The Hormone Disrupting Additives You Should Know About

You may have heard that bisphenol-A (BPA) is a hormone mimicker. BPA mimics estrogen and can bind the estrogen receptor sites.

What you might not know is that there are more than 3,000 preservatives, flavorings, colors and other ingredients added to processed foods in the United States. There are also other chemicals in the packaging that can leach into foods.

Why care these chemicals all allowed to be used without undergoing mandated testing for estrogenic activity? Some of them might be more disruptive than BPA! What is the Food and Drug Administration thinking?

A company can simply hire someone of their choosing to evaluate any given chemical and if it is determined ‘safe’ by their paid evaluator, the chemical can be declared generally recognized as safe (GRAS). This is without any involvement from the FDA. and without a required independent third party objective evaluation.

While further testing is required to assess safety of the individual chemicals on humans, it is important to realize that the problem many times isn’t with an individual chemical, but with the chemical cocktail we’re ingesting on a daily basis, and how they could be adding to the total effect of hormone disruption in our bodies.

Many food additives have an estrogen-mimicking effect. These are known as xenoestrogens and have been linked to reproductive problems in animals and perhaps humans.

12 of the worst were listed recently by the Environmental Working Group:

1. BPA - This chemical that is used in plastics imitates the sex hormone estrogen. This synthetic hormone can trick the body into thinking it’s the real thing. BPA has been linked to everything from breast and others cancers to reproductive problems, obesity, early puberty and heart disease and according to government tests, 93% of Americans have BPA in their bodies!

2. Dioxin - Dioxins form during many industrial processes when chlorine or bromine are burned in the presence of carbon and oxygen. Dioxins can disrupt the delicate ways that both male and female sex hormone signaling occurs in the body. Recent research has shown that exposure to low levels of dioxin in the womb and early in life can both permanently affect sperm quality and lower the sperm count in men during their prime reproductive years. Dioxins are very long-lived, build up both in the body and in the food chain, are powerful carcinogens and can also affect the immune and reproductive systems.

3. Atrazine is highly toxic and can even cause the feminization of male frogs, turning male frogs into females that produce completely viable eggs. Atrazine is widely used on the majority of corn crops in the United States, and consequently it’s a pervasive drinking water contaminant. Atrazine has been linked to breast tumors, delayed puberty and prostate inflammation in animals. Some research has linked it to prostate cancer in people.

4. Phthalates - Did you know that a specific signal programs cells in our bodies to die? It’s totally normal and healthy for 50 billion cells in your body to die every day! But studies have shown that chemicals called phthalates can trigger what’s known as “death-inducing signaling” in testicular cells, making them die earlier than they should. Studies have linked phthalates to hormone changes, lower sperm count, less mobile sperm, birth defects in the male reproductive system, obesity, diabetes and thyroid irregularities.

5. Perchlorate - Perchlorate is a component in rocket fuel and contaminates much of our produce and milk, according to EWG and government test data. When perchlorate gets into your body it competes with the nutrient iodine, which the thyroid gland needs to make thyroid hormones. Basically, this means that if you ingest too much of it you can end up altering your thyroid hormone balance. This is important because it’s these hormones that regulate metabolism in adults and are critical for proper brain and organ development in infants and young children.

6. Fire Retardants - Fire retardant levels in the human body have been doubling every five years since 1972! These chemicals are known as polybrominated diphenyl ethers or PBDEs. They have since been found to contaminate the bodies of people and wildlife around the globe and even polar bears. These chemicals can imitate thyroid hormones in our bodies and disrupt their activity. That can lead to lower IQ, among other significant health effects. While several kinds of PBDEs have now been phased out, this doesn’t mean that toxic fire retardants have gone away. PBDEs are incredibly persistent, so they’re going to be contaminating people and wildlife for decades to come.

7. Lead - It’s well known that lead is toxic, especially to children. Lead harms almost every organ system in the body and has been linked to a staggering array of health effects, including permanent brain damage, lowered IQ, hearing loss, miscarriage, premature birth, increased blood pressure, kidney damage and nervous system problems. Lead may affect your body is by disrupting your hormones. In animals, lead has been found to lower sex hormone levels. Lead can disrupt the hormone signaling that regulates the body’s major stress system (called the HPA axis). Stress has been linked to high blood pressure, diabetes, anxiety and depression.

8 Arsenic - Arsenic may be lurking in your food and drinking water. If you eat enough of it, arsenic will kill you outright. In smaller amounts, arsenic can cause skin, bladder and lung cancer. Arsenic also disrupts your hormones. It can interfere with normal hormone functioning in the glucocorticoid system that regulates how our bodies process sugars and carbohydrates. What does that mean for you? Well, disrupting the glucocorticoid system has been linked to weight gain/loss, protein wasting, immunosuppression, insulin resistance (which can lead to diabetes), osteoporosis, growth retardation and high blood pressure.

9. Mercury - Mercury, a naturally occurring but toxic metal. Mercury gets into the air and the oceans primarily though burning coal. Pregnant women are the most at risk from the toxic effects of mercury, since the metal is known to concentrate in the fetal brain and can interfere with brain development. The metal may also play a role in diabetes, since mercury has been shown to damage cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, which is critical for the body’s ability to metabolize sugar.

10. Perfluorinated chemicals (PFCs) are used to make non-stick cookware. Perfluorochemicals are so widespread and extraordinarily persistent that 99% of Americans have these chemicals in their bodies. PFOA doesn’t ever break down in the environment. That means that even though the chemical was banned after decades of use, it will be showing up in people’s bodies for countless generations to come. This is worrisome, since PFOA exposure has been linked to decreased sperm quality, low birth weight, kidney disease, thyroid disease and high cholesterol. Scientists are still figuring out how PFOA affects the human body, but animal studies have found that it can affect thyroid and sex hormone levels.

11. Organophosphate pesticides - Neurotoxic organophosphate compounds are used in pesticides that target the nervous systems of insects. Despite many studies linking organophosphate exposure to effects on brain development, behavior and fertility, they are still among the more common pesticides in use today. A few of the many ways that organophosphates can affect the human body include interfering with the way testosterone communicates with cells, lowering testosterone and altering thyroid hormone levels.

12. Glycol Ethers - Rats exposed to chemicals called glycol ethers, can develop testicular atrophy. These are common solvents in paints, cleaning products, brake fluid and cosmetics. The European Union says that some of these chemicals “may damage fertility or the unborn child.” Studies of painters have linked exposure to certain glycol ethers to blood abnormalities and lower sperm counts. Children who were exposed to glycol ethers from paint in their bedrooms had substantially more asthma and allergies.

The EWG has more information on their website, including how to avoid these “Dirty Dozen”.

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