Living A Full Life

Clean Body, Toxic Products

• Full Life Chiropractic • Season 3 • Episode 41

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Are you unwittingly poisoning yourself with products meant to keep you clean? That's the alarming question at the heart of this eye-opening exploration of modern hygiene practices and the chemical burden they place on our bodies.

The cosmetic and personal care industry has masterfully convinced us—particularly women—that our natural bodies need fixing, cleaning, and enhancement. But as Dr. Enrico Dolcecori reveals, many body parts are perfectly capable of maintaining their own cleanliness and balance without intervention. Those expensive intimate washes, deodorants, and "pH balancing" products aren't just unnecessary—they're potentially harmful, disrupting natural microbiomes and creating the very problems they claim to solve.

What makes this chemical exposure particularly concerning is how readily our bodies absorb these substances. Your skin takes in 20-25% of whatever you apply to it, while mucous membranes absorb a staggering 50-70%. This explains how ingredients from shampoos, lotions, aftershaves, and intimate products end up in your bloodstream despite never being consumed. The cumulative effect can lead to serious health consequences—hormonal disruption, autoimmune conditions, chronic fatigue, and even weight management issues that mystify conventional approaches.

Dr. Dolcecori offers practical solutions that don't require complicated routines or expensive alternatives. Learn how to evaluate your current products using ChatGPT, discover truly natural substitutes like coconut oil and essential oils, and understand when to seek medical help rather than self-treat. Whether you're raising children and concerned about their chemical exposure or struggling with unexplained health issues yourself, this conversation provides a roadmap to reducing your toxic load and allowing your body's natural systems to function as designed. Listen now to reclaim control over your health and stop the cycle of chemical dependency the beauty industry has created.

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Speaker 1:

We all want to feel fresh, but lately there's an alarming trend telling us our bodies need cleaning, where they already know how to do the job themselves. Are we going too far? Are these products helping or hiding a bigger issue? Thanks for joining us on Living a Full Life Podcast. I'm Dr Enrico Dolcecori and this week talking about hygiene and mainly female products, but also male products. I've got three girls that I'm raising and I'm learning a lot, and there's a lot of stuff going out there.

Speaker 1:

We all know the cosmetic industry bombards women with making them feel insecure and then selling them a product that will solve solutions. But from a health perspective, there are a lot of red flags out there that are maybe disrupting or what I know, totally disrupting microbiomes and health and causing health issues in women and in men. We're going to talk about some male products as well, but there's some trendy claims right now that are going around that I want everyone to be aware of, especially if you have daughters you're taking care of or if you're a woman yourself. There's a lot of things that are going on with washes, with feminine fragrances or whitening certain parts of the body or odor masks. These are interesting concepts, telling you that you stink and you should use their products to not stink, but the truth is you don't, and you don't need these products. So these products can disrupt the microbiome on the skin or wherever you're applying these things especially in the vaginal surfaces as well that balance bacteria, so making infections more likely. So be careful what we're doing to something that's already set up properly to balance the pH naturally and not need too much external influence. Experts emphasize that the vagina is self-cleaning and usually doesn't need these products at all. So if the evidence says that, then we should just kind of take a step back and not listen to the cosmetic industry for this, listen to the cosmetic industry for this. So I'm going to just stop saying these body parts in the episode and talk about general hygiene trends that are going around right now.

Speaker 1:

The wellness culture preys on our insecurities all of us, especially women. The broader implications is that infections, unnecessary care visits and the anxiety around cleanliness lead down the wrong path of doing things to your body that may make you more susceptible to developing infections or hurting yourself one way or another. So not only is this for the young crowd, but it's for everyone. That may be taking things a little too far, if you listen to any of my podcasts, we've talked about volatile organic compounds, volatile air compounds that come out from fragrances, candles, air fresheners, aerosols, things that we spray in the air and we breathe in and how volatile they really are because they disrupt the natural hormonal system in the body and other systems too. It can even impact your immune system when these things get into the body.

Speaker 1:

So once we start putting topicals on our skin which our skin absorbs 20 to 25% of what you put on it. So that's why the water you use to wash and bathe and the soaps that you use and the conditioners and the shampoos should be clean, because your skin does absorb this stuff. That's how these chemicals get into the body. We're not eating shampoo, so how does how do these same materials get into our bloodstream and into our fat tissue if we're not eating them? Well, they're coming in through the skin.

Speaker 1:

So contact plays a huge role as well. Lotions, creams, foundation, cosmetics, lipsticks all of these things have to be from as healthy source as possible to make sure that you're not getting bombarded with chemicals all the time. Colognes, perfumes, hairsprays, gels all these things, masks they're all things that we apply to the skin. Step further and go into our mouths or into our body with other products. Now we're increasing the absorption rate by 50, 60, 70%, especially in the mouth or sublingual, or on our tongue or on our gums. We now absorb everything that's in there. So clean toothpaste play a huge role.

Speaker 1:

Using alcohol-based mouthwash is horrible. Little things that we just need to understand about hygiene and what natural and safe habits are out there for you and your children. I mean these are things we need to just teach and pass on to the next generation to keep them healthy and keep them protected, because it can lead down a lot of autoimmune issues, hormonal issues, cancers. It just leads down bad roads Our bodies will just if we get sick sometime or if we got bombarded by the chemicals in the environment, we can slide down the wrong path from overuse, just like a bad diet. Over time it will catch up to you.

Speaker 1:

So, everyday care we want to be using plain, clean, filtered water and mild, unscented soaps for external use, only Direct skin contact, only Nothing that goes inside of our mouths, inside of our noses, inside of any orifice whatsoever. Underwear choices play a huge role too. Go breathable. We want cotton-based, properly fitting, not overly tight, loose. Those things all play a great role for ventilation and just for proper sanitation. Some smart habits are just avoid douching scented sprays and cleansers down there. I mean one of those things. Continuous use of those things with chemicals is just a bad way of getting unnecessary chemicals into the body. We maybe want to see a pro on that.

Speaker 1:

Share symptoms, you know, that may require medical attention unusual discharge, unusual odor, pain, irritation. You're almost better off going to a professional medical provider for that an OBG, your medical provider if you trust them, your primary care, and asking them right off the bat, asking them right off the bat, because what they'll have for you is immediate testing to see what's going on from the discharge or the odor, which is a simple swab, cotton swab test that they can check and see what bacteria it is. If it's a bad bacteria, you can be treated properly for it. If it's a good bacteria, they can give you some other alternatives that may help as well. So we don't want to mess around with that or try and self-diagnose and self-treat these. This is where uncomfortable side effects can happen, which makes it even more uncomfortable to reach out to provider until it gets really bad. These are little things to think about when it comes to that.

Speaker 1:

Men's oils, beard oils, gels, cologne, all these things we add there. Hopefully you're not doing anything weird down in the groin area, guys, I don't know what you would. Shaving, I guess shaving after cream, um topicals afterwards, making sure a clean base, the alcohol can cause irritation, irritation can cause pimples or, uh, eczema. Eczema down there can weep, weeping wounds down there in the dark can lead to infection and all these other things that you. You know the cascade that can happen in there too. So men are not immune to the cosmetic industry either.

Speaker 1:

And the point of the podcast is empowerment and mindset on this, on keeping clean and minimizing the amount of chemicals. That were there many podcasts about clean drinking water, clean air filters in the home, sleeping well with air purifiers in the house. We talk about the environment and trying to keep it as clean as possible. So it's only logical to have a podcast about direct contact of topicals in our body. So the point of this is empowering our listeners to make the right choices and limit the amount of chemicals that you put on. And in this I'm trying to be nice when I'm talking about in your body, putting things in, sticking them in all the holes Like this is.

Speaker 1:

This is where we're getting into major territory here is because the internal mucosa lining inside of our mouths, cheeks, nose and other areas that you can think about are highly absorbable. They go right into the bloodstream and they're directly. It's a fast way of getting it into the bloodstream and we don't want chemicals going into the bloodstream. Our liver hates it, our detoxification system hates it. You're just giving it extra work to do that it doesn't need to do and this can crash the immune system, hormonal system and, believe it or not, our metabolism Because our metabolism is that all combined it's our liver and our detoxification system as well. It bogs that down and then we start to retain more and more weight or we inflame our fat cells more and more and more. So there's a couple of things to think about on there and maybe get the gears turning in your head. If you've had trouble losing weight for some small amount of population I'd say about 10% of our weight loss patients that struggle.

Speaker 1:

We get into the chemical conversations and everyone is wowed by this conversation saying I do all of that. I got to check my shampoo, I got to check my conditioner. I apply a lotion like 10 times a day. I'm like what lotion do you use? And usually it's not a good lotion. So the conversations open up. But you can have this conversation in your own head right now as you're listening to the podcast and be like, oh, I should do a chemical review of my products. Do it?

Speaker 1:

Chachibt can make this super quick. Go, grab them, put them in a little container, bring them down to the computer or on your phone. Bring your phone to the bathroom and literally upload the picture and ask ChatGBT, is this product clean and safe for me to use or do you recommend something cleaner? And nine times out of ten it's going to tell you the cleaner products. Then you have to review those cleaner products. Don't just go buy them. Review those, the alternatives.

Speaker 1:

We got this tool called ChatGPT that saves you time. It doesn't have all the answers and it doesn't have all the right answers, but boy does it save you time. I can do things in 30 seconds. That used to take me a while before of just cross-referencing and going across the internet. Chatgpt can go across the internet in seconds and find the top rated pieces of information that are out there. So use it as a tool.

Speaker 1:

Uh, so the media really puts a lot of stress on our kids. This is where my influence came for this podcast. Was the media putting so much pressure on our kids? We see this now in high school and the kids are coming in and doing a lot of cosmetic things and it just makes you wonder where the health issues come from Tired, chronic fatigue, lethargy, autoimmune is just skyrocketing with young, young kids. Joint issues, joint pain, chronic pain syndrome, chronic fatigue syndrome. I'm like what is happening? You're 14 years old and I'm seeing it younger and younger. It is an overloaded environment. Chemical, physical and emotional stress is on overload right now.

Speaker 1:

Control what you can control for your kids and trust your body. Trust that your body has the natural systems to help regulate and keep you at homeostasis. You don't have to influence too much Proper sleep, good hydration, clean food. Your body knows what to do. It was designed perfectly to do the rest. Cleaning your environment just gives your body's natural ability to do what it was designed perfectly to do the rest. Cleaning your environment just gives your body's natural ability to do what it does best better. It's just giving it a chance to do its absolute best. So adding more in. Be weary of it.

Speaker 1:

Shaving creams guys. The shampoos, the beard oils, the two-in-one sprays, the body sprays all these things that you're just spraying. It's aerosol, it's chemical, it's on your skin, you're breathing it in all at the same time. These things just cause a lot of issues. Be careful in the fitness industry, too, both men and women, with protein powders, testosterone boosters and fat burner pills. These things cause havoc in the system in your body, because they have fillers. They have stupid bold claims on the side of the bottles. They have artificial sweeteners. They have harmful additives to it all of this stuff. I just heard the other day of Skinny Tears. It's like a back to women's supplement detox cleanses. They're just filled with packed alternatives that are just not good for us.

Speaker 1:

Stick with it. Use unscented soaps, aloe vera gel or coconut oil for aftershave or skincare. Works absolutely great. Soothes the skin. It's a great oil for your skin too, and if you absorb a little bit of coconut oil, you're getting good fats into your system. And essential oils Use essential oils for any smell type things you want For fragrances lighting up a room, making the room smell well, making your clothes smell well, whatever that is. Use natural fragrances tea tree, lavender, whatever you like for natural fragrances without any harsh chemicals, because these are essential oils which are high concentrated oils from the source that you're actually trying to get the fragrance from. So these are just some quick tips, trying to stay PC with this conversation.

Speaker 1:

As far as orifices and putting things in there pH balance things. The direct influence with the bloodstream is high inside of our mouths, nose, vaginal canals. Be careful about what we put in there. Make sure they're hyper clean. It almost sounds sometimes when I do these podcasts. It's such common sense, but I get weekly responses via email and in person about the podcast. I'm like that was such a great podcast I was, and I'm always surprised at which ones take off.

Speaker 1:

Things like these can be used to help you teach your kids about hygiene and clean products and, of course, if you're helping your kids with it, you're also buying most of these products too. So go out there and make sure they're clean for them, guide them in the right direction, inspire them to be healthy, teach them about chemicals, teach them about physical, emotional and chemical stress. I find that emotional and chemical sometimes are forgotten about or lean back about. We talk about physical stresses and working out and exercise and movement and posture and being in a bad posture, bad chairs, bad mattresses. We talk about that because we can see it and feel it Emotional most parents are good about.

Speaker 1:

How do you feel today? How are you doing? Tell me how you feel and allow their kids to talk. They're good at it. But chemicals sometimes we forget about it. We focus about food but then we forget about the rest. What else are we getting exposed to? And these are little things to remind you about how to be better in the healthcare field for you and your family. Stay well, stay healthy. If you have any questions, reach out to us at info at fulllifetampacom. We love answering your questions and have a fantastic week.

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Dr. Enrico Dolcecore

Host
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Dr. Christine Hafer

Co-host