128. Hidden Environmental Toxins Are Destroying Your Health

How much control do you actually have over the toxins in your daily environment? Most people assume chemical exposure is unavoidable, but the science shows there are practical steps that can significantly reduce your toxic load. In this solo episode, we break down why environmental detoxification is a key strategy for protecting your long-term health and longevity. We walk you through the main sources of exposure, from household cleaners and cookware to synthetic fragrances and clothing materials. We explore how these toxins affect your hormones, immune system, and metabolism, and why resilience, genetics, and consistent habits determine how your body responds over time. We also share simple, actionable swaps and strategies that can be implemented gradually without overwhelming your daily life. This episode gives clear, actionable guidance for anyone who wants to reduce chemical exposure, support metabolic and hormonal health, and create a healthier living environment. Even small, consistent changes over weeks and months can have a major impact on overall wellbeing. What We Discuss: (00:00) Introduction: Why Environmental Toxins Matter for Health (01:50) How Chemicals Affect Hormones, Immunity, and Resilience (05:18) Common Household Sources: Pesticides, Cleaners, Fragrances, and Laundry Products (09:08) Kitchen and Food Storage: Plastics, Cookware, and Safe Alternatives (11:07) Home Environment: Shoes, Air Quality, Mattresses, and Furniture (14:28) Personal Care, Clothing, and Nighttime Exposure (16:27) Gradual Detox Strategies and Free Resources (18:20) Key Takeaways and Closing Thoughts Thank You to Our Sponsors: IM8: Try IM8 today with a 30-day money back guarantee. You can get 10% off your first order with code DRSHAH at https://im8health.com/discount/DRSHAH. Learn more about Dr. Shah: Website: https://www.drshah.com/ Clinic: https://www.next-health.com/ Instagram:@darshanshahmd https://www.instagram.com/darshanshahmd/

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Welcome to Extend with me, Dr. Darshan Shah, a podcast dedicated to cutting-edge science, research, tools, and protocols designed to help you extend your health span. Having become one of the youngest doctors in the country at the age of 21, and trained and board-certified at the Mayo Clinic, I've accumulated three decades of practice as a board-certified surgeon and longevity expert. Over that time, I've discovered that a mere 20% of health knowledge yields 80% of the results when it comes to your health span. We're living in a new era where we are creating a new healthcare system, no longer focused on disease management, but achieving optimal health and vitality. Join me as I interview world-renowned experts, offering you a step-by-step guide to proactively avoid disease, and most importantly, extend your health span.

• 0:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Thank you for joining me for another episode of the Extend Podcast. Today, I want to bring you another solo sode about how to detoxify the environment that you live and work in. This might seem like an overwhelming topic to many, so I thought it deserved a special episode itself, just so we can break down the highest-value areas where you can make a big difference in your day-to-day life. So as I talked about in the last episode with Allison Evans, who is the founder of Branch Basics, I really believe, and many functional physicians believe this, that toxic exposure is definitely the fourth leg of the stool, or even the fifth leg of the basics that you need to get right now. We have diet, exercise, sleep, emotional health,

• 1:33Dr. Darshan Shah?

  and now we have this invisible toxic burden that we're exposed to every single day in our environment that has become a major detriment to our health. And we really need to know what to do about it. Now, the biggest problem here is that it's invisible, right? We go about our day-to-day lives. We don't really know we're getting exposed, and we don't really feel anything immediately unless there's like a chemical smell in the air or you definitely have recent exposure to maybe a fire like I did here in California, where you could definitely tell that we're being exposed to toxins in the air, in the water, and in the environment. Most people, however, probably Probably assume that they're not being exposed to toxins because they don't really feel

• 2:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  any different on a day to day basis. Now, the problem here is that the chemicals that are in our air and in our environment, they are endocrine disrupting and they're also immune system disrupting. And both of these can be turned into major problems over repeated exposure. So what can we do about this? And do you even really need to do something about this? Well, as you heard from Allison's story in the last episode, that she was having significant health issues from her toxic exposure. She was having neurological symptoms. He was losing her motor skills. She even had arthritis developing and she was seeking out medical care and no one really thought to ask her about what is her level of toxic exposure. And why would certain people in

• 2:56Dr. Darshan Shah?

  the same environment, maybe family members, not get all of these symptoms, but other people do? And there's a lot of theories around that, but basically to summarize all of them, everyone has a different level of resilience to the toxic exposure and they have different levels of exposure. And there are many factors due to this. And, you know, as we age in life, our resilience definitely becomes lower and lower. And there might be toxic exposure that you're exposed to that other members of the family aren't. Perhaps your work environment is different. Perhaps you're eating ultra processed food and the other members of your family aren't. So you have this balance that occurs between exposure and also your resilience. And then also, how much time do you spend detoxing as well? And detoxing might be just removing yourself from the toxic

• 3:41Dr. Darshan Shah?

  environment and going to a different one, or spending time in the sauna, for example. Now, all of these are in balance. And when the balance is thrown off, you start getting symptoms over time. And I can really tell you that, you know, we're seeing a lot of clinical situations now where younger and younger people are having hormonal issues. We see young men as early as their 20s having low testosterone levels. Menopausal type of symptoms are even happening in women at a much earlier age. And so many scientists and physicians do believe that the level of toxic exposure is leading to all of these symptoms. In the last episode, Allison And described an analogy of a bucket.

• 4:22Dr. Darshan Shah?

  You have a certain amount of bucket that you can tolerate of toxins in your biology. And once you spill over is when you start getting symptoms. And the size of your bucket can also be different depending on your genetics. There's a gene that I talk about often in this podcast is the MTHFR gene. That can, if present, significantly reduce the size of that bucket. The symptoms of toxic exposure. Allison gave us a really great acronym, OCEAN, for obesogens, carcinogens, endocrine disruptors, asthmogens and neurotoxins. And so if you go through each one of those obesogens, meaning you have trouble losing weight, you get inflamed. Carcinogens, you get a higher chance of different types of tumors due to these toxins.

• 5:07Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Endocrine disruptors, we talked about. Asthmogens, having respiratory type of symptoms like asthma or allergies all the time, runny nose. And finally, neurotoxins, this is toxins that affect your neurons and your brain and your peripheral nervous system so that you get, at the worst, brain fog. You might even have trouble moving like Allison did. So these are all symptoms that you can look out for, but the real key here is just not to wait till you have symptoms. Right? You want to start removing the toxins from your environment right now. So let's talk about 10 practical steps that you can use to detoxify your lifestyle. Number one, pesticides. Pesticides are incredibly prevalent in our day to day life.

• 5:48Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Why? Because we buy them and we put them on our plants outside the house. We put them in our garden, maybe your gardener that you utilize or your community utilizes, uses these pesticides. And they can also be in shampoos and some of the bug sprays that we have in our home. Now, removing these pesticides can be the most important step that you take. We know for a fact that glyphosate and other pesticides do lead to neurological diseases like Parkinson's and also Alzheimer's disease. And so step by step, eliminating these pesticides can be the first and most important step that you take. And if you look online, you can

• 6:30Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Find non-toxic bug repellents. If you are in an area like I live in, we have a lot of ants. And when I looked into this, we were definitely buying toxic chemicals to kill these ants. Instead, now we buy peppermint combined with T G oil. And this is just as good, if not better. There's an entire industry of non-toxic pesticide products that are out there now that you can look into easily using AI or just Google it. And you can find really good replacements that are also pretty inexpensive now, or at least as expensive as the regular pesticides that you're buying. Second on the list is household cleaners. And this is where Alison Evans basically built her old business, Branch Basics, which is the products that I use in my home.

• 7:14Dr. Darshan Shah?

  But conventional disinfectants, these should all be removed from your home. There's a lot of problems with them. Alison argues that removing germs with soap-based surfactants is much more effective than killing them with chemicals that then goes on to create resistance superbugs. And this is a huge problem that we have in the hospitals, for example. So using a soap-based surfactant is so much nicer on the environment of your home. And also, it is actually cheaper, believe it or not. For some reason, the marketing world of these chemical cleaners has convinced us that we need a different cleaner for our windows and our toilets and our furniture. And the reality is, and Alison does this with her product, is you just see the same cleaner in different concentrations.

• 7:59Dr. Darshan Shah?

  And once you know that fact, you can actually cut down the cost that you have to clean your home and your office environment. And everything I'm saying about the home obviously applies to your office. So it's really important to talk to your HR representative about detoxifying the office environment where you also probably spend a lot of time. Next on the list is synthetic fragrances. These are all around us. They contain dangerous chemicals called phthalates that embed themselves in the surfaces of your home. And these could include scented candles, air fresheners in your car, those little green trees that you hang, even dryer sheets. These should all be eliminated. You don't need them. And they have dangerous endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates

• 8:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  that don't need to be in your day-to-day environment.

• 8:51Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Hi, Dr. Shaw here. I want to take a minute to talk to you about cellular health. So in my clinics, I've actually seen 30-year-old people with cells that look like they're pushing retirement. And I've also seen 60-year-olds with cells that look like they're 40 years old. So what's the difference? It's really about how fast their telomeres are breaking down. Your cells, you see, are like phones, and they have limited cellphone battery. Poor sleep, stress, processed foods, all of these things can drain that battery way faster than it should. So this is the reason why I partnered with IM8. IM8 powers that cellular battery. It's not just another multivitamin. It's a comprehensive 92-ingredient formula designed specifically for cellular health and longevity.

• 9:35Dr. Darshan Shah?

  I'm talking 900 milligrams of vitamin C. That's like 20 oranges worth of DNA protection. The clinical dose of CoQ10 that you need to power your cellular engine. You also get zinc, selenium, vitamin E, alpha-lipoic acid. All of these work synergistically for cellular repair and protecting your telomeres. So instead of taking a handful of pills every day and all these supplements, IM8 actually gives you everything that you need in one scientifically formulated system. And this isn't just a theory anymore. IM8 had partnered with Oxford University, the International Space Station, San Francisco Research Institute, and they've done studies, and they've gotten this NSF certified to truly power your health.

• 10:18Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Most people are aging twice as fast as they should, unfortunately. You don't have to be one of them. Try IM8. I actually have a discount secured for you if you go to drshah.com/Im8 or go to im8health.com/discount/drschah and you can get 20% off with my discount code, DrShah. You can also find the link below.

• 10:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Next on the list is your laundry products. Switching to non-toxic laundry products is considered vital because people are in constant contact with the chemicals in their clothes and sheets because you wear them all day long and then you sleep in them. And so having a non-toxic detergent and then not using dryer sprays and especially the worst thing you could do is those little pods that are covered in plastic that you put in your laundry. All of those need to be eliminated and switching to a non-toxic laundry product is critical. Next, let's talk about the kitchen, your food storage. So you want to transition from all the plastic containers to glass containers or ceramic containers. This is highly recommended to avoid the bisphenols, which are in plastics and microplastics leaching into your food.

• 11:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Even the plastic cutting boards, plastic utensils that you use for cooking, all of those need to be eliminated and switched out to metal, stainless steel, or glass or ceramic. Incredibly important for your food storage, your food not to be stored in plastic and what's even more important is not to heat up your food in plastic because that heat actually causes the chemicals that are coating that plastic to go into your food. The other major problem in your kitchen is cookware. A lot of cookware over the last couple of decades has been coated with PFOS, which is a forever chemical to make it non-stick. And these forever chemicals can get into your body and to your food

• 12:12Dr. Darshan Shah?

  as you're cooking your food. And so this is highly potentially carcinogenic and also disrupting to your immune system and your endocrine system. So getting away from non-stick cookware is also very important. Now, it's really important to know that a lot of these chemicals like PFOS and PTFE, which is Teflon, they can also be released as fumes when you cook. And so this can also be very damaging, just even breathing those fumes. So that's why changing out all your cookware can be the next step in eliminating the toxins from your kitchen. The safer alternative is to use stainless steel, or cast iron, or carbon steel cookware. And once again, there's an entire industry of non-toxic cookware out there that you can do the research on.

• 12:57Dr. Darshan Shah?

  In our home, we've been using Caraway cookware, and I have no relationship with the company, but we really like it. The next one is super easy. It's your shoes. It's so important to remove your shoes at the door to prevent them from tracking in outdoor pesticides, chemicals that are in the sidewalk and the street, even gasoline can get on your shoes. And all of these chemicals on the bottom of your shoes do not belong in your home, and they especially do not belong on your carpet. So I grew up in Indian households where we had to remove our shoes before we came inside the house, and it was part of our custom. There are many customs all over the world that this is just what they do. And I highly recommend everyone think about this for their homes as well, because it'll prevent a lot of the toxins with the outside environment from getting into your home.

• 13:43Dr. Darshan Shah?

  The next item on the list is getting fresh air inside your home. For some reason, we've convinced ourselves that having the windows closed and having a closed environment inside protects our air. And nothing could be further from the truth. The outside air is so much better in most places than the indoor air. And it's really important, if you can, to open your windows. Even just for 10 minutes a day, this can significantly improve the indoor air quality and your health. But you want to try to do it at least two to five times a day. And we just leave our windows open at our home because I check the air quality index outside. And when it's in the green range, I know that opening the windows will allow a lot of the dust and chemicals

• 14:27Dr. Darshan Shah?

  and other things that are inside the home out and allow the air exchange to happen. Now, if you live in the middle of a city, you might want to check your air quality index before you do this. And there's another way to kind of hack this as well. That is to get a really good air purifier in both your bedroom and your work environment. A lot of people work from home, so put one in your office at home, or just put one in your work area at work. And this can help to filter the air consistently and keep you breathing much better quality air rather than polluted air. We know that air pollution is one of the highest forms of toxic exposure that we have right now in our environment. So this one technique can be a game changer for you.

• 15:09Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Number eight on the top 10 list is your mattresses and your furniture. So yes, we went from the easiest thing to do, open your windows to the hardest, which is to replace your mattresses and maybe even your furniture if they have been sold to you as being flame retardant. Flame retardant chemicals are also extremely dangerous chemicals that first they make your liver work very hard to detoxify you and they can cause fatty liver disease or fibrosis of your liver. But even worse than that, they are also endocrine disrupting and immune disrupting chemicals that can lead to all forms of chronic disease. Now, I realize that just switching out your furniture and mattresses can be extremely difficult and expensive, but it's not something you need to do right now.

• 15:50Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Opening your windows does protect you from some of these off gas chemicals. However, the next time that you are buying a new mattress, which really people should do every two or three years, or you're buying new furniture, always search for non-toxic furniture that has not been sprayed with flame retardant to replace your current furniture with. Number nine on this list are your personal care products. So many of us, and the research shows that we use at least 10 different products on our bodies on the average every single day. And what we don't realize is that we are purposefully slathering chemicals all over our body that can lead to health issues. And the easiest way to figure out if the products that you're using, like your lotion

• 16:31Dr. Darshan Shah?

  or your soap, even your toothpaste or your hairspray is toxic is to use an app. There's three apps out there that I really like. One is called Yuka, Y U K A. Another one is Think Dirty and another one is by the Environmental Working Group called Skin Deep. All of these allow you to scan the barcode of your products and they'll tell you how toxic they are. And if they are toxic, then the app suggests replacement products that have less of a toxic burden for you to use. And I don't know about you, but I rarely change the soap or the hairspray or the, or the deodorant that we use in the home. So once you switch this out one time, it's pretty much done forever and you'll get the benefits forever as well. And last on the list is to look at your clothing.

• 17:16Dr. Darshan Shah?

  So synthetic materials, especially for sleepwear is Sometimes a source of exposure to formaldehyde, phthalates, also dyes that are synthetic nitrogen based dyes, many different toxins that are used in the manufacture of clothing, especially in modern days, to make clothing more stretchy, or more flame retardant, or more absorbent of sweat. All of these chemicals are potential issues. And so if you want to detoxify the clothing that you wear, you should avoid synthetic materials and pick wool, pick cotton, check the labels of your clothing. They have what materials are being used to make those clothing. And this is very important, especially at nighttime, you don't want to sleep in sleepwear

• 18:00Dr. Darshan Shah?

  that is made from a synthetic material. So if you feel exhausted after listening to all that, and you feel like this is overwhelming, welcome to the club. Everyone feels that way when we first talk about this. But the reality is that if you do this over time, and you slowly over the course of a year in 2026, decide that you're going to detoxify your home this year, you can easily make these changes. And the changes are even more powerful when you get the family involved and you do it together. So to achieve these goals, both Allison and I have put some free resources online for you to download and to utilize to make this a reality in 2026. Allison has a 12 module Tossed to Toxins course on her website at Branch Basics that you can sign

• 18:44Dr. Darshan Shah?

  up for. And if you go to my website, drshah.com/ toxins, I have a 52 week guide on detoxifying your environment. And the way it's set up is that you and your family can just print it out, and pick one thing you do a week. Sometimes it's going to be harder, sometimes it's going to be easier, like opening your windows, and just pick whatever you have time for that week. And over the course of 52 weeks, I can virtually guarantee you that you'll have 90% less toxic exposure than people who don't go through this process. The key to detoxification is not all these detoxifying diets or detoxifying juices that are out there. It's really just reducing your exposure. That's going to give you 80% of the result. And even if you do go through some sort of detox program that you believe works, the reality is if you're continuing

• 19:29Dr. Darshan Shah?

  Your exposure, you're never going to get caught up. So you have to reduce your exposure in your environment. I hope this summary episode was helpful for you. I look forward to giving you more summaries like this in 2026 that really break down the science into usable chunks of information that you can actually make a difference with in your day to day life. Thanks again for joining me today on the Extend Podcast and forward this episode to someone you think might benefit. Thank you so much for listening to the podcast today. Please remember to subscribe if you like this episode and give us a good review and share a link with your friends. It really helps to support all of our efforts. I also want to remind you that the information shared on this podcast is for educational purposes

• 20:10Dr. Darshan Shah?

  only and is not intended to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Please consult with your healthcare provider or physician before making any decisions or taking any action based on what you hear today, especially if you have any underlying health conditions or on any medications. Your doctor knows your personal health situation the best, and it's always important to seek their guidance.