Understanding Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals
How many of us know someone with infertility, endometriosis, early puberty, breast and prostate cancer, thyroid disorders, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, obesity, diabetes, asthma, immune disorders? These are all health conditions that are associated with endocrine disruption.
Endocrine disrupting chemicals have been implicated as human health hazards because they contribute to all of the adverse health outcomes listed above. And yet, we see them in our everyday household products and materials.
Maybe you’re wondering…
How can this even happen?
What are these chemicals and why are they a problem?
Where are endocrine disruptors found and what can I do to avoid them?
But I’m only using a small amount… is it still harmful?
These are some of the very questions I had when I first discovered all of the human health issues associated with everyday chemical exposure. Let’s break it down.
How can this even happen?
The answer to the first question can be simply summed up as this: human exposure to harmful, man-made chemicals happens due to lack of regulation, lack of accountability, and lack of consumer advocacy. We see examples of this all over the world, from DuPont to Johnson & Johnson, and it’s perfectly legal thanks to the the Toxic Substances Control Act of 1974 which created legal loopholes around the term “fragrance” and the chemical cocktails that can remain undisclosed under that name. If you have not seen how the lack of regulation plays out in the products we’re encountering every single day, please watch this 8-minute video on the Story of Cosmetics. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfq000AF1i8
What are these chemicals and why are they a problem?
There are a lot of problematic ingredients in our cosmetics, like carcinogens and asthmagens, but I am focusing here on endocrine disrupting chemicals. These are chemicals that interfere with normal hormone function, and have gotten a lot of attention lately due to some staggering new research on sperm count and quality. They are not a hypothetical concern: they are already here, inside us.
The following are a list of impacts of EDCs on humans and wildlife, as confirmed by both laboratory and epidemiological studies: reduced reproductive ability, changes to secondary sex characteristics, certain cancers, delayed cognitive development, altered response to stress, increased accumulation of fat and changes in sensitivity to insulin. Yikes. You can learn a lot more about this through a great website all about the adverse impacts of these chemicals sources from 14 years of research by the TedX Exchange.
Where are these endocrine disruptors found and what can I do to avoid them?
Fragrance, and all of those scented products that we encounter - from trash bags to tampons to laundry detergent to perfume to diapers - contributes to our exposure. The average women uses a dozen cosmetics before she leaves the house, and when you add in all of those plastics that we’re using, cooking on nonstick Teflon pans, you can see how we potentially encounter EDCs from multiple sources, throughout our day, at many stages of life.
We can’t live in bubble, but awareness goes a long way. If you are looking to minimize your exposure to these chemical, making some easy swaps in these areas is not as hard as you might think.
Let’s go over a couple things you can phase in and out of your routine!
10 Ways to Reduce your Exposure to Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals
Use natural alternatives to pesticides in your garden.
Wash your produce well and buy organic when you can.
Ditch household fragrance / fragranced products.
Ditch the plastics as quickly as you can: start with water bottles and food storage.
Stop hoarding your thermal receipts and toss them in the trash - don’t let your kids play with them either!
Ditch your nonstick pans and stain-repellent clothing.
Have water tested or check water quality maps for PFAS (more on that whole issue here: https://endocrinedisruption.org/interactive-tools/pfas-test)
Check indoor air quality, open windows and allow fresh air in, do not allow dust to accumulate.
Swap your personal care and beauty products.
Swap your cleaning products or make your own.
and last but certainly not least…
Aren’t small doses ok?
No, they’re not. The Endocrine Disruption Exchange goes into the depth on why and how small doses matter - and that exposures during certain times in development are especially harmful.
“Effects can occur from a very small amount of a chemical, and these ‘low dose effects’ can be different than the effects of higher doses. This makes the outcomes difficult to predict. Further, health effects may not show up until many years after exposure occurred, making it hard to connect cause and effect, and to understand potency or “safe levels”. We may even inherit susceptibilities from chemicals to which our parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents were exposed”
- endocrinedisruption.org.
The complicated and generational nature of these human health hazards may make it difficult to find a clear causal relationship, but based on all of the information we already have, why risk it? The FDA didn’t admit the harms of cigarettes for many years even after they were known This is the consumer advocacy point. The first step is awareness of the problem and understanding that it is real. In the US, right now, the disease burden and cost related to EDC exposure is estimated at $340 billion a year… not to mention the impacts on individuals, families and communities.
I know that it sometimes makes me upset to think about these issues and how many people are impacted… also the fact that we shouldn’t have to be worried about this stuff when we have the governmental agencies who could regulate it, but they choose not to.
But what is within our circle of control? (Circle of control is a term that my life coach uses with me when I get really riled up about big problems). It essentially means, “what can I actually take control of around this issue”?
I can’t change the policies overnight… I can’t overcome the chemical lobby in this moment (seriously, have you watched “STINK” yet?), I can advocate but I can’t force some kind of legislation and then wait around for all of the manufacturers to catch up… but I CAN monitor, discern, and choose to regulate my own exposure to EDCs.
That, I can do.
YOU are your own advocate here, and everyone in your home is counting on you to be an advocate for them too. So take a look at that list and see where you can start today. If you’re looking for some easy steps to cleaning up your home and kicking these endocrine disrupting chemicals to the curb, check out this article! And this one too!