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 the article points out, what is so problematic is that many of the chemicals that are under suspicion are ubiquitous and not easily avoided.
I consider it important that we act quickly for not only public health reasons but also the fact that we're living in an increasingly chemical-phobic society and worrying the public without solid evidence isn't helpful to anybody.
We need need more research on this urgently.
Afterthought: it is essential that we have solid evidence ASAP as billions of dollars are tied up in the plastics industry. Plastics already cause environmental problems (and I constantly curse the fact that I have to get rid of so much waste plastic) but there's no point deliberately alienating the plastics industry without good cause.
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.
Then there's the problem of "chemical cocktails", where combinations of chemicals are more dangerous than each chemical by itself; this gets a lot of media space, but is even harder to research than individual chemicals since just about everything gets mixed up in various concentrations in nature.
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 petrochemicals lobby will go after you, your career and your family.
The only way to get this fixed is to require producers to conduct testing to prove they do not disrupt endocrine systems of not only humans, but other animals, insects and so on.
When something’s this bad it would be much better to act now based on the evidence we have and figure out the full picture later. We know enough about how bad plastic is, even based solely on how it affects the environment and goes through the food chain as microplastics basically forever.
> 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.
> 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 to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.
Because its the same thing as a person setting your house on fire then advising you not to breathe in the smoke. Advice like telling people we are drowning in plastic because we don't recycle, telling people with no access to public transportation to minimize the use of cars, telling people with no access to healthcare to take care of their bodies, telling people that grew up in a glorified prison they call public schools to get more education. They flood the world with plastic to the point where people effectively have no other option than use plastic then tell people to not use plastic. It's funny how if people say the solution to income inequality is to execute billionaires we would never seriously entertain that thought, we would immediately know that is an absurd solution, yet when people say guys choose not to use plastic we stop and consider it as if it is a viable solution for ordinary people and not callously asinine advise. It is no wonder there is so much rage in the Western world when the elites present such ridiculous solutions to problems they themselves brought into existence and expect us to act like they are priests endowed with God's personal blessing.
So much "plastic" packaging nowadays (in the UK) is labelled with "Do not recycle" but no indication of what it's made of. This has annoyed me from an environmental point of view, but probably one should look at it from a health point of view, too. Perhaps those items are made from a material that the manufacturers know has potential health implications and that's why they're carefully not saying what it is?
Perhaps the law should require proper labelling of packaging material that is in contact with food just like it requires food ingredients to be listed. If manufacturers were to lobby hard against such a rule, what might we conclude from that?
There's a big difference in the amount of leakage from the plastics when it's cold vs when it's heated - so a good step is to put whatever you're heating on a plate before you put it in the microwave (or oven, or…), rather than heating it in the plastic it came in.
> For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.
I stopped buying these a while ago. Buy fresh veggies, classic pasta/rice/lentils or whatever you fancy, meat from the butcher if you eat meat, I skip anything I can't identify or anything that I couldn't make myself at home with regular ingredients.
It's super restrictive but you get rid of literally 99% of junk food. You are what you eat, quite literally
It's not easy, almost impossible, to do overnight. Try it one thing or habit at a time. Single out one thing which is harmful, and commit to finding and integrating a substitute.
Also, remember "cleaning" products besides a select few like Bronner's have the same type of crap in them. "Eco-friendly" ones like Seventh Gen and Meyer's are bullshit if you look at the ingredients list.
Let's all take a moment to consider how blessed we are to have those ingredients list, by the way.
It's difficult to do it all at once. Taking little steps might help: instead of using plastic tupperware, use glass; instead of buying beans in a can, buy dry beans; balcony garden? Sure!
Even if some things are impossible to do, it's imo best to not pile on top of those problems issues that aren't impossible to solve.
> I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.
Hacker News: colonizing to Mars is straightforward and natural. Buying vegetables fresh or organizing a farmers market is impossibly hard and goes against human nature.
It's reasonable to work on the factors that you can easily influence. Once you've tackled those, you can see what else you can still fix. It doesn't need to be all or nothing.
My instincts have told me not to do any of this. All my life I've seen people microwaving stuff in plastic containers. I find it repulsive. I don't even own a microwave. I keep leftovers in bowls and reheat it in the oven or in a saucepan. I've always hated everything plastic really. And anything that decreases air quality. How people can spray tiny droplets of god knows what into the air and subsequently breathe then in is beyond me.
Uncertainty remains, research sometimes conflicts and biological pathways aren’t always clear. There are competing theories about whether the sperm count decline is real and what might cause it and about why girls appear to be reaching puberty earlier, and it’s sometimes unclear whether an increase in male genital abnormalities reflects actual rising numbers or just better reporting.
You should maintain a very low prior probability of this being true without more information. Remember correlation usually != causation
Obesity being a correlation might mean it is also a symptom. We already know from a couple studies that people with the same activity level and calorie intake are significantly more overweight than in the 80s. One leading hypothesis is endocrine disruptors.
If something could be very harmful you should avoid it out of precaution. And many of these chemicals are known endocrine disrupters, so just because there is no slam dunk evidence there is a lot of circumstantial and anecdotal evidence that indicates a problem with these substances.
Plus, the people who avoid them are almost invariably healthier, so taking steps to avoid them seems to have positive effects anyways.
Would it be... unreasonable... to point out that the fall in sperm quality, egg quality, and overall hormonal disruption is happening concurrent with a blurring of overall gender identification, predominantly in the youngest generation?
Identification as trans or other non-binary status is incredibly high among the gen-z cohort. Might be unrelated social upheaval, but would anyone really be surprised if we weren't accidentally hormonally poisoning children at the same time they are developing their own gender identities?
I am dismayed, but not entirely surprised, that you are getting downvoted for this.
If we really have hormonal disruption of the ecosystem strong enough that alligators have problems breeding, why wouldn't it influence human behavior? Hormones influence human behavior all the time, so if there is a change in the balance, there should be a change in the behavior patterns.
This is a testable hypothesis and should not be discarded automatically without being tested, especially by HN forists who are expected to be, on average, more friendly towards critical thinking and less towards dogmatism.
I don't think we can come anywhere close to ruling this out but of course we also don't know how many people felt this way before and hid it so the data is far to muddy to make a clear conclusion.
I don't think Caitlyn Jenner is gen-Z, or The Wachowskis.
I mean, maybe there is a link? It's not inconceivable I suppose, but I am not aware of any evidence, and purely comparing numbers of people is not a very good way of going about this. You will find there are a lot more gay people in the United States than in, say, Saudi Arabia too. But that doesn't mean there are environmental factors in the US that make people gay: they just don't feel free to declare themselves as such in SA because you will get in to trouble.
It's not unreasonable to speculate that it may be one factor. It is unreasonable to implicitly assert that it's the only factor and the clear singular cause.
> Identification as trans or other non-binary status is incredibly high among the gen-z cohort.
The highest study estimate I've seen is 3%, almost all others are between 0.7% and 1%, with even boomers around 0.5%. (For Gen-Z kids, parental belief that children are trans or have non-binary identity is many times higher, though, but that's clearly more about social priming than “hormonal poisoning”.)
> Might be unrelated social upheaval,
To the extent there is an increase at all, it's probably increased awareness of the concept providing a framework to fit into than any “hormonal poisoning”.
You're only allowed to write vague doomsday articles about things that people like to hate. It's pretty funny that you're downvoted for using exactly the same type of vague fear mongering that the article does but because you did it towards unacceptable targets peoples incredulity kicked in.
I wish people would use their ability to think in all cases, not just when they disagree with the conclusion. And if you're about to flag and downvote this because you think I'm being *ist, you are exactly the problem since I did nothing of the sort.
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.
And what are the behavioral effects of such large physiological changes en masse? Surely neurochemical changes will manifest everywhere, from mental health to politics
Correct me if I'm wrong but being overweight or obese is an endocrine disruptor. Such conditions exist in what ~50%+ of USA adults. Worse there are children growing up who are effectively unhealthy from age 5 forward.
Add in other disruptors (e.g., chemicals) and naturally there are going to be problems; problems despite the narrative, are not due to the healthcare system.
I followed this girl on youtube that built a tiny house in the mountains. She carries her own water, makes bread from wheat she mills, makes her own hummus and cabbage and eats copious amounts of each and vegetables. Hardly has phone/internet service because she lives in a mountain valley. Plays music with friends, reads and does yoga for entertainment.
Surprise, surprise. You are your habits! She looks very fit and healthy. I'm not advocating for traditionalism, but more like, optimizing your habits.
The simple basic, inexpensive things she does, and eats are pretty optimized for health and personal growth.
Some time ago I realized that modern life wasn't that good for your health so last year I bought a farm on the country side with my gf and now we are trying to grow our own food and make our way into a more self-sustainable life.
We see similar things happening with digestive diseases between the West and Asia. Diverticulitis is pretty rare in Asia (and Africa for that matter) and fairly common in the West. But what’s interesting is that it is just as common for Asians that move to the West after about 12 years or so which rules out genetics. Additionally we are seeing it occur in younger and younger people. This was once a disease for ages 60+ and now it’s not uncommon to find it in people in their 40’s and 30’s and occasionally their 20’s now!
It’s assumed the types of foods more common in a Western diet are the cause of this but there isn’t concrete proof. It’s a strong hypothesis though.
It’s thought the main cause is foliage ingestion, or lack of. People in Asia and Africa eat a lot more plants which are high in fiber.
So I don’t think it’s just obesity and being overweight that are the issue but how we get obese and overweight and I believe that all this, from infertility to early onset of digestive diseases are related in large part to our diets.
On this topic I can recommend the dystopian movie “Children of Men”. It’s about modern world of basically our time where nobody can get children and what issues arise.
Shoddy endogenous androgen production in men is likely a function of excess adipose tissue causing higher rates of aromatization of T to estrogen
Being overweight or obese makes it more difficult to lose weight and put on muscle, a feedback loop
Clean diet and regular exercise goes a very long way, but nutrient deficient soil is making micro-nutrient deficiencies more difficult to resolve. Anecdotally, eating a whole foods diet consistent of high quality protein usually sourced from local farms (I'm in rural upstate NY), I still find myself needing to supplement magnesium, zinc, D3 and K2.
I don't have any data but I wonder if stuff like this will affect the gene pool. If the cause is environmental then it shouldnt have an affect. But genes are weird considering epigenetics.
As a scientist I hate articles like this. Apparently putting the word “may” in the title allows one to pontificate wildly about what might be the cause of falling sperm rates and other reproductive trends.
Little to no comments about other possible causes, no data that shows a relationship between “endocrine disruptors” and sperm counts, no comments about levels of these chemicals in the population or what levels they become active at.
After reading the article all I can firmly conclude is: 1) reproductive changes are happening, 2) endocrine disruptors are suspected, but there is no direct evidence.
[+] [-] hilbert42|5 years ago|reply
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 the article points out, what is so problematic is that many of the chemicals that are under suspicion are ubiquitous and not easily avoided.
I consider it important that we act quickly for not only public health reasons but also the fact that we're living in an increasingly chemical-phobic society and worrying the public without solid evidence isn't helpful to anybody.
We need need more research on this urgently.
Afterthought: it is essential that we have solid evidence ASAP as billions of dollars are tied up in the plastics industry. Plastics already cause environmental problems (and I constantly curse the fact that I have to get rid of so much waste plastic) but there's no point deliberately alienating the plastics industry without good cause.
[+] [-] m_eiman|5 years ago|reply
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 chemicals are more dangerous than each chemical by itself; this gets a lot of media space, but is even harder to research than individual chemicals since just about everything gets mixed up in various concentrations in nature.
[+] [-] inter_netuser|5 years ago|reply
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 petrochemicals lobby will go after you, your career and your family.
The only way to get this fixed is to require producers to conduct testing to prove they do not disrupt endocrine systems of not only humans, but other animals, insects and so on.
I'm just not sure the political will is there.
[+] [-] jonplackett|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] forgotmypw17|5 years ago|reply
The "regulators" are the same people and entities who make huge profits off this stuff.
Do your research and act on it yourself.
[+] [-] jdsalaro|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] vincentmarle|5 years ago|reply
I really want to do this, but it seems impossibly hard. For example, almost all the food I buy is in plastic containers.
[+] [-] XiJInPaddington|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bloak|5 years ago|reply
Perhaps the law should require proper labelling of packaging material that is in contact with food just like it requires food ingredients to be listed. If manufacturers were to lobby hard against such a rule, what might we conclude from that?
[+] [-] m_eiman|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nostromo|5 years ago|reply
Even most cotton shirts and jeans tend to be a blend with synthetic plastic fibers because it stretches and breaths better.
[+] [-] lm28469|5 years ago|reply
I stopped buying these a while ago. Buy fresh veggies, classic pasta/rice/lentils or whatever you fancy, meat from the butcher if you eat meat, I skip anything I can't identify or anything that I couldn't make myself at home with regular ingredients.
It's super restrictive but you get rid of literally 99% of junk food. You are what you eat, quite literally
[+] [-] forgotmypw17|5 years ago|reply
Also, remember "cleaning" products besides a select few like Bronner's have the same type of crap in them. "Eco-friendly" ones like Seventh Gen and Meyer's are bullshit if you look at the ingredients list.
Let's all take a moment to consider how blessed we are to have those ingredients list, by the way.
[+] [-] goatcode|5 years ago|reply
Even if some things are impossible to do, it's imo best to not pile on top of those problems issues that aren't impossible to solve.
[+] [-] jimbob45|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spodek|5 years ago|reply
Hacker News: colonizing to Mars is straightforward and natural. Buying vegetables fresh or organizing a farmers market is impossibly hard and goes against human nature.
[+] [-] krageon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] globular-toast|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] soheil|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nomoreusernames|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] avsteele|5 years ago|reply
https://www.gwern.net/Causality
There are a lot of other possible causes for all the these declines. (obesity and lower physical activity being only the most likely-seeming to me)
[+] [-] galangalalgol|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeffreyrogers|5 years ago|reply
Plus, the people who avoid them are almost invariably healthier, so taking steps to avoid them seems to have positive effects anyways.
[+] [-] bpodgursky|5 years ago|reply
Identification as trans or other non-binary status is incredibly high among the gen-z cohort. Might be unrelated social upheaval, but would anyone really be surprised if we weren't accidentally hormonally poisoning children at the same time they are developing their own gender identities?
[+] [-] inglor_cz|5 years ago|reply
If we really have hormonal disruption of the ecosystem strong enough that alligators have problems breeding, why wouldn't it influence human behavior? Hormones influence human behavior all the time, so if there is a change in the balance, there should be a change in the behavior patterns.
This is a testable hypothesis and should not be discarded automatically without being tested, especially by HN forists who are expected to be, on average, more friendly towards critical thinking and less towards dogmatism.
[+] [-] foobar33333|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] arp242|5 years ago|reply
I mean, maybe there is a link? It's not inconceivable I suppose, but I am not aware of any evidence, and purely comparing numbers of people is not a very good way of going about this. You will find there are a lot more gay people in the United States than in, say, Saudi Arabia too. But that doesn't mean there are environmental factors in the US that make people gay: they just don't feel free to declare themselves as such in SA because you will get in to trouble.
[+] [-] DoreenMichele|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dragonwriter|5 years ago|reply
The highest study estimate I've seen is 3%, almost all others are between 0.7% and 1%, with even boomers around 0.5%. (For Gen-Z kids, parental belief that children are trans or have non-binary identity is many times higher, though, but that's clearly more about social priming than “hormonal poisoning”.)
> Might be unrelated social upheaval,
To the extent there is an increase at all, it's probably increased awareness of the concept providing a framework to fit into than any “hormonal poisoning”.
[+] [-] konjin|5 years ago|reply
I wish people would use their ability to think in all cases, not just when they disagree with the conclusion. And if you're about to flag and downvote this because you think I'm being *ist, you are exactly the problem since I did nothing of the sort.
[+] [-] Flow|5 years ago|reply
"Chemicals in plastics damage babies' brains and must be banned immediately (cnn.com)"
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26211605
[+] [-] terse_malvolio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] slipper|5 years ago|reply
I think it should be kept in check, as it seems all sorts of nasty stuff can be mixed into plastic. But many plastics seem to be fine.
There is also poisonous stuff in plants, including wood.
[+] [-] jonplackett|5 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] WA|5 years ago|reply
There was one study with 99 participants. A counter argument is Asia, where men eat a lot more soy and don't have reduced sperm count.
[+] [-] cblconfederate|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] chiefalchemist|5 years ago|reply
Add in other disruptors (e.g., chemicals) and naturally there are going to be problems; problems despite the narrative, are not due to the healthcare system.
[+] [-] esja|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dukeofdoom|5 years ago|reply
The simple basic, inexpensive things she does, and eats are pretty optimized for health and personal growth.
Isabel's Channel https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G4cght8xNnI
[+] [-] haspoken|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ecmascript|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nemo44x|5 years ago|reply
It’s assumed the types of foods more common in a Western diet are the cause of this but there isn’t concrete proof. It’s a strong hypothesis though.
It’s thought the main cause is foliage ingestion, or lack of. People in Asia and Africa eat a lot more plants which are high in fiber.
So I don’t think it’s just obesity and being overweight that are the issue but how we get obese and overweight and I believe that all this, from infertility to early onset of digestive diseases are related in large part to our diets.
[+] [-] protoman3000|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tuckerpo|5 years ago|reply
Being overweight or obese makes it more difficult to lose weight and put on muscle, a feedback loop
Clean diet and regular exercise goes a very long way, but nutrient deficient soil is making micro-nutrient deficiencies more difficult to resolve. Anecdotally, eating a whole foods diet consistent of high quality protein usually sourced from local farms (I'm in rural upstate NY), I still find myself needing to supplement magnesium, zinc, D3 and K2.
[+] [-] mk4p|5 years ago|reply
> There is a a very interesting substance that could also increase fertility: nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN).
https://novoslabs.com/can-nmn-supplements-restore-fertility/
(Disclaimer: I've invested in his company)
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] tracker1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godmode2019|5 years ago|reply
Almost like the the movie 'Children of men'
[+] [-] refurb|5 years ago|reply
Little to no comments about other possible causes, no data that shows a relationship between “endocrine disruptors” and sperm counts, no comments about levels of these chemicals in the population or what levels they become active at.
After reading the article all I can firmly conclude is: 1) reproductive changes are happening, 2) endocrine disruptors are suspected, but there is no direct evidence.
Not very helpful.