Male Infertility & Xenoestrogens

Well, after our discussion in class last week, I was wondering just how high the infertility rates due to xenoestrogens in our environment are…so I did a little research online…

Xenoestrogens by author Stephanie Trenciansky, ND

http://www.alive.com/1059a3a2.php?subject_bread_cramb=167

Hundreds of chemicals–found in pesticides, fuels, drugs and polycarbonate plastic baby bottles and food containers–either cause hormonal activity similar to estrogen, the human sex hormone, or alter the hormone’s effects. In fact, the vast majority of the 70,000 chemicals currently in use have never been tested for health risks. Yet they are in our soils as pesticides, herbicides, fungicides and fertilizers. They are in our water because of rain erosion runoff from landfills and agricultural lands. They are in our food supply–in animals, fish and grains. On the upside, many researchers are investigating prevention-oriented strategies to limit exposure to these chemicals. There are also many ways that individuals can avoid the health hazards associated with xenoestrogens.

Declining Sperm Counts
Contrary to popular belief, natural estrogen plays important roles in both men and women. In males, estrogen imbalances influence the reproductive systems in myriad ways. Many scientists believe that estrogenic pollutants underlie some disturbing trends such as decreasing sperm count and function, decreasing testosterone production and testicular malformations. Since 1938, sperm counts of men in 21 countries have plunged by an average of 50 per cent, reported Danish endocrinologist Niels Skakkebaek in 1991. He also found that testicular cancer had tripled. A coincidence? Possibly, but Skakkebaek suspects that the culprit in both cases is from men’s exposure (as fetuses and newborns) to estrogen-like chemicals found in their mother’s blood and breastmilk.

Dr. Devra Lee Davis, a toxicologist, and researchers from five medical centres have reviewed studies and concluded that estrogenic pollutants in our environment are inducing or promoting mammary cancers in lab animals. Both endocrinologists (specialists in disorders of endocrine glands such as ovaries and testes) and reproductive biologists have suggested that long-term exposure to xenoestrogens might underlie the apparent breast cancer epidemic in women.

Dr. Stephanie Trenciansky is a naturopathic physician in Langley, BC, specializing in women’s health. She uses nutrition, botanicals, homeopathy, acupuncture and intravenous therapies such as chelation and ozone.


Xenoestrogens in the Human Body by: Sarah Spencer and Amber Yates

http://chem4513.pbworks.com/Xenoestrogens

Xenoestrogens in Males:
The effects of xenoestrogens are do not just manifest themselves in women, although their implications in breast and ovarian cancers are the most concerning to date. Xenoestrogens have also been implicated in a number of problems in males: infertility, prostate cancer, and decrease in sperm counts.
Much of what is known about xenoestrogens and their effect on fertility and reproduction, like in studying breast and ovarian cancer, comes from animal studies.

But while doses of xenoestrogens in animals generally are not strong enough to affect human adult males (or adults in general), their effect on a human fetus would be much more pronounced because a developing fetus is much more sensitive.

Male Infertility, Some Facts:

• There are more than 20 heavily industrialized nations where the birth of baby boys has declined every year for the past 30 years - amounting to 3 million fewer baby boys.
• The number of boys born with reproductive defects has increased by 200% in the past two decades.
  The average sperm count of a North American college student today is less than half of what it was 50 years ago - 85% of that is abnormal.
• Damaged sperm have been linked to a 300% increase in testicular cancer - a form of cancer that affects young men in their 20s and 30s.
• The chemical industry has developed more than 90,000 man-made chemicals in the last sixty years. Eighty-five percent of them have never undergone testing for their impact on the human body.

One major compound under scrutiny for its possible harmful effects is Bisphenol A, a compound known to have estrogenic properties. Bisphenol A has been used commercially for over 50 years in numerous products. It is used most commenly in plastics including, ironically, baby bottles. Again, in animal studies, bisphenol A has been linked to obeisity, infertility and insulin resistance in rats. Health Canada has long maintained a view that the chemical is not a hazard to human health, but last month the federal government banned the sale and import of polycarbonate baby bottles containing Bisphenol A. This announcement followed a statement in April by the Health Minister who requested the safety margins for levels of Bisphenol A in baby bottles be raised.

(This is the wiki component of CHEM4513 "Medicinal Chemistry Seminars". In the second part of the course, student teams are creating wiki chapters on important medicinal chemistry topics.)

Week 1: Pharmaceutical Industry Control

The problem with pharmaceuticals, is the mindset of the companies that create the drugs, that own the schools, that teach the doctors-to-be; and then send reps to wine & dine them, who ‘persuade’ the doctors, to over-prescribe the meds, that they manufacture and sell. The other problem are the people who watch the advertisements on the television, that describe the new disease symptoms that they are sure that they have, who go to their doctors and tell them they have whatever it is they just saw on the T.V., and ask for a prescription for the magic pill that will make it all go away, which is why they are at the doctors in the first place.

Back when I was a kid (and we‘re just talking the 60‘s here), when my uncle was a ‘family doctor’ (remember them?), drugs were something you took only when you were really sick -and then- only for a short duration. They weren’t something that you were prescribed and lived on for the rest of your life to ‘manage’ a disease; that was what rest, healthy home-cooked food and daily exercise was for. But, that doesn’t keep the corporate bottom line growing, so over the past 50 years the mindset has changed for what is acceptable and common practice in medicine. Now the HMOs mandate to the doctors what drugs and proceedures, in which order, and for whom they may prescribe. Which is why today, one of the most common causes of death is from ‘iatrogenic causes‘, and a large percentage of which are from multiple-drug interactions.

According to the website “Your Medical Detectives”, (http://www.yourmedicaldetective.com/public/335.cfm), who report: “Iatrogenic Disease: The 3rd Most Fatal Disease in the USA

Writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), Dr. Starfield has documented the tragedy of the traditional medical paradigm in the following statistics:

Deaths per Year - Cause
106,000 - Non-error, negative effects of drugs
80,000 - Infections in hospitals
45,000 - Other errors in hospitals
12,000 - Unnecessary surgery
7,000 - Medication errors in hospitals
250,000 - Total deaths per year from iatrogenic* causes

* The term iatrogenic is defined as "induced in a patient by a physician's activity, manner, or therapy. Used especially to pertain to a complication of treatment." Furthermore, these estimates of death due to error are lower than those in a recent Institutes of Medicine report. If the higher estimates are used, the deaths due to iatrogenic causes would range from 230,000 to 284,000. Even at the lower estimate of 225,000 deaths per year, this constitutes the third leading cause of death in the U.S., after deaths from heart disease and cancer.

It has been known that drugs are the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S.”

Besides that, the other problem with pharmaceuticals is: they don’t go away. Once you take them and ingest them, you pee them out in exactly the same chemical form that they went into your body in. Which means, for those of us who are not on public sewer systems (we'll have to ask Larry what happens in that case), they go into the septic tanks and leach fields, and make their way into our ground water…in exactly the same form that they were in before we put them in our mouths. And that means they are getting into our environment…which is part of the reason why we are growing such antibiotic resistant bugs, these days. The microbes mandate is to survive, and that they do, growing bigger and stronger and smarter, all the time. While we hapless humans are blithely unaware of the multiple pharmaceutical broth we are swimming in, of our own making.

So, do I think we need more control on the pharmaceutical industry? Ah, that would be a definite: yes.

Week 1: Shift to Electric Cars likely?

While the technology for electric cars has been around for awhile now, auto makers haven’t been promoting them because there was just too much profit in gas driven guzzlers and the status quo. But, now a large percentage of the populace has woken up to the fact that global warming is a real phenomenon, whose clock is ticking; and that burning of fossil fuels, and the emissions they produce, increase the global warming potential. So, for that reason alternative forms of transportation that minimize the use of liquid gasoline and diminish the greenhouse effect are all the rage: enter electric cars to save the day…and the auto maker’s bottom lines.


That being said, I have to say, I’m really not that impressed by the current city and highway mpg ratings that the Eco Cars at the latest Detroit Auto Show are touting. You’d think with all our technological advances, we’d be able to make economical, ecological vehicles that got better mileage! I mean really, today we have phones that surf the Internet and make videos no less (not that I really need my phone to do anything other than make a call), why can‘t we get better gas mileage on our vehicles?

So, yes, I do think that hybrid vehicles of some sort, be they driven by electrical power or hydrogen fuel cells will be a societal requirement moving forward; but, I still think we have a long way to go until they meet the needs of the consumer and the environment.

Week 1: Carbon Neutral & Our Planet

I think that the idea of aspiring to be carbon neutral is a good and worthy cause. According to Wikipedia, Carbon Neutrality “refers to achieving net zero carbon emissions by balancing a measured amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount sequestered or offset.” Essentially, we would be attempting to create a balanced, self-contained, self-sustaining, living system. Certainly such efforts would reduce emissions, help with recycling efforts and cut waste on many levels.

In addition, society itself would benefit from the connections that would be made and community created from organizing individuals in various community minded projects; like neighborhoods growing their own food in shared gardens (be they urban or rural) as well as purchasing food from locally grown sources. The smaller towns and villages, and their businesses will benefit from the local, sustainable approach to commerce as well. Similarly, additional modes of public transportation (train, monorail) would need to be developed along with alternative modes of transportation (walking/hiking trails, bike trails)…which would create jobs for the areas involved. Local solutions to produce renewable energy (that don’t produce carbon dioxide) could potentially provide additional job opportunities, while creating new energy sources for the towns and cities they serve.

While the net results of such efforts are clearly win-win in terms of community building, one of the driving reasons for reducing greenhouse gases is economic: it will save money. Energy prices are constantly on the rise the world over, and this will only continue, ultimately making resources scarcer and common amenities (like air travel) harder to afford for everyone. So, it’s a no-brainer to use energy as sparingly as possible, both for the benefit of the climate and the rest of our planet’s inhabitants.

Week 1: Chemistry Quiz

Well, out of 12 potential questions, I got 3 wrong answers. Not great considering it’s 25% of the material covered in the lesson. This chemical change versus physical change and homogeneous versus non is more difficult to understand in practice, than it seemed at first. I understand now how burning wood is a chemical change -not- physical and dissolving sugar is physical -not chemcial.

But, I still don’t understand how coffee is a homogeneous substance, like water though. According to coffee-tea.co.uk, “There are many compounds in coffee that are often thought to have implications upon human health; these include Caffeine, micronutrients, LDL cholesterols and chlorogenic acid.” So, I don’t really understand how that is homogeneous (dictionary definition: unvarying, alike, similar, identical), yet impure? I understand how Salt is impure (because besides NaCl it can also contain trace amounts of minerals, depending on the source where it is mined) and I think that also makes it non-homogeneous. I’m just having trouble wrapping my head around the coffee question…