Body Burden

Blog #6

• What did you learn about our body burdens?
• Chemical Body Burden was a new topic for me; I had very limited knowledge and no knowledge about the risks in our backyard. Even with the information that we are presenting to our patients and community, what do you do with this information? What does it mean to everyone? And the effects on the body exposed to such chemicals, do they all have issues? These were some of the questions I had while completing this module.
• Were you surprised by the knowledge about maternal/fetal burdens? 
• In the article by Nweke & Sanders I wasn’t surprised to learn about the maternal/fetal burden. It makes sense that what moms does, baby has exposure to. Poor sanitation, poor working conditions and lack of safeguards are just heartbreaking in this modern time. It’s hard to comprehend while I sit here on my Mac computer, sipping tea (that I made with clean, safe drinking water), in my heated modern home that some still do not have these (as we have classified them) simple conveniences. What did surprise me was the expose to chemicals such as Hg from Gold Mining, I am truly naïve; again in this age, I would think that proper equipment would be made available for the protection on the worker.
• How would you incorporate this knowledge into your practice? 
• In my current practice we have every safety material, equipment, and education you could think of. Our safety committee frequently rounds with the nursing units and run regular drills for hazards found on the floor and hazards to our patients.
• What do you think about these lab results?
• At first to be honest, I wasn’t sure what to think about these lab results. Of course, they are not common results that I see/have ever seen; but the list of potential health effects really helped to put in perspective what these chemicals can do.

• How would you tell a patient about them if they were their lab results? 
• I would first try and find terms that could be easily understood. Some like Lead and Mercury most are familiar with, but DDT, PCBs- even I have no clue. So I think finding a way to explain simply what they are, where they come from and the potential hazard is the best way to speak with my patients. I would want to focus on education and not scaring them.

• Were you surprised to hear about chemicals being in the body that don't have "safe" levels? 
• Absolutely, this seems so foreign to me. I understand some environmental toxins making its way into our systems, such as some levels of lead in drinking water that is acceptable; but with these toxins, ones that I have no clue about, you have to wonder how they make it into our systems. The CNN report was shocking, it was hard to imagine that their children had such high levels at such young ages, when to me it makes sense that the older you are the more you have had exposure. I wish they would delve more into how this could have happened, what cause such high levels of these chemicals to be in their systems.
• What do you think about the statement “One's zip code matters more than our genetic code"?
• I believe in this statement, I believe that no matter one’s genetics; if your environment is toxic your body will become toxic. Our bodies can only fight so hard.
• Do you usually assess environmental health when you take a patient's health history? Are you aware of the air and drinking water quality where your patients live?
• I normally do not asses environmental health when speaking to my patients during their admission history. This is not a part of my role as an in-patient RN; but as a Nurse Practitioner this will be something I add to my practice.
• Were you aware of how sensitive the developing brain is to small, maternal exposures?
• I am, we learned about this during our OBGYN & Pediatric rotations in school. What happens to mommy translates to baby. It was important to target at risk environments and populations of mothers to better educate them and hopefully help to change habits and products they have been using.
• How will this change your practice regarding educating pre- and peri-natal patients? 
• Although this is not my area of work. If I were caring for Mother & Baby I would try and use terms that are easily understand and tackle changing small things within the environment then moving to larger areas surrounding the environment. I believe having local supports and members of the community would be beneficial especially when trying to change larger items.
• Had you heard of BPA prior to these articles?
• I have heard of BPA, I want to say that back in high school this become a hot topic and was widely presented in the news. This was also the time where re0usable water bottles were made popular! Something that did surprise me is that BPA is used to line metal cans of food products. I love garlic wood fire tomatoes and of course they are in can- who knew, definitely something to think of on my next shopping trip.
• How will you educate your patients on the risks of BPA? 
• I am a huge fan of reusable water bottles, I have about 20 too many. I would encourage my patients to make the change; not only BPA free, but also a great goal for water hydration! As far as canned food, that one is more difficult, there are a few canned products that I myself use and use regularly, so I would suggest to them to find alternative packaging techniques. The mayo clinic states that according to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) contain low levels and these levels are safe, but to be honest, hard to say what the levels are; so best to avoid it as much as possible.
• What about patients who may not have the means or the access to completely avoid BPA-containing products? 
• This poses a large challenge. It would be incredible if practices could have products to hand out to patients. Similar to how we help patient with Diabetes obtain supplies, it would be amazing if we could hand out water bottles and educate how to purchase BPA free products for less then market. I feel that it would be simple to educate about microwaving plastic, but again only if you have a container that could replace it. Reduces the use of canned food I feel would be the hardest to change, canned food is convenient and cheap. So finding alternative would be something as a provider I would focus on!

In the News:

     From an article posted in December 2018, Korean adults have twice as much lead, mercury in bodies as youths. This is different from the CNN report which found that children has more then double the amount of chemicals in their systems when compared to their parents. Research found that adults had an average of 1.60ug/dL compared to the middle and high school students which averages 0.80ug/dL.  The thought behind these results are younger people are on trend with BPA free containers, canned free foods and using farm to fresh instead of microwave foods. I feel that the United States would be on trend with this, especially in light of recent cancer research. This will be interesting to follow how products will be made more accessible and affordable to underserves environments and also for providers to educate on the benefits of making these changes.