 Every few years, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention measures the level of chemical pollutants in the bodies of thousands of Americans from across the country. What did the latest report tell us about our toxic burden? Or more importantly, that of pregnant women in the United States. Published last summer in the Journal of the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, here is the list of chemicals they measured on the left and on the right is the percentage of women, both pregnant and non-pregnant, with detectable levels of these pollutants in their bodies. Look at those numbers. Most women in this country are contaminated with heavy metals, a number of toxic solvents, endocrine disruptors, fire retardant chemicals, PCBs, and pesticides like DDT. And that's just the first page. Continuing on the next page, more pesticides, plastics chemicals, industrial toxins circulating through their bloodstreams. Look at these numbers. In many cases, 99 or 100% of the hundreds of women tested were found with these chemicals in their bodies, and potentially passing them on to the next generation. On average, pregnant women harbored about 35 different chemicals. Each of these bars represents one woman. That's how many chemicals they found in their bodies. Bottom line, they found widespread exposure to pregnant women in the United States to multiple chemical compounds in their metabolites, including both banned and contemporary contaminants. Americans are walking chemical cocktails. So let us explore what consequences they may have and how to minimize our exposure to them. That will be the topic of this next series of videos on NutritionFacts.org.