Dr. Jennifer Landa Discusses Toxins in Holiday Decorations on The Daily Buzz

Dr. Jennifer Landa, BodyLogicMD’s Medical Director was a guest on The Daily Buzz and discussed the toxins that are found in some holiday decorations and how avoiding exposure can help you avoid a possible hormone imbalance from resulting.

TRANSCRIPT

HOST: Now that Christmas is over, a lot of people have already busted out the Christmas decorations. So if you house already looks like the Griswalds or will in a couple of weeks, you might want to make sure that those decorations aren’t actually going to make you and your kiddo sick. So here to talk about the decorations and how they can be toxic is Dr. Jennifer Landa form BodyLogicMD. Good morning, Dr. Landa

DR. LANDA: Good morning Kia.

HOST: You don’t really think about the decorations being toxic because there in a box, all safe in an attic somewhere and you pull them out once a year, no big deal.

DR. LANDA: Right

HOST: But it can be a big deal.

DR. LANDA: It can be. There are many things in our daily life that can be toxic and that goes for the holiday decorations as well. So some of the things which you may have thought about and you should make sure about are the holiday plants like mistletoe and holly berries. You want to make sure the kids and pets don’t get a hold of those and eat those because they could be poisonous. The poinsettias those are actually safe. Those are good. So those are good things to decorate your house with. Other things that you may want to be careful about are those artificial trees. Those artificial trees can be made with PVC or polyvinylchloride. They use lead as a stabilizer in PVC. So that can make that artificial tree dangerous especially if they are a little older. The older string lights also can have some lead in them so that’s something you can look out for. And then there are some newer things that we are concerned about, Kia like phthalates and parabens. Those sound pretty scary, chemical type words.

HOST: Yeah, I don’t even know how to spell it.

DR. LANDA: Well we won’t worry about spelling them for right now but I won’t quiz you, but what you are worried about with those are the synthetic scents. The artificial fragrance that everybody uses to make their house smell nice. Those can contain parabens and phthalates which believe it or not those are what we call endocrine disrupters which mean they can artificially imbalance your hormones. They act estrogens and thyroid hormones and that can throw your own hormones out of balance.

HOST: Holy cow. All from the Christmas tree decorations.

DR. LANDA: All from the Christmas tree decorations.

HOST: Speaking of trees, should we all just get real trees then? Since the artificial trees can be toxic.

DR. LANDA: You know, I think a real tree is probably the way to go, but if you do need to go with an artificial tree like I said you want to replace it with a newer one. You want to make sure that you wash your hands very thoroughly after decorating the tree.

HOST: Sure. Okay, let’s talk about toxic toys under these toxic trees and decorations.

DR. LANDA: Yes.

HOST: You have to watch out for that.

DR. LANDA: You do have to watch out for that. Some of the things to watch out for are that the plastic toys are also made out of that PVC, which can also contain lead. Some of the toys from China may also be a concern. So you might want to stick with the older traditional toys like wooden toys and things like that. When you’re looking at plastic you want to try to look at the safer plastic. They are labeled with the recycling label one or two. Those are your safest plastic toys. That’s a way to avoid the PVC which is a number 3.

HOST: You know what I like to do? Just give them the box. It works out like that. Just give them the box

DR. LANDA: Just give then a wrapped up box and they love it.

HOST: Thank you Dr. Landa appreciate the information

DR. LANDA: Thank you, it’s great to see you

HOST: Of course. For more information, you can head over to our website dailybuzznow.com and click on the Monday guest tab.