Healthy Buildings: Creating Health Indoors

This is an easy reference outlining toxic and non-toxic building and renovation materials, and discussing a few behaviour measures to keep indoor air as safe and clean as possible.  

There are no autistics yet tested at the US Autism Research Institute (a leading, independently-funded, autism research organization) who do not have impaired detoxification.  

As a result, autistics invariably have a much higher toxic body burden than people with similar toxic exposures... unless our lives are shaped to minimize toxin intake, and maximize toxin outflow.

The airways are the fastest pathway into the bloodstream.  Think of how quickly an asthma inhaler works, relaxing a respiratory spasm within seconds. 

The airways also have very little filtration.  Gases are absorbed right there in the lungs, and particulates get caught in mucous to be oozed away into the gut for cleaning and recycling.  

Incidentally, toxic particulates from air pollution kill the healthy inhabitants of the gut ecosystem; air pollution is highly associated with both leaky gut and much higher incidence of autism.

Since most people spend a lot of time indoors, and indoor air quality averages about 10x as toxic as outdoor air (despite what you hear about smog days), it makes sense to detoxify our indoor air.

A large part of the indoor air problem stems from using construction materials and furnishings that can easily be mass-manufactured.  Even the green building industry doesn't always evaluate impacts of construction materials on human health.

Doing a kitchen renovation?  Building a new school?  Evaluating a potential new workplace?  This tool will help you assess impacts on everyone, but on autistics more.