Re: IQAir GCX, Foust, InovaAir, and MCS

A Reader writes:

Hi Ed,

Great website.

Very interesting reviews and lots of valuable detail.

Thanks.

My wife has recently been diagnosed with MCS, after 10 years with Chronic Fatigue, so we are looking for an air purifier.

The IQ Air is available here in Australia, so your reviews of that are very useful.

Just one question, why didn’t their GCX rate in your top 10?

The Foust air purifier is highly recommended by a person we’ve recently met who has suffered from MCS for many years and has thoroughly researched the market. I wonder whether you have plans to evaluate the Foust air purifier in the near future, or whether there is a reason why you haven’t reviewed them yet.

There is a local manufacturer here in Australia, InovaAir, who seem to make a reputable product, though only supply to the commercial market in the US; have you heard anything about the quality of their products?

What questions should we be asking vendors so we can evaluate their products’ effectiveness at eliminating or reducing chemicals, including fragrances, pesticides and formaldehyde?

With thanks...

Ed's Reply

Seems like more MCS is turning up every day.

IQAir GCX series is of course a top pick. My top ten are price weighted from top to bottom, with an upper limit of $1200.00.

Rating the IQAir HealthPro Plus tops, I imply that the higher priced IQs are even better.

GCX is highly recommended for those who can pay the $2K tag, but is targeted at medical and industrial markets.

For MCS, the GCX Chemisorber option targets airborne acetaldehyde, which I consider a key to the chemical senstitivity puzzle.

Foust Air Purifier is a very good product specifically targeted at MCS. I have dealt with Joe at Foust, he is very easy to work with.

Fousts are stainless steel, high quality, with very low emissions. The company will work with customers to find the right mix of chemical adsorbents for their needs. Foust ships media samples for MCS customers to sniff test before committing to a purchase.

The E.L. Foust review will eventually come, but this is a low volume specialty product and I am swamped right now.

I expect the Foust machines to score pretty well...

InovaAir E20, built in Australia, is a premium medical-grade machine. The company specializes in commercial applications, especially solvent emissions in print shops. Before developing MCS, I worked 2 years in a packaging factory print shop where toxic solvents damaged my liver.

InovaAirs have tight internal seals to prevent bypassing, a sure sign of quality (and higher price).

I'd ask vendors about their machine's ability to fully remove airborne aldehydes.

Aldehydes are among the most difficult chemicals to capture permanently or oxidize completely. Better air purifiers will have oxidizing materials to destroy them, mixed with their activated carbon.

Potassium permanganate is commonly used.

Photocatalysts can also fully oxidize aldehydes, some experiments have indicated that titanium doped with apatite may destroy airborne acetaldehyde effectively. So far, I haven't noticed an air purifier with this combination.

Air Purifiers and MCS

Don't accept the idea that MCS is either incurable or "psychosomatic."

But air purifiers are just a small part of the solution. People have been banished to ceramic-lined trailers and lived in plastic bubbles without showing progress despite complete removal of environmental toxins.

Remember that acetaldehyde and other toxins are generated inside the body by anaerobe overgrowth (fermentive metabolism - without oxygen - which can even be the body's own precancerous tissues).

Our carb-rich diet and widespread abuse of antibiotics, both in "medicine" and agriculture, are to blame as much as airborne chemicals.

Eliminating all refined and/or cooked carbohydrates, starving the yeasts, will do the most good.

Glutathione exhaustion (sulfhydryl depletion) in the liver and b-vitamin deficiency due to acetaldehyde toxicity, in my opinion, are chief factors in MCS.

Living away from aldehyde-rich vehicle exhaust, and the pos-ion (acid) poisoned urban environment is a must for MCS folks.

Chronic fatigue, again just my opinion, results from acidic waste products, lactic acid, benzoic acid, hippuric acid... building up in tissues as more and more cells adopt anaerobic metabolism.

Calcium-Magnesium citrate with vitamin-D, and aluminum-free baking soda (1/2 tsp in water on an empty stomach, or 1-lb box in warm bath) help me control the acidosis.

Milk thistle extract, multi-B vitamins, and glutathione would be a start for your wife's slide into chemical sensitivity.

I use N-Acetyl L-Cysteine and Reduced Glutathione from Jo-Mar Labs whenever symptoms threaten.

Iodine supplements help the immune system resist yeasts/mycoplasms/other anaerobes.

Ubiquitous halogens - flourine/chlorine/bromine - added to food and water, displace Iodine, damaging health.

Optimax Iodoral, available from numerous web retailers, should be considered.

Any yeast killing supplement will provoke a toxin release, (herxheimer reaction) conditioning the victim to avoid the cure and rush to the carbs that make him feel better in the short term.

To understand MCS, study alcoholism, where acetaldehyde creates morphine-like chemicals in the brain and distorts neurotransmitter balance (serotonin and dopamine especially).

I have substantially reduced my fatigue, eliminated fibromylagia, and controlled MCS (note absence of word "cure") by low carb, zero sugar, organic raw greens and veggies diet, fresh rural air and direct sunshine (for vitamin-d synthesis, needed to mobilize calcium/magnesium and combat acidosis).

Alkalize and oxygenate to feel better.

Best wishes,

Ed