One the grim facts of life in our modern era is that all of us are constantly exposed to pollutants and other harmful byproducts of our industrialized society. There’s just no avoiding them. Sure, you can buy only organic food, avoid using plastic containers, use all natural cleaning products, and use an organic dry cleaner. All of these can help reduce your exposure, but not to zero.
See also: How to Reduce Your Exposure to Pesticides
The Link Between Fast Food and Phthalates
Phthalates, for example, are compounds that are widely used in cosmetics, soaps, and food packaging—and 98% of us have phthalates circulating in our bloodstream. Although not everyone agrees that this is a problem, there are a growing number of studies linking phthalate exposure to things like diabetes, allergies, and infertility.
If you’re nervous about phthalates, you might want to start eating at home more often. Researchers recently found that those who frequent fast food or quick serve restaurants had significantly higher levels of phthalates in their urine—possibly because of the plastic packaging, plates, and utensils involved.
P is for Persistent
PCBs are another nasty category of chemicals—so nasty, in fact, that they were banned almost 40 years ago. Unfortunately, all the PCBs that were unleashed into the environment before they were banned in 1979 are still out there. Worse than that, they’re not just “out there.” They’re “in here,” as in inside your body.
PCBs and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) are still detectable in most humans because they are still ubiquitous in the environment. They get passed up the food chain to humans and remain in our bodies for years. In fact, the level of POPs in your blood generally correlates to your age: that is, the older you are, the more you’ve accumulated.
I generally try not to worry about things I can’t control. I do what I can to reduce my exposure but I generally accept a certain amount of toxic load as the price of living in the 21st century. But there may, in fact, be something you can do to help reduce the level of PCBs in your blood.
Vitamin C Reduces POPs
Researchers just reported that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C a day led to a measurable reduction in the amount of POPs in human subjects’ blood after two months. This was a small pilot study but based on the encouraging results, researchers are repeating the study with a larger group of subjects.
This is a very cool trick indeed. Although 1,000 mg is more vitamin C than you’d probably get through your typical diet (most Americans average about 100mg a day from food), it’s still a very moderate dosage of a very safe and inexpensive nutrient. And given the biochemistry involved, there’s reason to hope that longer treatment would lead to additional decreases.
Intuitively, it seems obvious that lowering your body’s toxic burden would be a good thing. In all honesty, though, we can’t say for sure that this will reduce your risk of future disease, make it easier for you to get pregnant, or have any other concrete, measurable effect on your health. But there is one group for whom this may have a more immediate impact.
Should You Take Vitamin C Before Losing Weight?
POPs are stored in fatty tissues, which is why they are more concentrated in fatty foods, such as dairy products, fatty fish, and meat. People with more body fat also tend to have higher amounts of POPs in their bodies. Unfortunately, when you lose weight and body fat, these stored compounds are then released into the blood stream. It’s not uncommon to see higher blood levels of POPs in people who have lost a significant amount of weight. (Because no good deed goes unpunished.)
But this new research suggests a possible antidote for this unintended consequence: Taking Vitamin C, both before and during active weight loss, might be a way to reduce exposure to released toxins.
Can You Get Enough Vitamin C from Food?
You know that, whenever possible, I recommend getting your nutrition from foods and not supplements. And most people get enough vitamin C from their diet to meet the relatively low recommended daily intake of 75mg. But what would it take to get 1,000 mg of vitamin C from food?
Fruits and vegetables are going to be your best sources. Oranges, kiwi, strawberries, broccoli, and red bell peppers are particularly high in vitamin C. But, as a general rule of thumb, you’ll average about 40mg of vitamin C per serving of fruit and/or vegetable. That means that even if you get the recommended five servings of vegetables and two to four servings of fruit every day—which puts you in very elite company!—you’d still only get about half of the dosage used in this research.
Supplementation is probably the only practical way to hit 1,000 mg of vitamin C per day, and based on this emerging research, it might not be a bad idea, particularly before and during weight loss. But—just so we’re clear—that doesn’t get you off the hook for eating your vegetables as well!