This means one in two people will have cancer before the age of 8536. Many of these cancers, including thyroid cancer (which tripled) and breast, testicular, and prostate cancer, have been directly linked to exposure to hormone disrupting chemicals in air, water, food, and everyday products like perfumes.37-41 Toxicants that have been linked to cancers include: air pollutants like asbestos, radon, hexavalent chromium, tobacco smoke, and benzo(a)pyrene linked to lung cancer;42-45 arsenic and disinfection by-products in drinking water linked to bladder cancer;46,47 vinyl chloride linked to liver cancer;48 benzene linked to leukaemia;49 and pesticides linked to childhood leukaemia.50-52 The World Health Organization suggests that up to 19% of all cancers are attributable to toxic environmental exposure.53,54 However, this is likely to be a gross underestimation, as many non-carcinogenic chemicals have been shown to exert low-dose effects that may contribute indirectly to cancer formation.55,56
The past three decades has seen a dramatic increase in the prevalence of allergic diseases like asthma, eczema, hay fever (allergic rhinitis) and food allergies in western populations, with marked differences observed in populations despite similar genetic backgrounds, suggesting that environmental risk factors are involved.57-62 An estimated 241 million people suffer from asthma worldwide, and nearly 1000 people die from asthma every day.62 Eczema affects up to 20% of children worldwide.63 In the past thirty years, hospital admissions for life threatening allergic reactions doubled in the USA,64 increased four-fold in Australia,65 and six-fold in England and Wales.66 Emerging evidence suggests a strong correlation between the composition and function of the gut microbiome and the incidence of allergies and asthma, as reduced diversity in the infant gut microbiota, has been associated with an increased risk of allergic diseases.67,68 Remarkably most of the known triggers for asthma and allergies exist in your home.
Clinicians are also seeing a rise in the prevalence of patients with environmental intolerances ranging from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome69,70 to Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease,69 Sensitivity-Related Illness,71 Idiopathic Environmental Intolerances,72 Fibromyalgia,73 Electromagnetic Hypersensitivity,74 Sick Building Syndrome75 and Multiple Chemical Sensitivity.69 These conditions appear to have no clear cause, affect multiple organ systems and are difficult to diagnose because there are few recognized genetic or metabolic markers that can be observed with standard laboratory testing.76 Despite the fact that the degree of hypersensitivity often parallels the amount of chemicals in their body,77 patients with these conditions are relatively understudied78 and are frequently misdiagnosed with having a psychological illness. It has been suggested that environmental chemicals increase the amount of free radicals in cells and subsequently affect the cell’s ability to generate energy.
It is an interesting coincidence that these epidemics began to rise in parallel with the exponential growth of the pharmaceutical, chemical, and agricultural industries. Human exposure to environmental chemicals has increased significantly since WWII, and large population biomonitoring studies have revealed widespread chemical exposure from the ‘womb to the tomb’ with levels in humans known to cause health effects.84 There are over 130 million chemicals registered for use on The Chemical Abstract Service (the largest chemical database in the world),85 and most of the man-made portion of these chemicals have never been assessed for their impact on human health.76 Furthermore, the recent introduction of wireless technologies has increased our exposure to man-made electromagnetic fields a thousand-billion-fold, and evidence has come to light that these frequencies can enhance exposure of both the placenta and blood brain barrier to chemicals, microbes, and heavy metals.
Pandora’s box has been opened. There are concerns that the epigenetic effects arising from exposure to chemicals and electromagnetic fields in the womb may set up a trajectory of illness later on in that person’s life that may be difficult to curtail. The Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (DoHAD) is consequently gaining considerable attention amongst researchers who are linking early life exposure to environmental hazards with chronic diseases later in life.