Our News
Happy New Year! Hope that you are all coping during this second lockdown and keeping safe.
Thank you to those of you that have renewed your subscriptions for 2021. You can still renew by sending us a cheque made payable to MCS-Aware for £24 or by paying online. You will get access to helpsheets, discount code booklet, Penpal directory and 3 copies of our jam-packed magazine (sent throughout the year).
Our current manager, Helen, is stepping down from the manager role at MCS-Aware ( she will still be putting together the magazine). If you know of anyone that may be interested in this part time position do e-mail us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can find the link to the job advert here.
Glossary: EI: Environmental Illness, MCS: Multiple Chemical Sensitivity, EHS/ ES: Electro-Hypersensitivity
Healthy Probiotics to Boost your Immune System
Probiotics are key for immune system support and for good reason: Probiotics support your immune health not just in your gut, but your whole system. But did you know that the bacteria in your gut can also influence your overall health – physical, mental, and emotional? The microorganisms that reside in your gastrointestinal tract act as natural controls on your body weight, energy, and nutrition. That’s what makes foods with probiotics so valuable. We all need a balance of 'good' and 'bad' bacteria in the gut to stay healthy and people with environmental illness often have too many 'bad' bacteria. The good news is that healthy bacteria that exist naturally in probiotic foods can actually alter your gut’s microorganisms. You don't have to buy expensive supplements, many traditionally fermented foods contain thousands of 'good' bacteria and are easy and cheap to make. Turning to foods for nourishing your gut with beneficial or “good” bacteria isn’t anything new. Long before refrigeration and other forms of food preservation were available, people got large quantities of good bacteria – or probiotics – straight from their diet in the form of fermented or cultured foods. Luckily, many of those foods remain popular today and provide significant amounts of natural probiotics. Just one spoonful of certain fermented foods can provide trillions of beneficial bacteria, far more than you could ever get in a probiotic supplement. Consider trying Kefir, Sauerkraut, natural yoghurt or miso, if you can tolerate them.
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Recipe: Quinoa with Chard and Smoked Mackerel
Corn, egg, gluten, lactose, milk, nut, peanut, sesame, soya & wheat free
This healthy recipe is full of vitamins, minerals and omega-3. It is also easy to make too. Click here for the full recipe.
Thanks go to Foods Matter for kindly letting us reproduce this dish.
Wood Burners Triple Harmful Air Pollution
Wood burners triple the level of harmful pollution particles inside homes and should be sold with a health warning, says scientists, who also advise that they should not be used around elderly people or children. The tiny particles flood into the room when the burner doors are opened for refuelling, a study found. Furthermore, people who load in wood twice or more in an evening are exposed to pollution spikes two to four times higher than those who refuel once or not at all. The particles can pass through the lungs and into the body and have been linked to a wide range of health damage, particularly in younger and older people. The research was conducted in 19 homes in Sheffield over the course of a month at the start of 2020. The wood burners used were all models certified by the government as “smoke exempt appliances”, meaning they produce less smoke. But this and the new EcoDesign standard, due to become compulsory by 2022, only assess outdoor pollution.
The government is phasing out the sale of wet wood, which produces more smoke, but the people in the study used only dry, seasoned wood. Wood and coal burning in homes is estimated to cause almost 40% of outdoor tiny particle pollution, but the new research is among the first to analyse indoor pollution in real-life settings. Almost 16% of people in the south-east of England use wood fuel, and 18% in Northern Ireland, according to 2016 government data, and about 175,000 wood burners are sold annually. “Our findings are a cause for concern,” said Rohit Chakraborty, of the University of Sheffield, who led the study. “It is recommended that people living with those particularly susceptible to air pollution, such as children, the elderly or vulnerable, avoid using wood-burning stoves. If people want to use them, we recommend minimising the time the stove is open during lighting or refuelling.”
Wood burners cause less indoor pollution than open fires. “But every time you open the door, you reduce the stove to an open fire and particulate matter floods into the home,” he said. The peaks take an hour or two to dissipate. “But by the time it comes down, someone opens the door again to refuel and you get spike after spike,” Chakraborty said. Some burners have filters, but these only reduce the pollution being vented outside. Some people without central heating rely on wood burners for heat, and Chakraborty did not call for a ban. “We should leave it to people to decide, but they should at least know what’s going on, and, of course, don’t use it if you don’t need to.” To read the full article which was first published in The Guardian in December 2020, click here.
Latest News
Due to the fact we are not medically qualified at MCS-Aware, we are unable to advise on having the vaccination for Covid-19. However the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency has said: "People with a history of significant allergic reactions should not have the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid jab. The advice applies to those who have had reactions to medicines, food or vaccines." Read the article here.
A pesticide believed to kill bees has been authorised for use in England despite an EU-wide ban two years ago and an explicit government pledge to keep the restrictions.
Help ban neonicotonoids from pesticide products used for agriculture.
Coho salmon deaths linked to a chemical found in tires.
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