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Published February 3, 2025
‘I’m a Toxicologist—Here Are the Items in Your Home That Are Making You Seriously Sick’ By Realtor.com
(YouTube/The Diary of a CEO)
Aleading toxicologist has issued a grave warning about the many common products in your home that could be causing you serious illness—and, in some cases, could be life-threatening.
Dr. Yvonne Burkart, a former senior toxicologist in the flavor and fragrance industry, says she has “spent more than half her life” studying the subject and the impact that toxic everyday products can have on fertility, reproduction, and cancer risk.
Now, in an interview on Steven Bartlett‘s podcast, “The Diary of a CEO,” she has revealed how “almost everything” in your home—from plastics to perfume—could well be harming your health.
According to Burkart, who is based in San Diego, plastics are the root cause of many issues. The chemicals that are used to create these materials tend to break up over time, leading to microplastic and nanoplastic release.
That includes plastic containers that are used to store food and nonstick pans we cook with.
(YouTube/The Diary of a CEO)
(YouTube/The Diary of a CEO)
Burkart says we are “being constantly bombarded on a daily basis” with toxins we cannot see, particularly in the kitchen and, more specifically, in commonly used essentials like cookware and reusable coffee cups.
Nonstick pans are particularly risky because of their Teflon coating, which may make cooking easier in the short term, but in the long term can break down and transfer to your food.
“When you heat that pan high enough, it will vaporize and get into the air, and if you inhale it, you run the risk of experiencing what’s known as Teflon flu and it basically has flulike symptoms when you inhale that stuff,” Burkhart says.
Plastic spatulas are terrible, too, she warns, because they melt and “break off into little tiny bits and fragments of microplastics” in the food.
Putting plastic containers in the microwave, even for a few seconds, is bad, too.
“You’ll get a release of billions of microplastic particles into your food,” she says. “Microplastics don’t break down, they don’t go away, they’re accumulating in human tissues.”
Overall, plastics are “killing us over time” by entering our brain and bloodstream, she warns.
Coffee cups are another daily problem, even if they are paper, because the lining and the lid are plastic. As the hot liquid is passing through the lid, there is a passing of “microplastics in that plastic lining” that are entering with the coffee.
So how can you avoid these risks in your home?
Burkart says there are a number of things people can do to stay as healthy as possible—specifically ditching nonstick pans in favor of stainless steel, and replacing plastic coffee cups with metal or glass designs.
But the issues don’t stop at the kitchen.
Scented candles are also on Burkart’s list of dangerous household items because so many of them contain harmful ingredients—particularly those made with paraffin wax.
“When you light those candles, they liberate carcinogens like benzene, toluene, and formaldehyde,” she warns. “But not only that, ultrafine particles. Ultrafine particles are some of the most hazardous substances that you can create in your home.”
According to the expert, “ultrafine particles” are “tiny particles” that are invisible to the naked eye, but can go straight into your brain when you inhale them.
“They also have the ability to go as far down into the lung as one can go,” she adds. From there, the particles travel into your bloodstream and throughout your body, causing “inflammation and oxidative stress, which are the basis of many chronic diseases.”
(Getty Images)
(Getty Images)
Burkart notes that some of your favorite beauty products could also be putting you at risk, from shampoo to deodorant.
“If you grab a product off of a store shelf, 9 times out of 10, there are chemicals of concern in them, and we’re talking about major retailers, big-box stores,” she says. “If you go to smaller, let’s say health food stores and chains like that, then the percentage is much lower.”
She claims the chemicals in these daily-use products can do everything from disrupting our endocrine system to potentially causing cancer.
“In the human body, we have endocrine glands. They’re little centers in our bodies, and they secrete hormones and these hormones regulate pretty much everything that you can think of, from sleep, wake, digestion,” Burkart says.
She explains she started targeting things in her own home, starting with her makeup cabinet.
“That in particular was a huge source of trigger for me in terms of chemicals and toxicity,” she says. “Once I started to clean out my makeup drawer, I really saw a shift.”
She says she was “obsessed” with perfumes and fragrances, which were making her sick, and it was these items that began her journey into investigating everyday products.
“Once I removed those, one by one, slowly disentangling myself from them, I started to see real change, and I noticed more energy return. I was feeling more fit. I had more mental clarity, more focus,” she says.
Part of the problem is that U.S. manufacturers do not have to disclose many harmful ingredients in products, which is considered a trade secret. However, within that chemical mixture are known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors like phthalates.
“Phthalates are the most potent allergens known to man,” she says. “They are what are known as film formers, so it helps the fragrance to stick to surfaces like your skin. So if you’ve ever sprayed something on yourself and are still able to smell it hours later, that’s a telltale sign that you’ve been exposed.”
The fragrance industry has exploded in the past 10 or 15 years, she adds, and fragrances are the “most pervasive sources of toxins in our homes and in our daily lives.
“It’s almost like the new secondhand smoke, that’s how prevalent it is,” she says.
For instance, scented laundry care products are made from cheap fragrance chemicals and dryer sheets just coat your clothing with some type of oily waxy substance, and “that’s what makes them feel soft.”
“They’re not actually softening your clothes. They coat your clothing, and so all of that is touching your skin and is getting absorbed,” Burkart says.
Instead, “look for wool dryer balls made out of wool,” she advises.
"Call Eli Torres at (832) 430-2107, for your home buying and selling needs."
Source: www.realtor.com
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