Can Environmental Estrogens Affect Health?

Can Environmental Estrogens Affect Health?
One of the most famous examples of an environmental estrogen is the leakage of DDT into Lake Apopaka in Florida. As a result, the alligators that live in the lake displayed such effects as very few low survival rates and hatch rates. The few alligators that survived showed abnormal reproductive systems thus disabling their reproductive abilities. Furthermore the ratio estrogen to testosterone was increased. The most alarming effect of the environmental estrogens was that the compounds were transferred from the mother to the fetus they disrupt the hormone balances in the fetus. Consequently, this caused reproductive abnormalities, and even cancer that developed later in the child’s life. In humans however, estrogens mainly impacted the daughters of mothers who took a synthetic estrogen (DES to prevent miscarriages). Few of the daughters were sterile and others developed vaginal cancer. Also, the girls tended to reach puberty a year before normal. The sons of those women showed decreased sperm counts and abnormalities in their sexual organs and are more prone to testicular cancer. On the other hand, there are some estrogens that we ingest daily which seem to have no negative effects on the body at all; in fact they actually prevent cancer in some cases. These natural sources of estrogen include soy, broccoli, wheat, apples, and cherries. [1]
Although I don’t believe that environmental estrogens are that much of a thing to be worried over, still as a woman, and a potential child bearer, it is important to know that taking synthetic estrogens can cause my children have abnormal reproductive systems, and even cancers. Also, I’m not entirely surprised that taking synthetic estrogens has negative effects, because it’s sort of against the laws of nature seeing as they are synthetic, but the severity of the estrogens was surprising. I think this article ties in to some extent with the issue of pollution and preserving the environment. In the beginning of the article, Baird mentions the DDT leakages in the lake, and the devastating effects of that on the alligators. Those types of disturbances in the food webs can severely affect the globe, in that the biosphere is a fragile and complex net or system whereby a small disturbance can affect the whole rest of the biosphere. This is relevant to the current issue of global warming since people don’t think much about the dying off of polar bears, when really that’s a serious issue. If polar bears die off, then the food chain will be disturbed. The things that prey on the polar bears will die off, and the animals that the polar bears feed on will thrive. So relating this to the environmental estrogens, I think it is CURTIAL that the environment remains as natural as possible and when leakages do occur, that they are cleaned up, and that everyone should help in preserving and reconstructing the environment.

There was nothing that I didn’t understand.

[1] Baird, Colin. “10.21 Can environmental estrogens affect health?” Chemistry in Your Life. W.H. Freeman and company. New York 2006. P. 405-406.