Have you ever wondered where the supposedly sustainable farmed fish you see at the grocery store comes from?

In this episode, Therese Markow, Susan Ryan, and Maya Martin discuss the environmental and human-rights costs in global aquaculture, with a focus on inland fish farms in China and the fish meal used to feed farmed seafood. They break down some of the findings from the Outlaw Ocean Project in greater detail regarding the governmental oversight gaps, the international impact of these fish farms, and concerns about employee relocation.

Key Takeaways:

• Many of the workers at the aquaculture fish farms in inland China are relocated from other parts of China, and even North Korea.

• A large portion of what's being imported into the US doesn't undergo a physical inspection by the FDA. A physical inspection is where you would expect to find things like chemicals that shouldn't be in your food, antibiotics, or spoiled products.

• ⅔ of the global aquaculture industry is carnivorous or fed, so most of it relies on fish meal or fish oil, which is tied to other problems.

• The very wild fish that we're supposed to be protecting by fish farming are the ones being exploited, and the wild fish populations are still being damaged.

"As a consumer, what you can do is focus on eating locally caught seafood - if you see it come in from the fishing boat, then it's a lot harder for hidden abuses to sneak in. You can also focus on eating more sustainable types of aquaculture, such as bivalves, which are mussels and oysters and things like that." — Maya Martin

Connect with The Outlaw Ocean Project:

Outlaw Ocean Project: https://theoutlawocean.com/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Bluesky: @CriticallySpeaking.bsky.social

Instagram: @criticallyspeakingpodcast

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

Things you do or are exposed to early in life, including during fetal development, can actually affect your health later in adulthood. Normally, we're unaware of it, and it's difficult to make the connection. Today, Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld dives into some of the research regarding placentas and their key implications in every life.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld discuss how prenatal exposures can alter placental function, fetal brain development, and later-life health, with varying effects based on fetal sex. They expose the dangers of BPA and substitutes such as BPS, the importance of the neurotransmitters created by the placenta to the developing fetal brain, and the surprising results Dr. Rosenfeld has found in her research into maternal probiotic supplementation.

Key Takeaways:

• The placenta is an endocrine organ. There are sex differences in the placenta between male and female fetuses.

• The placenta provides neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, to the brain. If there's not enough serotonin, that could compromise early brain development and make a child unfortunately vulnerable to diseases later in life.

• While many people try to avoid BPA, we are all impacted by it or by one of its substitutes. In a side-by-side study shot with BPA and BPS (a common substitute), it was found that both of them have equally harmful effects on the placenta.

"Essentially, all the fetal organs depend on that placenta. So if you affect the function of the placenta, it will affect the vital processing of all the other fetal organs." — Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld

Connect with Dr. Cheryl Rosenfeld:

Professional Bio: https://cvm.missouri.edu/pathobiology-and-integrative-biomedical-sciences/faculty/cheryl-s-rosenfeld-dvm-phd/

ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cheryl-Rosenfeld

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=qluXCCYAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Rosenfeld+Cheryl+S&sort=date

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Bluesky: @CriticallySpeaking.bsky.social

Instagram: @criticallyspeakingpodcast

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

CTE isn't just an NFL story, and a diagnosed concussion isn't the only warning sign. Dr. Jonathan Cherry explains how years of repetitive impacts may quietly change the brain, and why researchers are racing to find a way to detect it during life.

In this episode, Therese Markow and Dr. Jonathan Cherry discuss his research into understanding how repetitive head injuries cause progressive brain changes and their work to learn how to detect the disease during life. They break down the difference between CTE and concussions, explain who is more likely to get CTE, and explain the links between CTE and other cognitive diseases.

Key Takeaways:

• While it's only been talked about for the last 20 years or so, the first research on CTE was done in the 1920s on boxers.

• There is currently no way to diagnose CTE in life. TES is being used as a way to diagnose people in life with symptoms of CTE, but at this time, CTE can only be diagnosed after death.

• While contact sports are one of the biggest contributors to CTE, it is not the only way to get it. CTE has also been seen in the brains of those afflicted by domestic violence and those in the military.

"CTE is from a history of repetitive head injury, and a concussion is essentially the damage as a result of one injury." — Dr. Jonathan Cherry

Connect with Dr. Jonathan Cherry:

Professional Bio: https://www.bumc.bu.edu/camed/profile/jonathan-cherry/

Website: https://cherrylab.science/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-cherry-phd-80117695/

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=g3ztmrwAAAAJ&hl=en

PubMed: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/myncbi/10iEdlxiameAD/bibliography/public/

Connect with Therese:

Website: www.criticallyspeaking.net

Bluesky: @CriticallySpeaking.bsky.social

Instagram: @criticallyspeakingpodcast

Email: theresemarkow@criticallyspeaking.net

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.