About ➜ About Interior Medicine

About Interior Medicine

Interior Medicine is an online resource that helps you choose safer furniture, decor, and tools for a healthier home.

About Meg

Hi! I’m Dr. Meg Christensen. I founded Interior Medicine in 2021. My mission is to help prevent disease by promoting healthier home environments, and do it in the most transparent, well-researched, and balanced way possible.

I am a licensed, board-certified Naturopathic Physician, have been WELL AP credentialed, hold a Healthier Materials and Sustainable Buildings certificate, and a Bachelor’s Degree in Biochemistry and Biophysics. I spent a year in an Epidemiology and Biostatistics Master’s of Public Health program, and a year taking Architecture and Interior Design classes.

You can read a little (or a lot) more about my philosophy, methods, and background here, if you’re interested.

About “Non Toxic” and Other Language

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

I understand that there is no agreed-upon definition of the term non-toxic, and that everything, even water, is made of chemicals, so nothing is truly chemical-free. Likewise, I’m aware that toxin 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 anyway because they are currently the most culturally agreed-upon, descriptive, and accessible terms that allow people to find the information they are seeking. Some people really care about the accuracy of this terminology, so I’m letting you know!

I use my background in hospital research, naturopathic medicine, and healthier materials to bridge the fields of Interior Design and Preventive Medicine— and to bridge conventional and alternative ways of thinking about toxins and healthier homes. I’ve spent a lot of time with both Non-Toxic Wellness Skeptics and Non-Toxic Wellness Devotees, and as with most things, both camps are more nuanced than they seem on the surface, both make some good points, and I don’t think either side should be villainized. I believe the truth about non-toxic wellness anything, including homes, lies somewhere in the middle.

My Philosophy

This pie chart is a very loose representation of the many things that might affect your health. In short, your home and indoor spaces are definitely included, but they are not everything.

For skeptics, I like to point out the research institutions that give healthier interior materials their very deserved place on the pie chart: Mt. Sinai Exposomics, Duke Environmental Exposomics, International Well Building Institute, Parsons Healthy Materials Lab, International Living Future Institute, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Services, among others. It is a relatively new, and rapidly expanding, field that is becoming more mainstream as we recognize the environment’s effect on our genes.

For devotees, who also tend to worry about toxins, I want to make it clear that you can absolutely be a healthy person in an imperfectly healthy home. I hope you can release stress around the healthiness level of any given object if it isn’t serving you. As environmental medicine research progresses, companies should bear more responsibility than individuals to make healthier products. Prices will hopefully come down, as well. In the meantime, just like perfection is not the goal with diet, exercise, or relationships— it doesn’t need to be the goal with indoor spaces, either. While it’s absolutely a worthy endeavor to improve your home’s health, there are so many ways to take good care of yourself and your family, and I know for sure that you are doing a great job.

My Methods

To put my philosophy into action, I use the following methods:

Constant questioning: I believe that curiosity and questioning are the foundation of scientific thinking, and the antidote to becoming increasingly polarized toward either end of the Skeptic-Devotee spectrum. When I see popular ideas circulated, I question where the idea came from in the first place, and sometimes find they’re just not true — plants purifying the air or PEVA shower curtains being toxic, for example. I also question my own assumptions, to make sure I have evidence to back them up, and that they’re not outdated — for example, aluminum is not considered a cause of Alzheimer’s, as I feared it was in the early 2010s. When a brand advertises their product as “non toxic,” I don’t take their word for it, and instead dig into their claims.
Removing bias: I created material scales that keep my reviews and ratings of products consistent, and fully explain the rationale for each scale so you can see exactly how I came up with it. I also choose to label every product I receive affiliate income from, because of course money can bias a more positive review of something, and I think this public disclosure also forces me to be more neutral.
Providing nuance and context: grey areas are harder to navigate, and are less satisfying than absolutes. In the material health world, things are rarely just toxic or non-toxic— instead, the routes of exposure, how the body deals with that exposure, how you incorporate healthy habits in other aspects of your life that may mitigate the risk of the exposure, and your cumulative exposure load, matter. I incorporate this nuance and context in my material guides, at the bottom of product pages, and when answering your emails.

If someone had described my website to me when I was in college, I would’ve rolled my eyes. These are the five pivotal experiences that gave rise to Interior Medicine, if you feel like reading.

First, I became very curious about how invisible molecules in anti-depressants could change people’s moods and lives when I worked at a little pharmacy during my high school years, so I read Molecules of Emotion by Candace Pert. Before that, I had visited colleges with the intention of majoring in Interior Architecture, but after reading this, I decided to major in Biochemistry and Biophysics instead. Spending four years learning about tiny molecules is likely what makes “toxins” feel more real and relevant to me to this day.

Second, while in my last term of undergrad, I learned in a class called Molecular Medicine that pet birds died when people cooked with non-stick Teflon pans. Teflon is made of PFAS, and when PFAS were released into the air, birds inhaled them and died. It was thought, even back then in 2007 (!), that PFAS may also be carcinogenic to humans (which of course, now we know they are). We also learned about the biochemistry of pesticides and food additives, and this marked the first time I had an interest in organic food and natural cleaning products. Before, I had dismissed them as unnecessary and just “for the hippies,” but learning how synthetic chemicals affected my body on a molecular level changed my mind.

After graduation, I was studying for the MCAT and working as a clinical research coordinator at the hospital. During a conversation with an elderly patient recovering from a stroke in the ICU (he was widowed and mostly ate frozen dinners) the physician I was working with prescribed Plavix, a blood thinning medication. Which is good!! But for weeks afterward, I couldn’t stop thinking about the patient’s loneliness and his microwave meals, both of which are stroke risk factors. I felt a pull to help him, and others like him, in a more holistic way than just medication. To be clear, I wasn’t seeking an alternative, but something I could personally do that would feel more comprehensive. It made me wonder more about prevention, too, and though I can’t state enough how much I respect MDs and ICUs and the wonderful care they provide, this particular experience is what gave me pause about “regular medical school” being the right fit for me.

Stalling, I spent a year in an Epidemiology and Biostatistics Master’s program. While I entered it for quarter-life-crisis reasons, my time there ended up being invaluable— I learned how to think about public health vs. individual risk, correlation vs. causation, and much more— all of which I still use constantly to this day, creating this website. A professor in the program tipped me off to the fact that Naturopathic Doctors were licensed and board-certified primary care physicians, could prescribe a full formulary of medications, and were covered by insurance. I had no idea! The focus on prevention and holistic treatment seemed to align with my ideals, so I applied to NUNM and became a naturopathic doctor.

Finally, full of naiveté after receiving my ND, I was sure I could help prevent chronic disease. I tried mightily, in an ALS clinic, cancer institute, and practicing in an integrative gastroenterology clinic. It does turn out, however, that patients really only come to the doctor after they’re sick (haha) and while I may have helped prevent something on some level for some people, COVID is what finally provided the setting for weaving together my background with my holistic prevention goals. 2020’s lockdown gave me time to wonder about my Ghost Ship— the alternative life where I had become an Interior Architect instead. I took online classes in Architecture and Interior Design for fun in the evenings, and while choosing materials for one of my projects, I noticed that stain-proof couch upholstery was made with PFAS, just like the Teflon pans of 2007 were. I wondered if I could help prevent disease by choosing a couch made without PFAS for my imaginary design client. The more I learned, the more I was convinced I was on to something. I started Interior Medicine in early 2021 as an evening hobby geared at preventing disease through the environments we spend so much of our time in. Since then, it’s become a (more than) full-time endeavor, thanks to you, and I plan to keep improving and growing it as long as possible.