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Understanding Toxicity: Everyday Exposures That Impact Your Health

September 16th, 2025

6 min read

By Dr. Vasco Valov

Every day, you come into contact with a wide variety of chemicals and environmental stressors. This is called toxic exposure. Some people may come into contact with toxins and feel fine, while others are more sensitive and experience symptoms. Sometimes the effects only show up after years of repeated exposure. Whether or not toxins affect your health depends on:

  • The type of chemical or substance

  • How much of the toxin you’re exposed to

  • How long and how often you’re exposed

  • How the toxin enters your body

  • Your overall state of health

The truth is, toxic exposures are part of modern life. But the good news is, your body is designed to heal, adapt, and detoxify—if you give it the right support.

The Three Principles of Minimizing Toxins

Your body is designed with powerful systems to keep you clean and balanced—but in today’s world, those systems are under constant pressure. Supporting detox isn’t about extreme cleanses or quick fixes; it’s about creating the right conditions for your body to do what it was built to do: heal, repair, and restore.

  1. Identify and reduce toxins in your environment. Awareness is the first step. From cleaning products to processed foods, many everyday items contain hidden toxins. Reducing your exposure helps take the load off your body so it can function better.

  2. Support your body’s natural detox pathways. Your liver, kidneys, skin, lungs, and lymphatic system are your built-in detoxifiers. They need nutrients, hydration, movement, and proper rest to do their job effectively.

  3. Actively remove toxins from your body. Simple practices like drinking clean water, eating whole foods, exercising, and sweating all help your body flush out what doesn’t belong. Over time, these habits build resilience and protect long-term health.

By following these three principles consistently, you create an environment where your body can thrive—restoring energy, clarity, and vitality.

10 Americans

If you haven’t seen it yet, the Environmental Working Group’s short video is an eye-opening look at just how early toxic exposure begins in life.



Where Do Toxins Come From?

Our modern lifestyles continually expose us to a variety of toxins that place stress on our bodies. Some of these exposures are obvious, like the food you eat or the medications you take, while others—like the air you breathe, the light in your home, or the noise around you—are harder to notice. Over time, these hidden stressors can build up and affect energy, immunity, sleep, mood, and long-term health. By understanding where toxins come from, you can begin to see how they may be influencing your well-being and why so many people today struggle with chronic health challenges.

Air

Air is our most constant need, yet it is also one of the most common ways toxins enter our bodies. Unlike spoiled food or visibly dirty water, polluted air often goes unnoticed. Outdoor air pollution is responsible for over 5 million premature deaths every year worldwide, making it the fifth leading risk factor for mortality. Exposure to air pollutants has been linked to:

  • Cardiovascular diseases, such as heart attacks and strokes

  • Chronic respiratory conditions, including asthma and COPD

  • Cancers of the respiratory system

  • Compromised immune function

  • Increased risk of type 2 diabetes

Indoor air quality can be just as concerning, especially with chemicals released from household products, building materials, and poor ventilation. The EPA estimates that indoor air can be 2 to 5 times more polluted than outdoor air, sometimes even higher. Children, whose lungs are still developing, are particularly vulnerable.

Food

The food supply has become one of the most significant sources of chemical exposure in modern life. More than 10,000 additives and chemicals are allowed in U.S. food and food packaging, yet about 3,000 of them have never been reviewed for safety by the FDA. Many are linked to cancer, hormone disruption, and neurological problems.

Some concerning facts about our food:

  • The average person consumes 140–150 pounds of food additives every year.

  • “Artificial flavorings” is a catch-all term that can include 700 different synthetic chemicals, many of which are poorly studied.

  • Contaminants such as arsenic, lead, and mercury often enter food unintentionally, either from the environment, soil, or during processing.

  • Food packaging chemicals like BPA and phthalates can leach into food.

Family Impact: Children absorb more toxins per pound of body weight than adults, putting them at greater risk for learning and behavioral problems. Expectant mothers exposed to contaminants like lead or arsenic in food may face complications in pregnancy and child development. Families often share meals, meaning the same toxic exposure spreads to everyone at the table.

Electromagnetic Fields (EMFs)

Electromagnetic fields are invisible energy waves that surround us every day. They come from cell phones, Wi-Fi networks, smart devices, power lines, appliances, and even the wiring inside our homes. Research has identified four main types of EMFs with potential health impacts:

  • Dirty Electricity (DE) – fluctuations in electrical wiring

  • Electric Fields (EF) – generated by household appliances and devices

  • Magnetic Fields (MF) – from power lines, motors, and transformers

  • Radio Frequency (RF) – from cell phones, Wi-Fi, and towers

Chronic EMF exposure may contribute to sleep disturbances, neurological symptoms, oxidative stress, and in some cases, higher cancer risk.

Thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies document the dangers of EMFs

Light

Light is a natural regulator of health, controlling circadian rhythms—the internal 24-hour clock that influences sleep, hormone cycles, appetite, and metabolism. But modern environments have altered how and when we’re exposed to light.

Some key findings:

  • Bright, natural light in the morning signals the body to wake up by lowering melatonin and raising cortisol. Without it, energy and mood can drop. 

  • Over 90% of Americans use screens before bed, exposing themselves to artificial blue light that delays melatonin release and disrupts sleep.

  • Chronic circadian rhythm disruption has been linked to obesity, diabetes, depression, and cancer.

  • Shift workers, with irregular light exposure, show higher rates of chronic disease compared to the general population.

Medications

The United States makes up just 3.5% of the global population but accounts for almost half (48.5%) of worldwide pharmaceutical use. More than 66% of adults take at least one prescription medication, and nearly half take two or more.

While medications may help people, they are also a major source of toxic exposure:

  • Drug toxicity can occur when doses are too high or when a person’s metabolism changes, making them more sensitive.

  • Polypharmacy—taking multiple medications at once—increases the risk of harmful interactions, poor treatment effectiveness, or side effects that outweigh benefits.

  • Prescription drugs are responsible for over 1.3 million emergency room visits and 350,000 hospitalizations annually in the U.S. due to adverse drug reactions.

Unfortunately, many patients and doctors overlook drug toxicity as the hidden cause of symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog, digestive problems, mood changes, and others.

Sounds

Noise is one of the most underestimated environmental toxins. It is present everywhere—traffic, construction, loud music, constant background chatter, and even household appliances.

Some sobering facts about sound pollution:

  • The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that at least 1 million healthy life years are lost annually in Western Europe alone due to noise pollution.

  • Long-term exposure to high noise levels is linked to increased risk of hypertension, heart disease, and stroke.

  • Nighttime noise disrupts deep, restorative sleep. Even if you don’t wake up fully, your brain registers the disturbance, leading to fragmented sleep cycles and daytime fatigue.

  • In children, chronic noise exposure has been shown to impair reading comprehension, memory, and cognitive development.

Water

Water makes up more than half of the human body, but the quality of our drinking water is not guaranteed. Contaminants enter from agricultural runoff, industrial waste, decaying infrastructure, and even the treatment process itself. According to the Environmental Working Group (EWG), tap water in all 50 states has been found to contain detectable levels of contaminants. These include:

  • Heavy metals like lead, arsenic, and mercury, which are linked to developmental delays, kidney disease, and cardiovascular problems.

  • Industrial chemicals such as PFAS (“forever chemicals”), which accumulate in the body and are associated with cancer, thyroid disruption, and immune suppression.

  • Disinfection byproducts (from chlorine and chloramine used to treat water), which are linked to bladder cancer and reproductive issues.

Toxic exposures touch nearly every part of modern life—our air, food, water, environment, and even the devices we use daily. While some effects appear quickly, most build slowly over time, often showing up as fatigue, brain fog, poor sleep, or recurring health issues that don’t seem to have a clear cause. Understanding these sources of exposure is the first step; the next is learning how to lighten the toxic load on your body and strengthen its natural ability to detoxify and heal.

Creating a Healthier Environment

Now that we’ve looked at the many sources of toxic exposure, the next step is to focus on what you can do to create a safer, healthier environment for yourself and your family. While it’s impossible to avoid every toxin, the goal is to reduce the burden on your body and give it the support it needs to function at its best. Below, you’ll find resources tailored to each category of exposure. These tools and strategies are designed to help you minimize risks in a practical way and create a cleaner, more supportive environment at home, at work, and in your community.

 


 

 

Dr. Vasco Valov

Topics:

Minimizing Toxins