5/19/2006

toxins in breast milk

Another reason to eat a plant-based, organic diet -- according to this article from the Chronicle last week, human breast milk has increasingly high rates of industrial and organic pollutants -- perchlorate, lead, plasticizers, dioxins, PCBs and similarly scary (and carcinogenic) things. This appears especially true for women in the industrialized world, and regulating or banning these substances is the best way to reduce our exposure to them. But according to the article:
Lifestyle choices do make a big difference in body burdens -- longtime vegans are least exposed to many of these chemicals, and reducing household dust, eating organic and using nontoxic cleaning and body-care products can reduce the levels of all kinds of chemicals in the body. But it's the entire lifetime exposure that counts.

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