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Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

nytimes.com

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Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#41

Post by inter_netuser »

jimbob45 wrote: post #14
vincentmarle wrote: post #2

> Store food in glass containers, not plastic. Above all, don’t microwave foods in plastic or with plastic wrap on top. Avoid pesticides. Buy organic produce if possible. Avoid tobacco or marijuana. Use a cotton or linen shower curtain, not one made of vinyl. Don’t use air fresheners. Prevent dust buildup. Vet consumer products you use with an online guide like that of the Environmental Working Group. I really want t…

Yeah this is my issue. I have to drink bottled water for water quality reasons. How am I supposed to avoid plastic there?

Drink Voss? and re-fillVOSS bottles with distilled water?

You can get distilled water delivered in very large glass jugs (4 gallons i think?)

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#42

Post by inter_netuser »

dheera wrote: post #28
jimbob45 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah this is my issue. I have to drink bottled water for water quality reasons. How am I supposed to avoid plastic there?

Couple of options: (a) I used to live in Malaysia where tap water wasn't drinkable as-is, but filtering and boiling made it drinkable and tasted just fine. Hot water dispensers are pretty standard to have in most Asian homes; just put the water through a filtering pitcher before pouring into the hot water dispenser. (b) Subscribe to those 5-gallon big blue bottles and a dispenser. They get actually reused instead of…

Blue plastic bottles leach endocrine disruptors, either BPA or BP-S.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#43

Post by MattGaiser »

m_eiman wrote: post #34
hilbert42 wrote: post #22

It would be helpful if we knew eactly what these endocrine-disrupting chemicals were. As is usually the case with such reports, this article is short on specifics. Over the years there have many reports from cleaners to plasticizers, phthalates, and various other chemicals as endocrine disruptors but no one has put a sufficient measure on the problem so that we can move foreword - put regulations in place, etc. As th…

There are lists available, e.g. https://edlists.org/ When the EU was debating the REACH regulations there was a big push to move to a "don't sell or produce it until you can prove it's safe" stance, but AFAIK it was significantly watered down before an agreement was reached. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.ht... Then there's the problem of "chemical cocktails", where combinations of chemical…

Is there a reason we can't just dump tons of mice into different sets and combos of chemicals and see what happens?

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#44

Post by sdenton4 »

MattGaiser wrote: post #43
m_eiman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lists available, e.g. https://edlists.org/ When the EU was debating the REACH regulations there was a big push to move to a "don't sell or produce it until you can prove it's safe" stance, but AFAIK it was significantly watered down before an agreement was reached. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.ht... Then there's the problem of "chemical cocktails", where combinations of chemical…

Is there a reason we can't just dump tons of mice into different sets and combos of chemicals and see what happens?

I think that's basically the current system.

Unfortunately, we're worried about bioaccumulation over decades, and lab mice only live a year or so... It's also worth considering the number of Giant Breakthroughs that happen with mice which fail to translate to humans. They're quite different, it turns out.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#47

Post by jonplackett »

As someone who has had to do IVF for our child and go through the challenge of figuring our what to do to try and improve sperm quality, I can tell you once you start looking into it, basically everything about modern life is bad for sperm. Heat, radiation, plastic, micro plastics, soya, tap water, Teflon, antibacterial soap, underpants, western diet. It’s a perfect storm.

If you’re going though it though I offer a ray of hope that it was possible to sufficiently avoid these things, at least temporarily, and it made a very large difference (4X better within 6 months) and resulted in a now 3 year old child.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#48

Post by DoingIsLearning »

inter_netuser wrote: post #38
hilbert42 wrote: post #22

It would be helpful if we knew eactly what these endocrine-disrupting chemicals were. As is usually the case with such reports, this article is short on specifics. Over the years there have many reports from cleaners to plasticizers, phthalates, and various other chemicals as endocrine disruptors but no one has put a sufficient measure on the problem so that we can move foreword - put regulations in place, etc. As th…

We all know what these are. It's precursors to common plastics, and byproducts of their decay. Majority of these have been grandfathered as GRAS "generally recognized as safe" by the FDA when environmental laws first went live in the 60s. The onus is therefore much higher, it is on you to prove they are harmful, instead of requiring producers to prove they are safe. Nobody wants to stick their neck out because the pe…

The most reasonable work around is to force producers to label their product.

There are many vegetable packing containers which do not specify which plastic type they are. There are thousands of cleaning products and hygiene products that hide these compounds in the 'Parfums' label.

Forcing manufacturers to exaustively list composition would at least give people the data to make an informed decision when buying a product.

Also we really need to we stop watering down all these health and environmental protection regulations because of lobbyists.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#49

Post by hetspookjee »

MattGaiser wrote: post #43
m_eiman wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are lists available, e.g. https://edlists.org/ When the EU was debating the REACH regulations there was a big push to move to a "don't sell or produce it until you can prove it's safe" stance, but AFAIK it was significantly watered down before an agreement was reached. https://ec.europa.eu/environment/chemicals/reach/reach_en.ht... Then there's the problem of "chemical cocktails", where combinations of chemical…

Is there a reason we can't just dump tons of mice into different sets and combos of chemicals and see what happens?

I'd wager ethical considerations would hamper such ambition.

Re: Falling sperm counts, declining egg quality, and endocrine disruptors

#50

Post by jdsalaro »

hilbert42 wrote: post #22

It would be helpful if we knew eactly what these endocrine-disrupting chemicals were. As is usually the case with such reports, this article is short on specifics. Over the years there have many reports from cleaners to plasticizers, phthalates, and various other chemicals as endocrine disruptors but no one has put a sufficient measure on the problem so that we can move foreword - put regulations in place, etc. As th…

> Over the years there have many reports from cleaners to plasticizers, phthalates, and various other chemicals as endocrine disruptors but no one has put a sufficient measure on the problem so that we can move foreword - put regulations in place, etc.

I've been reading through http://projecttendr.com/ and they seem to be what you're looking for. I'm not sure what traction they've achieved on the political arena if any, though.

> Targeting Environmental Neuro-Development Risks Project TENDR is a unique collaboration of leading scientists, health professionals and children’s and environmental advocates. We came together in 2015 out of concern over the now substantial scientific evidence linking toxic environmental chemicals to neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism spectrum disorder, attention deficits, hyperactivity, intellectual disability and learning disorders.

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