“How we sleep, what we breathe, what we eat, what we drink, what we expose ourselves to—all of these things definitely factor into your physical and mental health,” says Dr. Michael Dominello, a radiation oncologist at Karmanos Cancer Institute in Detroit. “By making no decision, you’re actually making a decision, oftentimes for the worse.”
We asked four oncologists to describe the changes they’ve made in their own houses to reduce their daily exposure to chemicals, pollutants, and carcinogens. Here are eight of them.
They’ve engineered plastic out of their kitchen
Heat causes plastic to release small amounts of chemicals into food—including endocrine disruptors, which interfere with the body’s hormone systems and have been linked to a range of health concerns. That’s why some oncologists have replaced the plastic items in their kitchens.
Dr. Andrea Tufano-Sugarman, a gynecologic medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, won’t heat anything in plastic. She’s also swapped her cutting boards from plastic to wood and her non-stick cookware for cast iron. “I’ll eat out of plastic if I can’t avoid it, but I won’t heat anything up in plastic,” she says.
