Plants That Could Save Your Life - The world we live in is full of synthetic chemicals, most of which are toxic. They are encountered from our food to all the objects we touch. No wonder the explosion of Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) cases (see: http://news.softpedia.com/news/The-Disease-of-the-Technology-MCS-74254.shtml). But if you think that contamination is something occurring outdoor, you're awfully wrong. The "technology toxins" stalk inside your house, and the situation is nastier than you could imagine. The insidious aspect is that these toxins poison you most of the time, including while you are sleeping.
95% of what's inside perfumes, deodorants, body lotions, cleaning products, paints, new carpets, tobacco smoke, shampoos, gasoline and other products are petroleum derived, like acetone, camphor, benzens, aldehydes, ethanol, g-terpins and others. Other indoor contaminants should be more obvious for you: pesticides (like anti-lice products) or solvents (from paints, varnishes, adhesives, treated woods, synthetic fabrics and carpets, and detergents).
"Mild" effects of our daily (or not) exposure to these chemicals are fatigue, disorientation, muscular pain, joint pain, eczemas, eruptions, dizziness, somnolence, nausea, body swelling, accelerated breathing, flue symptoms, asthma, palpitations, high pulse, sinusitis, anxiety, pneumonia, headache, memory loss, decreased focusing capacity, insomnia, irregular heart rhythm, gut issues and mood disorders (depression and mood swings) (and we have missed many others here). About 37% of the Americans are allergic to synthetic chemical smells, vent gases, tobacco smoke, freshly applied paints, new carpets and perfumes.
On long term, this exposure translates into cancers. How we are affected by this is influenced by our genes, age, sex, diet, health and mood (which influence immunity), drugs we take, medical history and lifestyle (drinking, smoking, drug consume).
Modern homes and buildings, designed for energy efficiency, are often tightly sealed to impede energy loss from heating and air conditioning systems. The ventilated air inside buildings recycles all kinds of solvents, including formaldehyde (an extremely toxic chemical). Synthetic building materials used in modern construction have been found to release potential
pollutants that remain trapped in these unventilated buildings. Carpets aggravate the situation as they absorb many solvents which afterwards are released gradually over long periods of time. All this cause "Sick Building Syndrome". The poor indoor air quality costs only US tens of billions of dollars annually in lost productivity and medical care. In Australia, about 75 % of buildings are affected by "sick building syndrome" and 9% of the workforce takes off at least one day from work every fortnight because of sickness connected to this.
Good night sleep in a well aerated room, healthy diet (including food supplements), and physical exercise (sweat eliminates poisons from the body). But here comes a 2-year NASA research that points to an unexpected, cost-effective, environmentally friendly, low energy and completely natural method of detoxifying our houses: the common indoor plants. NASA aimed to assess environmental issues, both on Earth and in space habitats, and this new study has been led by Dr. Bill Wolverton, formerly a senior research scientist at NASA's John C. Stennis Space Center, Bay St. Louis, Miss.
Plants (more specifically the leaves) have been known to function like air pumps. At day light, they take carbon dioxide from the air to make photosynthesis. Moreover, they breathe all the time. This means they take oxygen from the air and release carbon dioxide. Plants also sweat, mainly through their leaves. Water and gases go in and out through small pores called stoma. Closed or opened stoma show how active the
plants are at a given moment. Because plants sweat, they keep room's correct humidity levels.
Amongst animals, mussels and oysters function as water pumps that take small food particles and oxygen from the water and release carbon dioxide and wastes. But the bivalves are also known to accumulate contamination toxins from the water (like heavy metals and hydrocarbons), with many episodes of severe intoxication of people that ate such seafood. Well, what NASA has found is that some plants can function like real "air oysters" in your house, accumulating the toxins that imperil your health and ultimately your life.
19 species and varieties of ornamental plants have been tested for their effectiveness in removing the main toxins connected to indoor air contamination. 17 are true houseplants, and 2 species of daisies are used indoors as seasonal decorations. The houseplants are tropical or subtropical species growing beneath dense tropical canopies, thus they subsist in low light, and are more efficient in absorbing gases, including toxic ones. Plants do not absorb contaminants only trough leaves, but also through roots and their root-associated bacteria.
Some indoor plants proved to be so efficient in absorbing the air toxins that some could be launched into space integrated in biological life support systems aboard future orbiting space stations.
Read More:http://news.softpedia.com/news/Top-15-NASA-039-s-Plants-That-Can-Save-Your-Life-78345.shtml
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