Episode 105 - Hormone Havoc: What are Hormone Disrupting Chemicals and What You Can Do About It? A Conversation with a PhD, Founder and CEO, Jenna Hua, of Million Marker (Full Transcript)

This is a full transcript of the Nirvana Sisters podcast Episode 105 Hormone Havoc: What are Hormone Disrupting Chemicals and What You Can Do About It? A Conversation with a PhD, Founder and CEO, Jenna Hua, of Million Marker.

[00:07] Amy Sherman: Welcome to Nirvana Sisters podcast, where we take the intimidation out of well being and beauty to help you achieve your highest state, your nirvana. We are sisters in law and your hosts. I'm Amy Sherman.

[00:18] Katie Chandler: And I'm Katie Chandler. So let's get into some real conversation.

[00:24] Jenna Hua : You.

[00:28] Amy Sherman: Welcome back to the show Nirvana Sisters family. It's Amy and Katie, and we are joined today with Jenna Hua, who is the founder and chief executive officer of Million Marker. Million marker is the only DTC test for BPA phthalates. I'm saying that correctly. And other EDCs EDCs are endocrine disrupting chemicals, which I just Googled. Jenna's extensive experience as an academic and health advocate led her to founding Million Marker in 2019, shortly after completing a postdoctoral fellowship with Stanford University School of Medicine. Jenna Hua, PhD, is an environmental scientist who started the company when she realized environmental toxins kept causing her fertility problems. More studies show that prenatal exposure to these chemicals can cause neurodevelopment and hormone issues in children. Plus, these chemicals can complicate pregnancy. Throughout her career in academia, jenna has researched and published numerous studies that largely focused on citizen science, general health, and the impact of food consumption on a person's well being. Jenna holds a postdoctoral fellowship in chronic disease prevention from Stanford, an Mph and PhD in Environmental Health Sciences from UC Berkeley, an Rd from Greater Los Angeles Veteran Affairs Healthcare System, and a BS in Nutrition from Berkeley. So welcome to the show, Jenna. We're super excited to talk to you about this topic. It's really fascinating. So thank you for joining us on Nirvana Sisters today.

[02:00] Jenna Hua : Thank you so much for having me. Amy and Katie, I'm very excited. I really like your show, and I think I really appreciate everything you guys do, really advocating for wellness and optimizing health, particularly for ladies.

[02:14] Katie Chandler: Thank you.

[02:15] Amy Sherman: Thank you so much. So before we get into all of our questions and conversations, we just want to start with our Nirvana of the week, which is a moment of joy, something that brought us a smile to our face this week as we reflect on the week. So, Katie, I'll kick it off to you.

[02:30] Katie Chandler: I would say my moment is without a doubt that we launched our 100th episode yesterday. And while that in itself was the moment of joy, we actually recorded that episode just earlier this week. And that was my real Nirvana, because when Amy and I, we don't too often sit down together and reflect and take a moment to just go through the process of all of this. And when we did that, it was really nice and long overdue, and it brought me a lot of Nirvana, the whole thing. It's a great week. It's a big week. What about you, Amy?

[03:04] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I agree.

[03:05] Jenna Hua : Big week.

[03:05] Amy Sherman: And I would say my Nirvana is the same. I'll also mention that along with our 100 episode, we launched Nirvana Sisters Merch, which is really fun. And it's just great to see people's reactions about all of our products that just launched. So really excited. Really full of lots of mini nirvanas. What about you, Jenna?

[03:23] Jenna Hua : Congrats for me. Thank you. It's about getting one of our grant review back. So at Miller Marker, we also apply for a lot of NIH National Institute of Health Research grant because the whole EDC topic and just in general, how your environment impacts your health there's, still require a ton of research. So we continue to submit grant proposals. We just got a review back, and then it was a pretty positive review. So we're hoping that grant will get funded in a few months. So that was my excitement for my Novana for this week.

[04:02] Katie Chandler: That's huge.

[04:03] Jenna Hua : Congrats.

[04:03] Katie Chandler: That's fantastic. That must be very exciting. Speaking of, I mean, we have so much to talk about because this million Marker is really a brilliant concept, and I think we should just start at the beginning. What does Million Marker do and kind of what motivated you to create million Marker?

[04:22] Jenna Hua : Yeah, at Million Marker, we trying to provide a direct to consumer mailing urine testing, allowing people to understand their body burdens of hormone disrupting chemicals. So it's a pretty simple test. You pee in a cup, send it to us. We get that UEP analyzed. Right now, we test for 13 chemical metabolites. That includes BPA, BPA, Alternative, phthalates, parabens, oxybenzone. All of these are hormone disrupting chemicals. We also ask people to complete an exposure journal before they submit their urine samples. That way, we audit your lifestyle, looking into what actually contribute to your exposures, and then pinpoint where you can reduce your exposures so that you can avoid these chemicals. Then we also offer counseling, answering people's questions to making sure that they're on a healthy journey to detox.

[05:14] Amy Sherman: That's really cool. So is the report that you get, like, you see all the details from your urine and what types of chemicals are showing up there?

[05:22] Jenna Hua : Yes. So the report will include the chemicals that we're testing, 13 chemical metabolites. We let you know your levels, how you compare with our existing users, and how you compare with the national average. We'll show you low, medium, or high and trying to pinpoint okay, for example, what kind of product or what kind of behavior that you have kind of committed that potentially lead to this kind of exposure. So then it's very actionable. So to make sure, then you know what to do so you can reduce these exposures.

[05:56] Amy Sherman: That's great, because I feel like you hear about this all over the place now, right. But it's hard to know how it's actually affecting you. So you can clean up all these things in your house, but you don't really know if you're addressing it. So I think that's brilliant.

[06:09] Jenna Hua : Yes. We think it's this personalized approach because it's really important and also for people to understand what's exactly my exposure oftentimes we don't really know because if you and I have different genetics, even if we have the same amount of exposure exposed to the same thing, our body would respond very differently. So unless you test yourself, there's no way of knowing. And oftentimes also, even for myself, I think I have lived a pretty clean life because since I started studying this and I have been paying attention. But once I started testing myself, I realized there were a few things. There are things that I completely didn't even know about. One example was one of the vitamins I was taken, the vitamin capsule was not made, I guess, up to quality. So the capsule was actually made of a ton of phthalates, which is a plasticizer chemical. And if I didn't test my fulself, I would never know. And I actually bought that vitamin from Whole Foods and it was a bit shocking to me. Another example was when I first started Million Market, I was packing all the kits in my garage. It turns out it was the plastic packaging tape. It was also made of phthalates. So I could see my levels completely went off the roof. And once I stopped taking that vitamin, it completely drops down. So just like things like that you think you're doing right. You just don't know until you actually test yourself to figure out, okay, this is where I can't actually make a change. Otherwise you wouldn't know.

[07:52] Amy Sherman: When you got that back and you learned about the pill and the tape, was it you were high in that certain chemical and then you looked at your ingredients of certain things? Or how did you identify it was those two things that's so interesting.

[08:05] Jenna Hua : So I was able to identify because this is the importance of when we ask people to document their exposures throughout the day. I see it's kind of a tedious work, but that's the only way to kind of help you figure out because these chemicals are literally everywhere and oftentimes all we also tell people we don't want to get people super overwhelmed because it is overwhelming. But that's the only way to kind of figuring out where your exposures are. And then you're trying to avoid as much as you can because the bottom line is that these chemicals have no business of being your body. Like they only do harm, there's no good. So you just need to try it as much as you can.

[08:49] Katie Chandler: Yeah, that's what I want to clarify for our listener. What are these chemicals doing to us? When we say they're endocrine disruptors or hormonal disruptors, they're affecting our thyroid, they're affecting fertility, they're affecting your estrogen levels. Is that correct? And so on and so on.

[09:09] Jenna Hua : It's literally everything. We can take a step back thinking about what are hormones like? Hormones are our body signaling molecules. They literally govern every single bodily function we have. Fun, sleep, metabolism, growth, fertility, your mood, everything is governed by hormones. And then your body signaling system, the hormone system, actually work as a symphony. So if you go to orchestra, you listen to a symphony. If your keys are out of sync, this music wouldn't be beautiful. It's the same thing. And these hormones, they kind of work like a lock and key. So the key has to fit in a lock and when you have these hormone disruptor comes in which messes up either the signaling or messes up this whole lock and key function. So then you would have these mismatched things and then you have this whole salute of downstream impact, which could be impacting your mood and your metabolism. So we see people with hormone balance, for example, in female, you would see for example, irregular period fertility issues, same as in men, impact both men and women and weight gains just so many things. And I think the other thing people tend to overlook is that if you expose to these things, you wouldn't experience extreme symptom the next day. Maybe in occupational setting, if you get super high exposure, then you would have feel the symptom the next day. But what we really worried about for these chemicals are like we have these super tiny, like really low dose exposures. You get exposed a little bit, but you get exposed day in and day out. So you just don't know when your cup is going to get full. Eventually down maybe ten years, 20 years from today, you would have a condition that could be contributed by these things. And so that's why we really want people to start pay attention. You do what you can and you want to eliminate these exposures as soon as possible and as early as possible, as much as you can.

[11:27] Katie Chandler: Yeah, I think it's interesting to your point of how you're not just going to wake up the next day and say, oh, I must have been exposed to BPAS too much yesterday. It is a gradual thing that happens over time. And maybe one day you just wake up and you realize like, oh my gosh, I'm not sleeping very well, or this feels off all the time. Or you just slowly start to not feel like yourself anymore. So this is a really great tool. It can be preventative. It can also come in and help someone get things back in order with their life. I find it fascinating. I think a lot of us see things like BPA free and paraben free and so on and so on. I would love to just if you could just quickly list off just a few of those names that we've seen, we've read, we've heard, but we don't know what they are, so that we can now attach them to this and understand.

[12:26] Jenna Hua : Yes. So BPA is pretty much the poster child of hormone disrupting chemicals. A lot of people know because we actually see that BPA free label. But when you ask people like, do you know what BPA is? And people often don't know. They just say, okay, I know it's bad for me because I see BPA free label all the time. But what to pay attention of is that BPA free? Okay, first of all, there's no regulatory agencies actually monitor and check whether a product is BPA free or not. It's completely up to the manufacturer to put that label on, so there's no verification of that, whether that's actually BPA free or not. In Europe, there is regulatory agency to actually check whether this is BPA free or not. And the definition is if a product have less than, say, zero five milligram per kilograms of this molecule in this chemical in the product, it's considering free. It's kind of like the trans fat free labeling. But if you think about an MBPA, often happens on receipts, grocery store receipt, gas station receipts, or the canned linings of canned food or canned drinks. So if you think about it, even if it's regulated at 0.5, that kind of level, if you drink a lot of canned drinks, if you eat a lot of canned food, it's still going to accumulate. So it doesn't mean it's completely free. That's number one. The second is since BPA has been banned for almost more than a decade now in baby products, thanks to conscious mothers. The manufacturers, however, started using BPA alternatives, which is not labeled anywhere. So this could be right now, the most commonly used is Bps and BPF. They can literally swap a molecule and swap, like, a substrate of that molecule, changing the ladder from BPA all the way to BPZ or any combination of that. So it could be Bpaf, BPB, something that all of these alternatives are actually just as toxic as BPA, if not more. So there's just, like, no way of knowing, okay, is this BPA free? Is actually BPA free, or it's involved in other kind of Bps. So our strategy is, okay, just avoid plastics in general, because BPA and phthalates are the major plasticizer chemicals that's using plastic. So if you can't avoid as much plastic as you can, then you kind of just pretty much eliminate this. And trying to avoid canned food, I think in general, in shopping, BPA free label is still better than not having that label. There's a little bit of assurance there. But in general, just try to avoid the whole category if you can. And the shape of the BPA molecule. I think another thing just to kind of ring the bell for people to think about BPA is if you Google the BPA molecule and then you Google the estrogen molecule, they look really, really similar. They look almost identical. So one function of BPA once in getting into your body is it mimics estrogen. So your body will mistaken BPA with estrogen. And if you think about it, if your body mistaken BPA with estrogen, maybe you'll produce less, or maybe it will produce more and they wouldn't fit. So then it's causing other issues and that's why, okay, yeah. Trying to avoid as much as possible.

[16:01] Katie Chandler: You hear a lot about estrogen dominance now, and this is a contributing factor to that, I'm sure. So, yeah, it's very interesting. And go ahead, Amy.

[16:11] Amy Sherman: I was going to say, why are manufacturers using this in the first place? Is it like a preservative? Like what does it actually do? And why if they're not using that, they're using one of these alternative swaps like you said. What's the deal with that?

[16:25] Jenna Hua : A couple of reasons. First is BPA is actually a pretty magical molecule. BPA is a molecule, that the chemical that makes plastic shatter proof. That's brittle plastic and it has property. And the second is, as you mentioned, a preserving function. So by coding that can lining, for example, if you have acidic food in can, it wouldn't react with the rest of the can. And it also preserves food much longer. And it's cheap, it's just really cheap to make. That's why we have been using it, same as thali. So thali is another chemical that we test. It's also a major plasticizer. Thalate is just what make plastic really flexible. So think about your ceram wrap. A lot of time in the past, ceram wrap is kind of like made of phthalates. One tip we often also tell people is never ever microwave plastic. Some people don't know. So heat actually increases the releasing of these chemicals. And before I've seen people like, okay, first of all, they use a plastic tupperware, have their food in there on top of the tupperware, they put on the ceram wrap and stick the whole thing into the microwave. So it's like then you just get a multiple exposures, okay? You get that shadow proof plastic fun BPA, and then you have the CERN wrap fun phthalates. Phthalates are also used in fragrance a lot. So that's another tip that we often tell people, okay, when you purchase your personal care product, your house cleaning product, your laundry detergent, avoid fragrance. Always read your ingredient label. Avoid that because phthalates is a major ingredient that used in fragrance and it's also a hormone disrupting chemical that it actually blocks testosterone. So we've seen a ton of study in both human studies and animal studies that showing phthalates really impact male fertility.

[18:34] Katie Chandler: And will it say on the ingredients list, phthalates?

[18:39] Jenna Hua : So phthalates are usually not labeled on the ingredient list. It's often just fragrance. It's a major ingredient in fragrance. That's why we wanted people to avoid fragrance at all cost, okay? And to be even safer, even if natural fragrance. So we often get questions asking, what about my fragrances made of essential oil? Right? Not saying essential oil is not beneficial, but there's no way of verify whether this essential oil is actually made up to great. And apparently 50% our world supply of plants is only enough to make about 50% of the essential oil on the market today. So a lot of essential oils are actually synthetically made, and there's just like, no guarantee that what's actually in this essential oil. And there's not enough rigorous testing being done in products. So especially, say, if you're pregnant or trying to get pregnant, we always recommend people to avoid fragrance, whether it's natural or synthetic. Just avoid fragrance just to be safe.

[19:53] Katie Chandler: It's crazy that there's no system in place for these things to be monitored. I mean, I realize with the amount of commerce that this country has and it's coming from all over the world, that it would probably be nearly impossible to do. Maybe that's why it is probably impossible to cover it all. But just like with supplements, supplements are not FDA approved. And you have no idea what you're putting in your body with that. When you think it's a trusted source and it's something that's meant to help you, it's not always necessarily the case.

[20:19] Amy Sherman: Yeah, I saw on your Instagram page just around fragrance, that unscented is also a fragrance, which I had no idea until I saw that. And that's really scary because I've been buying unscented forever because I don't like those perfumey smells, and I thought they were bad for you. But now I'm hearing unscented is also a flavor. Can you talk about that a little bit?

[20:41] Jenna Hua : Yes. So unscented is actually a scent wow. To go with fragrance free.

[20:46] Amy Sherman: It's fragrance free. Okay.

[20:49] Jenna Hua : So it's very misleading because I think a consumer have obviously gone smarter because we know we need to protect ourselves because FDA is not doing the job. But manufacturers also got smarter, right? So unscented is one thing, and then they started using wording like aroma instead of like fragrance. So you'll just see like aroma, but it's the same thing. So fragrance free is the best way to go.

[21:18] Amy Sherman: Okay, and what about when it says I was using and I actually just switched all my stuff, but I can't remember a brand? Maybe it's like tied free and clear.

[21:32] Jenna Hua : Interesting one. So free and clear is better than the regular, for sure, because at least less of these ingredients are used. But besides these major kind of could potentially have hormone disrupting chemicals, a lot of the bigger brands, they could also have other problematic ingredients in addition to, say, fragrance. Fragrance is like the number one. We want to people do that. But if you want to go one step further, other things to look for is trying to avoid petroleum based ingredients. Because petroleum based ingredients would have much higher contamination during the manufacturing process that you wouldn't know. Again, without testing, there's no way of knowing. But one really easy way to recognize any petroleum based ingredients is look for these cap letters on your ingredient list. So Peg PPG, like all of these cap letters, are usually made of petroleum based ingredients. So that's something to pay attention off. Another one is we often also flag is to glycerin is usually used many times glycerin is made of petroleum, but vegetarian glycerin is not. So if you have the choice of buying an ingredient with vegetarian glycerin versus the regular, I would go with the vegetarian one because it's less prone to contamination.

[23:04] Katie Chandler: Okay, so this is a stupid question.

[23:06] Amy Sherman: But is petroleum the same thing as petrolatum?

[23:11] Jenna Hua : Similar. They're like a fun source.

[23:16] Amy Sherman: I use every day on my lips which has petrolatum is obviously not good.

[23:21] Jenna Hua : It's the same source I would have choose say if you use a shia butter that's probably better. Say use a little more like coconut oil. I would have choose that, yeah.

[23:33] Katie Chandler: Okay. It's so interesting and I can see how it can be very overwhelming because you can just look around your house and probably see a million. As I'm drinking out of this, I'm wondering is this safe? It can be very overwhelming, but that's the genius behind million marker is that you have this testing and walk us a little bit through the process. If someone sends in their urine, they do the testing, they get the results and then you have the option to do the coaching as well where you will walk through and say let's take this, this and this out of your life, et cetera.

[24:07] Jenna Hua : Yes, in the last three years we have been doing this whole self serve model that people can enter their journal through our app and then submit in the test. We give the people the option if they want to schedule a call after receiving our report, we'll go over the report, we'll answer any questions they have. But what we realized from that model is that people actually want a lot of handholding, even fun just entering their journal items and fun afterwards they want to check in with us. So we're actually changing our service to more of a white glove service that will actually walk you through your journal and then also walk you through your report so people can purchase a kit online in the future. Then you schedule a quick like 30 to 45 minutes zoom call with us. We actually go through your day of your products and your lifestyle with you. Document that, then you submit your urine sample. We take the first morning urine sample because it's the most concentrated kind of urine and then it's also what's being used nationally or kind of a standard. So then we can actually compare your levels with other ascent as well as the national average. Then we get that analyzed. Then we actually audit your lifestyle, audit your products, and when you get your report back, besides what I mentioned before, understanding your levels, we also have a really comprehensive product audit that we point out out of all the products that you're using, actually every single product that you reported that you're using. Is there any problematic ingredients in there? Not just the ones that we test, but any other one that we would usually flag to make sure you pay attention on. Then you will know. So next time you buy a product, then you can buy a better one that avoid these other problematic ingredients. Because we can't possibly test for everything, but anything that have been reported in scientific literature that's potentially harmful, we want to let folks know. So then next time you can vote with your dollars. I mean, ultimately, consumers shouldn't be responsible for these things, but unfortunately, we have to do that. So then we want to let people know. So next time you buy it, avoid these things.

[26:35] Amy Sherman: So do people do this test? Do they repeat it, like on a yearly basis or something? Because I would think you'd want to kind of see, I took this out. Now what am I showing?

[26:45] Jenna Hua : Yes. So we have quite a few, many customers come back for second testing. So then just to confirm what's going on, our goal is we're hoping this could become like a routine test. My dream would be actually see this type of body burden testing, kind of like your biannual dental checkup. You clean your teeth twice a year. And I think this is a really good way to remind people, hey, you need to clean up your lifestyle too. That this is a really nice reminder if you can do this every half a year, just to show, okay, where you are with your body burden and how do you clean up. Because I think this type of testing or asking people to change their lifestyle, it's not only good for your health, good for your body, it's actually really good for the environment too, because, again, you're avoiding plastic, you're avoiding petrochemicals. There's a lot of quite a bit of impact when it comes to sustainability too. So we probably, none of us, and especially people who are trying to conceive and having kids, you don't want to live in a polluted planet, you don't want your kids to live in a polluted environment. Right. So by doing these things, I think it's like many, many wins not only for your health, but also for the environment as well. So I really want to see this become like a biannual kind of test that we can implement in the future. And hopefully this will become something that insurance will cover. Kind of like the biannual dental checkup that everyone will have access to and then start pay attention on.

[28:33] Katie Chandler: Yeah.

[28:33] Amy Sherman: And also just how you would do a yearly blood test or twice a year blood test. It's the same sort of thing that you should be doing every time, right?

[28:41] Jenna Hua : Yes.

[28:42] Katie Chandler: I had a question regarding the test results. You said that you compare them to the national average. So then is there an optimal range of where you want to be with these things or do you want to have zero exposure or is that just impossible?

[28:59] Jenna Hua : Really good question. We want to beat people to be as low as possible. There's actually no safe levels. There are no safe levels for these chemicals. The reason we're comparing with national average is to give you some idea of where you are. So how we compare is based on percentile. And so if you are lower than 25th percentile, we categorize that as low between 25th to 75th, that's medium and above 75th, that we consider that as high. But you should be trying to go below or even non detectable below 25th percentile as much as possible. But talking about the national average, there are limitations with this national average. I actually think we're one of the countries that's actually doing really well when it comes to biomonitoring. So biomonitoring means that we have programs that monitor people's chemical exposure through these biomonitoring program. Right now our national biomonitoring program is set through the CDC, through the National Health Nutrition Examination Survey, where they actually screen for more than 200 chemicals. And the ones that we screen is only part of it. The limitation of enhance of the spinal monitoring program is that the government only screens about 3000 people every other year, not the same people year over year. So you can see the limitation. So 3000 people in the entire US. So if you want to compare, if you think about your gender, your age, your ethnicity, what you have like five people look like you in a database to compare of. Right? So that's a limitation. And then the second is because this is a true kind of snapshot of time, because not all the people are tracked over time. There's no way we can tell the same people with these exposures what happened to them down the road. So another goal for million marker is if we have a lot of people doing testing and doing these continuous testing, we'll be able to see the potential long term impact in humans and then how can we improve and then that could be beneficial for the future generations.

[31:23] Katie Chandler: Yeah, that's amazing. That's really unbelievably profound what you guys are doing. The concept is really brilliant. I know that you are focused a lot on helping those with fertility issues. So I'm just curious what kind of success rates that people are seeing when they are able to remove these toxic chemicals and things from their life.

[31:46] Jenna Hua : We don't have enough data to actually show clinically, like with hard numbers, whether detoxing can actually help people achieve successful pregnancy or live birth. That's obviously the ultimate goal. And I think this is what we're trying to do eventually. But I think fundamentally, even though we know about the impact of these chemical literally for decades, the National Institute of Health work in general through the government, we haven't really invested in any money in terms of looking at the potential causal impact and how to do interventions to track. Clinical outcome. There was no money in this. It's unfortunate. And I think this is also excuse that oftentimes chemical companies that uses like why are we not banning these things? And then the argument is that oh, we don't have any causal studies because we cannot show that these chemical actually causes that miscarriages causes infertility. We cannot say that, we can only say they're associated when in reality it's.

[32:55] Katie Chandler: Just because there's not enough data that shows because there haven't been studies, there hasn't been enough money behind studies to get it done. Yeah, that's interesting. Exactly, it's unfortunate.

[33:05] Jenna Hua : It's unfortunate. The other thing is it's almost impossible to do this type of study to looking at causal study because you cannot expose to a pregnant mother to these chemicals and observe what's going to happen. Right. It's just unethical. You cannot do it. So our thinking is if we can show by detox, by reducing people's exposure that we can actually improve these clinical outcome and track people over time, then that's kind of like almost like a backward reverse way of proving there are causal impact. Then we can use this to push for better policies and better and more testing. So that's what we're hoping to do. And that's actually the grant I mentioned that this week, my nirvana, we got a good score and that's exactly this type of intervention studies are what we're trying to do to demonstrate hey, this works.

[34:06] Katie Chandler: Congratulations on that. I'm like a research geek so I always look at the NIH and everything. So that's really exciting. That's very cool. I'm excited to see where it goes. I'm sure it's going to be a bit of a process to get it all in motion and everything but we'll be following it without a doubt.

[34:21] Amy Sherman: I have a question about the test too. Do people use this for kids? Because as you're talking I'm like I want to test my whole family. Have you seen other people using it for kids?

[34:30] Jenna Hua : We're being asked right now our thinking is if the parents consent, yes, we can test for kids, but on our website we say 18 and above. But we have been asked whether they can test for kids that we definitely need parents consent. I think a lot of researchers worry is it's hard to interpret the results when it comes to kids and others. We even have people asking about like can we test our pets for these chemicals? It's because we don't have enough data. So in an enhanced database for kids, for adults we have about 1800 out of 3000. The rest of them are kids. But kids it's tricky because kids are growing and their growth status, it could be really different, it could really impact their hormone levels. So if you're an infant versus your adolescence, not only your hormones are different but also your growth stage, your detox system is not fully built. And that's also another reason that we really trying to pay attention on the younger, what we call it, developmental timing really matters. That means the younger you get exposed to the potential detrimental impact these chemical will have on you more. So we really want to start in uterine. Even when people planning for pregnancy, really thinking about it starts with the egg, it starts with the sperm. You should try to optimize your egg quality and sperm quality before you're getting pregnant and also start practicing this healthy lifestyle. And then you carry that throughout your pregnancy. And when your kid is born, your kid will already have a head start living a healthy lifestyle. And not only developmental timing matters. So then in uter, exposure really matters and then throughout the growth stage. But it's also we think it's like you literally get the biggest bang for your bucks because you're affecting literally generations. Because another thing we have observed in research is that these chemical can impact your future generations. That means your grandparents exposure will show up in you. Like your exposure will actually show up in your grandkids.

[36:55] Katie Chandler: Wow, that's wild. That's alarming too.

[37:00] Amy Sherman: Yeah, it is alarming. Okay, so before we do our wrap session with you, we want to get a couple tips that you have for detoxifying your life. Just some general things that someone's listening and they're going, well, what can I do right now, I'm going to do the test, but what can I do? What can I start changing in my life? Do you have some tips for that?

[37:19] Jenna Hua : Yes, absolutely. Number one, figured you would obviously avoid fragrance because I think when it comes to products, anything you purchase, this is like the easiest way to change. Just pay attention on eliminate fragrance, find all your personal care products or your household cleaning products. It's the number one. It's also just the easiest. The second is looking to your kitchen because a lot of our exposure besides products is coming from food. So what are you using to store your food? Right, use stainless steel containers or glass containers. Just get rid of all the plastic tupperwares and all these things. Use a b wax wrap instead of like seren wrap and you can use it multiple times. And again, it's also something really good for the environment and then also help you detox and also think about one thing we didn't really talk about is we have this whole other category of chemicals called persistent chemicals, also hormone disruptors, but because they're persistent, they stay in your body for a long time. One of the category a lot of people have heard is the Forever chemical PFAS. Right. And we want people to get rid of your teflon pens, like change to stainless steel, change to cast iron or ceramic. Because this category of chemicals, once you get exposed to it, literally stays in your body for a long time. You can't get rid of it.

[38:51] Amy Sherman: Wow.

[38:52] Jenna Hua : Again, if you change your pots and pants at home in your kitchen. You don't need to change again for many years in the future. Especially if you use a cast iron you can literally pass on to your kids. So you just need to do it once. So this investment is very much worth it. So we want people to, hey, do a kitchen detox that get rid of these things and do it once. Then again, you eliminated a lot of these exposure. And the next thing is try to get a water filter. Any filter is better than no filter. But if you can have your hands on a reverse osmosis water filter, that's sort of a cash at all filter. Because our water is also contaminated, let alone sort of the city water system. Now we're also having a lot of household buildings or even new buildings that changing copper pipe to PVC pipe. PVC is a plastic that's actually not good. There's a lot of argument like why we even have this policy changing it. But I mean, that's worth a whole other chat. But having a water filter is really important because you're drinking water all the time, right? And then the last thing is try to eat out less, eat more at home. Because first of all, you have fully control of what you're cooking, what are your ingredients, try to eat as much organic as you can. I know there is budget reasons for many people, but if you can try to do that because pesticides, many pesticides are also hormone disruptors. So if you can do that, that would be great. And eating out less also helps you eliminate a lot of, for example, less packaged food or eating less at the restaurant also helps you avoid. Because another thing we found out is through some individual testing is if you eat out in restaurant, oftentimes restaurant will cook with gloves. Those rubber gloves are also potential contaminants that can potentially contaminate the food. And you don't know, they will probably put like a hot soup in a plastic container and they will use other things. So you would just get that exposure. Even the takeout container is also a big one. I was just thinking that during the pandemic we literally see people's levels spiking out because people are eating so much takeout. So if you're eating at home, you have full control over that. So I think that's my top tips for detoxing.

[41:34] Katie Chandler: Yeah, those are excellent. That's excellent.

[41:36] Amy Sherman: So helpful. And for our listeners, I saw, we saw in your website you have an approved products list, which I think is really helpful. I actually went on it this morning because I just switched over to branch basics for all of my cleaning and I saw it was on your list. So I was like, okay, yes. So I thought that was really helpful. So for our listeners, all of those things are really helpful tips. And then if you go onto the website, you can also get a sense of what products are recommended by Million Marker. So before we get into our wrap session, where can everybody find you?

[42:07] Jenna Hua : Please find us on our website, www.millionmarker.com. Sign up to our newsletter. We're trying to keep people posted regarding our progress or any new research, any news around these topics. So sign up. We're also pretty active on social media. Instagram just million underscore Marker. Also Twitter. We trying to generate a lot of education content, not just around Detoxing, but anything same as you guys, anything that comes to do with wellness, because you can't just Detox. You literally need everything else in check to help you with Detox and support your healthy lifestyle. So talking about nutrition, talking about physical activity, talking about stress, talking about gut health, everything. So we're pretty active, and we're trying to generate good content to support people for their healthy lifestyle. So definitely check us out.

[43:07] Katie Chandler: Love it. Thank you. Thank you for everything that you're doing. It's such an amazing company and business and everything that you've started. So we're grateful that you're here. So why don't we kick off with our wrap session because we are very curious few things. What is your favorite wellness or beauty hack aside from Detoxing and everything?

[43:30] Jenna Hua : My hack, I guess, is like soup. I make soup almost every day, all kinds of soup, partially because I think it's very soothing. And then the second is water is also really important for Detoxing. So you kind of need a lot of these transient toxins that we test, and then we talk about you literally pee them out. So you need water and also think, like, you have to have enough water for good skin health, too. So it obviously have to do with your health and obviously have to do with beauty.

[44:08] Katie Chandler: Yeah, absolutely.

[44:09] Amy Sherman: That's a great one. What's your favorite soup? What's your favorite soup that you make?

[44:14] Jenna Hua : Any soup is good soup. I make simple vegetable stock or to meat based stock. I do a lot of that, and I try to learn from, I guess, different cultures. I'm Chinese, so there's a big part of Chinese culture is also super into soup. So it could be meat stock. It could be like beef and then like bone broth. A lot of bone broth.

[44:37] Katie Chandler: Love it.

[44:38] Jenna Hua : But I also love Italian soup, veggie, and I love chili, too, so it's not exactly a soup, but I kind of feel like that's kind of like a soup.

[44:49] Amy Sherman: Yeah, it sounds good. You're getting me in the mood to make a good soup, too.

[44:52] Katie Chandler: I know I have. Okay for breakfast.

[44:57] Jenna Hua : Yeah. Savory broth breakfast. I love savory. Breakfast was like one broth.

[45:03] Amy Sherman: Okay. The next one we call our five minute flow. So here's the scenario. You just got out of the shower and dried off. Uber just alerted you. They're five minutes away. What's your quick beauty routine? What do you do? Like, what do you put on. What are your Holy Grails? To get ready and into that car on time.

[45:21] Jenna Hua : I go pretty easy if I don't need to. I don't really use makeup or cosmetic or anything. I just use a face serum. That's it. Like some oil. Really easy. Yeah, one pump, put it on that's, it good to go.

[45:37] Amy Sherman: What kind of oil do you use for dying to know what oil you use?

[45:41] Jenna Hua : So recently I was working with this brand called Hue and Grace. They're pretty cool brand started by Ben and Sarah. They had quite a bit fertility struggle themselves and they trying to provide a hormone save product. Recently I have been using their product. It's quite easy, really, like their face serum and night serum. So I've been using that. And in general, it was also through some of the testing we've done and also just looking into products. Using oil is much better than using lotion because of the simple ingredients. Usually if you get an oil, you can do as simple as very few ingredients. So when you have fewer ingredients, there's less contamination. And the formulation wise, it's a lot harder to formulate, say a lotion versus oil because then it requires more emulsifier, like surfactants and all these other things into lotion. So that's sort of like also my sort of rule of thumb when it comes to products, it's just like as simple as possible and put it on easy and then get going.

[46:56] Amy Sherman: Nice.

[46:56] Katie Chandler: Yeah. I love it. All right, and our last one is how do you maintain your daily nirvana?

[47:03] Jenna Hua : Exercise is pretty important. I think a work is really hectic. I mean, everybody's life is very hectic these days. Being able to do some exercise is really important. I try to do yoga almost every afternoon. That kind of get me relaxed and also really prevents my back pain. Before I started doing yoga, I literally had a really severe back pain episode that I couldn't walk for three days. Like, literally couldn't walk for three days. Wow. And then once I started yoga, it hasn't happened once, and it's just really beneficial, I think, for both mind and body, especially for ladies who are over 35, you start losing muscles, and strength training is quite important. And I felt like yoga is not only you get that Zen, but you're actually training. You actually get this strength training. So it's like very cost effective and very efficient. I also try to do quick run in the morning just to get a little bit sunlight, get a little bit fresh air. That helps with productivity. So these are the two things I try to do. But I have to also say that it's always a struggle. You often feel like you want to be lazy and don't want to get out of bed and don't want to go to your yoga class. It's a struggle. But I think once I'm there and once I do it, I felt like, yes, I need these things to achieve my daily in the mana.

[48:35] Katie Chandler: It's absolutely I know people don't too often go work out, and when they leave, think like, oh, I wish I didn't do that. You always leave, right?

[48:47] Amy Sherman: That's so good. Well, thank you so much, Jenna, for joining us. This was really eye opening and really fascinating. And we might have to have you back for part two because I feel like there are just so many questions that we'll have our listeners will have after hearing this. So thank you again. We're really excited to do this test and to start implementing some of these practices. So we really appreciate it. Thank you for your time.

[49:10] Jenna Hua : Thank you so much for having me.

[49:13] Amy Sherman: Thanks for listening to Nirvana Sisters. For more information on this episode, check out the show notes. Please subscribe and leave us a review. Also, find us on Instagram at Nirvana Sisters. If you loved what you just listened to or know someone that would, please share it and tag us. Tune in next week for a fresh new episode of Nirvana Sisters. We'll continue to watch out for all things wellness so you don't have to. Bye.

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