Statewide Ban Enacted: Phthalates

Front-page news last week from the California Assembly highlighted passage of a statewide ban on phthalates, a softener in plastics (San Francisco Chronicle, 10/16/07). A nationwide push to ban phthalates is currently taking place in nine other states as well, according to the advocacy group Environment California. Though common in the US in items ranging from baby bottles, toys and teething rings to hospital IV bags, household cleansers and cosmetic fragrances, phthalates are banned in fourteen countries, as well as the European Union.

“Death by Perfume”

Long suspected of causing adverse health effects, phthalates in items ranging from plastics to perfumes have been linked to hormone disruption in animals, developmental damage in young children, and breast cancer (Gretchen Lee, Breast Cancer Fund, op cit). In the class of phthalates is the substance that “fixes” the scent in perfumes, making their smell linger. Phthalate enables molten acrylic to soften, and its noxious volatile odor is what causes nausea, headaches and other neurological symptoms in susceptible people when exposed to the smell of acrylic nails being applied in manicure shops.

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Tags: cancer, environment, perfumes and fragrance, pollution, toxicity

Even if your local climate affords a gloriously extended Indian summer, it is autumn now, and your body takes note even if you don’t. Afternoon temperatures may be peaking in the 70’s and 80’s, but changes in sunlight – both the amount of available light each day, and the increasingly slanted angle of the sun – have registered on your brain. Changes in light are what cause leaves to change color and drop off, birds to fly south for the winter, flowers and weeds to go to seed.

The pineal gland, in the center of the cranium at the base of the brain, receives sunlight at dawn through your closed lids, secreting melatonin in response to the light and waking you up. Your internal clock is set by this mechanism. So precise is this clock that it will wake you at the same time each morning with or without an alarm. It will wake you even at an odd hour, if you mentally program yourself to get up then.

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Tags: brain, cycles, fish oils, melatonin, mental health, nutrition, pineal, seasons, sunlight, Vitamin D