Those darn chemicals: Difference between revisions
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= | =On toxicity= | ||
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See also [[Toxic as in behaviour]] | |||
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==Everything is chemicals, and everything is toxic at high concentrations== | ==Everything is chemicals, and everything is toxic at high concentrations== | ||
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Which feels like a game of semantics, much "all concepts are made up" -- technically true but not useful to what we mean to communicate. | |||
You know what I mean, stop defending putting that weird shit in my body. | |||
And yes, if that were my game here, you would be absolutely right to call it out. | |||
'''However''. | |||
If that | If you are saying that you know exactly what chemicals are good ones and which are the bad ones, | ||
then you are falling right into a trap that marketers have been getting away with for ''way'' too long. | |||
And if you pay only attention to last year's boogymen, then | |||
* they will continue to do so. | |||
* you are actively distracting yourself from information that will actually let you live a bit healthier. | |||
We need to be able to rank how bad things are, | |||
rank which are worst influences are, | |||
or estimate how much to care about specific ones. | or estimate how much to care about specific ones. | ||
One dumb point to be made is that almost ''everything'' is toxic at the right dose. | |||
Drink half a dozen liters of water and your body cannot compensate. | |||
(It's not common in part because you will feel terrible and stop doing it) | |||
Every healthy thing can also kill you, if you take enough, | |||
: they just happen to make it ''difficult'', often by having a large zone where the amount still won't do much | |||
Unhealthy things are just the things that do so faster, | |||
: that do so at amounts you might not immediately think of as harmful, | |||
: i.e. that skip that safe zone | |||
And for some things, the reason it won't kill you is that something else gets to you before another. | |||
For example, drink too much coffee and it's the ''water'' that kills you first, not the caffeine. | |||
A more practical take is | |||
* anything that harms you in short term, particularly in amounts easily available | |||
:: | |||
* anything that you don't break down, because it will accumulate over time even with tiny exposure | |||
* anything that harms in any way, and is hard to remove | |||
And it's hard to get yourself informed. | |||
When I try to do research, I find ''way'' too many pages that use some fancy sounding words, skips five steps, and conclude it's good. Or that it's fine, who knows. | |||
Add to that that biochemistry is ''complex'' and seeing a thing in isolation is generally not that meaningful, | |||
So I don't trust most pages I come across that do not cite sources, do not relativize that giving 100 times the dose to an animal 1/10 our size is just ''not'' a good reference, etc. | |||
Even when harder research gives strong evidence, it is still in isolation and under a handful conditions, that is still rarely slotted into the wider picture of bodies in general, let alone yours in particular. | Even when harder research gives strong evidence, it is still in isolation and under a handful conditions, that is still rarely slotted into the wider picture of bodies in general, let alone yours in particular. | ||
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==Toxin, poison, venom== | ==Toxin, poison, venom== | ||
===More technically=== | |||
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In everyday use, the general sense of 'something you don't want in you' | The following distinctions are only really useful to those doing medicine, biology, or chemistry, | ||
''that guy'' at a party, or something else where you want to be more precise. | |||
In everyday use, the general sense of 'something you don't want in you' is enough. | |||
Poisons are any chemical substances that impact biological functions in other organisms | Poisons are any '''chemical''' substances that impact biological functions in other organisms | ||
Toxins are '''biologically produced''' chemical substances that impact biological functions in other organisms. | |||
So you | So you can think of | ||
* poisions as general | |||
* toxins as natural naturally occurring poisons | |||
Using that definition, nothing synthesized is toxin. Chemists | Using that definition, nothing synthesized is toxin. Chemists sometimes use '''toxicant'''s for that. | ||
Adding '''venom''' (versus poison/toxin) adds ''direction'' to the definitions: | |||
: if you bite it and it's bad for you, its poison. If it's secreted, it's poison. | : if you bite it and it's bad for you, its poison. If it's secreted, it's poison. | ||
: If it bites you and it's bad, it's venomous. | : If it bites you and it's bad, it's venomous. | ||
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===More practically=== | |||
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* Venoms tend to be defensive for animals, poisons/toxins as defensive for plants, | |||
* ...and as far as biology is concerned, we humans are just another organism in the mix of many others, | |||
: our body can deal with small amounts of any, or we would not be viable to live very long | |||
* so while ''anything'' is bad in large amounts... | |||
: venoms more easily so because if they weren't, they would be pointless | |||
* ...at the same time, most of these are harmless in smaller amounts | |||
They still tax your body, so why would you do that ''knowingly'', | |||
but also you'll be okay. | |||
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===...except: bioaccumulation=== | |||
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...the above holds for things that leave your system quickly. | |||
Which is most things, but not all. | |||
The two terms to know here are: | |||
* '''Bioaccumulation'''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bioaccumulation] - chemicals building in an organism because it can't break it down, or excrete it, faster than it is ingested. | |||
* '''Biomagnification'''[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biomagnification] is the rest of the food chain making things a little worse: | |||
consider that what you eat (plants or animal) also eat. If they eat the thing as well, and you ingest it directly ''and/or'' this other way, there are more ways in and buildup goes faster than you might think. | |||
Things that cannot be broken down will do very little to leave. | |||
We will typically know this as "don't eat or touch, ever". | |||
Even if the harm per volume is tiny, we consider it poison, because even if a little ingestion is fine, we want to know not to do it in general. | |||
Things that ''can'' be broken down, or moved out, can still be bioaccumulative, but only if we ingest it faster than we can break down or move out. | |||
Your body will still have a harder time than if you never put them in you, but it is unlikely to be the thing you'll die of (the process taxing your body may still make it an indirect effect). | |||
For example, | |||
* mercury | |||
:: has varied negative effects | |||
:: is excreted by many organism, but not very efficiently (half-life of two months or so in people), so any consistent exposure means deposits everywhere | |||
:: is notably bioaccumulative in certain fish[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mercury_in_fish], | |||
:: and therefore also in people that eat these fish regularly | |||
:: and is why we really don't want mercury in our environment in general | |||
* pesticides | |||
:: most aren't bioaccumulative, meaning that they while ingesting them isn't good for you (potential interactions with the nervous system, the reproductive system, the endocrine system cancer, Alzheimer's Disease, ADHD, and in extreme cases birth defects) | |||
:: ...they won't build up, so your levels should never be worse than what you eat in a short term | |||
:: whether that is still enough to be bad depends a little on regulations, farming conventions, and eating habits | |||
See also: | |||
* [https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17477364/ Mechanisms of mercury disposition in the body] | |||
* [https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/labs/rand/projects/methylmercury-metabolism-elimination.aspx Methylmercury Metabolism and Elimination Status (MerMES) in Humans ] | |||
* [https://inchem.org/documents/cicads/cicads/cicad50.htm Elemental Mercury and Inorganic Mercury Compounds: Human Health Aspects] | |||
* [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3988285/ Environmental Mercury and Its Toxic Effects] | |||
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==LD50== | |||
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In toxicology, LD50 is the '''median lethal dose'': the amount that would kill 50% of the the population. | In toxicology, LD50 is the '''median lethal dose'': the amount that would kill 50% of the the population. | ||
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===E numbers=== | ===E numbers=== | ||
'''E numbers just means it's tested'''. | |||
'''E numbers just means it's tested''' | |||
It is mostly things commonly used as food additives - so that we can quantify how to use them safely. | |||
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===What's in a name?=== | |||
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Selling to a natural crowd? | |||
"Natural pressed extract from Helianthus annuus" sounds better than "triglycerides" (that's sunflower oil, by the way) | |||
Selling to a fancy sscientific crowd? | |||
Call it a micellar aqueous soap. That's actually most of them, it happens to be '[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micellar_solution tiny bits suspended in something else]' (of specifically [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphiphile amphipathic] lipids, but almost all soaps qualify) | |||
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===The things you actually probably want to be there=== | |||
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[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potassium_metabisulfite Potassium metabisulfite], in my wine? Why would you add something that amounts to adding disinfectant? | |||
Well, it helps keep the taste. And color. And avoids botulism. So is also a great way to clean the wine making tools. | |||
And yes, you want to . So it's well studied. E224, to be specific. | |||
And yes, this is one of the sources of winey headaches, in perhaps 1% of us that are sensitive. | |||
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lecithin Lecithin] emulsifiers, are they necessary? | |||
If you like stirring a lot, no. | |||
But most of us will think our mayo, peanut butter, and yoghurt, and many other things to be worse without it. | |||
Some people will unnecessarily throw it out, particularly if other products don't do this. | |||
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=Some things worth talking about - mixed= | |||
===Volatile organic compound (VOC)=== | |||
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Volatile organic compounds are those that are | |||
* organic compound - which is a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_compound very wide category] | |||
* volatile, meaning [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility_(chemistry) it evaporates quickly] (at room temperature) | |||
This can be a feature, or entirely neutral - it describes commuication between animals and plants, and odor carriers such as perfumes, | |||
or both, e.g. just describing the thing that makes leaves or fruits or tree have a particular smell (e.g. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isoprene isoprene] for oaks, poplars, eucalyptus, [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limonene limonene] for lemons). | |||
Because 'organic' is so wide, | |||
it includes a bunch of things which are fine, | |||
but also be something you don't want, e.g. with some causing allergic, respiratory, or immune effects. | |||
So in particularly human-made VOCs are regulated. | |||
Not because they're all immediately toxic - many are not - but because of potential chronic effects. | |||
Recently, a reason you may be looking for this term is indoor VOCs, as reported by some air quality sensors. | |||
(most sensors are actually much too selective, but reporting some of them is better than none, I suppose). | |||
Indoor VOCs are starting to get regulated more, also to regulate VOCs emitted from products. | |||
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===Pesticides=== | ===Pesticides=== | ||
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-cide means kill. Pest means 'things we don't like in our crops'. | -cide means kill. Pest means 'things we don't like in our crops'. | ||
Is it really that mind-readingly selective? | |||
Is it really that mind-readingly selective? | |||
If pesticides ward off insects, why wouldn't they hurt us, or they environment? | If pesticides ward off insects, why wouldn't they hurt us, or they environment? | ||
They do. | They do hurt us and the environment. | ||
Worst case, it's basically a low level of poison, selective only in the sense that to us larger creatures it's something we can process, whereas to smaller creatures it's overwhelming. | |||
There is a grey area around pesticides, for various reasons. | There is a grey area around pesticides, for various reasons. | ||
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Parabens are metabolized, so low concentrations are unlikely to contribute. | Parabens are metabolized, so low concentrations are unlikely to contribute. | ||
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=Some bad names= | |||
Latest revision as of 12:09, 21 March 2024
✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.
BIG RED TEXT HELLO: This is not health advice, or necessarily correct. Do not make health decisions based on just this. Do your own research, and not just the stuff that agrees with your opinions.
On toxicity
Everything is chemicals, and everything is toxic at high concentrations
Toxin, poison, venom
More technically
More practically
...except: bioaccumulation
LD50
Things barely worth talking about
E numbers
E numbers just means it's tested.
It is mostly things commonly used as food additives - so that we can quantify how to use them safely.
They get short codes in the process, which is an easier shorthand to refer to the substance
and the tests. This is often easier more precise and/or easier than a fancier pseudonym and/or more chemical name (things like INCI may help both ways (e.g. water is aqua) but at least tend to standardize the names used somewhat).
Such naming can also make regulation a lot easier to do, including the health testing.
While regulations apply regardless of what name you use, it can make it somewhat easier for you to recognize what's in there.
Some negative fearful snap judgment got all E numbers associated with unnatural and bad for you,
because it's largely just "the set of things we tested", it mostly isn't.
A good number of them are in fact nutrition you absolutely need, or are perfectly healthy, and/or perfectly natural.
Consider:
- E300 though E309 are vitamin C and E,
- E101 is vitamin B2 used as coloring,
- E160c is pepper extract, mostly used for coloring
- E160a is carrot used for coloring,
- E170 is calcium (basically),
- E407 comes from seaweed,
- E322 frequently comes from soy,
- E948 is oxygen
Sure, there are also a few handfuls (out of hundreds) that I don't see having a place in my food, if I have any choice.
And that was part of the point: the testing let us know we don't want it, the name lets us check more easily.
And a few that you'll probably never see - there's rarely any silver (E174) or gold (E175) in food
but they're included for testing purposes, just so that you may know how safe they are when they are used in, say, cake decoration.
See also:
What's in a name?
The things you actually probably want to be there
Some things worth talking about - mixed
Volatile organic compound (VOC)
Pesticides
BPA
✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.
Phtalates
✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.
PFAS
PFOA
✎ This article/section is a stub — some half-sorted notes, not necessarily checked, not necessarily correct. Feel free to ignore, or tell me about it.