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About Interior Medicine

Interior Medicine is your complete resource healthier home products and information — separating facts from non-toxic marketing hype through balanced, research-backed reviews and empowering educational tools.

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Where to Start

First, a quick note about how I use the terms non-toxic, chemical, and toxin:

There is no agreed-upon definition of the term non-toxic in reference to healthier living, and that everything, even water, is made of chemicals, so nothing is truly chemical-free. Not all chemicals are harmful. Toxin actually refers to a natural substance like a plant poison or venom, whereas toxicant is a more accurate term for the chemicals in products that have a negative health impact.

I choose to use these words below, and throughout Interior Medicine, because they are currently the most culturally agreed-upon, descriptive, and accessible terms that allow people to find the information they are seeking. If we come up with a more accurate definition in the future, I will change it!

The Evidence

Are toxins in the home really a problem?

Yes. In 2001, long before the pandemic, WFH, or the internet as we now know it, the average American spent 90% of their time indoors. Even with a daily outdoor walk or trip to the park, my guess is that this percentage is even higher now, though there isn’t an updated study on this.

We tend to think we’re separate from our homes and the other indoor spaces we spend time in, but the opposite is true: we are constantly inhaling, ingesting, and absorbing the air, light, and water, as well as the invisible shedding of the materials around us. We humans are porous — our skin absorbs molecules from the surfaces we touch, we inhale ultra-fine particles into our airways where they pass through lung tissue into our bloodstream, and our eyes convert light into cellular messages in our brain and the rest of our bodies. The problem is, our water, air, furniture, and decor contain many of the 85,000+ chemicals that humans have created over the last 100 years. 

Is this a health problem recognized by legitimate institutions, or just a “wellness” thing?

In early 2025, the World Health Organization estimated that chemicals, and the waste and pollution they create, are a contributing factor to 25% of deaths worldwide.

Several universities now have departments dedicated to studying environmental health and the impact of materials, air, and water on human health, including Mt. Sinai Exposomics, Duke Environmental Exposomics, Parsons Healthy Materials Lab, and University of Oregon’s Institute for Health in the Built Environment.

Like LEED does for the environment’s health, several organizations have emerged to promote and protect people’s health in commercial buildings: the International Well Building Institute and the International Living Future Institute.

And, on a government level, several departments study toxicants both in the home and outdoors: the National Institute of Environmental Health Services, and the Pediatric Environmental Health Specialty Units.

What toxins are in our homes, and how do they affect our health?

Indoor Air: On average, indoor air is 2-5 times, and up to 100 times (!) more polluted than outdoor air. We breathe in about 2,600 gallons of air daily. Indoor air can include:

  • Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs): these compounds easily off-gas from products and can include formaldehyde, benzene, and toluene. They come from paints, air fresheners, foam, solvent-based furniture glues, vinyl flooring, and are responsible for the “new house” smell. They can cause headaches, eye, nose, and throat irritation, asthma exacerbation, and over many years, damage to your nervous system, liver, and kidneys.

  • Particulate Matter (PM 2.5): these are fine particles generated by cooking and using candles, or that enter the home from wildfires or outdoor pollution. PM exposure can cause eye, nose, and throat irritation, contribute to heart, lung, and neurological diseases, and research is increasingly showing a connection with oxidative stress and inflammation.

  • Radon: a naturally occuring radioactive element that is released from the bedrock underlying homes. It is odorless, colorless, undetectable without testing, and is easily trapped in houses. It is the second leading cause of lung cancer.

Dust and Water: Dust and water contain heavier, but still invisible, substances that don’t stay afloat in the air, settling onto surfaces that we touch and ingest via our hands, as well as eventually into soil and the water supply. They’re shed off of home products with daily microscopic friction and longer-term wear and tear:

  • BPA, phthalates, and other plastic additives: BPA is the best-known in this category, though there are many more. These additives change the properties of plastics, making them flexible, transparent, or shatter-resistant. They’re in shower curtains, toys, PVC piping, and plastic tablecloths. They’re also a part of synthetic fragrances, so are in candles, air fresheners, and scented garbage bags. They’re associated with a wide range of issues including endocrine disruption, reproductive issues, behavioral problems in children, asthma, obesity, and diabetes.

  • PFAS: a huge class of chemicals that add water, stain and oil-proofing properties to upholstery fabrics, carpets, rugs, pots, and pans. PFAS exposure is associated with changes in metabolism, pregnancy issues, immmune and endocrine system disruption, and several cancers.

  • Flame retardants: added to foam, carpet, upholstery, electronics, and building materials. These are linked with thyroid disease, immune dysfunction, reproductive problems, cancer, and developmental and behavioral issues in kids.

  • Antimicrobials: added to paints, fabrics, hand soaps, counter wipes, doorknobs and kitchenware to appear cleaner or more sanitary, antimicrobials unfortunately cause more harm than good and may disrupt hormone and reproductive function, as well as contribute to allergen sensitivity. Their overuse is also a driver of antibiotic resistance.

  • Nanomaterials: used as nanosilver threads in textiles, or nanotitanium coatings in non-stick pots and pans, nanomaterials are ultra-tiny versions that act completely differently than their larger counterparts. They’re able to cross cell walls and while useful in certain innovative applications, their human health harm potentials in daily products are just emerging. So far, we understand that they can cause DNA damage and inflammation.

  • Heavy metals: lead in older wall paint and pipes, and cadmium in older ceramics, are old news to most, but because of their persistence in the environment, deserve our continued attention.

Direct Touch: Our skin is excellent at keeping most harmful substances out of our bodies, but some are capable of passing through, including some flame retardants, BPA, and others listed above. Another direct effect that doesn’t fit in the air, dust, or water categories above, is light:

  • Excess blue light: in LED lightbulbs, computer screens, and TV displays, excess blue light exposure is associated with insomnia, sleep disturbance, eye strain and macular degeneration, and even an increased risk of breast and prostate cancer.

If any of this stresses you out, please see the Where interior exposures fit into the big picture of health section, by clicking here, or scrolling down.

Common Criticisms of Non-Toxic Living

“Non-toxic” doesn’t mean anything, so isn’t worth caring about

It’s true that “non-toxic” doesn’t have a definition when it comes to products. Because of that, I hear this argument often: “since there is no agreement on exactly what non-toxic means, caring about toxicity is meaningless, too.” Or, a slightly different version: “since non-toxic doesn’t have a strict definition, you can’t really know anything about the health level of what you’re looking at.” Finally, I’ve heard as far as, “non-toxic doesn’t mean anything, so you caring about it makes you gullible or unintelligent.”

I believe that usually, ultimately, these arguments do come from a good place — trying to protect people that are vulnerable to disinformation and misinformation, or that are prone to fear of toxins. However, I still think the arguments are incorrect— even though we don’t have a perfect definition of what non-toxic means, that’s not a reason to not aim for new ones in good faith. OEKO TEX and GOTS are examples of organizations creating very strict definitions of what a fabric should not contain to be considered non-toxic. GOLS does this for organic latex, GreenSeal does this for paint, and so on. Caring about removing toxicant exposure from your life, even though you don’t know every detail about what that means, is OK, and worthwhile. You can care about this, and still be savvy about fear-mongering. This is why Interior Medicine exists.

“Levels are X are low enough, it won’t harm you.”

I actually agree with the factuality of this statement — for each individual product that this claim is made for. However! Exposures are cumulative, and we are constantly exposed to them every single day. Moreover, exposures don’t just add up, they also interact in ways we don’t fully understand yet.

Another reason I take issue with this statement is that it gives companies making less-than-healthy products an easy way out. Of course, no single company or product will ever be 100% causative of someone’s health issue— causation is impossible to prove, since a person’s health is the result of myriad environmental, genetic, and lifestyle factors. (This is in part why it was so hard to hold tobacco companies accountable for lung cancer deaths— each cigarette contains a very low level of tobacco. Was this person’s lung cancer from cigarettes, or bad luck, or radon?) It irks me when a company falls back on this line of reasoning instead of doing a better job and making truly healthier products.

This isn’t all bad news, though! If you really love something, even though it is unhealthy, you can rest assured knowing that it, in itself, will probably not cause you long term harm. You can read more about how to think about the big-picture perspective of lifetime cumulative exposures, risk, and how to make decisions about what risks you take, below.

Healthier environments should be achieved through public policy, not individual choices

In an ideal world, I agree with this. This is a common argument I see against promoting “non-toxic” lifestyles — essentially, that it puts an unrealistic and expensive burden on individuals that should be taken care of by public health policy instead. The argument also usually correctly includes that healthy lifestyles shouldn’t be an exclusive personal achievement, and instead should be less difficult, less stressful, more egalitarian— AKA, part of the policy standard that exists for everyone.

Healthier foods, personal care products, and home goods do often cost more than their less healthy counterparts, and it takes time and energy that not everyone has, to incorporate any of these into your life. When I was an epidemiology student in a Master’s of Public Health program, I saw how effective public health policies are, and how they remove the elements of wealth inequality and personal willpower from the equation. For example, policy greatly reduced outdoor air pollution, eradicated smallpox, and is why city water supplies remove bacteria and viruses from our tap water. The thought experiment that I remember most while learning about this was imagining that no fast food restaurants were permitted to sell ultra-processed food, and instead could only sell healthy, fresh food. Theoretically, people would be nutritionally healthier with very little additional effort.

If there were more policies and regulations on what chemicals were permitted in household products, that would also immediately raise the standard for everyone’s health without individual effort— imagine no PFAS were allowed in upholsteries or cookware, that more than 8 (of the many) phthalates weren’t allowed in kids plastic toys, and endocrine-disrupting antimicrobials weren’t allowed in daily home countertop wipes. While we have made some progress — there are fewer flame retardants in couches and mattresses than there used to be, and labeling is now required — it’s still incremental, slow, and not a reality.

Progress will be slower now. In 2025, the US cancelled the majority of funding for PFAS research, reversed regulations on PFAS discharge into the water supply, closed the department that evaluated health risks of toxic substances like formaldehyde and other chemicals common in homes, and is proposing other environmental health agency cuts.

I wish that we all had a higher baseline standard of healthy living. But, regardless of administration, public health is always balanced with innovation, costs, capitalism, and politics. Public health policy will likely never be the full answer. Increased research funding, environmental toxicant activism, voting with your dollars, and making individual choices, are all imperfect avenues toward better health in the home, and are all part of the messy reality we live in.

Stress about toxins causes more harm than the toxins themselves

I disagree. It doesn’t, for most people, most of the time.

From a worldwide, big-picture perspective, I do not think that stress about toxins is causing more harm than pollution, harmful chemicals, and daily exposure to outdoor or indoor environmental toxicants.

From a perspective more specific to non-toxic information, I’ve seen that most people are mentally and emotionally resilient about the topic, and can cope with the sometimes-frightening information. As a concrete example, I recently attended a 3.5 hours long conference about PFAS that contained intense information about how big of a problem they are for people and the planet. Afterwards, attendees were calmly asking questions and curious to learn more.

Still, I completely understand where the concern about toxin-related stress causing harm comes from. Some have experienced illness without a clear cause or explanation, and are searching for one, wondering if toxins contributed. Some people have high background stress levels for other reasons, which then serves as a backdrop to amplify even a small amount of toxin-related stress. Some people have a tendency toward perfectionism, and attempting to rid their life of toxins is a focus. It is always wrong to purposefully elicit fear for gain, especially in people feeling this way. When I receive an email from anyone feeling stressed about a less toxic home, I always remind them that they are doing a good job, and try to give big-picture perspective about the many ways you can achieve health— you can read more about that here. I back up scary-sounding facts with reputable research links, and I use humor to get points across on social media, also in an effort to reduce stress.

Alcohol and cigarettes are toxins— decorations and furniture aren’t.

Yes, alcohol and cigarettes are very well-established toxicants with very specific patterns of health outcomes. However, that doesn’t mean other, less-well-established, emerging exposures aren’t. We don’t know everything about PFAS and their long term effects yet, but we do know for sure they are associated with at least certain kinds of cancer, metabolic issues, and reproductive problems. PFAS are in pots, pans, upholstery, and other decorations and furniture in the home. It would be negligent to ignore their toxic potential. Flame retardants present in couches, mattresses, and other foam products are linked with thyroid disease and cancer. The same goes for phthalates, endocrine-disrupting antimicrobials, heavy metals, and solvents. Just because something isn’t as well-known, well-established yet, constitutes a smaller exposure, or has less dramatic effects, doesn’t mean it should be brushed off as harmless. You can read more about why I think you can and should choose your own set of risks below— jump to it here.

Disinformation and Healthwashing

Disinformation is different than misinformation. Disinformation is intentional; the person or brand stating something knows it is false. Some people or brands amplify health risks when they’re not true, but the disinformation I see more commonly is healthwashing.

Healthwashing is a form of disinformation, and is a deliberate attempt by a person or company to make products appear healthier, safer, or more “non-toxic” than they really are. Some of the most common ways I see it in the non-toxic home products industry is through statements like “100% natural,” “green” or just “non-toxic” without any evidence to support that— no third party certifications, no ingredients list, no details.

Healthwashing is bad because not only does it mislead well-intentioned people trying to make their homes healthier, it also generates larger-scale confusion. Once someone learns that a “non-toxic” product isn’t actually so non-toxic, it can cause generalized mistrust and exhaustion.

Combatting healthwashing is one of my primary goals with Interior Medicine — analyzing each claim by every company and their products to make sure they’re not healthwashing. I’ve reported a handful of companies to GOTS or GOLS for falsely claims about their products, write reviews that include information about how well a company’s marketing statements actually match their product on each of my product pages, and use consistent rating systems with lots of information under most products so you can understand exactly what each claim means.

My goal is to expose disinformation, and help people make healthier, informed decisions without feeling exhausted.

Misinformation, Fear-Mongering, and Polarization

With misinformation (as opposed to disinformation), people don’t know that what they’re saying isn’t true. I see it frequently— people recycling common statements that just aren’t true, like plants can purify the air, aluminum causes Alzheimer’s, or that only certain air purifiers can capture particles down to 0.03 microns. It’s very important to me to not take information at face value, and critically assess it instead.

Whether it is disinformation or misinformation, both can be used intentionally to cause fear in people. This is always wrong. I absolutely understand that sharing facts about environmental toxins with enthusiasm and urgency —as I do, and have done even more enthusiastically in the past— can enter tricky territory— where does urgency about frightening facts cross the line into eliciting unnecessary fear? Does it depend on your intention? I don’t have all the answers, but here is what I do with Interior Medicine:

On social media, I use humor, not fear, to discuss information that might be frightening to some. Here on my website, where humor isn’t the main mode of communication, I link potentially upsetting information about toxins to reputable websites and research articles. I answer every stressed-out email with the perspective that non-toxic interiors are one part of your overall health.

I do this not just because I think it’s the right thing to do, but because I hope that it can decrease polarization a tiny bit. Misinformation, disinformation, and fear-mongering all lead people on “the other side” of a topic to discredit, mock, and dig their heels in, worsening the debates we’re having about health in the US right now. Maybe naively, I hope that humor and well-supported facts can add a little nuance and grey area to the black-and-white thinking we do habitually about the medical establishment, conventional medicine, naturopathic medicine, wellness influencers, MAHA, and more.

How to Find Balance

Where interior exposures fit in to the big picture of your health

If you ever start feeling like your home has to be perfectly non-toxic, or you are agonizing over a material or product decision, I hope this pie chart helps you feel a little less stressed, and reminds you of the big-picture perspective.

The pie chart is a (very loose) representation of the many things that might affect your health, and the purpose is to highlight that while it is absolutely a worthy endeavor to improve your home’s health, just like it’s important to eat well, or exercise, it is not everything. The facts about indoor exposures and how they affect health, above, give healthier interior materials their very deserved place on the pie chart. Your home is also a space you have control over, as opposed to the outdoors, or your genetics.

That said, there are so many other ways to take care of your health. Some people will focus entirely on movement and nutrition and totally ignore their home and live a long, healthy life. Other people will focus on taking their medication every day and avoiding outdoor air pollution and live a long, healthy life. Ultimately, doing the best with whatever combination makes sense to you is enough.

Precautionary principle vs enjoying life

The Precautionary Principle means that even if a direct cause-and-effect relationship is not yet conclusive scientifically, being cautious is the best option during the time of uncertainty.

It can apply to how you think about specific chemicals or products, essentially saying, “let’s wait until we know this is safe before we use it,” rather than assuming it’ll be fine until we know for certain. (The Precautionary Principle is generally in line with the EU’s policy toward chemical safety— harmful until proven innocent, rather than innocent until proven harmful, which is how chemical risk is treated in the US.)

You might also use the Precautionary Principle for the bigger picture, as well— specifically, the ultra-complicated combination of chemicals that we’re exposed to daily. We don’t know what effect the combination will have on us, and it’s unlikely we’re going to solve this infinitely complicated problem any time soon. So, you may try to generally reduce your exposure load in whatever way you can, with precaution, even if it’s not perfectly a 100% rational, evidence-based guideline yet. For example, you may choose to avoid the teeny tiny amount of benzene released from many compressed air fresheners, and avoid polyester, and avoid nano-titanium coated pots and pans— even though each of these individual things aren’t necessarily yet (or may never be) proven to be the absolute most important things to avoid.

I think that just because we don’t yet have good, scientific, evidence-backed guidance for exactly which toxins we should avoid (beyond cigarettes and excess alcohol) that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use the Precautionary Principle in whatever way works best for us until we do. I understand why people disagree with this approach — avoiding things before guidelines exist may stress people out, or not be worth it in the long term. I agree. However, I do think you can still apply the Precautionary Principle whenever you want, as long as you are still feeling neutral or enjoying yourself. Personally, I avoid benzene-based air fresheners, nano-titanium coated pots and pans, and most polyester, just because they’re easy stress-free ways to reduce exposures for me, no matter what we find out about their impact on my health in the future. But, I will never give up my heated blanket in the wintertime, which is made of polyester. I enjoy it. It is worth it. If you can follow the Precautionary Principle and decrease your load in some imperfect, irrational, non-stressful ways, and not others, that is great.

You can choose your own set of risks

While I generally point people in the direction of avoiding these 6 classes of chemicals, beyond that, we don’t have evidence-based guidance for exactly which exposures to avoid, in what amounts. We also don’t know what we’re exposed to on a daily basis (I was surprised to see what I had been exposed to after wearing a silicone band for this exposomic research study!) We don’t know what we’ll find out in the future about how this mixture of daily toxins affects our health. I don’t know if we ever will.

So in the meantime, I think it’s fine to apply the Precautionary Principle however it makes sense to you, even if it is inconsistent. You can have a perfectly organic mattress and couch, but use a polyester blanket. You can avoid all fragrance and never light candles, but sit on your super beautiful custom made leather couch filled with flame retardant foam.

You don’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be consistent. You don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. You get to choose your own particular set of risks, especially while we don’t know what the future of environmental health research will reveal. Not everyone will agree with your particular set, and will choose a different set to avoid, and that’s OK.

Eco-friendly does not mean human-friendly

Frequently confounded, eco-friendly does not mean human health-friendly. Interior Medicine is very clear about the difference, and is focused on the latter— what is healthy for humans.

For example, a house made with ultra-effective foam insulation is fantastic for energy savings and reduces the need for extracting more natural gas or energy for monthly heating and cooling bills. However, foam insulation is notoriously toxic, and very tight homes without air flow are susceptible to very poor indoor air quality, radon buildup, and mold growth risk.

Another example— a blanket made with recycled water bottles helps remove excess plastic waste from the planet, but snuggling up with this isn’t necessarily a good idea, as many water bottles, especially older ones or from other countries with fewer regulations, are made with plastic additives that are harmful to health. This has been in the news in regards to yoga wear, though the same is true for other recycled poly fabrics, including home textiles.

I do think that ultimately, super super long term, eons-away, eco-friendly and human-friendly are the same thing. But in our current time and place, they just aren’t yet. I’m hopeful that we will see the world of sustainability and human health work together more and overlap more in the future.

The earth, factory workers, fenceline communities, and your home

Sustainability, or what is healthy for the earth, is not always the same thing as what is healthy for people, as I explain above. It’s important to keep these concepts clear and untangled. This way, you can see product clearly through this particular perspective— what is healthiest for you, the consumer, or the “end user.” However, that doesn’t mean it is a more important consideration than the health of the Earth.

Moreover, what is healthy for you may not always be the healthiest option for others we share this planet with, especially factory workers, people living in fenceline communities near factories, or people using your second-hand furniture when you buy a healthier version. Again, the impact on your health in particular is important to understand when buying a new product, but again, not more important than other peoples’ health.

A quick example, in case that feels vague — an OEKO TEX-certified polyester blanket poses a relatively low risk to your health. The OEKO TEX certification verifies that it has been tested and is compliant with textile processing chemical limits. It’s a good thing, for your health and your family’s — and polyester is inexpensive compared to many other organic options! This accessibility is necessary and good. But, polyester is derived from petroleum, and the extraction of petroleum and chemical refinement of it is terrible for the planet, the people working in the industry, and living next to, these factories.

The example is not meant to villainize polyester, but to validate arguments that I see often, that buying healthier products isn’t The Big, Right Answer. The answer is a tricky balance, and I hope it can urge buying only when you need to, rather than recklessly. Ultimately, this conversation is much larger than what a few paragraphs here on Interior Medicine are equipped for. It’s global, personal, political, ethical— about capitalism and innovation and individual health and public health— in short, it’s tricky, and I want to acknowledge it even though I don’t have all the answers.

Curiosity, humility, and listening

Everything I wrote above is meant to underscore my conviction that you can have an open-minded but evidence-based, rational but curious, approach to wellness and non-toxic living.

I also wrote it for a former version of myself, who was extremely critical of the concept of avoiding toxins, and who considered all Wellness to be exploitative. I still agree that we should be careful and thoughtful about the ways in which we avoid toxins, and nurture curiosity and skepticism as we do so. I also still believe that, even more than before, there are many exploitative versions of wellness. But, I now understand that my former opinion was more a product of black-and-white thinking than a mature conclusion after a curiosity-led exploration of the facts. I was on one end of the spectrum of how we think about health, and I was arrogant about it. Over the course of 15 years, learning changed my mind— first, learning about olestra and pesticides in foods and PFAS in pots and pans in a biochemistry class in undergrad, then learning about dry cleaning ingredients in an environmental health class in grad school, then finally PFAS again while in an interior design class in 2020. It happened slowly, and was definitely supported by the accumulation of humility and greater acceptance of uncertainty that has come with aging.

Finally, I wrote it because my path through both the conventional and alternative medical worlds is a lived microcosm of the polarization we’re experiencing in the US right now in conversations about health, and more specifically, about the value of wellness and non-toxic living. I see daily on social media and in the news, either end of the spectrum lobbing insults at each other, ultimately deepening either side’s stance. I hope we can bring some curiosity, humility, and listening to the conversation, not because I “just hope both sides have fun!” but because I believe it’s the only way forward out of our nation’s messy and unsatisfying health situation.

Thank you

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