Endocrine disrupters and your (and your children's) fertility

Summary of Shanna H. Swan & Stacey Colino’s book *Count Down*

Count Down: How Our Modern World Is Altering Male and Female Reproductive Development, Threatening Sperm Counts, and Imperiling the Future of the Human Race
By Shanna H. Swan with Stacey Colino
304 pp. Scribner. US$28.

With more and more things to juggle as a mother (and especially if you’re trying to conceive), ensuring your space is toxin-free for yourself and your vulnerable little ones can be challenging – but it is paramount to ensuring your optimal fertility (and theirs!) as well as overall health. When it comes to tox-free living, one of the most important things is in present practically everywhere: endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs, or hormone disruptors) – including bedlinen and furniture.

Before conceiving, we create better spaces that will support you through a physically demanding, life-altering stage. To keep optimal fertility and health, I treat nesting as becoming aware of dangers in "everyday" substances so you can truly “clean house” for a biologically nurturing supportive space.

This book offers essential reading into EDCs, and understanding why we must take steps to reduce our exposure. These “everyday” chemicals work at infinitesimally minuscule concentrations and their relevant concentrations are measured in single-digit, parts per trillion. This is something like one drop in a train about 5-mile long.

“Everyday” chemicals alters hormones and affects fertility

Shanna H. Swan, Ph.D., is one of the world’s leading environmental and reproductive epidemiologists and a Professor of environmental medicine and public health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. With journalist Stacey Colino, she has authored a book about the impact of chemicals on the human reproductive system.

A lot of the attention on EDCs have been on plastics and food packaging. And they are also in furniture and household flame retardants, electronics, pesticides to personal care products and cosmetics.

Swan documents hundreds of research papers, and investigates the links with upward trends in everything from decreasing fertility to increased cancers, obesity, juvenile and adult diabetes, autism, allergies, ADHD, depression, violent anti-social behavior and a plethora of sexual issues are linked to these proliferating chemicals introduced into our lives.

Testosterone levels and male development

Swan found persistent and ongoing decline in sperm count (despite the use of different methods and studies). Following current projections, sperm counts of the median man are set to reach zero in 2045.
Her own team’s finding that prenatal exposure to one class of EDCs (the phthalates) could alter male genital development and lead to decreased masculinisation, which later showed to be related to lower sperm counts.

Temporal trends in sperm count: a systematic review and meta-regression analysis: A meta-analysis of 185 studies involving 42,935 men found that total sperm count fell 59 percent between 1973 and 2011.
LINK TO STUDY: https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689

The “phthalate syndrome”

"Phthalate syndrome" has been used to refer to genital malformations and testicular developmental dysfunction related to phthalate exposure. Phthalates are chemicals used in plastic-based consumer products.
Swan’s study found that fetal rats exposed to phthalates 18 to 21 days after mating were more likely to be born with malformed genitals, but the ones that were exposed to those endocrine-disrupting chemicals before or after that window didn’t have the problem.
In 2000, using new technology to measure this in humans, Swan found the same finding in humans.

Hormones and female puberty and development

Every year over the past two decades, the miscarriage rate has risen by 1 percent per year over the last two decades and more girls are experiencing early puberty. In her book, Swan shows how If these trajectories continue, iin vitro fertilisation and other artificial reproductive technologies may become widely needed for conceiving children.

Endocrine disrupting chemicals impair fetal development

“Women need to understand that their exposures during pregnancy (and particularly early pregnancy) can have life-long consequences for the development of the fetus, changes that may not be detectable till adulthood. And both men and women should be aware that reduced reproductive health has consequences for their own lifetime morbidity and mortality.” — Shanna H. Swan, Ph.D.

EDCs interfere with normal hormonal function, including testosterone and estrogen. E.g., Today’s testosterone levels are 40% lower than in 1982.
Phthalates, found in many products, from plastics to shampoos, tank testosterone levels and sperm counts — and causing sperm to basically commit suicide. In women, these chemicals may cause early menopause or cysts in the ovaries, or they may disrupt monthly cycles.
Bisphenol A, a ubiquitous chemical used in hard plastics, electronics, and millions of other items, is particularly concerning for women. It interferes with conception and causes miscarriages early in pregnancy.
Even in small doses, they pose particular danger to unborn babies and young children whose bodies are growing rapidly.
These hormone-warping chemicals, which can enter even the placenta, have the ability to alter the anatomical development of girls and boys, change brain function, and impair the immune system.
Timing matters, with different impacts for those exposed in utero, as newborns, adolescents or adults. Her book goes through the reproductive problems that result from contact with flame retardants, pesticides and what she calls “an alphabet soup” of chemicals.

The kitchen is a top source of EDCs

The kitchen is one of the biggest sources of exposure to phthalates, bisphenol A (BPA), and other endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs).
Nonstick cookware is made with PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid) compounds or Teflon (a brand name for the chemical polytetrafluoroethylene). Heat breaks down the coating, which allows endocrine-disrupting chemicals to seep into your food.
Industrial and agricultural chemicals, as well as pharmaceuticals can seep into the water supply. These may not be monitored by your water supplier.

The effects are synergistic, collateral, generational

The effects can radiate down through several generations, as the collateral damage caused by a combination of lifestyle factors — such as stress or bad diet — and daily exposure to toxic chemicals.

Ecological and wildlife impact

These chemicals are bad for all life on planet Earth; not just our species:
Genital abnormalities found in animals exposed to chemicals, including: distinctly smaller penises in alligators, panthers, and mink, as well as fish, frogs, snapping turtles, and birds that appear to have both male and female gonads, and mating difficulties.

Practical everyday tips

Swan offers science-based practical advice for reducing expose to the chemicals that disrupt our hormones and our health:

Eliminate harmful chemicals from our homes by reading the ingredients on bathroom and kitchen cleaners.
Choose personal care products that are phthalate-free (which means fragrance-free) and paraben-free.
Ditching air freshener and scented products.
Never microwaving food in plastic, making sure to filter drinking water and throw out plastic food storage containers and nonstick cookware.
Invest in a water treatment system for your household that will remove contaminants from the water that comes into your home or at source for your drinking or shower purposes.

The scientific literature shows we have known about chemicals and their effect on the endocrine systems of men and animals for over 20 years. Now we see the effects compounded on our children and theirs, it is time to take steps to understand what we use everyday and how it is directly affecting our health.