Dr. Aly Cohen is a board-certified physician practicing in rheumatology and integrative medicine, as well as an environmental health expert in Princeton, New Jersey. Her new book, DETOXIFY: The Everyday Toxins Harming Your Immune System and How to Defend Against Them, available now for pre-order, connects the dots between everyday chemicals and the epidemic rise in immune disorders and autoimmune disease...and what we CAN all do about it!Now for more background: Athe University of Pennsylvania, she focused her studies on medical anthropology and human evolution - topics that have greatly influenced her work. She is on faculty of the Academy of Integrative Health and Medicine (AIHM), Southern California University of Health Sciences (SCU), and the Integrative and Functional Medicine Fellowship of the Susan Samueli Integrative Health Institute (SSIHI) at the University of California, Irvine, where she created and manages the environmental medicine and integrative rheumatology curriculum for medical colleagues. Dr. Cohen has collaborated with the Environmental Working Group, Cancer Schmancer, and other disease- prevention organizations, and is coeditor of the textbook, Integrative Environmental Medicine, part of the Oxford University Press/Weil Integrative Medicine, Academic Series. She is the co-author of the bestselling, consumer guidebook, Non-Toxic: Guide to Living Healthy in a Chemical World. In 2015, she created TheSmartHuman.com to share environmental health, disease prevention, and wellness information with the public. She has been the recipient of countless awards. AGENDA:
1. What is environmental medicine? a. learn more about environmental health topics? TheSmartHuman.com.
Other educational projects? (curriculum for physicians, nurses, PT, Nurse practitioners AND creating online courses for parents/athletes/women and fertility & pregnancy...coming soon at AlyCohenMD.com)
2. Break down for us the ‘classes’ of toxins- like persistent organic chemicals vs endocrine disruptors, EMFs, etc- how can we start to discern the different chemicals & what how they affect? What are they doing inside our bodies? 3. Once they come into our bodies- through our lungs, skin & GI tract, what do they do to us? How & where do they get stored? What are the various compartments?
a. Role of the immune system & even more broadly, the neuroimmune axis? As a rheum, what about our autoimmune epidemic?
b. What about the MIND?
c. Role of adipose?
d. Role of bones- how women will have more toxins come out post-menopause when the bone tissue starts to degrade with osteoporosis?
e. With infection/ concussion/ inflammation, the greater porosity of the blood brain barrier? Is this our Alzheimer’s epidemic?
4. How can we test for them in our bodies?
a. Standard testing with LabCorp/ Quest?
b. Specialty functional med lab testing?
5. How do we detox? The million-dollar question!
a. We naturally detox daily- peeing, pooping, sweating & crying. How to amplify?
b. What is your 21-day program?
c. Ayurvedic panchakarma
6. Obviously, the first step is to avoid toxic chemicals coming into our bodies in the first place:
a. What are the most important things to know about making the right daily choices?
i. Water filters
ii. Detergents & cleaning products
b. Talk to us about regulations- do we dare?
c. How can we test our water, soil, etc?
d. What advice do you have for folks wanting to make their communities safer?CLOSING: Dr. Cohen is working to educate and empower the next generation to make safer, smarter lifestyle choices through the creation of environmental health and prevention curricula for schools nationally. Her TEDx talk, “How to Protect Your Kids from Toxic Chemicals" can be found on YouTube
