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« Taking pollution personally | Main | Eco-nomics, the new kind of economics »

Please don't disrupt my endocrines!

Unless you've been living under a rock these past few years, or purposefully avoiding the newspaper, you've likely heard the term 'endocrine disruptor.' And it has a serious ring to it, doesn't it? Like when you hear the phrase you get an immediate sense that endocrines should definitely not be disrupted, and a sinking feel that maybe yours aren't safe. And you'd be right on both counts.

What's an endocrine, anyway? First off, it's the endocrine system, not just one lone endocrine (as I once thought). And this is one important system. Why? It produces and manages hormones, that's why. It accomplishes this through a complex system of glands and receptors throughout the body (familiar sounding glands like pituitary, thyroid, adrenal, ovaries, and testicles). Hormones (such as insulin, estrogen, and testosterone) are produced in these glands, travel through the bloodstream, and bind with matching receptors. These hormones control a bunch of important functions in the body, like growth, reproduction, blood pressure, and food utilization, to name but a few.

Now that you know all about the endocrine system, what's a disruptor? So glad you asked! A hormone disruptor is a substance from outside the body (yup, exogenous) that comes right in and acts like a hormone from inside the body (endogenous), thus disrupting a very delicate balance, preventing those endogenous hormones from doing what they do so well: bind with receptors. Check out this animated illustration of it all.

So what's the matter with that? As you saw if you watched the animated illustration, the exogenous hormones hog up receptors that the endogenous ones are supposed to connect with, disrupting the physiological function of the endogenous hormones. In other words, the unnatural, external substances enter the body and prevent our natural hormones from doing their jobs properly. Ugh. This malfunction can potentially interfere with our many hormonally - driven body processes.

Where do the exogenous hormones come from? People come into contact with chemcials that have estrogenic effects all the time - they're called EDCs, or endocrine disrupting chemicals. Some examples may sound very familiar: phthalates, bispheol-A, and PBDEs.

Concerned? So are we. Check out our healthy home tips to minimize exposures - they're easy and effective.

Learn more. And if you want to hear all this straight from EWG, watch EWG President Ken Cook's compelling presentation about low-dose chemical exposures. You'll laugh, you might even cry, but for sure you'll be better informed.

[diagram courtesy of WikiCommons]

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