Prepare to have your health questions answered here on Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions
with Dr. Todd Binkley, owner of Binkley Healing Center in downtown Ventura.
Now, here's Dr. Todd.
Good afternoon.
I'm Dr. Todd Binkley, non-force doctor of chiropractic and practitioner of functional
medicine.
The focus of today's talk is going to be about the dangers of wildfire smoke.
My heart goes out to all of those who lost homes in the mountain fire just this past
couple of weeks.
Several other structures, a local beekeeper lost millions of bees that agriculture depends
on.
But the long-term effects affect us all.
From burning plastics and vinyl, furniture, cars, computers, other electronics full of
heavy metals and toxic chemicals, these things can blow hundreds, sometimes even thousands
of miles away and they end up blanketing the surface of the earth when that fine particulate
matter settles back down and can just cause problems for weeks and months after that.
For five years after the much more devastating Thomas fire, a lot of that stuff has still
been covering the surface of the earth and gets churned back up again any time a good
wind blows or any time somebody with a leaf blower turns it up near your house.
So if you've ever noticed yourself breathing a little more badly on a windy day, that's
a lot of that.
Finally, we got a respite.
We had some really good rains in January of this year, 2024, that washed a lot of that
away.
But of course now we've got a new coating from the mountain fire.
The best way to protect yourself from all this debris, of course, is to first close
the windows, but a lot of people don't realize that a lot of that stuff gets in your house
anyway, especially if you sleep with the windows open even part of the time.
So dusting, vacuuming, and having the carpets cleaned in your house is a very good idea
after a fire like this.
And most importantly, to get a HEPA filter is one of my main recommendations for anyone
who has post-nasal drip or is having any kind of an upper respiratory condition or a chronic
cough or just basically anyone who wants to be proactive and stay healthy.
It's a really good idea to breathe super clean air all night when you're sleeping.
And the easiest way to make that happen is to get a HEPA filter, high efficiency particulate
air filter, especially for your bedroom.
Some people like to put one in other rooms in the house, but if you're only going to get
one, the most important place would be to put it in a bedroom.
And if you don't have one or if you haven't tried HEPA filter before, or if you have tried
them and found them to be noisy, there is a particular brand that I like that is really
nice because it's super quiet on its quietest setting, but then you can crank it up on a
higher speed to do a routine cleaning or after vacuuming or if you've had the windows open.
And the brand is Medify, M-E-D-I-F-Y, and they make a nice size unit that's good enough for
one room.
I have a couple of them in the office and at home.
Their brand Medify model number MA25 is about $99 on Amazon.
And it's excellent because it's super quiet.
You can't even hear it when it's on the lowest setting.
You can just leave it running all the time in your bedroom.
And then after dusting or vacuuming or a smoky day or anytime when it's been really windy,
it's a good idea to close the windows and run it on medium or high for a few hours to
really clean out the air in your bedroom.
So why is this so important?
Well, this is a paper that just came out in the medical literature by Mary Meyer, MD and
Master of Public Health Emergency Physician at the Permanente Medical Group and Laura
Myers, MD and MPH, a pulmonologist and intensive care specialist also at Permanente.
So these are both physicians with rich experience in the firsthand effects of treating people
that are exposed to wildfire smoke and the devastating things that can occur from it.
And one of the things that surprises people is valley fever.
Valley fever is a fungal infection that usually affects the lungs and is caused by a fungus
that lives in the soil in many parts of California, especially Ventura County and the surrounding
counties of San Luis Obispo, Kern, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
Basically all the places that when they're on fire blow straight towards the ocean much
of the year when the Santa Annas are blowing and blow all that smoke towards us.
And so the spores from these fungus is that you may have heard or if you know anybody
that members of your family that are firefighters, it's been something that's been known for
quite some time now because even without the smoke when firefighters are digging up the
soil, especially if it's really dry to create fire lines and fire blocks, they're liberating
these fungus, fungus coxae from the soil that can cause valley fever, which sometimes can
be a minor infection, sometimes can lead to hospitalization, but even, you know, it can
be as devastating as causing death in certain individuals.
And I actually had a very good friend a couple of years ago who was otherwise very healthy
and ended up in the hospital with a severe lung infection.
And, you know, the most common lung infections are bacterial and viral.
And by the time they got around to finally figuring out what was causing his severe lung
infection, it was too late and he died from valley fever.
But even if you're not a firefighter digging up the soil, firefighting, the helicopters
and the wind associated with fires blowing on just dry soil and dependent on the fire
itself can liberate these fungal spores from the ground and blow it many, many, many miles
away and increased incidences of valley fever are being reported with the increase in fires.
And fires, but also just hot, dry wind in places where it's disturbing dry soil and
blowing those fungi spores downwind.
So it may surprise you to know that you can get an infection from wind and wildfires,
but we've known about for over half a century about the negative effects of all the debris
and especially the fine particulate matter from fires and other sources since the Clean
Air Act came out in 1970.
Detailed monitoring and various policies put into place by the Environmental Protection
Agency have dramatically reduced, had dramatically reduced the general amount of particulate,
fine particulate matter that people are exposed to.
The technical term is PM25 particulate matter that's smaller than 2.5 microns.
This is smaller than a human hair.
And this is the most hazardous and the most ubiquitous fine particulate matter.
It's called particulate matter because it's actually a mix of tiny liquid and solid particles
less than the diameter of a human hair.
So it's both capable of carrying toxic chemicals and the physical debris from dust and it floats
in the air.
Smoke, anything that you can see floating in the air, it's suspended in the air, can
also travel large distances and when it gets near you, it travels deep, deep into the deepest
crevices of your lungs.
And that's what can make it so devastating.
It goes directly into the areas where oxygen enters your bloodstream.
The part of your lungs that is required to be vulnerable to let oxygen in is also letting
this particulate matter directly into your bloodstream.
This particulate matter has been linked to cardiovascular disease, asthma, chronic obstructive
pulmonary disease, other respiratory problems.
The World Health Organization has estimated that in 2019 exposure to fine particulate
matter was directly responsible for 4.2 million premature deaths globally.
So for a long time it was assumed that wildfire smoke was basically the same as any other
kind of air pollution from things that end up in the environment, in the air, especially
if you live near cities or places that are dusty.
But in fact, since the incidence of wildfires keeps growing and growing, we're learning
that there are nuances to the wildfire smoke that are much worse than other types of smoke
that we're typically exposed to.
So if you just think about all the things that are in homes that burn or in cars that
burn, it's a mix of chemicals, volatile organic compounds, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons,
hydrogen cyanide, carbon monoxide, and the heavy metals lead, arsenic, and mercury.
In one study, wildfire smoke was shown to be 10 times more toxic than the particulate
matter that is nearly always in the air around Southern California.
I'm Dr. Todd Benkley.
We're listening to safe, effective natural solutions to almost any health challenge,
talking today about the dangers of wildfire smoke and other forms of smoke and the best
way you can protect yourself from the damaging effects of it.
And this is going to become more and more important to know about because the incredible
drift of wildfire smoke fires all over the country.
Wildfires in Canada are affecting people hundreds and even thousands of miles away in America.
And we have a rabbit a lot worse out here in the West, but it's becoming a phenomenon
almost the world over.
There are fires burning in peat under snow that burn all winter long that never go out
in Canada.
Unbelievable.
And it's long been assumed that the concentration of the various toxins dissipates the further
the smoke travels, it becomes less concentrated.
But new data is showing that in certain situations, some pollutants such as ozone and other pollutants,
and other particulate matter from chemical oxidation, depending on the environment that
the smoke is traveling through actually increases as it blows down wind.
And as we mentioned before, bio aerosols, well, I didn't mention bio aerosol specifically,
but that's the technical term, but airborne fungus and even bacterial cells can be carried
through wildfire smoke.
So it used to be assumed that the high heat of a wildfire would incinerate any microbes,
but we're now learning that pocket the degree of heat within a wildfire smoke is highly
variable and that microbes can survive in pockets of particulate matter and water vapor.
And they essentially hitchhike within that particulate matter to be deposited and inhaled
down wind.
And even if you don't get an infection directly from the smoke, if you have any damage to
your lungs already, any kind of a chronic lung condition from exposure to various things
or if you're one of the vulnerable people, if you're just having someone who's getting
a cold or a flu, every year 30 to 60,000 people a year die from the cold and flus.
These are statistics that lung preceded COVID.
I'm sure we've all heard more about COVID than we want to, but lung infections persist
in your risk of having a severe infection and ending up sick for weeks or months or
ending up in the hospital or God forbid dying from any common lung condition, lung infection
is also exacerbated by breathing smoke.
For about four decades, the standards established by the Clean Air Act forced a steady drop
in ambient particulate matter, reduced emissions from industry, car exhaust, all those smog
checks are actually making a difference.
If you live near a freeway or a major thoroughfare, there's still a lot of just generated by tires
rolling down the road, car tires, truck tires, bus tires.
And of course, lots of people still smoke cigarettes and marijuana and burn other things
that create smoke and all smoke is fine particulate matter that damages lungs and increases risk
of heart disease and aggravates a host of other conditions like diabetes and certain
cancers.
And about 15 years ago, this trend toward reduced overall exposure to particulate matter
started stagnating and reversing.
And so wildfire smoke is largely responsible for this.
Wildfire smoke is responsible for 25% of the country's particulate matter.
And in Western states, up to half, so up to half of the particulate matter in the air
is from wildfires and that's only bound to increase.
So we need to protect ourselves from this stuff.
Most people know to close their windows when they smell smoke, but even long after you
can't, like right now, the mountain fire has been largely put out.
The air in and around Ventura doesn't smell too bad right now unless you have a really
sensitive nose.
I was a kid, I was exposed to years of secondhand smoke.
My dad smoked about two packs a day.
The whole time I was growing up, I can smell burning cigarette from blocks away.
And the air around here, trust me, is still not really great.
I'm not saying anybody needs to, everyone needs to walk around outside wearing a mask,
but it would be a good idea.
I'm still keeping my windows closed and my HEPA filters cranked up and I recommend for
a lot of people to do the same.
And I'm saying this as just a general health measure.
I don't have any allergies.
When the pollen count is high, it doesn't bother me at all.
But as an example, my mother had a chronic cough for many, many years, decades, because
of the secondhand exposure to smoke that she got from my father.
And years ago, I got her to have her carpets professionally cleaned and I sent her a really
good air filter for her home.
And she was actually reluctant, she listens to this, sorry mom, I hope you don't mind
me telling people this, she was reluctant to have her carpets cleaned because she vacuums
them all the time.
This is immaculate, it's ridiculously clean.
Anyway, a lot of people think that it's bad, sometimes people think that it's bad to have
your carpet cleaned because it gets it wet and could damage it.
And in fact, it's a bad idea to get a cheesy rental carpet cleaner that's not going to
dry it properly.
But getting your carpets professionally cleaned is actually required to maintain the warranty
on most carpets.
And carpets collect a lot of dust, even if you do vacuum really, really well, especially
if you live in a place that is windy and have your windows open with any frequency.
So get a good HEPA filter, at least one in your bedroom, email me if you want the specifics
on the one that I recommend.
There's lots of good ones out there, there's also lots of bad ones that are either the
problems with the ones that are not so great, or sometimes they're too noisy, so you're
not going to want to run it all the time because it'll just be annoying to listen to the fan,
especially at night in your bedroom.
And HEPA filters are basically just an accordion shaped paper filter.
But the better ones on top of that accordion shaped paper filter have kind of a pantyhose
like membrane, plastic screen like material.
So if you have dust and lint and pet hair, it doesn't just immediately clog up the filter
and destroy it, so you don't have to change the filters as often.
So it ends up saving a lot of money and a lot of hassle changing the filters.
You might only have to change the filters maybe every three months instead of once a
month.
It just depends on the level of dust in your area and how often you have your windows open.
But the better filters are quieter, and they have filters that don't require the expense
and hassle of changing as frequently.
So anyway, my mother had this chronic cough for years.
I got her a good filter and had her carpets professionally cleaned.
And she didn't even notice for a while that she wasn't coughing as much at church.
She was in the church choir and she used to always cough when she got there.
And it was a place where it was pretty obvious if she's coughing in a quiet room and people
started mentioning, hey, you're not coughing anymore.
And that really surprised her.
And that was a few years ago now, so she's very happy.
But anybody that has post-nasal drip or wakes up with a bunch of phlegm in their throat
has to blow their nose all the time.
Anything like that where phlegm is being produced by the lungs and you're coughing that stuff
up or having to get rid of that, that is your body's natural response to inhalation of fine
particulate matter.
It's trying to get rid of it.
And it does so by producing mucus, which you then have to eliminate by blowing your nose
or spitting it out.
So these are all things you can do to keep your home and work interior spaces free from
fine particulate matter, from smoke, and from the air in general.
It's also a good idea to take a look outside your house.
Well, actually inside still the duct work.
If you have an HVAC system, a heating, ventilation, and air conditioning system that has ducts
and vents around your house or around your office, those ducts get buildup of dust and
other things in them and should be professionally cleaned.
And I just had this done at my office recently.
I can recommend someone who does an excellent job.
They bring in equipment so that there's no mess.
They seal up everything.
They seal up each duct.
The thing that they stick in, they remove the grills and stick a fancy brush with a
big suction on it.
And they seal around that each time they're doing each one of those.
So they leave your house.
And my office looked as clean as it did before they started.
And the air was noticeably cleaner to breathe.
So this is something you can check yourself.
Take the grill off of some of those vents in your house or your office.
Take a look in there.
See what that looks like.
And consider having that cleaned.
It's also a good idea to have your roof cleaned.
So all that dust settles down on your roof.
And you can take a look at your roof.
Sometimes you can see that it's kind of dusty.
And in foggy areas like Ventura, near the coast, any place the north side of your roof,
mold is also a big issue on roofs.
So having your roof power washed, whether it's regular shingles or a tile, any kind
of roof, that kind of stuff can accumulate on it.
Even if you have a flat roof that you can't see because there's a little parapet sticking
up around it.
You know, get somebody to climb a ladder or if you know somebody with a drone, there's
lots of ways to have all that chucked out.
And people even do that.
Roofing, cleaning companies do drone inspections.
Not that expensive even to have that done.
And they'll come out and power wash all of that stuff off for you.
I mentioned having the ducts cleaned.
It's actually important to have the filters, change the filters in your heating, ventilation
and air conditioning system as well.
And the best filter to get, the number that you want to look for is MERV 13, M-E-R-V.
That's the standard term used, minimum efficiency reporting value to measure how much stuff
is filtered out by your filter.
And a lot of the cheap ones are MERV 8 or 10.
MERV 13 is enough to filter out COVID viruses and any other, 98% of any other viral particles.
But more important than that for most uses every day is to filter out this particulate
matter that I'm talking about all the time.
And sometimes you need to get a thicker than kind of the standard cheap ones.
If you notice that when you put a new filter in your system and the air is getting noisier,
the fan is running harder or noisier than you might need to actually get a thicker actual
size of the filter that makes it easier for the air to move through.
That's all kind of technical, but it's important to check this stuff out.
Lastly, when you know you're going to be exposed to some of these things, if you're going to
be outside in a really windy dusty area or if you're working with wood dust, any kind
of construction process, spray painting, as you know, most people that do this for a living
wear what's called a respirator.
This is not your N95 mask and all those other horrible masks we were harangued to wearing
even indoors during COVID.
But a respirator is that rubber-like thing that covers your whole mouth and nose with
two filters on each side, which are very similar to HEPA filters.
And they filter out toxins, the volatile organic chemicals that are in paints and other chemicals
like that that you can otherwise smell.
The nice thing about those is you can actually breathe.
If you've never worn one of those and wondered, oh, I'm going to be out doing something dusty,
oh, you know, there's still a little bit of wildfire smoke in the air, even if you're
going to be doing a lot of gardening, if you're going to expose yourself to that stuff and
you know that you felt worse later being out in any kind of environment where you're breathing
in dust, then get a respirator and just have one on hand.
The nice thing about it, if you've never worn one of these before, is it's actually, it's
a little hat, it's a kind of a hassle to put it on.
This is the rubber mask that straps around your head with the two filters on each side,
cumbersome to put on.
But the good news is it's easy to breathe through them.
If you've never worn one before, you'll be amazed how it's easier to breathe through
one of these because it has a vent, a one-way valve to let your air come out when you breathe
out.
It's much easier to breathe through a respirator than it is an N95 mask or anything else you
might strap on your face.
So protect yourself from dust and toxic chemicals.
And if you or anyone you love suspects they might have been exposed to that.
Smokers, for example, don't wait until you have a chest x-ray or a CAT scan or some other
symptoms that identify that you have a severe chronic lung condition or, God forbid, lung
cancer.
If you notice any symptoms like that, get tested.
And so there are ways to test, for example, if you've been exposed to some of these chemicals,
the heavy metals that are in cigarette smoke like cadmium and that are in lots of things
that we're all constantly exposed to.
Heavy metals like lead, arsenic, cadmium, uranium, and mercury.
There's a way to test this in a hair sample, just like you can test drugs in a hair sample.
And also in the urine, there are other tests for various chemicals that are in the aerocells
that we've been talking about.
It's a good idea to find out about these things earlier than later.
Specifically, if you or someone you love has smoked for more than 10 or 15 years, it's
a good idea to get a low-dose CT scan, the standard means of early detection for lung
cancer, especially for smokers.
It's long been just a regular chest x-ray, but there is a much more accurate, very low-dose
CT scan now that you can get for about $150 to identify the small cell carcinoma that
is the most common one from smoking much earlier.
So if you're having any kind of symptoms of excess phlegm, difficulty breathing, shortness
of breath, any other symptoms that might make you suspect that you need to get your lungs
checked out, I'd be happy to help you with that.
And please send me any other questions that you have about all the things that we've been
talking about today or any other health-related topic.
Thank you for tuning in.
Have a wonderful weekend.
Look forward to speaking with you right here next Friday at 2 p.m. on KDAR.
You've been listening to Safe, Effective Natural Solutions with Dr. Todd Binkley.
If you have a health question you want discussed on the show, email your health questions to
drbinkley at binkleyhealingcenter.com.
Take advantage of this opportunity to ask questions for yourself and for your loved
ones because our health matters.
Join him next Friday at 4 p.m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions right here on 98.3 The
Word, KDAR.