

Occupational ExposureĮxposure to endocrine disruptors through occupations can be particularly problematic because it usually involves a great amount of exposure over a very long period of time. But they are not required to be listed on product labels, so you can't really tell whether they are included in things like lotions or fragrances you might be using. Since we've become aware that some of these are reproductive toxicants, a lot of them have been removed from those products and they are now completely banned from children's products.

Productsįood handling equipment and plastic food packaging are both large sources of phthalates. While persistent pesticides, as well as other pollutants, can be consumed from animal products such as meat, dairy, and fish. Nonpersistent pesticides, for instance, are found in a lot of conventionally grown food. But synthetic or man-made chemicals are more likely to be responsible today. There are endocrine disruptors, such as some metals, that have been around for a very long time. Three of the most common are consuming them in your diet, using products that contain them, or occupational exposure. You can be exposed to endocrine disruptors in a variety of ways. How Are Men Exposed to Endocrine Disruptors? In fact, about 1,000 of the hundreds of thousands of man-made chemicals are thought to be endocrine disruptors. The current list of chemicals that are believed to be endocrine-disrupting compounds is not only long but continues to grow. If any single one of those processes is affected by a chemical, then the chemical is considered an endocrine disruptor. Now we know that chemicals can not only bind to the receptor or block it but may also change which particular hormones get produced, transported, and metabolized. At first, it was believed to be something that caused interference with estrogen receptors. The term “endocrine disruptor” now applies to a much longer list of substances than when it was first coined. However, the one thing they have in common is that they are both most likely caused by external factors, with endocrine disruptors being a common culprit. Since hormones other than testosterone actually stimulate sperm reproduction, the two statistics are not even necessarily related. As it turns out, testosterone in men is also on the decline at significantly less than it was in the 1950s. It seems sperm counts now are less than half of what they were in the 1970s. Discover Magazine set off a widespread discussion when it published an article with the attention-grabbing headline, “ Sperm Counts Are On The Decline.
