WEBVTT - Air Aware: Air Quality & Health - Lab 122 0:00:00.720 --> 0:00:02.960 Is the top of the New Year, twenty twenty six. 0:00:03.240 --> 0:00:08.920 New Year, Same me, same Shenanigans, same me, Same Dope Labs, 0:00:08.960 --> 0:00:12.080 same Zekiah, same Tt. Because hey, hey, we're doing all 0:00:12.119 --> 0:00:14.840 we can. We don't need to change change the environment, 0:00:14.880 --> 0:00:20.800 don't change me. Right, it's winter time, it's cold, people 0:00:20.840 --> 0:00:21.480 are traveling. 0:00:21.520 --> 0:00:23.720 Did you travel over the holidays? 0:00:23.880 --> 0:00:26.680 No, I'll travel right before the holidays. And I said, 0:00:27.040 --> 0:00:29.920 it's looking wild out here. Yes, I was traveling during 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:35.880 the holidays and it was very wild. People were coffin, sneezing. 0:00:35.960 --> 0:00:40.880 It's a lot of shared air in these airports and cars, 0:00:41.120 --> 0:00:44.360 houses and houses. Everybody's gathering clothes. 0:00:44.360 --> 0:00:48.120 Hey house, no more h words. 0:00:49.479 --> 0:00:55.880 I'm TT and I'm Zakiyah And this is Dope Labs. 0:00:57.160 --> 0:01:00.200 Welcome to Dope Labs, a weekly podcast that mixes our 0:01:00.240 --> 0:01:03.400 core science with pop culture and a healthy dose of friendship. 0:01:07.880 --> 0:01:09.200 Well, I'll speak for myself. 0:01:09.400 --> 0:01:12.160 When I'm thinking about the air and travel and being 0:01:12.200 --> 0:01:15.360 in close proximity with people, I'm always just thinking about viruses. 0:01:15.440 --> 0:01:18.200 But the air has other things in it too, And 0:01:18.400 --> 0:01:21.000 people in Georgia right now are struggling with the flu. 0:01:21.240 --> 0:01:23.960 I'm like, hey, put those masks in here, Okay, it's 0:01:23.959 --> 0:01:27.000 taking a lot of people out for real. And just 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:29.920 like with viruses, all the other things in the air, 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:35.720 like pollution, smoke, everything from cars, factories, wildfires, all of 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:39.000 that stuff is also coming into our bodies with the 0:01:39.080 --> 0:01:41.440 viruses and also have an impact. 0:01:41.440 --> 0:01:44.040 We're taking all of that in. That's what this episode 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:44.440 is about. 0:01:44.560 --> 0:01:46.720 We want to talk to somebody who studies this full 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:49.280 time because I feel like when wildfires ramp up, I 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.840 remember what's in the air. Then when flu season is 0:01:52.880 --> 0:01:54.880 at its peak, I remember that. But how do we 0:01:54.960 --> 0:01:57.640 take all of these things in? So we're talking to 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:00.600 somebody who looks at how the environment, specifically the air 0:02:00.720 --> 0:02:03.840 and air pollution gets into our bodies, shapes our health 0:02:04.160 --> 0:02:05.840 and how it affects us in ways that we don't 0:02:05.840 --> 0:02:10.600 even think about. I think we should start with what 0:02:10.639 --> 0:02:13.600 we know, which is what you've already said. TT winner 0:02:13.600 --> 0:02:17.600 means more sickness. We know people reading to heat, ventilation 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:21.519 is worse, and we know mass work, but we're usually 0:02:21.520 --> 0:02:23.919 thinking about well, for me, I'm thinking about the biological 0:02:23.919 --> 0:02:26.360 threats and what masks protect us from. And we know 0:02:26.560 --> 0:02:29.320 that those air quality alerts pop up on our phones 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:33.359 from time to time, talking about the ozone talking about wildfire, 0:02:33.400 --> 0:02:37.160 smoke and smog, and some days the air outside is 0:02:37.320 --> 0:02:41.040 just literally not safe to breathe. And so as someone 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:44.360 with asthma and allergies, I think about that, and I 0:02:44.400 --> 0:02:46.600 also think about the folks who have that and also 0:02:46.800 --> 0:02:51.960 heart issues and compromised immune systems, Like how are they 0:02:52.080 --> 0:02:56.560 moving through life with all of these other particles floating 0:02:56.600 --> 0:02:57.160 through the air. 0:02:57.480 --> 0:02:59.960 Is this just confined to the lung? 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.679 Is what I think about, right, And so I think 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.960 we have a lot of questions to uncover. Yes, I 0:03:07.040 --> 0:03:10.079 have a ton like can you have a bad air day? 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.600 And can you quickly recover? Are you down right? 0:03:13.680 --> 0:03:16.320 Because yes, when I have a bad hair day, I'm 0:03:16.360 --> 0:03:19.400 not going anywhere. No, it's inside, It's inside. 0:03:19.760 --> 0:03:22.119 Okay, let's jump into the dissection. 0:03:26.120 --> 0:03:28.800 He's a good friend of ours. We have been friends 0:03:29.160 --> 0:03:32.400 since grad school. We are very happy to have him here. 0:03:32.680 --> 0:03:33.480 Introduce yourself. 0:03:33.560 --> 0:03:37.360 Finance Cavin Ward cavinists. I'm currently the director of Environmental 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:39.800 Science for the Price Slab at the Buck Institute for 0:03:39.840 --> 0:03:43.160 Research on Aging. I'm also an adjunct faculty member for 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:46.160 Duke University and the University of North Carolina. Chapel Hill, 0:03:46.200 --> 0:03:48.600 Go Blue devils don't test my allegiance. 0:03:49.280 --> 0:03:50.040 Formerly, I was. 0:03:50.000 --> 0:03:53.520 A senior computational biologist for the US Environmental Protection Agency. 0:03:53.960 --> 0:03:56.440 Across all these roles, my passion is really trying to 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:01.480 utilize modern data resources, modern data tools, techniques to improve 0:04:01.640 --> 0:04:06.320 personalized environmental health and reduce health disparities for all communities. 0:04:07.000 --> 0:04:09.520 The only pollution I know is the air quality index 0:04:09.600 --> 0:04:12.480 that the weather app tells me from Apple. But I 0:04:12.600 --> 0:04:15.840 know there's so much more because you've told it to 0:04:15.960 --> 0:04:18.640 us over the years. How should we even be thinking 0:04:18.640 --> 0:04:19.560 about air pollution? 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:22.640 Well, I say the first thing to do is just 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:24.640 to start thinking about it. You know, I think one 0:04:24.680 --> 0:04:26.560 of the benefits we have here in the US is 0:04:26.600 --> 0:04:29.440 that we have generally pretty good air quality. Well, we 0:04:29.440 --> 0:04:31.240 don't think about the fact that, like, yeah, just because 0:04:31.279 --> 0:04:34.320 the skies are clear doesn't necessarily mean that, you know, 0:04:34.720 --> 0:04:39.640 those daily variations in air quality aren't impacting health for individuals. 0:04:39.640 --> 0:04:41.760 And then you have the days where the air isn't clear, 0:04:41.800 --> 0:04:43.480 you know, you have the smoke events that come down. 0:04:43.920 --> 0:04:46.240 You know, we have the big Canadian wildfires where the 0:04:46.240 --> 0:04:49.040 skies of New York or Orange for days, and that's 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:51.440 when people get reminded of it when your eyes are burning, 0:04:51.480 --> 0:04:53.440 you're coughing, and people are like, man, like, what's going on. 0:04:53.600 --> 0:04:55.840 And it's important that people think about their personal activities 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.239 and their personal health. But what people don't think about 0:04:58.240 --> 0:05:00.279 it is like, hey, I'm in the winter, you know, 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:02.640 let me start up that fireplace. You know, all of 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:04.760 a sudden the house gets a little smoky. Maybe I 0:05:04.800 --> 0:05:07.360 didn't clean that chimney. Those sorts of things, and so 0:05:07.400 --> 0:05:11.200 those types of things also contribute to what you breathe 0:05:11.200 --> 0:05:13.559 in and how what you breathe in impacts your health. 0:05:13.760 --> 0:05:17.880 So when you want to light that fireplace, or cooking 0:05:17.960 --> 0:05:21.520 being one of the big contributors to indoor air pollution, 0:05:22.120 --> 0:05:23.360 you know, frying foods. 0:05:23.440 --> 0:05:24.760 Those oils we. 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.039 Think about, you know, particulates as like these little hard 0:05:28.040 --> 0:05:30.880 particles like sand, but it's really a lot more complex 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:33.320 to that. A lot of them were composed of organics 0:05:33.320 --> 0:05:37.120 set of solidified in the atmosphere, and so the actual 0:05:37.200 --> 0:05:39.839 organics are a part of will be considered be particulate 0:05:39.920 --> 0:05:42.919 air pollution. And unfortunately, you know, the lungs were not 0:05:43.040 --> 0:05:44.960 designed to be able to handle all of that. They 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:48.080 were not designed to breathe in you know, oils aerosols, 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:51.840 organic carbons, but things like that, and so the body reacts, 0:05:52.160 --> 0:05:55.200 the lungs reacts, inflammation goes up, and you start to 0:05:55.200 --> 0:05:57.880 get a whole host of you know, potential health issues. 0:05:57.960 --> 0:06:00.360 But the first step is just the awareness that it's 0:06:00.640 --> 0:06:02.559 always there, even when the skies are clear. 0:06:02.920 --> 0:06:06.160 You said words like airsols and particulates. Can we talk 0:06:06.200 --> 0:06:10.800 about scale. I'm a material scientist and I specialize in nanomterials, 0:06:10.880 --> 0:06:14.119 so I can understand, I appreciate how small these things are, 0:06:14.279 --> 0:06:18.320 but I don't know if people really understand how small 0:06:18.720 --> 0:06:22.800 some of these particulates can get and when it becomes 0:06:22.839 --> 0:06:25.240 like something that interferes with your respiratory system. 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:29.159 So we cost like particulates by size typically, so we 0:06:29.240 --> 0:06:32.080 talk about PM ten that's particular matter of the sets 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:34.839 and ten micrometers in diameter. And to give you a 0:06:35.040 --> 0:06:37.160 sense of what that scale is, a human hair is 0:06:37.200 --> 0:06:40.640 about forty micrometers in diameter cross there, so you can 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:44.200 get about four PM ten particles across withid of a 0:06:44.320 --> 0:06:48.080 human hair. So you're already talking pretty smart for it 0:06:48.240 --> 0:06:53.159 tiny particles, but thanks to evolution, your body's evolved a 0:06:53.200 --> 0:06:56.240 lot of defenses. So PM ten particles actually a lot 0:06:56.240 --> 0:07:00.279 of those are captured by your upper airway defenses. And 0:07:00.320 --> 0:07:02.320 so we go down to the finer particles, the things 0:07:02.320 --> 0:07:04.840 that are we call, you know, the PM two point 0:07:04.839 --> 0:07:07.240 five the fine particular matter. And now you're getting into 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.800 the particular matter that can actually penetrate down to there. 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:12.920 And so two point five micrometers and diameter. Okay, well, 0:07:12.920 --> 0:07:15.920 now you're talking about four of those fitting across every 0:07:15.960 --> 0:07:18.280 PM ten particle as out there. And so now you're 0:07:18.320 --> 0:07:21.200 talking about, you know, particles that are much much smaller 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:23.160 than the width of a human hair. And then you 0:07:23.200 --> 0:07:25.200 go down a step further and you get to the 0:07:25.280 --> 0:07:28.280 ultra fine particulates PM point one PM one. 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:30.800 We talk about one micrometer, one tenth of a. 0:07:30.760 --> 0:07:33.520 Micrometer and diameter, and those are the particles that are 0:07:33.520 --> 0:07:35.440 small enough not only to get into your lungs, but 0:07:35.480 --> 0:07:38.240 actually to diffuse out of your lungs to become part 0:07:38.320 --> 0:07:40.120 of what's circulating through your body. 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:43.360 And so what falls into that category, yeah, you want 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:43.560 to know. 0:07:43.720 --> 0:07:46.440 So those are we called, you know, the ultra fine particulates. 0:07:46.720 --> 0:07:49.880 Those are the smallest of the small particles, or you 0:07:49.920 --> 0:07:52.160 know a lot of them are barely held together enough 0:07:52.160 --> 0:07:54.520 to be solid, but they are you know, together enough 0:07:54.560 --> 0:07:57.040 to be able to diffuse out of the lungs and 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:59.560 get into the bloodstream. And you know, there are studies 0:07:59.600 --> 0:08:02.520 whether generate gold particles of these. So they're inert, but 0:08:02.520 --> 0:08:05.160 they're easily tracked and they're easily to be collected afterwards. 0:08:05.440 --> 0:08:08.320 And you can have you know, animal models breathe us 0:08:08.320 --> 0:08:10.600 in and you'll find them in the lungs, you'll find 0:08:10.600 --> 0:08:12.720 them in the kidneys, you'll find them in the. 0:08:12.720 --> 0:08:14.400 Tails, you know of these animals. 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:16.600 And so it really shows how what you breathe in 0:08:16.720 --> 0:08:19.840 becomes part of what's circulating all the way throughout you. 0:08:20.200 --> 0:08:22.760 And it's all these factors together the you know, what 0:08:22.800 --> 0:08:25.040 it does to your lungs, the way your lungs react, 0:08:25.280 --> 0:08:27.440 how it diffuses out of your lungs, and then the 0:08:27.440 --> 0:08:30.960 way it impacts other organ systems. That contributes to all 0:08:31.000 --> 0:08:33.800 the health effects that we can associate with particular matter. 0:08:33.840 --> 0:08:35.679 And then you have the non particle part of it, 0:08:35.720 --> 0:08:40.080 the gases, you know, things like your ozone, your nitrogen dioxides, 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.760 which you're really heavy around car traffic, and a lot 0:08:42.760 --> 0:08:45.720 of those never leave the lungs. You know, ozone reacts 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:51.040 very well never leave, as in, they'll reach the cell 0:08:51.120 --> 0:08:54.680 lining and they'll react so quickly that they'll essentially split 0:08:54.720 --> 0:08:58.480 apart some lipid membranes, and the gas itself will be gone, 0:08:58.800 --> 0:09:01.480 but the effects of it linger far, far longer than that. 0:09:02.200 --> 0:09:04.320 So hold your breath in traffic. 0:09:04.000 --> 0:09:06.480 Hold your I want to say, hold your breath in traffic. 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:10.440 You know, breathe, breathe in traffic. 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:13.600 But it does become you know thought, if you're ever 0:09:13.800 --> 0:09:15.640 you know, next to a busy road, you hear a 0:09:15.720 --> 0:09:18.720 big truck pass by, you know, people cough and all that, 0:09:18.720 --> 0:09:21.760 that reaction is immediate to that air pollution that you're 0:09:21.760 --> 0:09:24.800 breathing in. And even when the big truck's not passing by, 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:27.200 every time a car passes by, there's gonna be an 0:09:27.280 --> 0:09:30.880 uptick in gaseous and exhaust and all that. And so 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:33.000 think about that in the concept of your daily life. 0:09:33.320 --> 0:09:35.360 Do you run along next to roads? You know, how 0:09:35.400 --> 0:09:37.719 do you feel when you run next to roads versus running. 0:09:37.440 --> 0:09:37.920 In a park? 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:40.320 Do you want to think about how air pollution impacts 0:09:40.400 --> 0:09:42.640 daily behaviors. That's when you start to think about when 0:09:42.679 --> 0:09:44.319 you think about the fact that, like I said, just 0:09:44.360 --> 0:09:46.800 because the air is clear doesn't mean, it's not there. 0:10:02.000 --> 0:10:03.840 My brain is all over the place right now because 0:10:03.840 --> 0:10:05.920 there's just so many things that I just are now 0:10:05.960 --> 0:10:08.320 being brought to my awareness because you said you got 0:10:08.320 --> 0:10:10.480 to think about it, and now I'm like, okay, Now 0:10:10.480 --> 0:10:14.600 I'm hyper aware. And I don't think about inside of 0:10:14.600 --> 0:10:18.280 my house having anything in the air. I run an 0:10:18.280 --> 0:10:21.360 air purifier now, but I don't. I don't think about 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:24.600 how the things that I'm doing, like day to day, 0:10:24.640 --> 0:10:25.679 how that contributes. 0:10:25.720 --> 0:10:26.480 And one thing that. 0:10:26.480 --> 0:10:30.559 Zakia had brought up is like hair spray, our setting 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:35.840 spray for makeup, the makeup itself like that because it's 0:10:36.040 --> 0:10:39.480 settling into the finest pores and that's what I want, 0:10:39.520 --> 0:10:41.520 that's what you want to do. But it's also settling. 0:10:41.880 --> 0:10:45.080 There is a makeup the setting spray tete, I know, 0:10:45.120 --> 0:10:47.880 you know it. It's pink. I have to hold my 0:10:47.880 --> 0:10:50.600 breath when I use that. It takes the air out 0:10:50.640 --> 0:10:54.440 of the room. You have to hold your breath for time. 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:57.040 But it works so well. But I know this can't. 0:10:57.200 --> 0:11:00.000 It has particles. 0:10:59.600 --> 0:10:59.800 You know. 0:11:00.280 --> 0:11:02.640 Is that aerosol tip you know that's what it is 0:11:02.679 --> 0:11:05.400 doing and is aerosolizing whatever is in the can so 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:07.839 it comes out of this fine spray of drops, which, 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.400 as you said, is great for a nice even distribution, 0:11:10.640 --> 0:11:13.520 but your body's letting you know. They're like, hey, I 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.040 breathe this in and it's causing a reaction, so I 0:11:16.080 --> 0:11:17.080 don't want to breathe it in. 0:11:17.160 --> 0:11:19.319 Well, I have a heat protected and this smells so good, 0:11:19.320 --> 0:11:24.280 and I'd be like, and then I love the smell, 0:11:24.360 --> 0:11:28.000 and then coffee. So you're telling me damage not good? 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:29.600 Yeah, not good. 0:11:29.760 --> 0:11:32.920 And sometimes it's you know, just sensitization. You know, it 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.440 doesn't always have to lead to long term damage, but 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.080 it is something that you know, people should think about 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:40.520 and be aware of how your body responds to it, 0:11:40.520 --> 0:11:43.680 because people are going to respond slightly differently, and you know, unfortunately, 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:45.520 there's not a lot of tests we have right now 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:47.000 to be able to say, Okay, you're going to respond 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:49.760 really strongly to this type of pollutant, and you're going 0:11:49.760 --> 0:11:51.719 to strong really respond to that type of pollutant, you 0:11:51.720 --> 0:11:54.800 should stay away from this setting spray. And that's part 0:11:54.840 --> 0:11:57.120 of the research work that's going on, part of what's 0:11:57.160 --> 0:12:00.480 being called personalized environmental health. We're moving away from just 0:12:01.040 --> 0:12:03.200 general population and we'll risk where we say okay, the 0:12:03.280 --> 0:12:07.240 risk is this much for the entire US population and 0:12:07.280 --> 0:12:09.320 really drilling down to okay, well, what are your personalized 0:12:09.400 --> 0:12:13.520 risk what based on your life history, based on your genome, 0:12:13.880 --> 0:12:16.760 based on the other exposures that you've received, are you 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:20.080 likely to respond to? How are you likely to respond? 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:22.640 And hopefully once we get that information, what can you 0:12:22.720 --> 0:12:25.280 do about it? And that's really the next step in 0:12:25.440 --> 0:12:29.360 environmental health is an increased personalization that allows the individual 0:12:29.440 --> 0:12:31.640 to respond to the risks that they're experiencing. 0:12:32.280 --> 0:12:34.280 I like that something you said is like looking back 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:36.480 at what have you been exposed to? And I think 0:12:36.480 --> 0:12:40.360 to understand why what you have been exposed to previously matters, 0:12:40.400 --> 0:12:43.960 I think you have to understand what long term exposure means. 0:12:44.400 --> 0:12:46.800 Can you explain some of those correlations and why they 0:12:46.840 --> 0:12:49.199 exist and what we see as long term effects? 0:12:49.440 --> 0:12:50.600 Yeah? Absolutely so. 0:12:51.280 --> 0:12:53.760 Really you can think about as the accumulation of as 0:12:53.760 --> 0:12:56.760 you said before, damage that happens so a lot of 0:12:56.760 --> 0:12:59.560 what we think about in the air polluting context. You know, 0:12:59.600 --> 0:13:02.840 it's linked to inflammation and sort of systemic damage to 0:13:03.240 --> 0:13:06.920 basic cellular prophecies. How your body functions on a cellular 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.360 level gets disrupted by long term exposure. 0:13:09.400 --> 0:13:11.520 Almost any injury for it. 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.440 And so when you get one day of say heavy 0:13:14.440 --> 0:13:16.600 air pollution for it, you might get, you know, some 0:13:16.679 --> 0:13:19.360 watery eyes, you might have a cough, a headache. But 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:21.240 if that goes away after a couple of days, your 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:23.880 body can recover from that. But what we know, and 0:13:23.920 --> 0:13:25.680 we know this, you know for a lot of different conditions, 0:13:26.080 --> 0:13:29.160 when you get that chronic systemic inflammation, when your body 0:13:29.200 --> 0:13:32.439 is just always responding, that becomes an issue that starts 0:13:32.440 --> 0:13:34.400 to break down how your body is going to react 0:13:34.640 --> 0:13:37.520 to the next stimulus that you receive. It's almost like 0:13:37.960 --> 0:13:40.679 your body can't quite respond the way that they did 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:43.480 before if it's received the same insult for day after 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:48.360 day after day. When death by a thousand paper cuts, 0:13:48.480 --> 0:13:50.160 and when it comes to air pollution, those paper cuts 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:52.240 can be very small, so small you don't even feel 0:13:52.240 --> 0:13:56.920 them then, So that long term chronic exposure can lead 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:02.360 to increased risk of cardiovascular disease, increase risk of renal disease, 0:14:02.480 --> 0:14:05.000 increase risk of lung disease, renal de. 0:14:06.520 --> 0:14:07.720 Renal disease, your kidneys. 0:14:07.760 --> 0:14:10.600 I told you, these particles go everywhere, and so that 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:13.760 contributes to this increased risk of these chronic diseases that 0:14:13.920 --> 0:14:17.640 just continual increased inflammation that your body's receiving from these 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:20.560 long term exposures. But then there's also the aging aspect 0:14:20.560 --> 0:14:21.800 to it, and this has really come about in the 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:24.160 last few years where we've been able to track aging 0:14:24.280 --> 0:14:28.360 using these molecular biomarkers known as aging clocks. And what 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:30.840 these clocks allow us to do is to take DNA methylation, 0:14:31.320 --> 0:14:34.200 the way that certain changes are applied to your DNA 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:37.320 so that different cells can respond in different ways, and 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.160 actually use those as a way to measure how you 0:14:40.200 --> 0:14:42.840 age at a cellular level, how you age at an 0:14:42.920 --> 0:14:45.800 organ system level, and how you age as an overall person. 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:47.960 And what's been clearly shown is that people who are 0:14:48.360 --> 0:14:52.520 exposed to high levels of poor air quality, or people 0:14:52.560 --> 0:14:55.320 who are exposed to moderate air quality but for a 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:58.440 long period of time, have accelerated aging, so they might 0:14:58.480 --> 0:15:00.680 be three, four or five years older than what they 0:15:00.720 --> 0:15:03.080 should be. What we've also seen is that people who 0:15:03.120 --> 0:15:06.800 have accelerated aging are more likely to respond to future exposures, 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:10.120 which helps explain why the elderly and other individuals are 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:14.240 more sensitive to environmental exposures. So there's really this feedback 0:15:14.280 --> 0:15:17.680 loop that happens over time, where you get chronically exposed 0:15:18.040 --> 0:15:20.840 and weakens your biological system's ability to respond to the 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:23.760 next exposure. You respond ford to the next exposure, you 0:15:23.760 --> 0:15:26.520 get chronically exposed, so on and so forward. 0:15:26.560 --> 0:15:28.760 And so that's why it's important to be able to. 0:15:28.720 --> 0:15:33.000 Interrupt these cycles, both at policy levels where weset national standards, 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.400 but also at individual levels, where individuals we're able to 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:38.040 understand what am I being exposed to and how do 0:15:38.120 --> 0:15:41.600 I prevent future adverse exposures to be able to really 0:15:41.600 --> 0:15:43.120 start to improve environmental health. 0:15:43.200 --> 0:15:45.960 Now I got a question. Okay, mm hm oh, what 0:15:46.080 --> 0:15:46.640 got too many? 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.800 Because I do want to talk about DNA methilation and 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.920 those signatures, but I also want to know, because methilation 0:15:53.040 --> 0:15:56.240 is not always permanent to track aging, is there a 0:15:56.400 --> 0:15:59.600 case where you can reverse that? Like if I have 0:15:59.720 --> 0:16:02.840 five days in the city in two days outside the city, 0:16:02.880 --> 0:16:06.680 am I able to reverse my sensitivity to future insult 0:16:07.040 --> 0:16:07.640 in any way? 0:16:07.720 --> 0:16:07.840 Like? 0:16:07.920 --> 0:16:10.560 Is there any evidence of that? Because I wonder about 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:12.720 people who live in cities like TT and I visited 0:16:12.760 --> 0:16:16.920 Brussels and we barely made it and everybody else was 0:16:16.920 --> 0:16:20.440 walking around fine. Now, why is that. 0:16:20.400 --> 0:16:22.480 As good as you mentioned Brussels, because there is this 0:16:22.600 --> 0:16:25.000 idea people grow up in certain contexts and so they 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:29.240 bodies are adjusted to different levels of all types of 0:16:29.280 --> 0:16:32.520 environmental exposures, air pollution included. Now, that doesn't mean that 0:16:32.600 --> 0:16:34.840 it isn't impacting them health wise. 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:36.760 It doesn't mean that it's you know, good. 0:16:36.560 --> 0:16:38.720 For them or it's neutral for them, just because they 0:16:38.720 --> 0:16:41.360 were walking around the city fine and you and TT 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:43.760 were not. But it does mean that they're more used 0:16:43.760 --> 0:16:45.320 to the levels that are there and they're not going 0:16:45.400 --> 0:16:48.120 to have some of those immediate responses that you had. 0:16:48.480 --> 0:16:49.720 But is it reversible? 0:16:50.160 --> 0:16:53.840 That's really one of these sort of wholly grail questions 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:57.520 of environmental health is at what point does environmental damage 0:16:57.560 --> 0:17:01.000 become irreversible? At what point is it still in a 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:03.920 reversible phase? And how do we reverse those? So, you know, 0:17:03.960 --> 0:17:06.760 you talked about how DNA methylation is reversible. There's an 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.040 interesting study down on smoking years ago where they looked 0:17:10.040 --> 0:17:13.520 at people who were smokers and then quit smoking, people 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:16.359 who were never smokers, and people who were smokers and 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:19.840 then continued smoking throughout the entire study period. And what 0:17:19.880 --> 0:17:23.000 they found is that compared to never smokers, people who 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:25.320 are smokers and then quit smoking. 0:17:25.800 --> 0:17:27.359 Some of their DNA methylation. 0:17:27.080 --> 0:17:29.960 Sites would sort of go up with the current smokers 0:17:30.160 --> 0:17:32.359 and then level off. You could sort of almost see 0:17:32.680 --> 0:17:34.359 the point at which you know they're smoking sort of 0:17:34.359 --> 0:17:38.200 plateaued for it. Other DNA methilation sites continued on as 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.560 if they had never stopped smoking. So clearly something had 0:17:41.560 --> 0:17:45.919 been reprogrammed within the cellar machinery to where it was like, 0:17:46.000 --> 0:17:49.280 I'm on a different path now, even if you stop smoking, 0:17:49.320 --> 0:17:51.560 I'm not necessarily going to return to that path now. 0:17:51.920 --> 0:17:54.399 We believe that most of the is reversible most of 0:17:54.440 --> 0:17:57.000 the time, when you remove the environmental insult over time, 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:00.919 the body has an incredible ability to heal itself. Unfortunately, 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:04.200 there are a few sort of threshold points oftentimes when 0:18:04.200 --> 0:18:09.440 you develop things like cardiovascular disease or kidney disease or COPD, 0:18:09.880 --> 0:18:13.040 where we know that those conditions are not necessarily reversible, 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:15.720 and so a lot of personalized health, a lot of 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:19.000 preventative health, is about understanding what the person's exposed to 0:18:19.119 --> 0:18:22.479 before you get to any of these irreversible steps and 0:18:22.520 --> 0:18:25.720 giving them the options to reverse them. Number one by 0:18:25.800 --> 0:18:29.000 removing the exposure or reducing the exposure, and number two 0:18:29.000 --> 0:18:31.520 by taking interventions that might be able to act against that. 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.600 And we're still working on the interventions phrase of it. 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:36.679 But what we hope is that when we get to 0:18:36.720 --> 0:18:39.840 a more personalized state of environmental health, will really be 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:42.520 able to say, Okay, here's what you were exposed to, 0:18:43.040 --> 0:18:45.679 here's where you are. We think this is still reversible, 0:18:45.960 --> 0:18:48.560 here's what you should do. Come back in and we'll 0:18:48.560 --> 0:18:49.439 see if it's working. 0:18:49.760 --> 0:18:50.160 Wow. 0:18:50.400 --> 0:18:52.199 One part of what you said that stuck out to 0:18:52.200 --> 0:18:55.600 me was the policy and the regulations of it all. 0:18:55.880 --> 0:18:57.360 In a formal life, I was a FED. 0:18:57.400 --> 0:18:59.440 I worked for the National Institute of Standards Technology, which 0:18:59.480 --> 0:19:01.320 I have I was not allowed to say on this show, 0:19:01.320 --> 0:19:02.840 but now I can because I don't work there anymore. 0:19:03.240 --> 0:19:05.719 So I know that standards and policy can be a 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:10.640 really tricky place, you know, and creating national standards, creating 0:19:10.800 --> 0:19:14.960 national policy, it's a long road, and it takes a 0:19:15.000 --> 0:19:19.240 lot of really smart people like Ukavin to really push 0:19:19.359 --> 0:19:25.080 for these changes and explain to our representatives in government 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.760 why this is so important, and leaning on places like 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.240 the EPA and things like that to put these documents 0:19:32.320 --> 0:19:34.760 together and to stress the importance of this. So if 0:19:34.760 --> 0:19:38.360 there's limit it to a certain point. How much are 0:19:38.400 --> 0:19:41.560 we talking about here and are they reducing the damage 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:45.800 actually or should we keep pushing our policymakers to do 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:47.160 more in that area. 0:19:47.480 --> 0:19:49.200 Yeah, yeah, it's great as you break up that point. 0:19:49.359 --> 0:19:51.600 I'm also a former FED you know, which I could 0:19:51.600 --> 0:19:53.320