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Our Stolen Future: A ‘Must-Read’ for Everyone

If you have not been concerned about what chemicals you and your family are consuming unwittingly, you will be after you read this book.

“Our Stolen Future provides a vivid and readable account of emerging scientific research about how a wide range of manmade chemicals disrupt delicate hormone systems. These systems play a critical role in processes ranging from human sexual development to behavior, intelligence, and the functioning of the immune system.” -excerpted from the forward by Vice President Al Gore.

The following is excerpted from the website of Our Stolen Future. Complete texts of relevant discussions can be found at http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/index.htm One of the classic criticisms levied by industry at concerns about synthetic endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) has been to point to all the plant compounds that are in the human diet that are also capable of acting as hormones. These plant compounds, called phytoestrogens, are especially abundant in foods like soy.

Early on in the debate about Our Stolen Future, industry spokespeople would trot out complex tables with calculations performed out to 4 decimal places showing that phytoestrogens were literally thousands of times more abundant in our food than are synthetic compounds. The tables looked very quantitative and precise, and proved to be formidable tools in public presentations for audiences not familiar with the science. What these tables really showed, however, was that it is possible to be very precise but completely wrong.

This argument appears less frequently now because it has been shown to be misguided. What comes in through the mouth doesn’t necessarily make it to the fetus to influence fetal development.

Most of the plant compounds are de-activated even before being absorbed by the gut, if they are absorbed at all. So they don’t even make it into the bloodstream, much less to the fetus.

Those that are absorbed into the blood are often deactivated or diminished in quantity by natural chemicals in the blood, called serum binding proteins, then act on the compounds that enter the blood. Serum binding proteins are highly effective at binding some compounds and not at others. On average, the binding proteins are more effective against plant phytoestrogens than synthetic EDCs. Fortunately, some EDCs are also “captured” by serum-binding proteins.

EDCs typically have far longer half-lives in the human body than do phytoestrogens. Once ingested, the half-life of DDT can be a decade. Phytoestrogens are far less persistent. They don’t hang around.

Many, but not all, synthetic EDCs bioaccumulate. Their chemical characteristics result in their being stored in body fat. Over years of exposure, they reach concentrations that can be thousands of times higher than the levels found in the diet. Phytoestrogens, in contrast, do not bioaccumulate.

In essence, these differences between synthetic EDCs and phytoestrogens are not about synthetic vs natural per se, but about specific aspects of the chemistry of the molecules involved and the chemistry of the human body. People possess chemical defenses which protect against at least some of the phytoestrogens (see OSF Chapter 5).

In part because they avoid these defenses, persistent synthetic endocrine disruptors accumulate in body tissue to levels that are orders of magnitude of times higher than observed levels for phytoestrogens, and some are then transferred to the developing fetus. Framing the debate solely around the relative amounts of phytoestrogens vs. synthetic chemicals that are encountered in the diet also ignores the large exposures that can occur at the workplace or elsewhere independent of food.

Continuing research into this issue will no doubt reveal a far more complex picture concerning natural defenses vs. synthetic and natural hazards. Indeed, a key part of the ongoing research will explore why the body’s defense mechanisms are effective against some but not all compounds. While far from the final word, these new results do, however, counter the claim that the presence of plant estrogens in the human diet is sufficient reason to dismiss concern about synthetic compounds. It is clearly not.

In the meantime, if you hear a speaker claiming that phytoestrogens make synthetic EDCs irrelevant, understand that this person is either way out-of-date as to how research on this has developed, shameless in their willingness to use disproven arguments, or both.

The following selection has been excerpted from the book OUR STOLEN FUTURE, By Dr. Theo Colborn; Dianne Dumanoski; Dr. John Peterson Myers.

An excerpt from Chapter 5, Fifty Ways to Lose Your Fertility

The plastic model John McLachlan holds in his hand looks like a mass of colored bubble-gum balls. It is the size and general shape of a small loaf of Italian bread.

More than two decades after he first embarked on his exploration of DES*, McLachlan is sitting on the edge of a table in his office at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, giving a lesson in chemical messengers 101-the basics on how the body communicates through hormones. Like many natural teachers, he has a theatrical flair and a penchant for metaphor. He reaches automatically for a prop to demonstrate his point. This isn’t simply science, it is a fascinating story-the tale of the estrogen receptor, which consorts so readily with foreigners that it has earned a reputation. Some scientists call it “promiscuous.”

The plastic model is a gargantuan representation of estradiol, one of the three principal types of estrogen manufactured by the ovaries and dispersed into the bloodstream.

McLachlan, a 50-year-old man with a head of curly gray locks and merry dark eyes that gleam like onyx, then cups his free hand. This is an estrogen receptor, a special protein found inside cells in many parts of the body, including the uterus, the breasts, the brain, and the liver. The receptor receives the chemical message, in this case estrogen, sent from the ovaries, picking up signals from the bloodstream in the same way a cellular phone picks up radio signals in the air. A receptor isn’t supposed to receive all the chemical signals flying about. Like a cellular phone, it is supposed to receive only those intended for it.

The body has hundreds of different kinds of receptors, each one designed for a particular kind of chemical signal. Some receive messages from the thyroid gland, which may cue cells to consume more oxygen and generate more heat. Others are tuned to the adrenal glands, which send messages that regulate blood pressure and the body’s response to stress. The hypothalamus in the brain has all kinds of receptors to monitor hormone levels in the blood so the brain can signal the hormone-producing glands when adjustments are needed. And there is a whole class of mystery receptors, known as “orphan” receptors, that are tuned to messages that scientists have not yet identified.

Each hormone and its particular receptor have a “made for each other” attraction, which scientists describe as a “high affinity.” When they encounter one another, they grab hold, engaging in a molecular embrace known as “binding.”

McLachlan demonstrates by moving the plastic model through the air toward the receptor, showing how the estradiol docks in the pocket of the receptor like a Star Trek vehicle returning to the much larger mother ship. Hormone molecules are tiny compared to the sprawling receptors.

They fit together, he notes, like a lock and key, and, once joined, they move into the cell’s nucleus to “turn on” the biological activity associated with the hormone. This union of hormone and receptor targets genes that trigger the production of particular proteins. In the case of estrogen, these proteins accelerate cell division. So when estrogen joins with receptors in the uterus, it will cause the lining of that organ to thicken. Estrogen produces such a response in the first half of the menstrual cycle to prepare the uterus in the event an egg is fertilized when ovulation occurs at midcycle.

This lock-and-key notion has dominated the theory of how the body communicates through hormones. In endocrinology textbooks, one still finds flat assertions that receptors are highly discriminating about chemical structure and will bind only to their intended hormone or a very closely related compound. Although theory holds true in a general way, reality is proving considerably messier and unpredictable, not only in the case of the estrogen receptor but with other hormone receptors as well.

*DES (Diethylstilbestrol) is a synthetic form of estrogen prescribed between 1938 and 1971 to help women with specific complications during pregnancy. DES has been linked to clear cell adenocarcinoma, an uncommon cancer of the vagina or cervix, in daughters of women who used DES during pregnancy. A study published in August 2006 found that women whose mothers took DES during pregnancy have almost double the risk of breast cancer. DES sons are at increased risk of epididymal cysts.

Our thanks to Dr. John Peterson Myers for permission to reprint this excerpt. Pete Myers is founder, CEO, and chief scientist of Environmental Health Sciences in Charlottesville, Virginia. Former director of the W. Alton Jones Foundation, he is a coauthor of Our Stolen Future (1996), which explores the threats posed by man-made chemical contaminants to fetal development and human health. For more, see www.EnvironmentalHealthNews.org.

Our Stolen Future was first published by Dutton, Penguin Books (NY) in 1996 (ISBN 0-525-93982-2). The paperback version was released in by Plume/Penguin, March 1997. It is available from Amazon.com and other booksellers. You may view other excerpts and related information at http://www.ourstolenfuture.org/index.htm

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