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A.J. Lumsdaine's poster at Citizen Science Association conference, highlighting need for framework to validate citizen science innovations (c) A.J. Lumsdaine. Used via Creative Commons Attribution License

The Dilemma of the Citizen Scientist

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I believe in using scientific evidence (i.e. available research) to make important health choices. But in my journey with my kids’ eczema, I have also been humbled to understand that for as much as we know, we still don’t know everything. Throughout the telling of our story on this site, I have talked about how the most effective generally accepted treatment offered to us by our physicians (i.e. constant moisturizing coupled with potential lifelong dependence on steroids) temporarily fixed and was better than having broken, painful, itchy skin … but still fell so sorely short of a cure or true solution. Living through this experience with my children expanded my mind and the way in which I go about making health decisions and evaluating available treatment options offered to me.

I used to adopt without question every treatment option proposed by evidence-based medicine. Now, I live in the grey area between believing in evidence and evidence-based medicine, utilizing and implementing generally accepted treatment plans, and engaging in a two-way and patient-centred dialogue with our physicians … WHILE STILL acknowledging that what we do today as “generally accepted treatment” may change tomorrow as our research knowledge gets better. I leave the door open for the near certainty that we do not yet have all the answers, and that true cures — not just today’s pharmacologic or surgical solutions for symptom control — are still possible from exploring at the frontiers of what we know. And finally, I now readily acknowledge that many of today’s generally accepted treatments carry with them side effects that need to be soberly considered and weighed out, especially if the treatments are merely treating a symptom and not preventing or curing the disorder.

The idea that what we do today as “generally accepted treatment”, or even that our understanding of a disorder, may be wrong, and the medical community’s potential to limit progress in their understandable zeal to guard practise within existing evidence-based confines is highlighted well in Dr. Barry Marshall’s story. Dr. Marshall’s experience in elucidating the true cause of stomach ulcers also serves as a sobering reminder that sometimes we must explore at the frontiers of what we know in order to solve medical mysteries — and that not everyone exploring at the frontiers, at the limits of our comfort level, should automatically be written off. (See Dr. Marshall’s brilliant and inspiring story in the Discover Magazine article entitled, “The Dr. Who Drank Infectious Broth, Gave Himself an Ulcer, and Solved a Medical Mystery (The medical elite thought they knew what caused ulcers and stomach cancer. But they were wrong—and did not want to hear the answer that was right.)”.

When I departed from the generally accepted solution of potential lifelong steroid dependence for my children, I departed carefully, thoughtfully, and while staying in close contact with our physicians, and I made environmental changes that are generally regarded as safe (GRAS). Because of the anecdotal evidence that the solution worked, I was convicted that the impact of detergents now ubiquitous in our modern environments and its potentially causative role in eczema (theory presented by A.J. Lumsdaine on solveeczema.org) needs research validation. Unfortunately however, I neither have the resources nor ability to fund or personally complete the research I so desperately think is needed.

This leads me to the biggest dilemma I believe is faced today in health care research: The dilemma of the citizen scientist.

What if some of our most difficult, seemingly intractable, medical problems of today cannot be solved unless the paradigm in which we imagine and create solutions drastically changes? And what if that paradigm shift cannot occur unless individuals who haven’t grown up within the existing research “club” are able to challenge norms, bring new ideas, or otherwise contribute as equal partners? Or what if we are limited from solving these most pressing medical problems of today because even how we conduct research (often a controlled, laboratory setting) is what limits us? For instance, I would argue that medical problems with a significant environmental component or causation are difficult to study and solve within controlled, laboratory settings and may require a different type of data gathering that is more distributed — even crowd-sourced — and lends itself well to the burgeoning field and approach of “citizen science”.

The author of solveeczema.org, A.J. Lumsdaine, presented a poster at the Citizen Science Association’s 2015 Conference getting at the need for mechanisms or frameworks to evaluate and therefore validate innovations from Citizen Science. Without these frameworks, we run the risk of dismissing innovations that are exploring at the frontiers of what we know, and may hold promise for future solutions and cures, or disallowing innovators from participating in research initiatives as equal contributors.

Have a look at Lumsdaine’s poster, entitled, “If you cure cancer in your backyard, who will know? The need for a framework to evaluate and support innovations from citizen science: experience from a website for problem solving eczema”.

Incidentally, my child is one of the children in the before-and-after pictures on the poster which show the dramatic efficacy of Lumsdaine’s problem-solving heuristic and demonstrate strong anecdotal evidence to support her theory about the impact of detergents on eczema. There are a number of other children from literally around the world whose dramatic before-and-after photos on the poster are remarkable.

I welcome any thoughts on how citizen scientists can be co-opted either for idea generation, data gathering, data validation, or their innovative ideas — into the traditional research space. I look forward to innovations in the domain of research itself and the hope of new ways to move towards solving the most intractable, challenging medical problems we have today!

A "withered" harvesting hand, a satisfying end to a great growing season! (c) Julie Leung
A "withered" harvesting hand, a satisfying end to a great growing season! (c) Julie Leung

Final Newbie Gardener Check-In, The Conclusion of My Journey!

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It took over 7 months to finally get this final episode of my gardening journey posted, but here it is!

This is my final check-in with CBC The Homestretch, where I first talk about the final steps of harvesting our root garden and turning the garden down completely, and then reflect on the top 3 things I learned in my gardening journey. Tracy Fuller from CBC also reflects on what she learned by following us on our journey.

Thank you to CBC for documenting our journey, to Grow Food Calgary (Donna Balzer, Chelsie Anderson & Shelley Goldbeck) for inspiring and teaching us to grow food in our own backyard, and especially to God Himself. I am so amazed at the wonder of His creation. As I said in my interview, all I did was put the seed in the ground. I cannot take credit for anything else: the explosive growth, the way the seeds knew what to do and how they were differentiated from each other, the sunshine, the wonder of photosynthesis, and the ability to feed ourselves from this one simple act.

Final Garden Check-In with CBC Radio: Reflections on What I Learned in my Newbie Gardening Journey — Deep Gratitude!

Ripening "volunteer" tomatoes
Ripening “volunteer” tomatoes
Fall root vegetable harvesting: potatos in root pouches
Fall root vegetable harvesting: potatos in root pouches
Fall root veg harvest: potatoes
Fall root veg harvest: potatoes
Fall root veg harvest: the remainder of the beets
Fall root veg harvest: the remainder of the beets
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Man Spraying Herbicide Herbicide Clip Art (Free Image) from Clipartpanda.com

Are “eco-friendly” herbicidal soaps as innocuous as they sound?

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Regular readers of my blog know that I’m convinced that synthetic detergents are a largely unrecognized cause of eczema and are implicated as a likely environmental toxin that has contributed to the increase in rate of chronic allergic manifestations like asthma and food allergy (by its involvement in eczema). When my family learned to differentiate true soap from detergents and removed detergents from our household personal care and cleaning products, we saw dramatic health changes with respect to allergies. This included both kids’ eczema clearing without any further need for steroids or constant moisturizing, my asthma clearing without drugs, and my chronic dry skin healing. (See Part II of Our Story: Results After Switching to Soap).

This experience prompted me to re-evaluate every product I used to think was safe, and to read product claims and labels written by marketing people with a much more critical mind. Even a decade before I had found solveeczema, I was concerned that standard herbicides, most commonly containing glyphosate and 2,4-D, were possibly carcinogenic. (See my post The Temptation to Spray for more background). So, many years ago before I found solveeczema and became convinced that detergents are causing more ills to all living things on the earth than most of us have realized, I saw alternative herbicidal products on the shelf labelled “herbicidal soap” — and thought they might be less toxic than those containing glyphosate and 2,4-D. After all, “soap” sounds innocuous. It’s what we use on our skin, right?

My First Experience with an “Herbicidal Soap” Product

A few years before I found solveeczema, I purchased an “herbicidal soap” product. It was intended to be a replacement to a glyphosate-containing herbicide and I wanted to use it to kill weeds on my paths and among the landscaping rocks on the sides of my house leading to the backyard. I hoped it would do the job without being quite as toxic. It did indeed cause all the weeds growing among the paths and rocks to shrivel up and die.

The summer that we implemented the solveeczema detergent removal, I started becoming more cautious about what I was applying to my yard for weed control. Faced again with the weed problem among my rock paths and on my lawn, I looked through my small collection of varied bottles of weed killer and happened again upon the herbicidal soap I’d used in seasons passed. Because of my experience using the solveeczema website and reading countless labels in search of safe, non-detergent products, I knew that products labelled “soap” do often signify detergents, that “natural” doesn’t have a standard or meaningful definition, and that “less toxic” doesn’t necessarily mean harmless. I had to examine the ingredients more closely to know for sure.

My bottle said ingredients were “ammonium soaps of fatty acids”. To my best knowledge, this is another name for a quaternary ammonium compound. (For a quick step-through of my logical rationale for this, which would bore most people, see the footnote at the end of this post). I’ve blogged about these compounds before — they were the seeming cause of a chemical burn experienced by a child in Ontario from a disinfectant used in his school washrooms. These compounds are nicknamed “quats”, and are very strong detergents. The Wikipedia entry on quaternary ammonium compounds indicates they are detergents and highlights their efficacy as antimicrobials. The section on health effects is both fascinating and frightening.

Concerning Symptoms Reported to Health Canada

Even just based on the active ingredient in these “herbicidal soaps”, I would have concluded they’re probably not innnocuous. But don’t take my word for it. Just Google a alternative name for the active ingredient I found on my bottle — “ammonium salt of fatty acids” — and one of the early search results is a summary of Incident Reports on the Consumer Product Safety section of Health Canada’s website. These are presumably incident reports that the manufacturer of products with active ingredient “ammonium salt of fatty acids” have received from the general public, and have reported to Health Canada.

Reading these incident reports is like reading a “who’s who” of “familiar reactions I’ve seen in my own and others’ children in reaction to detergents”. In reading through the reports, we have several people who accidentally made skin contact with the product and reported symptoms varying in severity, but mostly involving red, irritated skin, rash, itching, and in a few cases, something approximating a burn. The symptoms were bad enough that physicians were consulted in some cases. Most of the reports of skin irritation were made around 2 days after contact, and in general took anywhere from 2-5 days to get better. One person reported she developed a cough while applying the product which spontaneously stopped once she left the application area, but started again when she re-entered the application area. Unfortunately, this caller was told that these symptoms could be experienced by “sensitive individuals” who can react to the “perceived aroma of herbicides and pesticides” with respiratory irritation. I don’t believe this to be correct, because, much like my theory of why my own asthma has been impacted by detergents, I think this caller was probably experiencing respiratory irritation caused by the inhaled detergent increasing the permeability of the lung membrane and increasing allergen penetration into the lungs, thus causing inflammation, irritation or wheezing. Nothing to do with “perceived aroma of herbicide”. What kind of pseudo-fakey-fake answer is that?

Perhaps most concerning, though, was a report from a mother about her son who was helping her apply the herbicidal product. Within 2 days, he developed hives and a rash from “head to toe”, as well as itchy eyes. He was brought to a physician who said his reaction indicated an allergic response to some unknown antigen. Symptoms persisted for 3-4 days. The caller was told this was an “unexpected response” to the product, but knowing what I know about detergents, I think his response was completely within the realm of reasonable expectation. It is unfortunate that this mother was told otherwise, and that at time of routine callback, the mother was still not sure what could have caused such an extreme reaction.

I am not surprised at the type of reactions these people reported, and I don’t think these symptoms are “in their head”. These reactions are consistent with what we’d hypothesize from understanding the solveeczema theory and what someone like me, who has seen what my children’s skin did when we were surrounded by detergents in our home environment vs. how their skin healed by itself and without ongoing drug intervention when detergents were removed from our environment, would guess would happen.

Conclusion: They’re Not As Harmless As They Sound!

My conclusion is that this is another example of how detergents really are everywhere, they affect every sphere of our lives. We must be cautious, careful, and critical in what we choose to use and surround ourselves with. While these compounds may arguably be safer than compounds that are carcinogenic, I don’t believe that these are innocuous by any means. They may not be as toxic, but they are toxic nonetheless, and, I believe, cause harm. Use with caution, or better yet, find natural or mechanical methods for dealing with weed growth or insect manifestations that do not require chemical spraying.

Footnote:


See the Wikipedia entry on ammonium where it indicates ammonium is a general name for quaternary ammonium cations, and later indicates the ammonium cation is “found in a variety of salts” in the Ammonium Salts section.

Dandelion
Dandelion on My Lawn (c) Julie Leung

The Temptation to Spray

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I have been battling with dandelions for nearly 20 years, since I first became a homeowner. My approach has evolved over the decades from unreservedly and liberally using herbicides to various shades of manually managing them by pulling, mowing, or otherwise “natural” methods of controlling them. We moved to our current house when my son was a baby and have mostly tried to control the dandelion weed population by natural methods here.

Over the years, I have amassed many different dandelion pulling gadgets, but this one, handed down to me by family friends of my parents, remains the simplest and typically most effective.
Over the years, I have amassed many different dandelion pulling gadgets, but this one, handed down to me by family friends of my parents, remains the simplest and typically most effective.

Every year, I struggle with the temptation to spray the lawn and be done with it. And every year, I instead opt to try something new in my quest to manage my dandelion problem without using harsh herbicides. This reluctance is shared by a growing number of people, as we discover that the “quick and easy” chemical solutions our parents were sold on actually have underlying and often long-standing and extensive consequences or that “Better Living Through Chemistry” is not always true. My journey to this conviction was no different.

What’s My Problem With Herbicides?

2,4-D and glyphosate are arguably the most commonly-used herbicides (marketed under a number of trade names). 2,4-D is commonly used for dandelion control because it is selective to broadleaf weeds but leaves grass alone. The mechanism of action for 2,4-D is death caused by uncontrolled growth. Um, that’s basically the definition of cancer. The mechanism of action for glyphosate is inhibition of the synthesis of 3 amino acids which are needed for protein synthesis and synthesis of compounds necessary for cell replication and metabolism: very basically, inhibition of processes necessary for life.

Yet, the research is contradictory. Even amongst international agencies, there is disagreement. In 2015, the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classified glyphosate as “probably” carcinogenic to humans and 2,4-D as “possibly” carcinogenic to humans. Other branches of the WHO later ruled (2016) that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer in humans through diet, and the EPA had earlier (2007) ruled that existing data do not show a link between 2,4-D and cancer. There are also arguments that these compounds affect plant biochemical pathways only and don’t have the same effects on mammals. Fair enough. But not having the same effects does not necessarily mean not having any adverse effects.

My thought process about the dangers of herbicidal sprays is much simpler and goes something like this:

Stated simply, something that does not naturally occur in nature and significantly alters the biochemical pathways of a living thing to the extent that the living thing is killed, cannot be good for humans.

When I look through the discoveries made even in the past 40 years, for example, time and again we have discovered that something we once thought was safe and had no effect, actually has long-standing and serious consequences for animal populations and ultimately us. Look at what we have discovered about PCBs, DDT, and Dioxins. About pesticides we once thought only impacted animals (and who cares about them, right? sigh) but had no deleterious effects on humans. About the impact on aquatic life (and, if you follow my blog, ultimately on humans too!) of seemingly harmless compounds like detergents and phosphates. About all the things that work in fine balance in our ecosystem, that are disrupted when even just one thin arm of that ecosystem is taken out. And in my specific case, given my convictions about the negative and largely unrecognized effects of detergents, I am particularly hesitant to spray herbicides because they often contain detergents to break the surface tension of the liquid and help spread the spray.

And Yet, I’m Still Tempted to Spray

After having said all that, I admit that I am still tempted to spray. Every year, at around this time when the dandelions are at their busiest; when I spend an hour of back-breaking (literally, my back and knees ache after I’m done) work picking dandelions, and come back the next morning to discover even more dandelions have now flowered, like I made absolutely no dent in them; when I dig a big, thick dandelion and discover an indentation in the ground where it is growing and realize I’ve dug this same one year over year and it made no long-lasting difference; when I stand up after an hour thinking “that’s enough for now, I need to move on with my day” and can still see dozens of untouched dandelion bodies that haven’t flowered yet; when I finish in the front yard and then realize I still need to tackle the back yard; when everyday in May and early June my precious spare time is spent digging dandelions rather than tending my garden, writing my blog, or enjoying time with my children; when I cannot shake the growing feeling that I’ve been doing this “natural thing” all wrong and am probably making the dandelion problem worse with my actions … I am tempted to spray.

So many dandelions on my lawn. This patch is particularly bad because it was poorly dug up by me in the past. My heart sinks after I spend an hour meticulously pulling weeds only to see several more flower the next day.
So many dandelions on my lawn. This patch is particularly bad because it was poorly dug up by me in the past. My heart sinks after I spend an hour meticulously pulling weeds only to see several more flower the next day.

Maybe I can just spray one year to once and for all kill all the buried taproots, and then go back to my natural solutions, I think. Maybe I can just spray at the end of the season when the kids aren’t on the lawn, I think. Maybe I can just spray the front and never let the kids play on it, relegating them to our backyard, I think. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

This year, I haven’t given into my temptation to spray yet. Like every year past, this year I have decided to step up my natural efforts and, armed with better knowledge, see if this is the year that I will get the advantage over these dandelions in a safe, natural way.

All The Natural Approaches I’ve Tried

Just a recounting of all the approaches I’ve tried in the past is dizzying:

  • Merely plucking the heads off the dandelions so at least they don’t go to seed and spread
  • Mowing frequently so the dandelions don’t get a chance to go to seed
  • Spraying them with various concentrations of vinegar
  • Spraying them with some combination of home-made vinegar, salt and detergent solution
  • Digging them
  • Digging them, filling the indentation with soil, re-seeding with grass
  • Attempting to outcompete the weeds with grass by improving grass health: leaving lawn clippings on the lawn after mowing, re-seeding the entire surface of the lawn with grass seed
  • Spreading corn meal gluten all over the lawn as a pre-emergence treatment (prevents seeds from taking root)
  • Adding fertilizer to the lawn early in the season and at the end of the season in an attempt to strengthen the lawn to outcompete the dandelions
This year, instead of making a homemade vinegar / salt / detergent spray, I thought I would try to boil down leftover pickle juice to make a super-concentrated spray. Did you know that pickle juice has vinegar and salt, and yes -- even detergents (polysorbate80) in it? I squirted this into the hole leftover after I picked some dandelions, but I'm not convinced it is strong enough to kill the taproot. The next day, some of the grass around the dent was yellowed, which tells me it's working on some level -- just maybe not the level I need!
This year, instead of making a homemade vinegar / salt / detergent spray, I thought I would try to boil down leftover pickle juice to make a super-concentrated spray. Did you know that pickle juice has vinegar and salt, and yes — even detergents (polysorbate80) in it? I squirted this into the hole leftover after I picked some dandelions, but I’m not convinced it is strong enough to kill the taproot. The next day, some of the grass around the dent was yellowed, which tells me it’s working on some level — just maybe not the level I need!

I Realized I Was Inadvertently Making the Problem Worse!

This year I’ve been working on my dandelion problem with a bit more knowledge under my belt (both from concepts discussed in our Grow Food Calgary class and reading on my own). That knowledge combined with continuing to see that I’m digging the same old places year after year, and that some of the biggest, most gangly dandelions come out of the same old places, I now actually think my past actions have made the problem worse. Here’s why.

  • When I merely plucked the heads off before they seeded, or relied on mowing to control the dandelion problem, I was actually dead-heading the dandelions. Just like we would dead-head our basil plant to encourage more bushy growth, I was pretty much doing this to my dandelions. No wonder there are many that are just so thick, wide, and have so many flowering heads!

  • When I dug them, I often did not dig deep enough to get the entire taproot out, so in subsequent years, the dandelion came back in the same place, with an increasingly stronger and more extensive taproot to support it

  • When I used homemade sprays or very concentrated vinegar solutions, all I ended up doing was killing the grass around the dandelion too. I don’t think these sprays are strong enough to get to the root to kill it, so I was just leaving a dead spot ready for new dandelion seeds to take root, in addition to the re-emergence of the old plant from the left-over taproot

  • When I dug them and filled the dent with soil and then reseeded grass seed, I filled with very poor quality, dead dirt. It was the cheapest stuff we could find at the store and had big chunks of unbroken woody bits. The fact that I’ve usually left the taproot in the ground and tried to grow grass seed on top of that, and in dead dirt that doesn’t support growth, to boot … is it any wonder this didn’t work?
In the past, I didn't dig deeply enough to get the whole taproot out. In past years, I thought getting out something like the dandelion on the right was enough, but in fact the taproot goes much deeper, as seen in the dandelion on the left. I've changed my approach recently, but my I'm disappointed and a little desperate when a dandelion breaks off like on the right, and I know I've left a big root in the ground.
In the past, I didn’t dig deeply enough to get the whole taproot out. In past years, I thought getting out something like the dandelion on the right was enough, but in fact the taproot goes much deeper, as seen in the dandelion on the left. I’ve changed my approach recently, but I’m disappointed and become even a little desperate when a dandelion breaks off like on the right, and I know I’ve left a big root in the ground.

What I’m Trying This Year

So this year I am going to try to actually dig out the full taproot. This takes a lot more time and effort, and many times I worry that I’ve left small branch offshoots or even the very end of the taproot in place. When the root comes out and I see the white latex-like bleeding from parts of the root, my heart sinks. I think there’ll be another dandelion there next year, just hopefully smaller.

A recent pull where I could see the bleeding latex-like substance from the root and know I've left some of the root in the ground and that there will be another dandelion coming up in the same spot next year, just hopefully smaller.
A recent pull where I could see the bleeding latex-like substance from the root and know I’ve left some of the root in the ground and that there will be another dandelion coming up in the same spot next year, just hopefully smaller.

Earlier in the season, I thought to squirt some of my concentrated pickle solution down the hole. I’m not convinced this actually helps, and then I’m also putting detergent on my lawn where my kids play and killing lawn around the hole, no matter how carefully I squirt this stuff. I probably won’t continue with this.

My next step will be to cover the indents with corn meal gluten to prevent seeds from taking root in the exposed dirt/dent. After some time and this has broken down a bit, maybe I’ll re-seed the dent with grass seed — only after putting some good quality soil into the dent first! I’m not actually sure whether I should prioritize putting down the corn meal gluten or soil/grass seed. I’m not sure how long to wait after putting down the corn meal gluten to try to re-seed, either.

From what I’ve learned in my gardening class, theoretically I should also be able to encourage a healthy lawn by sprinkling good quality soil, finished compost, worm castings and maybe even the compost liquid from a worm farm, onto the lawn and then reseeding with grass seed. I’m not ready for that yet because I need to prioritize using those amendments for my garden soil first.

And Yet, Back to the Temptation to Spray

But before all that will really work, I think I need to get the existing dandelion problem with all the thick and extensive taproots that are already in place below ground, under control first! Now that I’m hopefully not making the problem worse by dead-heading the dandelions and leaving large chunks of taproots in the ground, will it eventually get better and better every year? Will it be another several years of back-breaking work before I gain the upper hand on the dandelions? Sure makes me consider spraying — just once, just one year. Then, I think, I can start with a clean slate. The internal debate just never ends!

Basil Pea Shoots Windowsill
Basil and Pea Shoot Seedlings Growing on my Windowsill (c) Julie Leung

Why Gardening?

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In my post “How Eczema Made Me a Granola Mom“, I talked about how the journey of solving my children’s eczema changed me. Among the things I became convicted about was the importance of knowing where our food comes from and how it is processed before it gets to our table. I set out initially to understand if detergents had been used in the processing of our food, but soon realized I could not then ignore whether pesticides or herbicides had been used too.

Our Previously Haphazard Approach to Gardening

In our quest to better understand and have control over how our food was grown and processed, we established relationships with organic farmers to source some of our food, including buying a share in a community-sponsored agriculture (CSA) vegetable farm for a season. My husband and I also started trying to grow our own vegetables in the existing garden plot in our yard, and to more intentionally harvest from an existing apple tree and raspberry bushes. We had some minor success with our vegetables and fruit, but we were far from being very informed or intentional in our gardening. I felt that the success we did have was not directly related to anything special we had done, since we tended to have a “plant, mostly forget, try to remember to water, and see what shows up at the end of the season” approach — what experts would kindly refer to as “low input” gardening. Over the last few years, this approach has increasingly meant that we pretty much only plant potatoes that need very little preparation and ongoing care, and that whatever we harvest is “bonus”, meaning that we don’t rely on that harvest to actually feed ourselves to any great extent! And more importantly, I was pretty sure that in the cases where we were unsuccessful — such as the puny, few, and not-very-tasty beets we harvested the first year, or the peas that were overcompeted by potato plants and wilted within a few weeks of sprouting — were surely a direct result of something we had not done right.

This haphazard approach to gardening went on for a few years. My experience implementing solveeczema and all the related learning I’ve done tells me I am capable of processing large amounts of data and doing insane amounts of work if I am sufficiently motivated (or, as I was at the worst of my kids’ unrelenting eczema, feeling sufficiently desperate and hopeless). But, wading through reams of gardening how-to data from various sources, and trying to determine what advice works for our climate, preferences, desired vegetables and level of effort through trial-and-error was just not something I had much inclination to do. I asked some agriculturalists with the City if they had a “beginner gardener’s course” to hand-hold people through the how to’s, and they suggested I join the local horticultural society, attend meetings and ask pointed questions. In short: much more self-directed effort than I was willing to do to become a gardener, especially on the heels of what I had just finished implementing in detergent-removal and problem-solving for the eczema. So, my approach to gardening continued to be arbitrary and saddled with the nagging feeling of someday wanting to get more focused, intentional and informed.

Discovering Grow Food Calgary

In February, I found out about an immersive gardening program called Grow Food Calgary being launched in the spring. It is a collaboration between 3 women — all gardeners, 2 of whom are expert gardeners for whom horticulture is a professional endeavour. Their mission is to teach people how to be successful vegetable gardeners by walking with beginner gardeners through this year’s growing season (6 sessions, averaging one per month, from April to October). What I found attractive about this 7 month program is that it would give me the impetus and opportunity to actually work on my garden through the season with these access to these experts. I know from experience that if the course was just 6 classroom sessions over a week, I would have too much inertia to actually then apply my “head knowledge” to actively working on and expanding my existing garden.

My Newbie Gardening Journey to be Followed by CBC Radio

Just after my registration in the course, through a series of events I was connected to CBC’s The Homestretch radio program. They plan to follow my “newbie gardening” journey through the season.

Here is the first CBC radio segment that I was on, alongside Chelsie Anderson, one of the gardening experts and course leaders.

Taking a Detour to Blog about My Gardening Journey

I plan to blog about my journey here alongside of CBC’s check-ins on the radio. I don’t want to regurgitate what I am learning in my course on the blog per se, but rather reflect on the implications of what I am learning and talk about how it is being implemented in our garden. Blogging about gardening is a bit of a departure from my regular topics about eczema and food allergy, but I hope this will be an enjoyable and engaging detour!

Stay tuned for weekly updates of my gardening journey and links to subsequent CBC radio segments. Feel free to leave me comments and questions about this journey, too. Happy Spring!

epidemic_rise_in_food_allergy
Epidemic rise in food allergy 1997-2011 Shareable image from kidswithfoodallergies.org, a division of AAFA

Does detergent exposure cause food allergy?

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Both my kids have multiple food allergy and it is a heavy burden having negative impact on quality of life. Like anyone carrying the weight of an affliction, I soon began to ask: how did this happen? How can it be cured? How can it be prevented?

The title of the post may seem intentionally provocative, but it is the plainest and simplest phrasing of a fundamental question I’ve silently asked ever since I was convinced by solveeczema.org that detergents are the primary cause of my kids’ eczema. My younger child, who had much more severe eczema which started earlier in life, and was exposed to harsher and greater amounts of detergents, is allergic to many more food groups than my older child. How did I make the leap to asking whether detergents were somehow causative of my kids’ food allergies? That’s what this post is about.

Eczema Causes Food Allergy?!

There is a wide and growing body of research looking at the relationship between eczema (also known as atopic dermatitis or “AD”) and food allergy (usually abbreviated in the literature as “FA”). The search terms “atopic dermatitis correlation food allergy pubmed” yield a dizzying array of journal articles documenting a number of questions medical researchers have sought to answer about how AD (eczema) is related to FA (food allergy). Certainly, the literature indicates there is a correlation, an association, between AD and FA. But good scientists know that correlation does not necessarily indicate causation — meaning, just because two things occur together does not mean that one necessarily causes the other.

I was excited to discover a group of researchers had very recently sought to specifically answer the question “is there a causal relationship between eczema and food allergy?”, through a systematic review of existing medical literature — 66 papers, to be exact.

The paper is aptly titled Does atopic dermatitis cause food allergy? A systematic review. and drew this jaw-dropping conclusion:

This systematic review confirms a strong and dose-dependent association between AD, food sensitization, and FA. AD of increased severity and chronicity is particularly associated with FA. There is also evidence that AD precedes the development of food sensitization and allergy, in keeping with a causal relationship.

In as plain English as I can muster while still staying true to what the researchers said, this means:

  • “dose-dependent”: the worse the eczema, the higher prevalence of food allergy
  • “severity”: more severe eczema is particularly associated with development of food allergy
  • “chronicity”: more chronic (ongoing, long-term) eczema is particularly associated with development of food allergy
  • “in keeping with a causal relationship”: plainly, eczema appears to cause food allergy

Eczema somehow causes food allergy. This conclusion is HUGE! It isn’t so surprising, though, given the understood immune system mechanisms and how individuals become sensitized to substances (a precursor to developing allergies).

Proposed Mechanism

This news release of the American Academy of Dermatology entitled Dermatologists caution that atopic dermatitis is a strong precursor to food allergies summarizes the proposed mechanism:

Recent research examining the genetic basis of atopic dermatitis has shown that this chronic skin condition is likely related to a defect in the skin’s protective outer layer – known as the epidermal barrier – allowing irritants, microbes and allergens (such as food) to penetrate the skin and cause adverse reactions. Since the skin barrier in patients with atopic dermatitis is compromised and open to absorb proteins, it allows sensitization to certain foods, leading to a positive skin or blood test.

NOTE: It’s important to clarify that my position about people who suffer from eczema or atopic dermatitis is not that they have a inherent defect in their skin, but that they have a genetic predisposition to react to environmental detergents in a way which results in a breakdown of the epidermal barrier severely enough to cause eczema. It’s my belief that it’s not just some people that react to detergents, either, but we’re all affected — on a continuum from dry skin to severe eczematic lesions. These convictions come directly from discussion with AJ Lumsdaine from solveeczema.org about her ideas.

Detergents Cause Skin & Membrane Breakdown

There is a large body of research already showing that detergents damage and destroy skin and membranes. Just a few references here:

In the book Current Technologies to Increase the Transdermal Delivery of Drugs, a section about surfactants/detergents starting on page 30 states:

It is well known that surfactants have effects on the permeability characteristics of several biological membranes, including the skin [67].

and later states that some types of surfactant seem to alter the barrier function of the outer layer of the skin.

A more detailed example, from journal article Surfactants and skin membranes:

When we clean the skin we remove … part of our natural barrier – the stratum corneum. [Skin cells], both singly and in clumps, are released from the skin surface by the action of detergents and mechanical stimulation. So too are the lipids and proteins which make up the [inner region] of the stratum corneum. … Changes in the physical properties of the skin occur after washing. For example, changes in skin surface pH and transepidermal water loss (a sensitive index of barrier function) are easily demonstrable. Excessive exposure to surfactants results in repeated damage to the stratum corneum …

Skin Breakdown from Detergents is A Largely Unrecognized Cause of Eczema

This statement is the crux of the theory proposed by SolveEczema and requires targeted research to prove out. However, it is the experience and conviction of the thousands of families who’ve used that site to solve their child’s eczema. The quotes from papers and textbooks help, but I didn’t need to be convinced that detergents alter the skin barrier and break the skin membrane open to the extent that they actually cause eczema — I saw it on my kids. I saw their skin healed without drugs and moisturizers when I removed detergents, and I saw their skin become red and itchy again when they re-encountered environmental detergents.

Detergents Contribute to Food Allergy Development?

Let me tie my thought process from all of the above together, and present my hypothesis.

1. Detergents damage skin and other membranes, and is a largely unrecognized root cause of eczema, AND
2. Eczema has a causal relationship to development of food allergy.

Drawing it simply (perhaps over-simply!):

Detergents –> Eczema –> Food Allergy

Towards Breaking New Ground in Research on Food Allergy Prevention

From the sum total of my experiences, education and review of the literature, I have a strong conviction that detergents are likely a largely unrecognized but significant causative factor in development of food allergy. This line of inquiry needs directed research to prove out.

I often struggle with the question: What if the researchers were aware of this hypothesis; what if they turned their research towards specifically answering the question “Is the epidemic rise in food allergy correlated to the rise in prevalence of environmental detergents, especially in highly industrialized nations?” (Detergents are more common in industrialized nations, both within homes and institutions for cleaning, and in the environment because of their prevalence in industrial applications. This is a topic for a subsequent post!)

More questions intrigue and haunt me, propelling me into some form of action, starting with laying out my hypothesis here. What if, in posing the hypothesis and carrying out the research, we would be able to answer for the many children and families impacted by food allergy, “Why did this happen?”, and more importantly, “How can we prevent it?”

What if a return to the nearly non-existent rates of food allergy we saw 40 years ago, or wholesale prevention of food allergy, turned out to be something so disarmingly simple, at the very root, as changing what the world uses to clean and wash with?

cleaning_products
Cleaning supplies From pixabay.com, used by Creative Commons License CC0 Public Domain

Detergent the culprit for boy’s “chemical burns” from school bathroom

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I saw this very disturbing article this afternoon: Boy, 7, suffers chemical burns using school bathroom. 2 weeks ago, the boy sat on a toilet seat which had been cleaned with a harsh disinfectant, in his school bathroom. Later in the day, he noticed a rash resembling a sunburn on his legs. Then shortly after, the skin on his legs began to “ooze and bubble”. His mother says he missed nearly 2 weeks of school and was in so much pain he was unable to wear pants for 11 days. Other sources indicate additional children were impacted to varying degrees. Based on the description of what happened to this boy’s skin, how quickly it occurred, and how long he suffered, I wondered right away if the cleaning product contained detergents. I always have a heavy burden in my heart when I see news like this, because detergents are a largely unrecognized causation of skin rashes and eczema, and most who are aware are largely resistant to the concept that detergents, which are ubiquitous in our modern environments, could affect all of us negatively in some way, even if only “mildly” by causing dry skin and not severely as causing eczema or making asthma worse as for some. I almost hoped that detergents weren’t the culprit in this case, so I could escape that familiar burden to blog about it, post to Facebook about it, and tell everyone I could about it … so I wouldn’t perpetuate the notion that I’m on that “crazy detergent arc again” from those that don’t fully understand or simply don’t care. I and my children have been adversely affected by detergents, and found a solution for the ensuing relentless eczema, dry skin, and even reduced the severity of my asthma — things we’ve all been told aren’t supposed to be possible. So when I see evidence of someone suffering, all I want to do is to bring awareness about why, and conviction and thought about the trade-offs we’ve made in this synthetic-chemical-reliant world we now live in.

No such luck for my hope the culprit in this case isn’t detergent. The mother in the news article says the school provided her a MSDS (material safety data sheet) for the cleaning product in question, a product named “ED Everyday Disinfectant”. I looked it up. And on the data sheet I located, I found that the cleaner is comprised of 15% didecyl dimethyl ammonium chloride. This compound is what is known as a cationic surfactant (a detergent), belonging to the class of chemicals known as quaternary ammonium salts (see its SAAPedia entry here). Quaternary ammonium salts, or “quats” as they are commonly known, are a powerful chemical that are often used as sanitizers because they are antimicrobial (bactericidal and fungicidal). They are commonly used for food-surface sanitization at 100-400ppm which is equivalent to 0.01%-0.04% concentration. They function as detergents when present in high enough concentrations (see this paper). I’d say 15%, which is 1000x as strong as what is used to sanitize food prep surfaces, is a high enough concentration to qualify the quat in the “Everyday Disinfectant” cleaning product that was used on the toilet seat as a detergent!

The severity of this boy’s symptoms weren’t a surprise to me. They mirrored the symptoms my own children and others who suffer from eczema caused by environmental detergents, have exhibited. The red rash, burning, bubbling, oozing skin and then broken/scabbing skin described in the news article spoke to me immediately. The sad truth is that detergents really are everywhere. In fact, earlier this afternoon before seeing this news article, my children and I were at the grocery store and I saw a spray bottle labelled “Sanitizer-Quat” at the cashier, ostensibly used to sanitize the conveyer belt surface at checkout. I whispered to my son “that bottle contains ‘quats’, a very strong detergent — so don’t touch the belt!” Because detergents are everywhere, there is a great need to raise awareness that they impact all of us in a negative way because they increase skin and membrane permeability. If this was more readily known, and detergents’ causative impact to skin issues, eczema and potentially other allergic manifestations was more readily accepted through intentionally directed research validation, it’s possible that detergents would be used with greater care, and much more sparingly. The mother of the boy who suffered “burns” from the disinfectant cleaner used at his school went to the media because she wanted to make sure something similar didn’t happen to other kids. “It’d be a shame if it happened to anybody’s child,” she says in the article. I couldn’t agree more.

Snoeshowing in Kananaskis Country
Snoeshowing in Kananaskis Country (c) AllergyJourney, All Rights Reserved

SolveEczema author blogs about my asthma success story

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A year ago, I sent the author of solveeczema.org a letter telling the story of my astonishing asthma improvement after removing detergents from our household by employing the problem-solving methodology from her website. A few days ago she contacted me about that letter and my story, and published it on her blog yesterday.

Though my readers will be familiar with my asthma improvement story already — especially that wonderful snoeshowing trip where I was shocked to discover just how clear my lungs had become, AJ Lumsdaine’s introduction to my letter and the caveats she shares are well worth a read.

I want to highlight that, from my own experience, I whole-heartedly agree with AJ that detergents are not a causation of asthma. However, I feel that detergents affect the respiratory membrane in such a way that the allergens or irritants that actually cause the inflammation that leads to the wheezing, difficulty breathing, and constricted airways characteristic of asthma, can more easily cross into the lungs — and in larger quantities. I came to this conclusion by myself from trying to reconcile what medical researchers know about asthma with how my asthma acted both before and after removing detergents, and was then only mildly surprised to discover that AJ held this view all along. My experiences fit with AJ’s view that detergents lower the threshold for reacting to allergens in the environment. In other words, as she has already stated, they amplify a reaction that would already have been caused by something else in the environment.

So, the theory goes: in the presence of a pollutant, or in my case, pet dander, I will be likely to have an asthmatic reaction. But when my lungs have been regularly bathed in detergents riding on the dead skin cells, lint and dust I inhale, my respiratory membranes are more permeable to that pollution or pet dander and I become more likely to wheeze, or I’m wheezier, or I’m wheezier faster. When my lungs have a respite from detergents because I’ve cleared them from my home — even though I still inhale dead skin cells, lint and dust — the membrane over time has a chance to heal, so when I then inhale those same pollutants or pet dander, they don’t cross the membrane as easily and I am less likely to wheeze, or wheeze less, or it takes longer to become wheezy. That has indeed been my observation for my own asthma.

These past few days I’ve been sick with a cold. My thresholds are generally are reduced: after all, I’m battling a virus which is causing an immune response and inflammation. So, my asthma “expresses” more readily (sometimes, if I’m really sick, I have constant tightness in my chest and wheezing seemingly without normal triggers like exercising or exposure to pets). However, over these last many years, my asthma is still less severe when I’m sick than before detergent removal. And as I share in my letter, I still believe I am an asthma sufferer given the right exposures. So in times like these, I don’t gamble with my health — I take my asthma medications when I need to. It’s wonderful, though, to need a lower dosage and need them less frequently, and absolutely mind-blowing that I had at least two experiences where I felt absolutely no symptoms of asthma and had completely clear lungs despite being off the medications for months.

Have a read of AJ Lumsdaine’s blog post Sharing an Asthma Success Story from Canada!

Merry Christmas and best wishes for a peaceful, joyful 2016 to all!

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Floating Dust Public Domain from wallpor.com

You don’t need to be dust-free or meticulously clean to be eczema-free. Case in point: my house!

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The purpose of this post is primarily to dispel the myth that you need to be dust-free to be free from eczema. Far from it. Removing the sources of detergents in our home brought us the freedom to still have dust, to kick it up when we walk, to have it land on our kids’ skin, even to roll in it, and not have a flare because of it!

In my “Our Story, Part I” I laid out some bullet points of empirical evidence that my friend whose son and self suffer from eczema discovered which primed me to accept the solveeczema explanation as plausible.

The most significant of her discoveries for me was her baby son’s skin would flare if he contacted the household dust. So, the most expeditious solution for her was to keep her house “dust-free” and, to hear her tell it, she was getting rid of dust constantly. She didn’t use a feather duster or otherwise make the dust airborne again but got rid of it. She meticulously wet paper towels and ran them along various household surfaces to collect the dust. She was thorough, even wiping down the tops of large leaves from her household plants!

The possibility that dust could cause or contribute to eczema (as opposed to sneezing, runny nose and asthma — all of which I’ve experienced in reaction to dust) was illogical to me. But I believed her and I accepted what she observed — if only initially as a cause specifically for her son’s eczema. I reasoned I could not definitely conclude otherwise. I couldn’t argue with her — at the time of our discussion, she’d dealt with eczema for 30+ years while I’d wracked up a whopping 8 months of experience.

So, when I read on solveeczema 2 years later the theory that dust is a cause of eczema because of what is on the dust, it was like the clouds parted in the sky and illuminated my world, as my eyes grew large from sudden understanding. My friend’s seemingly strange observation now had a plausible explanation. I readily embraced the solveeczema concept of “detergent dust” and its “unseen exposures”.

Dust is primarily comprised of dead skin cells and, to a lesser extent, clothing lint. We already know the lint from clothing washed in detergents would contain detergent residues. But what about the skin? The proposal on solveeczema is that shed skin particles have on them detergent residues from what was used previously on the skin (i.e. from detergent soaps, moisturizing creams, etc.). So that means dust in a household that uses detergents would contain within it detergent residues. And when this detergent-laden dust lands on the skin of babies and children, it brings detergent residues into contact with their skin even if they haven’t made direct contact with detergent products or detergent-laden fabrics or surfaces. The effect of those deposited detergent residues are especially bad where there are small amounts of water (such as through sweat, drooling, or in the crook of the elbows or behind the knees). Sooner or later, a flare results.

I always tell people (and you only need to come to my house to see for yourself!) that by no means is my house dust-free (or meticulously clean or germ-free, by any stretch). I still have dust in my house because I’m not extremely meticulous about cleaning it up, and its accumulation is very obvious because we have hardwood floors. We vacuum just enough to minimize pollen and animal dander that wafts in through open doors and windows. What still accumulates under my bed, in the corners of my stairs, and on the window sills between vacuums is surprising! The difference now is that my dust doesn’t contain detergent residues in it. I believe that has made a healing difference for my asthma and our daughter’s eczema.

Happy Canada Day to my fellow Canadians and Happy 148th Birthday to my beloved country!

by Luis Llerena @ https://unsplash.com/negativespace
Page One. Day One. (image courtesy Luis Llerena, used under CC0)

Site launch … finally!

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Well, the day has finally come. I’ve been working on this blog either directly or indirectly since August 2014, and it’s finally time to launch. I had planned to launch by end of 2014 but got sidetracked with some other important initiatives which hopefully make it to a future post.

Along the way, I learned a lot of cool things about WordPress, came to have even greater respect for those technical folks who daily make a living of web-related software development, dusted off my own technical skills, did a lot of writing and editing, and had my passion for us to better understand the etiology and prevention of allergy, confirmed.

This blog really is a labour of love. That love is fuelled by the ache in my heart from seeing any child suffer from eczema, and from scratching my head at why rates of food allergy and other allergic manifestations have skyrocketed in our children’s generation. There are many well-written and science-based blogs written by loving moms who are dealing with food allergies, eczema, environmental allergies, asthma, or all of the above. I struggled with whether I had anything unique to add to the collective voice on the internet, but there were many encouragers along the way who told me to keep going, told me I had something valuable to add.

I hope other parents whose little ones suffer from eczema and other allergic manifestations will find this site useful. When people remember (or see photos of) my daughter’s awful baby eczema and then see her today — running around in her porcelain-like, supple, beautiful skin, like nothing was ever the matter — they are usually intrigued. I began finding it difficult to do our story justice in 30-second-soundbites exchanged in passing with other moms. I found it even more difficult to answer the question “What do you use instead?” in a non-intimidating, detailed way. I have endeavoured to put both our story and our product list on this site and (believe it or not!) tried to be succinct! The detail is there so that people can get just what they need from our story: skim it to get a sense of where I’m coming from, come back for a more detailed read if it intrigues you or you want to give detergent-removal and problem-solving a try.

Thanks for joining me here. Please subscribe if you like what you’re reading. My first few posts will attempt to explain the eczema flare mysteries (at the bottom of Part I of our story): why I believe my children’s eczema flared, in light of the solveeczema theory.