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, board -certified
doctor of non -force chiropractic and practitioner
of functional medicine. Today, we're going to
talk about microplastics, tiny little plastics
that many of us are eating and drinking. Every
day. Why it's important. More and more research
is coming out demonstrating how important and
why it is so important to stop eating plastic
and stop drinking plastic or even breathing plastic
in from the air. These microplastics, anything
smaller than five millimeters is considered a
microplastic. Some of these things are deliberately
manufactured to be tiny, such as microbeads found
in some cosmetics. But most of them come from
the inevitable wear and tear of larger plastic
material like plastic bags, water bottles. plastic
packaging, car tires, synthetic fibers like polyester,
fishing equipment, even paint. So plastics were
first engineered at the turn of the 20th century,
but they really came into widespread use in the
1950s because they're cheap and are versatile,
do so many different things. Since then, the
plastics production has increased 230 -fold.
And most of this plastic never fully decomposes.
It just breaks down into smaller and smaller
pieces over decades. And these things are being
found almost everywhere now. They're ubiquitous
in the environment. They're in agricultural soil.
They're in groundwater. They're in the ocean.
They've been found in chicken, fish, pork, cows,
tofu, apples, pears, carrots, lettuce, broccoli,
potatoes. They're in the water we drink. They
literally rain down on us and we inhale them
as airborne. particulate matter. We wear them
as synthetic fibers like nylon and polyester.
They can enter the bloodstream and IV infusions.
The hospitals are full of plastic bags and tubing
that directly cause plastics to enter our bloodstreams,
and they've been found embedded in virtually
every human organ. So teasing out the health
impacts of this requires a lot of study. There's
a lot of new information coming out about that.
There's no control group. You can't have a control
group and give one person plastic and not the
other one. But other studies, animal studies
and human studies, more and more information
is coming out over the months and years. Especially
recently, exposure to microplastics has been
associated with endocrine system disruption.
That's one of the main ones. They screw up your
hormones, your hormone production, your body's
response to normal hormones. Weakened immune
systems, developmental aberrations, irregular
reproductive organ development. And they exert
their damage partly through local and chronic
inflammation once lodged in tissue. And plastics
are often coated with chemicals. So the chemicals
leach into the surrounding tissue once you ingest.
plastic. So here's an interesting study. In 2024,
researchers followed patients undergoing carotid
surgery. The carotid arteries are the arteries
in your neck that are the main blood supply to
the brain. And when they do the surgery where
they go in and remove the plaque from those arteries
to reduce your risk of having a stroke, if you're
starting to have transient ischemic attacks,
minor strokes, or if you have high risk of a
stroke and they do an ultrasound and find that
you have a lot of plaque in those arteries, they'll
go in and scrape that out. And they found that
But those who have microplastics embedded in
those plaques had a significantly higher rate
of heart attack, stroke, and death three years
later. Wow. So this plastic stuff is getting
embedded in the plaque in your arteries. And
if you have more of that, those with the most
microplastics in their plaque have a significantly
higher rate of heart attack and stroke three
years later. More recently, from 2016 to 2024,
brains from autopsies were evaluated for a concentration
of plastics in their brain tissue, and the concentrations
of plastics in the brain were significantly higher
among individuals diagnosed with dementia compared
to those without. Also, the plastics in the brain
tissue increased as much as 50 % from 2016 to
2024, consistent with this increasing ongoing
environmental exposure. More and more plastics
are entering our systems all the time. So in
these brains that they studied over an eight
-year period from 2016 to 2024, there was 50
% higher concentration of plastics. And it dramatically
increased the risk of dementia in those patients.
And these plastics are everywhere. Just tires
and garbage are constant. Recently shedding tiny
pieces of plastic that then float up into the
air, creating a form of air pollution that we're
all exposed to. Researchers at UC San Francisco
did a review of some 3 ,000 studies and found
that these particles are implicated in serious
health problems involving male and female infertility,
colon cancer, poor lung function, lung inflammation
that can increase your risk of lung cancer, and
other forms of damage to harm to reproductive
and digestive health. So the jury is in. It's
really important to start paying more attention
to this stuff. Most of us know that plastics
are not good, not good to eat or drink plastic,
but a lot of people don't realize how much they
already are literally eating, drinking, and breathing
in plastic. So this is also, before we get into
the specifics, this is really important for younger
generations because younger generations are getting
exposed to more plastic. in their lifetimes than
ever before. And that is all signs or that's
likely to increase. So the easy one that everyone
should do is stop drinking water out of plastic
bottles. There's so much exposure to plastic
from people drinking water out of plastic bottles.
If you have any sense of taste, you can usually
taste the plastic. When you open a bottle of
water, a plastic bottle of water, those things,
you see them. being shipped, being unloaded from
trucks that have driven across the desert and
100 degree plus heat sometimes. And then they'll
sit on pallets outside some big box store in
the sun. The more that you heat the plastic,
any plastic, the more it's going to leach into
the food or the water, any other liquid that's
in direct contact with it. So it's really important
to always avoid anything that combines heat and
plastic around your food or anything you're drinking.
But the bottled water is guaranteed to be exposing
you. to plastic. Bottled water has 20 times more
microplastics than tap water. And it's cheaper
in the long run just to get a good filter and
then fill glass or steel bottles and drink your
water out of glass. Or steel, stainless steel,
metal, any kind of metal container. Instead of
plastic, just cut the plastic out of the picture.
That's the most important way to dramatically
limit your ingestion of plastic if you're drinking
water out of plastic bottles. So it's also important
just to look around the kitchen. You know, anywhere
you store and eat and cook your food. So that
means using wooden cooking utensils and cutting
boards instead of plastic ones. Using tinfoil
or wax paper. If you're going to heat something
in the oven, use tinfoil. You're not going to
usually put plastic in the oven anyway, but storing
things with tinfoil as a lid or wax paper. If
you're going to microwave, if you're going to
heat something in the microwave, don't put saran
wrap on the container. Use wax paper instead.
And I don't recommend really cooking in the microwave
much at all. It's better to cook your food. I
like to do most of my cooking in a toaster oven
or on the stove. But if you are going to reheat
something in the microwave, or if you're going
to get any kind of a frozen dinner or precooked
food and heat it up in the microwave, take it
out of whatever paper or plastic container that
it comes in and put it in a glass bowl, like
a Pyrex bowl. and then cover that with wax paper.
That way you don't get any exposure to plastic
while that food's being heated and while you're
eating it, while it's hot. So anytime you expose
the plastic to heat, you're going to be ingesting
more of that plastic. So it's okay to store food
and even water in plastic bottles as long as
it's not cold, you know, overnight in your fridge,
for example, if you have room temperature water.
And if you don't have any stainless steel or
glass bottles and you put room temperature water
from your water filter into a plastic bottle
to take with you, that's not so bad. If it doesn't
get hot, then it's not going to be good. And
if it's not a super soft plastic and, you know,
leave it in your car where it's going to get
hot and exposed to in the sun or in a hot car,
it's going to, you know. You don't want to do
that. If you're going to carry a bottle of water
in your car, make it a glass or a stainless steel
bottle, not plastic. But, you know, sometimes
it's just hard to find an alternative. So if
you're going to put something overnight storage,
for example, food with a plastic lid, not really
a problem. And even storing some liquids in plastic.
If it's in your fridge, especially, and it's
not in there very long, then you're going to
get much less exposure to plastic. from that,
but ideally, you know, minimize it as much as
possible. And with your wife, you have these
plastic containers, um, you know, don't stick
them in the dishwasher, wash them by hand. Uh,
again, just to avoid the heat dishwashers, the
water and dishwashers is much, much hotter. So
heating plastic is just leaching the chemicals
out and breaking down the plastic material. even
faster, making it more likely to leach into the
food or beverages that you're going to put in.
This includes baby bottles. A lot of people stick
the baby bottle into the microwave to warm that
up. Much better to use glass. Here in California,
we're not using as many plastic bags as we used
to. Most of us take canvas bags or some kind
of cloth bag into the store when shopping or
get paper bags there. Avoid using the plastic
bags wherever you can because they are really
soft plastics that break down really easily.
The more people use them, the more those end
up breaking down and becoming airborne pollution.
Those plastic, those horrible single -use plastic
bags are a huge source of airborne plastic that
all of us then end up breathing. Another great
way to avoid... Or reduce your consumption of
plastic is just to avoid ultra -processed foods,
junk food, any food that comes wrapped in plastic.
You know, potato chips, cakes, cookies, crackers,
you know, so many foods come wrapped in plastic.
Try to find foods that are not wrapped in plastic.
Even vegetables and fruits come wrapped in plastic
far too often. Try to get the ones that are not
wrapped in plastic. And finally, take good care
of your health so that you don't end up... In
a hospital, hospitals are full, teeming with
plastic aprons, IV tubes and bags, syringes,
plastic gloves, packaging for different materials,
plastic bottles and utensils and devices. A quarter
of the trash hospitals produce is plastic. And
hospitals produce a lot of trash. So that's a
lot of plastic. I'm Dr. Todd Bankley. You're
listening to Safe, Effective, Natural Solutions
to Almost... Any health challenge, if you just
tuned in, we were reviewing some of the latest
literature showing how important it is to start
to spend a little more time and effort reducing
your exposure to plastics, especially plastic
food and beverage containers and anything that
involves cooking, especially avoiding any type
of contact with food or beverages that are heated
or in contact with heat in a plastic packaging
or container. Here's a great study that just
came out in this week's news published in the
Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
It was done in Japan, but just published last
month, September 2025, a review of over 1 .5
million people without any form of cardiovascular
disease. This is from a database gathered from
April 2014 to November 2022. So eight and a half
year period with constipation, individuals with
no cardiovascular disease. but with constipation.
So people that had constipation had a much higher
risk. They looked for associations between people
who had constipation and whether or not they
had a heart attack, angina, the chest pain that's
associated with strain on the heart, strokes,
heart failure, atrial fibrillation. and a composite
of all of these forms of cardiovascular disease.
And the result was that constipation was associated
with a 30 % increased risk of all cardiovascular
diseases and a 32 % increased risk of heart failure.
So heart failure doesn't mean your heart stops.
Heart failure is a common cause, a quote -unquote
natural cause of death. It's when your heart
basically is worn out, can no longer keep up
with demand, or is weak. It doesn't have to be
permanent. Sometimes it's reversible if you take
good care of yourself. But heart failure just
means the pump is failing to keep up with demand.
So who knew constipation increases your risk
of heart attacks and strokes 30 % and heart failure.
So heart failure is, you know, most, most commonly
happens as you get older. So the, the major risk
factor for heart failure is just being old, but
in having a repeated minor heart events, many
strokes, a heart, you know, chest pain, any of
the things that can, atrial fibrillation, anything
that puts strain on your heart is going to increase
your risk of eventually having heart failure.
And being constipated increases your risk of
all these things. So if you're frustrated about
being constipated, here's another good reason
to do something about that. There's lots of ways
that you can completely eliminate constipation
without becoming dependent on Metamucil or stool
softeners for the rest of your life. When people
come into me, my office, who have constipation,
I'm going to look at a whole host of things in
their blood work that could be contributing to
constipation. And sometimes it's just a few basics
like insufficient vitamin D. B, insufficient
protein in their diet, insufficient fiber in
their diet. Some basic things that many people
can easily do to change. And even just taking
a little bit of supplemental magnesium. A lot
of people are deficient in magnesium. A little
bit of supplemental magnesium can help with that.
There are a bunch of other things that are less
common. And then ultimately, if the basics don't
do it, then a stool test can identify whether
or not you have... Some kind of gut bug, a virus,
a bacteria, a parasite, worms, fungus, anything,
yeast, anything that can disrupt the normal gut
microbiome can cause constipation. And especially
if you're on the seesaw where you have constipation
and diarrhea. Oh, one day I'm, you know, I'm...
It goes back and forth. That's really frustrating
and confusing. You'd think you'd have one or
the other. And some people would go back and
forth. And that's usually because you have some
kind of bad bug in your gut. And it's creating
an inflammatory process. That is constantly changing,
but results in the inability for your colon to
do its job and form normal consistency stools.
So yeah, get that stuff checked out. Here's another
good reason. If you're having constipation, do
something about it. I'd love to help you with
that. So you can obviously become more comfortable,
but you'll also be reducing your risk of heart
attack and stroke. I've got some more great studies
to talk about here today, and if we have time,
I'll talk about a case study or two. But before
I do that, I want to talk about something that
just occurred to me. I had a patient last week
who was under a lot of stress and was complaining
about how angry they would get just... Just something
as simple as not being able to find their keys
is raising their blood pressure. And I see that.
People come in. So something as simple as that.
Here's one way to consider reducing your stress.
If you find that you're constantly wasting energy
and aggravation looking for something, keys is
a common one. It's really simple. Just put your
keys in the same place every day. Just take that
extra second. to put your keys on a hook, in
a little bowl, on a little table, somewhere near
the door ideally, wherever you're going to find
it every day, and always only put your keys there.
When you walk in, just drop them there immediately
so you'll always be able to find them. But there's
lots of other things that I've found myself frustrated
looking for over time, like scissors. Do you
only have one pair of scissors? Have you ever
wanted a pair of scissors and wondered where
it was and walked around for hours trying to
find it? Easy solution. Same thing if you find
yourself frustrated looking for a pen or pencil
and you can't find it. find one or a post -it
note or a sharpie to mark something on a box
or a box cutter to open a box or a highlighter
to highlight things anything that you find yourself
when you want something and it's not right there
ready to just reach out and jump into your hand
when you need it Buy six of those things. They're
cheap. Put a pair of scissors in your kitchen,
in your workroom, any place you use a pair of
scissors, or a pen or a pencil, or a box cutter.
Just get a bunch of those things and spread them
around so that there's always one anywhere you
might ever want to use it. Simple way to reduce
one stressor, one source of frustration from
your life. Have you ever had a calcium score
done? A coronary artery calcification test? This
is the CAT scan where you're in the tube for
a brief period of time. They just do a couple
of slices, low radiation, and they can see the
calcium in your arteries and your heart. So if
you know anybody that's ever had that done, if
you've had it done, there's been some controversy
around it. Plaque is made up of fibrin, scar
tissue, that occurs from inflammation. That's
why it's not caused by cholesterol, but it is
made of cholesterol. If you have a lot of inflammation
creating a lot of micro tears in your blood vessels,
then your body forms a scab, a type of a scab
to heal those little micro tears. And that is
made of scar tissue. Fibrin is the main type
of collagen -like fiber that forms the scar to
heal the tear. And then that becomes embedded
with calcium and cholesterol. So calcium and
cholesterol increase in... those plaques as they
grow. And one of the ways to measure that is
to measure the plaque, to measure the calcium
in that is with this CT tube -like x -ray that
can see the calcium in your arteries. And so,
you know, it's a useful test because if you have
more of the calcified, it doesn't show the soft
plaque. That's the controversy. So you can only
see the calcium. You can only see the calcified
parts of the plaque. You can't see the soft plaque.
Well, it's the soft plaque that can easily, that's
growing and filling and closing off the artery
long before it becomes hard enough to show up
on an x -ray. that blocks the arteries and is
the soft plaque that can erode and break off
and cause a thrombus, cause a pulmonary embolism.
If it comes off from a vein in your leg, cause
a stroke. If it comes from your heart, it's going
to go up your brain and cause a stroke. So that
softer plaque that breaks off easily, erodes
or ruptures, that's what causes the most damaging
form. And that doesn't show up at all when you
get any kind of an x -ray or a CAT scan or specifically
this coronary artery calcification or calcium.
score. But in general, the more calcified plaque
you see on that test, the more you're likely
to have the other types of softer plaque that
you can't see on that test because they go together.
So that's why people get that test. Some people
think it's useless because it does not measure
the worst type of, and especially in young people.
So that's what this, there's a letter published
in Cardiovascular Imaging, Journal of American
Cardiology, Cardiovascular Imaging, talking about
how some more data review of the studies that
they've done on autopsy. They did, they took,
how many, I think it was 2 ,500 people. Oh, 5
,000, 5 ,000 adult autopsies. They analyzed 3
,130 hearts to see. They did the coronary artery
score on them and then compared the plaque score,
the coronary artery calcification, with the amount
of the softer plaque that is prone to rupture
and erosion that can cause a heart attack or
stroke. What was the difference? Did it correlate
directly? What was the deal with that? So what
they found is that in younger people, it correlates
very poorly. So you can have a very low calcium
score or a zero. And it kind of makes sense.
It hasn't been there. Everyone has plaque. Almost
everyone has plaque. They find plaque in... For
decades ago, they found huge amounts of plaque
and blockage in the arteries in returning soldiers
when they did autopsies on returning soldiers
going back decades from various wars. So depending
on how lousy a diet you have, you can have massive
amounts of blocking in your arteries, even in
your 20s. But the younger you are, the less likely
you are to have plaque that has calcified. But
depending on your lifestyle, you could still
have a lot of the softer kind of plaque that
can cause heart attacks and strokes. So the younger
you are, the less likely the calcium score is
going to correlate with the total amount of plaque
that you have and therefore your risk of heart
attacks. Whereas as you get older, the more likely
it is to compare calcium score is likely to represent
your total burden. So it doesn't show you exactly
what we would like to be able to see more easily
on a scan. To see the actual amount of plaque
or blockage of an artery, you have to inject
a dye in. and do an x -ray of that dye, which
will show a blockage directly. But in the meantime,
this score is useful. I like to think of it,
I've ordered it on patients. It's inexpensive.
I think the last time I ordered one was about
$150. Well, that was at Grossman Imaging here
in Ventura County. Radnet, Rolling Oaks, everything
is Rolling Oaks now. They bought out Grossman.
There's fewer places to go. I've had a... A lot
of patients recently saying that they're having
trouble getting in to get an appointment to get
any kind of imaging done lately. But I think
it's inexpensive to do. It's useful. I like to
think of it as a way to motivate you, especially
if you're in your 60s or 70s or older. Or if
you have had a lifestyle, eating a lot of red
meat, cheese. If you have a sedentary lifestyle,
a lot of inflammatory. components of your diet.
If you've eaten a lot of junk food or soda, or
if you've smoked, drinking a lot of alcohol,
done anything that's going to increase inflammation
throughout your body, it's going to increase
your risk of cardiovascular disease, the formation
of plaques. And so you can think of this calcium
score as a way to find out. If it's really important
for you, it's a motivator to motivate you. Say,
hey, look, you can't argue with these x -rays.
Now it's going to motivate you to take better
care of yourself. Maybe come in and get some
blood tests done. Do a little bit more exercise.
Find a way to get rid of the pain that may be
preventing you from doing more exercise. Whatever
it's going to take to motivate you to take better
care of your health and directly reduce your
risk of cardiovascular disease. So I had her
patient in her mid -60s who had this calcium
score done. She came in. She wanted to know what
does this mean? What does this score mean? I
said, well, you have a certain amount. I explained
how it doesn't show the softer parts, the more
dangerous types of plaque. And we also did a
bunch of blood work on her, among other things,
measuring markers for inflammation like erythrocyte
sedimentation rate. That's a kind of a mouthful,
but there's a blood test that measures the viscosity
or the thickness of your blood. And your blood
gets thicker when you have a lot of inflammation.
And there's also a test. It's called CRP. Those
are two of the markers of inflammation that I
do on every patient. And so this woman had high
cholesterol. And slightly elevated inflammatory
markers as well, especially the SED rate, this
erythrocyte sedimentation rate, where both were
elevated. And I tried to get her to eat a little
bit better food. She already actually had a pretty
good diet. She was exercising some, but not as
much as she'd like. So she started exercising
a little bit more, but not that much, not a huge
change in her lifestyle. She didn't dramatically
change her exercise or her diet. But what she
did is took some supplements to control inflammation,
like turmeric. And a product that's a rock star
for lowering cholesterol called Bergamot. mutt
bpf it's from orthomolecular products a few other
things and in about took about four think about
six i usually retest in four months but i think
it was six months with her six months later her
cholesterol total cholesterol went from 249 to
199 50 points drop in the total cholesterol and
her even more importantly, the bad cholesterol.
This is harder to do. It's easier to reduce the
total and get the HDL good cholesterol up. The
hardest is to get the bad LDL cholesterol to
come down where you want it. You want it ideally
below 100, no more than 125 to be healthy. Of
course, MDs put you on statin drugs to lower,
but we got her LDL bad cholesterol down also
by 50 points in about six months with mainly
just with some supplements that help your body
stop forming as much cholesterol. first place,
reduce inflammation and to a certain extent,
break down that old fibrin and remove some of
that scar tissue that's contributing to plaque
in the first place. Thank you for tuning in.
Send me your questions. What would you like to
hear more about on this show? I'd love to answer
your question next week. Have a fantastic weekend.
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 2 p .m. for Safe, Effective Natural Solutions
here on 98 .3 FM, The Word.