Dr. Aly Cohen
speaker
699 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard May 2025
Dr. Aly Cohen’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Dust essentially is when those particulate matter, those chemicals that are in the air, and think like air freshener, candles, incense, when those, even smoking, those chemicals fall to the ground, fall onto surfaces, And that's what accumulates in dust.
In fact, studies that show, you know, dust actually is one of the most toxic components in homes because it tends to be what's gathered from all of the products, cleaning products, personal care products, industrial chemical products, even, you know, cables and things like flame retardant chemicals end up in our dust. And what's on the floor? Pets. kids, hand-to-mouth behavior.
So it's a great place to work in terms of solutions. You know, you can work by cleaning up dust or not bringing in a lot of these air balloons in the first place, which often we do into our own home.
Well, we know that many of the contaminants in particulate matter, you know, air quality issues, can increase a lot of things. It's associated with increased risk for cardiovascular disease. It's been associated with mental health issues such as, you know, anxiety and depression. We know there's associations.
This has been well studied around the world in some of the most polluted cities in the world that conditions such as Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, and early dementia have But we also know that it affects the immune system, which is the area I like to talk about specifically in the book. It is very inflammatory, many of these chemicals that get in through breathing, right?
We're breathing them in just like oxygen, right? We can't go without oxygen. Well, what comes in with that air also is circulating throughout our body. And it can, in fact, increase the inflammatory response in the body. We have acute issues such as asthma, right?
If you're an asthmatic and you breathe in some of the particulate matter, often in cities, but even in other areas, you could have an acute response, which is an asthmatic reaction, a spasm of your breathing apparatus. But then there's these chronic low-level exposures, again, that you are bringing into your body. They can be measured in blood levels and urine levels.
And we also have a great opportunity to reduce those exposures as well. But health issues are real when it comes to particulate matter, and we should really pay attention.
I'm going to bump the D and I'm going to put it right underneath the water because it's such a major exposure into the human body.
I'll put it in D and, oh, you can just leave it with this nonstick pants, of course.
Oh, it's fascinating. And there's other data to suggest when temperatures change, when ozone goes up in terms of its levels and there's a poor air quality rating, that there's higher levels of admissions to the emergency room for psychiatric issues. There's fewer police stops. There's less inspecting of our food when it comes into the country.
So when you talk about productivity, you're also talking about sort of downstream effects that can affect all of us. But the productivity issue is a real issue when it comes to not just climate change and temperature, but also what's correlated is actually particulate matter issues.
The CO2 monitors are very inexpensive, and that's easy to pick up. What I found recently when I was researching the fire information in terms of L.A. 's exposure, you really can think about your air filter in terms of what's called – circulating air delivery rate, CADR, is what you want to start thinking about when you're looking at these. I mean, ratings are great, right?
But if you want to actually look at what you're trying to accomplish, it's you want to circulate the air in such a way that it manages a certain space. So the active way to do that is to look for the CADR on a air filter and look for 300 CADR for every 500 square feet. So the idea is you want to match the filtration ability to the space that you plan on using it for.
So again, 300 CADR for every 500 square feet, and you would increase that for what you're using it for. The other thing you can really consider for those listening is the HVAC system in your home, right? You know, the HVAC system, heating and ventilation, an air conditioning system. You know, if you have vents in your home, you can change out what's called the MERV rating of the filter.
And the MERV is the, I wish I knew the name of the acronym specifically, but basically MERV ratings are based on what you're trying to accomplish in your space. They're usually set as a default between five and nine MERV. But you can move up to, say, 13, 14, 15, even 16, especially in areas where you've been hit with fires and smoke.
And so you're creating a better system by which you can catch that particulate matter and just make sure you're on top of changing them out regularly.
Yeah. And not only that, I, so I have a system for doing that because I have a work water filter that's reverse osmosis under my kitchen sink. Um, and I have a home one. And so essentially I just time it to major holidays. Which is kind of a bummer if I'm not invited to something, but I'm changing my filter instead.
But really, if you think about it, New Year's and Memorial Day are really two opportunities around those times that are six months apart. And so I really actually make that a mission to keep on top of those two holidays. You can pick any holidays you want. But when you're talking about three month changes versus six months changes, if you tie them to things that have meaning to you.
then you're more likely to stay on top of it. And I write down the date every time I do it because you want to make sure you have that date so you can work off of that. And sometimes I forget and I hope people who are listening are not forgetting like I did.
Showing 501–520 of 699 · page 26 of 35
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