:33:04,360 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 3: work out exactly how that information gets transmitted across generations.

656
00:33:09,160 --> 00:33:11,920
Speaker 3: Is it just in the egg and the sperm, is

657
00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 3: it something else? So you understand that methylation gets overwritten

658
00:33:15,360 --> 00:33:18,239
Speaker 3: during the developmental process, but there's clearly some signatures that

659
00:33:18,280 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 3: remain within there. And for me, what I more think about,

660
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:26,840
Speaker 3: even more than sort of the transgenerational inheritance of epigenetics,

661
00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:30,760
Speaker 3: is just the early life exposures that happen, because your

662
00:33:30,800 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 3: early life is the same from a exposure standpoint, It's

663
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:36,720
Speaker 3: just the same life that your parents are living. So

664
00:33:36,960 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 3: you don't even really have to look for the transgenerationalness

665
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,600
Speaker 3: of it. Just look at what life your parents are living.

666
00:33:41,600 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 3: What are they exposed to when they're in their you know,

667
00:33:43,720 --> 00:33:46,680
Speaker 3: twenties and thirties and they're raising the young child, and

668
00:33:46,720 --> 00:33:48,760
Speaker 3: you think about, you know, the young child being much

669
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:52,520
Speaker 3: more vulnerable just doing to be much smaller. The grams

670
00:33:52,520 --> 00:33:55,040
Speaker 3: per kilogram of exposure is a lot less when you

671
00:33:55,080 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 3: are a few kilograms, you know, heavy versus when you're

672
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:01,480
Speaker 3: an adult. Apologize, I don't know what children's sizes.

673
00:34:01,200 --> 00:34:04,160
Speaker 2: Are, and that's appropriate not involved.

674
00:34:05,800 --> 00:34:09,480
Speaker 3: So yeah, so you know, those early life exposures really matter.

675
00:34:09,520 --> 00:34:12,720
Speaker 3: And there's this entire field, you know, the developmental origins

676
00:34:12,760 --> 00:34:13,320
Speaker 3: of health.

677
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:15,799
Speaker 4: And disease do had and sort of the acronym they use.

678
00:34:15,760 --> 00:34:18,920
Speaker 3: For it where they're seeing now that going from the

679
00:34:19,120 --> 00:34:22,080
Speaker 3: end utero framework all the way through early life, you

680
00:34:22,080 --> 00:34:26,320
Speaker 3: can see how exposures experience during they are predisposed individual

681
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:30,440
Speaker 3: to developing chronic diseases later on in life, including obesity

682
00:34:30,440 --> 00:34:35,000
Speaker 3: and adolescence, metabolic disease and early adulthood, and even cardiovascua

683
00:34:35,040 --> 00:34:36,760
Speaker 3: diseases later on in life.

684
00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,640
Speaker 1: Then wow, this is just making me think about our

685
00:34:39,680 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 1: current state, where we're looking at people losing access to benefits,

686
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:45,719
Speaker 1: we're looking at a terrible health care system, we're looking

687
00:34:45,719 --> 00:34:50,000
Speaker 1: at maternal care deserts during the most like important developmental time.

688
00:34:50,080 --> 00:34:51,719
Speaker 1: Like I think we've talked about some of this on

689
00:34:51,760 --> 00:34:54,719
Speaker 1: our show before in different labs, but it's just when

690
00:34:54,719 --> 00:34:57,840
Speaker 1: we started stacking those facts up, it's sickning, you know.

691
00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,520
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a accumulation.

692
00:35:00,560 --> 00:35:03,719
Speaker 3: And that's what we're starting to appreciate now is the

693
00:35:03,800 --> 00:35:07,839
Speaker 3: cumulative nature of the exposures and how they stack up

694
00:35:08,120 --> 00:35:11,200
Speaker 3: over time, and how they begin so early on in life,

695
00:35:11,480 --> 00:35:13,840
Speaker 3: and why it's important to target those things early on

696
00:35:13,920 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 3: in life so that you're giving everybody an equal chance

697
00:35:18,200 --> 00:35:21,160
Speaker 3: to live a full, happy, healthy life. And that's really

698
00:35:21,160 --> 00:35:24,120
Speaker 3: the greatest disparity that we're trying to address. Where we

699
00:35:24,120 --> 00:35:28,000
Speaker 3: talk about addressing environmental health disparities, is that simply because

700
00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:30,080
Speaker 3: of where you live, because of your zip code, the

701
00:35:30,200 --> 00:35:32,000
Speaker 3: zip code you were born into, the zip code your

702
00:35:32,080 --> 00:35:36,360
Speaker 3: parents are born into, the exposures they received, some people

703
00:35:36,440 --> 00:35:40,320
Speaker 3: have a better chance of having a long healthy life

704
00:35:40,320 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 3: than other people do from an early age. And that's

705
00:35:43,200 --> 00:35:46,160
Speaker 3: a fundamental societal disparity that I think if you want

706
00:35:46,160 --> 00:35:48,279
Speaker 3: to call yourself a good society, you have to be

707
00:35:48,600 --> 00:35:51,640
Speaker 3: at least willing to address and address with the full

708
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:53,520
Speaker 3: weight of everything in your society.

709
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:55,360
Speaker 4: And it is a full societal problem.

710
00:35:55,760 --> 00:35:58,960
Speaker 3: We've talked about transportation in here, We've talked about national

711
00:35:59,000 --> 00:36:01,360
Speaker 3: policies and the vision policies for it.

712
00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:02,319
Speaker 4: It takes all of.

713
00:36:02,200 --> 00:36:05,160
Speaker 3: That working together to really address these big problems and

714
00:36:05,160 --> 00:36:09,640
Speaker 3: to continually improve our environment because these changes are not

715
00:36:10,040 --> 00:36:12,480
Speaker 3: always guaranteed to be better. Like it is certainly possible

716
00:36:12,520 --> 00:36:14,920
Speaker 3: to regress in our environmental conditions.

717
00:36:14,960 --> 00:36:16,719
Speaker 4: And you know, we've seen.

718
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:19,120
Speaker 3: Some of that in some particular communities that have been

719
00:36:19,160 --> 00:36:23,240
Speaker 3: impacted by industry moving in, be it data centers, other things.

720
00:36:23,320 --> 00:36:26,040
Speaker 3: You know, we've seen it in the past forty years

721
00:36:26,120 --> 00:36:28,200
Speaker 3: or so with the p FoST story and that industrial

722
00:36:28,280 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 3: chemical you know that was never present before now being produced,

723
00:36:33,120 --> 00:36:35,960
Speaker 3: getting into our waterways, and now being a significant health

724
00:36:36,000 --> 00:36:39,840
Speaker 3: concern for billions of people. There's almost nobody on this

725
00:36:39,920 --> 00:36:43,360
Speaker 3: planet that has not been exposed to these forever chemicals

726
00:36:43,600 --> 00:36:46,120
Speaker 3: in one way or another. And we've got to figure out, okay,

727
00:36:46,120 --> 00:36:47,719
Speaker 3: well what do we do with a society about this?

728
00:36:47,760 --> 00:36:49,640
Speaker 4: How do we address this? And it's no.

729
00:36:49,640 --> 00:36:52,200
Speaker 3: One, you know, places you can go to say, Okay,

730
00:36:52,440 --> 00:36:54,680
Speaker 3: this is going to be you know, the silver bullet,

731
00:36:54,719 --> 00:36:58,200
Speaker 3: this is going to be the magic bill that fixes everything.

732
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,680
Speaker 3: It takes a whole of government, whole society approach to

733
00:37:01,719 --> 00:37:03,600
Speaker 3: address these, but it's what's needed.

734
00:37:04,440 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: If you did have a magic wand and you could

735
00:37:07,960 --> 00:37:12,439
Speaker 1: make everything perfect, to change one thing that you feel

736
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,040
Speaker 1: like would have a massive impact on how we approach

737
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: air pollution and how it affects us as a population.

738
00:37:19,880 --> 00:37:21,920
Speaker 2: What would you prioritize.

739
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:23,440
Speaker 4: Oh, that's a great question.

740
00:37:23,680 --> 00:37:26,920
Speaker 3: A magic wand to fix how we approach air pollution

741
00:37:27,280 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 3: and what the priority should be. It's difficult because there

742
00:37:30,840 --> 00:37:34,840
Speaker 3: are so many different sources of air pollution, and some

743
00:37:34,880 --> 00:37:38,440
Speaker 3: of them are natural. But what I would do is

744
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 3: I would mandate that as part of the healthcare system,

745
00:37:42,200 --> 00:37:47,640
Speaker 3: and environmental assessment be done, be available to everybody, maybe

746
00:37:47,640 --> 00:37:50,040
Speaker 3: even mandated for early in life. And we do this

747
00:37:50,120 --> 00:37:52,239
Speaker 3: a little bit with light testing in there. You know,

748
00:37:52,280 --> 00:37:54,120
Speaker 3: if you come in and there's you know, early signs

749
00:37:54,120 --> 00:37:56,640
Speaker 3: of high lead exposure, they can do, you know, in

750
00:37:56,719 --> 00:37:59,560
Speaker 3: home assessment, look at the dust around the home, is

751
00:37:59,560 --> 00:38:02,720
Speaker 3: there a lead paint somewhere, because we understand how critical

752
00:38:02,760 --> 00:38:06,600
Speaker 3: that is for early childhood mental development, not being exposed

753
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:09,000
Speaker 3: the high concentrations of lead. But you know, what we

754
00:38:09,040 --> 00:38:11,680
Speaker 3: don't do is to provide that same service throughout the

755
00:38:11,800 --> 00:38:15,080
Speaker 3: entire lifespan. Lead's a problem for exposures even if you're

756
00:38:15,080 --> 00:38:18,440
Speaker 3: an adult, or less so than if you're a child,

757
00:38:18,480 --> 00:38:21,319
Speaker 3: but still there. So I think if we had a

758
00:38:21,360 --> 00:38:26,319
Speaker 3: system nationwide that provided free environmental assessments, anybody could do

759
00:38:26,400 --> 00:38:30,560
Speaker 3: them broad scaled. You can keep the information private, share

760
00:38:30,600 --> 00:38:33,160
Speaker 3: it with your doctors so that they can understand, Okay,

761
00:38:33,160 --> 00:38:36,120
Speaker 3: here's what you're being exposed to. And do this longitudinally

762
00:38:36,120 --> 00:38:39,000
Speaker 3: because the environment changes every year. You can get an

763
00:38:39,040 --> 00:38:42,040
Speaker 3: updated assessment. I look at the water quality, the air quality,

764
00:38:42,320 --> 00:38:44,600
Speaker 3: the soil quality, paints.

765
00:38:44,239 --> 00:38:45,360
Speaker 4: And dusts and other things.

766
00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:48,520
Speaker 3: I think if we had that information and then aggregated

767
00:38:48,520 --> 00:38:50,799
Speaker 3: it so you can understand at the community level what

768
00:38:50,840 --> 00:38:53,240
Speaker 3: communities are being exposed to, where are we seeing different

769
00:38:53,239 --> 00:38:56,520
Speaker 3: problems scrap up that will completely change the landscape, and

770
00:38:56,560 --> 00:39:00,000
Speaker 3: what enable us to do some really innovative environmental studies

771
00:39:00,040 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 3: I could really start to address fundamental causes of disease.

772
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:05,320
Speaker 2: Amazing.

773
00:39:05,719 --> 00:39:07,239
Speaker 1: Is there anything we didn't ask you that you feel

774
00:39:07,280 --> 00:39:08,520
Speaker 1: like it's important that you want to say?

775
00:39:08,800 --> 00:39:11,360
Speaker 3: I would just say that you know, it's really a

776
00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:14,759
Speaker 3: transformative time for environmental health. I think the tools and

777
00:39:14,880 --> 00:39:18,640
Speaker 3: technologies you know that we're using are really going to

778
00:39:18,640 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 3: push you on the look forward. Environment health up until

779
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:23,879
Speaker 3: now has been a cleaning problem. How do we clean

780
00:39:23,960 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 3: the air, how do we clean the water? How do

781
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,800
Speaker 3: we clean the soil? And that absolutely is a bedrock

782
00:39:30,320 --> 00:39:32,640
Speaker 3: foundation of the environmental health because the best way to

783
00:39:32,640 --> 00:39:36,120
Speaker 3: prevent environmental exposures or it's just not to have the

784
00:39:36,160 --> 00:39:40,040
Speaker 3: average environment. But that's an impossible task everywhere. And so

785
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:44,400
Speaker 3: the ability to personalize and there's absolutely going to be

786
00:39:44,440 --> 00:39:46,799
Speaker 3: a role for AI in this for it, and there's

787
00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:48,880
Speaker 3: some new insights that we're able to gain from there

788
00:39:49,280 --> 00:39:51,360
Speaker 3: and some new tools that we're able to make available

789
00:39:51,400 --> 00:39:54,239
Speaker 3: to the individual where if you don't have access, you

790
00:39:54,280 --> 00:39:57,000
Speaker 3: can't get to a doctor, and you've got this complex

791
00:39:57,080 --> 00:39:58,719
Speaker 3: environmental assessment sitting in front of you.

792
00:39:59,160 --> 00:40:01,000
Speaker 4: Okay, well what can you do and the.

793
00:40:01,000 --> 00:40:04,160
Speaker 3: Ability to you know, have a AI based tool that's

794
00:40:04,200 --> 00:40:08,480
Speaker 3: fed in validated scientific the grounded information to say, oh,

795
00:40:08,840 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 3: we noticed that this is high.

796
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 4: This is higher than you know, the national average.

797
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:17,239
Speaker 3: This is connected to that high cholesterol reading that you

798
00:40:17,320 --> 00:40:19,120
Speaker 3: got from your doctor in there.

799
00:40:19,360 --> 00:40:20,960
Speaker 4: Here's what some of the recommendations are.

800
00:40:21,000 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 3: Those types of tools are really being developed, and I

801
00:40:23,600 --> 00:40:26,439
Speaker 3: think people should be aware of them. I think people

802
00:40:26,440 --> 00:40:29,759
Speaker 3: should be talking with their doctors and their healthcare providers

803
00:40:30,120 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 3: about getting these things, maybe seeing if an air pusha

804
00:40:34,080 --> 00:40:36,120
Speaker 3: monitor might be FSA eligible.

805
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:38,640
Speaker 4: Some of these things you know might be, and if they're.

806
00:40:38,520 --> 00:40:41,440
Speaker 3: Not, push for them to be, because there absolutely are

807
00:40:41,480 --> 00:40:42,320
Speaker 3: a part of your health.

808
00:40:46,719 --> 00:40:49,759
Speaker 1: I think this has revealed so many things to me.

809
00:40:49,880 --> 00:40:54,439
Speaker 1: Tt same one. It's the inequalities across the board where

810
00:40:54,440 --> 00:40:56,800
Speaker 1: it's just like people who live in certain zip codes

811
00:40:57,040 --> 00:41:00,040
Speaker 1: are exposed to different things but don't have access to

812
00:41:00,600 --> 00:41:06,319
Speaker 1: interventions to help improve their environment, and so that dictates

813
00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,759
Speaker 1: your quality of life. And what we should want as

814
00:41:09,800 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 1: global citizens is for everyone to have equal opportunity to

815
00:41:14,320 --> 00:41:17,319
Speaker 1: a high quality life. Yeah, and so what Cavin has

816
00:41:17,400 --> 00:41:20,600
Speaker 1: told us throughout this lab is that it's way more

817
00:41:20,640 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: complex than we're thinking about. Even inside of our house

818
00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:26,960
Speaker 1: when we're cooking, being aware and just knowing that there

819
00:41:27,000 --> 00:41:31,120
Speaker 1: are things floating around you is more than half the battle.

820
00:41:31,520 --> 00:41:33,680
Speaker 1: Once you are aware, you can do something about it.

821
00:41:33,719 --> 00:41:36,560
Speaker 1: But we I mean, we've seen how information is buried

822
00:41:36,920 --> 00:41:40,160
Speaker 1: or made difficult to obtain, and so I'm really excited

823
00:41:40,160 --> 00:41:42,840
Speaker 1: about some of the technology, but hoping that the technology

824
00:41:42,840 --> 00:41:45,439
Speaker 1: doesn't follow the systems we've always seen, which is once

825
00:41:45,480 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 1: again another disparity and who has access to it, And

826
00:41:48,719 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: so we'll have to keep our eye on this, like

827
00:41:50,560 --> 00:41:54,840
Speaker 1: so many other things. Turn your eyeballs outward and everywhere. Okay,

828
00:41:54,960 --> 00:41:56,080
Speaker 1: flip your eyelids back.

829
00:41:56,239 --> 00:42:00,000
Speaker 2: Okay did you do that as a kid? Flip your eyelids?

830
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:00,239
Speaker 1: Yes?

831
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:01,319
Speaker 2: It wasn't right. I was bad.

832
00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:04,240
Speaker 1: Ew I could never do it. I was always so scared.

833
00:42:04,280 --> 00:42:05,600
Speaker 1: I was like, what if they get done?

834
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,360
Speaker 2: Oh no? But yeah, knowing these things is empowerment.

835
00:42:09,520 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: So you can say, I know that I live in

836
00:42:11,560 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 1: a high pollution area, or area with bad air quality,

837
00:42:14,120 --> 00:42:16,480
Speaker 1: and you can take that information to your doctor and say,

838
00:42:16,480 --> 00:42:18,640
Speaker 1: how is this affecting my health and what steps do

839
00:42:18,680 --> 00:42:21,759
Speaker 1: I need to take to improve my overall health? So

840
00:42:21,760 --> 00:42:24,840
Speaker 1: so key, so thank you Kathan for dropping that knowledge

841
00:42:24,840 --> 00:42:28,239
Speaker 1: on us today. Stay tuned, next episode, next week, same time,

842
00:42:28,320 --> 00:42:38,799
Speaker 1: same place. You can find us on X and Instagram

843
00:42:38,840 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 1: at Dope Labs podcast.

844
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:44,440
Speaker 2: Tt is on X and Instagram at dr Underscore t Sho,

845
00:42:44,680 --> 00:42:47,959
Speaker 2: and you can find Zakiya at Z said So. Dope

846
00:42:48,040 --> 00:42:49,920
Speaker 2: Labs is a production of Lemonada Media.

847
00:42:50,080 --> 00:42:53,680
Speaker 1: Our supervising producer is Keegan Zimma and our producer is

848
00:42:53,880 --> 00:42:57,840
Speaker 1: Issara A SEVENZ. Dope Labs is sound designed, edited and

849
00:42:58,000 --> 00:43:02,400
Speaker 1: mixed by James Farber. Leimonada Media's vice President of Partnerships

850
00:43:02,400 --> 00:43:06,920
Speaker 1: and Production is Jackie Danziger. Executive producer from iHeart podcast

851
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:08,040
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852
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:10,120
Speaker 2: Marketing lead is Alison Canter.

853
00:43:10,840 --> 00:43:16,120
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854
00:43:16,239 --> 00:43:20,920
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855
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,560
Speaker 1: produced by us T T Show Dia and Zakiah Wattley.