What Chemicals Are Turning Boys Into Girls?
March 15, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The government of Denmark has released a 326-page report affirming that endocrine disrupting chemicals are probably continuing to the birth of fewer males and the “feminization” of existing ones.
The report centers on chemicals like PVC, flame retardants, phthalates, dioxins, PCBs and bisphenol-A, all of which mimic the action of estrogen in the body. The researchers concluded that due to the prevalence of these chemicals, children could easily be exposed to high enough levels to place them at “critical risk” of harm.
The chemicals have been blamed for falling sperm counts among men worldwide, and their full effects remain unknown. A study by researchers at Erasmus University in Rotterdam, Netherlands, found that male children who had been exposed to PCBs and dioxins while in the womb were more likely to dress up in female clothes and play with dolls than boys who had not been. Other research has documented a connection between prenatal phthalate exposure and “feminization” of male genitals, including smaller penises.
Evidence is increasingly emerging that estrogen mimics might also be responsible for a puzzling phenomenon: fewer boys are being born than ever before. Typically, 106 male children are born for every 100 females in most populations. In recent years, however, this distribution has been shifting in favor of females, with endocrine disruptors a likely culprit.
For example, a Canadian Inuit community living on Lake Huron and surrounded by chemical factories produces two girls for every boy born. Similar phenomena have been observed in contaminated communities in Brazil, Israel, Italy, Taiwan and the Arctic Circle, as well as among workers in Russian pesticide factories.
Many hormone-mimicking chemicals build up in the body and resist environmental degradation, meaning that they are now widely distributed across the planet.
“There is very little, if anything, individuals can do to prevent contamination of themselves and their families,” the environmental group WWF said.
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Herbicide in Drinking Water May be Dangerous
March 1, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Contamination of drinking water by a common herbicide poses a greater health threat than previously believed, according to a report issued by the nonprofit environmental organization Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) monitors average yearly levels of the popular herbicide atrazine in drinking water supplies, based on four tests per year. But the NRDC notes that levels of the toxin in drinking water regularly spike after heavy rains or during the spring when it is being widely applied, and that the four yearly testings may miss these events. The organization’s researchers found several such spikes in its own testing of water supplies in towns in agricultural regions of the South and Midwest.
“Our biggest concern is early-life-stage development,” said Jennifer Sass of the NRDC. “If there’s a disruption during that time, it becomes hard-wired into the system. These endocrine disrupters act in the body at extremely low levels. These spikes matter.”
Because atrazine is compatible with no-till farming, it is popular among farmers seeking to acquire a “green” label by reducing their carbon footprint. It is known to disrupt the hormonal system, and may cause cancers and menstrual problems in adults. It is considered especially dangerous to the developing reproductive systems of fetuses and children. The chemical has been shown to kill aquatic microorganisms and suppress the immune systems of larger animals, and it can cause limb or reproductive deformities in amphibians at levels as low as 0.1 parts per billion.
The EPA has set a threshold of 3 billion parts per billion for permissible atrazine levels, which the NRDC says would be too high even without periodic spikes. The NRDC analysis of 139 different municipal water systems found that 54 of them had a one-time spike higher than 3 parts per billion at some point in 2003 or 2004.
Home or municipal carbon filters can remove atrazine from water, but many municipal treatment plants do not use such procedures.
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BPA Causes Aggression and Hyperactivity in Toddlers
February 16th, 2010
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
Prenatal exposure to the endocrine-disrupting chemical bisphenol A (BPA) may increase aggressive behavior in toddler girls, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.
Researchers measured bodily levels of BPA in 249 pregnant women, then followed their daughters for two years. Children who had been exposed to the highest levels of the chemical before the 16th week of gestation had significantly higher scores on tests for aggression than girls of the same age with less exposure.
The study is the first to examine the effect of BPA on behavior in human children. It is consistent with the results of prior animal studies, which have also found that BPA can affect the brain and reproductive system. The National Toxicology Program concluded in 2008 that there was evidence to support the chemical’s effects on human children.
Because BPA mimics the effect of estrogen, which plays a critical role in the male brain during the 11th and 12th weeks of pregnancy, researchers believe that the chemical might be “masculinizing” the female brain.
“In the developing brain, timing is everything,” said neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine, author of The Female Brain.
“I’m worried that tiny amounts of this stuff, given at just the wrong time, could partly masculinize the female brain.”
Although the study found no change in male behavior and no increase in behavioral disorders among girls, scientists noted that the population effects may be much greater than those seen in the study. Michelle Macias, spokesperson for the American Academy of Pediatrics, noted that children in the study came from predominantly well-educated families, which tend to have lower aggression and hyperactivity rates than the average. In addition, neurologist David Bellinger noted that a population can become more aggressive as a whole without there being strong observable effects in individual children.
The researchers intend to continue studying the children until the age of five.
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BPA Effects Getting Closer Looks
November 13, 2009
Natural News
By David Gutierrez
The Endocrine Society has issued an official statement expressing concern over the health effects of the common industrial chemical bisphenol A (BPA).
BPA is widely used to make plastics products hard and transparent, such as in water or baby bottles, and is also used to line cans of food or infant formula. Research has shown that the chemical can leach from these materials into food, however, and a number of tests have found high levels of BPA in the bodies of both adults and children.
This is an issue of particular concern because BPA is a known endocrine disruptor, disrupting the operation of vertebrate hormonal systems.
Although the FDA insists that BPA is safe, the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences issued a report last year expressing concern over the chemical’s effects on the development of the brain and prostate gland.
In new research presented to the Endocrine Society’s annual meeting, scientists found that BPA can induce an uneven heart beat in female mice
“These effects are specific on the female heart. The male heart does not respond in this way and we understand why,” researcher Scott Belcher said.
BPA mimics the effects of the female sex hormone estrogen in the body.
Another study found that BPA can induce changes at the genetic level by binding to DNA and changing its function.
“We exposed some mice to bisphenol A and then we looked at their offspring,” researcher Hugh Taylor said. “We found that even when a they had a brief exposure during pregnancy … mice exposed to these chemicals as a fetus carried these changes throughout their lives.”
A third study raised concerns that BPA exposure may be even more widespread than previously believed. Researcher Frederick Vom Saal and colleagues from the University of Missouri found that monkeys are able to quickly clear BPA from their bodies, suggesting that humans with high blood levels are being repeatedly exposed to the chemical.
“We are really concerned that there is a very large amount of bisphenol A that must be coming from [unknown] sources,” Vom Saal said.
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