While we’re indoors in greater numbers and for longer periods than ever before due to lockdowns, making the best of the space you have is more important than ever. Being indoors relying on digital means to conduct pretty much every affair of the world is a drain on your health—not the best deal during a time when you want more, not less, resilient immunity.
The water you drink and bathe in in your house affects your health.
The chlorine with which almost all municipal water is treated reacts with naturally occurring organic materials, creating harmful trihalomethanes.
This is in addition to the chlorine itself which is a microbial poison.
The paper review focuses on water management and usage practices in Malaysia. But it yields astonishing insights into the quality of water declining tremendously in the nation.
While the beautiful tropical country of Malaysia is blessed with the abundant resource, multiple municipal weakness mean the tap water can often be dangerously polluted.
A basic good practice is to install the best personal water filter you can at home to prevent heavy metal contamination.
Insights from the paper:
Aluminium contamination is higher recorded more than the standard limit set by the Ministry of Health guidelines for drinking water. Based on a 2011 study , from two housing areas with a total of 100 respondents, the mean value of daily chronic aluminum intake (CDI) in PR drinking water (0.00707 mg / kg / day) is much higher than MPL (0.00164 mg / kg / day)!
Half (49.5%) of all water supply problems in Malaysia were reported in — a densely populated state that houses the main city and urban areas. That increased in 2017 to 62.4% (Malay Mail, 2019).
Nowadays, water shortage is no longer considered a natural disaster that must be borne and accepted but instead is a human-made cause that can be dealt with and solved by humans.
mining, industrial, and agricultural activities also contribute to the contamination of heavy metals in the body of water due to improper management of wastewater and discharge from fertilisers (Karavoltsos, 2008). However, most heavy metals from surface water and groundwater are usually removing during the water treatment process (Kioko & Obiri, 2012). Furthermore, corrosion of water pipes, faucets, and water fixtures can cause contaminated water supply for daily use. Unclean practices at home, such as improper drinking water storage containers and unclean operators, also contribute to this. This exposes consumers to the dangers of excess copper ions in drinking water, which can lead to acute poisoning and lead to diseases and ailments, such as liver damage, heart and kidney failure, and brain disease.
the cost of treating polluted water is high and reduces the overall water availability. In the year 2019, toxic chemical pollution in the Kim River in Pasir Gudang (Johor), which disrupts the water supply to around 20,000 households, is an example. Furthermore, there were 160 cases of river pollution reported in which enforcement was taken during the Movement Control Order (MCO) period from March 18 to May 4, 2020 (Malay Mail, 2019).
How polluted are the rivers? The Malaysian Environmental Quality Report 2017 shows that the percentage of clean rivers has decreased since 2015, while the rate of polluted rivers has increased.
…(out of 89 river basins in Peninsular Malaysia) 25 ‘dead’ rivers in Malaysia. Sixteen rivers were found in Johor, five in Selangor, three in Penang, and one in Melaka. These rivers were categorised under Classes 4 and 5, which are reserved for highly polluted rivers and where aquatic life cannot survive (The Sunday Daily, 2019).
Many factories operate illegally along the banks of the Semenyih River. This adds to pollution to a source that serves several areas around the country’s capital such as Hulu Langat, Kuala Langat, Sepang and Petaling.
This fact tells us about the possible integrity of pipes channelling water produced by treatment plants to consumer homes. Water wastage could be due to pipe leaks, inaccuracies of customer meters, and unauthorised use. The amount of water wasted in Malaysia is too high, with a national average of 35%. This rate is equivalent to losing 35 liters from every 100 liters of treated water (The Star, 2020).
You can take steps to ensure that your own water system is carefully and periodically maintained.
Typically, purification systems for large municipal water systems can be standard off the shelf systems.
In building biology, the focus is to create a space to help the body grow and function optimally—as Nature’s laws dictate, not just function. As a building biologist and mother, I have become increasingly impressed and fascinated by the role of vitamin D in creating optimal health.
I decided to write this article to share how we can increase your Vitamin D levels despite many of us living indoor lifestyles, essentially having to be indoors much of the time. You will see how your home or work environment can be changed to naturally raise Vitamin D levels.
Most of the questions are about how and why EMFs (electro-magnetic fields) occur, what their dangers may be, and how a Building Biology assessment can reduce your exposure to man-made EMFs.
Here are some of the more common questions asked about EMFs. Four man-made ones, in particular.
Many of the world’s top functional doctors recognise that “EMF removal is essential for proper healing”, including Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt, Dr. Zach Bush, Dr. Dan Pompa, Dr. Ben Lynch, and Dr. Tom O’Bryan.
As a certified Building Biologist, I help you plan and create better spaces that support your biological health.
I also draw on over 15 years’ experience in research and publishing to provide you with scientific knowledge, support, and the necessary tools for you to make informed-based decisions for your own home or work space.
An assessment for a space can identify EMF sources and your EMF sensitivity. It provide solutions to reduce exposure.
In my consultations with you, I add a strong base of EMF knowledge as an essential toolkit that you can take with you in terms of healing recommendations, programs or protocols.
An assessment is based on your priorities and needs, and a comprehensive EMF assessment paints a picture of the invisible electro-pollution in your space.
The Electromagnetic Spectrum is broad, and in a Building Biology assessment for a space, we are concerned with at least 4 types of EMFs and the health effects.
These are AC magnetic fields (cable lines, currents drawn by device, appliance, or motor, electrical wiring errors, stray electrical current on water pipes, cable tv lines, phone lines and other utility installations);
Radio frequency fields (wireless radiation from mobile / Bluetooth devices, wifi, cell phone towers, smart devices, 5G);
AC electric fields (circuits, power lines);
Dirty electricity (any manipulation of the electrical current by devices, appliances and lighting in your home, incl dimmer switches, televisions, laptops…)
As you can see, that is a lot to assess in any modern space!
The 1996 EMF safety standards that are supposed to protect people are based on the false premise that the only way that EMFs can hurt our biology is by causing overheating.
This myth is unscientific, considering the fact that publicly-available research published by the NASA in 1970,[1]the US Naval Medical Research Institute (NMRI) in 1971,[2]the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) in 1976[3] and countless others show that EMFs can and do cause damage through non-thermal mechanisms.
In other words, our current safety standards are based on a false premise, and therefore do not protect anyone against the harm caused by microwave radiation.
Thousands of studies in just the last decade is proving this. This includes the $25 US NTP study has published their conclusions after running one of the most important and costly studies around cell phones and cancer ever conceived. Their initial goal: proving without the shadow of a doubt that cell phones are safe.
What they found: the opposite; rats and mice exposed to cellphone radiation have shown “Clear Evidence” of an increase in multiple tumor types— read this blog for more detail.
It is up to you to measure for and reduce the man-made EMFs in your life.
Children are being conceived and born exposed to artificial EMFs. Children are at greater risk from exposure to carcinogens than adults, and this risk remains well into adolescence as they develop.
One effect is on their emotional processing, executive attention, decision making, and cognitive control—these are fundamental skills required for success and emotional well-being.
There are many things we can do as parents to mitigate any harm and plan a path forward for children to learn how to live well in a digitised society.
Not least, creating a good space can help unplug our children, limit their screen time, and give them some digital detox.
Interior design support and sourcing; Birth space / Postpartum recovery planning; Childrens’ space planning.
Our environment shapes how we grow. The daily pressures and habits are extremely powerful in affecting the way we move and function. An understated aspect is how your home can affect how your child grows up looking!
The importance of environmental factors are clearly being ignored and could greatly assist the field of orthodontic therapy and general health. Professor John Mew developed an interest in the science of facial growth. Seeking alternatives to facial surgery he returned in 1965 to University College to specialise in orthodontics. Since then he has been developing non-surgical methods of correcting unattractive vertical growth in children’s faces.
In the 1970s he wrote several papers on the new sub-specialty of ‘Orthotropics’ which aims to encourage horizontal growth by changing oral posture. He has written a textbook and published many articles internationally on this subject. John has recently been described both as “a maverick” and “the brightest orthodontist who has ever lived”. It was the science and environmental factors of facial development that interested Prof. Mew to seek alternatives to facial surgery and specialise in orthodontics.
This article summaries an interview, in which he goes over some of the environmental factors that can affect the growth of your face, and hence, affect how you look, including your own home.
However, in typical treatment, orthodontists offer fixed braces or ‘train tracks’, usually accompanied with extractions and sometimes jaw surgery. The belief is it is too difficult or impossible to alter the growth of the jaws. This form of traditional treatment has been used for about 100 years and orthodontists are fully aware that it can damage the teeth and face and also that the crowding tends to return later. For example, In the UK only 5% of Orthodontists inform their patients that there are alternative methods, such as guiding the growth of the jaws ‘Orthotropics’.
You can imagine the expense that parents have to go through in order to correct their child’s teeth or jaw alignment!
Forward growth is good looking growth. It also ensures room for all of the teeth. More importantly, it prevents sleep apnea, which shortens one’s lives, according to some studies, by ten years or more.
This forward growth also creates a bigger space in the throat to breathe, particularly at night. Dr Mew explains: “When the tongue drops to the back of the throat, and you are unable to breathe for long periods at night.”
A good facial posture involves the mouth, tongue, and neck being in good position. However, this has been neglected in scientific research because it is simply not very feasible to measure posture per se. But by measuring the results, you can see how particular changes in posture can affect facial growth. Whether the result looks “good” or “bad” is also tricky to quantify, but you can assess the function of how the mouth and tongue is.
Dr Mew called his approach orthothropics. One way he sought to prove this was to treat twins; he would treat one while another orthodontist would treat the other. In every case, the twin treated by Dr Mew showed his method taking into account posture worked significantly better.
The cranial base is said to reach 87% of its growth by 2 years and 98% by 15 years of age.
It is known that maturation of different components of the craniofacial skeleton reach their completion at different time points. It is also considered that some components of the anterior cranial base are the earliest structures in the skull to reach maturity in shape and size at about 7–8 years. This is earlier than the teen years and even early adolescence that convention suggests.
The changes in the craniofacial structure do not stop with the onset of adulthood, but continue, though at a significantly slower rate, throughout adult life. However, these changes tended to be of small magnitude compared to the tremendous changes during early childhood.
Have you seen your room when a shaft of sunlight crosses a bedroom?
Allergies and blocked noses can start soon after birth. They are a response to tiny particles of dust in the air, and are becoming increasingly common in industrial countries. The most common allergy is to house dust.
Do you use air conditioning (with all closed windows) often as a matter of habit?
These habits contribute to mouth breathing. Over time, blocked noses lead to open mouth postures, which derails the optimal development of the facial structure. From the Orthotropics blog:
The genetic influence on facial development is obvious and environmental things such as thumb sucking has long been recognised. It is not often appreciated how influential the environment is and what a dramatic effect on facial shape changing this can make. (…)
Nearly all children experience at least one blocked nose in early infancy, most have complete nasal blockage for days at a time, when they are forced to lower their tongue and open their mouths to breath.
This becomes a habit during the very period that they are learning to walk and program their postural centres. This picture shows the effect of this on a child who was almost fully grown but developed a blocked nose causing his face to grow down, the effect on younger developing children is even greater.
Around ages six and seven, the permanent teeth start to come in. A child’s appearance can be severely damaged by poor posture. This factor has been overlooked in orthodontics, which is why Dr Mew says orthotropics treat at a younger age by age seven whereas orthodontics treat patients older in teenagehood.
You can watch the interview with Dr John Mew here The interviewer asks the tough questions https://youtu.be/SVeTRz6qY18
[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8317569/pdf/i0003-3219-87-6-897.pdf
[2] Orthotropics. Information For Parents. https://orthotropics.com/information-for-parents/
Updated 4 August 2024.
Electro-sensitivity symptoms are becoming commonplace—reflecting the increasing digitisation of our lifestyles and digital infrastructure with 5G and the IoT. What’s causing this? Learn more, plus find out how to advocate for yourself.
EHS is also called Electromagnetic Sensitivity, electro-hypersensitivity, electro-sensitivity, electrical sensitivity (ES) and “Idiopathic environmental intolerance attributed to electromagnetic fields (IEI-EMF)”.
Back in the 1970s, EHS was known as “microwave syndrome", clinically characterised by the a wide spectrum of symptoms affecting various organs, typically including central nervous system symptoms. The vast majority of electrohypersensitive (EHS) patients complain about headaches on contact with an electromagnetic source.
A report from the former Soviet Union described it as “microwave syndrome”[r]. The Soviet military recognised early on the possible side-effects from radar and radio radiation. Medical diagnoses frequently noted various symptoms typically including central nervous system symptoms, that occur following the patient's acute or chronic exposure to electromagnetic fields.
Austria is the only country with a written suggestion to guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of EMF-related health problems. Apart from this, EHS is not recognised as a specific diagnosis in the rest of the world.
However, institutions such as the WHO, the European Environment Agency (official advisory body to the European Union), and many research and scientific organisations have proposed and advocated for recommendations around EMFs.
This includes the groundbreaking Bioinitiative Report was published by scientists, public health and public policy experts to document the scientific evidence on electromagnetic fields. It has since been updated over the years 2014-2019. (Download the Bioinitiative Report 2014-2019 updated edition.)
In 2015, the Fifth Paris Appeal Colloquium showed a focus on electromagnetic fields and EHS. You can watch Dr Lennart Hardell’s presentation https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JehrGVPTUos
Patients can have neurologic, neuro-hormonal and neuro-psychiatric symptoms [1] following exposure to EMF as a consequence of neural damage and over-sensitised neural responses, including: headaches, concentration difficulties, sleep problems, depression, a lack of energy, fatigue, and flu-like symptoms.
Studies conducted in 2001 and 2002 revealed that people reported symptoms most frequently due to exposure to cell phone base stations (74%), cell phones (36%), cordless (DECT) phones (29%) and power lines (27%) visual displays and fluorescent lighting (1.9%), electrical factors and also chemicals or smells (2.4%).
Symptoms, their duration, and their impact on the person’s quality of life and ability to function in daily life. Mild EHS may manifest with mild symptoms such as prickling or burning sensations that disappear within seconds or minutes after EMF exposure (e.g. using a cell- phone) has stopped. With moderate EHS the severity, frequency and duration of the symptoms increase. For example, a headache may persist for several hours after using the cell-phone. With severe EHS the problem becomes chronic and persistent.
A study, mandated by the Swiss Federal Government and performed by the University of Bern in 2004, Swiss doctors working with complementary diagnostic and therapeutic tools reported that 71% of their consultations related to EMF.
This facts are jarring, but what’s even more worrying is that the majority of these symptoms are accepted as nothing out of the ordinary or a matter of lifestyle fatigue, and is thus usually ignored.
Often electromagnetic hypersensitivity exacerbates any systemic health issues that you already have, including heavy metals and mercury toxicity, Candida yeast infection (moulds and fungi), bacterial or viral infections, bio-toxins or parasites [4].
Learn more about wireless harms and the symptoms at the advocacy group. This page highlights studies that establish wireless technology radiation can create cognitive effects such as ADHD and other behavioral disorders. https://wearetheevidence.org/wireless-harms/ I also share important research about fertility and children’s health here.
Studies show that children are especially vulnerable to developing chronic health conditions from EHS, like obesity, hypertension, diabetes, and heart disease—all things that can disrupt their mental and emotional growth and development.
One case report detailed how two 15-year-old male students and one 47-year-old female teacher who expericienced health effects like headaches, difficulties concentrating, tachycardia, poor memory, or dizziness when exposed to Wi-Fi in school [3]. This study highlighted the potential health impacts from increasing RF exposure of students and teachers by Wi-Fi.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) classified EMFs as a "possible human carcinogen” after consistent epidemiologic evidence of an association between childhood leukemia and exposure to extremely low frequency (ELF) magnetic fields [2].The first study between the link was in 1979! The evidence has grown to cover associations with other childhood cancers.
While there are many factors that affect how EHS is seen and addressed, whether by the individual him/herself or in medical field, it is clear there is rising recognition and evidence in the biological harm of EMFs.
The WHO recommendations are based on based on currents induced in the body (ELF) and thermal effects (RF). It does not consider long-term non-thermal effects.
The BioInitiative reports are global groundbreaking milestones comprehensive review of biological effects and health effects of low-intensity electromagnetic radiation, including thousands of published studies on: gene and protein expres- sion, DNA, immune function, neurology and behavior, blood-brain barrier, brain tumors and acoustic neuromas, childhood leukemia, melatonin, Alzheimer’s disease, breast cancer, fertility and reproduction, fetal and neo- natal disorders, and autism.
The European Environment Agency compared the risks of non-ionising radiation (EMF) to other environmental hazards such as asbestos, benzene, and tobacco, urgently recommending to implement a precautionary approach regarding EMF.
Many countries have taken their own initiative to reduce EMF exposure, especially to their most people.
For example, Belgium has banned the advertising of mobile phones for children under seven. France banned Wi-Fi in nurseries for children under the age of 3 and to enable Wi-Fi at primary schools with children under the age of 11 only when used specifically for lessons. Public places offering Wi-Fi must clearly advertise this fact on a sign.
The microwave syndrome or electro-hypersensitivity: historical background. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26556835/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32289567/
https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.1201/b16968-13/childhood-leukemia-extremely-low-frequency-magnetic-fields-critical-evaluation-epidemiologic-evidence-using-hill-framework-leeka-kheifets-john-swanson
http://www.stralskyddsstiftelsen.se/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/hedendahl_hardell_2015.pdf
See what happens when micro-organisms are exposed to harmful energy and what causes electromagnetic hypersensitivity: https://youtu.be/qMAV-pZMlZs
Greco F, Garnier O, Macioce V, Picot MC. Prevalence of Migraine Disease in Electrohypersensitive Patients. J Clin Med. 2023 Jun 16;12(12):4092. doi: 10.3390/jcm12124092. PMID: 37373785; PMCID: PMC10299347. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37373785/
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