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HWN Suggests

How to Minimize Exposures to Hormone Disrupters

“We tend to think hormone disrupters are a mom and baby issue,” said Dr. Leonardo Trasande, the chief of the division of environmental pediatrics at N.Y.U. School of Medicine. “But it literally can be a life and death matter for folks who are not even trying to have a family.”

Dr. Trasande is one of the doctors I work with in the pediatric clinic at Bellevue Hospital, and the author of “Sicker, Fatter, Poorer: the Urgent Threat of Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals to Our Health and Future … and What We Can Do About It.”

There is significant evidence that several types of chemicals can in different ways interfere with the hormones that our bodies use as messengers for everything…

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Featured

 A Silent Spring

Mention “Silent Spring” and thoughts immediately turn to Rachel Carson’s epic in which she alerted readers to the risks of pesticides. But long before, way back in the 1940s, Australian sheep farmers experienced a silent spring of their own. The familiar baa baa of spring lambs was absent. Lambs were being born alright, but they were stillborn. What was causing the disaster? Actually it was the farmers themselves. Or at least the clover they had planted to feed their sheep.

 As Evidence of ‘Hormone Disruptor’ Chemical Threats Grows, Experts Call for Stricter Regulation

A growing number of chemicals in pesticides, flame retardants, and certain plastics have been linked to widespread health problems including infertility in women and men, diabetes, and impaired brain development, a set of reviews of hundreds of studies concludes.

Articles of Interest

Endocrine disrupting chemicals – is there any larger, more neglected health problem?

It is a safe assumption that the large majority of people reading this article will have heard little to nothing about the problems of endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) or xenoestrogens. There are some 800 chemicals suspected as being capable of interfering with hormone receptors, synthesis, conversion or cell signalling during critical periods of cell and organ development. Some of these occur naturally, but many are synthetic and used in agriculture (growth promoters, pesticides and wetting agents), plasticizers, as flame-retardants in textiles, clothing and furnishings, non-stick coatings, food additives, electronics and cosmetics, personal care products and perfumes.

How Endocrine Disruptors Are Messing You Up + 9 Things You Can Do

Whatever’s happening with you, you can bet that your hormones and the endocrine system are involved. But what if something got into your body that acted like a hormone, but wasn’t a hormone? These are called endocrine disruptors, and they can have devastating effects.

How Endocrine Disruptors Destroy Your Body + The Dirty Dozen to Avoid

But did you know BPA is just one of at least a thousand chemicals or chemical mixtures that can tinker with our bodies’ delicate hormonal systems, setting us up for disease?

Is Using Plastic To Store Food Dangerous For Your Health And Well-Being?

Plastics are everywhere, aren't they? From our grocery stores to our streets to our oceans, the inclusion of plastic has become an omnipresent menace that we can’t get rid off because of our reliance on them. What’s become an increasingly worrying fact is plastic that is used directly in contact with the food we eat; especially because of the growing evidence of the harm it can cause to our health and well-being.

Study shows BPA substitutes may cause same health issues as the original

As a result, it no longer is simply BPA contaminating our environment but an ever-increasing array of bisphenols. Our recent studies of several replacements suggest effects on the production of eggs and sperm similar to those induced by BPA.

The problem with all the plastic that’s leaching into your food

The main cause for concern is that these chemicals can mess with our hormones. Specifically, they can mimic hormones like estrogen, interfere with important hormone pathways in the thyroid gland, and inhibit the effects of testosterone.

The Toxic Brew in Our Yards

In 2009 the Endocrine Society, a group of doctors, researchers and educators who specialize in diseases related to the hormonal system, published a scientific statement based on 485 citations from research papers showing growing evidence that there are significant health threats caused by endocrine-disrupting substances in our environment.

The ‘safer' plastics designed to replace BPA may be just as bad for you

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are especially concerning for children since these hormones guide so much of their development.

Why we don’t know if plastics are safe

Academics and regulators at odds over impact of chemical additives.

Resources

12 Worst Endocrine Disruptors Revealed By Environmental Working Group

The list includes some chemicals that have been scrutinized for their potential ability to interfere with hormones and affect reproduction, such as bisphenol A (BPA) and phthalates, although studies on these chemicals are not definitive.

6 Easy Ways to Avoid Endocrine Disruptors

The convenience of our modern lifestyle often comes with a heavy toll on our health. Endocrine disruptors are found in many products designed to make our lives easier- plastic packaging, processed food, beauty products.

6 of the Most Common Endocrine Disruptors—and How to Avoid Them

Ubiquitous in our everyday lives, these substances are found in common household items such as plastic goods, personal-care products, fragrances, food and food packaging, and even tap water. Studies have linked them to cancer, lowered sperm count, lowered IQ, thyroid disease, birth defects, and other developmental disorders. Babies and children are at the greatest risk for adverse effects.

9 Ways to Avoid Hormone-Disrupting Chemicals

Here’s the bad news: Synthetic chemicals in products like plastics and fragrances can mimic hormones and interfere with or disrupt the delicate endocrine dance. We’re exposed to these chemicals daily, and we’re especially vulnerable to them during phases of accelerated development—in utero and throughout childhood.

EDC-Free Europe

EDC-Free Europe is a coalition of public interest groups representing more than 70 environmental, health, women's and consumer groups across Europe who share a concern about hormone disrupting chemicals (EDCs) and their impact on our health and wildlife.

Endocrine Disruptors

Endocrine Disruptors is a unique focus peer-reviewed journal with a broad international audience. We publish high-quality research addressing all aspects of how endocrine-active contaminants dupe the hormonal signaling system into inappropriate communication, and how we can intervene

Endocrine Society

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are chemicals that mimic, block, or interfere with hormones in the body's endocrine system. EDCs have been associated with a diverse array of health issues.

The Endocrine Disruption Exchange

Our mission is to reduce the production and use of chemicals that interfere with healthy hormone function.

Toxic-Free Future

Toxic-Free Future advocates for the use of safer products, chemicals, and practices through advanced research, advocacy, grassroots organizing, and consumer engagement to ensure a healthier tomorrow.

HEEDS

HEEDS is a non-profit multidisciplinary coalition of scientists dedicated to improving communication, coordination and collaboration in the endocrine disruption field. HEEDS is developed by scientists for scientists.

Make Them Pay

Reports suggest the makers of these chemicals, 3M and DuPont (now Chemours), had sufficient information decades ago to know that certain PFAS were harmful. Yet they continued to make them and put them on the market to pollute us and our communities. The magnitude of the toxic legacy we face is still unknown – new contamination is uncovered in communities almost weekly. But it’s clear the costs to deal with this mess will be enormous- probably billions of dollars. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to pay for this nonstick nightmare. It is time for the makers of these chemicals to pay up! Let’s Make Them Pay!

National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences

Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that may interfere with the body’s endocrine system and produce adverse developmental, reproductive, neurological, and immune effects in both humans and wildlife. A wide range of substances, both natural and man-made, are thought to cause endocrine disruption, including pharmaceuticals, dioxin and dioxin-like compounds, polychlorinated biphenyls, DDT and other pesticides, and plasticizers such as bisphenol A.

Nature Reviews

Endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are a class of chemicals that mimic, block or interfere with the production, metabolism or action of hormones in the body. As EDCs are ubiquitous in our environment, food and consumer products, they pose a threat not just to public health but to global health. This Nature Reviews Endocrinology web collection on endocrine disruption contains Reviews and commentaries written by leading researchers in the field, as well as key advances in EDC research highlighted by journal editors.