What your mom never told you about Xenoestrogens

Skin Deep

2009-06-01T09:44:00.002-07:00

Skin Deep is a guide to cosmetic products compiled by the Environmental Working Group. It gives a score out of 10 for most body, cosmetic, baby, dental and perfume products on the market, so you can know the toxic burden of the stuff you use. It isn't the easiest site to navigate (long lists that you have to sift through a bit), but its rating system is good and easy to understand. When you click on a product, it gives you a run-down of all of its ingredients, how harmful they are, and what the potential effects are. I am not aware of a better, more complete database.

Hair Dye Dangers

2008-03-28T09:57:00.001-07:00

- Researchers at the US National Cancer Institute estimate that 20% of all non-Hodgkins lymphoma cases in women are due to their use of permanent and semi-permanent commercial hair dyes (NHL is the disease Jackie Onassis died of). Also, the Institute found that commercial dyes also cause Hodgkin's lymphoma and multiple myeloma. All three diseases are types of cancer, and seem to be more common in those who use darker dyes (Sources: American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Epidemiology).

- Use of hair dye is associated with breast cancer (Sources: New York State Journal of Medicine, British Medical Journal, Journal of the National Cancer Institute, and The Lancet).

- Use of and exposure to hair dyes leads to bladder cancers (Sources: International Journal of Epidemiology, American Journal of Epidemiology, and the National Institutes of Health International Conference on Women's Health).

- Women who use hair dye just prior to conception or during pregnancy will have children whose risk of childhood cancers is up to 10 times higher than if no dye was used. (Sources: Cancer Research and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute).

Theo Colborn's Suggestions

2007-03-27T20:58:00.000-07:00

This is a few months late (I blame my laziness on hormone disruptors!), but here are some suggestions Theo gave us when my class teleconferenced with her in November.

For women who are wanting to get pregnant, are pregnant, or just gave birth:
-Avoid packaged food as much as you can, eat whole foods instead.
-Do not use microwaves (especially, do not heat up plastic containers)
-Don't get pregnant while on the birth control pill (as there are obviously high levels of synthetic hormones in them)
-Go off of the pill for 6-9 months before getting pregnant, to allow the body's hormones to return to normal levels.
-Eat organic meats, wild fish.
-Don't renovate anything yourself (paint, refinish furniture), or be around renovations.
-A couple of months after the first child is born, pump breast milk and throw it away. This will greatly lessen the total amount of chemicals in the woman's body that the second child will be exposed to.
-Avoid soy products, since soy is a natural endocrine disruptor (babies exposed to soy in the womb have higher rates of thyroid problems than those not exposed).
-Be aware of any new products, since endocrine disruptors are present in paper, clothing, glass, etc.
-Don't use sunscreen; cover up instead.

Toxic Sperm

2007-03-21T18:49:00.000-07:00

Some members of my Global Science and Tech class (Amy, Eve, and Eric) found this awesome Greenpeace commercial that spoofs on Woody Allen's classic film Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex* *but were afraid to ask.

Go to: http://www.green.tv/toxic_sperm

It's a hilarious, and sadly accurate, depiction of the effects of endocrine disruptors on the human reproductive system. As mentioned in previous posts, EDs have been linked to decreasing sperm count in men all over the world, as well as the fact that the sperm men do produce have more incidents of mutations and are not as healthy as sperm studied 50 years ago.

Safer Cars

2007-03-21T18:29:00.000-07:00

I found a great website that rates cars by their toxicity. Given that the entire interior of a car is all plastics and fabrics, it is no shock that this raises the level of human exposure to endocrine disruptors. Go to www.healthycar.org to find out the rating for your car, especially if you are thinking about buying a new one. This is a safety concern right up there with air bags and crash star ratings.

How Polluted Are You???

2007-02-22T15:03:00.000-08:00

An interesting little quiz to take. I scored 246/794, which is low. Here's hoping you do to.

Letter to Stephen Harper

2006-12-11T17:36:00.000-08:00

There was an article in the Globe and Mail today about how a group of 700 scientists sent a letter to Prime Minister Harper to encourage him to update environmental laws to protect us from hormone disrupting chemicals.

News

2006-10-25T15:23:00.000-07:00

The October edition of National Geographic had an article entitled "The Chemicals Within Us", which talked about all of the unknown chemicals that enter and stay in our bodies for decades. While the actual magazine article is better (due to pictures), here is the article on the NG website.

Also, on November 8, I get to be part of a phone conference with Theo Colburn. She is like the Dalai Lama of hormone disruptors, since she was one of the pioneers of research on it, and is one of the most outspoken educators. Needless to say, I was elated when I learned my International Environmental Policy class was going to talk to her. She's the one who co-wrote Our Stolen Future, which i have as a link on this blog. Anyway, if you have ANY questions at all about xenoestrogens, I can ask her for you. There are already a few questions I have for her. Either email me or leave your question in the comments section. This lady is amazing, so now is the time to have any questions answered.

Children's Health Environmental Coalition

2006-08-16T18:50:00.001-07:00

I stumbled upon a really, really great site that is akin to mine (just much better). It's by a non-profit organization called the Children's Health Environmental Coalition. Erin Brockovich (!!!) is on the Board of Directors, and Meryl Streep is on the Advisory Board. It offers 5 easy steps to make your home a lot healthier and safer for children. They present information in a way that's really easy to understand (no degree in chemistry needed to decipher jargon), and offer practical facts, such as a study done of Seattle school children showed that those who ate organic food had one sixth the levels of pesticides in their urine compared to their peers who didn't eat organically. Just think about that for a second. Children have pesticides in their urine. It's in their bodies 24/7. How can we be so cruel as to expose them to such dangerous compounds without thinking about it? This must change.

How did it come to this?

2006-06-22T10:07:00.000-07:00

According to Dr Heather Myers of UNBC, there are 87,000 synthetic chemicals out there. And since new ones are always being made, there may be more than that now.

In testing to see if a chemical is "safe", researchers only use the one chemical on one set of mice. If those mice live normally, it is safe. Rarely do researchers do multi-generational studies.... investigating what effects the chemicals have on the offspring of the test group. Also, the studies hardly represent real life since they are studying the effects of ONLY that one chemicals. With 87,000 chemicals out there, an organism will NEVER be exposed to only the one. And these chemicals often interact with each other (called synergistic effects). Researching only one chemical ignores this fact. Chemicals that may be relatively benign can become harmful when exposed to other chemicals.

This is why there are so many endocrine disrupting chemicals and other toxins out there; the researching and approval methods are illogical and far too simple. We put our trust in organizations like the FDA, assuming they know best and would not approve harmful chemicals for everyday use in a variety of ways. You have to take control of your life and be informed. You cannot assume that others are always acting altruistically. It is important to be aware of this, and to demand more of those who claim to have a vested interest in your well-being. Be active, not passive.

More Disturbing stuff....

2006-05-14T18:14:00.000-07:00

I read part of a study by Chandra Tiwary, who was the chief of pediatric endocriology at Brooke Army Medical Center in Texas, at http://www.nobreastcyst.com/shampoo.html
She did a study on shampoos that were very high in estrogens and were favoured by African Americans (because they were deep-conditioning). In her research, she found a 14 month old who had developed breasts and pubic hair within months of starting to use the shampoo, due to the very high doses of estrogens in the shampoo. The symptoms went away when they stopped using the shampoo. This also links to the fact that kids are hitting puberty earlier. And, apparently, the breast development symptom isn't only for girls. This might explain why some boys in my high school had bigger boobs than me.

What's so scary about Xenoestrogens?

2006-05-09T11:14:00.000-07:00

The effects of xenoestrogens are many and varied. I'm going to list some of the effects that have been documented in both humans and animals. Many of these incidents are from the book Our Stolen Future: How We Are Threatening Our Fertility, Intelligence, and Survival-- A Scientific Detective Story by Theo Colborn, Dianne Dumanoski, and John Peter Meyers. This book is the Bible of hormone disruptors because it analyzes dozens of independent studies that relate to xenoestrogens. The authors compiled them to show the massive effects of xenoestrogens in the world. http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/Basics/bottomline.htm

I don't have the sources for the other info I'm citing; it comes from a class discussion we had in Global Resources 307, where individuals in the class read about 20 various articles on the subject and then presented the info to the class. Needless to say these were scholarly articles. But still, I wish I had the source listing. However, I do have the years and locations of some of the studies.

Effects on Humans:

2002, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: pregnant women's plasma levels have high levels of DDT and DDE. These were also present in the placenta and breast milk. Was due to high consumption of contaminated fish.
1996: women who have been exposed to PCBs and DDE had greater levels of breast cancer.
2001: Increase in hypospadia (malformed sex organs or hermaphrodites). The number is 1/250 babies worldwide have this problem.
2002, Egypt: organochlorides present in breat milk. The longer a mother breastfeeds, the more organochlorides dispelled from her body(and into the baby's).
1996, Minnesota: more birth defects in agricultural areas
Many different studies have documented a decrease in human sperm count. Also, aside from lower number of sperm, there are more deformed sperm (ie. two tails, no tail, no head)
A decrease in penis size (yes, that's right boys!!!)
Link:http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/CityandRegion/2006/04/29/1556379-sun.html This is an article from the London Free Press entitled Pesticides May Affect Penis Size.
Scotland, Stirling University: metabolic malfunctions that lead to obesity because xenoestrogens affect natural weight-control processes
2002: Journal of Lipid Research "indicates that unwanted weight gain may be strongly linked to hormone-disrupting contaminants" by increasing the number of fat cells in the body and also by enhancing the fat storing capabilities of those cells.
There has also been evidence these chemicals affect behaviour and cause decreased intelligence (by an average of 5 IQ points, I believe it was).
2002, Holland: Exposure in the womb causes males to exhibit "demasculinized play behaviours" (http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/NewScience/behavior/behav.htm).

Effects in Animals:

1950s, Florida: bald eagles no longer interested in mating.
1968-1978: Fish and birds have growth and development problems that were eventually linked to DDT, DDE, aldrin, and dialdrin
1960s, Lake Michigan: minks not producing as many pups.
1994-1995, Florida: Alligators have reduced penis sizes and decreased sperm counts that lead to it being almost impossible for them to reproduce.
1970s, Lake Ontario: Herring Gulls, 80% of chicks didn't hatch and there were many gross deformities (ie. missing eyes, twisted bills).
2002, Florida: 80% of the femal mosquito fish were partially masculinized, and 10% were fully masculinized, meaning only 10% were normal!
2004: More female turtles born than males
2000: Mice-- exposure to environmental estrogens leads to female reproductive cancers and malformations; testicular cancer.
1950s, England: disappearance of otters.

What are Xenoestrogens anyway???

2006-05-01T18:47:00.000-07:00

Products we use everyday are filled with synthetic chemicals. Since these are man-made chemicals that do not naturally occur, the body does not know how to deal with them. One group of synthetic chemicals that is responsible for many terrible effects are xenoestrogens (xeno means foreign). Other names for them are hormone disruptors, estrogen mimics, and endocrine disruptors. Since the chemicals are similar in structure to the natural hormone estrogen, they affect areas of the body naturally regulated by estrogen.

Two biological properties of xenoestrogens are bioaccumulation and biomagnification. Bioaccumulation means that since the body stores these chemicals in fat, and since the only way they can leave a woman's body is through the placenta, all of the xenoestrogens you are exposed to in your life stay in your body for your entire life. Biomagnification has to do with the food chain. Since these chemicals stay in the body, when a large fish eats a small fish, it is eating that fish's ENTIRE accumulation of the contaminents. Then, when the human eats the large fish, not only are we eating the xenoestrogens the large fish has been exposed to, but also all of the xenoestrogens that the little fish and algae were exposed to! That makes for a lot of toxins.

The main problem with xenoestrogens is that our bodies are bombarded with them all day. Not only are they present in the food we eat, but also in most of our toiletries and cleaners. They are also present in the home, in some types of carpets, paint and such. When I first found out about xenoestrogens, I checked my lotions, cleansers, hair products, feminine hygiene products, and make up. All had xenoestrogens. One of the most popular ones are parabens. They usually have another word before them such as methyl, or ethyl. Red dye no.3 is also another common one. Dioxin is another one. It is a biproduct of processes like bleaching and burning products. They have been found in tampons and pads.

Also, many plastics are hormonally active and release xenoestrogens into things they come in contact with. This is why it is never a good idea to heat or cook something in plastic, because the heat accelerates the leaching of the chemicals into the food. When you look at all the food that is packaged in plastic, and the abundance of plastic water bottles, containers and utensils, you begin to understand why this is such a problem.

Again, the main problem with xenoestrogens is that we are exposed to them dozens of times a day from dozens of sources. When you add in the fact that these chemicals stay in our bodies for life, you see that this is not only a problem, but an epidemic. A modern epidemic, since these synthetic chemicals didn't exist 70 years ago.

A good site for information on the toxins our bodies are daily exposed to is http://www.lesstoxicguide.ca/index.asp If you click first on Personal Care, and then on Common Hazardous Chemicals found in Personal Care Products, you will get a list of toxins to watch out for, including estrogen mimics.